“Markel?” said Wilbur again, the same trembling anxiety in his voice, as he handed Jimmie Dale the towels and motioned toward a washstand in the corner of the room. “Did you say Markel—Theodore Markel?”
“Yes,” said Jimmie Dale, examining his wound critically.
“You had trouble—a fight with him? Is he—he—dead?”
“No,” said Jimmie Dale, smiling a little grimly. “He's pretty badly hurt, though, I imagine—but not in a physical way.”
“Strange!” whispered Wilbur, in a numbed tone to himself; and he went back and sank down in his desk chair. “Strange that you should speak of Markel—strange that you should have come here to-night!”
Jimmie Dale did not answer. He glanced now and then at the other, as he deftly dressed his wrist—the man seemed on the verge of collapse, on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Jimmie Dale swore softly to himself. Wilbur was too old a man to be called upon to stand against the trouble and anxiety that was mirrored in the misery in his face, that had brought him to the point of taking his own life.
Jimmie Dale put on his coat again, walked over to the desk, and picked up the 'phone.
“If I may?” he inquired courteously—and confided a number to the mouthpiece of the instrument.
There was a moment's wait, during which Wilbur, in a desperate sort of way, seemed to be trying to rally himself, to piece together a puzzle, as it were; and for the first time he appeared to take a personal interest in the masked figure that leaned against his desk. He kept passing his hands across his eyes, staring at Jimmie Dale.
Then Jimmie Dale spoke—into the 'phone.