Jimmie Dale reached out for the door.
“We'll go together, Marie—now,” he said calmly. “I heard Mother Margot talking about Scroff's panel here. I was on the fire escape outside Kerrigan's place. That's what you mean, isn't it? But you are what I came for, so we'll go, for there is nothing else that counts here now against the risk of you being caught by Bunty Myers and his crowd, to say nothing of old Miser Scroff himself turning up any minute to——”
“Miser Scroff is dead,” she interrupted dully.
“Dead!” he repeated in a startled way.
“Murdered,” she said. And then her voice broke again. “Oh, Jimmie, I have failed miserably to-night. I—I have cost a man his life, I am afraid. The least I can do now is to keep them from getting the money—it's in an old leather bag behind the panel—but that I must do. You—you must let me work this out, Jimmie. I have no choice. If you force me out of here, or if you insist on staying to help me, then in an hour, two hours, somehow, Jimmie, I warn you frankly that I will get away from you again.”
“I don't think you will—not this time, Marie!” said Jimmie Dale grimly. “I've got you now, and I'm going to keep you no matter what happens.”
She smiled at him wanly.
“Very well, Jimmie, if you think so,” she said quietly. “Only remember what I have said. Meanwhile there is the panel. I can't go until I have got the money.”
She started across the room, only to stumble over the broken desk. And then Jimmie Dale's flashlight was in play again, and he followed her.
“Murdered, you said!” He spoke quickly. “Why? I don't understand. And I don't understand what has happened here. The place has been turned inside out.”
“The panel, Jimmie!” she answered. “It's near the middle. Get it open! I'll tell you while you work.”
“I had already found it before you came in,” said Jimmie Dale coolly. He was kneeling by the wall, the “jimmy” in his hand again. “Go on, Marie!”
A joint in the wood gave with a low, rending, creaking sound. She stood at his shoulder, whispering swiftly:
“Some of the gang under the Phantom's orders inveigled Miser Scroff down somewhere in the neighbourhood of that old junk yard near Kelly's saloon, with the intention of keeping him out of the way for an hour or two while the rest of them came here and searched for his money. But Scroff was an old man, and the blow he was hit by the black-jack killed him; and the search here resulted in nothing.”
The “jimmy” pried away a narrow board from top to bottom. Jimmie Dale reached in his hand. Yes, there was something in here, a bag of some kind.
“How do you know all this?” he demanded. “And if you know it, where was the Phantom all this time?”
“Under cover,” she answered. “I told you long ago that he was a man with a score of domiciles and a score of aliases. Lately he has been driven from one to another—and robbed of some of them by the Gray Seal.”
“I thought so!” said Jimmie Dale swiftly. “Well, you've lost your case, now, Marie. It would appear, then, that the Gray Seal has been of service, so why should you attempt to keep him at a distance?”
Her hand found and touched his shoulder.
“It's no good, Jimmie,” she said softly. “Shall we call it a woman's inconsistency? I cannot give you any other answer.”
Another board came loose. Jimmie Dale frowned. What was the matter? He was not working with his usual deftness and silence. It seemed as though the creaking of the board could be heard throughout the building.
“You said you had failed miserably to-night, and that you were afraid you had cost a man his life,” he said. “You mean Miser Scroff?”
“No,” she said heavily. “I did not know anything about to-night until after Miser Scroff was killed. That brought the Phantom into it in a personal way. There had been no murder intended, and failure to find anything here would otherwise have ended the matter; but in old Miser Scroff's pocket they found, besides some stock certificates made out in his name, a dirty old piece of paper with a tracing of his room upon it, and a position on the rear wall marked with an arrow, so they knew then where the money was. But this was after the first search had been made and the room torn to pieces as you see it, and though they knew then where the money was, there was a murder that had to be covered up.”
Jimmie Dale drew out a worn yellow leather bag from the aperture. He opened it, and uttered a sharp exclamation. It was crammed full of loose banknotes.
“How do you know all this?” he asked for the second time, as he shut the bag.
The Tocsin shook her head.
“It is useless to ask me, Jimmie,” she said steadily. “If I told you, I might as well enter into the partnership with you that you are so insistent upon—it would amount to the same thing. I cannot tell you. I can only tell you that I know the Phantom means to plant the crime on some outsider's shoulders, some one he has picked out as suitable, a seedy character who—it's horrible, Jimmie!—will not have a chance for his life. The securities with Scroff's name on them are to be placed under the innocent victim's mattress; then, with the panel rifled here, the police are to be tipped off about the murder, and where to find the 'murderer' and the evidence. I did my best; I did all I could, but—but I lost the trail, and so I came here to save at least the money, and as a sort of last hope that somehow I might pick up the clue again. The only thing I am sure of is that the Phantom was playing the part of an old gentleman with gold spectacles to-night, and——”
Jimmie Dale had taken the Tocsin's arm, and, carrying the bag, had started back for the door; but now he halted suddenly as though rooted to the spot, and stared at her.
“An old gentleman with gold spectacles!” he ejaculated sharply.
She caught at his sleeve.
“Jimmie!” she whispered tensely. “You—you know something about it! You—you've seen him! You know who it is they mean to railroad to his death for this?”
The room, his surroundings, even the Tocsin, had fled from Jimmie Dale's consciousness for the moment; instead, there came again the scene in Gypsy Dan's saloon, when Beggar Pete had told his story, which he, Jimmie Dale, had but so short a time ago dismissed almost summarily from his mind as having no personal significance for him. Beggar Pete and the gentleman with the gold spectacles! Beggar Pete and his sudden affluence! He had not believed Beggar Pete then, but he believed him now. There was no shadow of doubt but that Beggar Pete was the Phantom's intended cat's-paw, and that the snare was the low, viciously-cunning handiwork of the Phantom. Beggar Pete's story, once those securities were found beneath his mattress, would, out of its own improbability, only assure the man's conviction. Nobody knew how much or how little cash Miser Scroff had had! So this was what the Phantom wanted that extra time for—to plant those securities. God, if he could catchthe Phantom at Beggar Pete's! No! There was the Tocsin here—he had her now—he would never leave her again. And besides it was too late now. He knew where Beggar Pete lived because of late it had been almost a source of gossip on the East Side, for the simple reason that, for perhaps the first time in his life, Beggar Pete now had a permanent address—the cellar of a somewhat questionable lodging house run by a yegg named Harry the Dip—and this in return for the more than questionable agreement on Beggar Pete's part to make himself generally useful when called upon to do so! It was a long way to Beggar Pete's—almost across the whole of the East Side. The Phantom would have completed his work by now, or at least long before he, Jimmie Dale, could reach Beggar Pete's lodging, and that would——
“You know! Oh, thank God!” she cried tremulously. “And I—I was so afraid!”
“It is Beggar Pete,” he answered mechanically.