It was close upon one o’clock in the morning when Jimmie Dale stopped again—­this time before a fashionable dwelling just off Central Park.  And here, for perhaps the space of a minute, he surveyed the house from the sidewalk—­watching, with a sort of speculative satisfaction, a man’s shadow that passed constantly to and fro across the drawn blinds of one of the lower windows.  The rest of the house was in darkness.

“Yes,” said Jimmie Dale, nodding his head, “I rather thought so.  The servants will have retired hours ago.  It’s safe enough.”

He ran quickly up the steps and rang the bell.  A door opened almost instantly, sending a faint glow into the hall from the lighted room; a hurried step crossed the hall—­and the outer door was thrown back.

“Well, what is it?” demanded a voice brusquely.

It was quite dark, too dark for either to distinguish the other’s features—­and Jimmie Dale’s hat was drawn far down over his eyes.

“I want to see Mr. Thomas H. Carling, cashier of the Hudson-Mercantile National Bank—­it’s very important,” said Jimmie Dale earnestly.

“I am Mr. Carling,” replied the other.  “What is it?”

Jimmie Dale leaned forward.

“From headquarters—­with a report,” he said, in a low tone.

“Ah!” exclaimed the bank official sharply.  “Well, it’s about time!  I’ve been waiting up for it—­though I expected you would telephone rather than this.  Come in!”

“Thank you,” said Jimmie Dale courteously—­and stepped into the hall.

The other closed the front door.  “The servants are in bed, of course,” he explained, as he led the way toward the lighted room.  “This way, please.”

Behind the other, across the hall, Jimmie Dale followed and close at Carling’s heels entered the room, which was fitted up, quite evidently regardless of cost, as a combination library and study.  Carling, in a somewhat pompous fashion, walked straight ahead toward the carved-mahogany flat-topped desk, and, as he reached it, waved his hand.

“Take a chair,” he said, over his shoulder—­and then, turning in the act of dropping into his own chair, grasped suddenly at the edge of the desk instead, and, with a low, startled cry, stared across the room.

Jimmie Dale was leaning back against the door that was closed now behind him—­and on Jimmie Dale’s face was a black silk mask.

For an instant neither man spoke nor moved; then Carling, spare-built, dapper in evening clothes, edged back from the desk and laughed a little uncertainly.

“Quite neat!  I compliment you!  From headquarters with a report, I think you said?”

“Which I neglected to add,” said Jimmie Dale, “was to be made in private.”

Carling, as though to put as much distance between them as possible, continued to edge back across the room—­but his small black eyes, black now to the pupils themselves, never left Jimmie Dale’s face.