He stopped, struck by a sudden idea.

“By Jove!  I believe it can be done,” he said.

He continued to pace up and down, apparently deep in thought.  Occasionally he stopped to look in the direction from which he had followed his prey to the rendezvous.

After nearly an hour the lad, after a glance down the street, slipped quietly into a doorway.  Apparently the thing for which he had been waiting was about to come to pass.

Footsteps sounded on the street, coming closer.  Save for the one lone pedestrian, the street was deserted.  The footsteps approached closer, and Chester gathered himself for a spring.  As the man came abreast of the doorway in which the lad was hiding, Chester hurled himself upon him.  With one hand the lad clutched his victim about the throat, and with the other he struck out heavily.  There was a stifled groan, and the man fell limp in the boy’s arms.

Glancing hurriedly about to see that there was no one in sight—­no witness to his deed—­Chester dragged the man into the doorway.  Here he quickly discarded his own clothes, stripped the stranger of his outer garments and donned them himself.

Then tearing his own clothes into strips, he bound his victim and gagged him, after which, now attired in his victim’s clothes, he stood up and made a search of the pockets.

“If my surmise is correct,” he said to himself, “I shall be all right.”

The hand which was exploring the inside breast pocket came forth with a little piece of cloth.

“Good!” the lad exclaimed.  “I thought as much.  I didn’t believe they would take too many chances.  A stranger might get in and betray them.”

For the little piece of cloth the lad had taken from the pocket of his newly acquired apparel was a black mask.

“Now,” said the boy to himself, “to see if I cannot find out who I am supposed to be.”

He continued the search of the pockets.  Several pieces of paper and one or two documents he glanced at hurriedly, and restored.  Finally he drew out a paper that seemed to please him, for his face lighted up with a smile.  He glanced at the slip of paper and read aloud: 

“This is to certify that the bearer is an accredited agent of the One King.”

At the bottom was a seal of peculiar design, but there was no signature.

“Evidently,” said the lad, “members of this gang are not known to one another, at least all of them.  They may spot me and they may not.  However, I’ve got to take a chance.  Nothing risked, nothing gained.”

The lad stepped quickly from his place of concealment and approached where the man he had followed had turned in more than an hour before.  He descended the steps into the basement and knocked upon the door—­once loudly, three times softly, and once loudly again.

The door swung open before him, and a masked man peered out.  Taking a deep breath, and feeling in his pocket to make sure that his revolver was in readiness, the lad stepped inside.  The door swung to behind him.