otebook like all the rest,
turned a little toward the bed, and his lower jaw crept out the fraction
of an inch. Both gas jets in the room were turned on full, giving ample
light. A man fully dressed, a man of perhaps forty, lay upon his back on
the bed, one arm outflung across the bedspread, the other dangling,
with fingers just touching the floor, the head at an angle and off the
pillow. It was as though he had been carried to the bed and flung upon
it after the deed had been committed. Jimmie Dale's eyes shifted and
swept the room. Yes, everything was in disorder, as though there had
been a struggle--a chair upturned, a table canted against the wall,
broken pieces of crockery from the washstand on the carpet, and--

"Metzer was a stool pigeon, see?" went on Clayton, "and he lived here.
Moriarty wasn't on to him. Metzer stood in thick with a wider circle of
crooks than any other snitch in New York."

Jimmie Dale, still scribbling as Clayton talked, stepped to the bed and
leaned over the murdered man. The murder had been done with a blackjack
evidently--a couple of blows. The left side of the temple was crushed
in. Right in the middle of the forehead, pasted there, a gray-colored,
diamond shaped paper seal flaunted itself--the device of the Gray Seal.
In Jimmie Dale' hand, hidden as he turned his back, the tiny combination
of powerful lenses was focused on the seal.

Clayton guffawed. "That's right!" he called out. "Take a good look.
That's a bright young man you've got, Carruthers."

Jimmie Dale looked up a little sheepishly--and got a grin from the
assembled reporters, and a scowl from Carruthers.

"Now, then," continued Clayton, "here's the facts--as much of 'em as I
can let you boys print at present. You know I'm stretching a point
to let you in here--don't forget that when you come to write up the
case--honour where's honour's due, you know. Well, me and Metzer there
was getting ready to close down on a big piece of game, and I was over
here in this room talking to him about it early this afternoon. We had
it framed to get our man to-night--see? I left Metzer, say, about three
o'clock, and he was to show up over at headquarters with another little
bit of evidence we wanted at eight o'clock to-night."

Jimmie Dale was listening--to every word. But he stooped now again over
the murdered man's head deliberately, though he felt the inspector's
rat's eyes upon him--stooped, and, with his finger nail, lifted back th