The Adventures of Jimmie Dale [208]
here, upstairs, within the house, it was not as she had said it was at all! What did it mean? She could not have blundered so egregiously as that, unless--he caught his breath suddenly--unless she had done so intentionally! Was that it? Had she surmised, formed a suspicion of what was in his mind, of what he meant to do--and taken this means of defeating it? If so-- well, it was too late for that now! There was one way--only one way! Whatever the cost, whatever it might mean for him--there was only one way out for her. His flashlight was in his hand now, and the round, white ray shot down the corridor--seemed suddenly to falter unsteadily--swept in through an open door that was almost beside him--and then, as though a nerveless hand held it, the ray dropped and played shakily on the toe of his boot before it went out. A stifled cry rose to his lips. Something cold, like a hand of ice, seemed to clutch at his heart. Those portieres, the wide, richly carpeted corridor! It was the corridor of the night before! That room at his side was the room where he had seen Hilton Travers, the chauffeur, dead, lashed in a chair! He felt the sweat beads burst out anew upon his forehead. IT WAS THE CRIME CLUB!
CHAPTER XV RETRIBUTION
His brain seemed to whirl, staggered as by some gigantic, ghastly mockery. The Crime Club! HERE! He had thought to creep upon that man--and he had run blindly into the very heart and centre of these hell fiends' nest! Silently he stood there, holding his breath as he listened now, motionless as a statue, forcing his mind to THINK. He remembered that last night his impression of the place had been that it was more like some great private mansion than anything else. Well, he had been right, it seemed! He could have laughed aloud-- sardonically, hysterically. It was not so strange now that there were no rooms on the right-hand side of the corridor! And what could have suited their purpose better, what, by its very location, its unimpeachable character, could be a more ideal lair for them than this house! And how grimly simple it was now, the explanation! In the five years that the false Henry LaSalle had been in possession, they had cunningly remodelled the upper floor--that was all! It was quite clear now why the man never entertained--why he had never been caught or found or known to be in communication with his fellow conspirators! It was no longer curious that one might watch the door of the house for months at a stretch and go unrewarded for one's pains, as the Tocsin had done, when access to the house by those who frequented it was so easy through the garage on the side street--and from the garage, if their work there was in keeping with their clever contrivances within the house, by an underground connection into, say, the cellar or basement! Again Jimmie Dale checked that nervous, unnatural inclination to laugh aloud. Was there anything, any single incident, any single detail of all that had transpired, that was not explained, borne out, as it could be explained and borne out in no other way save that the Crime Club should be no other than this very house itself? It was the exposition of that favourite theory of his--it was so obvious that therein lay its security. He had mocked at the Magpie not many moments before on that score--and now it was the beam in his own eye! It was so obvious now, so glaringly obvious, that the Crime Club could have been nowhere else; so obvious, with every word of the Tocsin's story pointing it out like a signpost--and he had not seen it! And then suddenly every muscle grew strained and rigid. WAS THERE SOME ONE IN THE CORRIDOR? Was it some one moving--or was it only fancy? He listened--while he strained his eyes through the darkness. There was no sound; only that abnormal, heavy silence that--yes, he remembered that, too, now--that had clung about him last night like a pall. He could see nothing, hear nothing--but intuitively, bringing a cold dismay, the greater because it was something unknown, intangible, he FELT as though eyes were upon
CHAPTER XV RETRIBUTION
His brain seemed to whirl, staggered as by some gigantic, ghastly mockery. The Crime Club! HERE! He had thought to creep upon that man--and he had run blindly into the very heart and centre of these hell fiends' nest! Silently he stood there, holding his breath as he listened now, motionless as a statue, forcing his mind to THINK. He remembered that last night his impression of the place had been that it was more like some great private mansion than anything else. Well, he had been right, it seemed! He could have laughed aloud-- sardonically, hysterically. It was not so strange now that there were no rooms on the right-hand side of the corridor! And what could have suited their purpose better, what, by its very location, its unimpeachable character, could be a more ideal lair for them than this house! And how grimly simple it was now, the explanation! In the five years that the false Henry LaSalle had been in possession, they had cunningly remodelled the upper floor--that was all! It was quite clear now why the man never entertained--why he had never been caught or found or known to be in communication with his fellow conspirators! It was no longer curious that one might watch the door of the house for months at a stretch and go unrewarded for one's pains, as the Tocsin had done, when access to the house by those who frequented it was so easy through the garage on the side street--and from the garage, if their work there was in keeping with their clever contrivances within the house, by an underground connection into, say, the cellar or basement! Again Jimmie Dale checked that nervous, unnatural inclination to laugh aloud. Was there anything, any single incident, any single detail of all that had transpired, that was not explained, borne out, as it could be explained and borne out in no other way save that the Crime Club should be no other than this very house itself? It was the exposition of that favourite theory of his--it was so obvious that therein lay its security. He had mocked at the Magpie not many moments before on that score--and now it was the beam in his own eye! It was so obvious now, so glaringly obvious, that the Crime Club could have been nowhere else; so obvious, with every word of the Tocsin's story pointing it out like a signpost--and he had not seen it! And then suddenly every muscle grew strained and rigid. WAS THERE SOME ONE IN THE CORRIDOR? Was it some one moving--or was it only fancy? He listened--while he strained his eyes through the darkness. There was no sound; only that abnormal, heavy silence that--yes, he remembered that, too, now--that had clung about him last night like a pall. He could see nothing, hear nothing--but intuitively, bringing a cold dismay, the greater because it was something unknown, intangible, he FELT as though eyes were upon