D. J. Medley - "The Church and the Empire"

George Chetwynd Griffith - "The Romance of Golden Star ..."

Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay) - "Cecilia vol. 2"

Havelock Ellis - "Essays in War Time"

Annual Bibliography of Commonwealth Literature 2007
This paper argues that discourses of love in Ghanaian market literature for youth offer a view into complex negotiations of agency and empowerment. Drawing on Deborah Durham's notion of youth as "social `shifters'" and Francis Nyamnjoh's conception of the "interconnectedness" of agency, I take Ghanaian market literature as one specific case of how African literature for youth foregrounds questions of continuity and change as African societies enter into increasingly complex global relations. In this literature for youth, received notions of love, often constructed out of impressions from American pop and hip hop music, carry new notions of agency that compete with existing "domesticated" forms. Authors like Ike Tandoh and Evelyn Tay employ discourses of love to offer youth alternative avenues for empowerment in a context of socio-economic disenfranchizement. In a creative process of "straddling", this writing both reveals and reproduces the contradictions that obtain in youth configurations of agency.

The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale

F >> Frank L. Packard >> The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale




He tore one of Thorold's arms free from his neck--they were cheek to
cheek--Thorold was snarling out a torrent of blasphemy with gasping
breath--he wrenched himself free still--and then, their two hands
outstretched and clasped together as though in some grim devil's waltz,
they reeled toward the bed at the far end of the room, and smashed into
a chair. And, as they lost their balance, Jimmie Dale, gathering all his
strength for the one supreme effort, hurled the other from him. There
was a crash that shook the floor, as Thorold, hurtling backwards,
struck his head with terrific force against the iron bedstead, and
dropped like a log.

Jimmie Dale was on his feet again in an instant--but not before old Jake
had run, yelling madly, from the room. A glance Jimmie Dale gave at
Thorold, who lay limp and motionless, a crimson stream beginning to
trickle over temple and cheek; then, with a bound, he reached the
gas-jet, and turned out the light.

Old Jake's voice screamed from the hallway without:

"Help! The Gray Seal! The Gray Seal! Help! Help! Quick! The Gray Seal!"

The staircase creaked under the rush of feet; yells began to well up
from below. Jimmie Dale darted into the outer room, and crouched down
beside the doorway.

"Death to the Gray Seal!" The whole building, in a pandemonium of
hellish glee, seemed to echo and reecho the shout.

Jimmie Dale was deadly calm now, as his fingers closed around his
automatic--and, deadly cool, the keen, alert, active brain was at work.
It was black about him, pitch black, there were no lights in the
hallway--yes, a dull glimmer now--a door farther along had opened--but
dark enough in here where he waited. There was a chance--with the odds
heavily against him--but it was the only way.

They were on the landing outside now; and now, old Jake shouting
excitedly amongst them, a dozen forms swept through the doorway, and
scuffing, stamping, yelling, made for the inner room--and Jimmie Dale
slipped out into the hall. His lips pressed tightly together. That had
been as he had expected, but the danger still lay before him--in the
three flights of stairs. Some one was coming up now, more than one,
the stragglers--but there would be stragglers until the last occupant
of the tenement was aroused. He dared not wait. In a minute more, in
less than a minute, they would have lighted the gas again in there and
found him gone.

He jumped for the head of the stairs--a dark form loomed up before him.
Jimmie Dale launched himself full at the other. There was a cry of
surprise, an oath, the man pitched sideways, and Jimmie Dale sprang by.
A yell went up from the man behind him; it was echoed by a wild chorus
from above, as of wolves robbed of their prey; it was re-echoed by
shouts from the stairways and halls below--and with his left hand on the
banisters to guide him, taking the stairs four and five at a time,
Jimmie Dale went down--and now, aiming at the ground, his revolver spat
and barked a vicious warning, cutting lurid flashes through the murk
ahead of him.

Doors that were open along the hallways shut with a hurried bang; dark
forms, like rats running for their holes, scuttled to safety; women
screamed and shrieked; children whimpered. On Jimmie Dale ran. For the
second time he crashed into a form, and won by. They were firing at him
from above now--but by guesswork--firing down the stair well. The pound
of feet racing down the stairs came from behind him--two flights behind
him--he calculated he had that much start. He gained the entrance
hallway where all was dark, leaped for the front door, opened it, pulled
it shut with a violent slam--and, whirling instantly, running swiftly
and silently back along the hall, he reached the rear door that he had
left unfastened, darted out, and a moment later, swinging himself over a
high, backyard fence, dropped down into the lane beyond. Whipping off
his mask, he ran on like a hare until he approached the lane's
intersection with a cross street. And here, well back from the street,
he paused to regain his breath and rearrange his dishevelled attire;
then, edging forward, he peered cautiously up and down--and smiled
grimly--and stepped out on the street. He was a good block away from
the tenement.

From the direction of the Nest came sounds of disorder and riot. A
patrolman's whistle rang out shrilly. It had been as close a call
perhaps as the Gray Seal had ever known--but, at that, the night's work
was not ended! There was still the actual thief. Thorold had said he was
to meet the man in his, Thorold's, office in half an hour to split their
ill-gotten gains. Jimmie Dale's jaw squared. The thief! His hand at his
side clenched suddenly. Would it be _only_ the thief, or would he have
to reckon with Thorold again as well? Could Thorold keep the appointment?
It was a question of how badly Thorold was hurt, and that he did not
know.

Jimmie Dale walked on another block, still another, then turned so as to
bring him into, but well up, the street on which the tenement was
situated. From here, far down the ill-lighted street, he could see a mob
gathered outside the Nest. And then, as he stood hesitant, there came
the strident clang of a bell, the beat of hoofs, and he caught the name
of the hospital on the side of an ambulance as it tore by--and, at that,
he swung suddenly about, and, making his way across to Broadway, boarded
an uptown car.

Twenty minutes later, he closed the door of a telephone booth in a
saloon on lower Sixth Avenue behind him, and consulting the directory
for the number, called the hospital.

"This is police headquarters speaking," said Jimmie Dale coolly. "What's
the condition of that tenement case with the broken head?"

"Hold the wire a minute," came the answer; and then, presently: "Not
serious; but still unconscious."

"Thank you," said Jimmie Dale.

He hung up the receiver, and made his way out to the street. The coast
was clear then, as far as Thorold was concerned. Jimmie Dale walked on
halfway up the block, and turned into the lighted hallway of a small
building whose second floor, above a millinery establishment, was rented
out for offices. It was here that Thorold maintained what he called his
"office." Mounting the stairs and emerging upon a narrow corridor, that
was lighted at one end by a single incandescent, Jimmie Dale halted
before a door that bore the legend: HENRY THOROLD--AGENT. Jimmie Dale's
lips twisted into grim lines. Agent--of what? He glanced quickly up and
down the corridor, slipped his little steel instrument into the lock,
and opened the door.

He stepped inside, closing the door without re-locking it; and, using
his flashlight now, moved forward, and entered a sort of inner office
that was partitioned off from the rest of the room. There was a
flat-topped desk here, a swivel chair, an armchair, a rather good
drawing or two on the walls, and a soft yielding carpet underfoot.
Thorold was far too clever to overdo anything--it was simply
businesslike, with an air of modest success about it.

Jimmie Dale appropriated the swivel chair behind the desk. Half an hour
from the time he had left the tenement! He should not have long to wait,
for he had used up nearly, if not quite, all of that time already, and
the thief would certainly have every incentive to be punctual. He laid
his flashlight, turned on, upon the desk, and, taking his automatic from
his pocket, examined it. There were still two cartridges remaining in
the magazine. He slipped the weapon into the side pocket of his coat,
and began to sort over the papers and letters he had taken from Thorold.
He opened one--a letter--glanced at its contents--and nodded. It was the
one to which the Tocsin had referred. He returned the others to his
pocket, began to read the one in his hand and suddenly, leaning forward,
snapped out his light. _Was that a step coming up the stairs?_

He listened now intently. Yes, it was coming nearer. He laid down the
letter on the desk, and put on his mask. Still nearer came the step. It
had halted now before the door. And now the hall door opened and closed.
Jimmie Dale sat motionless, except that his hand crept to his coat
pocket, and from his coat pocket to the desk again. The door closed
softly--a man had entered the outer room--and certainly a man who was no
stranger to the place, for he was moving unerringly in the darkness
toward the partition door. The man was in the inner office now, passing
the desk, so close that Jimmie Dale could have reached out and touched
him. There was a soft, rubbing sound as the man's hand felt along the
wall for the electric light switch, a click, the room was suddenly
flooded with light; and, with a low cry, blinking there in the glare,
staring at Jimmie Dale's masked face--stood Colonel Milford.

And then the old gentleman swayed, and caught at the back of the
armchair for support--upon the desk lay the diamond pendant, glittering
under the light.

"My God!" he whispered. "What does this mean?"

"It means, colonel," said Jimmie Dale softly, "that Thorold couldn't
come, that old Jake found one of the diamonds cloudy and with a flaw,
and that the deal fell through--and it means, colonel, that you will
never be called upon to steal Mrs. Milford's diamonds again; there is a
letter here that--"

"The letter!" The old gentleman was staggering toward the desk. He
reached out his hand for the letter, hesitated as though he were
afraid that Jimmie Dale was only tantalising him, would never let him
have it--and then with a little cry of wondrous gladness, he snatched
it to him.

"I'd destroy that if I were you," suggested Jimmie Dale quietly. "I
don't imagine that Thorold or old Jake will ever bother you again, but
there are lots of 'Thorolds' in New York." He motioned toward the
pendant. "That is yours, too, colonel."

The old gentleman was fingering the letter over and over, as though to
assure himself that it was actually in his possession; and into his blue
eyes, as they travelled back and forth from the pendant to Jimmie Dale,
there crept a half wondering, half wistful light.

"I do not know why you have done this for me, or who you are, sir," he
said brokenly. "But at least I understand that in some strange way you
have stepped in between me and--and those men. You--you know the
story, then?"

"Only partially," said Jimmie Dale with a smile, as he shook his head.
"But you need not--"

"I would wish to thank you, sir." The old Southerner was stately now in
his emotion. "I can never do so adequately. You are at least entitled to
my confidence." His face grew a little whiter; he drew himself up as
though to meet a blow. "My boy, my son, sir, stole a large sum of money
from the bank where he was employed in New Orleans. He was not
suspected; and indeed, as far as the bank is concerned, the matter
remains a mystery to this day. Shortly afterwards the Spanish war broke
out. My son was an officer in a local regiment. He obtained an
appointment for the front." The old gentleman paused; then he stood
erect, head back, at salute, like the gallant old soldier that he was.
"My son, sir, was a thief; but he redeemed himself, and he redeemed his
name--he fell at the head of his company, leading his men."

Jimmie Dale's eyes had grown suddenly moist.

"I understand," he said simply.

"He wrote this letter to me, making a full confession of his guilt; and
gave it to me, telling me not to open it unless he should not come
back." The colonel's voice broke; then, with an effort, steadied again.
"It would have killed his mother, sir. It strained our resources most
severely to pay back the money to the bank, and I lied to her, sir--I
told her that our investments were proving unfortunate. Two years ago I
completed the final payment without the bank ever having found out where
the money came from; and then we moved up here to New York. You see,
sir, it was a little difficult to maintain our former position in
Louisiana, and amongst strangers less would be expected of us. And then,
sir, shortly after that, I do not know how, this letter was stolen, and
for two years Thorold has held it over my head, threatening to make it
public if I refused his demands; I gave him all the money I could get. I
have thought sometimes, sir, that I should put a revolver in my pocket
and come down here and shoot him like a dog--but then, sir, the story, I
was afraid, would come out. Yesterday he made a final demand for five
thousand dollars. I did not have the money. He suggested Mrs. Milford's
pendant there. He promised to return the letter, and any sum above the
five thousand that he could get for the diamonds. I knew he was lying
about the money; but I believed he would return the letter, knowing that
I now had nothing left. That is why I am here to-night."

Again the old gentleman paused. It was very still in the room. Jimmie
Dale had taken the thin metal case from his leather girdle and was
fingering it abstractedly. And then the colonel spoke again:

"And so," he said slowly, "I stole the pendant this afternoon, and
pretended to-night that it was done at dinner-time, and--and pretended,
too, to make the discovery of the theft myself. You see, sir, it was
not only the old name that would be smirched--there was the boy to
think of, and he had redeemed himself. And Mrs. Milford would have
wanted me to do that, to take a thousand of her jewels, if she had had
them, if she had known--but, you see, sir, she could not know without
it breaking her heart--I think the dearest thing in life to her is the
boy's memory."

Outside on Sixth Avenue an elevated train roared and thundered by--it
seemed strangely extraneous and incongruous.

"And now, sir"--the old gentleman's voice seemed tired, a little
weary--"though you give me back the pendant, I do not see how I can
return it to my wife. It was part of the agreement that I should notify
the police--it made it impossible for me to inform against Thorold,
for--for I was the thief."

Jimmie Dale nodded. "I was thinking of that," he said.

He opened the metal case; and, while the old gentleman watched in
amazement and growing consternation, he lifted out a gray paper seal
with his tweezers, moistened the adhesive side with the tip of his
tongue, and pressed the seal firmly with his coat sleeve over the
central cluster of the pendant.

The old gentleman tried twice to speak before a word would come.

"You! You--the Gray Seal!" he stammered at last. "But only to-night I
was reading in the papers, and they said you were a murderer, an ogre of
hell, and--"

"And now, possibly," interrupted Jimmie Dale whimsically, "though
circumstances will force you to keep your opinion to yourself, you may
have an idea that, as between you and the papers, you are the better
informed. Well, at least, the Gray Seal's shoulders are broad! You need
not worry about Thorold or old Jake; I took pains to make them aware
that the Gray Seal--quite inadvertently, of course--had taken a passing
fancy to the pendant. You have only to wrap it up, and send it by mail
to _yourself_; and when it arrives"--he laughed softly, as he stood
up--"notify the police again. Let them do the theorising--it is one of
their cherished amusements! And, oh, by the way, colonel, have you any
idea how much Thorold and his precious friend Kisnieff have blackmailed
you out of in the last two years?"

"I did not have very much left when I came to New York," said the
colonel, in a stunned way, still staring at the gray paper seal.
"Between four and five thousand dollars."

"That's too bad," murmured Jimmie Dale. He took the banknotes from his
pocket, and laid them on the desk. "I am afraid it is not quite all
here--but I can assure you it is all they had."

He held out his hand.

"But you're not going! You're not going that way!" cried the colonel,
and his eyes filled suddenly. "How am I to repay you, how am I to--"

"Very easily," smiled Jimmie Dale; "and, to use your own expression,
very adequately--by remaining here, say, three minutes after I have
left." He caught the colonel's hand in his and wrung it hard--and then,
with a "Goodnight!" flung over his shoulder, Jimmie Dale was gone.




CHAPTER VI


THE REHABILITATION OF LARRY THE BAT

The small French window of the new Sanctuary, that gave on the dirty
little courtyard which, in turn, paralleled a black and narrow lane,
with its high, board fence, opened cautiously, noiselessly. A dark form
slipped silently into the room. The window was closed again. The
dilapidated roller shade was drawn down, and, guided by the sense of
touch, the rent that gaped across it was carefully pinned together.
There was no moon to shine in through the top-light and uncharitably
disclose the greasy, ragged carpet, or the squalor of the room.

The dark form, like a shadow, moved across the room to the door, tried
the lock, slipped an inner bolt into place, then returned halfway back
to the windows, and paused by the wall. A match flame spurted through
the blackness; and then, hissing as though in protest, the miserable,
clogged gas-jet, blue with air, still leaving the corners of the room
dim and murky, grudgingly lighted up its immediate surroundings--and
Jimmie Dale, immaculate in evening clothes, stood looking sharply
about him.

Here and there about the room, upon this article and that, as though
fixing its exact and precise location, his glance fell critically;
then he stepped back quickly to the door, and knelt by the threshold.
The tiny, unobtrusive piece of thread, that must break if the door
were opened by but that fraction of an inch, was still intact. No one,
then, had been here since last, as Smarlinghue, the seedy,
drug-wrecked artist, he had left the place the day before; for, on
entering, he had already satisfied himself that the French window had
not been tampered with.

A hard smile flickered across his lips. It was a grim transition, this,
from the luxury, the wealth and refinement of New York's most exclusive
club, which he had left but half an hour ago! The smile faded, and he
passed his hand a little wearily across his eyes. The strain seemed to
grow heavier every day--the underworld more prone to suspicion; the
police more vigilant; that ominous slogan, in which Crime and the Law
for once were one, "Death to the Gray Seal!" to ring more constantly in
his ears. It was becoming more fraught with peril, danger and difficulty
than ever before, this dual life he led. And he had thought it all
ended--once. That was only a few months ago, when the way had seemed
clear for them both, for the Tocsin and himself. Well, he was here
to-night to end it again if he could--by playing perhaps the most
desperate game he had ever attempted.

He shook his head. It was more than the hazard, the danger and the peril
of his dual life that brought the strain--it was the Tocsin, his love
for her, _her_ peril and _her_ danger, the unbearable anxiety and
suspense on her account that was never absent from him. And it was that
that kept him in the underworld, that had forced him to create again a
role in gangland, the role of Smarlinghue, in the hope that he might
track her enemies down. She would not help him. If she knew, and she
must know, the authors of this new danger that had driven her once more
into hiding, she would not tell him. She was afraid--for _him_. She had
said that. She had said that she would fight this out alone, that she
would not, could not, whatever the end might be, bring him again into
the shadows, throw his life again into the balance. It was her love,
pure, unselfish, a wondrous love, that had prompted her to this course,
he knew that--and yet--But why all this again! His brain was numbed
with its incessant dwelling upon it day after day.

Jimmie Dale's hands clenched suddenly. That night, a week ago, when he
had been so nearly caught in the Nest, had brought very forcibly upon
him the realisation that he could not risk any longer a haphazard course
of action, if he was to be of help to her, for next time his own luck
might go out. And so the idea had come--the one, single, definite mode
of attack that lay within his power--and he had used the week to
advantage, and he was ready now. From the first it had seemed almost
certain that the danger which threatened her must come from one of two
sources--and there was a way to probe one of these to the bottom. He did
not know who they were, those who remained of the Crime Club, or where
they were; but he knew the Magpie, and he knew where the Magpie was to
be found--and to-night he would know, settling the question once for
all, _all_ that the Magpie knew!

He turned, walked back across the room, and, a few feet along from the
door, knelt down close to the wall. An instant later, with the loose
section of the base-board removed, he reached inside, and took out a
curious assortment of garments, which he laid on the floor beside him.
They were not Smarlinghue's clothes--they were even more shoddy and
disreputable. His brows gathered critically as he surveyed the wretched
boots, the mismated socks, the frayed, patched trousers, the greasy
flannel shirt, the ragged coat, and the battered, shapeless slouch hat.
Matched closely enough to the originals to pass without question,
gathered from here and there, painstakingly, with infinite trouble
during the week that had passed, were the clothes of--Larry the Bat.

It was a dangerous, almost desperate chance; but he, too, was desperate
now. To be caught, even to be seen as Larry the Bat meant flinging every
stake he had in life into the game. More rabid than ever was the cry of
the populace for vengeance upon the Gray Seal; more active than ever,
combing den and dive, their dragnet spreading from end to end of the
city, were the efforts of the police to effect the Gray Seal's capture;
more like snarling wolves than ever, the blood lust upon them, mad to
sink their fangs into the Gray Seal, were the denizens of the
underworld--and populace and police and underworld alike knew Larry the
Bat as the Gray Seal! If he were seen--if he were caught! They had
thought that Larry the Bat had perished in the Sanctuary fire that
night, and that in Larry the Bat had perished the Gray Seal. But the
Gray Seal had been at work again since then; and, logically enough,
there had followed the deduction that, after all, Larry the Bat had in
some way escaped.

Jimmie Dale began to remove his expensively tailored dress suit. It had
made it much easier for him, easier to play the role of Smarlinghue,
easier for the Gray Seal to work, that they, the populace, police and
underworld, had of late searched only for a _character_, a character
that, in truth, until to-night had literally vanished from the face of
the earth--a character known as Larry the Bat. But now Larry the Bat was
to assume tangible form again, to accept the risk of recognition, to go
out amongst those whose one ambition was his destruction, to court his
own death, his ruin, the disclosure that Larry the Bat was Jimmie Dale,
that Jimmie Dale, the millionaire clubman, a leader in New York's
society, was therefore the Gray Seal, and with this disclosure drag an
honoured name in the mire, be execrated as a felon. It seemed almost the
act of a fool--worse than that, indeed! Even a fool would not invite the
blow of a blackjack, the thrust of a knife, or a revolver bullet from
the first crook in gangland who recognised him; even a fool would not
voluntarily take the chance of thrusting his head through the door of
one of Sing Sing's death cells!

And for an instant, fought out with himself times without number though
this had been since he had first conceived the plan, Jimmie Dale
hesitated. It was very still in the room. In his hands now he held a
bundle of neatly folded clothing ready to be tucked away in the aperture
in the wall. He looked around him unseeingly. Then suddenly the square
jaw clamped hard, and he stooped, thrust the bundle into the opening,
and began rapidly to dress again--as Larry the Bat.

If it was the act of a fool, it was even more the act of a _coward_ to
shrink from it! It was the one way to force the Magpie to lay his cards
face up upon the table. It was the Magpie who had discovered that Larry
the Bat was the Gray Seal; it was the Magpie who had led gangland to
batter down the Sanctuary doors; it was the Magpie who had clamoured the
loudest of them all for the Gray Seal's death--and it was the Magpie,
therefore, who had reason to fear Larry the Bat as he would fear no
other living thing on earth. And it was upon that which he, Jimmie Dale,
counted--the psychological effect upon the Magpie on finding himself
suddenly face to face and in the power of Larry the Bat, with the
unhallowed reputation of the Gray Seal, that did not stop at murder, to
discount any thought in the Magpie's mind that the choice between a
full confession and death was an idle threat which would not be put into
instant execution.

Yes; it was simple enough, and _sure_ enough--that part of it. The
Magpie would tell what he knew under those circumstances--and tell
eagerly. But if, after all, the Magpie knew nothing! Jimmie Dale snarled
contemptuously at himself. Childish! That, of course, was possible--but
in that case he would at least have run a false lead to earth, and have
eliminated the Magpie from any further consideration.

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