overed skylights its only openings,
four chimney-tops its sole projections. It was bare of any hiding-place,
almost as clear as a tennis court.

We made a solemn tour of inspection; I wasn't greatly interested--how
could I be, knowing that between this roof and my fugitive there had
been locked windows, and a locked door under reliable human eyes? Still,
the lifelong training of the detective kept me estimating the
possibilities of a getaway from the roof--if Clayte could have reached
it. Worth crossed to where the St. Dunstan fire escape came up from the
ground to end below us at a top floor window. I joined him, explaining
as we looked down,

"Couldn't have made it that way; not by daylight. In open view all
around."

"Think he stayed up here till dark?" Worth suggested, quite as though
the possibility of Clayte's coming here at all was settled.

"My men were all over this building--roof to cellar--within the hour.
They'd not have overlooked a crack big enough for him to hide in. Put
yourself in Clayte's place. Time was the most valuable thing in the
world with him right then. If ever he got up to this roof, he'd not
waste a minute longer on it than he had to."

"Let's see what's beyond, then," and Worth led the way to the farther
end.

The girl didn't come with us. Having been once around the roof coping,
looking, it seemed to me, as much at the view as anything else, she now
seemed content to settle herself on a little square of planking, a
disused scuttle top or something of the sort, in against one of the
chimneys where she was sheltered from the wind. Rather to my surprise, I
saw her thoughtfully pulling off her gloves, removing her turban, all
the time with a curiously disinterested air. I was reminded of what
Worth had said the night before about the way her father trained her.
Probably she regarded the facts I'd furnished her, or that she'd picked
up for herself, much as she used to the problems in concentration her
father spread in the high chair tray of her infancy. I turned and left
her with them, for Worth was calling me to announce a fact I already
knew, that the adjoining building had a roof some fifteen feet below
where we stood, and that the man, admitting good gymnastic ability,
might have reached it.

"Sure," I said. "But come on. We're wasting time here."

We turned to go, and then stopped, both of us checked instantly by what
we saw. The girl was sitting in a strange pose, her feet drawn