se, for a fee, are registered at Spider's, and
given a number--a box number he calls it, though, of course, there
are no actual boxes. Letters come by mail addressed to him--the sealed
envelope within containing the actually intended recipient's name. These
Spider either forwards, or delivers in person when they are called
for. Dozens of crooks, too, unwilling, perhaps, to dispose of small
ill-gotten articles at ruinous 'fence' prices, and finding it unhealthy
for the moment to keep them in their possession, use this means of
depositing them temporarily for safe-keeping. You see now, don't you?
It's certain that's where Travers left the package. He used the name
of John Johansson, not to hoodwink Spider Jack, I should say, but as
an added safeguard against the Crime Club. Travers must have known both
Makoff and Spider Jack in the old days, and probably had reason, and
good reason, to trust them both--possibly, a crook then himself, as
he confessed, he may have acted in a legal capacity for them in their
frequent tangles with the police."

"Then," she said--and there was a glad, new note in her voice, "then,
Jimmie--Jimmie, we are safe! You can get it, Jimmie! It is only a little
thing for the Gray Seal to do--to get it now that we know where it is."

"Yes," he said tersely. "Yes--if it is still there."

"Still there!"--she repeated the words quickly, nervously. "Still there!
What do you mean?"

"I mean if they, too, have not discovered that he was at Makoff's--if
they have not got there first!" he said grimly. "There seems to be no
limit to their cleverness, or their power. They penetrated his disguise
as a chauffeur, and who knows what more they have learned since last
night? We are fighting them in the dark, and--WHAT'S THAT!" he whispered
tensely, suddenly--and leaning forward like a flash, as he whipped his
automatic from his pocket, he blew out the lamp.

The room was in darkness. They stood there rigid, silent, listening. Her
hand found and caught his arm.

And then it came again--a low sound, the sound of a stealthy footstep
just outside the window that faced on the storage yard.

CHAPTER XI

THE MAGPIE

A minute passed--another. The automatic at Jimmie Dale's hip, the muzzle
just peeping over the table top, held a steady bead on the window. Came
the footstep again--and then suddenly, a series of low, quick tappings
upon the windowpane. The Tocsin's hand slipped away from his arm.
Jimmie Dale's s