ure, without seeming to turn his head,
flung a quick glance behind him up the street. No one, for that fraction
of a second that he needed, was near enough to see--and in that fraction
of a second Jimmie Dale disappeared.

A dozen yards down the lane, he sprang for the top of the high fence,
gripped it, and, lithe and active as a cat, swung himself up and over,
and dropped noiselessly to the ground on the other side. Here he stood
motionless for a moment, close against the fence, to get his bearings.
The rear of Spider Jack's building loomed up before him--the back
windows as unlighted as those in front. Luck so far, at least, was with
him! He turned and looked about him, and, his eyes growing accustomed to
the darkness, he could just make out Makoff's place, bordering the end
of the yard--nor, from this new vantage point, could he discover,
any more than before, a single sign of life about the pawnbroker's
establishment.

Jimmie Dale stole forward across the yard, mounted the three steps of
the low stoop at Spider Jack's back door, and tried the door cautiously.
It was locked. From his pocket came the small steel instrument that
had stood Larry the Bat in good stead a hundred times before in similar
circumstances. He inserted it in the keyhole, worked deftly with it
for an instant--and tried the door again. It was still locked. And
then Jimmie Dale smiled almost apologetically. Spider Jack did not use
ordinary locks on his back door!

The discountenanced instrument went back into his pocket, and now
Jimmie Dale's hand slipped inside his shirt, and from one of the little,
upright pockets of the leather belt, and from still another, and from
after that a third, came the vicious little blued-steel tools. The
sensitive fingers travelled slowly up and down the side of the door--and
then he was at work in earnest. A minute passed--another--there was a
dull, low, grating sound, a snick as of metal yielding suddenly--and
Jimmie Dale was coolly stowing away his tools again inside his shirt.

He pushed the door open an inch, listened, then swung it wide, stepped
inside, and closed it behind him. A round, white beam of light flashed
in a quick circle--and went out. It was a sort of storeroom, innocent
enough and orderly enough in appearance, bare-floored, with boxes and
packing cases piled neatly against the walls. In one corner a staircase
led to the story above--and from above, quite audibly now, he caught the
sound of snor