Here is a pen--if you are quick
enough to take us by surprise once you have signed, you might succeed in
making a dash for that door and effecting your escape--without forcing
us to compound a felony--understand?"
Clayton's hand trembled violently as he seized the pen. He scrawled
his name--looked from one to the other--wet his lips--and then, taking
Jimmie Dale at his word, rushed for the door--and the door slammed
behind him.
Carruthers' face was hard. "What did you let him go for, Jimmie?" he
said uncompromisingly.
"Selfishness. Pure selfishness," said Jimmie Dale softly. "They'd guy me
unmercifully if they ever heard of it at the St. James Club. The
honour is all yours, Carruthers. I don't appear on the stage. That's
understood? Yes? Well, then"--he handed over the signed confession--"is
the 'scoop' big enough?"
Carruthers fingered the sheets, but his eyes in a bewildered way
searched Jimmie Dale's face.
"Big enough!" he echoed, as though invoking the universe. "It's the
biggest thing the newspaper game has ever known. But how did you come to
do it? What started you? Where did you get your lead?"
"Why, from you, I guess, Carruthers," Jimmie Dale answered thoughtfully,
with artfully puckered brow. "I remembered that you had said last week
that the Gray Seal never left finger marks on his work--and I saw one on
the seal on Metzer's forehead.
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