Page:The Whisper on the Stair by Lyon Mearson (1924).djvu/181

 “Can’t go down-stairs [sic], because there’s a couple of them on duty there. Can’t get out the way I came in—by the waterpipe. Sure to get caught. Let’s try upstairs—the roof.”

Quietly they made their way through the dark halls till they came to a ladder that led to the roof. Eddie mounted it first and pushed up the door.

“O. K.,” he announced. “Come on.”

Ignace Teck, feeling in rather good humor with himself and the world, watched the train pull out of the station from the smoking room of the Pullman, where he sat, hands in his pockets, his mind at rest. He need no longer worry about Valentine Morley—he was out of it for good now, one way or the other. Since Morley had come into the affair, Jessica’s resistance to him, passive before and not very strong, had stiffened a great deal.

He made no bones about the fact that he was afraid of what Morley could do; Morley, a good natured meddler, seemingly afraid of nothing, could knock all of his plans into a cocked hat. But that was over. Valentine Morley was put out of the way—either by his promise or by Teck’s two henchmen. Teck knew them; they were not the kind to balk at murder, and it had seemed to him that they rather fancied the idea of this job. They had no love for Valentine Morley.

Well, that was over. He was on his way to Virginia, where Jessica was, and where, perhaps. A pleased smile curved its way across his dark countenance as he thought about what he could do with all that money and Jessica  she was worth while in herself. A few more days of Morley, he ad-