“Unless, it was you,” a man’s voice answered in good-humoured banter. “You were the last one in the room.”
“But I am sure I didn’t!” the feminine tones asserted positively.
The steps passed along the hall, and from behind the folding doors Jimmie Dale saw an elderly couple enter the front room. Both were in evening dress—and somehow, suddenly, at sight of them Jimmie Dale swallowed hard. The old gentleman, kindly, blue-eyed, white-haired, was very erect, very straight in spite of the fact that he must have been close to seventy years of age, and with the sweet-faced, old-fashioned little lady, with the gray hair, who stood beside him, they made a stately pair—for all that their clothes, past glories like the furniture, were grown a little shabby, a little threadbare. But with what a courtly air they wore them! And with what a courtly air now he led her to a chair, and bent over her, and lifted up her face, and held it tenderly between both his hands!
“How well you look to-night in your dress,” he said, and his blue eyes shone. “I am very proud of you.”
She stroked the hand against her cheek.
“Do you remember the first time I ever wore it?” She was smiling up at him.
“Oh, yes!” he nodded his head slowly. “It is strange, isn’t it? That was a long time ago when our friends were married back there in the old State, and to-night again, way up here in New York, they have not forgotten us on this their anniversary.”
Silence fell for a moment between them.
Then he spoke again, a little sadly:
“Would you wish those days back again, if you could?”
She hesitated thoughtfully.
“I do not know,” she said at last. “Sometimes I think so. We had John then.”
“Yes,” he said, and turned away his head.
Her hand, as Jimmie Dale watched, seemed to tighten over her husband’s; and now, though her lips quivered, there came a little smile.
“But we have his memory now, dear,” she whispered.
Agitated, the old gentleman moved abruptly away from the chair, and Jimmie Dale could see that the blue eyes were moist.
“That is true—we have his memory.” The old colonel’s voice trembled. And then his shoulders squared like a soldier on parade. “Tut, tut!” he chided. “Why, we are to be gay to-night! And it is almost time for us to be going. We, too, shall celebrate. You shall wear the pendant, just as you did that other night.”
“Oh, colonel!” There was mingled delight and hesitation in her ejaculation. “Do you really think I ought to—that it wouldn’t be out of keeping with our present circumstances?”
“Of course, I think you ought to!” he declared. “And see”—he started across the room—“I will get it for you, and fasten it around your throat myself.”
He reached the escritoire, opened a little drawer at the top, took out a key, stooped to the lower drawer, inserted the key, turned it once or twice in a puzzled way, then tried the drawer, pulled it open—and with a sharp, sudden cry, reached inside for the steel bond-box.
The little old lady rose hurriedly, in a startled way, from her chair.
“What is it? What is the matter?” she cried anxiously.
The box clattered from the colonel’s hands to the floor.
“It is gone!” he said hoarsely. “It has been stolen!”
“Gone!“ She ran wildly forward. “Stolen! No, no—it cannot be gone!”
They stared for a moment into each other’s faces, and from each other’s faces stared at the rifled box upon the floor—and then a look of wan misery crept gray upon the little old lady, and she swayed backward.
With a cry, that to Jimmie Dale seemed one of more poignant anguish than he had ever heard before, the old gentleman caught her in his arms and supported her to a chair; then running quickly to the hall, called loudly for the maid below.
There was a merciless smile on Jimmie Dale’s lips. He was retreating now further back into the room toward the door that gave on the hall.
“I wonder,” said Jimmie Dale to himself through set teeth, “I wonder if a man wouldn’t be justified in putting an end for keeps to that devil Thorold for this!”
He heard the maid come rushing up the stairs. He could no longer see into the other room now, but a confused mingling of voices reached him:
“… The police … next door and telephone … the light … while we were at dinner….”
Jimmie Dale opened the door, slipped across the hall, made his way silently and swiftly down the stairs, and with the single precaution of pulling his slouch hat far down over his eyes, stepped boldly out of the front door, walked quietly down the steps, walked briskly, but without apparent haste, along the street—and turned the first corner.
Chapter V.
“Death to the Gray Seal!”
Jimmie Dale hurried now, making his way to the nearest subway station, and took a downtown train. “There should be no danger,” the Tocsin had written. His eyes darkened with a flash of passion. Danger! Danger was a small, pitiful factor now! He had been too late through no fault either of his or the Tocsin’s—but he still knew where the pendant was, or would be! Time was counting again; he was afraid now only that he might be too late a second time. Old Attic would not let any grass grow under his feet in disposing of the diamonds through one of the many channels at his command, and once they had passed out of that scoundrel’s hands they were as good as hopelessly lost. Also there was Thorold to reckon with. Thorold would naturally get the pendant first, then turn it over to Jake Kisnieff. Had Thorold already done so? It depended, of course, on when the theft had been committed. That snatch of conversation—“the light … when we were at dinner”—came back to him. His brows gathered. He crouched a little in his seat, staring abstractedly at the black tunnel walls without. Station after station was passed. Jimmie Dale’s hand, resting on the window sill, was so tightly clenched that it seemed the skin must crack across the knuckles.
But he was smiling when he left the subway—only it was that same merciless smile once more. It was not alone the mere act of robbery that fanned his anger to a white heat. Again and again, he was picturing in his mind that fine old gray-haired couple; again and again he saw the old colonel bend and lift that sweet face to his, and saw them look into each other’s eyes. There was something holy, something reverent in that love which the years had ripened and mellowed with tenderness; something that was profound, that made of this night’s work a sacrilege in touching them—and that poor jewel, clung to all too obviously through adversity for its past associations, was probably the last real thing of intrinsic value they possessed!
“I am not sure,” muttered Jimmie Dale—he was fingering the automatic in his pocket, “I am not sure that I can trust myself to-night!”
Ten minutes’ walk from the subway brought him before a dingy and dilapidated three-story tenement on the East Side. The Nest, they called it in the underworld; and worthily so, for its roof sheltered more of the cheaper and petty class of criminals probably than any other single dwelling in New York—the steerers, the hangers-on, the stalls, those of the lesser breed of vultures, and the more vicious therefore, who at best made but a precarious livelihood from their iniquitous pursuits.
One of Jimmie Dale’s shoulders was hunched forward, giving a crude and ill-fitting set to his fashionably tailored, Fifth Avenue coat; he staggered slightly, and the flap of his collar protruded, while his tie, pulled out, sprawled over his