“And I think,” said Jimmie Dale softly to himself, as he quickened his pace, “I think, Smarlinghue, that we'll leave you at the Sanctuary for the rest of the night!”
XIII.
The Lesser Breed
From somewhere in the darkness there came a faint musical purr as of metal whirring swiftly upon metal. It stopped; began again; and stopped again. Then utter silence reigned; then there came a low, deep-breathed exclamation, and simultaneously the ray of a flashlight cut through the black, flooded the interior of a small safe, and reflected back upon a masked figure in evening dress.
“One of the X—38 type,” murmured Jimmie Dale to himself; “and, as per catalogue, especially adapted for private residences. Tough little nuts to crack! I haven't seen one since the old days at the plant when dad used to turn them out by the gross!”
He reached inside the safe, lifted out a morocco-leather jewel case, and opened it. For an instant he held it under the light, staring at a magnificent emerald necklace of flawless, matched stones. The Weasel had been quite right! Stones such as these must have been garnered and selected from the markets of more than one continent. They would be, through the usual underworld channels, extremely hard to “fence“; for a small and ordinary emerald was not of any great value, and to “cut” one of these and so disguise it, would instantly rob it of the great part of its worth. It was certainly a job for Shiftel! It quite accounted for Shiftel's reappearance!
Jimmie Dale laid the jewel case, still open, on the top of the safe, and from the leather girdle hidden beneath his vest drew out the thin metal box that was stocked with its little gray, adhesive, diamond-shaped seals. He moistened one of these, lifting it with the tweezers, and stuck it on the inside of the jewel case; then he replaced the metal box in his girdle, and slipped the morocco-leather jewel case into his pocket.
And now the light bored into the safe again. There was nothing else there of value from a thief's standpoint. It contained what were evidently some of Mr. Melville-Dane's private papers; it had only been a temporary refuge for the emerald necklace, in lieu of the safe deposit vault from which it had been removed to grace the evening's reception. Satisfied on this point, Jimmie Dale closed and locked the safe again.
He drew back now across the room, and, smiling curiously, arranged two low-backed chairs side by side before the library table. Then his flashlight played for a moment on the wall, locating precisely the electric-light switch just beside a little alcove that was hung with heavy portières; and then the room was in darkness, and Jimmie Dale sat stretched at ease in a lounging chair in the alcove behind the hangings.
His lips twitched grimly now. It was quite a transition from Smarlinghue and the back room of Wally Kerrigan's “club!” It was somewhat different, too, in another way. At Wally Kerrigan's, night after night, he had waited and watched for something, anything, that would open the road to the goal he had set himself—the Phantom; to-night he waited and watched here, quite sure in his own mind as to the exact nature of what would happen, and with no misgivings any longer but that his goal was in sight! In an hour, two hours, at any rate some time before dawn, he would have run Shiftel, alias the Phantom, to earth. It was the end in sight at last; life, happiness, for the Tocsin and himself.
It was very dark, very still in the library of the Melville-Dane mansion here. Again the twisted smile crossed his lips. Here too was quite a transition from the brilliant assembly of but an hour before when he had been one of the guests at a social function that had been, from a society point of view, one of the events of the season. His smile became a little whimsical. Mrs. Melville-Dane had been superb in that emerald necklace. He had paid her almost marked attention throughout the entire evening! Not once had she been out of his sight, even up to the time when she had taken off the necklace and had handed it to her husband to be placed in the safe here in the library. It had been quite simple. He had bidden his host and hostess good-night—and in the confusion of the departing guests, instead of departing himself, had secreted himself in the house.
He shrugged his shoulders. His attentions had been quite wholly unnecessary perhaps. He had not expected the Weasel and Goldie Kline to make any attempt upon the necklace until, say—now. It was highly improbable that they would have attempted to stage anything with the house full of people; and yet, if the Phantom's brain was behind the scheme, such an attempt had always remained a possibility. And since he, Jimmie Dale, for his own ends, to pick up the final clue that would bring him face to face with the Phantom, had elected to give no warning either to the Melville-Danes or to the police, then, of necessity, the moral responsibility for the safety of the necklace was his alone—and so he had taken no chances.
The minutes, the quarter hours dragged by. A clock struck through the silence with a clashing, resonant sound. That would be half past two. It was time now surely for the Weasel and Goldie Kline, for they had already allowed ample leeway for the household to retire and settle down for the night.
He stared into the dark. His brain seemed strangely, abnormally active to-night. It was due, wasn't it, to a sort of exhilaration, an uplift, that was upon him? The promise of the end! The Tocsin might be quite right, and probably was, in her belief that the Phantom was planning a trap for him, Jimmie Dale, for the Gray Seal. But her fears now were groundless. It was a plot that, however cunning, however clever it might be, would never come to maturity. It would not be the Phantom now who struck the first blow. After to-night she need never fear the Phantom again.
A faint sound, the sound of a cautious, guarded footstep, caught his ear. He stood up silently, his automatic in his hand. The door at the far end of the library creaked slightly; and then, through the parting of the hangings in front of him, Jimmie Dale saw the white gleam of an electric torch flash around the room.
Low whisperings reached him now. He parted the hangings another half inch. The flashlight was playing on the safe; two dark forms were moving quickly toward it; and now one of the two knelt before the safe and began to manipulate the dial, while the other held the light over the kneeling man's shoulder.
Jimmie Dale stepped noiselessly from behind the portières. His hand reached upward, there was a faint click as his fingers closed on the electric-light switch, and the room was ablaze with light. A smothered oath came from the kneeling man as he sprang to his feet; the other, startled, dropped his electric torch to the floor. And then silence, an absence of all movement, save that, in obedience to an eloquent gesture from the muzzle of Jimmie Dale's automatic into which they stared, the two men slowly raised their hands above their heads.
“Hello, Goldie! Hello, Weasel!” said Jimmie Dale softly from behind his mask. “I was almost beginning to think you weren't coming.” He waved his hand toward the two chairs by the table. “I've been waiting for you, you see. Sit down, won't you?”
The Weasel, licking at his lips, his shrivelled little face working, swore under his breath.
“Who—who are youse?” he demanded shakily.
“We'll talk about that presently, Weasel,” Jimmie Dale answered coolly. “In the meantime“—his voice hardened suddenly, rasping, cold—“go over there and sit down!”
Truculently, hesitatingly, their hands still above their heads, the two men moved forward and sat down in the chairs.
“Now”—Jimmie Dale was biting off his words, as he stepped swiftly behind them—“one at a time. You first, Goldie. Put your hands around the back of the chair, palms together.” And then as the man obeyed, Jimmie Dale thrust his left hand into the tail pocket of his evening coat, produced a small coil of stout cord, and shook it out to its full length. It had two loops near the centre in the form of slip knots. He slipped one of the loops over Goldie Kline's wrists, and tightened it. “Now you, Weasel!”
The other loop closed upon the Weasel's wrists. A moment more, and the respective ends of the cord were lashed to the respective chairs, and Jimmie Dale stepped around