And now voices reached him--one, excited, nervous, as though the speaker were labouring under mental strain that bordered closely on the hysterical; the other, curiously mingling a querulousness with an attempt to pacify, but dominantly contemptuous, sneering, cold.
Jimmie Dale moved along the hall--very slowly--without a sound--testing each step before he threw his body weight from one leg to the other.He reached the foot of the stairs.The Tocsin had been right; it was a very short flight.He counted the steps--there were eight.Above, facing him, a door was open.The voices were louder now.It was a sordid-looking room, what he could see of it, poverty-stricken in its appearance, intentionally so probably for effect, with no attempt whatever at furnishing.He could see through the doorway to the window that opened on the alleyway, or, rather, just glimpse the top of the window at an angle across the room--that and a bare stretch of floor.The two men were not in the line of vision.
Burton's voice--it was unquestionably Burton speaking--came to Jimmie Dale now distinctly.
"No, I didn't! I tell you, I didn't! I--I hadn't the nerve."Jimmie Dale slipped his black silk mask over his face; and with extreme caution, on hands and knees, began to climb the stairs.
"So!" It was old Isaac now, in a half purr, half sneer."And I was so sure, my young friend, that you had.I was so sure that you were not such a fool.Yes; I could even have sworn that they were in your pocket now--what? It is too bad--too bad! It is not a pleasant thing to think of, that little chair up the river in its horrible little room where--""For God's sake, Isaac--not that! Do you hear--not that! My God, Ididn't mean to--I didn't know what I was doing!"Jimmie Dale crept up another step, another, and another.There was silence for a moment in the room; then Burton again, hoarse-voiced:
"Isaac, I'll make good to you some other way.I swear I will--Iswear it! If I'm caught at this I'll--I'll get fifteen years for it.""And which would you rather have?" Jimmie Dale could picture the oily smirk, the shrug of his shoulders, the outthrust hands, palms upward, elbows in at the hips, the fingers curved and wide apart--"fifteen years, or what you get--for murder? Eh, my friend, you have thought of that--eh? It is a very little price I ask--yes?""Damn you!" Burton's voice was shrill, then dropped to a half sob.
"No, no, Isaac, I didn't mean that.Only, for God's sake be merciful! It is not only the risk of the penitentiary; it's more than that.I--I tried to play white all my life, and until that cursed night there's no man living could say I haven't.You know that--you know that, Isaac.I tell you I couldn't do it this afternoon--I tell you I couldn't.I tried to and--and I couldn't."Jimmie Dale was lying flat on the little landing now, peering into the room.Back a short distance from the doorway, a repulsive-looking little man in unkempt clothes and soiled linen, with yellowish-skinned, parchment face, out of which small black eyes shone cunningly and shrewdly, sat at a bare deal table in a rickety chair; facing him across the table stood a young man of not more than twenty-five, clean cut, well dressed, but whose face was unnaturally white now, and whose hand, as he extended it in a pleading gesture toward the other, trembled visibly.Jimmie Dale's hand made its way quietly to his side pocket and extracted his automatic.
Old Isaac humped his shoulders, and leered at his visitor.
"We talk a great deal, my young friend.What is the use? A bargain is a bargain.A few rubies in exchange for your life.A few rubies and my mouth is shut.Otherwise"--he humped his shoulders again.
"Well?"
Burton drew back, swept his hand in a dazed way across his eyes--and laughed out suddenly in bitter mirth.
"A few rubies!" he cried."The most magnificent stones on this side of the water--a FEW rubies! It's been Maddon's life hobby.Every child in New York knows that! A few--yes, there's only a few--but those few are worth a fortune.He trusts me, the man has been like a father to me, and--""So you are the very last to be suspected," observed old Isaac suavely."Have I not told you that? There is nothing to fear.Did we not arrange everything so nicely--eh, my young friend? See, it was to-night that Maddon gives a little reception to his friends, and did you not say that the rubies would be taken from the safe-deposit vault this afternoon since his friends always clamoured to see them as a very fitting conclusion to an evening's entertainment?
And did you not say that you very naturally had access to the safe in the library where you worked, and that he would not notice they were gone until he came to look for them some time this evening? Ithink you said all that.And what suspicion let alone proof, would attach itself to you? You were out of the room once when he, too, was absent for perhaps half an hour.It is very simple.In that half hour, some one, somehow, abstracted them.Certainly it was not you.You see how little I ask--and I pay well, do I not? And so Igave you until to-night.Three days have gone, and I have said nothing, and the body has not been found--eh? But to-night--eh--it was understood! The rubies--or the chair."Burton's lips moved, but it was a moment before he could speak.
"You wouldn't dare!" he whispered thickly."You wouldn't dare! I'd tell the story of--of what you tried to make me do, and they'd send you up for it."Old Isaac shrugged with pitying contempt.