The Wolf stood up. It was almost as though a spring had been released under him. He stood there, his tongue passing slowly across his lips. Then his jaws shut tight with a snap. His eyes were blazing. And the manner in which he searched the face confronting him stirred a deep feeling of unease in the pit of the half-breed’s stomach.
Just for a few moments the lash of his fury beat upon the Wolf’s brain. Then the crisis passed.
He turned away. He moved swiftly to the door. It was flung open. Then it closed behind him with a slam, and the Wolf was gone.
Pideau made no move to leave his seat. He remained precisely where the Wolf had left him with his feet thrust up on the desk. The only difference was that now he was staring thoughtfully at the empty rocker-chair. He was considering the Wolf’s refusal to kill Sinclair.
Pideau had built on it. Pideau had seen murder in the Wolf’s eyes that noon. And the sight had rejoiced him as could nothing else on earth. He had believed then that at long last the shadow of the Wolf was to be removed from his life.
So in his disappointment the man pondered morosely. He searched the position through and through, and it took him hours.
But his work was not unfruitful. And there was something like a smile in his wicked eyes when he finally left the store. In the long hours he had sat there he had solved several problems. And among them was that one which related to “rats chasing the crackers and cheese.”
CHAPTER V
PAYMENT
CONSTABLE SINCLAIR sealed and addressed his last letter. He sat back in his Windsor chair and, for some moments, pondered the address he had just written.
Then he turned and glanced over the ill-lit room that was his official home.