e Bat. He opened the door, closed it behind him, and in the utter
blackness went noiselessly up the stairs--stairs so rickety that it
seemed a mouse's tread alone would have set them creaking. There seemed
an art in the play of Jimmie Dale's every muscle; in the movements,
lithe, balanced, quick, absolutely silent. On the first landing he
stopped before another door, there was the faint click of a key turning
in the lock; and then this door, too, closed behind him. Sounded the
faint click of the key as it turned again, and Jimmie Dale drew a long
breath, stepped across the room to assure himself that the window blind
was down, and lighted the gas jet.

A yellow, murky flame spurted up, pitifully weak, almost as though it
were ashamed of its disreputable surroundings. Dirt, disorder, squalour,
the evidence of low living testified eloquently enough to any one,
the police, for instance, in times past inquisitive until they were
fatuously content with the belief that they knew the occupant for what
he was, that the place was quite in keeping with its tenant, a mute
prototype, as it were, of Larry the Bat, the dope fiend.

For a little space, Jimmie Dale, immaculate in his evening clothes,
stood in the centre of the miserable room, his dark eyes, keen, alert,
critical, sweeping comprehensively over every object about him--the
position of a chair, of a cracked drinking glass on the broken-legged
table, of an old coat thrown with apparent carelessness on the floor at
the foot of the bed, of a broken bottle that had innocently strewn some
sort of white powder close to the threshold, inviting unwary foot tracks
across the floor. And then, taking out the Tocsin's letter, he laid it
upon the table, placed what money he had in his pockets beside it, and
began rapidly to remove his clothes. The Sanctuary had not been invaded
since his last visit there.

He turned back the oilcloth in the far corner of the room, took up the
piece of loose flooring, which, however, strangely enough, fitted
so closely as to give no sign of its existence even should it
inadvertently, by some curious visitor again be trod upon; and from the
aperture beneath lifted out a bundle of clothes and a small box.

Undressed now, he carefully folded the clothes he had taken off, laid
them under the flooring, and began to dress again, his wardrobe supplied
by the bundle he had taken out in exchange--an old pair of shoes, the
laces broken; mismated socks; patched