Page:Frank Packard - The Adventures of Jimmie Dale.djvu/292

288 electric-light switch to the doorknob behind his back. Slowly, without a sound, it began to turn under his slim, tapering fingers, whose deft, sensitive touch had made him known and feared as the master cracksman of them all; and, as noiselessly, the door began to open.

It was like a duel—a duel of silence. What was the intruder, whoever he might be, waiting for? The abortive click of the electric-light switch, to say nothing of the opening of the door when he had entered, was evidence enough that he was there. Was the other trying to place him exactly through the darkness to make sure of his attack! The door was open now. And suddenly Jimmie Dale laughed easily aloud—and on the instant shifted his position.

"Well?" inquired Jimmie Dale coolly from the other side of the threshold.

It seemed like a long-drawn sigh fluttering through the room, a gasp of relief—and then the blood was pounding madly at his temples, and he was back in the room again, the door closed once more behind him.

"Oh, Jimmie—why didn't you speak? I had to be sure that it was you."

It was her voice! Hers! The Tocsin! Here! She was here—here in his house!

"You!" he cried. "You—here!" He was pressing the electric-light switch frantically, again and again.

Her voice came out of the darkness from across the room:

"Why are you doing that, Jimmie? You know already that I have turned off the lights."

"At the sockets—of course!" He laughed out the words almost hysterically. "Your face—I have never seen your face, you know." He was moving quickly toward the reading lamp on his desk.

There was a quick, hurried swish of garments, and she was blocking his way.

"No," she said, in a low voice; "you must not light that lamp."

He laughed again, shortly, fiercely now. She was close