If I'm ever caught, the
penitentiary sentence I get will be the smallest part of what's to pay."
A round button of light played along the wall from the flashlight in
his hand--just for an instant--and all was blackness again. But in that
instant Jimmie Dale was across the hall, and his fingers were tracing
the telephone connection from the instrument to where the wires
disappeared in the baseboard of the floor. Another instant, and he had
severed the wires with a pair of nippers.
Again the quick, firefly gleam of light to locate the stair case and the
library door opposite to it--and, moving without the slightest noise,
Jimmie Dale's hand was on the door itself. Again he paused to listen.
All was silence now.
The door swung under his hand, and, left open behind him, he was in
the room. The flashlight winked once--suspiciously. Then he snapped its
little switch, keeping the current on, and the ray dodged impudently
here and there all over the apartment.
The safe was set in a sort of clothes closet behind the desk, she had
said. Yes, there it was--the door, at least. Jimmie Dale moved toward
it--and paused as his light swept the top of the intervening desk. A
mass of papers, books, and correspondence littered it untidily. The
yellow sheet of a telegram caught Jimmie Dale's eye.
He picked it up and glanced at it. It read:
"Vein uncovered to-day.
Pages:
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101