"I never theorize," she reminded me. "All I deal with is facts."
She had perched herself on an overturned box, and was watching Worth sort junk. I leaned against the roof-house, pushed Kite's donated cigar unlighted into a corner of my mouth and stared at her.
"Miss Wallace," I said sharply, "what's this Steve Skeels stuff? What's this reroofing stuff? What's the dope you think you have, and you think I haven't? Tell us, and we'll not waste time. Tell us, and we'll get ahead on this case. Worth, let that rubbish alone. Nothing there for us. Come here and listen."
For all answer he straightened up, looked at us without a word—and went to it again. I turned to the girl.
"Worth doesn't need to listen to me, Mr. Boyne," she said serenely. "He already has full faith in me and my methods."
"Methods be—be blowed!" I exploded. "It's results that count, and you've produced. I'm willing to hand it to you. All we know now, we got from you. Beside you I'm a thick-headed blunderer. Let me in on how you get things and I won't be so hard to convince."
"Indeed, you aren't a blunderer," she said warmly. "You do a lot better than most people at observing." (High praise that, for a detective more than twenty years in the business; but she meant to be complimentary.) "I'm glad to tell you my processes. How much time do you want to give to it?"
"Not a minute longer than will get what you know." And she began with a rush.
"Those dents in the coping at the St. Dunstan, above Clayte's window—I asked the clerk there how long since the building had been reroofed, because there were nicks made by that hook and half filled with tar that had been slushed up against the coping and into the lowest dents. You see what that means?"
"That Clayte—or some accomplice of his—had been using the route more than four years ago. Yes."