“Never mind about the flaw! Flash your wad!” invited Thorold, with a thin smile.
Jimmie Dale’s hand slipped under his vest to a pocket in the leather girdle, and from the thin metal case, with the aid of the tiny tweezers, lifted out a gray seal, and laid it lightly on the inside edge of his left-hand sleeve. He replaced the metal case with his right hand, and with his right hand drew his automatic from his pocket. He crept forward again, inch by inch toward the door of the inner room.
Old Jake laid the pendant on the table, and from some mysterious recess in his clothing pulled out a huge roll of banknotes.
“I’ll make it three and a half until I see what I can get for it. That’s all I’ve got here, anyway.” He began to count the money, laying it bill by bill on the table. “If I get more than seven, I’ll split the difference even. That’s fair. That’s the way it’s been ever since we started this. I don’t know exactly what I can get for this, and—”
And then Jimmie Dale was in the room, his automatic covering the two men.
“Don’t move please, gentlemen!” he said quietly, as he stepped to the table. His eyes behind the mask travelled from the diamond pendant to the pile of banknotes, and from the banknotes to the two men, whose faces had gone suddenly white, and who now sat rigidly in their chairs, as though turned to stone. “I appear to be in luck to-night!” His lips, just showing beneath the mask, parted in a hard smile. “I was passing by, and—” His left hand reached out, swept up the money and the diamond pendant—and in their place, fluttering from his sleeve, a gray seal fell upon the table.
There was a sharp, quick cry from Thorold—and the muzzle of Jimmie Dale’s automatic swung like a flash to a level with the man’s eyes. Old Jake had crumpled up now in his chair, and was glaring wildly at the little diamond-shaped piece of paper; he licked his lips with his tongue, there was fear in his eyes.
“The Gray Seal! The Gray Seal!” he muttered hoarsely.
“I appear to be in luck to-night!” said Jimmie Dale again. “And”—he put the money and the diamond pendant coolly in his pocket—“it would be too bad if I didn’t play it up, wouldn’t it? It doesn’t often come as easy as this. Amazing carelessness to leave that outside door unlocked! But, as I was saying, with such a lavish display of opulence on the table, one is almost led to hope that there might be more where that came from. Now—”
“I haven’t got any more—not another cent! Honest, I haven’t!” old Jake cried hysterically. “I swear to God, I haven’t, and—”