to me, and tell me to see that you
got it at once. I hope, sir, I haven't--"

"Not at all, Benson," said Jimmie Dale pleasantly. "It's quite all
right. Good-night, Benson."

"Good-night, sir," Benson answered, climbing back to his seat.

There was a queer little smile on Jimmie Dale's lips, as he watched the
great car swing around in the street and glide noiselessly away--a queer
little smile that still held there even after he himself had started
briskly along the avenue in a downtown direction. It was invariably the
same, always the same--the letters came unexpectedly, when least
looked for, now by this means, now by that, but always in a manner that
precluded the slightest possibility of tracing them to their source. Was
there anything, in his intimate surroundings, in his intimate life,
that she did not know about him--who knew absolutely nothing about her!
Benson, for instance--that the man was absolutely trustworthy--or else
she would never for an instant have risked the letter in his possession.
Was there anything that she did not--yes, one thing--she did not know
him in the role he was going to play to-night. That at least was one
thing that surely she did not know about him; the role in which, many
times, for weeks on end, he had devoted himself body and soul in an
attempt to solve the mystery with which she surrounded herself; the
role, too, that often enough had been a bulwark of safety to him when
hard pressed by the police; the role out of which he had so carefully,
so painstakingly created a now recognised and well-known character of
the underworld--the role of Larry the Bat.

Jimmie Dale turned from Fifth Avenue into Broadway, continued on down
Broadway, across to the Bowery, kept along the Bowery for several more
blocks--and finally headed east into the dimly lighted cross street on
which the Sanctuary was located.

And now Jimmie Dale became cautious in his movements. As he approached
the black alleyway that flanked the miserable tenement, he glanced
sharply behind and about him; and, at the alleyway itself, without
pause, but with a curious lightning-like side step, no longer Jimmie
Dale now, but the Gray Seal, he disappeared from the street, and was
lost in the deep shadows of the building.

In a moment he was at the side door, listening for any sound from
within--none had ever seen or met the lodger or the first floor either
ascending or descending, except in the familiar character of Larry
th