Page:Frank Packard - The Adventures of Jimmie Dale.djvu/310

306 When they find Doyle in the room below yours, and that paper in your room, and the busted fireplace here—I guess they won't look any farther for who did it. And say"—he leaned forward with an ugly grin—"mabbe you think I'm soft to be telling you all this? But don't you fool yourself. You don't know me—you don't know who I am. So tell 'em the truth! They won't believe you anyway with evidence like that against you—and the neater the story the more they'll think it shows brains enough on your part to have pulled a job like this!"

"My God!" Hagan was rocking on his knees, beads of sweat were starting out on his forehead. "You wouldn't plant a man like that!" he cried brokenly. "You wouldn't do it, would you? My God—you wouldn't do that!"

Jimmie Dale's face under his mask was white and rigid. There was something primal, elemental in the savagery that was sweeping upon him. He had it all now—all! She had been right—there was need to-night for the Gray Seal. So that was the game, inhuman, hellish, the whole of it, to the last filthy dregs—Connie Myers, to protect himself, was railroading an innocent man to death for the crime that he himself had committed! There was a cold smile on Jimmie Dale's lips now, as he took his automatic from his pocket. No, it wasn't quite all the game—there was still his hand to play! He edged forward a little nearer to the door—and halted abruptly, listening. An automobile had stopped outside on the road. Hagan was still pleading in a frenzied way; Connie Myers was callously folding his letter, while he watched the other warily—neither of the men had heard the sound.

And then, quick, almost on the instant, came a rush of feet, a crash upon the front door—an imperative command to open in the name of the law. The police! Jimmie Dale's brain was working now with lightning speed. Somehow the police had stumbled upon the crime in that tenement; and, as he had foreseen in such an event, had identified Doyle. But they could not be sure that any one was present here in the house now—they could not see a light any more