Old clothes, for instance,
that might at least have been expected, even with the most profound
carelessness and indifference, to have received better treatment, were
strewn and scattered about the floor in all directions.
And now Jimmie Dale stood still again. There was a sound at last; but a
sound that he could not immediately define. It came from the room
beyond--like a dull, muffled thud mingling with a low, long-drawn gasp.
It was repeated--and then, unmistakably, there came a moan.
In a flash now, Jimmie Dale, his automatic thrust forward, was at the
door. He stooped with his eye to the keyhole; and the next instant,
his face hard and tense, he flung the door open, and jumped forward
into the room.
Those words of the Pippin's note seemed to be searing through his brain
in letters of fire--"go the limit--go the limit." There was no need to
speculate longer on their meaning; they meant--_murder_. On the floor, a
dark ugly, crimson pool beside him, lay Melinoff, the old-clothes
dealer. And as Jimmie Dale sprang to the other's side, there came again
that curious muffled thud--as the old man weakly lifted his head a few
inches from the floor only to have it fall limply back again.
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