He roused up with a startled exclamation. He was back in the same room
in which he had first returned to consciousness after the accident. He
was on the same couch. The same masked figure was at the same desk. Had
he been dreaming? Was this then only some horrible, ghastly nightmare
through which he had passed?
No, it had been real enough; his clothes, rent and torn, and the blood
upon his hands, where the skin had been scraped from his knuckles in the
fight, bore evidence to that. He must then have lost consciousness for
a while, though it seemed to him that at no moment, hazy, irrational
though his brain might have been, had he become entirely oblivious to
what was taking place around him. And yet it must have been so!
The eyes from behind the mask were fixed steadily upon him, and below
the mask there was the hard, unpleasant set to the lips that Jimmie Dale
had grown accustomed to expect.
The man spoke abruptly.
"That you find yourself alive, Mr. Dale," he said grimly, "is no
confession of weakness upon the part of those with whom you have had to
deal here. To bear witness to that there is one who is not alive, as you
have seen. That man we knew. With you it was somewhat different. Your
presence in the taxicab was only suspicious. There was always the
possibility that you might be one of those ubiquitous 'innocent
bystanders.
Pages:
449
450
451
452
453
454
455
456
457
458
459
460
461
462
463
464
465
466
467
468
469
470
471
472
473