gain! Here, where he stood, the slightest stir from above must have
reached him--but there was not a sound.

His hand felt out for the doorknob, found it, turned it, and pushed the
door open. He stepped inside the room and closed the door behind him.
The safe, according to the Tocsin's plan again, was in that sort of
alcove at the lower end of the library. Jimmie Dale's flashlight played
inquisitively about the room. There was the window, the only one in the
room, the window through which the Magpie proposed to enter; there
was the archway of the alcove, with its--no, there were no longer any
portieres; and there was the safe, he could see it quite plainly from
where he stood at the upper end of the room.

The flashlight went out for the space of perhaps thirty seconds--thirty
seconds of absolute silence, absolute stillness--then the round, white
ray of the light again, but glistening now on the nickel knobs and dial
of the safe--and Jimmie Dale was on his knees before it.

A low, scarcely breathed exclamation, that seemed to mingle anxiety
and hesitation, escaped him. He, who knew the make of every safe in the
country, knew this one for its true worth. Twenty-five minutes! Could he
open it in that time, let alone with any time to spare! It was not
like the one in Spider Jack's; it was the kind that the Magpie, however
clever he might be in his own way, would be forced to negotiate with
"soup," and, with the attendant noise, double his chance of discovery
and capture--and the responsibility for what might have happened
UPSTAIRS! No; the Magpie must have his chance! And, besides, the money
in the safe apart, why should not he, Jimmie Dale, have his own chance,
as well? All this would help. The motive--robbery; the perpetrator,
there was grim mockery on his lips now as the light went out and the
sensitive fingers closed on the knob of the dial, the perpetrator--the
Gray Seal. It would afford excellent food for the violent editorial
diatribes under which the police again would writhe in frenzy!

Stillness again! Silence! Only a low, tense breathing; only, so faint
that it could not be heard a foot away, a curious scratching, as from
time to time the supersensitive fingers fell away from the dial to rub
upon the carpet--to increase even their sensitiveness by setting the
nerves to throbbing through the skin surface at the tips. And then
Jimmie Dale's head, ear pressed close against the safe to catch the
tumbler's fall, w