"
Was that a sound there outside the door? A step cautiously approaching?
He leaned forward tensely. No--his laugh was low, short, furious--_no!_
It was only from above, that sound.
Jimmie Dale's face hardened. It was childish, this sensation of
_presence_ in the room; but it was also unnerving. Why should so unusual
a thing happen to him to-night? Was it purely over-wrought nerves, due
to the strain of the peril he ran as Larry the Bat--or was it intuition?
Intuition had never failed him yet. Well, whatever it was, he would put
a stop to it. He was here to-night to get the Magpie, and nothing should
interfere with that. Nothing! He and the Magpie would square accounts
to-night--and square them once for all!
Not alone here in the Magpie's den--eh? His flashlight streamed out, and
began slowly and deliberately to circle the room. If his brain was so
restless and active that it must indulge in fantasies, it could at
least be diverted into another channel than--Jimmie Dale strained
forward suddenly in his chair. That was a pair of boots there at the
foot of the bed. There was nothing strange in a pair of boots, but these
boots were poised most curiously on their heels, with the toes pointing
upward.
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