The Adventures of Jimmie Dale [143]
clutched in a tight-closed fist, his revolver swung out, poised, in the other hand. Hagan, too, was on his feet, and, unheeded now by Connie Myers, was wrenching his wrists apart. Another crash upon the door--another. Another demand in a harsh voice to open it. Then some one running around to the window at the side of the house--and Jimmie Dale sprang forward. There was the roar of a report, a blinding flash almost in Jimmie Dale's eyes, as Connie Myers, whirling instantly at his entrance, fired--and missed. It happened quick then, in the space of the ticking of a watch--before Jimmie Dale, flinging himself forward, had reached the man. Like a defiant challenge to their demand it must have seemed to the officers outside, that shot of Connie Myers at Jimmie Dale, for it was answered on the instant by another through the side window. And the shot, fired at random, the interior of the room hidden from the officers outside by the drawn shades, found its mark--and Connie Myers, a bullet in his brain, pitched forward, dead, upon the floor. "QUICK!" Jimmie Dale flung at Hagan. "Get that letter out of his hand!" He jumped for the lamp on the floor, extinguished it, and turned again toward Hagan. "Have you got it?" he whispered tensely. "Yes," said Hagan, in a numbed way. "This way, then!" Jimmie Dale caught Hagan's arm, and pulled the other across the room and into the kitchen to the trapdoor. "Quick!" he breathed again. "Get down there--quick! And no noise! They don't know how many are in the house. When they find HIM they'll probably be satisfied." Hagan, stupefied, dazed, obeyed mechanically--and, in an instant, the trapdoor closed behind them, Jimmie Dale was standing beside the other in the cellar. "Not a sound now!" he cautioned once more. His flashlight winked, went out, winked again; then held steadily, in curious fascination it seemed, as, in its circuit, the ray fell upon Hagan--FELL UPON THE TORN, RAGGED EDGE OF A PAPER IN HAGAN'S HAND! With a suppressed cry, Jimmie Dale snatched it away from the other. It was but a torn HALF of the letter! "The other half! The other half, Hagan--where is it?" he demanded hoarsely. Hagan, almost in a state of collapse, muttered inaudibly. The crash of a toppling door sounded from above. Jimmie Dale shook the man desperately. "Where is it?" he repeated fiercely. "He--he was holding it tight, it--it tore in his hand," Hagan stammered. "Does it make any difference? Oh, let's get out of here, whoever you are--for God's sake let's get out of here!" Any difference! Jimmie Dale's jaws were clamped like a steel vise. Any difference! The difference between life and death for the man beside him--that was all! He was reading the portion in his hand. It was the last part of the letter, beginning with: "There's a paper stuck under the edge of Hagan's table--" From above, from the floor of the front room now, came the rush and trample of feet. He could not go back for the other half. And any attempt to conceal the fact that Connie Myers had been alone in the house was futile now. They would find the torn letter in the dead man's hand, proof enough that some one else had been there. What was in that part of the letter that was still clutched in that death grip upstairs? A sentence from it, that he had heard Connie Myers read, seemed to burn itself into his brain. "IF YOU WANT TO KNOW WHO DID IT, LOOK IN MIKE HAGAN'S ROOM ON THE FLOOR ABOVE." And then, suddenly, like light through the darkness, came a ray of hope. He pulled Hagan to the cellarway, and stealthily lifted one side of the double trapdoor. There was a chance, desperate enough, one in a thousand--but still a chance! Voices from the house came plainly now, but there was no one in sight. The police, to a man, were evidently all inside. From the road in front showed the lamp glare of their automobile. "Run for the car!" Jimmie Dale jerked out from between set teeth-- and with Hagan beside him, steadying the man by the arm, dashed across the intervening fifty yards. They had not been seen. A minute more, and