d
Stangeist himself as yet not back, presumably from that Roessle affair.
The stub of an old cigar, unlighted, shifted with a sudden, savage twist
of the lips from one side of Jimmie Dale's mouth to the other. There was
need for haste. There was no telling when Stangeist might get back--as
for the servants, that did not matter so much; servants in suburban
homes had a marked affinity for "last trains!"

Jimmie Dale boarded a cross-town car, effected a transfer, and in
a quarter of an hour after leaving the Sanctuary was huddled, an
inoffensive heap, like a tired-out workingman, in a corner seat of a
Long Island train. From here, there was only a short run ahead of him,
and, twenty minutes later, descending from the train at Forest Hills, he
had passed through the more thickly settled portion of the little place,
and was walking briskly out along the country road.

Stangeist's house lay, approximately, a mile and a half from the
station, quite by itself, and set well back from the road. Jimmie Dale
could have found it with his eyes blindfolded--the Tocsin's directions
had lacked none of their usual explicit minuteness. The road was quite
deserted. Jimmie Dale met no one. Even in the houses that he passed the
lights were in nearly every instance already out.

Something, merciless in its rage, swept suddenly over Jimmie Dale, as,
unbidden, of its own volition, the last paragraph he had read in that
evening's paper began to repeat itself over and over again in his mind.
The two little kiddies--it seemed as though he could see them standing
there--and from Jimmie Dale's lips, not given to profanity, there came
a bitter oath. It might possibly be that, even if he were successful in
what was before him to-night, the authors of the Roessle murder would
never be known. That confession of Stangeist's was written prior to what
had happened that afternoon, and there would be no mention, naturally,
of Roessle. And, for a moment, that seemed to Jimmie Dale the one thing
paramount to all others, the one thing that was vital; then he shook
his head, and laughed out shortly. After all, it did not matter--whether
Stangeist and the blood wolves he had gathered around him paid the
penalty specifically for one particular crime or for another could make
little difference--they would PAY, just as surely, just as certainly,
once that paper was in his possession!

Jimmie Dale was counting the houses as he passed--they were more
infrequent n