CHAPTER XIV
OUT OF THE DARKNESS
A moment later, Jimmie Dale stepped forward through the vestibule.He was quite calm now; a sort of cold, merciless precision in everymovement succeeding the riot of turbulent emotions that had possessedhim as he had entered the house.
The half hour, the maximum length of time before the Magpie wouldappear, as he had estimated it when out there under the stoop with theTocsin, had dwindled now to perhaps twenty minutes, twenty-five at theoutside. Twenty-five minutes! Twenty-five minutes was so little that foran instant the temptation was strong upon him to sacrifice, ratherthan any of those precious minutes, the Magpie instead! And then in thedarkness, as he stole noiselessly across the hall, he shook his head. Itwould be a cowardly, brutal thing to do. What chance would a man with arecord like the Magpie's stand if caught there? How easy it would beto shift the murder of the supposed Henry LaSalle to the Magpie'sshoulders! Jimmie Dale's lips closed firmly. Self-preservation was,perhaps, the first law, but he would save the Magpie if he could--theMagpie should have his chance! The man might be a criminal, mightdeserve punishment at the hands of the law, his liberty might be amenace to the community--but he was not a murderer, his life forfeit fora crime he had never committed!
If he, Jimmie Dale, could only in some way have arranged with the Tocsinout there to keep the Magpie away altogether! But it could not be donewithout arousing the Magpie's suspicions; and, as a corollary to that,afterward, with the subsequent events, would come--the deluge! The lawof the underworld was clear, concise, and admitting of no appeal on thatpoint; to double cross a pal meant, sooner or later, a knife thrust, ablackjack, or--But what difference did it make what form the executionof the sentence took? And, since, then, that was out of the question,since he could not keep the Magpie away without practically risking hisown life, the Magpie at least must have his chance.
Jimmie Dale was at the library door now, that, according to the plan theTocsin had drawn for the Magpie, and as he remembered her descriptionwhen she had told him her story earlier in the evening, was just at thefoot of the staircase. How dark it was! Though the stairs could be onlya few feet away, he could not see them. And how intense the silence wasagain! Here, where he stood, the slightest stir from above must havereached him--but there was not a sound.
His hand felt out for the doorknob, found it, turned it, and pushed thedoor open. He stepped inside the room and closed the door behind him.The safe, according to the Tocsin's plan again, was in that sort ofalcove at the lower end of the library. Jimmie Dale's flashlight playedinquisitively about the room. There was the window, the only one in theroom, the window through which the Magpie proposed to enter; therewas the archway of the alcove, with its--no, there were no longer anyportieres; and there was the safe, he could see it quite plainly fromwhere he stood at the upper end of the room.
The flashlight went out for the space of perhaps thirty seconds--thirtyseconds of absolute silence, absolute stillness--then the round, whiteray of the light again, but glistening now on the nickel knobs and dialof the safe--and Jimmie Dale was on his knees before it.
A low, scarcely breathed exclamation, that seemed to mingle anxietyand hesitation, escaped him. He, who knew the make of every safe in thecountry, knew this one for its true worth. Twenty-five minutes! Could heopen it in that time, let alone with any time to spare! It was notlike the one in Spider Jack's; it was the kind that the Magpie, howeverclever he might be in his own way, would be forced to negotiate with"soup," and, with the attendant noise, double his chance of discoveryand capture--and the responsibility for what might have happenedUPSTAIRS! No; the Magpie must have his chance! And, besides, the moneyin the safe apart, why should not he, Jimmie Dale, have his own chance,as well? All this would help. The motive--robbery; the perpetrator,there was grim mockery on his lips now as the light went out and thesensitive fingers closed on the knob of the dial, the perpetrator--theGray Seal. It would afford excellent food for the violent editorialdiatribes under which the police again would writhe in frenzy!
Stillness again! Silence! Only a low, tense breathing; only, so faintthat it could not be heard a foot away, a curious scratching, as fromtime to time the supersensitive fingers fell away from the dial to rubupon the carpet--to increase even their sensitiveness by setting thenerves to throbbing through the skin surface at the tips. And thenJimmie Dale's head, ear pressed close against the safe to catch thetumbler's fall, was lifted--and the flashlight played again on the dial.
"Twenty-eight and a quarter--left."
How fast the time went--and how slowly! Still the black shape crouchedthere in the darkness against the safe. At times, in strange, ghostlyflashes, the nickel dial with the ray upon it seemed to leap out andglisten through the surrounding blackness; at times, the quick intake ofbreath, as from great exertion; at times, faint, musical little clicks,as, after abortive effort, the dial whirled, preparatory to a freshattempt. And then, at last--a gasp of relief:
"Ah!"
Came the sound, barely audible, as of steel sliding in well-oiledgrooves, the muffled thud of metal meeting metal as the bolts shotback--and the heavy door swung outward.
Jimmie Dale stretched his cramped limbs, and wiped the moisture fromhis face--then set to work again upon the inner door. This was an easiermatter--far easier. Five minutes, perhaps a little more, went by--andthen the inner door was open, and the flashlight's ray was flooding theinterior of the safe.
A queer little sound, half of astonishment, half of disappointment,issued from Jimmie Dale's lips. There was money here, a great dealof money, undoubtedly, but there was no such sum as he had, somehow,fantastically imagined from the Magpie's evidently overcoloured storythat there would be; there was money, ten packages of banknotes neatlypiled in the bottom compartment--but there was no half million ofdollars! He picked up one of the packages hurriedly--and drew inhis breath. After all, there was a great deal--the notes wereof hundred-dollar denomination, and on the bottom were twoone-thousand-dollar bills! Calculated roughly, if each of the othernine packages contained a like amount, the total must exceed a hundredthousand.
And now Jimmie Dale began to work with feverish haste. From the leathergirdle inside his shirt came the thin metal insignia case--and a grayseal was stuck firmly on the dial knob of the safe. This done, he tuckedaway the packages of banknotes, some into his pockets and some insidehis shirt; and then quickly ransacked the interior of the safe,flauntingly spilling the contents of drawers and pigeonholes out uponthe floor.
He stood up, and, leaving the safe door wide open, walked back acrossthe room to the window, unfastened the catch, and opened the window aninch or two. The way was open now for the Magpie! The Magpie would haveno need to make any noise in forcing an entrance; he would be able tosee almost at a glance that he had been forestalled--by the Gray Seal;and that, as far as he was concerned, the game was up. The Magpie hadhis chance! If the Magpie did not take the hint and make his escape asnoiselessly as he had entered--it was his own fault! He, Jimmie Dale,had given the Magpie his chance.
Jimmie Dale turned from the window, and made his way out of the libraryto the foot of the stairs, leaving the library door open behind him. Howlong had he been? Was it more or less than the twenty-five minutes? Hedid not know--only, as yet, the Magpie had not come, and now perhaps itdid not make so much difference.
Where was he going now? His foot was on the first stair--and suddenly hedrew it back, the cold sweat bursting out on his forehead. Where washe going now? "THE FIRST ROOM ON THE RIGHT AT THE HEAD OF THE LANDING."From his inner consciousness, as it were, the answer, in all the bald,naked horror that it implied, flashed upon him. The first room on theright--THAT man's room! God, how the darkness and the stillness beganto palpitate again, and suddenly seem to shriek out at him over and overthe one single, ghastly word--MURDER!
It had been with him, that thought, all the time he had been workingat the safe; but it had been there then only subconsciously, like someheavy, nameless dread, subjugated for th
e moment by the work he hadhad to do which had demanded the centred attention of every faculty hepossessed. But now the moment had come when there was only THAT beforehim, only that, nothing else--only that, the man upstairs in the firstroom to the right of the landing!
Why did he hesitate? Why did he stand there while the priceless momentsbefore daylight came were passing? The man was a murderer, a blotch onsociety, and, his life already forfeited, he was living now only becausethe law had not found him out--the man was a criminal, bloodstained--andhis life, because he had taken her father's life and had tried to takethe Tocsin's own life, stood between her and every hope of happiness,robbing her even literally, in a material sense, of everything thatthe world could hold for her! Why did he hesitate? It was that man'slife--or hers! It was the only way!
He put his foot upon the bottom step again--paused still anotherinstant--and then began stealthily to mount the stairs. The darkness!There had never been, it seemed, such darkness before! The stillness--hehad never known silence so heavy, so full of strange, premonitorypulsings; a silence that seemed so incongruously full of clamouringwhispers in his ears! It must be those imagined whispers that wereaffecting his nerve--for now, as he gained the landing and slipped hisautomatic from his pocket, his hand was shaking with a queer twitchingmotion.
For an instant, fighting for his self-composure, he stood strivingto locate his surroundings through the darkness. The staircase was acircular one, making the landing nearly at the front of the house, andrearward from this, the Tocsin had said, a hallway ran down the centre,with rooms on either side. The first room to the right, therefore,should be just at his hand. He reached out, feeling cautiously--therewas nothing. He edged to the right--still nothing; edged a littlefarther, a sense of bewilderment growing upon him, and finally hisfingers touched the wall. It was very strange! The hallway must be muchwider than he had understood it to be from what she had said!
He moved along now straight ahead of him, his hand on the wall, feelingfor the door--and with every step his bewilderment increased. Surelythere must be some mistake--perhaps he had misunderstood! He had comefully twice the distance that one would expect--and yet there wasno door. Ah, what was that? His fingers closed on soft, heavy velvethangings. These could hardly be in front of a door, and yet--what elsecould it be? He drew the hangings warily apart, and felt behind them. Itwas a window; but it was shuttered in some way evidently, for he couldnot see out.
Jimmie Dale stood motionless there for fully a minute. It seemed absurd,preposterous, the conviction that was being forced home upon him--thatthere were no rooms on the right-hand side of the corridor at all!But that was not like the Tocsin, accurate always in the most minutedetails. The room must be still farther along. He was tempted to usehis flashlight--but that, as long as he could feel his way, was anunnecessary risk. A flashlight upstairs, where a sleeping-room doormight be ajar, or even wide open, where some one wakeful, THAT manhimself, perhaps, might see it, was quite another matter than aflashlight in the closed and deserted library below!
He went on once more, still guiding himself by a light finger touch uponthe wall, passed another portiere similar to the first, and, after that,another--and finally stopped by bringing up abruptly against the endwall of the house. It was certainly very strange! There WERE no roomson the right-hand side of the corridor. And here, hanging across the endwall, was another of those ubiquitous velvet portieres. He parted it,and, a little to his surprise, found a window that was not shuttered,but that, instead, was heavily barred by an ornamental grille work. Hecould see out, however, and found that he was looking directly outfrom the rear of the house. A lamp from the side street threw what wasundoubtedly the garage into shadowy outline, and he made out below hima short stretch of yard between the garage and the house. He rememberedthat now--she had described all that to the Magpie. There was nodriveway between the front and the rear. The house being on the corner,the entrance to the garage was directly from the side street. Yes, shehad described all that exactly as it was, but--he dropped the portiereand faced around, carrying his hand in a nonplused way to his eyes--buthere, upstairs, within the house, it was not as she had said it was atall! What did it mean? She could not have blundered so egregiously asthat, unless--he caught his breath suddenly--unless she had done sointentionally! Was that it? Had she surmised, formed a suspicion ofwhat was in his mind, of what he meant to do--and taken this means ofdefeating it? If so--well, it was too late for that now! There wasone way--only one way! Whatever the cost, whatever it might mean forhim--there was only one way out for her.
His flashlight was in his hand now, and the round, white ray shot downthe corridor--seemed suddenly to falter unsteadily--swept in through anopen door that was almost beside him--and then, as though a nervelesshand held it, the ray dropped and played shakily on the toe of his bootbefore it went out.
A stifled cry rose to his lips. Something cold, like a hand of ice,seemed to clutch at his heart. Those portieres, the wide, richlycarpeted corridor! It was the corridor of the night before! That room athis side was the room where he had seen Hilton Travers, the chauffeur,dead, lashed in a chair! He felt the sweat beads burst out anew upon hisforehead.
IT WAS THE CRIME CLUB!