Jimmie Dale’s lips thinned.

“I’m afraid,” he muttered slowly, “I’m afraid that I’m too late even now.”  And then, as she came to the door and turned the key on the inside:  “Pray Heaven she doesn’t turn the light out—­or somebody might think I was trying to break in!”

But in that respect Jimmie Dale’s fears were groundless.  She did not turn out either of the gas jets that lighted the little shop; instead, in a faltering, reluctant sort of manner, she led the way directly through the door in the rear, and the man followed her.

The shop was empty—­and Jimmie Dale was standing against the door on the outside.  His position was perfectly natural—­a hundred passers-by would have noted nothing but a most commonplace occurrence—­a man in the act of entering a store.  And, if he appeared to fumble and have trouble with the latch, what of it!  Jimmie Dale, however, was not fumbling—­hidden by his back that was turned to the street, those wonderful fingers of his, in whose tips seemed embodied and concentrated every one of the human senses, were working quickly, surely, accurately, without so much as the wasted movement of a single muscle.

A faint tinkle—­and the key within fell from the lock to the floor.  A faint click—­and the bolt of the lock slipped back.  Jimmie Dale restored the skeleton keys and a little steel instrument that accompanied them to his pocket—­and quietly opened the door.  He stepped inside, picked up the key from the floor, inserted it in the lock, closed the door behind him, and locked it again.

“To guard against interruption,” observed Jimmie Dale, a little quizzically.

He was, perhaps, thirty seconds behind the others.  He crossed the shop noiselessly, cautiously, and passed through the door at the rear.  It opened into a short passage that, after a few feet, gave on a sort of corridor at right angles—­and down this latter, facing him, at the end, the door of a lighted room was open, and he could see the figure of the man who had entered the shop, back turned, standing on the threshold.  Voices, indistinct, came to him.

The corridor itself was dark; and Jimmie Dale, satisfied that he was fairly safe from observation, stole softly forward.  He passed two doors on his left—­and the curious arrangement of the building that had puzzled him for a moment became clear.  The store made the front of an old tenement building, with apartments above, and the rear of the store was a sort of apartment, too—­the old lady’s living quarters.

Step by step, testing each one against a possible creaking of the floor, Jimmie Dale moved forward, keeping close up against one wall.  The man passed on into the room—­and now Jimmie Dale could distinguish every word that was being spoken; and, crouched up, in the dark corridor, in the angle of the wall and the door jamb itself, could see plainly enough into the room beyond.  Jimmie Dale’s jaw crept out a little.