It required several minutes to find the trap in the roof, and it was no slight job to displace it.
When he had accomplished this much, however, it was but a moment's work to clamber out upon the roof in the pouring rain and replace the door.
"Py shimminy, dot vas a hard storm," he soliloquized. "Der ocean grunts as uff she vas got der dispeppersy. Now der next t'ing ish somedings else. Der roof vas slippery ash von soap ladle, und first I know der vil pe a dead Dutchmon spilled someveres over t'e ground."
That portion of the main roof of the building was quite steep, and the eaves were at least twenty-five feet from the ground.
Not fancying the idea of a drop of that distance, the young detective crawled to the ridge, to reconnoiter.
On the other side of the ridge, the roof sloped down to meet a gable, from where the gable's roof took another descent, so as to bring the eaves about seven feet nearer to the ground.
Aside from this there was no possible way of reaching terra firma.
"Eighteen feet! I don'd know vedda I can stand dot or no. I must try it, however, or Hal Hartly vas a dead codfish sure."
Using extreme caution, he slid from one ridge to the other, and then from that to the eaves, from where he was to drop.
"Vel, here's der blace vere I don'd vas so much tickled. But pizness vas pizness, und a veller don'd vas can rise in der vorld vidout dropping sometimes; so here goes!" he muttered.