Jimmie Dale stood up again, and then Jimmie Dale, too, smiled; but it
was a grim smile, hard and ominous. In his mind he had answered his
own question.
It was that unseen hand of last night--only to-night the challenge had
been _direct_. Well, he would pick up the gauntlet again--and at the
same time, perhaps, add a little "atmosphere" to Carruthers' scoop! From
his pocket came the thin, metal insignia case; and, lifting it with the
tiny tweezers, moistening the adhesive side with his tongue, Jimmie Dale
stooped down and fastened a gray seal on the floor by the Pippin's side.
And then Jimmie Dale crept out of the shed toward Foo Sen's, and crept
into the dark areaway, and, as he had come, by alleyways and lanes, and
through yards, and by ill-lighted, unfrequented streets, returned again
to the Sanctuary--alone.
CHAPTER XXII
THE TOCSIN'S STORY
It was a whimsical movement, a whimsical trick of Jimmie Dale's--that
outward thrust of his hand that he might study it in a curiously
impersonal, yet mercilessly critical way. He laughed a little harshly,
as he allowed his hand to drop again to the arm of his chair. No,
there was no tremor there--mentally he might be near the breaking
point, his nerves raw and on edge; but physically, outwardly, he gave
no sign of the strain that, cumulative in its anxiety, had increased
hourly, it seemed, in the three days that had passed since the night
he had so narrowly escaped the trap laid by that unknown master
criminal, whose cunning, power and malignant genius was dominating and
making itself felt in every den and dive of the underworld, and for
whom the Pippin and the Mole that night had been but blind tools,
pawns moved at the will of this unseen, evil strategist upon a
chessboard of inhuman deviltry.
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