It was not only the police now; it was, far more to be feared, the underworld as well.  In the old days, the role of Larry the Bat had been assumed at intervals, at his own discretion, when, in a corner, he had no other way of escape; now it was forced upon him almost daily.  The character of Larry the Bat could no longer be discarded at will.  He had flung down the gauntlet to the underworld when, as the Gray Seal, he had closed the prison doors behind Stangeist, The Mope, Australian Ike, and Clarie Deane, and the underworld had picked the gauntlet up.  Betrayed, as they believed, by the one who, though unknown to them; they had counted the greatest among themselves, and each one fearful that his own betrayal might come next, every crook, every thug in the Bad Lands now eyed his oldest pal with suspicion and distrust, and each was a self-constituted sleuth, with the prod of self-preservation behind him, sworn to the accomplishment of that unhallowed slogan—­death to the Gray Seal.  Almost daily now he must show himself as Larry the Bat in some gathering of the underworld—­a prolonged absence from his haunts was not merely to invite certain suspicion, where all were suspicious of each other, it was to invite certain disaster.  He had now either to carry the role like a little old man of the sea upon his back, or renounce it forever.  And the latter course he dared not even consider—­the Sanctuary was still the Sanctuary, and the role of Larry the Bat was still a refuge, the trump card in the lone hand he played.

He reached the corner, pushed open the door of Bristol Bob’s, and shuffled in.  The place was a glare of light, a hideous riot of noise.  On a polished section of the floor in the centre, a turkey trot was in full swing; laughter and shouting vied raucously with an impossible orchestra.

Jimmie Dale slowly made the circuit of the room past the tables, that, ranged around the sides, were packed with occupants who thumped their glasses in tempo with the music and clamoured at the rushing waiters for replenishment.  A dozen, two dozen, men and women greeted him.  Jimmie Dale indifferently returned their salutes.  What a galaxy of crooks—­the cream of the underworld!  His eyes, under half-closed lids, swept the faces—­lags, dips, gatmen, yeggs, mob stormers, murderers, petty sneak thieves, stalls, hangers-on—­they were all there.  He knew them all; he was known to all.

He shuffled on to the far end of the room, his leer a little arrogant, a certain arrogance, too, in the tilt of his battered hat.  He also was quite a celebrity in that gathering—­Larry the Bat was of the aristocracy and the elite of gangland.  Well, the show was over; he had stalked across the stage, performed for his audience—­and in another hour now, free until he must repeat the same performance the next day in some other equally notorious dive, he would be sitting in for a rubber of bridge at that most exclusive of all clubs, the St. James,