ined forward, and were staring, wild-eyed,
at the gray seal stuck between them on the tabletop.

"The Gray Seal!" whispered the Weasel, and his tongue circled his lips.

Jimmie Dale shrugged his shoulders.

"That WAS a bit theatrical, Weasel," he said apologetically; "and yet
not wholly unnecessary. You will recall Stangeist, The Mope, Australian
Ike, and Clarie Deane, and can draw your own inference as to what might
happen in the Thorold affair if you should be so ill-advised as to force
my hand. Permit me"--the slim, deft fingers, like a streak of lightning,
were inside Hamvert's coat pocket and out again with the remainder of
the banknotes--and Jimmie Dale was backing for the door--not the door
of the bathroom by which he had entered, but the door of the room itself
that opened on the corridor. There he stopped, and his hand swept around
behind his back and turned the key in the locked door. He nodded at the
two men, whose faces were working with incongruously mingled expressions
of impotent rage, bewilderment, fear, and fury--and opened the door a
little. "Ten minutes, Weasel," he said gently. "I trust you will not
have to use heroic measures to restrain your friend for that length of
time, though if it is necessary I should advise you for your own sake to
resort almost--to murder. I wish you good evening, gentlemen."

The door opened farther; Jimmie Dale, still facing inward, slipped
between it and the jamb, whipped the mask from his face, closed the door
softly, stepped briskly but without any appearance of haste along the
corridor to the stairs, descended the stairs, mingled with a crowd in
the lobby for an instant, walked, seemingly a part of it, with a group
of ladies and gentlemen down the hall to the side entrance, passed
out--and a moment later, after drawing on a linen dust coat which he
took from under the seat, and exchanging his hat for a tweed cap, the
car glided from the curb and was lost in a press of traffic around the
corner.

Jimmie Dale laughed a little harshly to himself. So far, so good--but
the game was not ended yet for all the crackle of the crisp notes in
his pocket. There was still the map, still the robbery at Mittel's
house--the ten-thousand-dollar "theft" would not in any way change that,
and it was a question of time now to forestall any move the Weasel might
make.

Through the city Jimmie Dale alternately dodged, spurted, and dragged
his way, fuming with impatience; but once out