olution to the tragedy in
Washington Square.

He hesitated a moment. His first impulse was to descend the fire escapes
in turn and look below for further trace of her going. But he realized
that he could reach the alley quicker by going through the house. He
cursed himself for a careless fool. How could he have allowed this to
happen!

He turned quickly, intent on losing no further moments, when he was
frozen into immobility by a sound, the most curiously unexpected of all
sounds--a laugh, a faint treble chuckle! It seemed to come from the
outer air, from nowhere, to hang suspended in the damp air of the shaft.
It was eerie, ghostly. Was the spirit of the dead man laughing at his
folly? The detective stepped back on the grating, flattening himself
against the outer sill of his window. Again the chuckler--now an
unmistakable laugh floated to his ears. With a smothered exclamation he
stepped forward again, and looked upward. There, against the violet-gray
of the star-sprinkled sky, bulked a crouching shape, cuddled on the
landing above.

Brencherly held his breath. It seemed that the woman must fall from her
perch, so insecure it seemed. He controlled himself, thinking rapidly.
Then he laughed in return.

"That _was_ a good joke you played on me," he said. "How did you ever
think of it?"

"Oh," came the answer, punctuated by smothered peals of laughter.
"That's the way I got away from the Sanatorium. I just went up instead
of down, and stayed there, till they'd hunted all the place over. Then
when I saw where they weren't, I just went down and walked out."

"That was clever," he exclaimed. "But you can't be comfortable up there.
Won't you come down, and I'll get something for you to eat. You must be
hungry, and cold, too."

"No," came the response. "I sort of like it here. It reminds me of the
way I fooled them all back there; and they thinking themselves that
sharp, too. It's sort of nice, too, looking at the stars--sort of feels
like a bird in a nest, don't it?"

"I hope to goodness, she don't take it into her head she can fly,"
thought Brencherly. Aloud he said: "Say, do you mind if I come up there
and sit with you a while? I'm sort of lonesome here myself." He had
already moved silently forward, and was slowly mounting the iron
ladder--very slowly, a rung at a time, talking all the while in a
cordial, friendly voice. He feared she might take fright and precipitate
herself to the stones below. But her mood w