elevator that he seemed to pull up by a cable, so slow it
was, grumbled an assent to the same question when it was put to him, and
confirmed my belief that Skeels came into the hotel as soon as it was
rebuilt, and had kept the same room ever since.

Miss Wallace seemed interested in this; but all the time we were making
the last lap, by an iron stairway, to that roof-house we had seen from
the top of the St. Dunstan; all the time Louie was unlocking the door
there to let us out, instructing us to be sure to relock it and bring
him the key, and to yell for him down the elevator shaft because the
bell was busted, the quiet smile of Miss Barbara Wallace disturbed me.
She followed where I led, but I had the irritating impression that she
looked on at my movements, and Worth's as well, with the indulgent eye
of a grown-up observing children at play.

On the roof of the Gold Nugget we picked up the possible trail easily;
Clayte hadn't needed to go through the building, or have a confederate
staked out in a room here, to make a downward getaway. For here the fire
escape came all the way up, curving over the coping to anchor into the
wall, and it was a good iron stairway, with landings at each floor, and
a handrail the entire length, its lower end in the alley between Powell
and Mason Streets. Looking at it I didn't doubt that it was used by the
guests of the Gold Nugget at least half as much as the easier but more
conspicuous front entrance. Therefore a man seen on it would be no more
likely to attract attention than he would in the elevator. I explained
this to the others, but Worth had attacked a rack of old truck piled in
the corner of the roof-house, and paid little attention to me, while
Miss Wallace nodded with her provoking smile and said,

"Once--yes; no doubt you are exactly right. I wasn't looking for a way
that a man might take once, under pressure of great necessity."

"Why not?" I countered. "If Clayte got away by this means
yesterday--that'll do me."

"It might," she nodded, "if you could see it as a fact, without seeing a
lot more. Such a man as Clayte was--a really wonderful man, you know--"
the dimples were deep in the pink of her cheeks as she flashed a
laughing look at me with this clawful--"a really wonderful man like
Clayte," she repeated, "wouldn't have trusted to a route he hadn't known
and proved for a long time."

"That's theory," I smiled. "I take my hat off to you, Miss Wallace, when
it comes