The getaway! That brought us back with a thump to the present moment. Our pretty girl had been all over the shop now, glanced into bathroom, closet and cupboard, noted abandoned hats, clothing and shoes, the electric plate where Clayte got his breakfast coffee and toast, asked without much interest where he ate his other meals, and nodded agreeingly when she found that he'd been only an occasional customer at the neighboring restaurants, never regular, apparently eating here and there down-town. She seemed to get something out of that; what I didn't know.
"You speak of this crime not being committed on impulse," she turned to me at length. "How long ahead should you say he planned it?"
"Or had it planned and prepared for him," I reminded her.
"Well, that, then," she conceded with slight impatience. "How long do you think it might have been planned or prepared for? Years?"
"Hardly that. Not more than a year probably. A gang like this wouldn't hold together on a proposition for many months."
The black brows over those clear, childlike eyes, puckered a bit. I saw she wasn't at all satisfied with what I had said.
"Made all the observations you want to, Bobs?" Worth asked.
"All here. I want to see the roof." She gave us rather a mechanical smile as she silently ticked her points off on her fingers, appealing to me with, "I'm depending upon you for such facts as I have been unable to observe for myself, so if you give me wrong facts—make mistakes—I'll make mistakes in deduction."
There was such confidence in her deductive abilities that a tinge of irony crept into my tones as I replied,
"I'll be very careful what opinions I hold."