. What?" Jimmie Dale's
voice grew plaintive, "I really can't make out a word when you yell like
that. . . . Yes. . . . I had occasion to use them this afternoon, and I
took the liberty of borrowing them temporarily--are you still there, Mr.
Maddon? . . . Oh, quite so! Yes, I hear you NOW. . . . No, that is
all, only I am returning them through your private secretary, a very
estimable young man, though I fear somewhat excitable and shaky, who is
on his way to you with them now. . . . WHAT'S THAT YOU SAY? You repeat
that," snapped Jimmie Dale suddenly, icily, "and I'll take them
from under your nose again before morning! . . . Ah! That is better!
Good-night--Mr. Maddon."

Jimmie Dale hung up the receiver and shoved Burton toward the door.

"Now then, Burton, we'll get out of her--and the sooner you reach Fifth
Avenue and Mr. Maddon's house the better. No; not that way!" They had
reached the hall, and Burton had turned toward the side door that opened
on the alleyway. "Whoever they were who settled their last account with
Isaac may still be watching. They've nothing against any one else,
but they know some one was in here at the time, and, if the police
are clever enough ever to get on their track, they might find it
very convenient to be able to say WHO was in the room when Isaac was
murdered--there's nothing to show, since Isaac so obligingly opened the
window for them, that the shot was fired THROUGH the window and not from
the inside of the room. And even if they have already taken to their
heels"--Jimmie Dale was leading Burton up the stairs again as he
talked--"it might prove exceedingly inconvenient for us if some
passer-by should happen to recollect that he saw two men of our general
appearance leaving the premises. Now keep close--and follow me."

They passed the door of Isaac's den, turned down a narrow corridor that
led to the rear of the house--Jimmie Dale guiding unerringly, working
from the mental map of the house that the Tocsin had drawn for
him--descended another short flight of stairs that gave on the kitchen,
crossed the kitchen, and Jimmie Dale opened a back door. He paused here
for a moment to listen; then, cautioning Burton to be silent, moved on
again across a small back yard and through a gate into a lane that
ran at right angles to the alleyway by which both had entered the
house--and, a minute later, they were crouched against a building, a
half block away, where the lane intersected the cross s