"This form will tell us which station this message was sent from, I think. Wait here a minute," and I crossed the hall to the brokerage offices of Sims & Wesson. "May I speak to your operator?" I asked of the junior partner.
"Certainly," he said, and waved me to the little room where the instruments were clicking merrily away.
"Can you tell me what these characters mean?" I asked, placing the message before the operator and pointing to the row of figures and letters at the top of it—"61CWDDSA8PD."
"The sixty-one," he said, "means that this was the sixty-first message received at Elizabeth this morning; 'CW' means that the message was filed at the Christopher Street office—corner Christopher and West; 'DD' and 'SA' are the initials of the operators who sent and received the message; '8PD' means that there are eight words in the message and that it was prepaid. It's the regular form used on all Western Union messages."
"Thank you," I said, and hurried back across the hall elated, for I had learned more than I had dared to hope.
"Well?" asked Curtiss, looking up with anxious face.
"The message was filed at the Christopher Street office," I said, "Christopher and West streets——"
"West Street?" echoed Mr. Royce. "What on earth was she doing there?"
"She could have been doing only one thing," I pointed out exultantly. "When a woman goes down to the docks, it must be——"
"To take a boat!"