Jimmie Dale made no answer.  Satisfied that the man was too badly hurt to move, he went and bent over the silent form in the centre of the room.  A moment’s examination was enough.  “Henry LaSalle” was dead.

He stood there looking down at the man.  It was what he had come for—­though it was the Magpie, not himself, who had accomplished it!  The man was dead!  The words began to run through his mind in a queer reiteration.  The man was dead—­the man was dead!  He checked himself sharply.  He must think now—­think fast, and think right.

The Magpie knew that Larry the Bat was the Gray Seal—­and as fast as the Magpie could get there, the news would spread like wildfire through the underworld.  “Death to the Gray Seal!  Death to the Gray Seal!” He could hear that slogan ringing again in his ears, but as he had never heard it before—­with a snarl of triumph now as of wolves who at last had pulled their quarry down.  He had not a second to spare—­and yet—­that man wounded there on the floor!  What of him—­guilty of murder, the brains of this inhuman, monstrous organisation, the one to whom, more even than to that dead man, the Tocsin owed the horror and the misery and the grief and despair that had come into her life!  What of him?  What of the Crime Club here?  What of this nest of vipers?  Were they to escape?  Were they to—­

With a sudden, low exclamation, Jimmie Dale jumped for the table, and, snatching up the telephone, rattled the hook violently.

“Give me”—­his voice came in well-simulated gasps, each like a man fighting for every word—­“give me—­police—­headquarters!  Quick!  Quick!  I’ve—­been—­shot!”

The wounded man on the floor raised himself on his elbow.

“What are you doing?” he demanded in a startled way.  “Are you mad!  Thank your stars you were lucky enough to get out of this alive—­and get out now, while you have the chance!”

Jimmie Dale pressed his hand firmly over the mouthpiece of the telephone.

“I’ll go,” he said, with a cold smile, “when I’ve settled with you—­for the murder of Henry LaSalle.”

“That man!” ejaculated the man scornfully, pointing to the form on the floor.  “So that’s your game!  Going to try and cover your tracks!  Why, you fool, I live here!  Do you think the police would imagine for an instant that I killed him?”

“I said—­Henry Lasalle,” said Jimmie Dale evenly.

The man came farther up on his elbow, a sudden look of fear in his face.

“What—­what do you mean?” he cried hoarsely.

But Jimmie Dale was talking again into the telephone—­gasping, choking out his words as before: