He had sworn, and
staked his reputation on his pledge, to "get" Larry the Bat, _alias_ the
Gray Seal--and in the eyes of the underworld, as the underworld sighed
with relief, it was already accomplished, for the Wolf had never failed.
Jimmie Dale stooped down, felt in under the baseboard again, and took
out a little make-up box. The Wolf's incentive was not one of
philanthropy toward his fellow denizens of crimeland, whose ranks had
been thinned by those who, thanks to the Gray Seal, had gone "up the
river," some of them, many of them, to that room in Sing Sing's
death-house from which none ever returned alive; nor was it, to give the
Wolf his due, through a personal fear that his own career might end, as
those others' had, at the hands of the Gray Seal; nor, again, was it
through any tardy, eleventh-hour conversion, any belated edging toward
the way of grace that found expression in a desire to array himself on
the side of those representing the forces of law and order. It was none
of these things that actuated the Wolf--it was Frenchy Virat, _alias_
one Kenleigh, who was awaiting trial in the Tombs. Frenchy Virat was the
Wolf's bosom friend!
The wheezy, air-choked gas-jet spluttered into a blue flame, as Jimmie
Dale lighted it.
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