There was a grim, set look on his face now, as his hand, slipping into his pocket for his automatic, encountered the morocco-leather jewel case. Shiftel was waiting for the necklace! Well, Shiftel should have it—for a moment. But, at that, its safety was nowhere nearly so greatly imperilled as if it had been left as a temptation for Goldie Kline and the Weasel! To-morrow, in some way, it would be back in the Melville-Danes' possession again.
Jimmie Dale swerved sharply into a cross street, and from there into an alleyway. His pace slackened, became guarded, cautious. He knew Morley's opium den by more than hearsay. As Smarlinghue, he had been a supposed client more than once. Yes, here it was—the back of it, anyway, over this fence here, and across the yard. Well, it was the back of it he sought, wasn't it? That was what the Weasel had said—the room off the back yard.
He drew himself up to the top of the fence, dropped silently to the other side, and suddenly his pulse beat fast. Across the yard was an open, lighted window, almost on a level with the ground. Unbridled now, almost overwhelming, that sense of exhilaration was upon him again. The end of the chase! What did it not mean—for the Tocsin—for himself!
Jimmie Dale moved forward quietly, noiselessly—ten yards—another ten. He was not far from the window now, not more than another five yards. And now he could see inside. Shiftel! And now he knew another emotion—something cold, merciless, primitive in its naked thirst for retribution. The Weasel had made no “mistake!” Shiftel was there! He could see the bent form in its greasy black coat; he could see the bearded face of the old “fence” bending over a table, as he had seen it once before on a night when he had thought he had run the man to earth in the rooms old Mother Margot lived in now.
A yard more! Yes, the window was not more than a couple of feet above the ground. His automatic was in his hand now, his face masked again. Another yard—and then Jimmie Dale whirled sharply around, his face drawn suddenly in hard, tense lines. Out of the darkness, out of the nowhere, came a voice, ugly in its menace, a voice he recognised—Bunty Myers':
“There he is! Get him! The Gray Seal!”
Out of the darkness, out of the nowhere, a circle of flying shadows seemed to arise and converge upon him.
The trap!
Like lightning his brain worked; like lightning he moved now. The trap! In a flash, out of a strange bewilderment, he grasped the fact that somehow the trap of which the Tocsin had so earnestly warned him, the trap that he had so self-confidently thought he would nip in the making, was even now being sprung upon him; that his own confident plan of reaching Shiftel was in fact the very trap that had been laid for him.
The trap! And the jaws of it were that open window! And there was no other way to turn. Those on-rushing shadows, that were snarling, cursing men now, were almost upon him, blocking his retreat.
Retreat! He had no mind to retreat. It would be the end without a doubt to-night now; he had at least been right in that. But it would not be his end alone. Inside there, in through the jaws of the trap—was Shiftel!
The brain works fast. In the winking of an eye Jimmie Dale had leaped forward, and had sprung for the window sill. It was intuition perhaps that prompted him. The figure at the table, at a slight angle away from the direct line of the window, had risen, revolver levelled. Jimmie Dale plunged forward, as a man plunges in a long, low dive, over the sill and to the floor. And as he plunged, like a machine gun in action behind him, came the roar and flash of what seemed a myriad revolver shots.
It happened quick—quicker almost than the brain could grasp. The bearded, greasy old figure, intent evidently upon his victim alone, had overstepped the zone of safety, stepped a little forward into the line of the window; and now, with a wild cry, with suddenly upflung arms, as the hail of lead swept in, had pitched face forward to the floor.
And something in Jimmie Dale's soul, amidst the turmoil that was raging physically about him, gave quiet, fervent thanks. Not for a man's death—but that the burden and guilt, if it should be termed guilt to destroy such a one as this, one that, to save the life of the woman he loved, he must have destroyed if he could before his own end came, had been lifted from his shoulders. Shiftel was dead!
Jimmie Dale had wriggled around on the floor. He was facing the window now, firing in turn with his automatic. The low sill afforded a measure of protection. He fired from the floor over it. Shouts, yells, curses answered him; but the rush was checked, though the shots still poured in from without.
And now pandemonium seemed loosed! He glanced around him quickly. The door of the room was locked. That was obvious because they were pounding upon it now, trying to burst it in; and it had been locked, quite obviously and quite logically, in preparation for his entry into the trap, and against the possibility of any escape through what was the only means of exit he could see—except the window with its hail of bullets!
It was the end! He slipped a fresh clip of cartridges into his automatic. But now he fired with more restraint. True, it was the end, but he must be careful of his ammunition now; he would need it even more when that door gave!
It was an even break. Himself for Shiftel! It was worth it; it had been worth it—for her sake. Shiftel, the Phantom, was——
Was he mad? Had this scene from the pit of the inferno, that bursting door, these shots that hummed with hell's venom above his head, this smoke-filled, acrid-stinking room, turned his brain? Shiftel! That was not Shiftel there! Nor Gentleman Laroque! He was staring now for the first time at the still, motionless figure on the floor. The beard on the upturned face hung awry. He reached for it, and snatched it off. A thousand noises, a thousand sounds pounded at his eardrums and made mockery of the crashing blows upon the door, the vicious spat of bullets, the hideous yowling of those human wolves who had the Gray Seal trapped at last. This man on the floor here dead was not Shiftel, nor the Phantom in the guise of Shiftel, nor the Phantom in any other guise. It was Little Sweeney!
The door was yielding now. And somehow—he did not understand why or how for his brain seemed stunned—the noise and the shouts without seemed to increase in intensity. He wriggled back a little way across the room where he could best command both window and door. He had still one clip of cartridges left. He had only one hope now—that he could use them to the last one. In another minute the door would give, and——
“Jimmie!”
Yes, he was mad! Reason at the last had fled from him. That was her voice, the Tocsin's voice. As those shadows outside the window had suddenly closed in upon him out of the nowhere, so this voice, the voice he loved, came suddenly to him now out of the nowhere.
“Jimmie!”
His eyes strained over in the direction of the desk. He could see nothing. There was nothing there, unless—yes, yes, the floor seemed to have risen up a few inches above the surrounding level. A trap door!
“You!” he cried.
“Yes! Quick! Quick, Jimmie, quick!” her voice answered from below.
He flung himself forward, and wrenched the trap door wide open. It was pitch black below; he could see nothing.
“Drop, Jimmie; it's only a few feet,” she called up to him. “Bolt the trap door behind you. And, oh, hurry, Jimmie, hurry!”
He swung himself through the opening, and dropped; then reached upward behind him and closed the trap door. His fingers searched for the bolt, found it, and shot it home. He could not stand upright; he had to stoop, the opening was so low. And it was so dark he could not see his hand before his face.
“Where are you?” he cried out. “Marie, thank God for you! Marie, where are you?”
“Here,” her voice replied. “Follow me; come this way.”
“I can't see you—I can't see anything,” he said; then quickly: “Wait! I've got a flashlight.”
“No!” Her voice came back instantly. “You mustn't show a