第72章

And now Jimmie Dale began to hurry--still with that shuffling tread, but covering the ground nevertheless with amazing celerity.He had lost no time since receiving the Tocsin's letter, it was true, but, for all that, it was now after ten o'clock.Stangeist's house was "dark" that evening, she had said, meaning that the occupants, Stangeist as well as whatever servants there might be, for Stangeist had no family, were out--the servants in town for a theatre or picture show probably--and Stangeist himself as yet not back, presumably from that Roessle affair.The stub of an old cigar, unlighted, shifted with a sudden, savage twist of the lips from one side of Jimmie Dale's mouth to the other.There was need for haste.

There was no telling when Stangeist might get back--as for the servants, that did not matter so much; servants in suburban homes had a marked affinity for "last trains!"Jimmie Dale boarded a cross-town car, effected a transfer, and in a quarter of an hour after leaving the Sanctuary was huddled, an inoffensive heap, like a tired-out workingman, in a corner seat of a Long Island train.From here, there was only a short run ahead of him, and, twenty minutes later, descending from the train at Forest Hills, he had passed through the more thickly settled portion of the little place, and was walking briskly out along the country road.

Stangeist's house lay, approximately, a mile and a half from the station, quite by itself, and set well back from the road.Jimmie Dale could have found it with his eyes blindfolded--the Tocsin's directions had lacked none of their usual explicit minuteness.The road was quite deserted.Jimmie Dale met no one.Even in the houses that he passed the lights were in nearly every instance already out.

Something, merciless in its rage, swept suddenly over Jimmie Dale, as, unbidden, of its own volition, the last paragraph he had read in that evening's paper began to repeat itself over and over again in his mind.The two little kiddies--it seemed as though he could see them standing there--and from Jimmie Dale's lips, not given to profanity, there came a bitter oath.It might possibly be that, even if he were successful in what was before him to-night, the authors of the Roessle murder would never be known.That confession of Stangeist's was written prior to what had happened that afternoon, and there would be no mention, naturally, of Roessle.

And, for a moment, that seemed to Jimmie Dale the one thing paramount to all others, the one thing that was vital; then he shook his head, and laughed out shortly.After all, it did not matter--whether Stangeist and the blood wolves he had gathered around him paid the penalty specifically for one particular crime or for another could make little difference--they would PAY, just as surely, just as certainly, once that paper was in his possession!

Jimmie Dale was counting the houses as he passed--they were more infrequent now, farther apart.Stangeist was no fool--not the fool that he would appear to be for keeping a document like that, once he had had the temerity to execute it, in his own safe; for, in a day or two, the Tocsin had hinted at this, after holding it over the heads of Australian Ike, The Mope, and Clarie Deane again to drive the force of it a little deeper home, he would undoubtedly destroy it--and the SUPPOSITION that it was still in existence would have equally the same effect on the minds of the other three! Stangeist was certainly alive to the peril that he ran with such a thing in his possession, only the peril had not appealed to him as imminent either from the three thugs with whom he had allied himself, or, much less, from any one else, that was all.

Jimmie Dale halted by a low, ornamental stone fence, some three feet high, and stood there for a moment, glancing about him.This was Stangeist's house--he could just make out the building as it loomed up a shadowy, irregular shape, perhaps two hundred yards back from the fence.The house was quite dark, not a light showed in any window.Jimmie Dale sat down casually on the fence, looked carefully again up and down the road--then, swinging his legs over, quick now in every action, he dropped to the other side, and stole silently across the grass to the rear of the house.

Here he stopped again, reached up to a window that was about on a level with his shoulders, and tested its fastenings.The window--it was the window of Stangeist's private sanctum, according to the plan in her letter--was securely locked.Jimmie Dale's hands went into his pocket--and the black silk mask was slipped over his face.He listened intently--then a little steel instrument began to gnaw like a rat.

A minute passed--two of them.Again Jimmie Dale listened.There was not a sound save the night sounds--the light breeze whispering through the branches of the trees; the far-off rumble of a train;the whir of insects; the hoarse croaking of a frog from some near-by creek or pond.The window sash was raised an inch, another, and gradually to the top.Like a shadow, Jimmie Dale pulled himself up to the sill, and, poised there, his hand parted the heavy portieres that hung within.It was too dark to distinguish even a single object in the room.He lowered himself to the floor, and slipped cautiously between the portieres.

From somewhere in the house, a clock began to strike.Jimmie Dale counted the strokes.Eleven o'clock.It was getting late--TOOlate! Stangeist was likely to be back at any moment.The flashlight, in Jimmie Dale's hand now, circled the room with its little round white ray, lingering an instant in a queer, inquisitive sort of way here and there on this object and that--and went out.

Jimmie Dale nodded--the flat desk in the centre of the floor, the safe in the corner by the rear wall, the position of everything in the room, even to the chairs, was photographed on his mind.