The old days of Larry the Bat, the rickety, creaky stairs of the old
Sanctuary had trained Jimmie Dale's step to a silence that was
almost uncanny. It might have been a shadow moving there across the
floor of the store, a shadow flitting through that doorway beyond.
There was no sound.
And now, at the end of a short, dark passage, he stopped before the door
of what was, from its location, the lighted room he had seen from the
street; and, slipping his mask over his face, he placed his ear against
the door panel to listen. He was rewarded only by absolute silence. His
lips, under the mask, twisted queerly, as, softly, cautiously, he tried
the door. It gave under the steady pressure that he exerted upon
it--gave without sound for the measure of a fraction of an inch--it was
unlocked. And now Jimmie Dale could see into the room--and suddenly he
stepped noiselessly forward, his automatic holding a bead on the
crouched figure of the Rat, asleep apparently in his chair, whose head,
flung forward, was buried in his crossed arms upon the table in the
centre of the room.
"Good evening!" said Jimmie Dale, in a velvet voice.
There was no answer--the man neither turned his head, nor looked up.
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