“Slip into the saloon here and I’ll tell you,” said Patsy. “I’ll also buy you a drink, or whatever you fancy.” “Faith, and I can stand that, all right,” grinned the Irishman. Patsy led the way to a rear room of the saloon, where he gave a waiter an order, and he then proceeded to explain his project to his companion, revealing his identity and his relations with Nick Carter. “I wish to size up that building next to the one on which you are working, Grady,” he said, having learned the other’s name. “I must do so without being suspected. I can get by, all right, if you’ll lend me your duck blouse, overalls, and hat, and remain here under cover while I get in my work.” Grady grinned. “In other words, Mr. Garvan, you want to take my place,” said he. “Exactly. I’ll slip you a five-dollar note for it, Grady, and----” “You kape the five bucks in your pocket, Mr. Garvan,” Grady warmly interrupted. “Faith, who wouldn’t do that much for Nick Carter! If you get into these togs as quick as I come out of them, you can be at work with me trowel in the shake of a lamb’s tail. I’ll hide here with my trap closed, be it long or short that you’re gone. That goes, too, by these five fingers across.” “You’re all right, Grady, from your toes up,” replied Patsy gratefully. “Take it from me, all the same, you’ll get yours for this.” Patsy sauntered out of the saloon in about five minutes. Only a close observer would have detected his subterfuge. One who had seen Grady at work would merely have supposed that another mason had taken his place. Patsy devoted very little time, of course, to pointing up the brick wall. He began, instead, while pretending to be at work, a furtive inspection of the walls adjoining the basement to which he had seen Chick and Nolan descend. He could find, however, no window lighting the underground room. “Gee! that’s mighty strange,” he said to himself. “Have they been stoned up for some reason? I’ll be hanged if I don’t think this crib figures in some way in the department-store robberies. I reckon I’ll go a step farther.” Patsy already had found that a rear door and stairway led up to the dwelling over the store of the Acme Novelty Company. He could observe no one at any of the windows, however, and he felt quite sure that he could stealthily enter the place. “If seen by any one, I can say I came in to ask for some water for my mortar,” he said to himself. “I’ll take the chance.” Mounting the two low steps outside, Patsy found that the door was locked, also that the key had been removed. “That simplifies it,” he muttered. “I can pick this lock like breaking sticks.” He accomplished it with a picklock in half a minute. Quietly opening the door a few inches, he gazed into a narrow hall and at a bare stairway leading upward. A door in the right wall some ten feet away also met his gaze. He paused briefly and listened. Not a sound came from within. The hall was as silent as if the building was deserted.