第4章

Five closely written sheets fell into his hand.He read them slowly, critically, read them over again; and then, his eyes on the rug at his feet, he began to tear the paper into minute pieces between his fingers, depositing the pieces, as he tore them, upon the arm of his chair.The five sheets demolished, his fingers dipped into the heap of shreds on the arm of the chair and tore them over and over again, tore them until they were scarcely larger than bits of confetti, tore at them absently and mechanically, his eyes never shifting from the rug at his feet.

Then with a shrug of his shoulders, as though rousing himself to present reality, a curious smile flickering on his lips, he brushed the pieces of paper into one hand, carried them to the empty fireplace, laid them down in a little pile, and set them afire.

Lighting a cigarette, he watched them burn until the last glow had gone from the last charred scrap; then he crunched and scattered them with the brass-handled fender brush, and, retracing his steps across the room, flung back a portiere from where it hung before a little alcove, and dropped on his knees in front of a round, squat, barrel-shaped safe--one of his own design and planning in the years when he had been with his father.

His slim, sensitive fingers played for an instant among the knobs and dials that studded the door, guided, it seemed by the sense of touch alone--and the door swung open.Within was another door, with locks and bolts as intricate and massive as the outer one.This, too, he opened; and then from the interior took out a short, thick, rolled-up leather bundle tied together with thongs.He rose from his knees, closed the safe, and drew the portiere across the alcove again.With the bundle under his arm, he glanced sharply around the room, listened intently, then, unlocking the door that gave on the hall, he switched off the lights and went to his dressing room, that was on the same floor.Here, divesting himself quickly of his dinner clothes, he selected a dark tweed suit with loose-fitting, sack coat from his wardrobe, and began to put it on.

Dressed, all but his coat and vest, he turned to the leather bundle that he had placed on a table, untied the thongs, and carefully opened it out to its full length--and again that curious, cryptic smile tinged his lips.Rolled the opposite away from that in which it had been tied up, the leather strip made a wide belt that went on somewhat after the fashion of a life preserver, the thongs being used for shoulder straps--a belt that, once on, the vest would hide completely, and, fitting close, left no telltale bulge in the outer garments.It was not an ordinary belt; it was full of stout-sewn, up-right little pockets all the way around, and in the pockets grimly lay an array of fine, blued-steel, highly tempered instruments--a compact, powerful burglar's kit.

The slim, sensitive fingers passed with almost a caressing touch over the vicious little implements, and from one of the pockets extracted a thin, flat metal case.This Jimmie Dale opened, and glanced inside--between sheets of oil paper lay little rows of GRAY, ADHESIVE, DIAMOND-SHAPED SEALS.

Jimmie Dale snapped the case shut, returned it to its recess, and from another took out a black silk mask.He held it up to the light for examination.

"Pretty good shape after a year," muttered Jimmie Dale, replacing it.

He put on the belt, then his vest and coat.From the drawer of his dresser he took an automatic revolver and an electric flashlight, slipped them into his pocket, and went softly downstairs.From the hat stand he chose a black slouch hat, pulled it well over his eyes--and left the house.

Jimmie Dale walked down a block, then hailed a bus and mounted to the top.It was late, and he found himself the only passenger.He inserted his dime in the conductor's little resonant-belled cash receiver, and then settled back on the uncomfortable, bumping, cushionless seat.

On rattled the bus; it turned across town, passed the Circle, and headed for Fifth Avenue--but Jimmie Dale, to all appearances, was quite oblivious of its movements.

It was a year since she had written him.SHE! Jimmie Dale did not smile, his lips were pressed hard together.Not a very intimate or personal appellation, that--but he knew her by no other.It WAS a woman, surely--the hand-writing was feminine, the diction eminently so--and had SHE not come herself that night to Jason! He remembered the last letter, apart from the one to-night, that he had received from her.It was a year ago now--and the letter had been hardly more than a note.The police had worked themselves into a frenzy over the Gray Seal, the papers had grown absolutely maudlin--and she had written, in her characteristic way:

Things are a little too warm, aren't they, Jimmie? Let's let them cool for a year.

Since then until to-night he had heard nothing from her.It was a strange compact that he had entered into--so strange that it could never have known, could never know a parallel--unique, dangerous, bizarre, it was all that and more.It had begun really through his connection with his father's business--the business of manufacturing safes that should defy the cleverest criminals--when his brains, turned into that channel, had been pitted against the underworld, against the methods of a thousand different crooks from Maine to California, the report of whose every operation had reached him in the natural course of business, and every one of which he had studied in minutest detail.It had begun through that--but at the bottom of it was his own restless, adventurous spirit.