It could not go on--indefinitely. The role was too
hard to play; the dual life, in a sort of grim, ironical self-mockery,
brought even in its own successful interpretation added dangers and
perils with each succeeding day. As it had been with Larry the Bat, the
more he now lived Smarlinghue the more it became difficult to slough
off Smarlinghue and live as Jimmie Dale; the more Smarlinghue became
trusted and accepted in the inner circles of the underworld, the more he
became a figure in those sordid surroundings, and the more dangerous it
became to "disappear" at will without exciting suspicion, where
suspicion, as it was, was already spread into every nook and corner of
the Bad Lands, where each rubbed shoulders with his fellow in the
lurking dread that the other was--the Gray Seal!
The police were no mean antagonists, he made no mistake on that score;
but the peril that was the graver menace of the two, and the greater to
be feared, was--the underworld. And here in the underworld in the last
few days, here where on every twisted, vicious lip was the whisper,
"Death to the Gray Seal," there had come even another menace. He could
not define it, it was intuition perhaps--but intuition had never failed
him yet.
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