I.5. The Affair Of The Pushcart Man
Larry the Bat shambled out of the side door of the tenement into the back alleyway; shambled along the black alleyway to the street--and smiled a little grimly as a shadow across the roadway suddenly shifted its position. The game was growing acute, critical, desperate even--and it was his move.
Larry the Bat, disreputable denizen of the underworld, alias Jimmie Dale, millionairs clubman, alias the Gray Seal, whom Carruthers of the MORNING NEWS-ARGUS called the master criminal of the age, shuffled along in the direction of the Bowery, his hands plunged deep in the pockets of his frayed and tattered trousers, where his fingers, in a curious, wistful way, fondled the keys of his own magnificent residence on Riverside Drive. It was his move--and it was an impasse, ironical, sardonic, and it was worse--it was full of peril.
True, he had outwitted Kline of the secret service two nights before, when Kline had raided the counterfeiters' den; true, he had no reason to believe that Kline suspected HIM specifically, but the man Kline wanted HAD entered the tenement that night, and since then the house had been shadowed day and night. The result was both simple and disastrous--to Jimmie Dale. Larry the Bat, a known inmate of the house, might come and go as he pleased--but to emerge from the Sanctuary in the person of Jimmie Dale would be fatal. Kline had been outwitted, but Kline had not acknowledged final defeat. The tenement had been searched from top to bottom-- unostentatiously. His own room on the first landing had been searched the previous afternoon, when he was out, but they had failed to find the cunningly contrived opening in the floor under the oilcloth in the corner, an impromptu wardrobe, that would proclaim Larry the Bat and Jimmie Dale to be one and the same person--that would inevitably lead further to the establishment of his identity as the Gray Seal. In time, of course, the surveillance would cease-- but he could not wait. That was the monumental irony of it--the factor that, all unknown to Kline, was forcing the issue hard now. It was his move.
Since, years ago now, as the Gray Seal, he had begun to work with HER, that unknown, mysterious accomplice of his, and the police, stung to madness both by the virulent and constant attacks of the press and by the humiliating prod of their own failures, sought daily, high and low, with every resource at their command, for the Gray Seal, he had never been in quite so strange and perilous a plight as he found himself at that moment. To preserve inviolate the identity of Larry the Bat was absolutely vital to his safety. It was the one secret that even she, who so strangely appeared to know all else about him, he was sure, had not discovered--and it was just that, in a way, that had brought the present impossible situation to pass.
In the month previous, in a lull between those letters of hers, he had set himself doggedly and determinedly to the renewed task of what had become so dominantly now a part of his very existence--the solving of HER identity. And for that month, as the best means to the end--means, however, that only resulted as futilely as the attempts that had gone before--he had lived mostly as Larry the Bat, returning to his home in his proper person only when occasion and necessity demanded it. He had been going home that evening, two nights before, walking along Riverside Drive, when from the window of the limousine she had dropped the letter at his feet that had plunged him into the affair of the Counterfeit Five-- and he had not gone home! Eventually, to save himself, he had, in the Sanctuary, performing the transformation in desperate haste, again been forced to assume the role of Larry the Bat.
That was really the gist of it. And yesterday morning he had remembered, to his dismay, that he had had little or no money left the night before. He had intended, of course, to replenish his supply--when he got home. Only he hadn't gone home! And now he needed money--needed it badly, desperately. With thousands in the bank, with abundance even in his safe, in his own den at home, a supply kept there always for an emergency, he was facing actual want--he rattled two dimes, a nickel, and a few odd pennies thoughtfully against the keys in his pocket.
To a certain extent, old Jason, his butler, could be trusted. Jason even knew that mysterious letters of tremendous secretive importance came to the house, and the old man always meant well--but he dared not trust even Jason with the secret of his dual personality. What was he to do? He needed money imperatively--at once. Thanks to Kline, for the time being, at least, he could not rid himself of the personality of Larry the Bat by the simple expedient or slipping into the clothes of Jimmie Dale--he must live, act, and remain Larry the Bat until the secret service officer gave up the hunt. How bridge the gulf between Jimmie Dale and Larry the Bat in old Jason's eyes!
Nor was that all. There was still another matter, and one that, in order to counteract it, demanded at once a serious inroad--to the extent of a telephone call--upon his slender capital. A too prolonged and unaccounted-for absence from home, and old Jason, in his anxious, blundering solicitude, would have the fat in the fire at that end--and the city, and the social firmament thereof, would be humming with the startling news of the disappearance of a well- known millionaire. The complications that would then ensue, with himself powerless to lift a finger, Jimmie Dale did not care to think about--such a contretemps must at all hazards be prevented.
Jimmie Dale reached the corner of the street, where it intersected the Bowery, and paused languidly by the curb. No one appeared to be following. He had not expected that there would be--but it was as well to be sure. He walked then a few steps along the Bowery--and slipped suddenly into a doorway, from where he could command a view of the street corner that he had just left. At the end of ten minutes, satisfied that no one had any concern in his immediate movements, he shambled on again down the Bowery.
There was a saloon two blocks away that boasted a private telephone booth. Jimmie Dale made that his destination.
Larry the Bat was a very well-known character in that resort, and the bullet- headed dispenser of drinks behind the bar nodded unctuously to him over the heads of those clustered at the rail as he entered; Larry the Bat, as befitted one of the elite of the underworld, was graciously pleased to acknowledge the proletariat salutation with a curt nod. He walked down to the end of the room, entered the telephone booth--and was carelessly careful to close the door tightly behind him.
He gave the number of his residence on Riverside Drive, and waited for the connection. After some delay, Jason's voice answered him.
"Jason," said Jimmie Dale, in matter-of-fact tones, "I shall be out of the city for another three or four days, possibly a week, and--" he stopped abruptly, as a sort of gasp came to him over the wire.
"Thank God that's you, sir!" exclaimed the old butler wildly. "I've been near mad, sir, all day!"
"Don't get excited, Jason!" said Jimmie Dale a little sharply. "The mere matter of my absence for the last two days is nothing to cause you any concern. And while I am on the subject, Jason, let me say now that I shall be glad if you will bear that fact in mind in future."
"Yes, sir," stammered Jason. "But, sir, it ain't that--good Lord, Master Jim, it ain't that, sir! It's--it's one of them letters."
Something like a galvanic shock seemed to jerk the disreputable, loose-jointed frame of Larry the Bat suddenly erect--and a strained whiteness crept over the dirty, unwashed face.
"Go on, Jason," said Jimmie Dale, without a quiver in his voice.
"It came this morning, sir--that shuffer with his automobile left it. I had just time to say you weren't at home, sir, and he was gone. And then, sir, there ain't been an hour gone by all through the day that a woman, sir--a lady, begging your pardon, Master Jim-- hasn't rung up on the telephone, asking if you were back, and if I could get you, and where you were, and half frantic, sir, half sobbing, sometimes, sir, and saying there was a life hanging on it, Master Jim."
Larry the Bat, staring into the mouthpiece of the instrument, subconsciously passed his hand across his forehead, and subconsciously noted that his fingers, as he drew them away, were damp.
"Where is the letter now, Jason?" inquired Jimmie Dale coolly. "Here on your desk, Master Jim. Shall I bring it to you?"
Bring it to him! How? When? Where? Bring it to him! The ghastly irony of it! Jimmie Dale tried to think--prodding, spurring desperately that keen, lightning brain of his that had never failed him yet. How bridge the gulf between Larry the Bat and Jimmie Dale in Jason's eyes--not just for the replenishing of funds now, but with a life at stake!
"No--I think not, Jason," said Jimmie Dale calmly. Just leave it where it is. And if she telephones again, say that you