On the roof of the Gold Nugget we picked up the possible trail easily; Clayte hadn't needed to go through the building, or have a confederate staked out in a room here, to make a downward getaway. For here the fire escape came all the way up, curving over the coping to anchor into the wall, and it was a good iron stairway, with landings at each floor, and a handrail the entire length, its lower end in the alley between Powell and Mason Streets. Looking at it I didn't doubt that it was used by the guests of the Gold Nugget at least half as much as the easier but more conspicuous front entrance. Therefore a man seen on it would be no more likely to attract attention than he would in the elevator. I explained this to the others, but Worth had attacked a rack of old truck piled in the corner of the roof-house, and paid little attention to me, while Miss Wallace nodded with her provoking smile and said, "Once--yes; no doubt you are exactly right. I wasn't looking for a way that a man might take once, under pressure of great necessity." "Why not?" I countered. "If Clayte got away by this means yesterday--that'll do me." "It might," she nodded, "if you could see it as a fact, without seeing a lot more. Such a man as Clayte was--a really wonderful man, you know--" the dimples were deep in the pink of her cheeks as she flashed a laughing look at me with this clawful--"a really wonderful man like Clayte," she repeated, "wouldn't have trusted to a route he hadn't known and proved for a long time." "That's theory," I smiled. "I take my hat off to you, Miss Wallace, when it comes to observing and deducing, but I'm afraid your theorizing is weak." "I never theorize," she reminded me. "All I deal with is facts." She had perched herself on an overturned box, and was watching Worth sort junk. I leaned against the roof-house, pushed Kite's donated cigar unlighted into a corner of my mouth and stared at her. "Miss Wallace," I said sharply, "what's this Steve Skeels stuff? What's this reroofing stuff? What's the dope you think you have, and you think I haven't? Tell us, and we'll not waste time. Tell us, and we'll get ahead on this case. Worth, let that rubbish alone. Nothing there for us. Come here and listen." For all answer he straightened up, looked at us without a word--and went to it again. I turned to the girl. "Worth doesn't need to listen to me, Mr. Boyne," she said serenely. "He already has full faith in me and my methods." "Methods be--be blowed!" I exploded. "It's results that count, and you've produced. I'm willing to hand it to you. All we know now, we got from you. Beside you I'm a thick-headed blunderer. Let me in on how you get things and I won't be so hard to convince."