Working cautiously and deliberately, Chick succeeded in lifting the skylight without making a sound, and he laid it over on the roof.
“I’ll go first, Patsy,” he murmured.
Patsy merely nodded.
Chick let himself over the sill, then grasped the frame of the scuttle and lowered himself till his feet touched the floor some eighteen inches from the trapdoor.
Patsy followed him.
The scene below was, indeed, one that diverted the attention of the crooks from anything overhead.
It was at that very moment that Stuart Floyd, fiercely threatening the detective, had seized the ladle of liquid silver from the melting pot and was approaching with the evident intention of making good his infamous threat.
Chick Carter did not give him time to do so.
His revolver was out on the instant and its report rang like thunder above all other sounds.
Floyd went to the floor with a bullet in his shoulder, and the ladle fell from his lax hand.