All was silence around him now, except that from overhead came occasionally the muffled tread of feet.He felt his way along into a black, narrow passage, emerged into a second cellar, swept the place with a single, circling gleam from a pocket flashlight, passed a stairway that led upward, reached the opposite wall, and, dropping on hands and knees, crawled into what, innocently enough, appeared to be the opening of a coal bin.
He knew Chang Foo's well--as he knew the ins and outs of every den and place he frequented, knew them as a man knows such things when his life at any moment might hang upon his knowledge.
He was in another passage now, and this, in a few steps, brought him to a door.Here he halted, and stood for a full five minutes, absolutely motionless, absolutely still, listening.There was nothing--not a sound.He tried the door cautiously.It was locked.
The slim, sensitive, tapering fingers of Jimmie Dale, unrecognisable now in the grimy digits of Larry the Bat, felt tentatively over the lock.To fingers that seemed in their tips to possess all the human senses, that time and again in their delicate touch upon the dial of a safe had mocked at human ingenuity and driven the police into impotent frenzy, this was a pitiful thing.From his pocket came a small steel instrument that was quickly and deftly inserted in the keyhole.There was a click, the door swung open, and Jimmie Dale, alias Larry the Bat, stepped outside into a back yard half a block away from the entrance to Chang Foo's.
Again he listened.There did not appear to be any unusual excitement in the neighbourhood.From open windows above him and from adjoining houses came the ordinary, commonplace sounds of voices talking and laughing, even the queer, weird notes of a Chinese chant.He stole noiselessly across the yard, out into the lane, and made his way rapidly along to the cross street.
In a measure, now, he was safe; but one thing, a very vital thing, remained to be done.It was absolutely necessary that he should know whether he was the quarry that the police had been after in the raid, if it was the police who had been shadowing him all evening.
If it was the police, there was but one meaning to it--Larry the Bat was known to be the Gray Seal, and a problem perilous enough in any aspect confronted him.Dare he risk the Sanctuary--for the clothes of Jimmie Dale? Or was it safer to burglarise, as he had once done before, his own mansion on Riverside Drive?
His thoughts were running riot, and he frowned, angry with himself.
There was time enough to think of that when he knew that it was the police against whom he had to match his wits.
Well in the shadow of the buildings, he moved swiftly along the side street until he came to the corner of the street on which, halfway down the block, fronted Chang Foo's tea-shop.A glance in that direction, and Jimmie Dale drew a breath of relief.A patrol wagon was backed up to the curb, and a half dozen officers were busy loading it with what was evidently Chang Foo's far from meagre stock of gambling appurtenances; while Chang Foo himself, together with Sam Wah and another attendant, were in the grip of two other officers, waiting possibly for another patrol wagon.There was a crowd, too, but the crowd was at a respectful distance--on the opposite side of the street.
Jimmie Dale still hugged the corner.A man swaggered out from a doorway, quite close to Chang Foo's, and came on along the street.
As the other reached the corner, Jimmie Dale sidled forward.
"'Ello, Chick!" he said, out of the corner of his mouth."Wot's de lay?""'Ello, Larry!" returned the other."Aw, nuthin'! De nutcracker on Chang, dat's all.""I t'ought mabbe dey was lookin' for some guy dat was in dere,"observed Jimmie Dale.
"Nuthin' doin'!" the other answered."I was in dere meself.De whole mob beat it clean, an' de bulls never batted an eye.Didn't youse pipe me make me get-away outer Shanghai's a minute ago? De bulls never went nowhere except into Chang's.Dere's a new lootenant in de precinct inaugeratin' himself, dat's all.S'long, Larry--I gotta date.""S'long, Chick!" responded Jimmie Dale--and started slowly back along the cross street.
It was not the police, then, who were interested in his movements!
Then who? He shook his head with a little, savage, impotent gesture.One thing was clear: it was too early to risk a return to the Sanctuary and attempt the rehabilitation of Jimmie Dale.If any one was on the hunt for Larry the Bat, the Sanctuary would be the last place to be overlooked.
He turned the next corner, hesitated a moment in front of a garishly lighted dance hall, and finally shuffled in through the door, made his way across the floor, nodding here and there to the elite of gangland, and, with a somewhat arrogant air of proprietorship, sat down at a table in the corner.Little better than a tramp in appearance, certainly the most disreputable-looking object in the place, even the waiter who approached him accorded him a certain curious deference--was not Larry the Bat the most celebrated dope fiend below the dead line?