now.

The door, on its well-oiled hinges, swung wide open. Jimmie Dale thrust
out his head into the hall--and something fell upon the threshold with
a little thud--but for a moment Jimmie Dale did not move. Listening,
trying to pierce the darkness, he was as still as the silence around
him; then he stooped and groped along the threshold. His hand closed
upon what seemed like a small box wrapped in paper. He picked it up,
closed and locked the door again, and retreated back across the room. It
was strange--unpleasantly strange--a box propped stealthily against the
door so that it would fall to the threshold when the door was opened!
And why the stealth? What did it mean? Had the underworld with its
thousand eyes and ears already succeeded in a few days where the police
had failed signally for years--had they sent him this, whatever it was,
as some grim token that they had run Larry the Bat to earth? He shook
his head. No; gangland struck more swiftly, with less finesse than
that--the "cat-and-mouse" act was never one it favoured, for the mouse
had been known to get away.

Jimmie Dale lighted the gas again, and turned the package over in his
hands. It was, as he had surmised, a small cardboard box; and it was
wrapped in plain paper and tied with a string. He untied the string,
and still suspicious, as a man is suspicious in the knowledge that he is
stalked by peril at every turn, removed the wrapper a little gingerly.
It was still without sign or marking upon it, just an ordinary cardboard
box. He lifted off the cover, and, with a short, sudden laugh, stared, a
little out of countenance, at the contents.

On the top lay a white, unaddressed envelope. HERS! Beneath--he emptied
the box on the table--his black silk mask, his automatic revolver, the
kit of fine, small blued-steel burglar's tools, his pocket flashlight,
and the thin metal insignia case. The Tocsin! Impulsively Jimmie Dale
turned toward the door--and stopped. His shoulders lifted in a shrug
that, meant to be philosophical, was far from philosophical. He could
not, dared not venture far through the tenement dressed as he was; and
even if he could there were three exits to the Sanctuary, a fact that
now for the first time was not wholly a source of unmixed satisfaction
to him; and besides--she was gone!

Jimmie Dale opened the letter, a grim smile playing on his lips. He had
forgotten for the moment that the illusion he had cherished for years
in the belief t