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It was a moment before Jimmie Dale moved but into Smarlinghue's distorted features there came a strange smile. He reeled a little from weakness, as he walked to the door, locked it, and, returning, stooped and picked up the cash-box from the floor. In the false bottom, the Tocsin had said. From the leather girdle came a sharp-pointed tool.
He opened his make-up box, and as, swiftly, with masterly touch, the grey, sickly pallor that was Smarlinghue's transformed his face, and as, from little distorting pieces of wax, there came into being the hollow cheeks, the thin, extended lips, the widened nostrils, he kept glancing at the newspaper, reading again an article that was set, on the front page, under heavy type captions the article which was identical with the clipping, and which latter the Tocsin had enclosed with her note, lest he should not have seen the original himself.
Jimmie Dale took out a make-up box from the opening in the wall, and, carrying it with him to the table, propped up a small mirror against a collection of Smarlinghue's paint tubes. His fingers were working swiftly now with sure, deft touches, supplying to his face, his neck, his hands and wrists, not the unhealthy pallor of Smarlinghue, but the grimy, unwashed, dirty appearance of Larry the Bat.
No one had seen him enter not that there should be anything strange in the fact that Smarlinghue should enter Smarlinghue's own room, but it would not be Smarlinghue who went away!
"Well then, we'll get down to business and to-night's business. You know the back entrance to Malay John's hang-out?" Smarlinghue's eyes widened a little in a startled way. He nodded his head. "Very good," said Clancy gruffly. "You'll have no trouble in getting in there. And once in there you'll have no trouble in getting up to Malay's private den.
The Sanctuary was just ahead, but he must reach that loose board in the fence and have disappeared before the Wolf swung around the corner behind him or else or else, since that led to nowhere to the French window of Smarlinghue's room, the game was as good as up if he attempted it! He strained forward, striving to mass his strength and fling it into one supreme effort.
"Oh, yes; you're an artist all right a coke artist!" he remarked coolly. "But that's what makes you solid in every den in New York, and that's how you come in useful to me. Well, what do you say?" There was a hunted look in Smarlinghue's eyes. "They'd they'd kill me," he said huskily. "Sure, they would!" agreed Clancy easily.
Clancy got up from the table, walked around it, and, standing over the crouched figure in the chair, tapped with his finger on the hypodermic in Smarlinghue's hands. "And that ain't all," he announced with a malicious grin.
Clancy of headquarters is my name!" He laughed menacingly, unpleasantly. Smarlinghue's clothes were threadbare and ill-fitting; his coat was a size too small for him, and from the short sleeves protruded blatantly the frayed and soiled wristbands of his shirt. He twined his hands together anxiously, and retreated further back into the room.
He clutched the cash-box to him, as though loath to let it go; but, too, as though fascinated by the Wolf's revolver, he moved reluctantly toward the Wolf, who now stood by the table. Smarlinghue's hands twined and twined over the box, caressing it in hideous greed and avarice; and he mumbled, and his lips worked. "Half give me half?" he whispered feverishly.
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