“It’s a strange coincidence, though possibly a very happy one,” said Jimmie Dale, as he walked along, “that it should be on the same street as the Sanctuary—­ah, this ought to be the place!”

An alleyway, corresponding to the one that flanked the tenement where, as Larry the Bat, he had paid room rent as a tenant for several years, in fact, the alleyway next above it, and but a short block away, intersected the street, narrow, black, and uninviting.  Jimmie Dale, as he passed, peered down its length.

“No light—­that’s good!” commented Jimmie Dale to himself.  Then:  “Window opens on alleyway ten feet from ground—­shoe store, Russian Jew, in basement—­go in front door—­straight hallway—­room at end—­Russian Jew probably accomplice—­be careful that he does not hear you moving overhead”—­Jimmie Dale’s mind, with that curious faculty of his, was subconsciously repeating snatches from her letter word for word, even as he noted the dimly lighted, untidy, and disorderly interior of what, from strings of leather slippers that decorated the cellarlike entrance, was evidently a cheap and shoddy shoe store in the basement of the building.

The building itself was rickety and tumble-down, three stories high, and given over undoubtedly to gregarious foreigners of the poorer class, a rabbit burrow, as it were, having a multitude of roomers and lodgers.  There was nothing ominous or even secretive about it—­up the short flight of steps to the entrance, even the door hung carelessly half open.

Jimmie Dale’s slouch hat was pulled a little farther down over his eyes as he mounted the steps and entered the hallway.  He listened a moment.  A sort of subdued, querulous hubbub seemed to hum through the place, as voices, men’s, women’s, and children’s, echoing out from their various rooms above, mingled together, and floated down the stairways in a discordant medley.  Jimmie Dale stepped lightly down the length of the hall—­and listened again; this time intently, with his ear to the keyhole of the door that made the end of the passage.  There was not a sound from within.  He tried the door, smiled a little as he reached for his keys, worked over the lock—­and straightened up suddenly as his ear caught a descending step on the stairs.  It was two flights up, however—­and the door was unlocked now.  Jimmie Dale opened it, and, like a shadow, slipped inside; and, as he locked the door behind him, smiled once more—­the door lock was but a paltry makeshift at best, but inside his fingers had touched a massive steel bolt that, when shot home, would yield when the door itself yielded—­and not before.  Without moving the bolt, he turned—­and his flashlight for a moment swept the room.

“Not much like the way they describe this sort of place in storybooks!” murmured Jimmie Dale capriciously.  “But I get the idea.  Mr. Russian Jew downstairs makes a bluff at using it for a storeroom.”

Again the flashlight made a circuit.  Here, there, and everywhere, seemingly without any attempt at order, were piles of wooden shipping cases.  Only the centre of the room was clear and empty; that, and a vacant space against the wall by the window.