r! His lips parted
in a strange, half-serious, half-speculative smile. The letter--that
was paramount now. What new venture did the night hold in store for
him? What sudden emergency was the Gray Seal called upon to face this
time--what role, unrehearsed, without warning, must he play? What story
of grim, desperate rascality would the papers credit him with
when daylight came? Or would they carry in screaming headlines the
announcement that the Gray Seal was caged and caught at last, and in
three-inch type tell the world that the Gray Seal was--Jimmie Dale!

A block down, he turned from Broadway out of the theatre crowds that
streamed in both directions past him. The letter! Almost feverishly
now he was seeking an opportunity to open and read it unobserved; an
eagerness upon him that mingled exhilaration at the lure of danger
with a sense of premonition that, irritably, inevitably was with him
at moments such as these. It seemed, it always seemed, that, with an
unopened letter of hers in his possession, it was as though he were
about to open a page in the Book of Fate and read, as it were, a
pronouncement upon himself that might mean life or death.

He hurried on. People still passed by him--too many. And then a cafe,
just ahead, making a corner, gave him the opportunity that he sought.
Away from the entrance, on the side street, the brilliant lights from
the windows shone out on a comparatively deserted pavement. There was
ample light to read by, even as far away from the window as the curb,
and Jimmie Dale, with an approving nod, turned the corner and walked
along a few steps until opposite the farthest window--but, as he halted
here at the edge of the street, he glanced quickly behind him at a man
whom he had just passed. The other had paused at the corner and was
staring down the street. Jimmie Dale instantly and nonchalantly produced
his cigarette case, selected a cigarette, and fastidiously tapped its
end on his thumb nail.

"Inspector Burton in plain clothes," he observed musingly to himself. "I
wonder if it's just a fluke--or something else? We'll see."

Jimmie Dale took a box of matches from his pocket. The first would not
light. The second broke, and, with an exclamation of annoyance, he flung
it away. The third was making a fitful effort at life, as another man
emerged hastily from the cafe's side door, hurried to the corner, joined
the man who was still loitering there, and both together disappeared at
a