He gave the number of his residence on Riverside Drive, and waited for the connection.  After some delay, Jason’s voice answered him.

“Jason,” said Jimmie Dale, in matter-of-fact tones, “I shall be out of the city for another three or four days, possibly a week, and—­” he stopped abruptly, as a sort of gasp came to him over the wire.

“Thank God that’s you, sir!” exclaimed the old butler wildly.  “I’ve been near mad, sir, all day!”

“Don’t get excited, Jason!” said Jimmie Dale a little sharply.  “The mere matter of my absence for the last two days is nothing to cause you any concern.  And while I am on the subject, Jason, let me say now that I shall be glad if you will bear that fact in mind in future.”

“Yes, sir,” stammered Jason.  “But, sir, it ain’t that—­good Lord, Master Jim, it ain’t that, sir!  It’s—­it’s one of them letters.”

Something like a galvanic shock seemed to jerk the disreputable, loose-jointed frame of Larry the Bat suddenly erect—­and a strained whiteness crept over the dirty, unwashed face.

“Go on, Jason,” said Jimmie Dale, without a quiver in his voice.

“It came this morning, sir—­that shuffer with his automobile left it.  I had just time to say you weren’t at home, sir, and he was gone.  And then, sir, there ain’t been an hour gone by all through the day that a woman, sir—­a lady, begging your pardon, Master Jim—­hasn’t rung up on the telephone, asking if you were back, and if I could get you, and where you were, and half frantic, sir, half sobbing, sometimes, sir, and saying there was a life hanging on it, Master Jim.”

Larry the Bat, staring into the mouthpiece of the instrument, subconsciously passed his hand across his forehead, and subconsciously noted that his fingers, as he drew them away, were damp.

“Where is the letter now, Jason?” inquired Jimmie Dale coolly.

“Here on your desk, Master Jim.  Shall I bring it to you?”

Bring it to him!  How?  When?  Where?  Bring it to him!  The ghastly irony of it!  Jimmie Dale tried to think—­prodding, spurring desperately that keen, lightning brain of his that had never failed him yet.  How bridge the gulf between Larry the Bat and Jimmie Dale in Jason’s eyes—­not just for the replenishing of funds now, but with a life at stake!

“No—­I think not, Jason,” said Jimmie Dale calmly.  “Just leave it where it is.  And if she telephones again, say that you have told me—­that will be sufficient to satisfy any further inquiries.  And Jason—­”

“Yes, sir?”

“If she telephones again, try and find out where the call comes from.”

“I haven’t forgotten what you said once, Master Jim, sir,” said the old man eagerly.  “And I’ve been trying that sir, all day.  They’ve all come from different pay stations, sir.”

A mirthless little smile tinged Jimmie Dale’s lips.  Of course!  He might have known!  It was always that way, always the same.  He was as near to the solution of her identity at that moment as he had been years ago, when she, in some mysterious way, alone of all the world, had identified him as the Gray Seal!