He stepped over to the table.
“Counterfeiting five-hundred and thousand-dollar bills is rather out of the ordinary run, isn’t it—I see these on the table here are the regular small variety!” he observed coolly, as he pulled the drawer open. “The big ones make a quick turn-over, though, if you have the plant to turn them out, and can swing a scheme to cash them—after banking hours—and steal them back! Hello, what’s this!”—the sealed envelope, torn open at one end, evidently by the Rat in his examination, but still full of the counterfeit notes, was blood-smeared, and on the upper left-hand corner there showed the distinct impression of a finger print.
There was a sudden crash against the door.
Both men, in their chairs, strained around—and now Curley, too, had lost his colour.
“My God, what’s that!” he whispered.
The thin metal case was in Jimmie Dale’s hand. With the tweezers, he lifted one of the little gray seals to his lips, moistened it, and, using his elbow, pressed it firmly down upon the envelope.
Came another furious thud upon the door—and another.
“What’s that!” Curley’s voice was a frantic scream now. “For God’s sake, do you hear, what’s that!”
Jimmie Dale, under a pencilled arrow mark indicating the finger print, was scrawling a few words in printed characters.
“It’s the police,” said Jimmie Dale calmly. “Somebody murdered the Rat to-night!” He surveyed the envelope in his hand critically. Between the arrow mark and the gray seal were the words: “Look on the Rat’s collar—and these gentlemen’s fingers.” He laid the envelope down on the table—and, as the door suddenly splintered and sagged under a terrific blow from some heavy object, he retreated hurriedly to the farther end of the room. Here a half dozen steps led upward, and hanging from the ceiling beside them was a cord to which was attached a leaden weight. He jerked the cord quickly. A panel above him slid noiselessly back. He leaped to the top of the stairs, and paused for a moment.