"Five thousand down," said Hamvert, pushing a pile of notes across the table, and tucking the remainder back into his pocket; "and the other five's here for you when you get back with the map. Ordinarily, I wouldn't pay a penny in advance, but since you want it that way and the map's no good to you while the rest of the long green is, I--" He swallowed his words with a startled gulp, clutched hastily at the money on the table, and began to struggle up from his chair to his feet.

With a swift, noiseless side-step through the open door, Jimmie Dale was standing in the room.

Jimmie Dale's tones were conversational. "Don't get up," said Jimmie Dale coolly. "And take your hand off that money!"

The Weasel, whose back had been to the door, squirmed around in his chair--and in his turn stared into the muzzle of Jimmie Dale's revolver, while his jaw dropped and sagged.

"Good-evening, Weasel," observed Jimmie Dale casually. "I seem to be in luck to-night. I got into that room next door, but an empty room is slim picking. And then it seemed to me I heard some one in here mention five thousand dollars twice, which makes ten thousand, and which happens to be just exactly the sum I need at the present moment--if I can't get any more! I haven't the honour of your wealthy friend's acquaintance, but I am really charmed to meet him. You--er--understand, both of you, that the slightest sound might prove extremely embarra.s.sing."

Hamvert's face was white, and he stirred uneasily in his chair; but into the Weasel's face, the first shock of surprised dismay past, came a dull, angry red, and into the eyes a vicious gleam--and suddenly he laughed shortly.

"Why, youse d.a.m.ned fool," jeered the Weasel, "d'youse t'ink youse can get away wid dat! Say, take it from me, youse are a piker! Say, youse make me tired. Wot d'youse t'ink youse are? D'youse t'ink dis is a tee-ayter, an' dat youse are a cheap-skate actor strollin' acrost de stage? Aw, beat it, youse make me sick! Why, say, youse pinch dat money, an' youse have got de same chanst of gettin' outer dis hotel as a guy has of breakin' outer Sing Sing! By de time youse gets five feet from de door of dis room we has de whole works on yer neck."

"Do you think so, Weasel?" inquired Jimmie Dale politely. He carried his handkerchief to his mouth to cloak a cough--and his tongue touched the adhesive side of the little diamond-shaped gray seal. Hand and handkerchief came back to the table, and Jimmie Dale leaned his weight carelessly upon it, while the automatic in his right hand still covered the two men. "Do you think so, Weasel?" he repeated softly. "Well, perhaps you are right; and yet; somehow, I am inclined to disagree with you. Let me see, Weasel--it was Tuesday night, two nights ago; wasn't it, that a trifling break in Maiden Lane at Thorold and Sons disturbed the police? It was a three-year job for even a first offender, ten for one already on nodding terms with the police and fifteen to twenty for--well, say, for a man like you, Weasel--IF HE WERE CAUGHT! Am I making myself quite plain?"

The colour in the Weasel's cheeks faded a little--his eyes were holding in sudden fascination upon Jimmie Dale.

"I see that I am," observed Jimmie Dale pleasantly. "I said, 'if he were caught,' you will remember. I am going to leave this room in a moment, Weasel, and leave it entirely to your discretion as to whether you will think it wise or not to stir from that chair for ten minutes after I shut the door. And now"--Jimmie Dale nonchalantly replaced his handkerchief in his pocket, nonchalantly followed it with the banknotes which he picked up from the table--and smiled.

With a gasp, both men had strained forward, and were staring, wild-eyed, at the gray seal stuck between them on the tabletop.

"The Gray Seal!" whispered the Weasel, and his tongue circled his lips.

Jimmie Dale shrugged his shoulders.

"That WAS a bit theatrical, Weasel," he said apologetically; "and yet not wholly unnecessary. You will recall Stangeist, The Mope, Australian Ike, and Clarie Deane, and can draw your own inference as to what might happen in the Thorold affair if you should be so ill-advised as to force my hand. Permit me"--the slim, deft fingers, like a streak of lightning, were inside Hamvert's coat pocket and out again with the remainder of the banknotes--and Jimmie Dale was backing for the door--not the door of the bathroom by which he had entered, but the door of the room itself that opened on the corridor. There he stopped, and his hand swept around behind his back and turned the key in the locked door. He nodded at the two men, whose faces were working with incongruously mingled expressions of impotent rage, bewilderment, fear, and fury--and opened the door a little. "Ten minutes, Weasel," he said gently. "I trust you will not have to use heroic measures to restrain your friend for that length of time, though if it is necessary I should advise you for your own sake to resort almost--to murder. I wish you good evening, gentlemen."

The door opened farther; Jimmie Dale, still facing inward, slipped between it and the jamb, whipped the mask from his face, closed the door softly, stepped briskly but without any appearance of haste along the corridor to the stairs, descended the stairs, mingled with a crowd in the lobby for an instant, walked, seemingly a part of it, with a group of ladies and gentlemen down the hall to the side entrance, pa.s.sed out--and a moment later, after drawing on a linen dust coat which he took from under the seat, and exchanging his hat for a tweed cap, the car glided from the curb and was lost in a press of traffic around the corner.

Jimmie Dale laughed a little harshly to himself. So far, so good--but the game was not ended yet for all the crackle of the crisp notes in his pocket. There was still the map, still the robbery at Mittel's house--the ten-thousand-dollar "theft" would not in any way change that, and it was a question of time now to forestall any move the Weasel might make.

Through the city Jimmie Dale alternately dodged, spurted, and dragged his way, fuming with impatience; but once out on the country roads and headed toward New Roch.e.l.le, the big machine, speed limits thrown to the winds, roared through the night--a gray streak of road jumping under the powerful lamps; a village, a town, a cl.u.s.ter of lights flashing by him, the steady purr of his sixty-horse-power engines; the gray thread of open road again.

It was just eleven o'clock when Jimmie Dale, the road to himself for the moment at a spot a little beyond New Roch.e.l.le, extinguished his lights, and very carefully ran his car off the road, backing it in behind a small clump of trees. He tossed the linen dust coat back into the car, and set off toward where, a little distance away, the slap of waves from the stiff breeze that was blowing indicated the sh.o.r.e line of the Sound.

There was no moon, and, while it was not particularly dark, objects and surroundings at best were blurred and indistinct; but that, after all, was a matter of little concern to Jimmie Dale--the first house beyond was Mittel's. He reached the water's edge and kept along the sh.o.r.e.

There should be a little wharf, she had said. Yes; there it was--and there, too, was a gleam of light from the house itself.

Jimmie Dale began to make an accurate mental note of his surroundings.

From the little wharf on which he now stood, a path led straight to the house, bisecting what appeared to be a lawn, trees to the right, the house to the left. At the wharf, beside him, two motor boats were moored, one on each side. Jimmie Dale glanced at them, and, suddenly attracted by the familiar appearance of one, inspected it a little more closely. His momentarily awakened interest pa.s.sed as he nodded his head.

It had caught his attention, that was all--it was the same type and design, quite a popular make, of which there were hundreds around New York, as the one he had bought that year as a tender for his yacht.

He moved forward now toward the house, the rear of which faced him--the light that flooded the lawn came from a side window. Jimmie Dale was figuring the time and distance from New York as he crept cautiously along. How quickly could the Weasel make the journey? The Weasel would undoubtedly come, and if there was a convenient train it might prove a close race--but in his own favour was the fact that it would probably take the Weasel quite some little time to recover his equilibrium from his encounter with the Gray Seal in the Palais-Metropole, also the further fact that, from the Weasel's viewpoint, there was no desperate need of haste. Jimmie Dale crossed the lawn, and edged along in the shadows of the house to where the light streamed out from what now proved to be open French windows. It was a fair presumption that he would have an hour to the good on the Weasel.

The sill was little more than a couple of feet from the ground, and, from a crouched position on his knees below the window, Jimmie Dale raised himself slowly and peered guardedly inside. The room was empty.

He listened a moment--the black silk mask was on his face again--and with a quick, agile, silent spring he was in the room.

And then, in the centre of the room, Jimmie Dale stood motionless, staring around him, an expression, ironical, sardonic, creeping into his face. THE ROBBERY HAD ALREADY BEEN COMMITTED! At the lower end of the room everything was in confusion; the door of a safe swung wide, the drawers of a desk had been wrenched out, even a liqueur stand, on which were well-filled decanters, had been broken open, and the contents of safe and desk, the thief's discards as it were, littered the floor in all directions.

For an instant Jimmie Dale, his eyes narrowed ominously, surveyed the scene; then, with a sort of professional instinct aroused, he stepped forward to examine the safe--and suddenly darted behind the desk instead. Steps sounded in the hall. The door opened--a voice reached him:

"The master said I was to shut the windows, and I haven't dast to go in.

And he'll be back with the police in a minute now. Come on in with me, Minnie."

"Lord!" exclaimed another voice. "Ain't it a good thing the missus is away. She'd have highsteericks!"

Steps came somewhat hesitantly across the floor--from behind the desk, Jimmie Dale could see that it was a maid, accompanied by a big, rawboned woman, sleeves rolled to the elbows over brawny arms, presumably the Mittels' cook.

The maid closed the French windows, there were no others in the room, and bolted them; and, having gained a little confidence, gazed about her.

"My, but wasn't he cute!" she e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed. "Cut the telephone wires, he did. And ain't he made an awful mess! But the master said we wasn't to touch nothing till the police saw it."

"And to think of it happening in OUR house!" observed the cook heavily, her hands on her hips, her arms akimbo. "It'll all be in the papers, and mabbe they'll put our pictures in, too."

"I won't get over it as long as I live!" declared the maid. "The yell Mr. Mittel gave when he came downstairs and put his head in here, and then him shouting and using the most terrible language into the telephone, and then finding the wires cut. And me following him downstairs half dead with fright. And he shouts at me. 'Bella,' he shouts, 'shut those windows, but don't you touch a thing in that room.

I'm going for the police.' And then he rushes out of the house."

"I was going to bed," said the cook, picking up her cue for what was probably the twentieth rehearsal of the scene, "when I heard Mr. Mittel yell, and--Lord, Bella, there he is now!"

Jimmie Dale's hands clenched. He, too, had caught the scuffle of footsteps, those of three or four men at least, on the front porch.

There was one way, only one, of escape--through the French windows!

It was a matter of seconds only before Mittel, with the police at his heels, would be in the room--and Jimmie Dale sprang to his feet. There was a wild scream of terror from the maid, echoed by another from the cook--and, still screaming, both women fled for the door.

"Mr. Mittel! Mr. Mittel!" shrieked the maid--she had flung herself out into the hall. "He's--he's back again!"

Jimmie Dale was at the French windows, tearing at the bolts. They stuck. Shouts came from the front entryway. He wrenched viciously at the fastenings. They gave now. The windows flew open. He glanced over his shoulder. A man, Mittel presumably, since he was the only one not in uniform, was springing into the room. There was a blur of forms and bra.s.s b.u.t.tons behind Mittel--and Jimmie Dale leaped to the lawn, speeding across it like a deer.

But quick as he ran, Jimmie Dale's brain was quicker, pointing the single chance that seemed open to him. The motor boat! It seemed like a G.o.d-given piece of luck that he had noticed it was like his own; there would be no blind, and that meant fatal, blunders in the dark over its mechanism, and he could start it up in a moment--just the time to cast her off, that was all he needed.

The shouts swelled behind him. Jimmie Dale was running for his life. He flung a glance backward. One form--Mittel, he was certain--was perhaps a hundred yards in the rear. The others were just emerging from the French windows--grotesque, leaping things they looked, in the light that streamed out behind them from the room.

Jimmie Dale's feet pounded the planking of the wharf. He stooped and s.n.a.t.c.hed at the mooring line. Mittel was almost at the wharf. It seemed an age, a year to Jimmie Dale before the line was clear. Shouts rang still louder across the lawn--the police, racing in a pack, were more than halfway from the house. He flung the line into the boat, sprang in after it--and Mittel, looming over him, grasped at the boat's gunwhale.

Both men were panting from their exertions.

"Let go!" snarled Jimmie Dale between clenched teeth.

Mittel's answer was a hoa.r.s.e, gasping shout to the police to hurry--and then Mittel reeled back, measuring his length upon the wharf from a blow with a boat hook full across the face, driven with a sudden, untamed savagery that seemed for the moment to have mastered Jimmie Dale.

There was no time--not a second--not the fraction of a second.

Desperately, frantically he shoved the boat clear of the wharf.

Once--twice--three times he turned the engine over without success--and then the boat leaped forward. Jimmie Dale s.n.a.t.c.hed the mask from his face, and jumped for the steering wheel. The police were rushing out along the wharf. He could just faintly discern Mittel now--the man was staggering about, his hands clapped to his face. A peremptory order to halt, coupled with a threat to fire, rang out sharply--and Jimmie Dale flung himself flat in the bottom of the boat. The wharf edge seemed to open in little, crackling jets of flame, came the roar of reports like a miniature battery in action, then the FLOP, FLOP, FLOP, as the lead tore up the water around him, the duller thud as a bullet buried its nose in the boat's side, and the curious rip and squeak as a splinter flew. Then Mittel's voice, high-pitched, as though in pain:

"Can't any of you run a motor boat? He's got me bad, I'm afraid. That other one there is twice as fast."

"Sure!" another voice responded promptly. "And if that's right, he's run his head into a trap. Cast loose, there, MacVeay, and pile in, all of you! You go back to the house, Mr. Mittel, and fix yourself up. We'll get him!"

Jimmie Dale's lips thinned. It was true! If the other boat had any speed at all, it was only a question of time before he would be overtaken.

The only point at issue was how much time. It was dark--that was in his favour--but it was not so dark but that a boat could be distinguished on the water for quite a distance, for a longer distance than he could hope to put between them. There was no chance of eluding the police that way! The keen, facile brain that had saved the Gray Seal a hundred times before was weaving, planning, discarding, eliminating, scheming a way out--with death, ruin, disaster the price of failure. His eyes swept the dim, irregular outline of the sh.o.r.e. To his right, in the opposite direction from where he had left his car, and perhaps a mile ahead, as well as he could judge, the land seemed to run out into a point. Jimmie Dale headed for it instantly. If he could reach it with a little lead to the good, there was a chance! It would take, say, six minutes, granting the boat a speed of ten miles an hour--and she could do that. The others could hardly overtake him in that time--they hadn't got started yet. He could hear them still shouting and talking at the wharf. And Mittel's "twice as fast" was undoubtedly an exaggeration, anyhow.