ith safe cracking as one
of his favourite pursuits, a man most earnestly desired by the police,
provided the latter could catch him "with the goods." As for Hamvert,
he did not know Hamvert, who was a stranger in New York, except that
Hamvert had fleeced a man named Michael Breen out of his share in a
claim they had had together when Breen had first gone to Alaska to try
his luck, and now, having discovered that Breen, when prospecting alone
somewhere in the interior a month or so ago, had found a rich vein and
had made a map or diagram of its location, he, Hamvert, had followed
the other to New York for the purpose of getting it by hook or crook.
Breen's "find" had been too late; taken sick, he had never worked his
claim, had barely got back home before he died, and only in time to hand
his wife the strange legacy of a roughly scrawled little piece of paper,
and--Jimmie Dale straightened up alertly once more. Steps again--and
this time coming from the direction of the elevator; then voices; then
the opening of the door of the next room; then a voice, distinctly
audible:

"Pull up a chair, and we'll get down to business. You're late, as it is.
We haven't any time to waste, if we're going to wash pay-dirt to-night."

"Aw, dat's all right!" responded another voice--quite evidently the
Weasel's. "Don't youse worry--de game's cinched to a fadeaway."

There was the sound of chairs being moved across the floor. Jimmie Dale
slipped the black silk mask over his face, opened the door on his side
of the bathroom cautiously, and, without a sound, stepped into the
bathroom that was lighted now, of course, by the light streaming in
through the partially opened door of Hamvert's room. The two were
talking earnestly now in lower tones. Jimmie Dale only caught a word
here and there--his faculties for the moment were concentrated on
traversing the bathroom silently. He reached the farther door, crouched
there, peered through the crack--and the old whimsical smile flickered
across his lips again.

The Palais-Metropole was high class and exclusive, and the Weasel for
once looked quite the gentleman, and, for all his sharp, ferret face,
not entirely out of keeping with his surroundings--else he would never
have got farther than the lobby. The other was a short, thickset,
heavy-jowled man, with a great shock of sandy hair, and small black eyes
that looked furtively out from overhanging, bushy eyebrows.

"Well," Hamvert was saying, "the