Again Jimmie Dale's eyes shifted--to Hunchback Joe once more. Like some
abnormal and repulsive toad the man looked. His shoulders were thrust
upward until they seemed to merge with the head itself, the body was
crooked and bent forward, due to the ugly deformity of the man's back,
while the face was carried at an upward tilt, as though tardily to
rectify the curvature of the spine, and out of the sinister, bearded
face, the beard tawny and ill-kempt, little black eyes from under
protruding brows blinked ceaselessly.
A sudden fury, an anger hot and passionate seized upon Jimmie Dale; and
there came an impulse almost overpowering to play another role, a
deadlier, grimmer role than that of spectator! A toad, he had called the
man. He was wrong--the man was a devil in human guise. He crushed back
the impulse, a cold smile on his lips. He could afford to wait! It was
not time yet. There was still the game to play out. He would have an
opportunity to give full sway to impulse before the night was out,
_before_ the Tocsin should have set the Secret Service men upon the
other's trail--before midnight came.
Hunchback Joe was speaking now.
"Go on, Hoppy; get busy!" he ordered sharply, jerking his hand toward a,
trunk that stood at the foot of the cheap iron bedstead.
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