But"--Meighan
chuckled again--"he hasn't got away with it yet!"
Kenleigh made no answer.
It was still again in the apartment. Through the darkness only a few
feet away from Jimmie Dale, the two men sat there silently, waiting, as
he had waited, in the darkness, and the silence--for the Magpie. There
seemed an abhorrent, gruesome analogy in the situation--this waiting for
a _murdered_ man to come!
The minutes dragged by, ten, fifteen of them. And now Jimmie Dale,
cramped though he was, dared not shift his position; the movement of a
foot, the slightest stir would be heard. It would have been better if he
had gone before they had ceased talking. He had heard enough long before
then, and yet--
Suddenly, startling, like the clash of an alarm bell through the
silence, the telephone rang. Jimmie Dale heard Meighan fumble for the
receiver; and then, as the other spoke, seizing the opportunity, he
began to retreat stealthily back across the hallway toward the
vestibule door.
"Hello!" Meighan's voice was still guarded. "Yes--yes ... What!" His
voice rose suddenly in a rasping cry. "What's that! Dead! _Murdered_!
Wait a minute! Kenleigh, they've found the Magpie murdered in his room!"
"Murdered!" cried Kenleigh; then, frantically: "But the bonds, the
bonds! Did they find the bonds? Ask them! Tell them to look! The bonds!
Are the bonds there?"
"Hello!" Meighan was evidently speaking into the 'phone again.
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