Page:Frank Packard - The Adventures of Jimmie Dale.djvu/117

Rh sprang at Malone. The man reeled back, with a cry. Moulton dashed through the trapdoor and disappeared. The short, ugly barrel of Jimmie Dale's automatic was between Malone's eyes.

"You make a move," said Jimmie Dale, in a low, sibilant way, "and I'll drop you where you stand! Put your hands behind your back—palms together!"

Malone, dazed, cowed, obeyed. A panel of the door split, and rent down its length—the hinges were sagging. Jimmie Dale worked like lightning. The cord with the slip noose from his pocket went around Malone's wrists, jerked tight, and knotted; the placard, his lips grim, with no sign of humour, Jimmie Dale dangled around the man's neck.

"An introduction for you to Mr. Kline out there—that you seem so fond of!" gritted Jimmie Dale. Then, working as he talked: "I've got no time to tell you what I think of you, you pitiful hound"—he snatched up the plate from the floor and put it in his pocket—"Twenty years, I think you said, didn't you?"—his hand shot into Malone's pocket-book, and extracted the five-dollar note—"If you can open this with your toes maybe you can get away"—he wrenched the trapdoor over and slammed it shut—"good-night, Malone"—and he leaped for the window.

The door tottered inward from the top, ripping, tearing, smashing hinges, panels, and jamb. Jimmie Dale got a blurred vision of brass buttons, blue coats, and helmets, and, in the forefront, of a stocky, gray-mustached, gray-haired man in plain clothes.

Jimmie Dale threw up the window, swung out, as with a rush the officers burst through into the room and a revolver bullet hummed viciously past his ear, and dropped to the ground—into encircling arms!

"Ah, no, you don't, my bucko!" snapped a hoarse voice in his ear. "Keep quiet now, or I'll crack your bean—understand!"

But the officer, too heavy to be muscular, was no match for Jimmie Dale, who, even as he had dropped from the sill, had caught sight of the lurking form below; and now,