He had halted, absorbed, in front of a moving-picture theatre.  Great placards, at first but a blur of colour, suddenly forced themselves in concrete form upon his consciousness.  Letters a foot high leaped out at him:  “The double life.”  There was the picture of a banker in his private office hastily secreting a forged paper as the hero in the guise of a clerk entered; the companion picture was the banker in convict stripes staring out from behind the barred doors of a cell.  There seemed a ghastly augury in the coincidence.  Why should a thing like that be thrust upon him to shake his nerve when he needed nerve now more than he had ever needed it in his life before?

He raised his hand to jerk aimlessly at the brim of his hat, dropped his hand abruptly to his side again, and started quickly, hurriedly away through the throng around him.  A sort of savagery had swept upon him.  In a flash he had made his decision.  He would take the gambler’s chance!  And afterward—­Jimmie Dale’s lips were like a thin, straight line—­it was Whitey Mack’s life or his own!  Whitey Mack had said he was the only one that was wise—­and Whitey Mack had not told Lannigan yet, wouldn’t tell Lannigan until the show-down.  If he, Jimmie Dale, got to the Sanctuary, became Jimmie Dale and got away again, even if Whitey Mack knew him as Jimmie Dale, there was still a chance.  It was his life or Whitey Mack’s—­Whitey Mack, with his lean-jawed, clean-shaven wolf’s face!  If he could get Whitey Mack before the other was ready to tell Lannigan!  Surely he had the right of self-preservation!  Surely his life was as valuable as Whitey Mack’s, as valuable as a man’s who, as those in the secrets of the underworld knew well enough, had blood upon his hands, who lived by crime, who was a menace to the community!  Had he not the right to preserve his own life at the expense of one such as that?  He had never taken life—­the thought was abhorrent!  But was there any other way in event of Whitey Mack knowing him as Jimmie Dale?  His back was against the wall; he was trapped; certain death, and, worse, dishonour stared him in the face.  Lannigan and Whitey Mack would be together—­the odds would be two to one against him—­and he had no quarrel with Lannigan—­somehow he must let Lannigan out of it.

The other side of the street was less crowded.  He crossed over, and, still with the shuffling tread that dozens around him knew as the characteristic gait of Larry the Bat, but covering the ground with amazing celerity, he hurried along.  It was only at the end of the block, that cross street from the Bowery that led to the Sanctuary.  How much time had he?  He turned the corner into the darker cross street.  Whitey Mack would have learned from Bristol Bob that Larry the Bat had just been there; that is, that Larry the Bat was not at the Sanctuary.  Whitey Mack would probably be in no hurry—­he and Lannigan might wait until later, until Whitey Mack