and the man that won played in luck--he's killed two birds with one
stone, I guess. It looks damned black for your bonds, I'm afraid."

"They're--they're gone?" faltered Kenleigh.

"Yes--and for keeps, I guess," said Meighan gruffly. He laughed shortly,
mirthlessly. "You can turn the light on now; we'd wait a long time
here--for the Gray Seal!"




CHAPTER VIII


AT HALFPAST ONE

Larry the Bat closed the outer door noiselessly behind him, slipped
through the vestibule--and, an instant later, was slouching along Fifth
Avenue, heading back toward Washington Square. His hands in his ragged
pockets clenched. It had been well worked out--with a devil's ingenuity.
The police had swallowed the bait, jumped to the inevitable conclusion
desired, and credited the Gray Seal with the double crime of theft and
murder without an instant's hesitation. Well, why shouldn't they! It had
been well planned; it was natural enough! Larry the Bat, in his turn,
laughed, mirthlessly. But the game was not yet played out!

Through the by-ways, lanes and alleys of the underworld, Jimmie Dale
once more threaded his way, and finally, mounting the dark stairway
leading upward from the side entrance of a small house just off Chatham