There was a short silence, during which the detectives crept noiselessly up the stairs. In a moment Nick could feel the woman’s skirt by reaching over Chick’s shoulders. The gang was not yet in the hall connecting with the private stairs.
“Send Jim up to my room,” said the woman presently.
“All right.”
The woman was heard moving away, and the detectives followed her.
She passed down a narrow hall running toward an annex in the rear of the building. Presently she opened a door, and the passage was flooded with light. The electrics in the annex had not been switched off.
The woman uttered a cry of alarm when she saw two men were following her, one in the uniform of a waiter and the other a stranger.
“What are you doing here?” she demanded. “Go back and send Jim up. Who is that with you?”
“Friend,” replied Chick. “Business man, and I brought him up so he wouldn’t get pinched. Put him away somewhere.”
Chick made a sly motion toward his pocket. The woman understood. Many a man had been robbed in that place.