“The game was up!  The game was up!”—­his mind seemed to keep on repeating that.  The Crime Club had beaten him by an hour, at most, and had been here, and had searched.  It was strange, though, that they should have been at such curious pains to cover their tracks by leaving the room in order, by such paltry efforts to make the safe appear untouched when the first glance that was at all critical would disclose immediately what had been done!  Why should they need to cover their tracks at all; or, if it was necessary, why, above all, in such a pitifully inadequate way!  His mind barked back to the same ghastly refrain—­“the game was up!”

No!  Not yet!  There was still a chance!  There was still Spider Jack!  Suppose, in spite of their search, they had failed to find the package!  Jimmie Dale’s lips set in a thin line, as he started abruptly toward the door.  There was still that chance, and one thing was grimly certain—­Spider Jack would, at least, show him where the package had been!

And then, halfway to the door, he halted suddenly, and stood still—­listening.  An electric bell was ringing loudly, imperiously, somewhere upstairs.  Followed almost immediately the sound of some one, Spider Jack presumably, moving hurriedly about overhead; and then, a moment later, steps coming down the staircase in the adjoining room.

Jimmie Dale drew back, flattening himself against the wall.  Spider Jack entered the room, stumbled across it, in the darkness, fumbled for the door that led into his little shop, opened it, passed through, fumbled around in there again, for matches evidently, then lighted a gas jet in the store, and, going to the street door, opened it.

Jimmie Dale had edged along the wall a little to a position where he had an unobstructed view through the open doorway connecting the shop and the room in which he stood.  Spider Jack, in trousers and shirt, hastily donned, no doubt, as he had got out of bed, was standing in the street doorway, and beyond him loomed the forms of several men.  Spider Jack stepped aside to allow his visitors to enter—­and suddenly, a cry barely suppressed upon his lips, Jimmie Dale involuntarily strained forward.  Three men had entered, but his eyes were fixed, fascinated, upon only one—­the first of the three.  Was it an hallucination?  Was he mad—–­dreaming?  It was Hilton Travers, the chauffeur—­the man whom he could have sworn he had last seen dead, lashed in that chair, in that ghastly death chamber of the Crime Club!

“Rather rough on you, Spider, to pull you out of bed at this hour,” the chauffeur was saying apologetically.

“Oh, that’s all right, seein’ it’s you, Travers,” Spider Jack answered, gruffly amiable.  “Only I was kind of lookin’ for you last night.”

“I know,” the chauffeur replied; “but I couldn’t connect with my friends here.  Shake hands with them, Spider—­Bob Marvin—­Harry Stead.”