United States or Ecuador ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
It was well known ground to Jimmie Dale as a boy he had played here in the Archman's backyard, played here with Clarie Archman. His face masked again, he moved swiftly toward the rear of the house. There was still Clarie Archman. What would the boy do? Jimmie Dale's hand, a picklock in it again, clenched fiercely.
"Got 'em again!" Laroque snapped back. "You make me tired!" "Let's get out of here! Let's get out of here quick!" Clarie Archman's voice, not so low now, held a tone of frantic appeal. "Nix!" said Laroque, in a vicious sneer. "Not till the job's done! D'ye think I'm going to spend half an hour cracking a safe and take a chance of missing any bets?
This might even have explained his acquaintanceship with Clarie Archman, except for the fact that it did not explain Clarie Archman's co-operation in a premeditated robbery with any one! Again Jimmie Dale shook his head and there came another question, one for which no answer, even of a suggestive nature, had been supplied in the Tocsin's letter.
Footsteps came racing madly down the stairs and then the door of the library burst open, and David Archman, in pajamas, dashed through the doorway, and without a second's hesitation, made for the two struggling forms and Jimmie Dale, releasing his hold upon the boy, suddenly sent the other staggering backwards full into David Archman, checking David Archman's rush and, turning, sprang for the window, snatched up his package, hurled himself over the sill, dropped to the ground, and, racing for the fence, climbed it, and made the lane, just as a shot, from David Archman, no doubt, was fired from the window.
Yes, they would play their last card, a vile, despicable and hellish card but how little they knew David Archman! They would break his life; it would, indeed, as the Tocsin had said, be murder but they would never break David Archman's unswerving loyalty to principle and duty! They had tried that by threats of personal violence, by the offer of bribes in sums large enough to have tempted many!
"It's your father. We've an idea that maybe he won't be so keen about going ahead with that little investigation of the private clubs after we've put a certain little proposition about his son up to him." "No, no! No you won't!" Clarie Archman's voice rose suddenly shrill, beyond control. "You won't! You can't!
He had had evidence of that on too many occasions when he had thought otherwise to question it now but David Archman's son in this! It seemed incredible!
Word Of The Day