Thing in its lair--waiting silently, viciously,
with sullen patience.

A footstep sounded--another. Jimmie Dale drew quickly back around the
corner into an areaway. Two men passed--in helmets--swinging their
nightsticks--that beat was always policed in pairs!

They passed on, turned the corner, and went down the narrow cross street
that Jimmie Dale had just been inspecting. He started to follow--and
drew back again abruptly. A form flitted suddenly across the road and
disappeared in the darkness in the officers' wake--ten yards behind
the first another followed--at the same interval of distance still
another--and yet still one more--four in all.

The darkness hid all six, the two policemen, the four men behind
them--the only sounds were the OFFICERS' footsteps dying away in the
distance.

Jimmie Dale's fingers were mechanically testing the mechanism of the
automatic in his pocket.

"The Skeeter's gang!" he muttered to himself. "Red Mose, the Midget,
Harve Thoms--and the Skeeter! The Worst apaches in the city of New York;
death contractors--the lowest bidders! Professional assassins, and a
man's life any time for twenty-five dollars! I wonder--I've never
done it yet--but I wonder if it would be a crime in God's sight if one
shot--to KILL!"

Jimmie Dale was at the corner again--again the street before him was
black, deserted, empty. He chose the right hand side, and, well in the
shadow of the houses, as an extra precaution, stole along silently. He
stopped finally before one where, in the doorway, hung a little sign.
Jimmie Dale mounted the porch, and with his eyes close to the sign could
just make out the larger words in the big printed type:

ROOM TO RENT

TOP FLOOR

Jimmie Dale nodded. That was right. The first house on the right-hand
side, with the room-to-rent sign, her letter had said. His fingers were
testing the doorknob. The door was not locked.

"Naturally, it wouldn't be locked," Jimmie Dale told himself grimly--and
stepped inside.

He stood for an instant without movement, every faculty on the alert.
Far up above him a step, guarded though his trained ear made it out
to be, creaked faintly upon the stairs--there was no other sound. The
creaking, almost inaudible at its loudest, receded farther up--and
silence fell.

In the darkness, noiselessly, Jimmie Dale groped for the stairway, found
it, and began to ascend. The minutes passed--it seemed a minute even
from step to step, and there were