Page:Frank Packard - The Adventures of Jimmie Dale.djvu/53

Rh "Mabbe," grunted the Runt. "But Metzer got his early in de afternoon—see?" Jimmie Dale looked quickly around him—and then leaned toward the Runt. "Wot's de lay, Runt?" he whispered.

The Runt pulled down one eyelid, and, with his knowing grin, the cigarette, clinging to his upper lip, sagged down in the opposite corner of his mouth.

Jimmie Dale grinned, too—in a flash inspiration had come to Jimmie Dale.

"Say, Runt"—he jerked his head toward the street door—"wot's de fly cops doin' out dere?" The grin vanished from the Runt's lips. He stared for a second wildly at Jimmie Dale, and then clutched at Jimmie Dale's arm.

"De wot?" he said hoarsely.

"De fly cops," Jimmie Dale repeated in well-simulated surprise. "Dey was dere when I come in—Lansing an' Milrae, an"

The Runt shot a hurried glance at the stairway, and licked his lips as though they had gone suddenly dry.

"My Gawd, I" He gasped, and shrank hastily back against the wall beside Jimmie Dale.

The door from the street had opened noiselessly, instantly. Black forms bulked there—then a rush of feet—and at the head of half a dozen men, the face of Inspector Clayton loomed up before Jimmie Dale. There was a second's pause in the rush; and, in the pause, Clayton's voice, in a vicious undertone:

"You two ginks open your traps, and I'll run you both in!"

And then the rush passed, and swept on up the stairs.

Jimmie Dale looked at the Runt. The cigarette dangled limply; the Runt's eyes were like a hunted beast's.

"Dey got him!" he mumbled. "It's Stace—Stace Morse. He come to me after croakin' Metzer, an' he's been hidin' up dere all afternoon."

Stace Morse—known in gangland as a man with every