“Oh, that was easy. I’m well known here at the Del Mar. The clerk told me Dietz’s room number. I took the room next to it.”
“You know Dietz, then?” Biff cut in, glancing sidewise to make sure Specks could not overhear them.
“Do I? He’s a bad one. Getting more and more desperate, too. There’s a pot of gold that he’s afraid we’re going to get to first.”
“Pot of gold?”
“Well, not literally; not actually gold. But it’s worth many pots of gold—big ones.”
“Go on, Uncle Charlie,” Biff whispered. “How did you get over to this balcony?”
“There’s a ledge, not a very wide one, that joins the balconies....”
Biff remembered the ledge now. It wasn’t more than ten inches wide. His uncle had taken a dangerous chance in crossing on that narrow ledge from his room to this one.
“The boy, by knocking on the door, was to cause enough distraction to give me time to cross the ledge to this room. I was counting on the element of surprise if I found you being held by more than two men. Remember, surprise can add the strength of another man to any attack.”
“I sure will remember.”