"Sure, we will! Sweet dreams, Smarly!"
The hanging fell back into place. Jimmie Dale continued to blink at it,
and mumble to himself. The Rat's pleasant little plan of robbing
somebody's safe of fifteen thousand dollars had nothing to do with
_her_--but it involved a moral obligation on his part that he had
neither the right nor the intention to ignore. And the fulfilment, or
the attempt at fulfilment, of that obligation had suddenly assumed
unexpected difficulties. Even while he had listened, and before the Rat
was halfway through his story, he, Jimmie Dale, was conscious that he
had made up his mind the Rat would rob no safe of fifteen thousand
dollars that night if he could prevent it, and he had intended following
the Rat from Foo Sen's. He dared not do that now. Muggy Ladd's
cautiousness, that had evidently induced the Rat to inspect his, Jimmie
Dale's, compartment, had made that impossible. The Rat had seen him
there; and, forced to the deception in order to avert any suspicion that
he had overheard the others' conversation, the Rat had seen him in the
condition of one who was apparently already far gone under the influence
of drug. To risk the attempt to follow the Rat now, to risk discovery by
the Rat, was to risk, not only the admission that he had been playing a
part, but to risk what he had fought for and staked his life for months
now to establish--the role, the character of "Smarlinghue" in the
underworld.
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