At
the expiration of perhaps ten minutes, he turned east; and still a few
minutes later, in the neighbourhood of Chatham Square, plunged suddenly
into a dark alleyway--there was, of course, as there was to all such
places, an unobtrusive entrance to Malay John's.
His lips tightened a little as he moved quietly forward. To venture here
in an unknown character was not far from being tantamount, if he were
discovered, to taking his life in his hands. Malay John was a queer
customer and a bad enemy, though counted "straight" by the underworld,
and trusted by the crooks and near-crooks as few other men were in the
Bad Lands. And, if Malay John was queer, the place he ran was queerer
still. Ostensibly he conducted a dance hall, and a profitable one at
that; but below the dance hall, known only to the initiated, deep down
in a sub-cellar, was perhaps the most remunerative gambling joint and
pipe lay-out in Crimeland.
Jimmie Dale halted before a doorway in the alley. The rear of a low
building rose black and unlighted above him. A confused jangle from a
tinny piano, accompanying a blatant cornet and a squeaky violin, mingled
with the dull scrape of many feet, laughter, voices, singing--the dance
hall at the front of the building was in full swing.
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