Then he began a hurried ransacking of the apartment.  He picked up a note-book here, sheets of memoranda there, letters and documents which he thought would be convenient.  Warren’s bedrooms were locked, but a small “jimmie” sufficed to force them open.  He found in one drawer a dozen or more bank books, with as many different financial houses, and under many names.  This he shoved into his pockets.  At last, satisfied that he could gain no more, he retreated to the window.  He shut this and was once more on the windowsill.  Here he looked down, and a new inspiration came to him.  He would have difficulty in getting admission to the apartment entrance, at this time of night.  The attendant would remember him and warn Warren upon the latter’s return.  It was but one more climb, a single story, to the roof.  So, up he went, deserting the faithful scaling ladder on the roof, for the time being.

He sought around for several minutes on the snowy, slippery surface before he found the entrance to the iron stairway close by the elevator shaft.  Then he went softly down.

Past Warren’s apartment, on his way without a noise, his boots off, he continued until he reached the second floor.  Here he was baffled again.  Why had he not taken some impression of the pass-key of the negro attendant when let in before?  Yet now he remembered that the man had never relinquished his hold upon that open sesame.  He remembered the “jimmy”—­yet this would betray him, by the broken lock!

There was the servant’s entrance, however, in the rear of the hallway.  To this he slipped, even as the elevator passed up bearing Warren and Shine Taylor, muttering angrily.  Shirley found the rear door to the rooms, and there he worked quickly, forcing the lock.  He was soon inside, and hid himself in the pantry of the darkened apartment.  He had not long to wait.

There was a clicking noise which reverberated through the empty room, as the other two entered by the front portal.  He heard them talking in whispers, then the creaking of a window, and all was silent again.

Shirley went to the same small window through which he had descended before.  With his boots tied together by their laces, and suspended from his neck, on either side, he went down the rope noiselessly.  He found the iron door partially opened, as he reached the end of the corridor.  A block of wood held it back from the jamb.

“He is prepared for a quick retreat.  So shall I be,” thought Shirley, as he noiselessly crept into the chamber, after having drawn away the wooden block.  He let the door come gently to its frame, stopping it within an inch of its lock.  As he turned slightly forward he caught two curious silhouettes:  Warren at his table, with Shine at his side, their outlines clear and black against the brightness of the headlights.  On, the other side of the transparent screen stood a man, with one eye blackened, his face badly bruised and wicked in its battered condensation of evil determination with rage and fright, so oddly mixed.