The dreadful scene in the alley flashed before my mind.
"He is dead."
"Dead! And how?"
"Murdered."
"I feared so--I was certain, or he would have let me know. You have
much to tell me. But first, did he leave no papers in your hands?"
I brought out the slip that bore the blind diagram and the blinder
description that accompanied it. Nothing could be made of it in the
darkness, so I described it as well as I could.
"We are on the right track," said Mrs. Knapp. "Oh, why didn't I have
that yesterday? But here--we are at the wharf."
The hack had stopped, and a hand was fumbling at the door.
The darkness, the dash of water, the wind whistling about the crazy
wooden buildings and through the rigging of ships, made the water-front
vocal with the shouting of the storm demons as we alighted.
My guide was before us, and we followed him down the pier, struggling
against the gusts.
"Do we cross the bay?" I asked, as Mrs. Knapp clung to my arm. "It's
not safe for you in a small boat."
"There's a tug waiting for us," Mrs. Knapp explained.
A moment later we saw its lights, and the fire of its engine-room shot
a cheerful glow into the storm. The little vessel swung uneasily at its
berth as we made our way aboard, and with shouts of men and clang of
bells it was soon tossing on the dark waters of the bay. Out from the
shelter of the wharves the wind buffeted us wildly, and the black waves
were threshed into phosphorescent foam against the sides of the tug,
while their crests, self-luminous, stretched away in changing lines of
faint, ghostly fire.
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