A few drops from a
tiny phial poured into the water, and the pallor, the sickly hue from
his face was gone. It was to be Jimmie Dale--not Smarlinghue--who would
keep the rendezvous at Malay John's!
And now he was back across the room once more, turning out the light as
he passed the gas-jet. The leather girdle, that went on much after the
fashion of a life-preserver, was fastened over his shoulders and secured
around his waist. The remainder of his clothes were stripped off with
lightning speed, and in their place were donned the fashionably
tailored, immaculate tweeds of Jimmie Dale. It was like some
quick-moving, shadowy pantomime in the moonlight. He gathered up the
discarded garments, tucked them into the opening in the wall, replaced
the baseboard, slipped the automatic and flashlight into the side
pockets of his coat--and stood up, his fingers feeling swiftly over his
vest and under the back of his coat to guard against the possibility of
any tell-tale bulge from the leather girdle underneath.
An instant he stood glancing critically about him; then the roller shade
over the window was lifted aside, the window itself, on carefully oiled
hinges, was opened noiselessly, closed again--and, hugged close against
the wall of the building, hidden in the black shadows, Jimmie Dale, so
silent as to be almost uncanny in his movements, crept along the few
intervening feet to the fence that enclosed the courtyard.
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