The cluttered accumulation of secondhand stuff in the rear gave place to a little more orderly arrangement as he advanced toward the front of the store.  Like a huge firefly, the flashlight twinkled, went out, twinkled again, and went out.  He passed a sort of crude, partitioned-off apartment that did duty for the establishment’s office, a sort of little boxed-in place it was, about in the middle of the floor.  Jimmie Dale’s light played on it for a moment, but he kept on toward the front door without any pause.

Every movement was quick, sure, accurate, with not a wasted second.  It had been barely a minute since he had vaulted the back fence.  It was hardly a quarter of a minute more before the cumbersome lock of the front door was unfastened, and the door itself pulled imperceptibly ajar.

He went swiftly back to the office now—­and found it even more of a shaky, cheap affair than it had at first appeared; more like a box stall with windows around the top than anything else, the windows doubtless to permit the occupant to overlook the store from the vantage point of the high stool that stood before a long, battered, wobbly desk.  There was a door to the place, too, but the door was open and the key was in the lock.  The ray of Jimmie Dale’s flashlight swept once around the interior—­and rested on an antique, ponderous safe.

Under the mask Jimmie Dale’s lips parted in a smile that seemed almost apologetic, as he viewed the helpless iron monstrosity that was little more than an insult to a trained cracksman.  Then from the belt came the thin metal case and a pair of tweezers.  He opened the case, and with the tweezers lifted out one of the gray-coloured, diamond-shaped seals.  Holding the seal with the tweezers, he moistened the gummed side with his lips, then laid it on a handkerchief which he took from his pocket, and clapped the handkerchief against the front of the safe, sticking the seal conspicuously into place.  Jimmie Dale’s insignia bore no finger prints.  The microscopes and magnifying glasses at headquarters had many a time regretfully assured the police of that fact.

And now his hands and fingers seemed to work like lightning.  Into the soft iron bit a drill—­bit in and through—­bit in and through again.  It was dark, pitch black—­and silent.  Not a sound, save the quick, dull rasp of the ratchet—­like the distant gnawing of a mouse!  Jimmie Dale worked fast—­another hole went through the face of the old-fashioned safe—­and then suddenly he straightened up to listen, every faculty tense, alert, and strained, his body thrown a little forward.  What was that!

From the alleyway leading from the street without, through which he himself had come, sounded the stealthy crunch of feet.  Motionless in the utter darkness, Jimmie Dale listened—­there was a scraping noise in the rear—­someone was climbing the fence that he had climbed!

In an instant the tools in Jimmie Dale’s hands disappeared into their respective pockets beneath his vest—­and the sensitive fingers shot to the dial on the safe.