"Indeed, you aren't a blunderer," she said warmly. "You do a lot better than most people at observing." (High praise that, for a detective more than twenty years in the business; but she meant to be complimentary.) "I'm glad to tell you my processes. How much time do you want to give to it?" "Not a minute longer than will get what you know." And she began with a rush. "Those dents in the coping at the St. Dunstan, above Clayte's window--I asked the clerk there how long since the building had been reroofed, because there were nicks made by that hook and half filled with tar that had been slushed up against the coping and into the lowest dents. You see what that means?" "That Clayte--or some accomplice of his--had been using the route more than four years ago. Yes." "And the other scars were made at varying times, showing me that coming over here from there was quite a regular thing." "At that rate he would have nicked the coping until it would have looked like a huck towel," I objected. "A huck towel," she gravely adopted my word. "But he was a man that did everything he did several different ways. That was his habit--a sort of disguise. That's why he was shadowy and hard to describe. Sometimes he came up to the St. Dunstan roof just as we did; and once, a good while ago, there were cleats on that wall there so he could climb down here without the rope. They have been taken away some time, and the places where they were are weathered over so you would hardly notice them." "Right you are," I said feelingly. "I'd hardly notice them. If I could notice things as you do--fame and fortune for me!" I thought the matter over for a minute. "That lodger on the top floor, Steve Skeels," I debated. "A poor bet. Yet--after all, he might have been a member of the gang, though somehow I don't get the hunch--" "What sort of looking person was this man Skeels?" she asked. "Quiet fellow. Dressed like a church deacon. 'Silent Steve' they call him. I'll send for him down stairs and let you give him the once-over if you like." "Oh, that's not the kind of man I'm looking for." She shook her head. "My man would be more like those down there in the easy chairs--so he wasn't noticed in the elevator or when he passed out through the office." "Wasn't it cute of him?" I grinned. "But you see we've just heard that he didn't take the elevator and go through the office--Saturday anyhow, which is the only time that really counts for us, the time when he carried that suitcase with a fortune in it." "But he did," she persisted. "He went that way. He walked out the front door and carried away the suitcase--" "_He didn't!_" Worth shouted, and began throwing things behind him like a terrier in a wood-rat's burrow.