“Up an' down, I tell youse!” mumbled Bunty Myers. “It's honest to Gawd's truth. She don't know it, 'cause it's in de next house. It goes up an' down, I tell youse. I saw it. Up an'—” His voice trailed off.
What did the man mean? Jimmie Dale swept his hand across his eyes. It encountered his mask. He pulled it off and put it in his pocket. They were both delirious, weren't they—he and Bunty Myers? This was the man he had come to find, and from whose lips he had sworn he would tear the Phantom's secret, and all the man did was to croak, “Up and down, up and down!” Why didn't he say, “See-saw, Marjorie Daw!”
He gulped down another mouthful of brandy. Yes, that was better now. He raised his head. The shore was indistinct; not so much through distance, but because what little moonlight there had been was gone now—under a cloud. They would have a boat after him pretty soon. He must paddle now—risk a shot—he wouldn't be very distinct, either.
He dipped in the broken oar. It brought a moan of agony from his lips. The shots he had invited from the shore came—and missed. He must paddle—if it tore his side to pieces.
Only one man in the boat. That's what they thought. Well, then, why not? He could easily save himself. Drop overboard and swim ashore somewhere in the marshy tract. He had strength enough for that. They'd find the boat—and find a man in it! But there was some reason why he couldn't do that. He shook his head fiercely as though to clear his brain. Yes, of course! He couldn't leave that huddled figure there at his feet to be killed, could he? So it would have to be a fight, unless he could evade them in the darkness. And—and there wasn't much chance of that. He listened. That sounded like a boat coming from somewhere far behind now. But there weren't any more shots from the shore. Naturally! He must be opposite the marsh now, and they couldn't follow him any more on the land.
He couldn't leave the man to be killed—and that's what they'd do, kill the man. The Kitten couldn't prevent it without the others understanding the whole game and turning on the Kitten too. The Kitten had done all he could when he had bumped against the arm of the man who had fired that first shot. Funny, that Bunty Myers should be here! No, it was clear, quite clear! Bunty Myers had started out all right for the box, but a breakdown had made him late, so late that he——
A shout came from the shore behind. It was answered from the water. There was no further question but that they had secured a boat, though it was still a good way off. His broken oar suddenly touched bottom as he made a stroke. It wasn't the shore—it was just shallow water here fronting the marshland. Well, it didn't matter! He couldn't paddle much more, and not fast enough anyway to escape them, nor run fast enough with a wounded man even if he were ashore to get away from them. He laughed a little harshly. It was a case of fight for it, then. Perhaps Bunty Myers might be roused, propped up against a seat to help. It would be ironical if Bunty Myers hit the Kitten!
He stopped paddling, and leaned forward with his flask once more.
“Here! Quick! Take some more of this!” he said.
There was no answer. The head he lifted slid from his grasp, and thudded with a dull, ugly sound against the side of the boat. And for an instant Jimmie Dale stared at the limp, huddled form. And then, with a low, quick cry, he reached for the other's wrist, searching for the pulse—and then for the man's heart beat. There was none. He drew his breath in sharply. The man was dead.
The splash of oars mingled with the growl and snarl of voices came distinctly now across the water. Bunty Myers was dead. It was queer! Strange! It seemed to carry with it some significance beyond the mere fact of death. What was it? He had started out to find Bunty Myers for something or other. His head was swimming miserably again. It had nothing to do with that black box there on the floor of the boat. Nothing to do with——
He spurred himself to action. One man in the boat. There need be only one man in the boat now! He looked behind him, straining his eyes through the darkness. He could not see the other boat. Therefore they could not see him. He picked up the black box, and slipped over the side. The water could not be very deep since his oar had touched the bottom—no—it was less than waist high. He began to wade as quickly as he could, and still avoid making any splash, toward the shore.
The sounds from the oncoming boat grew louder, the voices more distinct. And then Jimmie Dale, reeling a little, stepped from the water's edge, and began to make his way silently through the woods. He knew the way. There was no danger of losing it. He was on the same side of the marshy tract that Benson was. He had only to keep straight ahead toward the road. And it wasn't far.
Curious, how heavy the black box was! He smiled grimly. Back there they would think Bunty Myers must have let it drop overboard. What else could they think? But to-morrow the police would get it—with the compliments of the Gray Seal. And the Phantom—no, Bunty Myers! His head was swirling again, but his brain seemed to be fighting desperately to tell him that what Bunty Myers had said about “up and down” and a “next house” somewhere was something he should understand, because he was to make Bunty Myers tell him something if Bunty Myers died for it, and he knew very well that Bunty Myers had died.
He gnawed at his lips. His head was very bad—very bad. He couldn't think any more. Not now! Not to-night! But he had no need to think any more now, had he? There was Benson and the car looming up just ahead of him. The rest was for to-morrow, and the to-morrows.
The to-morrows....
XXV.
In the Sanctuary
A door opened and closed softly. A shadow moved in the darkness. Came then the crackle of a match, and a gas jet, air-choked, wheezing in protest, emitted a thin blue flame, grew yellow, and cast a meagre glow over its immediate surroundings. Unkempt, disreputable in his ragged, threadbare attire as Smarlinghue, Jimmie Dale stood for an instant staring around him at the squalid appointments of the place, and then moving abruptly to the far end of the room, flung himself down upon the already crumpled coverings of the dilapidated cot bed against the wall.
This was the Sanctuary. He half closed his eyes, staring at the asthmatic, stuttering gas jet. Well, it would be in every verity a sanctuary for another hour or so; a retreat where he could strive quietly to bring mental order out of chaos, and, yes, physically rest for a little while until it was time to carry out the plan that he proposed to put into execution before another morning came.
Since last night, all through the day, those mumbled words of Bunty Myers, the dying gangster, had been ringing in his ears. They had become an obsession. He could not rid his mind of them—or of the insistently growing intuition that they were the key to the Phantom's lair if he could only make head or tail of them. “Up an' down, I tell youse.... She don't know it, 'cause it's in de next house.... It goes up an' down, I tell youse....”
Who was “she”? He could not actually deduce it logically, but he was nevertheless sure that “she” was Mother Margot. The voices he had heard in her room but could not locate, the certainty that the clue, the phantom clue as he came to call it, was to be found in Mother Margot's rooms, was of course the basis for this interpretation; but it was the “next house” that bothered him. What did that mean? If he were right, and it was Mother Margot who did not know “'cause it's in de next house,” where was this “next house”? There was nothing there but another tenement across the narrow areaway.
He frowned suddenly, impatiently. His mind was simply beginning to go over again, vainly, ineffectually, what it had already gone over a thousand times, it seemed, since last night. He had already made a decision—hours ago. He would know to-night whether he was right or not; he would know before he slept whether Bunty Myers' dying words linked up the Phantom's secret with Mother Margot's rooms or not. To-night, finally, the phantom clue that was in any case connected with the old hag's rooms would be a mystery no longer if he literally had to wreck the