ut of
this when you read the morning papers. Now get out--hurry!" He pushed
Hagan from the car. "I've got to make my own get-away."

Hagan, standing in the road, brushed his hand bewilderingly across his
eyes.

"Yes--but you--I--"

"Never mind about that!" Jimmie Dale leaned out, and gripped Hagan's
arm impressively. "There's only one thing you've got to think of, or
remember. Keep your mouth shut! No matter what happens, keep your mouth
shut--if you want to save your neck! Good-night, Hagan!"

The car was racing forward again. It shot streaking through the streets
of the town ahead, and, dully, over its own inferno, echoed shouts,
cries, and execrations of an outraged populace--then out into the night
again, roaring its way toward New York.

He had half an hour--perhaps! It was a good thing Hagan did not know, or
had not grasped the significance of that torn letter--the man would have
been unmanageable with fear and excitement. It would puzzle Hagan to
find no paper stuck under his table when he came to look for it! But
that was a minor consideration, that mattered not at all.

Half an hour! On roared the car--towns, black roads, villages, wooded
lands were kaleidoscopic in their passing. Half an hour! Had he done it?
Had he come anywhere near doing it? He did not know. He was in the city
at last--and now he had to moderate his speed; but, by keeping to the
less frequented streets, he could still drive at a fast pace. One piece
of good fortune had been his--the long motor coat he had found in the
car with which to cover the rags of Larry the Bat, and without which he
would have been obliged to leave the car somewhere on the outskirts of
the city, and to trust, like Mike Hagan, to other and slower means of
transportation.

Blocks away from Hagan's tenement, he ran the car into a lane, slipped
off the motor coat, and from his pocket whipped out the little metal
insignia case--and in another moment a diamond-shaped gray seal was
neatly affixed to the black ebony rim of the steering wheel. He smiled
ironically. It was necessary, quite necessary that the police should
have no doubt as to who had been in Doyle's house with Connie Myers that
night, or to whom they had so considerately loaned their automobile!

He was running now--through lanes, dodging down side streets, taking
every short cut he knew. Had he beaten the police to Mike Hagan's room?
It would be easy then. If they were ahead of him, then, by some means