Nearer the door crept Jimmie Dale, and his lips were thinned now, his
jaws clamped. How near were they together, he and this night prowler? At
times he could not hear the other at all, and, besides, the heavy carpet
made the judgment of distance an impossibility. If he could gain the
hall, and, in the darkness, elude the other, the way of escape through
the dining room was open. And then, within a few feet of the door,
Jimmie Dale halted abruptly, as a woman's voice rose querulously from
the hallway above:
"You are making a perfect fool of yourself, Theodore Markel! Come back
here to bed!"
Jimmie Dale's face hardened like stone--the answer came almost from the
very threshold in front of him:
"I can't sleep, I tell you"--it was Markel's voice, in a disgruntled
snarl. "I was a fool to bring the confounded thing home. I'm going to
take the library couch for the rest of the night."
It happened quick, then--quick as the winking of an eye. Two sharp,
almost simultaneous, clicks of the electric-light buttons pressed by
Markel, and the hall and library were a flood of light--and Jimmie Dale
leaped forward to where, in dressing gown and pajamas, blankets and
bedding over one arm, a revolver dangling in the other hand, Markel
stood full before the door in the hallway without.
There was a wild yell of terror and surprise from Markel, then a
deafening roar and a spit of flame from his revolver--a bitter,
smothered exclamation from Jimmie Dale as the cash box crashed to the
floor from his left hand, and he was upon the other like a tiger.
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