The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale | Page 9

he did not go! What, for instance, if Birdie Lee went
through with this night's work!
Jimmie Dale walked slowly across the room, halted before the wall
near the door, stood for an instant hesitant there--and then, as though in
a sudden, final decision, dropped down on his knees, and, working
swiftly, removed the section of the base-board from the wall for the
second time that night.
Out came the neatly folded clothes of Jimmie Dale; and with them,
serving him so well in the days gone by, the leather girdle, or undervest,
with its stout-sewn, upright pockets in which nestled, in an array of fine,
blue-steel, highly tempered instruments, a compact powerful burglar's
kit. It was the one thing that he had saved from the fire in the old
Sanctuary--and that more by accident than design. He had been wearing
the girdle that night when he had stolen into the Crime Club, and
afterwards had returned to the Sanctuary with the intention of

destroying forever all traces of Larry the Bat; and then, only half
dressed, as he was changing into the clothes of Jimmie Dale, the alarm
had come before he had taken off the girdle, and, without thought of it
again at the time, he had still been wearing it when he had made his
escape. He looked at it now for a moment grimly--and smiled in a
mirthless way. He had not used it since that night, and that night he had
never meant or thought to use it again--only to destroy it!
He reached into the aperture in the wall once more, drew out a pocket
flashlight and an automatic pistol, and laid them down beside the
clothes and the leather girdle; then, pulling off his coat and shirt, he ran
noiselessly across the room to the washstand. A few drops from a tiny
phial poured into the water, and the pallor, the sickly hue from his face
was gone. It was to be Jimmie Dale--not Smarlinghue--who would
keep the rendezvous at Malay John's!
And now he was back across the room once more, turning out the light
as he passed the gas-jet. The leather girdle, that went on much after the
fashion of a life-preserver, was fastened over his shoulders and secured
around his waist. The remainder of his clothes were stripped off with
lightning speed, and in their place were donned the fashionably tailored,
immaculate tweeds of Jimmie Dale. It was like some quick-moving,
shadowy pantomime in the moonlight. He gathered up the discarded
garments, tucked them into the opening in the wall, replaced the
baseboard, slipped the automatic and flashlight into the side pockets of
his coat--and stood up, his fingers feeling swiftly over his vest and
under the back of his coat to guard against the possibility of any
tell-tale bulge from the leather girdle underneath.
An instant he stood glancing critically about him; then the roller shade
over the window was lifted aside, the window itself, on carefully oiled
hinges, was opened noiselessly, closed again--and, hugged close
against the wall of the building, hidden in the black shadows, Jimmie
Dale, so silent as to be almost uncanny in his movements, crept along
the few intervening feet to the fence that enclosed the courtyard. Here,
next to the wall, a loosened plank swung outward at a touch, and he
was standing in a narrow, black areaway beyond. There was only the

depth of the house between himself and the street, and he paused now,
crouched motionless against the wall, listening. He heard no footfalls
from the pavement--only, like a distant murmur, the night sounds from
the Bowery, a block away--only the muffled roar of an elevated train.
The way was presumably clear, and he moved forward
again--cautiously. He reached the front of the building, which, like the
old Sanctuary, was a tenement of the poorer class, paused once more,
this time to peer quickly up and down the dark, ill-lighted cross
street--and, satisfied that he was safe from observation, stepped out on
the sidewalk, and began to walk nonchalantly along to the Bowery.
And here, at the corner, under a street lamp he consulted his watch. It
was ten o'clock! He smiled a little ironically. Certainly, they would
hardly expect him as early as that! Well, he would be a little ahead of
time, that was all!
CHAPTER III
THE MAN WITH THE SCAR
Jimmie Dale walked on again, rapidly now, heading down the Bowery.
At the expiration of perhaps ten minutes, he turned east; and still a few
minutes later, in the neighbourhood of Chatham Square, plunged
suddenly into a dark alleyway--there was, of course, as there was to all
such places, an unobtrusive entrance to Malay John's.
His lips tightened a little as he moved quietly forward. To venture here
in