Grenville won't mind, I guess--I've got your
end of the story, and--"
Jimmie Dale was retreating back along the corridor--and a minute later
he was in the street, and scuffling along in a downtown direction. His
hands, in the pockets of his tattered coat, were clenched, and through
the pallor of Smarlinghue's make-up a dull red burned his cheeks. Old
Grenville--and the Rat! The smile that found lodgment on Smarlinghue's
contorted lips was mirthless. The old man had taken it like the
gentleman he was. He had not perhaps hidden the quiver of the lip--who
would at seventy! It was not easy to begin life again at seventy! Old
Grenville--and the Rat! Well, the game was not played out yet! There
would be an accounting of that fifteen thousand dollars before the
morning came, and, as between old Grenville and the Rat, it might not
perhaps be old Grenville who paid!
Hurrying now, running through lanes and alleyways as he had come, Jimmie
Dale headed for the Sanctuary. It was very simple now. The Rat, his work
completed, would lay very low--asleep probably, in the _innocent_
surroundings of his own room! The Rat would not be hard to find. It was
necessary only that, in the little interview he proposed to have with
the Rat, "Smarlinghue" should have disappeared!
He reached the tenement where, for months now, that ground floor room,
opening on the small and dirty courtyard in the rear, had been his
refuge, Smarlinghue's home in the underworld, glanced quickly up and
down the street to assure himself that he was not observed, then,
darting into the dark hallway, he crossed it silently, unlocked the
Sanctuary door, stepped through, and closed and locked the door behind
him.
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