The buildings were fewer here, more scattered; there was a generous sprinkling of vacant lots; few lights, and no pedestrians. He halted at last in front of a low, squat, dingy building, with large double doors and a grimy, unwashed show window, through which latter, from the rays of a distant street lamp, was just discernible a display of miscellaneous second-hand ships' fittings—a heap of tarpaulin, ropes, blocks, tackles and other articles of like nature. This was old Michael's. If the man had another name, he, Jimmie Dale, did not know what it was. There was only one old Michael on the East Side, and that was enough.
The place was in darkness. It stood detached, unprotected by either fence or enclosure, and Jimmie Dale now made his way rapidly around to the rear. Here a sort of extension, in the shape of an exaggerated lean-to, projected out from the back of the building. It was here that in the days gone by, a miserable, barely weather-proof hole, English Steve had made his home. And here, too, as in front, the place was in utter darkness.
Jimmie Dale stepped to the door, and knocked softly upon it. There was no answer. He knocked louder, insistently. There was still no response. And then he smiled a little ironically at himself. He had come quite a long way—and quite probably on a fool's errand. Certainly English Steve did not appear either to be at home or in hiding here!
He stood at the door for a moment frowning. He had begun to doubt very much now that English Steve had ever cast eyes on the place again from the day he had taken up his quarters nearer the Bowery; but mere doubt did not in any way disprove the theory that, somehow, back there in the lunch wagon, had suddenly taken possession of him. English Steve might very well be absent at this precise moment—and might very well at the same time still be old Michael's tenant.
Jimmie Dale's jaws snapped suddenly together. He had come quite far enough to make it worth while to find out that much anyhow! He tried the door. It was locked, of course.
From one of the upright pockets in the leather girdle beneath his threadbare vest, Jimmie Dale drew out a little blued-steel pick-lock, and from another a diminutive, though none the less powerful, flashlight. For a moment the trained fingers worked swiftly at the lock, then the door swung open, and Jimmie Dale stepped inside.
He closed the door quietly behind him, and for an instant stood still, listening; then the white ray of the flashlight lanced suddenly through the blackness, darting here and there over walls and floor.
A smile crept grimly to Jimmie Dale's lips. English Steve for the moment might not be at home; but he, Jimmie Dale, or his intuition, or what had seemed perhaps a far-fetched deduction from a memory of years gone by, or whatever else one might call it, had after all not been at fault. English Steve still lived here—when it suited English Steve to do so!
The room was in no way changed since the night he had played cards here with English Steve. Even the man's clothes were strewn about, here across a chair, there even on the floor. An empty beer bottle, and beside it a slab of cheese and a portion of a loaf of bread, stood upon the table. But it was not these proofs of occupancy that caused Jimmie Dale's smile to tighten now. They might belong to anybody. The flashlight was holding steadily on a large, half-page photograph, cut from a Sunday supplement, that was tacked on the wall. He remembered it very well because English Steve while still sober that night had pointed it out with pride, and thereafter when not so sober had pointed it out another dozen times. It was a treasured possession of English Steve, and whatever else English Steve might have left behind him had he vacated the place for good, he most certainly would not have left that. It did not amount to much; it was utterly valueless; but to English Steve it had been, and still was obviously, a source of intense, if somewhat childish, gratification. It was a photograph intended to demonstrate the extent of a record crowd at a race course somewhere, and in the foreground, perhaps the most prominent figure of all, the photographer by chance had snapped the heavy black-moustached, rather rakish-looking figure of English Steve.
Jimmie Dale leaned back against the table in the centre of the room. Well, that was settled, and for such satisfaction as the establishment of his theory afforded him his trip had had its reward. But what was he to do now? Wait here for English Steve's return? English Steve might return in an hour, or in two days from now—or never, if Mother Margot was right, and English Steve fell into whatever trap was set for him to-night! On the other hand, to resume a blind search through the underworld again seemed to offer no greater likelihood of finding the man than was presented by the possibility of English Steve returning here. Indeed if the man were keeping under cover, as seemed more than probable, since, after hours of search, he, Jimmie Dale, had been able to find not a single trace of the other, then the chance that right here was where English Steve might be met with sooner than anywhere else was not without its logical argument. And yet——
The flashlight was still circling inquisitively about the room. Jimmie Dale's eyes followed the ray abstractedly. It passed across the open doorway of an inner room. There had been a cot in there, he remembered—English Steve's bedroom.
Mechanically he moved forward in that direction from the table; and then suddenly, with a low, sharp cry, as the flashlight shot forward into the inner room, he halted, hard-faced, staring ahead of him across the threshold. He had been right in his theory, doubly right, for the search ended here; and Mother Margot had been right, and her fears had been only too well justified! Sprawled across the floor, his head in a dark, crimson pool, lay the body of English Steve.
For the fraction of a second, no more, Jimmie Dale remained motionless, and then he was across the threshold and on his knees beside the other. Yes, the man was dead. Jimmie Dale turned a little then, and the flashlight circled swiftly in all directions about him. There was no weapon—only the bullet hole in English Steve's right temple. The end of the search, the warning that Mother Margot had tried to give, had come too late. English Steve had been murdered.
So the gang had had their way, had they? It was dirty, miserable work, crook though English Steve might be! Jimmie Dale's jaws were clamped now, as he leaned forward again and drew a paper, already protruding as though it had half dropped out when the man had fallen, from the inside pocket of English Steve's coat. It was a folded sheet of foolscap size. He opened it out, his flashlight playing upon it. In the folds was a small newspaper clipping; while the paper itself was covered with a rough design, or plan, as of some interior.
He stared in a perplexed way at the clipping for a moment. It had been cut from the middle of a paragraph, and contained only one complete sentence; but from the sentence itself, and the fragments of context that preceded and followed, it was obviously the report of some jewellery auction. He read it once—and again:
unusually good value. The pendant was finally knocked down to Mr. Max Linesthal after spirited bidding for four thousand, three hundred and eighty-five dollars. A cluster ring set with the
From the clipping Jimmie Dale looked again at the roughly drawn sketch, then his eyes reverted to the still form on the floor. A minute, two, passed as he stood there. Something seemed to tighten in Jimmie Dale's throat.
“Poor devil!” he whispered—and thrust the clipping and paper abruptly into his own pocket.
He turned away then, and began a rapid search of the two rooms.
Still another ten minutes passed, and then Jimmie Dale stepped out into the night again, locked the door behind him, and, hurrying now, headed back into the East Side.
XVII.
A Devil's Alibi
Jimmie Dale's face was drawn in sharp, set lines, as he went swiftly along. In a sense the brutal, sordid affair was clear enough. The clipping spoke for itself; there had been an auction sale of jewellery, and Max Linesthal had brought in a pendant worth roughly four thousand dollars. The drawing was probably