Again Jimmie Dale smiled grimly. It was the logical conclusion—and it was very simple. Bunty Myers and the Kitten for years had been well known characters in the underworld; and for years they had been known to work together in Gentleman Laroque's gang. And one and one made two, that was all!
Whisperings! Whisperings, as ghouls might whisper in hideous enthusiasm at the promise of some abominable feast to come, whisperings everywhere through the underground exchanges of Gangland! Of the passing of Bunty Myers the police as yet were apparently in ignorance; but Steenie Klotz and his outraged apaches had not hesitated in “safe” quarters to spread the story and make known the sentence they had passed upon their betrayer. And the underworld in its blood lust waited. It was the law. The Kitten was being hunted mercilessly to his death. But so far they had not found the Kitten.
Jimmie Dale nodded at the gas jet. That was what he had learned in the underworld's inner circles; and then he had returned here to the Sanctuary, for it was not as Smarlinghue but as the Gray Seal that he meant to play out the night. And now time dragged. He could not even begin to strip off these rags and discard the character of the drug-broken, dissolute artist until the moment arrived when he was ready to leave. It was too dangerous, for in the meantime some one, any one, a lodger even in the same tenement here, might come, and——
He sat up suddenly erect on the cot. Some one was coming. He listened. A footstep shuffled along in the hall outside and reached the door; and then some one knocked guardedly upon the panel.
It was Smarlinghue, not Jimmie Dale, who spoke.
“Who's there?” he demanded ungraciously.
“It's me,” a voice croaked hurriedly. “Let me in, Smarly. It's Mother Margot.”
Mother Margot! A queer smile flickered across Jimmie Dale's lips, as he rose from the cot and started across the room toward the door. Mother Margot who obeyed him as the Gray Seal, when she couldn't help it perhaps; Mother Margot who accepted Smarlinghue as one of her own ilk, and, on one occasion at least, as a source of assistance and an ally in her turbulent life! What did Mother Margot want with Smarlinghue to-night? He opened the door, and, as the old hag, her shawl drawn closely around her head, entered, he closed it again behind her.
“Hello, Mother!” said Jimmie Dale facetiously. “Ain't business good down on Thompson Street to-night?”
She glanced around her furtively.
“Dere ain't no one here, is dere?” she asked anxiously.
Jimmie Dale shook his head.
“Spill it!” he invited. “What's the matter?”
Again she glanced around her, and it was almost a minute before she spoke. She twisted her hands nervously together.
“Youse helped me once before, Smarly,” she whispered finally. “I—I ain't got no one else to ask, an'—an' to-night I'm in bad. Youse—youse'll help me again, won't youse, Smarly?”
Jimmie Dale pushed one of the two rickety chairs the Sanctuary possessed toward her.
“How do I know?” he countered cautiously. “I ain't making promises on the blind. Help yourself to the chair, and I'll listen.”
Mother Margot shook her head quickly.
“I ain't got no time to sit down. An' I ain't got no chance for anythin' only mabbe to get croaked to-night if youse won't help me. I ran all de way over here, an'—an' I was scared youse wouldn't be here.” She was wringing her hands together again in evident terror and nervousness. “Oh, my Gawd, if youse hadn't been here, Smarly, I——” Her voice broke and ended in a choked sob.
Jimmie Dale's eyes, from the crouching, dishevelled shawled and spectacled old creature, sought the shadows cast by the flickering gas jet that played along the edge of the threadbare strip of carpet at his feet. He did not question the genuineness of her distress. He had very good reason to believe in it most thoroughly. He was even vitally, personally, intimately concerned in it; for, back of it, where Mother Margot was involved, must be the Phantom's hand. He smiled queerly to himself. What it was that had brought her here he, as Jimmie Dale, must know; but that knowledge could only be obtained through Smarlinghue, and Smarlinghue was—well, Smarlinghue was Smarlinghue.
“Well, don't lose your nerve,” said Smarlinghue a little sharply, “or maybe you'll get me scared too, and the deal'll be off before it's started. The time before you got me to go hunting for English Steve, and I found him—murdered. What is it this time?”
“I—I've got to try an' get a message to some one,” she said anxiously.
“That's what you said when it was English Steve,” observed Smarlinghue judicially. “Well, shoot! Who is it to-night?”
Again she did not answer immediately; again she glanced furtively around her. And then she spoke, her voice scarcely audible:
“De Gray Seal.”
“The Gray Seal!” Involuntarily Jimmie Dale gasped. He stared at her. He could quite understand that she might seek the Gray Seal; but this was irony in its sublimest form, wasn't it? And then suddenly he remembered. The night he had saved himself here by playing his dual rôle! The new heights to which Smarlinghue had risen in the underworld through that supposed encounter! It had almost secured him initiation into the confidences of Bunty Myers, and the rest of the Phantom's followers, of which Mother Margot here was one. That was it! Because he had once been known to have been in actual, physical touch with the Gray Seal, and would therefore perhaps be able to recognise him again! And she had come to the Gray Seal himself! It was exquisite!
He felt her eyes boring into him from behind her heavy-lensed spectacles. He smiled with exaggerated derision. But mentally now he knew no mirth. That was only one side of it, the strange irony of it. There must be something of no ordinary importance that could have prompted her to act like this. What was it? She who, again and again, had been compelled to act under the Gray Seal's orders, under his orders; who, only that afternoon, had received her instructions, or, perhaps better, warning from him over the telephone!
“It's too easy!” scoffed Smarlinghue, and grinned broadly. “All anybody's got to do that wants the Gray Seal is to go out on the corner and whistle for him.”
“My Gawd!” The exclamation came piteously. She wrung her hands the harder together.
“Well,” said Jimmie Dale, still facetiously, “what's the idea, then? Do you think just because he rough-housed me here one night that he left his calling card, and wrote his address on it before he went away? Or maybe you think he took his mask off, and says: 'Smarly, drop around any afternoon for a cup of tea; I'll always be at home—to you!' Well, he didn't! There ain't a bull or a lag that ain't been hunting him for years—and they're still hunting! How'd you expect me to find him?”
She seemed hardly to be paying any attention. Her fingers were working nervously with her shawl, now loosening it, now tightening it around her throat; and she still kept on glancing in all directions furtively around her.
“Smarly, for Gawd's sake, listen!” she burst out wildly. “I ain't askin' youse to find him. I'm askin' youse to help me. I got to have some one I can trust. Mabbe youse won't have to do nothin' at all. Youse won't see him; it'll only be on de telephone. I—I've been workin' wid him for weeks now.”
It was exquisite! There was humour here for Jimmie Dale—but Smarlinghue's jaw dropped helplessly.
“The Gray Seal—and you!” He