outside.

A group of four was approaching, comprised of a spruce, dress-coated
manager; a short thick-set, broad-faced man who was doubtless the
long-overdue detective; a professional-appearing gentleman with a
black bag, obviously the house-physician; and the policeman that I had
summoned from his stroll below. The latter, in an excited brogue, was
recounting his late vision of the thief, "hangin' between hivin and
earth, no less," while the detective scornfully accused him of having
been asleep or jingled, on the ground of my late telephone to the effect
that I was holding the man.

The manager, as was natural, took the initiative, bustling past me into
my room and peering eagerly around.

"I needn't say, Mr. Bayne," he orated fluently, "how sorry I am that
this has happened--especially beneath our roof. It is our first case,
I assure you, of anything so regrettable. If it gets into the papers it
won't do us any good. Now the important thing is to take the fellow
out by the rear without courting notice. Why, where is he?" he asked
hopefully. "Surely he isn't gone?"

"Sure, and didn't I tell ye? 'Tis without eyes ye think me!" The
policeman was resentful, and so, to tell the truth, was I. The whole
maddening affair seemed bent on turning to farce at every angle; the
doctor, as a final straw, had just offered _sotto voce_ to mix me a
soothing draft!

"Gone! Of course he's gone, man!" I exclaimed with some natural temper.
"Did you expect him to sit here waiting all this time? What on earth