Page:Frank Packard - The Adventures of Jimmie Dale.djvu/221

Rh through the room. Then a deep breath, half like a sigh, half like a fluttering sob as of a strong man taxed to the uttermost of his endurance, came from Jimmie Dale, and his left hand swept away the sweat beads that had spurted to his forehead.

"Eight—thirteen—twenty-two," whispered Jimmie Dale.

There was a click, a low metallic thud as the bolts slid back, and the door swung open.

And now the flashlight again, searching the mechanism of the inner door—then darkness once more.

Five minutes, ten minutes went by. The clock struck again—and the single stroke seemed to boom out through the house in a weird, raucous, threatening note, and seemed to linger, throbbing in the air.

The inner door was open—the flashlight's ray was flooding a nest of pigeonholes and little drawers. The pigeonholes were crammed with papers, as, presumably, too, were the drawers. Jimmie Dale sucked in his breath. He had already been there well over half an hour—every minute now, every second was counting against him, and to search that mass of papers before Stangeist returned was "Ah!"—it came in a fierce little ejaculation from Jimmie Dale. From the centre pigeonhole, almost the first paper he had touched, he drew a long, sealed envelope, and at a single swift glance had read the inscription upon it, written in longhand:

The words in the corners were underscored three times.

Swiftly, deftly, Jimmie Dale's fingers rolled the rounded end of one of his collection of little steel instruments under the flap of the envelope, turned the flap back, and drew out the folded document inside. There were four sheets of legal foolscap, neatly fastened together at the top left-hand corner with green tape. He opened them out, read a few words