o-night."

He changed his manner then.

"Let's go and take a look at the staircase you fellows have been talking
about," he said. "I don't believe there is a staircase there, except the
main one. I have hounded every politician in the city into or out of
that joint, and I have never heard of it."

I felt some hesitation about leaving the house--and Margery--after the
events of the previous night. But Margery had caught enough of the
conversation to be anxious to have me to go, and when I went in to
consult her she laughed at my fears.

"Lightning never strikes twice in the same place," she said bravely. "I
will ask Katie to come down with me if I am nervous, and I shall wait up
for the family."

I went without enthusiasm. Margery's departure had been delayed for a
day only, and I had counted on the evening with her. In fact, I had sent
the concert tickets to Edith with an eye single to that idea. But
Burton's plan was right. It was, in view of what we knew, to go over the
ground at the White Cat again, and Saturday night, with the place full
of men, would be a good time to look around, unnoticed.

"I don't hang so much to this staircase idea," Burton said, "and I have
a good reason for it. I think we will find it is the warehouse, yet."

"You can depend on it, Burton," I maintained, "that the staircase is the
place to look. If you had seen Wardrop's face to-day, and his agony of
mind when he knew he had associated 'staircase' with 'shot,' you would
think just as I do. A man like Schwartz, who knew the ropes, could go
quietly up the stairs, unbolt the door into the room, shoot Fleming and
get out. Wardrop suspects Schwartz, and he's afraid of him. If he opened
the door just in time to see Schwartz, we will say, backing out the door
and going down the stairs, or to see the door closing and suspect who
had just gone, we would have the whole situation, as I see it, including
the two motives of deadly hate and jealousy."

"Suppose the stairs open into the back of the room? He was sitting
facing the window. Do you think Schwartz would go in, walk around the
table and shoot him from in front? Pooh! Fudge!"

"He had a neck," I retorted. "I suppose he might have turned his head to
look around."

We had been walking through the rain. The White Cat, as far off as the
poles socially, was only a half-dozen blocks actually from the best
residence portion of the city. At the corner of the warehouse, Burton
stopped and look