th three minutes, or two even, of
delay vouchsafed him before the alarm took shape and purpose he might
make it.

Accepting the latter contingency as the assured one he formed a plan
instantaneously. Indeed, it sprang full-formed into his mind as the door
swung round behind him. It added to the immediate difficulties of his
present situation that he was most notably marked--by his garb. He had
the dramatic sense well developed, as any man must have who succeeds at
his calling. When Trencher played a part he dressed the part. In the
staging of the plot for the undoing of the Cheyenne cattleman his had
been the role of the sporting ex-telegraph operator, who could get
"flashes" on the result of horse races before the names of the winners
came over an imaginary tapped wire to the make-believe pool room where
the gull was stripped; and he had been at some pains and expense to
procure a wardrobe befitting the character.

The worst of it was that he now wore the make-up--the short
fawn-coloured overcoat with its big showy buttons of smoked pearl, the
brown derby hat with its striking black band, and the pair of light-tan
spats. Stripped of these things he would be merely a person in a costume
in nowise to be distinguished from the costumes of any number of other
men in the Broadway district. But for the moment there was neither
opportunity nor time to get rid of all of them without attracting the
attention that would be fatal to his prospects. Men who have nothing to
hide do not remove spats in a hotel lobby, nor do they go about public
places bareheaded in the nighttime. Now he could do but one thing to
alter his appearance.

Midway of the cross hall which he had entered and which opened into the
main lobby he slowed his gait long enough to undo the overcoat and slip
out of it. The top button caught fast in its buttonhole, the coat being
new and its buttonholes being stiff. He gave a sharp tug at the
rebellious cloth, and the button, which probably had been insecurely
sewed on in the first place, came away from its thread fastenings and
lodged in the fingers of his right hand. Mechanically he dropped it into
a side pocket of the overcoat and a moment later, with the garment
turned inside out so that only its silk lining showed, and held under
his arm, he had come out of the sideway and was in the lobby proper.

He was prepared mentally to find signs of an alarm here--to encounter
persons hurrying toward the Thirty-ninth