LITMIR.BIZ

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under the upper lip, deftly placed-hands, wrists, neck, throat, and face received their quota of stain, applied with an artist's touch—and then the spruce, muscular Jimmie Dale, transformed into a slouching, vicious-featured denizen of the underworld, replaced the box under the flooring, pulled a slouch hat over his eyes, extinguished the gas, and went out.

      Jimmie Dale's range of acquaintanceship was wide—from the upper strata of the St. James Club to the elite of New York's gangland. And, adored by the one, he was trusted implicitly by the other—not understood, perhaps, by the latter, for he had never allied himself with any of their nefarious schemes, but trusted implicitly through long years of personal contact. It had stood Jimmie Dale in good stead before, this association, where, in a sort of strange, carefully guarded exchange, the news of the underworld was common property to those without the law. To New York in its millions, the murder of Metzer, the stool pigeon, would be unknown until the city rose in the morning to read the sensational details over the breakfast table; here, it would already be the topic of whispered conversations, here it had probably been known long before the police had discovered the crime. Especially would it be expected to be known to Pete Lazanis, commonly called the Runt, who was a power below the dead line and, more pertinent still, one in whose confidence Jimmie Dale had rejoiced for years.

      Jimmie Dale, as Larry the Bat—a euphonious “monaker” bestowed possibly because this particular world knew him only by night—began a search for the Runt. From one resort to another he hurried, talking in the accepted style through one corner of his mouth to hard-visaged individuals behind dirty, reeking bars that were reared on equally dirty and foul-smelling sawdust-strewn floors; visiting dance halls, secretive back rooms, and certain Chinese pipe joints.

      But the Runt was decidedly elusive. There had been no news of him, no one had seen him—and this after fully an hour had passed since Jimmie Dale had left Carruthers in front of Moriarty's. The possibilities however were still legion—numbered only by the numberless dives and dens sheltered by that quarter of the city.

      Jimmie Dale turned into Chatham Square, heading for the Pagoda Dance Hall. A man loitering at the curb shot a swift, searching glance at him as he slouched by. Jimmie Dale paused in the doorway of the Pagoda and looked up and down the street. The man he had passed had drawn a little closer; another man in an apparently aimless fashion lounged a few yards away.

      “Something up,” muttered Jimmie Dale to himself. “Lansing, of headquarters, and the other looks like Milrae.”

      Jimmie Dale pushed in through the door of the Pagoda. A bedlam of noise surged out at him—a tin-pan piano and a mandolin were going furiously from a little raised platform at the rear; in the centre of the room a dozen couples were in the throes of the tango and the bunny-hug; around the sides, at little tables, men and women laughed and applauded and thumped time on the tabletops with their beer mugs; while waiters, with beer-stained aprons and unshaven faces, juggled marvelous handfuls of glasses and mugs from the bar beside the platform to the patrons at the tables.

      Jimmie Dale's eyes swept the room in a swift, comprehensive glance, fixed on a little fellow, loudly dressed, who shared a table halfway down the room with a woman in a picture hat, and a smile of relief touched his lips. The Runt at last!

      He walked down the room, caught the Runt's eyes significantly as he passed the table, kept on to a door between the platform and the bar, opened it, and went out into a lighted hallway, at one end of which a door opened onto the street, and at the other a stairway led above.

      The Runt joined him. “Wot's de row, Larry?” inquired the Runt.

      “Nuthin' much,” said Jimmie Dale. “Only I t'ought I'd let youse know. I was passin' Moriarty's an' got de tip. Say, some guy's croaked Jake Metzer dere.”

      “Aw, ferget it!” observed the Runt airily. “Dat's stale. Was wise to dat hours ago.”

      Jimmie Dale's face fell. “But I just come from dere,” he insisted; “an' de harness bulls only just found it out.”

      “Mabbe,” grunted the Runt. “But Metzer got his early in de afternoon—see?”

      Jimmie Dale looked quickly around him—and then leaned toward the Runt.

      “Wot's de lay, Runt?” he whispered.

      The Runt pulled down one eyelid, and, with his knowing grin, the cigarette, clinging to his upper lip, sagged down in the opposite corner of his mouth.

      Jimmie Dale grinned, too—in a flash inspiration had come to Jimmie Dale.

      “Say, Runt”—he jerked his head toward the street door—“wot's de fly cops doin' out dere?”

      The grin vanished from the Runt's lips. He stared for a second wildly at Jimmie Dale, and then clutched at Jimmie Dale's arm.

      “De WOT?” he said hoarsely.

      “De fly cops,” Jimmie Dale repeated in well-simulated surprise. “Dey was dere when I come in—Lansing an' Milrae, an—”

      The Runt shot a hurried glance at the stairway, and licked his lips as though they had gone suddenly dry.

      “My Gawd, I—” He gasped, and shrank hastily back against the wall beside Jimmie Dale.

      The door from the street had opened noiselessly, instantly. Black forms bulked there—then a rush of feet—and at the head of half a dozen men, the face of Inspector Clayton loomed up before Jimmie Dale. There was a second's pause in the rush; and, in the pause, Clayton's voice, in a vicious undertone:

      “You two ginks open your traps, and I'll run you both in!”

      And then the rush passed, and swept on up the stairs.

      Jimmie Dale looked at the Runt. The cigarette dangled limply; the Runt's eyes were like a hunted beast's.

      “Dey got him!” he mumbled. “It's Stace—Stace Morse. He come to me after croakin' Metzer, an' he's been hidin' up dere all afternoon.”

      Stace Morse—known in gangland as a man with every crime in the calendar to his credit, and prominent because of it! Something seemed to go suddenly queer inside of Jimmie Dale. Stace Morse! Was he wrong, after all? Jimmie Dale drew closer to the Runt.

      “Yer givin' me a steer, ain't youse?” He spoke again from the corner of his mouth, almost inaudibly. “Are youse sure it was Stace croaked Metzer? Wot fer? How'd yer know?”

      The Runt was listening, his eyes strained toward the stairs. The hall door to the street was closed, but both were quite well aware that there was an officer on guard outside.

      “He told me,” whispered the Runt. “Metzer was fixin' ter snitch on him ter-night. Dey've got de goods on Stace, too. He made a bum job of it.”

      “Why didn't he get out of de country den when he had de chanst, instead of hangin' around here all afternoon?” demanded Jimmie Dale.

      “He was broke,” the Runt answered. “We was gettin' de coin fer him ter fade away wid ter-night, an'—”

      A revolver shot from above cut short his words. Came then the sound of a struggle, oaths, the shuffling tread of feet—but in the dance hall the piano still rattled on, the mandolin twanged, voices sang and applauded, and beer mugs thumped time.

      They were on the stairs now, the officers, half carrying, half dragging some one between them—and the man they dragged cursed them with utter abandon. As they reached the bottom of the stairs, Jimmie Dale caught sight of the prisoner's face—not a prepossessing one—villainous—low-browed, contorted with a mixture of fear and rage.

      “It's a lie! A lie! A lie!” the man shrieked. “I never seen him in me life—blast you!—curse you!—d'ye hear!”

      Inspector Clayton caught Jimmie Dale and the Runt by the collars.

      “There's nothing to interest you around here!” he snapped maliciously. “Go on, now—beat it!” And he pushed them toward the door.

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