knocking there, it was all the same, the method of
death would be a little different, that was all--one legalised, the
other not. Jimmie Dale, Larry the Bat, the Gray Seal, once uncovered,
could expect as much quarter as would be given to a cornered rat. His
eyes swept the room with a swift, critical glance--evidences of Larry
the Bat, the clothes, were still about, even if he in the person of
Jimmie Dale, alone damning enough, were not standing there himself.
And he was even weaponless--the Tocsin had taken the revolver from
his pocket, together with those other telltale articles, the mask, the
flashlight, the little blued-steel tools, before she had intrusted him
that night, wounded and unconscious, to Hanson's care.

Jimmie Dale slipped his feet out of his low evening pumps, snatched up
the old coat and hat from the pile, put them on, and, without a
sound, reached the gas jet and turned it off. A second had gone by--no
more--the knocking still sounded insistently on the door. It was dark
now, perfectly black. He started across the room, his tread absolutely
silent as the trained muscles, relaxing, threw the body weight gradually
upon one foot before the next step was taken. It was like a shadow,
a little blacker in outline than the surrounding blackness, stealing
across the floor.

Halfway to the door he paused. The knocking had ceased. He listened
intently. It was not repeated. Instead, his ear caught a guarded step
retreating outside in the hall. Jimmie Dale drew a breath of relief.
He went on again to the door, still listening. Was it a trap--that step
outside?

At the door now, tense, alert, he lowered his ear to the keyhole. There
came the faintest creak from the stairs. Jimmie Dale's brows gathered.
It was strange! The knocking had not lasted long. Whoever it was was
going away--but it required the utmost caution to descend those stairs,
rickety and tumble-down as they were, with no more sound than that!
Why such caution? Why not a more determined and prolonged effort at his
door--the visitor had been easily satisfied that Larry the Bat was not
within. TOO easily satisfied! Jimmie Dale turned the key noiselessly in
the lock. He opened the door cautiously--half inch--an inch, there was
no sound of footsteps now. Occasionally a lodger moved about on the
floor above; occasionally from somewhere in the tenement came the murmur
of voices as from behind closed door--that was all. All else was silence
and darkness