"Oh, Jimmie,
Jimmie, I've--I've fought so long alone! Jimmie, what are we to do?"
He came slowly to his feet. She had fought so long--alone. But now--now
it was his turn to fight--for her. But how? She had not told him
all--surely she had not told him all, for everything depended upon that
package. There had been so much to tell that she had not thought of all,
and she had not told him the details about that.
"That box--No. 428!" he cried quickly. "What is that? What does it
mean?"
She shook her head.
"I do not know," she answered.
"Then who is this John Johansson?"
"I do not know," she said again.
"Nor where the Crime Club is?"
"No"--dully.
He stared at her for a moment in a dazed way.
"My God!" Jimmie Dale murmured.
And then she turned away her head.
"It's--it's pretty bad, isn't it, Jimmie? I--I told you that we did not
hold many trumps."
CHAPTER X
SILVER MAG
There was silence between them. Minute after minute passed. Neither
spoke.
Jimmie Dale dropped back into his chair again, and stared abstractedly
before him. "We do not hold many trumps, Jimmie--we do not hold many
trumps"--her words were repeating themselves over and over in his mind.
They seemed to challenge him mockingly to deny what was so obviously a
fact, and because he could not deny it to taunt and jeer at him--to jeer
at him, when all that was held at stake hung literally upon his next
move!
He looked up mechanically as the Tocsin walked to a broken mirror at the
rear of the miserable room; nodded mechanically in approval as she began
deftly to retouch the make-up on her face where the tears had left their
traces--and resumed his abstracted gaze before him.
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