hat, innocently enough, appeared to be
the opening of a coal bin.

He knew Chang Foo's well--as he knew the ins and outs of every den and
place he frequented, knew them as a man knows such things when his life
at any moment might hang upon his knowledge.

He was in another passage now, and this, in a few steps, brought him to
a door. Here he halted, and stood for a full five minutes, absolutely
motionless, absolutely still, listening. There was nothing--not a
sound. He tried the door cautiously. It was locked. The slim, sensitive,
tapering fingers of Jimmie Dale, unrecognisable now in the grimy digits
of Larry the Bat, felt tentatively over the lock. To fingers that seemed
in their tips to possess all the human senses, that time and again
in their delicate touch upon the dial of a safe had mocked at human
ingenuity and driven the police into impotent frenzy, this was a pitiful
thing. From his pocket came a small steel instrument that was quickly
and deftly inserted in the keyhole. There was a click, the door swung
open, and Jimmie Dale, alias Larry the Bat, stepped outside into a back
yard half a block away from the entrance to Chang Foo's.

Again he listened. There did not appear to be any unusual excitement in
the neighbourhood. From open windows above him and from adjoining houses
came the ordinary, commonplace sounds of voices talking and laughing,
even the queer, weird notes of a Chinese chant. He stole noiselessly
across the yard, out into the lane, and made his way rapidly along to
the cross street.

In a measure, now, he was safe; but one thing, a very vital thing,
remained to be done. It was absolutely necessary that he should know
whether he was the quarry that the police had been after in the raid, if
it was the police who had been shadowing him all evening. If it was the
police, there was but one meaning to it--Larry the Bat was known to be
the Gray Seal, and a problem perilous enough in any aspect confronted
him. Dare he risk the Sanctuary--for the clothes of Jimmie Dale? Or was
it safer to burglarise, as he had once done before, his own mansion on
Riverside Drive?

His thoughts were running riot, and he frowned, angry with himself.
There was time enough to think of that when he knew that it was the
police against whom he had to match his wits.

Well in the shadow of the buildings, he moved swiftly along the side
street until he came to the corner of the street on which, halfway down
the block, front