too, now--that had clung about him last night like a pall. He could
see nothing, hear nothing--but intuitively, bringing a cold dismay, the
greater because it was something unknown, intangible, he FELT as though
eyes were upon him, that even in the darkness he was being watched!

And as he stood there, then, slowly there crept upon Jimmie Dale the
sense of peril and disaster. It was not intuition now--it was certainty.
He was trapped! It was the part of a fool to imagine that with their
devil's cunning, their cleverness, their ingenuity, he, or any one else,
could enter that house unknown to its occupants! Had he made electric
contact when he had opened the front door, and rung a signal here,
perhaps, upstairs--had he set some system of alarm at work when he had
touched that window? What did it matter--the details that had heralded
his entrance? He was certain now that his presence in the house was
known. Only, why had they left him so long without attack? He shook his
head with a quick, impatient movement. That, too, was obvious! He was
under observation. Who was he? Why had he come? Was he simply a paltry
safe-tapper--or was he one whom they had a real need to fear? And then,
too, there might well be another reason. It was far from likely, in fact
unreasonable, to imagine that all the men he had seen here the night
before were in the house now. Not many of them, if any, would LIVE here,
for CONSTANT, daily coming and going, even through the garage, could
not escape notice; and, of the servants, probably a lesser breed of
criminal, some of them, at least, no doubt, were engaged at that
moment in watching his own house on Riverside Drive! There was even
the possibility that the man posing as Henry LaSalle was, for the time
being, here alone.

He shook his head again. He could hardly hope for that--he had no right
to hope for anything more now than a struggle, with an inevitably fatal
ending to himself, but one in which at least he could sell his life as
dearly as possible, one in which, perhaps, he might pay the Tocsin's
score with the man he had come to find! If he could do that--well, after
all, the price was not too great!

There were no tremours of the muscles now. It was Jimmie Dale, the Gray
Seal, every faculty alert, tense, keyed up to its highest efficiency;
the brain cool, keen, and active--fighting for his life. The front door
through which he had entered was an impossibility; but there was the
window in t