As he
approached the apartment-house entrance, voices reached him from the
vestibule, and then he heard the closing of a door.
"Ground floor--left," murmured Larry the Bat to himself. He smiled
facetiously. "Saves an interview with the janitor!"
He glanced sharply around him in all directions--and the next instant
was inside the vestibule--and in another, without a sound, was crouched
close against the apartment door. A delicate little steel picklock was
working now, the deft fingers manipulating it silently, and then
stealthily he pushed the door open a crack. A man's voice, agitated,
came to him from within: "... Perhaps twenty minutes, I don't know--the
length of time it took you to get here. I was dining out. I 'phoned
Headquarters the instant I came in."
Jimmie Dale pushed the door further open, slipped through, and left the
door just ajar behind him. He was in the hallway of a very small
apartment, of not more than two or three rooms, he judged. Diagonally
ahead of him a light streamed out from an open door. He stole toward
this, and, pressed close against the jamb of the door, peered in.
It was a sort of sitting-room, or den, cosily furnished with deep,
comfortable lounging chairs.
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