There was nothing. Jimmie Dale's
lips tightened suddenly. It was very curious! There was an "upstairs" to
the place, such as it was, but if Melinoff was up there alone, or with
the Pippin, they were up there in the dark unless they were in the rear
upstairs room; in which case they could not, in view of the ramshackle
nature of the building, have made the slightest movement without making
themselves heard from where he stood.
From his pocket Jimmie Dale produced a flashlight. The ray played once,
as though with queer, diffident curiosity, about him, swept once more in
a circuit around the room, swiftly, in an almost startled way this
time--and there was darkness again. And, instead of the flashlight,
Jimmie Dale's automatic was in his hand now, and he was moving quickly
and silently forward toward that thread of light and the closed door
leading into the rear room.
Around him everything was in disorder; not the disorder habitual to such
a place where odds and ends of the heterogeneous accumulation of
Melinoff's stock in trade might be expected to be deposited wherever
convenience and not system dictated, but a disorder that seemed to hold
within itself something of ominous promise.
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