“Sit tight, Marsh!” he muttered between his teeth.

Mr. Montgomery, taking stock of his courage, prepared to adventure further with his testimony.

“All at once as I stood by that door lookin’ out into the alley, I heard a kind of noise in old man McBride’s yard.  It sounded like something heavy was bein’ scraped across the frozen ground, say a box or barrel.  Then I seen a man’s derby hat come over the edge of the shed, and next the man who was under that hat drawed himself up; he come up slow and cautious until he was where he could throw himself over on to the roof.  He done that, squatted low, and slid down the roof toward the alley.  There was some snow and he slid easy.  He was lookin’ about all the time like he wasn’t anxious to be seen.  Well, boss, he never seen me, and he never seen no one else, so he dropped off, kind of givin’ himself a shove out from the eaves, and fetched up against White’s woodshed.  He was pantin’ like he’d run a mile, and I heard him say in a whisper, ’Oh, my God!’—­just like that,—­’Oh, my God!’” The handy-man paused with this grotesque mimicry of terror.

“And then?” prompted Moxlow, in the breathless silence.

“And then he took off up the alley as if all hell was whoopin’ after him!”

Again Montgomery’s ragged cap served him in lieu of a handkerchief, and as he swabbed his blotched and purple face he shot a swift furtive glance in Gilmore’s direction.  So far he had told only the truth, but he was living in terror of Moxlow’s next question.

“Can you describe the man who crossed the roof,—­for instance, how was he dressed?” said Moxlow, with slow deliberation.

“He had on a derby hat and a dark overcoat,” answered Montgomery after a moment’s pause.

He was speaking for Gilmore now, and his grimy lists closed convulsively about the arms of his chair.

“Did you see his face?” asked Moxlow.

“Yes—­” the monosyllable was spoken unwillingly, but with a kind of dogged resolution.

“Was it a face you knew?”

Montgomery looked at Gilmore, whose fierce insistent glance was bent compellingly on him.  The recollection of the gambler’s threats and promises flashed through his mind.

“Was it a face you knew?” repeated Moxlow.

The handy-man gave him a sudden glare.

“Yes,” he said in a throaty whisper.

“How could you tell in the dark?”

[Illustration:  “Then I seen a man’s derby hat come over the edge of the shed.”]

“It wasn’t so terrible dark, with the snow on the ground.  And I was so close to him I could have put an apple in his pocket,” Joe explained.

“Who was the man?” asked Moxlow.

“I thought he looked like John North,” said Montgomery.

There was the silence of death in the room.

“You thought it was John North?” began Moxlow.

“Yes.”

“When he spoke, you thought you recognized North’s voice?”