d man's clothes ready to their hands--the
leader's boast that impersonation was but child's play to them! And now
he understood why they had covered up the traces of their search in only
so curiously inadequate a manner. They had failed to find the package,
and, as a last resort, had adopted the ruse of impersonating Hilton
Travers, the chauffeur, which made it necessary that when they called
Spider Jack from his bed, as they had just done, that Spider Jack, at a
CASUAL glance, should notice nothing amiss--but it would be no more than
a casual glance, for, who should know better than they, he would not
have to go for the package to any place that they had disturbed! And he,
Jimmie Dale, could only stand here and watch them, helpless, powerless
to move! Three of them! A step out into the room was to invite certain
death. It would not matter, his death--if he could gain anything
for her, for the Tocsin, by it. But what could he gain--by dying? He
clenched his hands until the nails bit into the flesh.

Spider Jack re-entered the room, carrying what looked like a large,
bulky, manila envelope, heavily sealed, in his hand. He tossed it on the
table.

"There you are, Travers!" he said.

"I wonder," suggested the leader pleasantly, "if, now that we're here,
Travers, your friend would mind letting us have this room for a few
minutes to ourselves to clean up the business?"

"Sure!" agreed Spider Jack cordially. "You're welcome to it! I'll wait
out here in the store until you say the word."

He went out, closing the door after him. The leader picked up the
package.

"We'll take no chances with this," he said grimly. "It's been too close
a call. After we've had a look at it, we'll put it out of harm's way on
the spot, here, while we've got it--before we leave!"

He ripped the package open, and disclosed perhaps a dozen
official-looking documents, besides a miscellaneous number of others.
He took up the first of the papers, glanced through it hurriedly, then
tossed it to the pseudo chauffeur.

"Tear it up, and tear it up--SMALL!" he ordered tersely. The next,
after examining it as he had the first, he tossed to the other man. "Go
ahead!"--curtly. "Work fast! From the looks of these, Travers had us
cold! There's proof enough here of LaSalle's murder to send us all to
the chair!"

He went on glancing through the documents; and then suddenly, joining
the others in their work, began to rip and tear at the papers himself.