little lever before I can push the hasp back with my thumb--so. Now the
window may be shoved up," and I illustrated.

"Yes," she nodded; then, "Look at the wisps of fog around Tamalpais's
top. Worth, come here and see the violet shadows of the clouds on the
bay."

"North wind coming up," agreed Worth, stepping to the farther window.

"It's bringing in the fog," she said; then abruptly, giving me the first
hint that little Miss Wallace considered herself on the job, "Will it
not latch by itself if you jam it shut hard?"

"It will not." I illustrated with a bang. The latch still remained open.
"I must close it by hand." I pushed the hasp into the keeper, and,
snap--the lever shot back and it was fast.

"But a window like that couldn't be opened from outside, even without
the locking lever," she remarked, gazing again toward the Marin shore.

"A man with the know--a burglar--can open the ordinary window latch in
less than a minute," I told her. "With a jimmy pinched between the sash
and the sill, a recurring pressure starts the latch back; nothing to
hold it. This--unless he cuts the glass--is burglar-proof."

Worth, at her shoulder, now looked down the sheer descent which
exaggerated the seven stories of the St. Dunstan; because of its
crowning position on the hill and the intersection of streets, we looked
over the roofs of the houses before us, far above their chimney tops. I
caught his eye and grinned across the girl's head, suggesting,

"Besides, we weren't trying to find how some one could break into this
room, but how they could break out. Even if the latches had not been
locked, there wouldn't be an answer in these windows--unless Clayte
could fly."

"Might have climbed from one window ledge to the next and so made his
way to the fire-escape," Worth said, but I shook my head.

"He'd be seen from the windows by the tenants on six floors--and nobody
saw him. Might as well take the elevator or the stairs--which he
didn't."

But the girl wasn't listening to any of this. Her expression attentive,
alert, she was passing her hand around the edge of the glass of either
sash, as though she still dwelt on my suggestion of cutting the pane;
and as we watched her, she murmured to herself,

"Yes, flying would be a good way." It made me laugh.

And then she turned away from the windows and had no more interest in
any of them, going with me all over the rest of the room with rather the
air of a person who thought