Kline had been outwitted, but Kline had not acknowledged final defeat.

The tenement had been searched from top to bottom--unostentatiously.

His own room on the first landing had been searched the previous afternoon, when he was out, but they had failed to find the cunningly contrived opening in the floor under the oilcloth in the corner, an impromptu wardrobe, that would proclaim Larry the Bat and Jimmie Dale to be one and the same person--that would inevitably lead further to the establishment of his identity as the Gray Seal.

In time, of course, the surveillance would cease--but he could not wait.

That was the monumental irony of it--the factor that, all unknown to Kline, was forcing the issue hard now.