Grant slipped out hurriedly, knowing that the others would follow him. Ahead of him slouched two men. As he passed, one stopped to scratch a match against the building. It's flare lighted a face strongly Teutonic, and as the match died down and was tossed away Grant slowed up in the darkness and strained his ear to catch their conversation.
They spoke in German. "We did good work at our dock today." Out of the darkness on the cool night air the words came clearly, though gutturally, to Grant's ears.
"Yes? What kind?"
"Loading cargo. Dock Fourteen."
They passed out of earshot. A moment later Grant heard the quick steps of Cavanaugh and the other two operatives, and soon they were swinging along to the dock. That there had been a note of pride or at least boastfulness in the voice of the man he had heard speaking by the wall, Grant was not slow to discern. To see that a man of his type, whom Grant classed with the agitators of the day on the docks, would not feel any great pride over the loading of a ship's cargo, did not take great powers of discernment. Grant with a mind trained to pick up the faintest clue leaped to the conclusion that here was a thread that led to something which could be grasped. Evidently something had taken place that day on the dock which the Criminology Club had overlooked.
"Dock Fourteen" he announced briefly to the others and silently they followed him. The great hulk of the Arsulus reared itself into the darkness of the night above the brightly lighted dock.
"Wait here unless I call," said Grant. He scrambled aboard and peered down the hatchway. His eyes swept the dark interior of the hold. One side was black, but in the side toward the water piles upon piles of packing boxes, baskets and clean-crated produce showed dimly.
A voice at his elbow startled him.
"Anything wrong here?" To Grant the figure of the dock foreman, shock-headed, heavy-jawed, with heavy arms swinging loosely, was typically bestial. With a quick sense of distaste he straightened.
"Wrong? Somewhat! Unless this is a new style of loading a vessel. How long since they have been loading the cargo on one side? Looks like incompetence or—" but the foreman seemed indisposed to listen to Grant's ideas on the matter, for a second later Grant had crumpled under his heavy fist and was sliding down the steep stairway.