to observing and deducing, but I'm afraid your theorizing is
weak."

"I never theorize," she reminded me. "All I deal with is facts."

She had perched herself on an overturned box, and was watching Worth
sort junk. I leaned against the roof-house, pushed Kite's donated cigar
unlighted into a corner of my mouth and stared at her.

"Miss Wallace," I said sharply, "what's this Steve Skeels stuff? What's
this reroofing stuff? What's the dope you think you have, and you think
I haven't? Tell us, and we'll not waste time. Tell us, and we'll get
ahead on this case. Worth, let that rubbish alone. Nothing there for us.
Come here and listen."

For all answer he straightened up, looked at us without a word--and went
to it again. I turned to the girl.

"Worth doesn't need to listen to me, Mr. Boyne," she said serenely. "He
already has full faith in me and my methods."

"Methods be--be blowed!" I exploded. "It's results that count, and
you've produced. I'm willing to hand it to you. All we know now, we got
from you. Beside you I'm a thick-headed blunderer. Let me in on how you
get things and I won't be so hard to convince."

"Indeed, you aren't a blunderer," she said warmly. "You do a lot better
than most people at observing." (High praise that, for a detective more
than twenty years in the business; but she meant to be complimentary.)
"I'm glad to tell you my processes. How much time do you want to give to
it?"

"Not a minute longer than will get what you know." And she began with a
rush.

"Those dents in the coping at the St. Dunstan, above Clayte's window--I
asked the clerk there how long since the building had been reroofed,
because there were nicks made by that hook and half filled with tar that
had been slushed up against the coping and into the lowest dents. You
see what that means?"

"That Clayte--or some accomplice of his--had been using the route more
than four years ago. Yes."

"And the other scars were made at varying times, showing me that coming
over here from there was quite a regular thing."

"At that rate he would have nicked the coping until it would have looked
like a huck towel," I objected.

"A huck towel," she gravely adopted my word. "But he was a man that did
everything he did several different ways. That was his habit--a sort of
disguise. That's why he was shadowy and hard to describe. Sometimes he
came up to the St. Dunstan roof just as we did; and once, a good while
ago, there were cleats