run the shaft up in the one building with the opening at the top out into the other house. Anyways, that’s what he done,—a long time ago. I had to know of it, of course,——”

“Of course, as superintendent of the Matteawan.”

“That’s what they call it now, but I like better to be called janitor. As janitor I began, and as janitor I’ll work to the end. Well, Mr. Gately, he went up and down in the little car whenever he chose, and no one noticed him at all. It wasn’t, after all, to say, secret, exactly, but it was a private elevator.”

“But a concealed door in his own office makes the thing pretty secret, I should say.”

“Secret it is, then. But it’s no crime for a man to have a concealed way of gettin’ into or out of his own rooms, is it? Many’s the time Mr. Gately’s come down laughing fit to bust at the way he got away from some old doddering fool who wanted to buzz him to death!”

“You frequently saw him come down, then?”

“Not to say frequently,—but now and again. If I happened to be about at the time.”

“Did anyone else use the elevator?”

“Sometimes, yes. I’ve seen a few people go up or come down,—but mostly it was the boss himself.”

“Did he go up in it yesterday?”

“Not that I seen. But, of course, he may have done so.”

“When did he last come into his offices before—before he disappeared?”

“When did he, Jenny? Speak up, girl, and tell the Chief all you know about it.”

Although Martin had not addressed Jenny, he turned to her now as if inviting her story.

And Jenny bridled, shook out her feather boa, made a futile attempt to pull her brief skirt a trifle farther down toward a silk-stockinged ankle, and began:

“Of course, when Mr. Gately went into his office he most gen’ally went in the middle door, right into his pers’nal office. He didn’t go through my room. And, so, yest’day, he went in the middle door, but right away, almost, he opened my door and stuck his head in, and says, ‘Don’t let anybody in to see me this afternoon, unless you come and ask me first.’”

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