Page:Frank Packard - The Adventures of Jimmie Dale.djvu/195

Rh He stopped—the words cut short off on his lips. It came without warning—a crash, a pound on the door below—another.

Burton shrank back against the wall.

"My God! The police!" he gasped. "Maddon's found out! We're—we're caught!"

Jimmie Dale's eyes, on old Isaac, narrowed. The pounding in the alleyway grew louder, more insistent. And then his first suspicion passed—it was no "game" of Isaac's. Crafty though the old fox was, the other's surprise and agitation was too genuine to be questioned.

Still the pounding continued—some one was kicking viciously at the door, and banging a tattoo on the panels with his fists.

Old Isaac's clawlike hands doubled suddenly.

"It is some drunken sot," he snarled out, "that knows no better than to come here and rouse the whole neighbourhood! It Is true, in a moment we will have the police running in from the street. But wait—wait—I'll teach the fool a lesson!" He dashed around the table, ran for the window, wrenched the catch up, flung the window open, and, snarling again, leaned out—and instantly the knocking ceased.

And instantly then, with a sharp cry, as the whole ghastly meaning of it swept upon him, Jimmie sprang after the other—too late! Came the roar of a revolver shot, a stream of flame cutting the darkness of the alleyway from the window in the house opposite—and, without a sound, old Isaac crumpled up, hung limply for a moment over the sill, and slid in a heap to the floor.

On his hands and knees, protected from the possibility of another bullet by the height of the sill, Jimmie Dale, quick in every movement now, dragged the inert form toward the table away from the window, and bent hurriedly over the other. A minute perhaps he stayed there—and then rose slowly.

Burton, horror-stricken, unmanned, beside himself, was hanging, clutching with both hands at the table edge.