e
was one mitigating factor in it all. He had no need to think of her.
Whatever the ruin and disaster that faced him in the next few hours, she
in any case was safe. There was no clew to HER identity in the letter;
and where he, for months on end, with even more to work upon, had failed
at every turn to trace her, there was little fear that any one else
would have any better success. She was safe. As for himself--that was
different. The Gray Seal would be referred to in the letter, there would
be the outline, the data for the "crime" she had planned for that night;
and the letter, though unaddressed, being found in his pocketbook,
where cards and notes and a dozen different things among its contents
proclaimed him Jimmie Dale, needed no further evidence as to its
ownership nor the identity of the Gray Seal.

Jimmie Dale's fingers crept inside his vest and fumbled there for a
moment--and a diamond stud, extracted from his shirt front, glistened
sportively in the necktie that was now tucked jauntily in at one side of
his shirt bosom. He had reached the Blue Dragon, one of Wowzer's usual
hang outs, and, swerving from the sidewalk, entered the place. There was
wild tumult within--a constant storm of applause, derision, and hilarity
that was hurled from the tables around the room at the turkey-trotting,
tango-writhing couples on the somewhat restricted space of polished
hardwood flooring in the centre. Jimmie Dale swaggered down the room,
a cigar tilted up at an angle between his teeth, his soft felt hat a
little rakishly on one side of his head and well over his nose.

At the end of the room, at the bar, Jimmie Dale leaned toward the
barkeeper and talked out of the corner of his mouth. There were private
rooms upstairs, and he jerked his head surreptitiously ceilingward.

"Say, is de Wowzer up dere?" he inquired in a cautious whisper.

The man behind the bar, well known to Jimmie Dale as one of the Wowzer's
particular pals, favoured him with a blank stare.

"Never heard of de guy!" he announced brusquely. "Wot's yours?"

"Gimme a mug of suds," said Jimmie Dale, reaching for a match. He puffed
at his cigar, blew out the match, and, after a moment, flung the charred
end away--but on his hand, as, palm outward, he raised it to take his
glass, the match had traced a small black cross.

The barkeeper put down the beer he had just drawn, wiped his hand
hurriedly, and with sudden enthusiasm thrust it across the bar.

"Glad