Dale, as he walked along, "that it should be on the same street
as the Sanctuary--ah, this ought to be the place!"

An alleyway, corresponding to the one that flanked the tenement where,
as Larry the Bat, he had paid room rent as a tenant for several years,
in fact, the alleyway next above it, and but a short block away,
intersected the street, narrow, black, and uninviting. Jimmie Dale, as
he passed, peered down its length.

"No light--that's good!" commented Jimmie Dale to himself. Then: "Window
opens on alleyway ten feet from ground--shoe store, Russian Jew, in
basement--go in front door--straight hallway--room at end--Russian
Jew probably accomplice--be careful that he does not hear you moving
overhead"--Jimmie Dale's mind, with that curious faculty of his, was
subconsciously repeating snatches from her letter word for word, even
as he noted the dimly lighted, untidy, and disorderly interior of what,
from strings of leather slippers that decorated the cellarlike entrance,
was evidently a cheap and shoddy shoe store in the basement of the
building.

The building itself was rickety and tumble-down, three stories high, and
given over undoubtedly to gregarious foreigners of the poorer class, a
rabbit burrow, as it were, having a multitude of roomers and lodgers.
There was nothing ominous or even secretive about it--up the short
flight of steps to the entrance, even the door hung carelessly half
open.

Jimmie Dale's slouch hat was pulled a little farther down over his eyes
as he mounted the steps and entered the hallway. He listened a moment.
A sort of subdued, querulous hubbub seemed to hum through the place, as
voices, men's, women's, and children's, echoing out from their various
rooms above, mingled together, and floated down the stairways in a
discordant medley. Jimmie Dale stepped lightly down the length of
the hall--and listened again; this time intently, with his ear to the
keyhole of the door that made the end of the passage. There was not a
sound from within. He tried the door, smiled a little as he reached for
his keys, worked over the lock--and straightened up suddenly as his
ear caught a descending step on the stairs. It was two flights up,
however--and the door was unlocked now. Jimmie Dale opened it, and, like
a shadow, slipped inside; and, as he locked the door behind him, smiled
once more--the door lock was but a paltry makeshift at best, but INSIDE
his fingers had touched a massive steel bolt that,