"Close your face, Whitie, and get the works out!" Malone cut in shortly.

"We've only got the whole night ahead of us--but we'll need it all.

We're going to run the queer off that cracked plate."

One of the others, Marty Dean this time, a certain brutal aggressiveness in both features and physique, edged forward.

"Say, what's the lay?" he demanded. "A joke? We printed one fiver off that plate--and then we knew enough to quit. With that crack along the corner, you couldn't pa.s.s 'em on a blind man! And Gregor saying he thought we could patch the plate up enough to get by with gives me a pain--he's got jingles in his dome factory! Run them fivers eh--say, are you cracked, too?"

"Aw, forget it!" observed Malone caustically. "Who's running this gang?"

Then, with a malicious grin: "I got a customer for those fivers--fifteen thousand dollars for all we can turn out to-night. See?"

The others stared at him for a moment, incredulity and greed mingling in a curious half-hesitant, half-expectant look on their faces.

Then Whitie Burns spoke, circling his lips with the tip of his tongue:

"D'ye mean it, Cap--honest? What's the lay? How'd you work it?"

Malone, unbending with the sensation he had created, grinned again.

"Easy enough," he said offhandedly. "It was like falling off a log.

Gregor said, didn't he, that the only way he had been able to get his claws on that plate was on account of young Matthews going away sick--eh? Well, the old Matthews woman, his mother, has got money--about fifteen thousand. I guess she ain't got any more than that, or I'd have raised the ante. Aw, it was easy. She threw it at me. I framed one up on them, that's all. I'm Kline, of the secret service--see? I don't suppose they'd ever seen him, though they'd know his name fast enough, but I made up something like him. I showed them where I had a case against Sammy for pinching the plate that was strong enough to put a hundred innocent men behind the bars. Of course, he knew well enough he was innocent, but he could see the twenty years I showed him with both eyes.

Say, he mussed all over the place, and went and fainted like a girl. And then the old woman came across with an offer of fifteen thousand for the plate, and corrupted me." Malone's cunning, vicious face, now that the softening effects of the gray hair and mustache were gone, seemed accentuated diabolically by the grin broadening into a laugh, as he guffawed.

Marty Dean's hand swung with a bang to Malone's shoulder.

"Say, Cap--say, you're all right!" he exclaimed excitedly. "You're the boy! But what's the good of running anything off the plate before turning it over to 'em--the stuff's no good to us."

"You got a wooden nut, with sawdust for brains," said Malone sarcastically. "If he'd thought the gang of counterfeiters that was supposed to have bought the plate from him had run off only one fiver and then stopped because they say it wouldn't get by, and weren't going to run any more, and just destroy the plate like it was supposed to have been destroyed to begin with, and it all end up with no one the wiser, where d'ye think we'd have banked that fifteen thousand! I told him I had the whole run confiscated, and that the queer went with the plate, so we'll just make that little run to-night--that's why I sent word around to you this morning."

"By the jumping!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Whitie Burns, heavy with admiration. "You got a head on you, Cap!"

"It's a good thing for some of you that I have," returned Malone complacently. "But don't stand jawing all night. Go on, now--get busy!"

There was no surprise in Jimmie Dale's face--he had chosen his position behind a pile of cases that he had been extremely careful, as a man is careful when his life hangs in the balance, to a.s.sure himself were empty. None of the four came near or touched the pile behind which he stood; but, here and there about the room, they pulled this one and that one out from various stacks. In scarcely more than a moment, the room was completely transformed. It was no longer a storeroom for surplus stock, for the storage of bulky and empty packing cases! From the cases the men had picked out, like a touch of magic, appeared a veritable printing plant, an elaborate engraver's outfit--a highly efficient foot-power press, rapidly being a.s.sembled by Whitie Burns; an electric dryer, inks, a pile of white, silk-threaded bank-note paper, a cutter, and a score of other appurtenances.

"Yes," said Jimmie Dale very gently to himself. "Yes, quite so--but the plate? Ah!" Malone was taking it out from the middle of a bundle of old newspapers, loosely tied together, that he had lifted from one of the cases.

Jimmie Dale's eyes fastened on it--and from that instant never left it.

A minute pa.s.sed, two, three of them--the four men were silently busy about the room--Malone was carefully cleaning the plate.

"They will raid to-night. Look out for Kline, he is the sharpest man in the United State secret service"--the warning in her letter was running through Jimmie Dale's mind. Kline--the real Kline--was going to raid the place to-night. When? At what time? It must be nearly eleven o'clock already, and--

It came sudden, quick as the crack of doom--a terrific crash against the bolted door--but the door, undoubtedly to the surprise of those without, held fast, thanks to the bolt. The four men, white-faced, seemed for an instant turned to statues. Came another crash against the door--and a sharp, imperative order to those within to open it and surrender.

"We're pinched! Beat it!" whispered Whitie Burns wildly--and dashed for the trapdoor.

Like a rat for its hole, Marty Dean followed. Malone, farther away, dropped the plate on the floor, and rushed, with Moulton beside him, after the others--but he never reached the trapdoor.

Over the crashing blows, raining now in quick succession on the door of the room, over a startled commotion as lodgers, roomers, and tenants on the floor above awoke into frightened activity with shouts and cries, came the louder crash of a pile of packing boxes hurled to the floor.

And over them, vaulting those scattered in his way, Jimmie Dale sprang at Malone. The man reeled back, with a cry. Moulton dashed through the trapdoor and disappeared. The short, ugly barrel of Jimmie Dale's automatic was between Malone's eyes.

"You make a move," said Jimmie Dale, in a low sibilant way, "and I'll drop you where you stand! Put your hands behind your back--palms together!"

Malone, dazed, cowed, obeyed. A panel of the door split and rent down its length--the hinges were sagging. Jimmie Dale worked like lightning.

The cord with the slip noose from his pocket went around Malone's wrists, jerked tight, and knotted; the placard, his lips grim, with no sign of humour, Jimmie Dale dangled around the man's neck.

"An introduction for you to Mr. Kline out there--that you seem so fond of!" gritted Jimmie Dale. Then, working as he talked: "I've got no time to tell you what I think of you, you pitiful hound"--he s.n.a.t.c.hed up the plate from the floor and put it in his pocket--"Twenty years, I think you said, didn't you?"--his hand shot into Malone's pocket-book, and extracted the five-dollar note--"If you can open this with your toes maybe you can get a way"--he wrenched the trapdoor over and slammed it shut--"good-night, Malone"--and he leaped for the window.

The door tottered inward from the top, ripping, tearing, smashing hinges, panels, and jamb. Jimmie Dale got a blurred vision of bra.s.s b.u.t.tons, blue coats, and helmets, and, in the forefront, of a stocky, gray-mustached, gray-haired man in plain clothes.

Jimmie Dale threw up the window, swung out, as with a rush the officers burst through into the room and a revolver bullet hummed viciously past his ear, and dropped to the ground--into encircling arms!

"Ah, no, you don't, my bucko!" snapped a hoa.r.s.e voice in his ear. "Keep quiet now, or I'll crack your bean--understand!"

But the officer, too heavy to be muscular, was no match for Jimmie Dale, who, even as he had dropped from the sill, had caught sight of the lurking form below; and now, with a quick, sudden, lithe movement he wriggled loose, his fist from a short-arm jab smashed upon the point of the other's jaw, sending the man staggering backward--and Jimmie Dale ran.

A crowd was already collecting at the mouth of the alleyway, mostly occupants of the house itself, and into these, scattering them in all directions, eluding dexterously another officer who made a grab for him, Jimmie Dale charged at top speed, burst through, and headed down the street, running like a deer.

Yells went up, a revolver spat venomously behind him, came the shrill CHEEP-CHEEP! of the police whistle, and heavy boots pounding the pavement in pursuit.

Down the block Jimmie Dale raced. The yells augmented in his rear.

Another shot--and this time he heard the bullet buzz. And then he swerved--into the next alleyway--that flanked the Sanctuary.

He had perhaps a ten yards' lead, just a little more than the distance from the street to the side door of the Sanctuary that opened on the alleyway. And, as he ran now, his fingers tore at his clothing, loosening his tie, unb.u.t.toning coat, vest, collar, shirt, and undershirt. He leaped at the door, swung it open, flung himself inside--and then sacrificing speed to silence, went up the stairs like a cat, cramming his mask now into his pocket.

His room was on the first landing. In an instant he had unlocked the door, entered, and locked it again behind him. From outside, an excited street urchin's voice shrilled up to him:

"He went in that door! I seen him!"

The police whistle chirped again; and then an authoritative voice:

"Get around and watch the saloon back of this, Heeney--there's a way out through there from this joint."

Jimmie Dale, divested of every st.i.tch of clothing that he had worn, pulled a disreputable collarless flannel shirt over his head, pulled on a dirty and patched pair of trousers, and slipped into a threadbare and filthy coat. Jimmie Dale was working against seconds. They were at the lower door now. He lifted the oilcloth in the corner of the room, lifted up the loose piece of the flooring, shoved his discarded garments inside, and from a little box that was there smeared the hollow of his hand with some black substance, possessed himself of two little articles, replaced the flooring, replaced the oilcloth, and, in bare feet, stole across the room to the door. Against the door, without a sound, Jimmie Dale placed a chair, and on the chair seat he laid the two little articles he had been carrying in his hand. It was intensely black in the room, but Jimmie Dale needed no light here. From under the bed he pulled out a pair of woolen socks and a pair of congress boots, both as disreputable as the rest of his attire, put them on--and very quietly, softly, cautiously, stretched himself out on the bed.

The officers were at the top of the stairs. A voice barked out:

"Stand guard on this landing, Peters. Higgins, you take the one above.

We'll start from the top of the house and work down. Allow no one to pa.s.s you."

"Yes, sir! Very good, Mr. Kline," was the response.

Kline!--the sharpest man in the United States secret service, she had said. Jimmie Dale's lips set.

"I'm glad I had no shave this morning," said Jimmie Dale grimly to himself.

His fingers were working with the black substance in the hollow of his hand--and the long, slim, tapering fingers, the shapely, well-cared-for hands grew unkempt and grimy, black beneath the finger nails--and a little, too, played its part on the day's growth of beard, a little around the throat and at the nape of the neck, a little across the forehead to meet the locks of straggling and disordered hair. Jimmie Dale wiped the residue from the hollow of his hand on the knee of his trousers--and lay still.

An officer paced outside. Upstairs doors opened and closed. Gruff, harsh tones in commands echoed through the house. The search party descended to the second floor--and again the same sounds were repeated. And then, thumping down the creaking stairs, they stopped before Jimmie Dale's room. Some one tried the door, and, finding it locked, rattled it violently.