"Sure, Jerry." Released, the porter went on to gather up a pile of discarded papers. "Could he--the man I've described--come through here--through this office and neither you nor Louie see him?" I asked. The Kite brought a box of cigars from under the counter with, "My treat, gentlemen. Naw, Jerry; sure not--not that kind of a guy. Louie'd 'a' spotted him. Most observing cuss I ever seen." Miss Wallace, taking all this in, seemed amused. As I turned to lead to the elevator I found that again she wanted a question of her own answered. "Mr. Kite," she began and I grinned; Kite wasn't the Kite's surname or any part of his name; "Who is the guest here with the upstairs room--on the top floor--has had the same room right along--for five or six years--but doesn't--" "Go easy, ma'am, please!" Kite's little eyes were popping; he dragged out a handkerchief and fumbled it around his forehead. "I've not been here for any five or six years--no, nor half that time. Since I've been here most of our custom is transient. Nobody don't keep no room five or six years in the Gold Nugget." "Back up," I smiled at his excitement. "To my certain knowledge Steve Skeels has had a room here longer than that. Hasn't he been with you ever since the place was rebuilt after the earthquake?" "Steve?" the Kite repeated. "I forgot him. Yeah--he keeps a little room up under the roof." "Has he had it for as long as four years?" the young lady asked. "Search me," the Kite shook his head. But Louie the overalled, piloting us the first stage of our journey in a racketty old elevator that he seemed to pull up by a cable, so slow it was, grumbled an assent to the same question when it was put to him, and confirmed my belief that Skeels came into the hotel as soon as it was rebuilt, and had kept the same room ever since. Miss Wallace seemed interested in this; but all the time we were making the last lap, by an iron stairway, to that roof-house we had seen from the top of the St. Dunstan; all the time Louie was unlocking the door there to let us out, instructing us to be sure to relock it and bring him the key, and to yell for him down the elevator shaft because the bell was busted, the quiet smile of Miss Barbara Wallace disturbed me. She followed where I led, but I had the irritating impression that she looked on at my movements, and Worth's as well, with the indulgent eye of a grown-up observing children at play.