Excerpt from The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale A minute passed. A section of the base-board was lifted out, the man's hand was thrust inside - and emerged again with a large roll of banknotes. He turned his head for a quick glance around the room, his eyes, burning out of a gaunt, hollow-cheeked, pallid face, held on the torn window shade - and then, in almost frantic haste, he thrust the banknotes back inside the wall, and began to replace the base-board. But it was not the window shade, nor yet the courtyard without with which he was concerned - it was the sound of a heavy footstep outside the door. And now the door was tried. The man on the floor, working with desperate energy to replace the base-board, coughed in an asthmatic, wheezing way, as there came the imperative smashing of a fist upon the door panels, coupled with a gruff, curt demand for admittance. Again the man coughed - to drown perhaps the slight rasping sound as the base-board slid back into place and, rising to his feet, shuffled hastily to the door and unlocked it. The door was flung violently Open from without, a heavy-built, clean-shaven, sharp-featured man stepped into the room, slammed the door shut behind him, te locked it, and swept a shrewd, inquisitive, suspicious glance about the place. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.