Mrs. Matthews reached out her hands to him.
“What can I say to you!” she said brokenly, “What—”
Jimmie Dale drew back along the wall. A little way from the door he quickened his pace, still moving, however, with extreme caution. They were still talking behind him as he turned from the corridor into the passageway leading to the store, and from there into the store itself. And then suddenly, in spite of caution, his foot slipped on the bare floor. It was not much—just enough to cause his other foot, poised tentatively in air, to come heavily down, and a loud and complaining creak echoed from the floor.
Jimmie Dale's jaws snapped like a steel trap. From down the corridor came a sudden, excited exclamation in the little old lady's voice, and then her steps sounded running toward the store. In the fraction of a second Jimmie Dale was at the front door.
“Clumsy, blundering fool!” he whispered fiercely to himself as he turned the key, opened the door noiselessly until it was just ajar, and turned the key in the lock again, leaving the bolt protruding out. One step backward, and he was rapping on the counter with his knuckles. “Isn't anybody here?” he called out loudly. “Isn't any—oh!”—as Mrs. Matthews appeared in the back doorway. “A package of cigarettes, please.”
She stared at him, a little frightened, her eyes red and swollen with recent crying.
“How—how did you get in here?” she asked tremendously.
“I beg your pardon?” inquired Jimmie Dale, in polite surprise.
“I—I locked the door—I'm sure I did,” she said, more to herself than to Jimmie Dale, and hurried across the floor to the door as she spoke.
Jimmie Dale, still politely curious, turned to watch her. For a moment bewilderment and a puzzled look were in her face—and then a sort of surprised relief.