It began as it always did.  He read it through once, in amazement; a second time, with a flush of bitter anger creeping to his cheeks; and a third time, curiously memorising, as it were, snatches of it here and there.

“Dear philanthropic crook:  Robbery of Hudson-Mercantile National Bank—­trusted employee is ex-convict, bad police record, served term in Sing Sing three years ago—­known to police as Bookkeeper Bob, real name is Robert Moyne, lives at ——­ Street, Harlem—­Inspector Burton and Lannigan of headquarters trailing him now—­robbery not yet made public—­”

There was a great deal more—­four sheets of closely written data.  With an exclamation almost of dismay, Jimmie Dale pulled out his watch.  So that was what Burton and Lannigan were up to!  And he had actually run into them!  Lord, the irony of it!  The—­And then Jimmie Dale stared at the dial of his watch incredulously.  It was still but barely midnight!  It seemed impossible that since leaving the theatre at a few minutes before eleven, he had lived through but a single hour!

Jimmie Dale’s fingers began to pluck at the letter, tearing it into pieces, tearing the pieces over and over again into tiny shreds.  The train stopped at station after station, people got on and off—­Jimmie Dale’s hat was over his eyes, and his eyes were glued again to the window.  Had Bookkeeper Bob returned to his flat in Harlem with the detectives at his heels—­or were Burton and Lannigan still trailing the man downtown somewhere around the cafe’s?  If the former, the theft of the letter and its incident loss of time had been an irreparable disaster; if the latter—­well, who knew!  The risk was the Gray Seal’s!

At One Hundred and Twenty-Fifth Street Jimmie Dale left the train; and, at the end of a sharp four minutes’ walk, during which he had dodged in and out from street to street, stopped on a corner to survey the block ahead of him.  It was a block devoted exclusively to flats and apartment houses, and, apart from a few belated pedestrians, was deserted.  Jimmie Dale strolled leisurely down one side, crossed the street at the end of the block, and strolled leisurely back on the other side—­there was no sign of either Burton or Lannigan.  It was a fairly safe presumption then that Bookkeeper Bob had not returned yet, or one of the detectives at least would have been shadowing the house.

Jimmie Dale, smiling a little grimly, retraced his steps again, and turned deliberately into a doorway—­whose number he had noted as he had passed a moment or so before.  So, after all, there was time yet!  This was the house.  “Number eighteen,” she had said in her letter.  “A flat—­three stories—­Moyne lives on ground floor.”

Jimmie Dale leaned against the vestibule door—­there was a faint click—­a little steel instrument was withdrawn from the lock—­and Jimmie Dale stepped into the hall, where a gas jet, turned down, burned dimly.