He looked down at the silent form sprawled over the table, and his face
relaxed, softened a little. The Rat was only the Rat, it was true, and
the man was a thief, an outcast, a pariah, a prey upon society; but life
to the Rat, too, had been sweet, and his murder was a hideous thing--and
even such as the Rat might ask justice. Justice! It had been dirty
work--miserable, dirty work, he had called it when he had thought the
Rat alone involved--but now, thanks to the Tocsin, he knew it for what
it really was, knew it for its damnable, hellish ingenuity, and its
abominable, brutal callousness! Justice! Yes--but how?
He began to move about the room, his mind for the moment diverted in an
endeavour to reconstruct the scene as it must have been enacted here
around him. The Rat had broken into the safe _before_ eleven
o'clock--that was obvious now. In fact, it was quite likely to have been
much nearer ten! He had returned here and had been sitting there at the
table, counting over his ill-gotten gains, perhaps, his back to the
door, just as he sat now, and they had stolen in upon him. But where was
the old woman? True, perhaps little, if any, noise had been made, and
yet--Jimmie Dale, pausing on the threshold of the door, listened
intently.
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