And that cuff link was damning, irrefutable,
incontrovertible evidence, exactly the evidence the police required to
convict the guilty man! Yes, undoubtedly, the Pippin would be back--and
at any moment now. Figuring that the Pippin had left Bristol Bob's half
an hour before he, Jimmie Dale, had started out, and allowing, say,
twenty minutes for the struggle and subsequent murder here, the Pippin
could only have been gone a matter of some ten minutes. In the
excitement, and probably a run through lanes and alleyways, it was quite
possible that the Pippin would not have noticed his loss in that length
of time; but he could not, with a loose cuff, and especially when it was
usually fastened by so highly prized a link, have remained much longer
than that in ignorance of his loss.
Jimmie Dale smiled grimly now in the darkness. It was almost analogous
to Meighan's waiting for the return of the Magpie, except that he,
Jimmie Dale, had neither the desire nor the intention of usurping the
functions of the police. "Smarlinghue," for very obvious reasons, could
neither appear nor bear witness in the case; he could take no chances of
the discovery being made that "Smarlinghue" was but a _character_ that
cloaked Jimmie Dale and the Gray Seal--and, above all, he could take no
chances to-night when at last he was on the threshold of the return to
his old normal life again! But he had, nevertheless, no intention of
permitting the Pippin to elude the law, or to escape the consequences of
the act to which that mute form lying in there on the crimsoned floor
bore hideous testimony.
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