The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale | Page 8

light fell upon the threshold of the door. There was a
little white patch there, a most curious little white patch--that had not
been there when he had thrown himself on the cot. Came a sudden,
incredulous thought that sent the blood whipping fiercely through his
veins; and with a low cry, in mad, feverish haste now, he leaped from
the cot and across the room.
It was an envelope that had been thrust in under the door. In an instant
he had snatched it up from the floor, and in another, acting instinctively,
even while he realised the futility of what he did, he wrenched the door
open, stared out into a dark and empty passageway--and, with a strange,
almost hysterical laugh, closed and locked the door again.
There was no writing on the envelope; there was not light enough to
have deciphered it if there had been--but he had need for neither
writing nor light. Those long, slim, tapering fingers, those wonderful

fingers of Jimmie Dale, that seemed to combine all human faculties in
their sensitive tips, had already telegraphed their message to his
brain--it was the same texture of paper that she always used--it was
from her--it was from the Tocsin.
Joy, gladness, a relief so terrific as it surged upon him as to leave him
for the moment physically weak, held him in thrall, and he stumbled
back across the room, and slipped down into a chair before the table,
and dropped his head forward into his arms, the note tightly clasped in
his hand. She was alive. The Tocsin was alive--and well--and here in
New York--and free--and they had not caught her. It meant all those
things, the coming and the manner of the coming of this note. A deep
thankfulness filled his heart; it seemed that it was only now he realised
the full measure of the fear and anxiety, the strain under which he had
been labouring for so many months. She was alive--the Tocsin was
alive. It was like some wonderful song that filled his soul, excluding all
else. How little the contents of the note itself mattered--the one great,
glorious fact for the moment was that she was alive!
It was a long time before Jimmie Dale raised his head, and then he got
up suddenly from his chair, and lit the gas. But even then he hesitated
as he turned the note over, speculatively now, in his fingers. So she
knew him as Smarlinghue! In some way she had found that out! His
brows gathered abstractedly, then cleared again. Well, at any rate, it
was added proof that so far her cleverness had completely outwitted
those who had pitted themselves against her--so much so that even her
freedom of action, in whatever role she had assumed, was still left open
to her.
He tore the envelope open. There was no preface to the note, no "Dear
Philanthropic Crook" as there had always been in the old days--instead,
the single, closely-written sheet began abruptly, the writing itself
indicating that it had been composed in desperate haste. He glanced
quickly over the first few lines.
"You should not have done this. You should never have come into the
underworld again. I begged, I implored you not to do so. And now you
are in danger to-night. I can only hope and pray that this will reach you

in time, and--" He read on, in a startled way now, to the end; then read
the note over again more slowly, this time muttering snatches of it
aloud: "... Chicago ... Slimmy Jack and Malay ... Birdie Lee ... released
from Sing Sing to-day ... triangular scar on forehead over right eye...."
And then, for a little while, Jimmie Dale stood there staring about the
room, motionless, rigid as stone, save that his fingers moved in an
automatic, mechanical way as they began to tear the note into little
shreds. But presently into his face there crept a menacing look, and an
angry red began to tinge his cheeks, and his jaws clamped ominously.
So that was the game at Malay John's, was it? Birdie Lee was out again!
She had not needed to mention any scar to enable him to identify Birdie
Lee. He knew the man of old. The slickest of them all, the cleverest of
them all, before he had been caught and sent to Sing Sing for a
five-years' term, was Birdie Lee--the one man of them all that he,
Jimmie Dale, might regard as a rival, so to speak, where the mastery of
the intricate mechanism of a vaunted and much advertised "guaranteed
burglar-proof safe" was concerned! And Birdie Lee was out again!
There was danger if he went to Malay John's, she had said--and it was
true. But what if