A queer little sound, half of astonishment, half of disappointment, issued from Jimmie Dale's lips.There was money here, a great deal of money, undoubtedly, but there was no such sum as he had, somehow, fantastically imagined from the Magpie's evidently overcoloured story that there would be; there was money, ten packages of banknotes neatly piled in the bottom compartment--but there was no half million of dollars! He picked up one of the packages hurriedly--and drew in his breath.After all, there was a great deal--the notes were of hundred-dollar denomination, and on the bottom were two one-thousand-dollar bills! Calculated roughly, if each of the other nine packages contained a like amount, the total must exceed a hundred thousand.
And now Jimmie Dale began to work with feverish haste.From the leather girdle inside his shirt came the thin metal insignia case--and a gray seal was stuck firmly on the dial knob of the safe.This done, he tucked away the packages of banknotes, some into his pockets and some inside his shirt; and then quickly ransacked the interior of the safe, flauntingly spilling the contents of drawers and pigeonholes out upon the floor.
He stood up, and, leaving the safe door wide open, walked back across the room to the window, unfastened the catch, and opened the window an inch or two.The way was open now for the Magpie! The Magpie would have no need to make any noise in forcing an entrance;he would be able to see almost at a glance that he had been forestalled--by the Gray Seal; and that, as far as he was concerned, the game was up.The Magpie had his chance! If the Magpie did not take the hint and make his escape as noiselessly as he had entered--it was his own fault! He, Jimmie Dale, had given the Magpie his chance.
Jimmie Dale turned from the window, and made his way out of the library to the foot of the stairs, leaving the library door open behind him.How long had he been? Was it more or less than the twenty-five minutes? He did not know--only, as yet, the Magpie had not come, and now perhaps it did not make so much difference.
Where was he going now? His foot was on the first stair--and suddenly he drew it back, the cold sweat bursting out on his forehead.Where was he going now? "THE FIRST ROOM ON THE RIGHT ATTHE HEAD OF THE LANDING." From his inner consciousness, as it were, the answer, in all the bald, naked horror that it implied, flashed upon him.The first room on the right--THAT man's room! God, how the darkness and the stillness began to palpitate again, and suddenly seem to shriek out at him over and over the one single, ghastly word--MURDER!
It had been with him, that thought, all the time he had been working at the safe; but it had been there then only subconsciously, like some heavy, nameless dread, subjugated for the moment by the work he had had to do which had demanded the centred attention of every faculty he possessed.But now the moment had come when there was only THAT before him, only that, nothing else--only that, the man upstairs in the first room to the right of the landing!
Why did he hesitate? Why did he stand there while the priceless moments before daylight came were passing? The man was a murderer, a blotch on society, and, his life already forfeited, he was living now only because the law had not found him out--the man was a criminal, bloodstained--and his life, because he had taken her father's life and had tried to take the Tocsin's own life, stood between her and every hope of happiness, robbing her even literally, in a material sense, of everything that the world could hold for her! Why did he hesitate? It was that man's life--or hers! It was the only way!
He put his foot upon the bottom step again--paused still another instant--and then began stealthily to mount the stairs.The darkness! There had never been, it seemed, such darkness before!
The stillness--he had never known silence so heavy, so full of strange, premonitory pulsings; a silence that seemed so incongruously full of clamouring whispers in his ears! It must be those imagined whispers that were affecting his nerve--for now, as he gained the landing and slipped his automatic from his pocket, his hand was shaking with a queer twitching motion.