Or they might have started legitimately from outside New York, and be going toward the city now.Since the ultimate destination was New York, and they had made no attempt to hide that from him, it was useless to speculate--for at best it could be only speculation.He had decided that once before! The man at his side felt again over the scarf to see that it was in place.
Curiously now Jimmie Dale recalled the inward monitor that had warned him the honours had not all been his in this first round with the Crime Club to-night.If they had deliberately murdered the chauffeur because of a refusal to answer, they would equally have done the same to him.Fool that he had been not to have seen that before! And yet would it have made any difference? He shook his head.He could not have acted to any better advantage than he had done.He could not--his lips curled in grim derision--have been any more convincing.
Convincing! It was all clear enough now! If the chauffeur had suffered death rather than talk, even admitting the fact that they had more grounds for suspecting the chauffeur's complicity, would his, Jimmie Dale's, mere denial, his choice, too, of death, have been any the more convincing, or have saved his life where it had not saved the other's? A certain added respect for these men, against whom, until the end now, his victory or theirs, he realised he was fighting for his life, came over him as he recognised the touch of a master hand.They did not know where to find the Tocsin;the package that she had said was vital to them was still beyond their reach; the chauffeur was dead; and he, Jimmie Dale, alone remained--a clew that they had still to prove valid or invalid it was true, but the only clew in their possession.And, gaining nothing from him by a show of force, to throw him off his guard, they had let him go--meaning him to believe they were convinced he knew nothing, and that the episode, the adventure of the night, was, as far as they were concerned, ended, finished, and done with!
Time passed, a very long time, as he sat there.It might have been an hour--he could only hazard a guess.Not one of the men in the car had spoken a word.But to Jimmie Dale, the car itself, the ride, its duration, these three strange companions, were for the time being extraneous.Even that sick giddiness in his head had, at least temporarily, gone from him.
And so, all unsuspectingly, he was to lead them to the Tocsin and fall into the trap himself! His hands, thrust deep in his pockets, were tightly clenched.They were clever enough, ingenious enough, powerful enough to watch him henceforth at every turn--and from now on, day and night, they were to be reckoned with.Suppose that in some way, as it might well have happened, for it was now vitally necessary that she should communicate with him and he with her, he had played blindly into their hands, and through him she should have fallen into their power! It brought a sickening chill, a sort of hideous panic to Jimmie Dale--and then fury, anger, in a torrent, surged upon him, and there came a merciless desire to crush, to strangle, to stamp out this inhuman band of criminals that, with intolerable effrontery to the laws of God and man, were so elaborately and scientifically equipped for their monstrous purposes!
And then Jimmie Dale, in the darkness, smiled again grimly as the leader's reference to the Gray Seal recurred to him.Well, perhaps, who knew, they would have reason more than they dreamed of to wish the Gray Seal enrolled in their own ranks! It was strange, curious!
