“Somebody must have seen you enter the hotel.”
“No,” said Nat, positively; “I swear, Claymore, we got in without being seen.”
“You haven’t told me how you managed that.”
“No, for you sent us down the road on the chance of a pot shot at the detective. I’ll tell you. There’s an office building next to the hotel, you know, with an alley between.”
“Yes.”
“We went in there and found an empty room. It was easy enough to pick the lock and get in. Then we found that a short board would reach from the window to an open window in the hotel. Jack went out and swiped a board from the place where they’re putting up a new building. At twenty-five minutes past three we put the board out, crawled across and got to the preacher’s room without meeting anybody.”
“And left the board there?”
“Not on your life!” replied Nat. “We took the board in and hid it in a closet until we had tumbled the preacher out of the window. Then we slipped back, returned to the office building by the same way, and so went down to the street.”
“And left the board——”
“Of course! We weren’t going to lug it around in daylight. What harm could it do in an empty room?”