Both the suspects wore gloves when ever they left the hotel. So far, there
had been no opportunity to obtain specimen finger prints of the wily pair to be
compared with the prints on record in Washington.
'Well?' Clyde whispered to the clerk. 'Will you help me? Don't forget the favors I've done for you.'
'Okay. But for Heaven's sake don't let them see you!'
He turned toward the room phone and spoke briefly into the instrument.
There was a long pause. Then he shrugged.
'Sorry. Can't help you to-day, Clyde. They're not in their room.'
'Are you sure?' Clyde looked puzzled. He himself had seen both crooks enter the side door of the hotel barely a half hour earlier and go upstairs in the elevator.
They couldn't have left without his knowledge. He was certain of it, in spite of the fact that the clerk turned to the key and showed him the room key hanging idly on its hook.
CLYDE BURKE left the hotel lobby. But he didn't walk very far from the vicinity of the hotel. He merely turned the corner, hurried up the street and came back through the side entrance.
He wondered why Snaper or Hooley hadn't answered that telephone call from the desk. Evidently they had made for themselves a duplicate room key taken from a wax impression of the original one on the hook downstairs. That would make it easier for them to come and go without creating any particular attention.
Frowning, Clyde patted the camera that was tucked inside his coat pocket.
He took the elevator - a rear one near the street corridor - and got off at the
eighth floor. This was the floor where Hooley and Snaper had reserved their expensive double room. The number was 829.
Clyde Burke sauntered past, his slow, careful steps making no sounds on the thick carpet. The corridor was deserted.
He dropped to one knee outside the quiet closed door of Room 829.
Instantly, he made a rather alarming discovery. The keyhole was plugged with cotton. So was the crack between the bottom of the door and the threshold.
Clyde got swiftly back to his feet. Because of his intimate knowledge of the Brentwood Hotel, he knew exactly what to do.
Striding hastily toward the far end of the corridor, turning right-angled into the adjoining corridor and running to its end, he began to shove upward at
the stained-glass window that gave dim light to the hall.
The balky window lifted with a squeak. Clyde scrambled over the sill to the slotted platform of a fire escape. The fire escape steps made a steep slanting ascent from a rear courtyard to the roof of the hotel. But Clyde didn't climb or descend.
He shut the stained-glass window behind him, hiding him from view of any one who might walk along the corridor. Then he took quick stock of his surroundings.
Luck was with him.
The thing that made Clyde squint his eyes with satisfaction was the red, dying blaze of the afternoon sun. It shone straight into his eyes, and into the
rear windows of the hotel rooms.
Leaning sideways from the fire escape platform, Clyde could see that the shade was drawn tight on the nearest window to keep out the unwelcome glare.
If
the first window was that way, the others were probably the same.
There was a narrow stone balcony outside each window. Not more than three feet of space separated each one of those stone projections.
Clyde counted the room windows. Before he had left the hallway inside the hotel he had made sure that 829 was the sixth window from the end. He made the dangerous leap across space to the first balcony without difficulty.
He swung across four of the stone balconies, protected from discovery by the drawn window shades.
Suddenly, he stiffened.
There was a tinkling crash from the window of Room 829. A heavy object flew through the window and fell to the stone projection outside. It was a glass inkwell.
Clyde gave the missile itself only a brief glance. He was watching the shattered hole in the window. Gray fumes were curling outward and ascending lazily through the glare of the sunshine.
WITH swift, monkeylike heaves of his body, Clyde crossed the remaining balconies. He tried the window of 829. It lifted easily under his tug.
Choking clouds of smoke blew outward into his face. He smelled the strange
reek of sulphur. It made him gasp and cough and he drew backward with tears welling from inflamed eyes. Luckily, there was not much concentration of the deadly vapor and the brisk wind sweeping through the sunny courtyard dissipated
it into thin, vanishing streamers.
Clyde peered over the open sill and saw Snaper and Hooley. Both crooks lay
flat on the floor. They were bound and gagged. Unconscious. It was Hooley who had managed to reach the desk and hurl the inkwell with an awkward heave of his
trussed wrists, before he passed out. The evidence lay in the trail of ink on the desk and the black stain on Hooley's hand and sleeve.
Beyond the two limp victims was the cause of the smoke and their unconsciousness. An exterminator's yellow sulphur candle was burning steadily in a corner of the room, sending a steady reek of poisonous smoke into the air.
With a jump, Clyde reached the candle and snuffed out the flame. He threw the deadly little purveyor of death out the window to the courtyard. Then he whirled toward the two men.
He slashed the bonds from their wrists and ankles, but he made no move toward restoring them to consciousness. Fate had given him a golden opportunity
and he took immediate advantage of it.
The camera appeared swiftly from his coat pocket. He removed the gloves from the hands of both crooks. Focusing the camera, he dropped on one knee. He took a perfect reproduction of the palms and fingers of Hooley and of Snaper.
Magnified, examined by experts, those pictures would tell exactly who these crooks really were and why they had served a long prison term somewhere.
Clyde had barely returned the bulky shape of the camera to his pocket when
he heard a groan from Snaper. He saw Hooley's eyes flutter open. The fresh air was reviving the crooks. For an instant, they stared dully upward at the face of the young reporter who had saved them; then fear swam into their blank faces.
With a bound, Hooley was on his feet. Snaper's gun menaced Clyde.
CLYDE lifted his empty hands above his head. His voice remained calm. He explained what had happened, told how he had managed to get to their room. The only falsehood he told was that he had come to the hotel to meet a friend; had seen smoke filtering into the corridor from the cracks of the door of 829 and had gone immediately to their help by way of the stone balconies.
Snaper lowered his gun, after a sharp glance from his partner.
'You didn't see anything of a man in a brown beard, did you, pal?' he asked in a curious, hesitant tone.
'No. Was he the man who did all this?'
'Yeah. He was the man, all right. Keep your mouth shut about this. We'll take care of the guy in the brown beard, eh, Bert?'
'Right!' Hooley growled. He was watching Clyde suspiciously. Suddenly, his
glance dropped toward his own hands and he swore with shrill excitement. He took
a swift step toward the reporter and the muzzle of his gun dug into Clyde's stomach.
