The Adventures of Jimmie Dale | Page 5

to end
up: 'Find the lady, old chap; and you'll get me.' He had a damned
patronising familiarity that would make you squirm."
"Poor old Carruthers!" grinned Jimmie Dale. "You did take it to heart,
didn't you?"
"I'd have sold my soul to get him--and so would you, if you had been in
my boots," said Carruthers, biting nervously at the end of his cigar.
"And been sorry for it afterward," supplied Jimmie Dale.
"Yes, by Jove, you're right!" admitted Carruthers, "I suppose I should. I
actually got to love the fellow--it was the GAME, really, that I wanted
to beat."
"Well, and how about this woman? Keep on the straight and narrow
path, old man," prodded Jimmie Dale.
"The woman?" Carruthers smiled. "Nothing doing! I don't believe there
was one--he wouldn't have been likely to egg the police and reporters
on to finding her if there had been, would he? It was a blind, of course.
He worked alone, absolutely alone. That's the secret of his success,

according to my way of thinking. There was never so much as an
indication that he had had an accomplice in anything he ever did."
Jimmie Dale's eyes travelled around the club's homelike, perfectly
appointed room. He nodded to a fellow member here and there, then his
eyes rested musingly on his guest again.
Carruthers was staring thoughtfully at his coffee cup.
"He was the prince of crooks and the father of originality," announced
Carruthers abruptly, following the pause that had ensued. "Half the
time there wasn't any more getting at the motive for the curious things
he did, than there was getting at the Gray Seal himself."
"Carruthers," said Jimmy Dale, with a quick little nod of approval,
"you're positively interesting to-night. But, so far, you've been kind of
scouting around the outside edges without getting into the thick of it.
Let's have some of your experiences with the Gray Seal in detail; they
ought to make ripping fine yarns."
"Not to-night, Jimmie," said Carruthers; "it would take too long." He
pulled out his watch mechanically as he spoke, glanced at it--and
pushed back his chair. "Great Scott!" he exclaimed. "It's nearly
half-past nine. I'd no idea we had lingered so long over dinner. I'll have
to hurry; we're a morning paper, you know, Jimmie."
"What! Really! Is it as late as that." Jimmie Dale rose from his chair as
Carruthers stood up. "Well, if you must--"
"I must," said Carruthers, with a laugh.
"All right, O slave." Jimmie Dale laughed back--and slipped his hand, a
trick of their old college days together, through Carruthers' arm as they
left the room.
He accompanied Carruthers downstairs to the door of the club, and saw
his guest into a taxi; then he returned inside, sauntered through the
billiard room, and from there into one of the cardrooms, where, pressed

into a game, he played several rubbers of bridge before going home.
It was, therefore, well on toward midnight when Jimmie Dale arrived at
his house on Riverside Drive, and was admitted by an elderly
manservant.
"Hello, Jason," said Jimmie Dale pleasantly. "You still up!"
"Yes, sir," replied Jason, who had been valet to Jimmie Dale's father
before him. "I was going to bed, sir, at about ten o'clock, when a
messenger came with a letter. Begging your pardon, sir, a young lady,
and--"
"Jason"--Jimmie Dale flung out the interruption, sudden, quick,
imperative--"what did she look like?"
"Why--why, I don't exactly know as I could describe her, sir,"
stammered Jason, taken aback. "Very ladylike, sir, in her dress and
appearance, and what I would call, sir, a beautiful face."
"Hair and eyes--what color?" demanded Jimmie Dale crisply. "Nose,
lips, chin--what shape?"
"Why, sir," gasped Jason, staring at his master, "I--I don't rightly know.
I wouldn't call her fair or dark, something between. I didn't take
particular notice, and it wasn't overlight outside the door."
"It's too bad you weren't a younger man, Jason," commented Jimmie
Dale, with a curious tinge of bitterness in his voice. "I'd have given a
year's income for your opportunity to-night, Jason."
"Yes, sir," said Jason helplessly.
"Well, go on," prompted Jimmie Dale. "You told her I wasn't home,
and she said she knew it, didn't she? And she left the letter that I was on
no account to miss receiving when I got back, though there was no
need of telephoning me to the club--when I returned would do, but it
was imperative that I should have it then--eh?"

"Good Lord, sir!" ejaculated Jason, his jaw dropped, that's exactly what
she did say."
"Jason," said Jimmie Dale grimly, "listen to me. If ever she comes here
again, inveigle her in. If you can't inveigle her, use force; capture her,
pull her in, do anything--do anything, do you hear? Only don't let her