"Thanks awfully for letting me know, old man."

"Don't mention it!" returned Carruthers sarcastically. "You always were
a grateful beast, Jimmie. Hurry up!"

Jimmie Dale hung up the receiver of the city 'phone, and took down the
receiver of another, a private-house installation, and rang twice for
the garage.

"The light car at once, Benson," he ordered curtly. "At once!"

Jimmie Dale worked quickly then. In his dressing room, he changed from
dinner clothes to tweeds; spent a second or so over the contents of a
locked drawer in the dresser, from which he selected a very small but
serviceable automatic, and a very small but highly powerful magnifying
glass whose combination of little round lenses worked on a pivot, and,
closed over one another, were of about the compass of a quarter of a
dollar.

In three minutes he was outside the house and stepping into the car,
just as it drew up at the curb.

"Benson," he said tersely to his chauffeur, "drop me one block this
side of the Palace on the Bowery--and forget there was ever a speed law
enacted. Understand?"

"Very good, sir," said Benson, touching his cap. "I'll do my best, sir."

Jimmie Dale, in the tonneau, stretched out his legs under the front
seat, and dug his hands into his pockets--and inside the pockets his