“Thanks,” said Patsy, with a smile. “It’s not material.”
“That’s just what the other man said,” replied the girl, laughing.
“Gee! I must be walking right in the chief’s tracks,” thought Patsy, moving away. “That denotes that I’ve got a long head, at least; but I must cut it out, all the same, or some one may get wise to what we are doing. It’s odds that the chief took the elevator, so I’ll vary the program by hoofing it.”
Patsy knew, of course, that Nick had gone to seek an interview with Kate Crandall, as he had stated.
“I’ll look up Sheldon’s suite,” he said to himself. “If he still was with the Crandall woman, it’s odds that he left when the chief showed up. He may be with a confederate in his apartments by this time, in which case their conversation might enable me to clinch the chief’s suspicions, if I can contrive to overhear it. I’ll locate the suite, at all events, and find out what’s doing.”
Patsy climbed the stairs to the second floor, then sought a corridor leading to the rear of the house. He found it with no great difficulty, but upon entering the corridor adjoining the rear rooms, he turned in the wrong direction to find the main stairway.
He brought up in a narrow, dimly lighted hall, instead, and at the narrow stairway already mentioned.
“Gee, I’m in wrong!” he muttered, glancing at several doors in the dim, uncarpeted entry. “I ought to have gone the other way. These stairs will take me up to the[Pg 29] next floor, however, and the rear corridor must run parallel with one of this floor. These doors must be rear exits from some of the side and back suites. I’ll go up and have a look.”
Patsy started up the stairs with the last.
The long corridor through which he had just come was deserted. The narrow entry and stairway appeared to be for the use of servants only, and entirely out of use at that hour.