a warehouse with a crumbling,
picturesque facade. He saw beneath the edge of a double cellar door a
larger piece of fur, mute testimony that the place had recently been
opened, that the condemned men had carried Nora to its abandoned vaults;
but if Slim and George had trusted themselves there, the cellar
obviously furnished other exits, perhaps underground to the river,
almost certainly through the evil saloon next door. That, indeed, might
offer him the chance he must have to come upon his men unexpectedly,
from the rear.

He glanced around. There was no policeman in sight. He saw only half a
dozen pedestrians--shambling creatures who appeared to seek the
plentiful darkness. The neighboring warehouses, the pier opposite,
frowned back at him. The lapping of the water was expectant. Yet high in
the air two brilliant arches were suspended across a slight mist. They
were restless with blurred movement. Constantly they lowered into this
somber pit an incessant murmuring, like an echo, heard at a distance,
from some complicated and turbulent industry.

These crowded bridges, his desolate surroundings, assumed a phantasmal
quality for Garth. The only real world lay beyond those sloping, silent
doors which had been swung back to admit Nora.

While he looked a figure detached itself from the shadows at the corner
of the warehouse. It moved, lurching, in his direction. He could only
see that the newcomer was in rags with unkempt hair, and features,
sunken and haggard. He grasped his revolver, suspecting that this
vagabond exterior disguised a member of the gang--an outpost. Yet there
was a chance that the man was one of the neighborhood's multitude of
derelicts--a purveyor, possibly, of valuable information.

"Come here, my friend," he called. "How long have you been loafing in
that corner?"

The other hesitated. When he answered his voice was without
resonance--scarcely more than an exaggerated whisper.

"Who the devil are you?"

Garth held out some money. The claw-like hand extended itself, closing
over the coins. In quick succession the man rang three of the pieces on
the pavement. Garth's watchfulness increased. Such routine suggested a
signal, but the fellow picked up his money, grinning.

"Seems good," he said in his difficult voice. "If you want to know that
bad, maybe an hour; maybe more. Napping. Nothing better to do, but I'm
honest, and I'd work if I got the chance."

"An automobile drove up here," Garth sa