met with foul play,
and as time went on, and Jimmie Dale, being then in prison as Larry
the Bat, did not reappear, the assurance of it; then the certainty
that suspicion would focus on Larry the Bat as being connected with
the millionaire's death, since Larry the Bat had been caught in Jimmie
Dale's home--and he would be accused of his own murder! It was quite
humourous, of course, quite grotesquely bizarre--but it was equally
an exceedingly grim possibility! There were drawbacks to a dual
personality!

"In a word," confided Jimmie Dale softly to himself, and a serious light
crept into the dark, steady eyes, "I'm in a bit of a nasty mess!"

At Astor Place he entered the subway; at Fourteenth Street he changed
to an express, and at Ninety-sixth Street he got out. It was but a short
walk west to Riverside Drive, and from there his house was only a few
blocks farther on.

Jimmie Dale did not slouch now. And for all his disreputable attire,
incongruous as it was in that neighbourhood, few people that he
passed paid any attention to him, none gave him more than a casual
glance--Jimmie Dale swung along, upright, with no attempt to make
himself inconspicuous, hurrying a little, as one intent upon a definite
errand. As he neared his house he slowed his pace a little until a
couple, who were passing in front of it, had gone on; then he went up
the steps, but noiselessly as a shadow now, to the front door, opened
it softly, closed it softly behind him, and crouched for a moment in the
vestibule.

Through the monogrammed lace on the plate glass of the inner doors he
could see, a little indistinctly, into the reception hall beyond. The
hall was empty. Jason, for that matter, would be the only one likely to
be about; the other servants would have no business there in any case,
and whether in their quarters above or below, they had their own stairs
at the rear.

Jimmie Dale inserted the key in the spring lock, and opened the door
a cautious fraction of an inch--to listen. There was no sound--yes,
a subdued murmured--the servants were downstairs in the basement. He
slipped inside, slipped, in a flash, across the hall, and, treading like
a cat, went up the stairs. He scarcely seemed to breathe until, with a
little sigh of relief, he stood inside his den on the first floor, with
the door shut behind him.

"I must speak to Jason about being a little more watchful," muttered
Jimmie Dale facetiously. "Here's all my property at the