There was
still Clarie Archman. What would the boy do? Jimmie Dale's hand, a
picklock in it again, clenched fiercely. It was a hell's choice they
had given the boy--to rob his father, or go down himself, and drag his
father with him, in ruin and disgrace! What would the boy do? Jimmie
Dale was working silently at the back door now. It opened, and he
stepped inside. He was here well ahead of the other, there was no
possibility, granting even the start the boy had had, that Clarie
Archman could have made the trip uptown in the same time. It was more
likely that the boy might even linger a long while in misery and
indecision before he came home. That was why he, Jimmie Dale, had
dismissed Benson and the car for the night, and--
With a mental jerk, Jimmie Dale focused his mind on his immediate
surroundings. It was dark; there were no lights in any part of the
house, but he needed none, not even his flashlight--he knew the house as
well and as intimately as his own. He was in the rear hall now, and now
he opened a door, paused cautiously as the dull yellow glow from a dying
grate fire illuminated the room faintly, then stepped inside. It was the
Archman library, the room where David Archman did a great deal of his
work at night A desk stood at the lower end of the room; and in the
corner near the portiered windows was the lawyer's safe.
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