The door, without a sound, swung wide open.
Clancy stood in the doorway.
"Good-night again, Smarlinghue," he said coolly.
The hypodermic fell clattering to the floor; Smarlinghue jumped
nervously in his chair.
Clancy laughed--significantly; and, without closing the door this time,
strode away again. His steps echoed back from the passageway, the front
door opened and shut, his boot heel rang on the pavement without--and
all was silence.
Smarlinghue rose from his chair, shuffled across the room, closed the
door and locked it, then shuffled back again to the roller shade over
the little French window, and, taking a pin from the lapel of his coat,
fastened the rent together.
A passing cloud for a moment obscured the moonrays from the top-light;
the gas-jet choked with air, spluttered, burning with a tiny, blue,
hissing flame; then the white path lay across the floor again, and the
yellow flare of gas spurted up into its pitiful fulness--and in
Smarlinghue's stead stood another man. Gone were the stooping shoulders,
gone the hollow cheeks, the thin, extended lips, the widened nostrils,
as the little distorting pieces of wax were removed; and out of the
metamorphosis, hard and grim, set like chiselled marble, was revealed
the face of--Jimmie Dale.
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