that?" he asked.

"It's Mr. Sagon," replied the woman. "He's the greatest one for
singing them little French songs."

"Ah, I have it," said Ashton-Kirk, after a moment. "He's a Basque, of
course. I couldn't place that accent at first."

A narrow, ladder-like flight of stairs was upon one side. Ashton-Kirk
mounted these and found himself in a smaller loft; a number of
well-kept cockatoos, in cages, set up a harsh screaming at sight of
him. Opening a low door he stepped out upon a tin roof. Mrs. Marx and
Pendleton had followed him, and the former said:

"The police was up here looking. They said Mr. Spatola came through
the trap-door at Hume's place that night and walked along the roofs
and so down to his own room."

"That would he very easily done," answered Ashton-Kirk, as his eye
took in the level stretch of roofs.

After a little more questioning to make sure that the landlady had
missed nothing, they thanked her and left the house. At his door they
saw the man in the cloth cap and overalls. A second and very unwieldy
man, with a flushed, unhealthy looking face, had just stopped to speak
to him.

He supported himself with one hand on the wall.

"Hello!" called the machinist to Ashton-Kirk; and as the two
approached him, he said to the unwieldy man: "I stopped you to tell
you these gents had gone in. They're detectives."

"Oh," said the man, with interest in his wavering eye. "That so." He
regarded the two young men uncertainly for a moment; and then asked:
"Did Mrs. Marx tell you anything?"

"She didn't seem to know much," answered the investigator.

The unwieldy man swayed to and fro, an expression of cunning gathering
in his face. The machinist winked and whispered to Pendleton:

"I don't know his name, but he's one of the lodgers."

"Marx," declared the unwieldy man, "is a fine lady. But," with an
elaborate wink, "she knows more'n she tells sometimes." The wavering
eye tried to fix the investigator, but failed signally. "It don't do,"
he added wisely, "to tell everything you know."

Ashton-Kirk agreed to this.

"Marx could tell you something, maybe," said the man. "And then maybe
she couldn't. But, I know _I_ could give you a few hints if I had the
mind--and maybe they'd be valuable hints, too." Here he drew himself
up with much dignity and attempted to throw out his chest. "I'm a
gentleman," he declared. "My name's Hertz. And being a gentleman, I
always try and conduct myself like one. But that'