But Ned did not stop to listen. The stairway was in front of him, and he could get to his room without the clerk or the detective seeing him.
As he started up the stairs, intending to go to his apartment and hide, for he had left the key in the lock, the boy-porter called after him:
“Why don’t you take the cage?”
“The elevator’s too slow,” Ned answered, trying to keep his voice from trembling. He was afraid the men might hear him. But they did not, and, walking swiftly he was soon in his room.
“What shall I do?” poor Ned asked himself. He seemed hounded on every side. “I must get away from here,” he thought. “The clerk suspects me! Perhaps that detective has a description of me! I must sneak out, and yet—I can’t go. I haven’t paid for my room!”
Then he caught sight of the rope fire escape. An idea came to him.
“I’ll slide down the rope to the ground,” he murmured. “That’s the way. I can get off without any one seeing me, and I’ll go to another hotel.”
He loosened the rope, which was looped upon a hook, and looked down into the yard. All was dark and quiet there. He tied his valise to the end of the rope and lowered it. The little thud of the satchel as it landed and slipped from the noose of the rope told him it was in the yard. Then, having left a dollar bill pinned to one of the pillows of the bed, Ned put on his hat and overcoat, and, taking a firm hold of the rope stepped out of the window and went down, hand over hand. It was a trick he had often performed, though it was hard to descend the five stories. At last his feet touched the ground, and he breathed a sigh of relief.
“Now to take my valise and skip,” he said in a whisper. “That was pretty well done.”
He stooped over to loosen his satchel from the rope. His fingers encountered nothing but the hempen strands.