capture and discovery.

He lifted his shoulders with a sudden jerk of decision as the car
swerved to the left and headed for the East Side. There was only
one alternative then--the black silk mask that folded into such tiny
compass, and that, together with an automatic and the curious, thin
metal case that looked so like a cigarette case, was always in his
pocket for an emergency!

The car turned again, and, approaching its destination, Jimmie Dale
slowed down the speed perceptibly. It was a strange case, not a pleasant
one--and the raw edges where they showed were ugly in their nakedness.
Old Isaac Pelina, young Burton, and Maddon--K. Wilmington Maddon, the
wall-paper magnate! Curious, that of the three he should already know
two--old Isaac and Maddon! Everybody in the East Side, every denizen
of the underworld, and many who posed on a far higher plane knew old
Isaac--fence to the most select clientele of thieves in New York,
unscrupulous, hand in glove with any rascality or crime that promised
profit, a money lender, a Shylock without even a Shylock's humanity as
a saving grace! Yes; as Larry the Bat he knew old Isaac, and he knew him
not only personally but by firsthand reputation--he had heard the man
cursed in blasphemous, whole-souled abandon by more than one crook who
was in the old fence's toils. They dealt with him, the crooks, while
they swore to "get" him because he was "safe," but--Jimmie Dale's lips
parted in a mirthless smile--some day old Isaac would be found in that
spiders' den of his back of the dingy loan office with a knife in his
heart or a bullet through his head! And K. Wilmington Maddon--Jimmie
Dale's smile grew whimsical--he had known Maddon quite intimately for
years, had even dined with him at the St. James Club only a few nights
before. Maddon was a man in his own "set"--and Maddon, interfered with,
was likely to prove none too tractable a customer to handle. And young
Burton, the letter had said, was Maddon's private and confidential
secretary. Jimmie Dale's lips thinned again. Well, Burton's acquaintance
was still to be made! It was a curious trio--and it was dirty work, more
raw than cunning, more devilish than ingenious; blackmail in its most
hellish form; the stake, at the least calculation, a cool half million.
A heavy price for a single slip in a man's life!

He brought the car abruptly to a halt at the edge of the curb, and
sprang out to the ground. He was in front of "The Budapest"