He surged suddenly upward from his chair, his hands clenched until the knuckles stood out like ivory knobs. The Tocsin! The woman he loved—where was she? Was she safe to-night? Where was she? He could not stop until that question had been answered, be the consequences what they might! Warnings, the realisation of peril—he laughed shortly, in grim bitterness—counted little in the balance after all, did they not! Where was the Tocsin?
The telephone rang. Jimmie Dale stared at the instrument for a moment, as though it were some singular and uninvited intruder who had broken in without warrant upon his train of thought; and then, leaning forward over the table, he lifted the receiver from the hook.
“Yes? Hello! Yes?” inquired Jimmie Dale. “What is it?”
A man’s voice, hurried, and seemingly somewhat agitated, answered him.
“I would like to speak to Mr. Dale—to Mr. Dale in person.”
“This is Mr. Dale speaking,” said Jimmie Dale a little brusquely. “What is it?”
“Oh, is that you, Mr. Dale?” The voice had quickened perceptibly. “I didn’t recognise your voice—but then I haven’t heard it for a long while, have I? This is Forrester. Are—are you very busy to-night, Mr. Dale?”
“Oh, hello, Forrester!” Jimmie Dale’s voice had grown more affable. “Busy? Well, I don’t know. It depends on what you mean by busy.”
“An hour or two,” the other suggested—the tinge of anxiety in his tones growing more pronounced. “The time to run out here in your car. I haven’t any right to ask it, I know, but the truth is I—I want to talk to some one pretty badly, and I need some financial help, and—and I thought of you. I—I’m afraid there’s a mess here. The bank examiners landed in suddenly late this afternoon.”
“The—what?” demanded Jimmie Dale sharply.