"The—TELEPHONE!"
"Yes, sir. A woman, begging your pardon, Master Jim, a lady, sir, has been telephoning every hour or so, and she—"
"YES!" Jimmie Dale had jumped across the room and had caught the other fiercely by the shoulder. "Yes—yes! What did she say? QUICK, man!"
"Good Lord, Master Jim!" faltered Jason. "I—she—"
"Jason," said Jimmie Dale, suddenly as cold as ice, "what did she say? Think, man! Every word!"
"She didn't say anything, Master Jim. Nothing at all, sir—except to keep asking each time if she could speak to you."
"Nothing else, Jason?"
"No, sir."
"You are SURE?"
"I'm sure, Master Jim. Not another thing but that, sir, just as I've told you."
"Thank God!" said Jimmie Dale, in a low voice.
"Yes, sir," said Jason mechanically.
"How long ago was it since she telephoned last?" asked Jimmie Dale quickly.
"Well, sir, I couldn't rightly say. You see, as I said, Master Jim, I must have gone to sleep, but—"
They were staring tensely into each other's face. The telephone on the desk was ringing vibrantly, clamourously, through the stillness of the room.
Jason, white, frightened, bewildered, touched his lips with the tip of his tongue.
"That'll be her again, sir," he said hoarsely.
"Wait!" said Jimmie Dale tersely.
He was trying to think, to think faster than he had ever thought before. He could not tell Jason to say that he had not yet come in—THEY knew he was in, it would be but showing his hand to that "some one" who would be listening now on the wire. He dared not speak to her, or, above all, allow her to expose herself by a single inadvertent word. He dared not speak to her—and she was here now, calling him! He could not speak to her—and it was life and death almost that she should know what had happened; life and death almost for both of them that he should know all and everything she could tell him. True, it would take but a minute to run to the cellar and cut those wires, while Jason held her on the pretence of calling him, Jimmie Dale, to the 'phone; only a minute to cut those wires—and in so doing advertise to these fiends the fact that he had discovered their trick; admit, as though in so many words, that their suspicions of him were justified; lay himself open to some new move that he could not hope to foresee; and, paramount to all else, rob her and himself of this master trump the Crime Club had placed in his hands, by means of which there was a chance that he could hoist them with their own petard!
The telephone rang again—imperatively, persistently.
"Listen, Jason." Jimmie Dale was speaking rapidly, earnestly. "Say that I've come in and have gone to bed—in a vile humour. That you told me a lady had been calling, but that I said if she called again I wasn't to be disturbed if it was the Queen of Sheba herself—that I wouldn't answer any 'phone to-night for anybody. Do you understand? No argument with her—just that. Now, answer!"
Jason lifted the receiver from the hook.
"Yes—hello!" he said. "Yes, ma'am, Mr. Dale has come in, but he has retired. . . . Yes, I told him; but, begging your pardon, ma'am, he was in what I might say was a bit of a temper, and said he wasn't to be disturbed by any one."
Jimmie Dale snatched the receiver from Jason, and put it to his own ear.
"Kindly tell Mr. Dale that unless he comes to the 'phone now," a feminine voice, her voice, in well-simulated indignation, was saying, "it will be a very long day before I shall trouble myself to—"
Jimmie Dale clapped his hand firmly over the mouthpiece of the instrument. Thank God for that clever brain of hers! She understood!
"Repeat what you said before, Jason," he instructed hurriedly. "Then say 'Good-night.'"
He removed his hand from the mouthpiece.
"It's quite useless, ma'am," said Jason apologetically. "In the rare temper he was in, he wouldn't come, to use his own words, ma'am, not for the Queen of Sheba herself, ma'am. Good-night, ma'am."
Jimmie Dale hung the receiver back on the hook—and with his hand flirted away a bead of moisture that had sprung to his forehead.
"Good Lord, Master Jim, what's wrong, sir? What's happened, sir? And—and those clothes, Master Jim, sir! They aren't the ones you went out in, sir—they aren't yours at all, sir!" Jason ventured anxiously.
"Jason," said Jimmie Dale, "switch off the light, and go to the front window and look out. Keep well behind the curtains. Don't show yourself. Tell me if you see anything."
"Yes, sir," said Jason obediently.
The light went out. Jimmie Dale moved to the rear of the room—to the window overlooking the garage and yard.
"I don't see anything, sir," Jason called.
"Watch!" Jimmie Dale answered.
A minute passed—two—three. Jimmie Dale was staring down into the black of the yard. She understood! She knew, of course, before she 'phoned that something had gone wrong to-night. She knew that only peril of the gravest moment would have kept him from the 'phone—and her. She knew now, as a logical conclusion, that it was dangerous to attempt to communicate with him at his home. Those wires! Where did they lead to? Not far away—that would be almost a mechanical impossibility. Was it into the Crime Club itself—near at hand? Or the basement, say, of that apartment house across the driveway? Or—where?
And then Jimmie Dale spoke again:
"Do you see anything, Jason?"
"I'm not sure, sir," Jason answered hesitantly. "I thought I saw a man move behind a tree out there across the road a minute ago, sir. Yes, sir—there he is again!"
There was a thin, mirthless smile on Jimmie Dale's lips.
Below, in the shadow of the garage, a dark form, like a deeper shadow, stirred—and was still again.
"What time is it, Jason?" Jimmie Dale asked presently.
"It'll be about half-past four, sir."
"Go to bed, Jason."
"Yes, sir; but"—Jason's voice, low, troubled, came through the darkness from the upper end of the room—"Master Jim, sir, I—"
"Go to bed, Jason—and not a word of this."
"Yes, sir. Good-night, Master Jim."
"Good-night, Jason."
Jimmie Dale groped his way to the big lounging chair in which he had found Jason asleep, and flung himself into it. They had struck quickly, these ingenious, dress-suited murderers of the Crime Club! The house was already watched, would be watched now untiringly, unceasingly; not a movement of his henceforth but would be under their eyes!
His hands, resting on the arms of the chair, closed slowly until they became tight-clenched, knotted fists. What was he to do? It was not only the Crime Club, it was not only the Tocsin and her peril—there was the underworld snapping and snarling at his heels, there was the police, dogged and sullen, ever on the trail of the Gray Seal! His life, even before this, in his fight against the underworld and the police, had depended upon his freedom of action—and now, at one and the same time, that freedom was cut away from beneath his feet, as it were, and a third foe, equally as deadly as the others, was added to the list!
For months, to preserve and sustain the character of Larry the Bat, he had been forced to assume the role almost daily; for, in that sordid empire below the dead line, whose one common bond and aim was the Gray Seal's death, where suspicion, one of the other, was rampant and extravagant, where each might be the one against whom all swore their vengeance, Larry the Bat could not mysteriously disappear from his accustomed haunts without inviting suspicion in an