Well, he should have
insisted on a fuller explanation in the first place if he had intended
to make that a contingent condition; as it was, it was too late now,
and he had promised to go.
The sound of a motor car on the driveway leading from the private garage
in the rear reached him. Benson was bringing out the car now. Jimmie
Dale, as he prepared to leave the room, glanced about him from force of
habit, and his eyes held for an instant on the portieres behind which,
in the little alcove, stood the squat, barrel-shaped safe. Was there
anything he would need to-night--that leather girdle, for instance, with
its circle of pockets containing its compact little burglar's kit? He
shook his head impatiently. He had already told Jason--if in other
words--that there was no "call to arms" to the Gray Seal to-night,
hadn't he? It was habit again that had brought the thought, that was
all! For the rest, in the last few days, since this new intuitive danger
from the underworld had come to him, an automatic had always reposed in
his pocket by day and under his pillow by night; and by way of defence,
too, though they might appear to be curious weapons of defence if one
did not stop to consider that the means of making a hurried exit through
a locked door might easily make the difference between life and death,
his pockets held a small, but very carefully selected collection of
little steel picklocks.
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