Yes, it was dirty work—miserable, dirty work, the work of a hound and a cur! And the Rat’s logic was unassailable. From Patsy Marles’ maudlin babbling it was evident that Reddy Curley had bought Haines, his partner, out; that the price was fifteen thousand dollars; and that Grenville, acting for Haines obviously, had received the purchase money from Curley, and in return had handed over what the Rat had taken to be a receipt, but what was probably in reality much more likely to have been a Bill of Sale. But in either case, it was neither Curley nor Haines who would suffer—it was old Grenville, who, if the funds were stolen and not recovered, would have to make the amount good out of his own pocket, and who, as all who knew old Grenville knew well, would unhesitatingly do so at once if it took the last cent that pocket held.
Jimmie Dale had halted before a small building on one of the cross streets near the upper end of the Bowery. There were some half dozen signs on the doorway, for the most part time worn and shabby, amongst them that of Henry Grenville, Attorney-at-Law.
There were no lights in any of the windows, but Jimmie Dale, as he tried the door, found it unlocked, and, opening it noiselessly, stepped inside. Here, a single incandescent suspended over the stair well gave a murky illumination to the surroundings. A narrow corridor, dotted with office doors, was on his left; the stairway—there was no elevator—was directly in front of him. He stood motionless for an instant, listening. There was no sound. He moved forward then, as silent as the silence around him, and began to mount the stairs. Old Grenville’s office, he knew, was at the rear of the corridor on the first landing.
It was after midnight now, quite a little after midnight. Jimmie Dale’s fingers, in the right-hand pocket of his tattered coat, closed over the stock of his automatic. Still no sound! Was he too late to forestall the Rat; or, by no means an unlikely possibility, was the Rat there now; or was—a low, muttered exclamation, that mingled surprise and bewilderment, came suddenly from Jimmie Dale’s lips. He had reached the landing, and here, from the head of the stairs, he could see a dull yellow glow thrown out into the corridor through the glass panel of the lawyer’s door.
An instant’s pause, and then, chagrined, the sense of defeat upon him, he moved forward again as silently as before. He reached the door and crouched beside it. A murmur of voices came to him from within. Jimmie Dale’s lips parted in grim irony. The game was up, of course, but he was occupying precisely the same coign of vantage that, according to the Rat, the Rat had occupied that afternoon, and if the Rat had been able, undiscovered, to see and hear, then he, Jimmie Dale, could do the same. The slim, tapering, sensitive fingers closed on the doorknob—a thin ray of light began to steal through between the door-edge and the jamb—and grew wider—and the voices, from a confused murmur, became distinct. And now, through the narrow crack of the slightly opened door, he could see inside; and he could see that, as he had already realised, he was too late, very much too late, in time only, as it were, for the post-mortem of the affair—even the police were already on the spot!
It was a curious scene! A rickety old railing across the middle of the musty, bare-floored room served to indicate that the space beyond was the old lawyer’s “private” office. And here, inside the railing, a desk, or, rather, a great, flat, deal table, spread with a red, ink-stained cloth, was littered with books and papers; while behind the table, again, stood a huge, old-fashioned safe, its door swung wide open, its erstwhile contents scattered in disorder about the floor.
Jimmie Dale’s eyes swept the interior of the room with a single, quick, comprehensive glance—and then, narrowed, travelled from one to another of the faces of the four men who were gathered around the table. He knew them all. The stocky, grizzle-haired man in the centre was a plain-clothes man from headquarters, named Barlow; at the lower end of the table Reddy Curley and Haines, his partner, faced each other, Curley drumming indifferently with his fingers on the table-top, Haines scowling and chewing his lower lip, a certain coarse brutality in both their faces that was neither pleasant nor inviting; but it was the white-haired old man, bent of form, standing at the head of the table, upon whom Jimmie Dale’s eyes lingered. Old Grenville! The man’s hand, as he raised it to pass it across his eyes, was shaking palpably; his face, kindly still in spite of its worn and haggard expression, was pale with anxiety and strain. Barlow was speaking:
“You say there’s nothing else missing, Mr. Grenville, except the sealed envelope that contained the fifteen thousand dollars given you by Mr. Curley this afternoon?”
The old lawyer shook his head.
“I can’t say,” he answered. “As I told you, I often come here at night to work. To-night a client kept me very late at my house, so it was only, I should say, a quarter of an hour ago when I reached here. I telephoned you at once, and, awaiting your arrival, I did not disturb anything, so I have not examined any of the papers yet.”
“I don’t think it’s a question of papers,” observed the Headquarters man dryly.
“There was nothing else taken then,” decided Grenville slowly; “for there was no other money in the safe at the time—in fact, I rarely keep any there.”
“Well then,” said Barlow crisply, “it’s pretty near open and shut that some one was wise to that fifteen thousand being there to-night, and it wasn’t just a lucky haul out of any old safe just because the safe looked easy.” He turned toward Curley and Haines. “Were either of you talking with any one around the East Side to-night who would be likely to make a tip of it, or pass the tip along?”
“We weren’t there at all to-night,” Curley replied. “Haines and I were out in my car, and we’d just got back when you picked us up at the store on the way up here. But, at that, I guess you’re right. We didn’t make any secret about it, and I daresay after I’d got the business tacked away safe in my inside pocket this afternoon”—he grinned maliciously at Haines—“I may have mentioned it to one or two.”
“Got it tucked away safe, have you? Own it, do you?” Haines caught him up truculently.
“Sure!” Curley had wicked, little greenish-grey eyes, and their stare was uninviting as he fixed them on his quondam partner. “If you want to grouch, go ahead and grouch! We’ve been pretty good friends for a pretty good number of years, but I ain’t a fool. Sure, it’s mine now! I didn’t ask you to employ Grenville, did I? I was satisfied to take any old piece of paper with your fist on it, saying you’d sold out to me; but no, you were for having the thing done with frills on it Well, I’m still satisfied! I came here at five o’clock this afternoon, and paid the coin over to your attorney, and I got a perfectly good little Bill of Sale for it—and that lets me out. It’s up to you and your Mister Attorney. Why don’t you ask him what he’s going to do about it, instead of trying to take it out on me the way you’ve been doing ever since Barlow told us what had happened, and—”
“Mr. Curley is perfectly right, Mr. Haines”—the old lawyer’s voice was quiet, though it trembled a little. “The title to the business is now vested in Mr. Curley, and you are entitled to look to me for compensation. I”—he hesitated an instant—“I—I hope the money may be recovered, otherwise—”
“Eh?” inquired Mr. Haines sharply.
“Otherwise,”