“Ah, I think I begin to see!” he said caustically.  “When I have been thoroughly frightened I shall be offered my freedom at a price.  A sort of up-to-date game of holdup!  The penalty of being a wealthy man!  If you had named your figure to begin with, we would have saved a lot of idle talk, and you would have had my answer the sooner:  Nothing!”

“Do you know,” said the other, in a grimly musing way, “there has always been one man, but only one until now, that I have wished I might add to my present associates.  I refer to the so-called Gray Seal.  To-night there are two.  I pay you the compliment of being the other.  But”—­he was smiling ominously again—­“we are wasting time, Mr. Dale.  I am willing to expose my hand to the extent of admitting that the information you are withholding is infinitely more valuable to me than the mere wreaking of reprisal upon you for a refusal to talk.  Therefore, if you will answer, I pledge you my word you will be free to leave here within five minutes.  If you refuse, you are already aware of the alternative.  Well, Mr. Dale?”

Who was this man?  Jimmie Dale was studying the other’s chin, the lips, the white, even teeth, the jet-black hair.  Some day the tables might be turned.  Could he recognise again this cool, imperturbable ruffian who so callously threatened him with murder?

“Well, Mr. Dale?  I am waiting!”

“I am not a magician,” said Jimmie Dale contemptuously.  “I could not answer your questions if I wanted to.”

The other’s hand slid instantly to a row of electric buttons on the desk.

“Very well, Mr. Dale!” he said quietly.  “You do not believe, I see, that I would dare to carry my threat into execution; you perhaps even doubt my power.  I shall take the trouble to convince you—­I imagine it will stimulate your memory.”

The door opened.  Two men were standing on the threshold, both in evening dress, both masked.  The man behind the desk came forward, took Jimmie Dale’s arm almost courteously, and led him from the room out into a corridor, where he halted abruptly.

“I want to call your attention first, Mr. Dale, to the fact that as far as you are concerned you neither have now, nor ever will have, any idea whether you are in the heart of New York or fifty miles away from it.  Now, listen!  Do you hear anything?”

There was nothing.  Only the strange silence of that other room was intensified now.  There was not a sound; stillness such as it seemed to Jimmie Dale he had never experienced before was around him.

“You may possibly infer from the silence that you are not in the city,” suggested the other, after a moment’s pause.  “I leave you to your own conclusions in that respect.  The cause, however, of the silence is internal, not external; we had sound-proof principles in mind to a perhaps exaggerated degree when this building was constructed.  If you care to do so, you have my permission to shout, say, for help, to your heart’s content.  We shall make no effort to stop you.”