time in
my life a woman's step on the stair was like no other sound in the
world.

CHAPTER VIII

TOO LATE

At nine o'clock that night things remained about the same. The man
Hunter had sent to investigate the neighborhood and the country just
outside of the town, came to the house about eight, and reported
"nothing discovered." Miss Letitia went to bed early, and Margery took
her up-stairs.

Hunter called me by telephone from town.

"Can you take the nine-thirty up?" he asked. I looked at my watch.

"Yes, I think so. Is there anything new?"

"Not yet; there may be. Take a cab at the station and come to the corner
of Mulberry Street and Park Lane. You'd better dismiss your cab there
and wait for me."

I sent word up-stairs by Bella, who was sitting in the kitchen, her
heavy face sodden with grief, and taking my hat and raincoat--it was
raining a light spring drizzle--I hurried to the station. In
twenty-four minutes I was in the city, and perhaps twelve minutes more
saw me at the designated corner, with my cab driving away and the rain
dropping off the rim of my hat and splashing on my shoulders.

I found a sort of refuge by standing under the wooden arch of a gate,
and it occurred to me that, for all my years in the city, this
particular neighborhood was altogether strange to me. Two blocks away,
in any direction, I would have been in familiar territory again.

Back of me a warehouse lifted six or seven gloomy stories to the sky.
The gate I stood in was evidently the entrance to its yard, and in fact,
some uncomfortable movement of mine just then struck the latch, and
almost precipitated me backward by its sudden opening. Beyond was a yard
full of shadowy wheels and packing cases; the street lights did not
penetrate there, and with an uneasy feeling that almost anything, in
this none too savory neighborhood, might be waiting there, I struck a
match and looked at my watch. It was twenty minutes after ten. Once a
man turned the corner and came toward me, his head down, his long
ulster flapping around his legs. Confident that it was Hunter, I stepped
out and touched him on the arm. He wheeled instantly, and in the light
which shone on his face, I saw my error.

"Excuse me," I mumbled, "I mistook my man."

He went on again without speaking, only pulling his soft hat down lower
over his face. I looked after him until he turned the next corner, and I
knew I had not been mistaken; it was Wardrop.

The