When he paused at last, it was in a backyard, which he had entered by
the simple expedient of climbing the fence from the lane behind. A low
building loomed up before him, whose windows at first glance were dark,
but through whose carefully closed blinds and tightly drawn shutters
might still be remarked, if one were sufficiently inquisitive, the
faint, suffused glow of lights from within.

Jimmie Dale scarcely glanced at the windows. Poker Joe's at this
hour--it must be close to eleven o'clock, he calculated--would be just
about settling into its night's swing. He was quite well aware both that
the place was lighted and that there were by now perhaps a score of
gangland's elite already at the tables; and that the blinds and shades
were closed and drawn interested him only in that it safeguarded him
_without_ from being seen by any one from _within_!

But there was another window upon which Jimmie Dale now centred his
entire attention--a narrow, oblong window, cellar-like, just on a level
with the ground--and here there was neither a light nor a drawn shade.
He stole across the yard, and, five yards from the wall of the house,
dropped down on his hands and knees, and crawled silently forward.
Keeping a little to one side, he reached the window, and lay there
listening intently. There was no sound, save a low, almost inaudible
murmur of voices from the windows above him--nothing from the direction
of that dark, oblong window that he could reach out and touch now. The
Magpie was presumably not at home!

The long, slim, tapering fingers, whose nerves, tingling sensitively at
the tips, were as eyes to Jimmie Dale, those fingers that, to the Gray
Seal, were like some magical "open sesame" to the most intricate safes
and vaults, felt along the window sill, and, from the sill, made a