rt of manner, she led the way directly
through the door in the rear, and the man followed her.

The shop was empty--and Jimmie Dale was standing against the door on the
outside. His position was perfectly natural--a hundred passers-by would
have noted nothing but a most commonplace occurrence--a man in the act
of entering a store. And, if he appeared to fumble and have trouble with
the latch, what of it! Jimmie Dale, however, was not fumbling--hidden by
his back that was turned to the street, those wonderful fingers of his,
in whose tips seemed embodied and concentrated every one of the human
senses, were working quickly, surely, accurately, without so much as the
wasted movement of a single muscle.

A faint tinkle--and the key within fell from the lock to the floor. A
faint click--and the bolt of the lock slipped back. Jimmie Dale restored
the skeleton keys and a little steel instrument that accompanied them
to his pocket--and quietly opened the door. He stepped inside, picked up
the key from the floor, inserted it in the lock, closed the door behind
him, and locked it again.

"To guard against interruption," observed Jimmie Dale, a little
quizzically.

He was, perhaps, thirty seconds behind the others. He crossed the shop
noiselessly, cautiously, and passed through the door at the rear. It
opened into a short passage that, after a few feet, gave on a sort of
corridor at right angles--and down this latter, facing him, at the end,
the door of a lighted room was open, and he could see the figure of the
man who had entered the shop, back turned, standing on the threshold.
Voices, indistinct, came to him.

The corridor itself was dark; and Jimmie Dale, satisfied that he was
fairly safe from observation, stole softly forward. He passed two
doors on his left--and the curious arrangement of the building that had
puzzled him for a moment became clear. The store made the front of an
old tenement building, with apartments above, and the rear of the store
was a sort of apartment, too--the old lady's living quarters.

Step by step, testing each one against a possible creaking of the floor,
Jimmie Dale moved forward, keeping close up against one wall. The man
passed on into the room--and now Jimmie Dale could distinguish every
word that was being spoken; and, crouched up, in the dark corridor, in
the angle of the wall and the door jamb itself, could see plainly enough
into the room beyond. Jimmie Dale's jaw crept out a little