become Larry the Bat--but how? HOW! The question seemed at
last to become resonant, to ring through the room with the weight of
doom upon it.

Schemes, plans, ideas came, bringing a momentary uplift--only to be
discarded the next instant with a sort of bitter, desperate regret.
These men were not men of mere ordinary intelligence; their cleverness,
their power, the amazing scope of their organisation, all bore grim
witness to the fact that they would be blinded not at all by any paltry
ruse.

He could walk out of the house in the morning as Jimmie Dale without
apparent hindrance--that was obvious enough. And so long as he pursued
the usual avocations of Jimmie Dale, he would not be interfered
with--only WATCHED. It was useless to consider that plan for a moment.
It would not help him to reach the Sanctuary--without leading them there
behind him! True, there was always the chance that he might shake them
off his trail, but he could hardly hope to accomplish anything like that
without their knowing that it was done DELIBERATELY--and that he dared
not risk. The strongest weapon in his hands now was his secret knowledge
that he was being watched.

That telephone there, for instance, that most curiously kept on
insisting in his mind that it, and it alone was the way out, was the
last thing he could place in jeopardy. Besides, there was another reason
why such a plan would not do; for, granting even that he succeeded in
eluding them on the way, and managed to reach the Sanctuary, his freedom
of action would be so restricted and limited as to be practically
worthless--he would have to return to his home here again within a
reasonable time as Jimmie Dale, within a few hours at most--or again
they would be in possession of the fact that he had discovered their
surveillance.

That, it was true, had been his original plan when he had entered the
house half an hour previously, but it was an entirely different matter
now. Then, he had counted on GETTING AWAY without their knowing it,
before they, as he had fondly thought, would have had a chance to
establish their espionage, and when they would have had no reason to
suspect, for a time at least, that he was not still within the house,
when they would have been watching, as it were, an empty cage.

He stopped in his walk, and, after a moment, dropped down into the
lounging chair again. That was it, of course. An empty cage! If he could
escape from the house! Not so much without