Do you understand now why I have come here?  I could not explain in a letter; I do not quite seem to be explaining now.  It would seem as though there were no need for the Gray Seal—­that simply the police should be notified.  But I know, Jimmie, call it intuition, what you will, I know that there is need for us, for you to-night—­that behind all this is a tragedy, deeper, blacker, than even the brutal, cold-blooded murder that is already done.”

Her voice, in its passionate earnestness, died away; and an anger, cold, grim, remorseless, settled upon Jimmie Dale—­settled as it always settled upon him at her call to arms.  His brain was already at work in its quick, instant way, probing, sifting, planning.  She was right!  It was strange, it was more than strange that, with the added risk, the danger, the difficulty, the man should have been brought miles to be done away with in that tenement!  Why?  Connie Myers took form before him—­the coarse features, the tawny hair that straggled across the low forehead, the shifty eyes that were an indeterminate colour between brown and gray, the thin lips that seemed to draw in and give the jaw a protruding, belligerent effect.  And Connie Myers knew him as Jimmie Dale—­it would have to be then as Larry the Bat that the Gray Seal must work.  That meant time—­to go to the Sanctuary and change.

“The police,” he asked suddenly, aloud, “they have not yet discovered the body?”

“Not yet,” she replied hurriedly.  “And that is still another reason for haste—­there is no telling when they will.  See—­here!” She thrust a paper into his hand.  “Here is a plan of old Doyle’s house, and directions for finding it.  You must get Connie Myers red-handed, you must make him convict himself, for the evidence through which I know him to be guilty can never be used against him.  And, Jimmie, be careful—­I know I am not wrong, that there is still something more behind all this.  And now go, Jimmie, go!  There is no time to lose!” She was pushing him across the room toward the door.

Go!  The word seemed suddenly to bring dismay.  It was she again who was dominant now in his mind.  Who knew if to-night, when he was taking his life in his hands again, would not be the last!  And she was here now, here beside him—­where she might never be again!

She seemed to divine his thoughts, for she spoke again, a strange new note of tenderness in her voice that thrilled him.

“You must never let them get you, Jimmie—­for my sake.  It will not last much longer—­it is near the end—­and I shall keep my promise.  But go, now, Jimmie—­go!”

“Go?” he repeated numbly.  “Go?  But—­but you?”

“I?” She slipped suddenly away from him, retreating back down the room.  “I will go—­as I came.”

“Wait!  Listen!” he pleaded.

There was no answer.

She was there—­somewhere back there in the darkness still.  He stood hesitant at the door.  It seemed that every faculty he possessed urged him back there again—­to her.  Could he let her escape him now when she was so utterly in his power, she who meant everything in his life!  And then, like a cold shock, came that other thought—­she who had trusted to his honour!  With a jerk, his hand swept out, felt for the doorknob, and closed upon it.