"

"Blue eyes you say?"

"Light blue--gray blue."

"How was he tucked up?"

"Blue serge suit, black shoes, black derby. Neat, quiet dresser."

Louie's eyes wandered over the guests in the office questioningly. I
began to feel impatient. If there was any place in the city where my
description of Clayte would differentiate him, make him noticeable by
comparison, it was here. Neat, quiet dressers were not dotting this
lobby.

"Might be Tim Foley?" he appealed to the Kite, who nodded gravely and
chewed his short mustache. "Would he have a big scar on his left cheek?"

"He would not," I said shortly. "He wasn't a guest here, and you don't
know him. Get this straight now: a stranger, going through here, out;
about one o'clock; carried a suitcase."

"Bulls after him?" Louie asked, and I turned away from him wearily.

"Kite," I said, "let me up to your roof."

"Sure, Jerry." Released, the porter went on to gather up a pile of
discarded papers.

"Could he--the man I've described--come through here--through this
office and neither you nor Louie see him?" I asked. The Kite brought a
box of cigars from under the counter with,

"My treat, gentlemen. Naw, Jerry; sure not--not that kind of a guy.
Louie'd 'a' spotted him. Most observing cuss I ever seen."

Miss Wallace, taking all this in, seemed amused. As I turned to lead to
the elevator I found that again she wanted a question of her own
answered.

"Mr. Kite," she began and I grinned; Kite wasn't the Kite's surname or
any part of his name; "Who is the guest here with the upstairs room--on
the top floor--has had the same room right along--for five or six
years--but doesn't--"

"Go easy, ma'am, please!" Kite's little eyes were popping; he dragged
out a handkerchief and fumbled it around his forehead. "I've not been
here for any five or six years--no, nor half that time. Since I've been
here most of our custom is transient. Nobody don't keep no room five or
six years in the Gold Nugget."

"Back up," I smiled at his excitement. "To my certain knowledge Steve
Skeels has had a room here longer than that. Hasn't he been with you
ever since the place was rebuilt after the earthquake?"

"Steve?" the Kite repeated. "I forgot him. Yeah--he keeps a little room
up under the roof."

"Has he had it for as long as four years?" the young lady asked.

"Search me," the Kite shook his head.

But Louie the overalled, piloting us the first stage of our journey in a
racketty old