The Adventures of Jimmie Dale | Page 4

world, whose rise from reporter to managing editor of the
morning NEWS-ARGUS within the short space of a few years had
been almost meteoric.
They were at coffee and cigars, and Jimmie Dale was leaning back in
his chair, his dark eyes fixed interestedly on his guest.
Carruthers, intently engaged in trimming his cigar ash on the edge of

the Limoges china saucer of his coffee set, looked up with an abrupt
laugh.
"No; I wouldn't care to go on record as being an advocate of crime," he
said whimsically; "that would never do. But I don't mind admitting
quite privately that it's been a positive regret to me that he has gone."
"Made too good 'copy' to lose, I suppose?" suggested Jimmie Dale
quizzically. "Too bad, too, after working up a theatrical name like that
for him--the Gray Seal--rather unique! Who stuck that on him-- you?"
Carruthers laughed--then, grown serious, leaned toward Jimmie Dale.
"You don't mean to say, Jimmie, that you don't know about that, do
you?" he asked incredulously. "Why, up to a year ago the papers were
full of him."
"I never read your beastly agony columns," said Jimmie Dale, with a
cheery grin.
"Well," said Carruthers, "you must have skipped everything but the
stock reports then."
"Granted," said Jimmie Dale. "So go on, Carruthers, and tell me about
him--I dare say I may have heard of him, since you are so distressed
about it, but my memory isn't good enough to contradict anything you
may have to say about the estimable gentleman, so you're safe."
Carruthers reverted to the Limoges saucer and the tip of his cigar.
"He was the most puzzling, bewildering, delightful crook in the annals
of crime," said Carruthers reminiscently, after a moment's silence.
"Jimmie, he was the king-pin of them all. Clever isn't the word for him,
or dare-devil isn't either. I used to think sometimes his motive was
more than half for the pure deviltry of it, to laugh at the police and pull
the noses of the rest of us that were after him. I used to dream nights
about those confounded gray seals of his--that's where he got his name;
he left every job he ever did with a little gray paper affair, fashioned

diamond-shaped, stuck somewhere where it would be the first thing
your eyes would light upon when you reached the scene, and--"
"Don't go so fast," smiled Jimmie Dale. "I don't quite get the
connection. What did you have to do with this--er--Gray Seal fellow?
Where do you come in?"
"I? I had a good deal to do with him," said Carruthers grimly. "I was a
reporter when he first broke loose, and the ambition of my life, after I
began really to appreciate what he was, was to get him--and I nearly
did, half a dozen times, only--"
"Only you never quite did, eh?" cut in Jimmie Dale slyly. "How near
did you get, old man? Come on, now, no bluffing; did the Gray Seal
ever even recognise you as a factor in the hare-and-hound game?"
"You're flicking on the raw, Jimmie," Carruthers answered, with a wry
grimace. "He knew me, all right, confound him! He favoured me with
several sarcastic notes--I'll show 'em to you some day-- explaining how
I'd fallen down and how I could have got him if I'd done something
else." Carruthers' fist came suddenly down on the table. "And I would
have got him, too, if he had lived."
"Lived!" ejaculated Jimmie Dale. "He's dead, then?"
"Yes," averted Carruthers; "he's dead."
"H'm!" said Jimmie Dale facetiously. "I hope the size of the wreath you
sent was an adequate tribute of your appreciation."
"I never sent any wreath," returned Carruthers, "for the very simple
reason that I didn't know where to send it, or when he died. I said he
was dead because for over a year now he hasn't lifted a finger."
"Rotten poor evidence, even for a newspaper," commented Jimmie
Dale. "Why not give him credit for having, say--reformed?"
Carruthers shook his head. "You don't get it at all, Jimmie," he said

earnestly. "The Gray Seal wasn't an ordinary crook--he was a classic.
He was an artist, and the art of the thing was in his blood. A man like
that could no more stop than he could stop breathing--and live. He's
dead; there's nothing to it but that-- he's dead. I'd bet a year's salary on
it."
"Another good man gone wrong, then," said Jimmie Dale capriciously.
"I suppose, though, that at least you discovered the 'woman in the
case'?"
Carruthers looked up quickly, a little startled; then laughed shortly.
"What's the matter?" inquired Jimmie Dale.
"Nothing," said Carruthers. "You kind of got me for a moment, that's
all. That's the way those infernal notes from the Gray Seal used