Jimmie Dale’s face grew hard, as his fingers closed around his automatic and drew the weapon from his pocket.  It was all plain enough.  That last act in the drama which he had speculatively anticipated was being staged with little loss of time—­and in a grim sort of way the thought flashed across his mind that, perilous as his own position was, Stangeist at that moment was in even greater peril than himself.  Australian Ike, The Mope, and Clarie Deane, given the chance, and they seemed to have made that chance now, were not likely to deal in half measures—­Clarie Deane had dropped into a chair beside the desk; and The Mope and Australian Ike were creeping around to the front door!

The parting in the portieres widened a little more, a very little more, slowly, imperceptibly, until Jimmie Dale, by the simple expedient of moving his head, could obtain an unobstructed view of the entire room.

Stangeist tossed a bag he had been carrying on the desk, pulled up a chair opposite to Clarie Deane, and sat down.  Both men were side face to Jimmie Dale.

“You tell the boys,” said Stangeist abruptly, “to fade away after this for a while.  Things are getting too hot.  And you tell The Mope I dock him five hundred for that extra crunch on Roessle’s skull.  That sort of thing isn’t necessary.  That’s the kind of stunt that gets the public sore—­the man was dead enough as it was.  See?”

“Sure!” Clarie Deane’s ejaculation was a grunt.

Stangeist opened the bag, and dumped the contents on the desk—­pile after pile of banknotes, the pay roll of the Martindale-Kensington Mills.

“Some haul!” observed Clarie Deane, with a hoarse chuckle.  “The papers said over twenty thousand.”

“You can’t always believe what the papers say,” returned Stangeist curtly; and, taking a scribbling pad from the desk, began to check up the packages.

Clarie Deane’s cigar had gone out.  He rolled the short stub in his mouth, and leaned forward.

The bills were evidently just as they had been delivered to the murdered paymaster at the bank, done up with little narrow paper bands in packages of one hundred notes each, save for a small bundle of loose bills which latter, with the rolls of silver, Stangeist swept to one side of the desk.

Package by package, Stangeist went on jotting the amounts down on the pad.

“Nix!” growled Clarie Deane suddenly.  “Cut that out!  Them’s fivers in that wad.  Make that five hundred instead of one—­I’m onter yer!”

“Mistake,” said Stangeist suavely, changing the figures with his pencil.  “You’re pretty wide awake for this time of night, aren’t you, Clarie?”

“Oh, I dunno!” responded Clarie Deane gruffly.  “Not so very!”

Stangeist, finished with the packages, picked up the loose bills, and, with a short laugh, tossed them into the bag and followed them with the rolls of silver.  He pushed the bag toward Clarie Deane.