my boots," said Carruthers, biting nervously at the end of his cigar.

"And been sorry for it afterward," supplied Jimmie Dale.

"Yes, by Jove, you're right!" admitted Carruthers, "I suppose I should.
I actually got to love the fellow--it was the GAME, really, that I
wanted to beat."

"Well, and how about this woman? Keep on the straight and narrow path,
old man," prodded Jimmie Dale.

"The woman?" Carruthers smiled. "Nothing doing! I don't believe there
was one--he wouldn't have been likely to egg the police and reporters on
to finding her if there had been, would he? It was a blind, of course.
He worked alone, absolutely alone. That's the secret of his success,
according to my way of thinking. There was never so much as an
indication that he had had an accomplice in anything he ever did."

Jimmie Dale's eyes travelled around the club's homelike, perfectly
appointed room. He nodded to a fellow member here and there, then his
eyes rested musingly on his guest again.

Carruthers was staring thoughtfully at his coffee cup.

"He was the prince of crooks and the father of originality," announced
Carruthers abruptly, following the pause that had ensued. "Half the time
there wasn't any more getting at the motive for the curious things he
did, than there was getting at the Gray Seal himself."

"Carruthers," said Jimmy Dale, with a quick little nod of approval,