s. It was a horrible thing--to kill a man!

CHAPTER XIV

OUT OF THE DARKNESS

A moment later, Jimmie Dale stepped forward through the vestibule.
He was quite calm now; a sort of cold, merciless precision in every
movement succeeding the riot of turbulent emotions that had possessed
him as he had entered the house.

The half hour, the maximum length of time before the Magpie would
appear, as he had estimated it when out there under the stoop with the
Tocsin, had dwindled now to perhaps twenty minutes, twenty-five at the
outside. Twenty-five minutes! Twenty-five minutes was so little that for
an instant the temptation was strong upon him to sacrifice, rather
than any of those precious minutes, the Magpie instead! And then in the
darkness, as he stole noiselessly across the hall, he shook his head. It
would be a cowardly, brutal thing to do. What chance would a man with a
record like the Magpie's stand if caught there? How easy it would be
to shift the murder of the supposed Henry LaSalle to the Magpie's
shoulders! Jimmie Dale's lips closed firmly. Self-preservation was,
perhaps, the first law, but he would save the Magpie if he could--the
Magpie should have his chance! The man might be a criminal, might
deserve punishment at the hands of the law, his liberty might be a
menace to the community--but he was not a murderer, his life forfeit for
a crime he had never committed!

If he, Jimmie Dale, could only in some way have arranged with the Tocsin
out there to keep the Magpie away altogether! But it could not be done
without arousing the Magpie's suspicions; and, as a corollary to that,
afterward, with the subsequent events, would come--the deluge! The law
of the underworld was clear, concise, and admitting of no appeal on that
point; to double cross a pal meant, sooner or later, a knife thrust, a
blackjack, or--But what difference did it make what form the execution
of the sentence took? And, since, then, that was out of the question,
since he could not keep the Magpie away without practically risking his
own life, the Magpie at least must have his chance.

Jimmie Dale was at the library door now, that, according to the plan the
Tocsin had drawn for the Magpie, and as he remembered her description
when she had told him her story earlier in the evening, was just at the
foot of the staircase. How dark it was! Though the stairs could be only
a few feet away, he could not see them. And how intense the silence was
a