WHAT DID THIS MEAN? Wires! No wires had ever been there before! His fingers were working now with feverish haste, telegraphing their message to his brain. The wires ran through the sill close to the corner of the wall—tiny fragments of wood, as from an auger, were still on the sill—and here was a small particle of wire insulation that, those sensitive finger tips proclaimed, was FRESH.
A cold thrill ran through Jimmie Dale; and there came again that sickening sense of impotency in the face of the malignant, devilish cunning arrayed against him, that once before he had experienced, that night. He had thought to forestall them—and he had been forestalled himself! This could only have been done—they had had no interest in him before then—while they held him at the Crime Club, while he was spending that two hours in the car! Was that why they had taken so long in coming? Was that why the car had stopped that time—that those with him might be told that the work here had been completed, and he need no longer be kept away?
He edged away from the window, and, as cautiously as he had come, retraced his steps across the cellar and up the stairs—and then, the possibility of being heard from without gone, he broke into a run. There was no need to wonder long what those wires meant. They could mean only one of two things—and the Crime Club would have little concern in his electric light! THEY HAD TAPPED HIS TELEPHONE. The mains, he knew, ran into the cellar from the underground service in the street. He was racing like a madman now. How long ago, how many hours ago, had they done that! Great Scott, SHE was to have telephoned! Had she done so? Was the game, all, everything, she herself, at their mercy already? If she had telephoned, Jason would have left a message on his desk—he would look there first—afterward he would waken Jason.
He gained the door of his den on the first landing, a room that ran the entire length of one side of the house from front to rear, burst in, switched on the light—-and stood stock-still in amazement.
“Jason!” he cried out.
The old butler, fully dressed, rubbing and blinking his eyes at the light, and with a startled cry, rose up from the depths of a lounging chair.
“Jason!” exclaimed Jimmie Dale again.
“I beg pardon, sir, Master Jim,” stammered the man. “I—I must have fallen asleep, sir.”
“Jason, what are you doing here?” Jimmie Dale demanded sharply.
“Well, sir,” said Jason, still fumbling for his words, “it—it was the telephone, sir.”