The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale

by Frank L. Packard

“Keep quiet!” snapped a man’s voice gruffly. “We’ve heard all that a dozen times now. It’s a pity you didn’t think more about being his mother twenty years ago! Mike, you’d better lock that front door!”

Jimmie Dale drew back, and closed the door softly. If he were caught here now! The old woman had brought the police back with her—two of them, it appeared. He smiled in a hard way. Well, he did not propose to be caught. His hand reached up to the electric light switch, there was a click, and the room was in darkness. In the fraction of a second more he was at the window. Shade and window were swiftly, silently raised, and he looked out cautiously. The street was deserted, empty; there was no one in sight. It was very simple, a drop of a few feet to the sidewalk, a dash around the corner—and that was all. They were coming now. He swung one leg over the sill—and sat there motionless, his mind balancing with lightning speed the pros against the cons of a sudden inspiration that had come to him. Justice... justice on those guilty of this wretched murder here, and guilty of many another crime almost as grave...he had asked himself how...here was a way...a daredevil, foolhardy way? ... no, the possibility of being winged by a chance shot, perhaps, but otherwise a safe way ... escape through that panel door operated by weights ... and it was not far to that den the Tocsin had described ... nor would he be running into a trap himself ... the gang was not there ... perhaps no one ... but perhaps, with luck, those he might wish would be there ... it would be a gracious little act on the part of the Gray Seal, would it not, to invite the police, this Mike and his companion, to that den—they would be deeply interested! He laughed low—they were almost at the door now. Well? The doorknob rattled. Yes, he would do it! Yes—now! He stretched out suddenly, and with the toe of his boot kicked over a chair that was within reach. The crash, as the chair fell, was answered by a rush through the door, a hoarse, surprised and quick-flung oath—and, as Jimmie Dale swung out through the window and dropped to the street, the flash and roar of a revolver shot.

Like a cat on his feet, he whirled as he touched the pavement, and darted along past the backyard fence, heading for the lane; and, as he ran, over his shoulder, he saw first one and then the other of the two men, both in police uniform, drop from the window and take up the pursuit. Another shot, and another, a fusillade of them rang out. A bullet struck the pavement at his feet with a venomous spat. He heard the humming of another that was like the humming of an angry wasp. And he laughed again to himself—but short and grimly now. Just a few yards more—five of them—to the corner of the lane. It was the chance he had invited—three yards—two—his breath was coming in hard, short panting gasps—safe! Yes! He had won now—they would not get another shot at him, at least not another that he would have any need to fear!

He swerved into the lane, still running at top speed. A high board fence, she had said—yes, there it was! And it corresponded in location with where he knew it should be—about three lots in from the street. He sprang for it, and swung lithely to the top—and hung there, as though still scrambling and struggling for his balance. The officers had not turned into the lane yet, and he had no intention of affording them any excuse for losing sight of their quarry!

Ah! There they were! A yell and a revolver shot rang out simultaneously as they caught sight of him—and Jimmie Dale dropped down to the ground on the inside of the fence. In the moonlight he could see quite distinctly. He darted across the yard, heading for the basement door of the building that loomed up in front of him.

The little steel picklock was in his hand as he reached the door. A second—two—three went by. He straightened up—and again he waited—stepping back a few feet to stand sharply outlined in the moonlight.

Again a shout in signal that he was seen, as one of the officers’ heads appeared over the top of the fence—and Jimmie Dale, as though in mad haste, plunged through the door.

And now suddenly his tactics changed. He needed every second he could gain, and the police now certainly could no longer lose their way. He swung the door shut behind him, locked it to delay them, and snatched his flashlight from his pocket. He was at the top of a few ladder-like steps that led down into the cellar of the building, and halfway along the length of the cellar the ray of his flashlight swept across a huge coal bin, its sides, it seemed, built almost up to the ceiling.

Jimmie Dale was muttering to himself now, as he took the steps at a single leap, and raced toward the side of the bin that flanked the wall—“seventh board from the wall—knot on a level with shoulders”—and now he was counting rapidly—and now the round, white ray played on the seventh board. They were smashing at the cellar door now. The knot! Ah—there it was! He pressed it. Two of the boards in front of him, the width of a man’s body, swung back. He left this open—a blazed trail for his pursuers, battering now at the cellar door—and stepped forward into a little opening, too short to be called a passage, and, silent now, halted before another door.

Brain and eyes and hands were working now with incredible speed. That it was a sound-proof room was not, perhaps, altogether an unmixed blessing! Was the place deserted? Was there any one within? He could hear nothing. Well, after all, did it make any ultimate difference? The room itself would condemn them!