He shrugged his shoulders, as he ran up the steps of his house. Those were the stakes that he himself had laid on the table to wager upon the game, he had no quarrel there; but if only, before the end came, or even with the end itself, he could find—her!
With his latchkey he let himself into the spacious, richly furnished, well-lighted reception hall, and, crossing this, went up the broad staircase, his steps noiseless on the heavy carpet. Below, faintly, he could hear some of the servants—they evidently had not heard him close the door behind him. Discipline was relaxed somewhat, it was quite apparent, with Jason, that peer of butlers, away. Jason, poor chap, was in the hospital. Typhoid, they had thought it at first, though it had turned out to be some milder form of infection. He would be back in a few days now; but meanwhile he missed the old man sorely from the house.
He reached the landing, and, turning, went along the hall to the door of his own particular den, opened the door, closed it behind him—and in an instant the keen, agile brain, trained to the little things that never escaped it, that daily held his life in the balance, was alert. The room was unusually dark, even for night-time. It was as though the window shades had been closely drawn—a thing Jason never did. But then Jason wasn't there! Jimmie Dale, smiling then a little quizzically at himself, reached up for the electric-light switch beside the door, pressed it—and, his finger still on the button, whipped his automatic from his pocket with his other hand. The room was still in darkness.
The smile on Jimmie Dale's lips was gone, for his lips now had closed together in a tight, drawn line. The lights in the rest of the house, as witness the reception hall, were in order. This was no accident! Silent, motionless, he stood there, listening. Was he trapped at last—in his own house! By whom? The police? The thugs of the underworld? It made little difference—the end would differ only in the method by which it was attained! What was that! Was there a slight stir, a movement at the lower end of the room—or was it his imagination? His hand fell from the
