Jimmie Dale stepped toward the old man, and laid both hands on the other's shoulders—gently.
“Jason,” he said, steadily, “get me an overcoat, light weight, dark color—and a slouch hat. Tell Benson I'm waiting for him—and to pamper my infirmities we'll take the limousine to-night.” He turned Jason around, and pushed the old man quietly toward the door. “Look sharp, please, Jason,” he said.
The door closed behind the old butler. For an instant Jimmie Dale stood staring at the door, his face softened, almost a mistiness in the dark, steady eyes; then he turned abruptly to the liqueur stand again.
“I guess perhaps I'll need it,” he muttered.
He took out a small silver flask, filled it with brandy, and slipped it into his pocket. He went out then, closing the door behind him. As he descended the stairs he caught the sound of the car on the driveway coming from the garage at the rear of the house. That was Benson—another Jason! He felt suddenly humbled. Benson young, Jason old—at the extremes of life—and each without an instant's hesitation would give their all for him. It was a strange, strange thing, the love of men one for another—the love of these two for him. He had accepted it all too matter-of-factly perhaps in the past, not stopping to appraise it always for its immeasurable worth, or, when he thought of it, perhaps priding himself on it only as a possession that other men did not have, like a suit of clothes perhaps made by an exclusive tailor where the same pattern was not supplied to any one else. He did not know how he had won it.
He took his coat and hat from Jason in the hallway. The old man's lips were twitching.
“God bless you, Jason!” said Jimmie Dale suddenly, and swung through the door.
At the curb Benson, the chauffeur, touched his cap, as he reached out to open the door of the big closed car—then hesitated.
“You'll excuse me, Mr. Dale,” he stammered, “but—but I——”
Jimmie Dale smiled.
“It's a wonderful night, isn't it, Benson—for a drive?” he said. “West Broadway, Benson—and, oh, yes, stop anywhere within a block of Thompson Street.”
“Yes, sir,” said Benson mechanically—and opened the door.
Jimmie Dale stepped into the car. The door closed. He saw Benson, in the act of swinging into his seat, turn and face for an instant the open doorway of the lighted vestibule where Jason stood. Benson's shoulders lifted in a helpless gesture.
“What the hell can I do?” said Benson's shoulders eloquently.
XXII.
A Tapped Wire
Jimmie Dale settled back in his seat. The car moved swiftly, smoothly downtown. It wasn't so bad; not so very much worse than being in bed. He was quite all right.
He stared out of the windows. He had no plans—no definite plans. How could he have? Somewhere, somehow, he must pick up the trail of the Phantom's associates. That was all. And Mother Margot offered by far the best and surest way—if she were back. Obviously, therefore, the first move was to find out if Mother Margot had returned, and he would know that in a few minutes now.
And if she were still away?
His lips tightened grimly. The Sanctuary—Smarlinghue—a spectre haunting the Bad Lands through the night! Perhaps hopelessly! He had done that on so many nights before. What other way was there—to find Bunty Myers?
He lighted a cigarette. Occasionally he shifted his position. He told himself that it was only because the bandage was so tight that he was beginning to experience a little discomfort.
The car circled around Washington Square, and made its way into West Broadway. Presently it stopped. Jimmie Dale got out.
“Wait half an hour for me, Benson,” he said quietly. “No more. If I'm not here by then take the car back home.”
He did not wait for a reply. Half a block ahead was Thompson Street. He started toward it. His coat was tightly buttoned around his throat, his collar turned up, his slouch hat pulled toughly down over his eyes.
He swung around the corner, walking with his hands in his pockets. The narrow street seethed with its usual night life. Half naked children tumbled in the gutters, and played beneath the wheels of the pushcarts that flanked the sidewalks on both sides of the road. Banjo torches spluttered and flung out fantastic flares; shawled women, dark, swarthy, elbowed about the carts; men who wore earrings and chattered in strange tongues lounged on the sidewalk or jostled their way along in a sort of aimless fashion. The place was a din, a hubbub. The hawkers cried their wares.
Jimmie Dale made his way along with studied carelessness, and suddenly, nodding sharply to himself in satisfaction, he edged out to the curb. Mother Margot was back! True, the old hag herself was nowhere in sight, but this was her pushcart here laden with its miscellany of small articles like the notion counter of a department store. He picked up a cheap, gaudy, colored kerchief and pretended to examine it. At the next cart was the old Italian whom he, Jimmie Dale, as Smarlinghue then, had accosted three days before when, as now, he had been in search of Mother Margot.
“How much?” he demanded, holding up the kerchief.
The Italian shrugged his shoulders.
“Wait-a da minute,” he said. “She just gone-a da telephone. She come-a right back.”
Jimmie Dale put down the kerchief.
“I don't want it bad enough to wait,” he said indifferently—and drew back into the throng on the sidewalk. But the next instant he had sidled out of the crowd again into a dark, narrow and dirty little alleyway that made the side of an equally dirty and uninviting second-hand shop, on whose unwashed window painted letters, that had once been white, announced that its proprietor was one Antonio Mezzo.
The telephone! Luck! He felt his pulses quicken. There were only two persons who ever called Mother Margot to this telephone here, himself and—the Phantom. His fingers had crept to a pocket in the leather girdle. They came out with his mask. He slipped it quickly over his face. Mother Margot would have news to-night, then! He was at the side door now. It was slightly ajar; and, yes, he could just catch the old hag's miserable jargon, the shrill, complaining voice, muffled, of course, by the telephone booth itself that stood just within beside the door:
“I can't hear youse. De buzzin's got me feazed.”
Jimmie Dale's lips straightened suddenly. It wasn't Mother Margot he wanted to hear. Why trust her? He had never caught her at the phone before! He could make her talk, but he had no guarantee that it would be the whole truth. He pushed the door open softly and stepped inside. There was a dim light coming from a blackened, nearly burned-out incandescent that dangled from the ceiling. The back room here, littered with old junk and broken furniture, was cut off from the front by a closed door. Being inside the booth, she had not seen him. She was still reiterating the fact that she could not hear distinctly.
Jimmie Dale crept a step forward, another—then with a swift movement he jerked the door of the booth open, and leaning forward clapped his hand firmly over the mouthpiece of the telephone.
There was a startled cry from the old hag, as she shrank back. The side of the booth creaked with her weight.
“My Gawd!” she whispered wildly. “De—de Gray Seal!”
“Yes!” said Jimmie Dale grimly.