The boys will never know how long it took to drive to the street
and number given them by the poor Weasel. Arriving at the corner
where the old brown stone house stood looking the picture of
desolation, with its closely boarded-up windows, its dusty steps
and seedy doors, the boys passed down the side street and left
the car in the shadow of the buildings there. They separated and
hurried back to the house, one at a time. Slipping through the
dense shadows in the weedy, cluttered-up back yard, a yard that
had once been a trim garden with smooth paths and neat little
hedges, as back yards were once in the olden days, they met under
the iron fire-escape attached to the house next door. This
building, much higher than the corner house, was used as a
private sanitarium or hospital by one of the highest-priced
specialists in the city. The fire-escape, therefore, was in
perfect condition, and safe as such a spidery stairway could be
made, with strong rails and good treads.

Porky whispered a word of command, and noiselessly the boys
ascended. The night was pitch dark, but their eyes growing
accustomed to the gloom, they made their way without a stumble.
Reaching the place where the lower building met the taller one,
they found they could not get from the stairway to the other
roof. There was nothing for it but to go on up the remaining
story, cross the roof of the building and drop down to the lower
level. They tiptoed over the flat, pebbled roof, clung to the
eaves, and one by one made the long drop in safety, the only
damage being scratched and bruised palms as they sprawled on
the rough roofing.