There was a chill now where before there had been reassurance, something
ominous in the very quiet and refinement of the room; and Jimmie Dale
smiled inwardly in bitter irony--his good Samaritan wore a mask! His
self-congratulations had come too soon. Whatever had happened to the
chauffeur, it was evident enough that he himself was caught! What was it
the chauffeur had said? Something about a chance through being unknown.
Was it to be a battle of wits, then? God, if his head did not ache so
frightfully! It was hard to think with the brain half sick with pain.
Those two eyes shining in that mirror! There seemed something horribly
spectre-like about it. He did not look again, but he knew they were
there. It was like a cat watching a mouse. Why did not the man speak,
or move, or do something, and--He turned his head slowly; the man was
laughing in a low, amused way.
"You appear to be taken with that picture," observed a pleasant voice.
"Perhaps you recognise it from there? It is a Corot."
Jimmie Dale, with a well-simulated start, sat up--and, with another
quite as well simulated, stared at the masked man. The other had laid
down his book, and swung around in his chair to face the couch. Jimmie
Dale stood up a little shakily.
"Look here!" he said awkwardly. "I--I don't quite understand. I remember
that my taxi got into a smash-up, and I suppose I have to thank you for
the assistance you must have rendered me; only, as I say"--he looked in
a puzzled way around the room, and in an even more perplexed way at the
mask on the other's face--"I must confess I am at a loss to understand
quite the meaning of this.
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