and closed the door behind him.

Save for a dim light that filtered out through the half open door of the
inner room, it was dark here. Slowly, with that almost uncanny, silent
tread that he had acquired on the creaky, rickety stairs of the old
Sanctuary, Jimmie Dale began to move forward, the weight of his body
wholly and firmly on one foot before the other was lifted from the
floor; and, as he advanced, the black silk mask, from a pocket in the
leather girdle, was drawn over his face.

He could see them now quite plainly--the twisted, crunched-up form of
old Jake, with his tawny-bearded face, and narrow, shifting little black
eyes; the smooth-shaven, suave, oily, cunning countenance of Thorold,
the super-crook. Both were sitting at a table in the miserly appointed
room, whose only other articles of furniture were a cheap iron bed and a
few chairs. Old Jake was whining; Thorold's voice held an angry rasp.

"Four thousand, you cursed miser, and not a cent less," Thorold
was saying.

"Three," whined the other. "You ain't splitting fair. I got to take the
stones out of their setting, and sell 'em for what I can get. Stolen
stuff's got to go cheap. You know that."

"It's worth ten or twelve, and you'll get at least eight for it,"
growled Thorold. "That's four apiece--and I've got to split mine again
with the guy that pinched it. Hurry up, d'yer hear--I've got a date with
him in half an hour over in my office."

"Ha, ha!" cackled old Jake. "Are you trying to be funny? All the thief