“Mike, I want to borrow an old pair of overalls, a jumper and one of those blue caps hanging up on your wall.  And I need some plumbers’ tools, as well, for a little joke I am to play on one of my friends.”

The workman was astounded at such a request from his rich client, but nodded willingly.  The dirtiest of the clothes answered Shirley’s requirements and with soot rubbed over his face and hands, his hair disarranged, he satisfied his artistic craving for detail.  He was transformed into a typical leadpipe brigand.  Hanging his own garments in the closet, after transferring his automatic revolver into the pocket of the jeans, he started out, carrying the furnace pot, and looking like a union-label article.

He reached the Somerset by a roundabout walk, passing more than one of his acquaintances with inward amusement at their failure to recognize him.  He had arranged for Helene to invite Shine Taylor and Reginald Warren down to call on her at the apartment in the California at this particular time.  So thus he felt that the coast was clear.  At the tradesmen’s entrance, where he had gone before to hoist on the dumbwaiter, he entered the building.  An investigation of the basement showed him that in the rear of the building were one large and two small courts or air shafts.  Then he ascended the iron stairway to the street level of the vestibule.

“Say, bo, I come to fix de pipes on de second floor,” was his self-introduction to the haughty negro attendant.  “Dey’re leakin’ an’ me boss tells me to git on de job in a hustle.”

“Which one?  I ain’t heard o’ no leaks.  It must be in de empty apartment in de rear, kase dat old maid in de front would been kickin’ my fool head off ef she’s had any trouble.  She’s always grouchy.”

“Sure, dingy, it’s de empty one in de rear.  Lemme in an’ I’ll fix it.”

“You-all better see de superintendent.  People is apt to be lookin’ at dat apartment to-day to rent it, an’ he mightn’t want no plumber mussin’ round.  I’ll go hunt ’im fer you-all.”

“Say, you jest lemme in now.  I’m paid by de hour.  You knows what plumber bills is, an’ your superintendent’ll fire you if he has to pay ten dollars’ overtime ’cause you hold me up.”

This was superior logic.  The negro took him up and opened the door.  Shirley entered, and peered out of the court window in the rear.  Helene’s suggestion about the dust was applicable here, for he found all the windows coated except the one opening upon the areaway.  Below he observed a stone paving with a cracked surface.  It was semidark, but his electric pocket-light enabled him to observe one piece of the rock which seemed entirely detached.  Shirley investigated the closets of the empty apartment.  In one of them he discovered the object of his search.  It was a knotted rope.  He first observed the exact way in which it had been folded in order to replace it without suspicion being