And then, instinctively, Jimmie Dale reached out toward the other's
pocket; but, with a hard smile, dropped his hand to his side, instead.
The sealed envelope, the fifteen thousand dollars, was not there--_it
was where the Tocsin had said it was_! The Tocsin, not he, had been
right! And yet, too, in a way, he had not been entirely wrong. It _was_
the Rat who had stolen the sealed envelope from the safe--or else the
Rat would not now be dead!
His mind, alert and keen now, was dovetailing together the pieces of the
puzzle. Those who had originally planned the crime had in some way
discovered that the Rat, in the actual theft, had forestalled them.
Possibly, for instance, bent on the same errand, they had seen the Rat
leaving the building; then, finding the safe already looted, they had
put two and two together, and had trapped the Rat here--and the Rat had
paid the price! It might have been that way, but that in itself was a
detail, immaterial--they _had_ discovered that it was the Rat. The Rat's
murder proved it. It was not enough that they should recover the
envelope--there would have been no way to avoid exposure or cover their
own crime except by murdering the Rat.
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