Hall. A man loitering at the curb shot a swift, searching glance at him
as he slouched by. Jimmie Dale paused in the doorway of the Pagoda and
looked up and down the street. The man he had passed had drawn a little
closer; another man in an apparently aimless fashion lounged a few yards
away.

"Something up," muttered Jimmie Dale to himself. "Lansing, of
headquarters, and the other looks like Milrae."

Jimmie Dale pushed in through the door of the Pagoda. A bedlam of noise
surged out at him--a tin-pan piano and a mandolin were going furiously
from a little raised platform at the rear; in the centre of the room a
dozen couples were in the throes of the tango and the bunny-hug; around
the sides, at little tables, men and women laughed and applauded and
thumped time on the tabletops with their beer mugs; while waiters, with
beer-stained aprons and unshaven faces, juggled marvelous handfuls of
glasses and mugs from the bar beside the platform to the patrons at the
tables.

Jimmie Dale's eyes swept the room in a swift, comprehensive glance,
fixed on a little fellow, loudly dressed, who shared a table halfway
down the room with a woman in a picture hat, and a smile of relief
touched his lips. The Runt at last!

He walked down the room, caught the Runt's eyes significantly as he
passed the table, kept on to a door between the platform and the bar,
opened it, and went out into a lighted hallway, at one end of which a
door opened onto the street, and at the other a stairway led above.

The Runt joined him. "Wot's de row, Larry?" inquired the Runt.