own person again who stood there now in Larry the Bat's disreputable
den, an incongruous figure enough against the background of his
miserable surroundings, in perfect-fitting shoes and trousers, the
broad expanse of spotless white shirt bosom glistening even in the
poverty-stricken flare from the single, sputtering gas jet.

Jimmie Dale took the watch from his pocket that had not been wound for
many days, wound it mechanically, set it by guesswork--it was not far
from eight o'clock--and replaced it in his pocket. Carefully then, one
at a time, he examined his fingers, long, slim, sensitive, tapering
fingers, magical masters of safes and locks and vaults of the most
intricate and modern mechanism--no single trace of grime remained,
they were metamorphosed hands from the filthy paws of Larry the Bat. He
nodded in satisfaction; and picked up the mirror for a final inspection
of himself, that, this time, did not miss a single line in his face or
neck. Again Jimmie Dale nodded. As though he had vanished into thin
air, as though he had never existed, not a trace of Larry the Bat
remained--except the heap of rags upon the floor, the battered slouch
hat, the frayed trousers, the patched boots with their broken laces, the
mismated socks, the grimy flannel shirt, and the old coat that he had
just discarded.

The mirror was replaced on the table; and, pushing the heap of clothes
before him with his foot, Jimmie Dale knelt down in the corner of the
room where the oilcloth had been turned up and the loose planking of the
floor removed, and began to pack the articles away in the hole. Jimmie
Dale rolled the trousers of Larry the Bat into a compact little bundle,
and stuffed them under the flooring. The gas jet seemed to blink again
in a sort of confidential approval, as though the secret lay inviolate
between itself and Jimmie Dale. Through the closed window, shade tightly
drawn, came, low and muffled, the sound of distant life from the Bowery,
a few blocks away. The gas jet, suffering from air somewhere within the
pipes, hissed angrily, the yellow flame died to a little blue, forked
spurt--and Jimmie Dale was on his feet, his face suddenly hard and white
as marble.

SOME ONE WAS KNOCKING AT THE DOOR!

For the fraction of a second Jimmie Dale stood motionless. Found as
Jimmie Dale in the den of Larry the Bat, and the consequences required
no effort of the imagination to picture them; police or denizen of the
underworld who was