w he must show himself as Larry the Bat in some
gathering of the underworld--a prolonged absence from his haunts was not
merely to invite certain suspicion, where all were suspicious of each
other, it was to invite certain disaster. He had now either to carry
the role like a little old man of the sea upon his back, or renounce it
forever. And the latter course he dared not even consider--the Sanctuary
was still the Sanctuary, and the role of Larry the Bat was still a
refuge, the trump card in the lone hand he played.

He reached the corner, pushed open the door of Bristol Bob's, and
shuffled in. The place was a glare of light, a hideous riot of noise. On
a polished section of the floor in the centre, a turkey trot was in
full swing; laughter and shouting vied raucously with an impossible
orchestra.

Jimmie Dale slowly made the circuit of the room past the tables, that,
ranged around the sides, were packed with occupants who thumped their
glasses in tempo with the music and clamoured at the rushing waiters
for replenishment. A dozen, two dozen, men and women greeted him. Jimmie
Dale indifferently returned their salutes. What a galaxy of crooks--the
cream of the underworld! His eyes, under half-closed lids, swept the
faces--lags, dips, gatmen, yeggs, mob stormers, murderers, petty sneak
thieves, stalls, hangers-on--they were all there. He knew them all; he
was known to all.

He shuffled on to the far end of the room, his leer a little arrogant,
a certain arrogance, too, in the tilt of his battered hat. He also
was quite a celebrity in that gathering--Larry the Bat was of the
aristocracy and the elite of gangland. Well, the show was over; he had
stalked across the stage, performed for his audience--and in another
hour now, free until he must repeat the same performance the next day in
some other equally notorious dive, he would be sitting in for a rubber
of bridge at that most exclusive of all clubs, the St. James, where none
might enter save only those whose names were vouched for in the highest
and most select circles, and where for partners he would possibly have
a justice of the supreme court, or mayhap an eminent divine! He looked
suddenly around him, as though startled. It always startled him, that
comparison. There was something too stupendous to be simply ironical in
the incongruity of it. If--if he were ever run to earth!

His eyes met those of a heavy-built, coarse-featured man, the chewed end
of a cigar in h