“Now, Patsy! Hurry! Get across the yard at the back, and slip up the wooden stairs you see through the window. If the door is fastened, open it. You know how to do that.” “Sure!” Patsy Garvan found the door locked, as Nick had anticipated. But, with a piece of strong steel wire, that was part of the equipment of his pocketknife, he operated the lock as easily as if he had a key. Nick Carter sat at the table, with his glass of beer before him, having only sipped it, and through the window watched the door at the top of the crazy wooden staircase outside. He seemed perfectly cool, but his brain was working rapidly and his nerves were on a strain. He was listening for any sound that might suggest trouble for Patsy. At the first note of alarm he would be on the stairs himself. But, no such note came. At the end of five minutes Patsy appeared again on the staircase, and immediately afterward he was once more sitting at the table, facing his chief. “Well, Patsy?” “Gee! There’s nothing in that joint but two empty rooms. They’re right over the laundry, and I found a crooked staircase leading down to a door on the ground floor.” “Yes?” “I sneaked down, and there was a little hole that had been cut in the door with something. I peeked through, and, gee! there were the two chinks, still ironing.” “What was over the two empty rooms?” “Nothing but the roof. You noticed that the whole shanty is one of those crazy frame buildings that chink laundries so often get into. Well, I saw there was a trap-door to the roof, but there was no ladder or anything to get up to it, so I didn’t try to see what was on the roof. It wasn’t likely there was anything.” “The rooms were quite empty?” “Yes, except for dust,” replied Patsy. “The dust was some help,” he continued, with a grin. “For I saw the marks of a lot of feet, and they were all flat, like the prints of chink felt shoes--except that there was one mark, which I found at different parts of the room, partly hidden by the chink shoes, and which showed that a fellow with American shoes had been there. They were large.” “I see,” nodded Nick, rather eagerly. “The person who owned them was a big man?” “I should think so, from the shoe prints.” “Wasn’t there any furniture in the room, nor any scraps of rubbish that might give us a clew?” Nick Carter put this question rather sharply. He couldn’t believe that his quick-witted assistant had come away without finding something that might be useful. “There was this,” replied Patsy, handing a scrap of paper to his chief. “I don’t know that it means anything. It was on the crooked staircase. Being white, it caught my eye, and I picked it up. I was going to throw it down again, and I would have done so if I hadn’t remembered that you always say it is better to keep and examine everything when you are on a case, no matter if it doesn’t seem of any account.”