The Argosy, Vol. 83 No. 1 — page 153: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

THE MAN IN 419. “Then that’s how he must have gone! While you were busy at the desk he slipped down-stairs and across the lobby without being noticed, and walked out the back: way—” “Where to?” I retorted. “He couldn’t get away, even if he got out of the hotel. I’ll tell you something about the way the trains up here run that perhaps you don’t know. There’s nothing, even in the line of a slow freight, that stops here before to- morrow morning at six-fifteen. But that’s not all. There’s only one way a person could get to the back door. By going through the dining-room, the pantry, and the kitchen. I'll leave it to you; could a guest in a hotel show up in the kitchen without rousing suspicion as to what he was doing there?” “Send down-stairs—no, you’d better go down yourself, while I stay up here to watch this room,” ordered the sharp-nosed man, “and find out if any of the help saw him going through the kitchen. That'll settle that point.” I was on my way to the door when he stopped me. “‘Say—is that kid you left down there at the desk a bright one?”’ “Did you ever know a bell-boy that wasn’t?” I countered. “All right. Having taken our man up here to this room, maybe he’ll have a bet- ter idea of what he looks like than you say you were able to get. You tell him to keep his eyes peeled for him. If he catches sight of him, he’s to hop up here, quick, and let us know. He may be hiding in some of the other rooms or corridors, and waiting for a chance to slip out when he thinks the coast is clear.” Inside of five minutes I was back in the room. “There’s a chef and four waitresses in the kitchen, where they’ve been for the past thirty-five minutes,” I reported, ‘‘and none of them’s seen anything of our friend. _ So he didn’t go out of the back way.” “Then that leaves the roof.” “Yes, and that’s where he’d be left if he went up on it,” I grinned. “As you 143 maybe noticed, this hotel is five stories high—the tallest building in the block. The roofs of all the houses around it are a good thirty feet below ours; and I’d like to see him land on one of them without breaking a leg.” “But that’s where he may be hiding.” “Go ahead up and see,” I suggested, “‘if you want to.” He put the revolver back in the pocket of his gray overcoat. “T will,” he snapped. “You told the boy to watch the front entrance? And how about that back door?” | “The chef and the waitresses will report to us if anybody that hasn’t any busiriess there shows up in the kitchen,” I an- swered. ‘“‘And George is keeping his eye on the front door. If he’s still in the ay he can’t get out now without being seen.’ Sv: he’s still in it!” retorted the sharp-nosed man positively. “I watched the front entrance before I came in, and he hadn’t come out of it. You’ve found out that he couldn’t have gone through the back way. He’s here somewhere in the hotel. And we'll smoke him out.” He came back, stamping the snow from the roof off his shoes, five or ten minutes later. “Well?” I questioned ‘“‘He’s not there, and hasn’t been. There were no tracks in the snow, and besides that the roof-door was locked from the in- side. But I hunted around every chimney and behind the water-tank, just the same.” He squinted and unsquinted his eyes at my face. I asked: “Well, what are you going to do now?” “Stay here,” he replied, suiting the ac- tion to the word by sitting down on the side of the bed, ‘while you make the rounds of all the rooms in the house. You'll find he’s hiding in one of them. But you don’t need to feel any uneasiness about coming face to face with him. He won’t suspect that you know the police are after him. Just come back here quietly after you’ve located him and tell me where he is.”’ CORNICLOOOKS (C@) sits i .¥