The girl acquiesced, and Trant crowded into the little automobile. Rentland turned the coupé skillfully out into the swept path of the street, ran swiftly down Fifth Avenue to Fourteenth Street, and stopped three streets to the east before a house in the middle of the block. The house was as narrow and cramped and as cheaply constructed as its neighbors on both sides. It had lace curtains conspicuous in every window, and with impressive statuettes, vases, and gaudy bits of bric-a-brac in the front rooms.
“He told me again that Will must still be off drunk; and Will never takes a drink,” she spoke to them for the first time, as they entered the little sitting room.
“‘He’ is Welter,” Rentland explained to Trant. “‘Will’ is Morse, the missing man. Now, Miss Rowan, I have brought Mr. Trant with me because I have asked him to help me find Morse for you, as I promised; and I want you to tell him everything you can about how Landers was killed and how Morse disappeared.”
“And remember,” Trant interposed, “that I know very little about the American Commodities Company.”
“Why, Mr. Trant,” the girl gathered herself together, “you cannot help knowing something about the company! It imports almost everything— tobacco, sugar, coffee, olives, and preserved fruits, oils, and all sorts of table delicacies, from all over the world, even from Borneo, Mr. Trant, and from Madagascar and New Zealand. It has big warehouses at the docks with millions of dollars’ worth of goods stored in them. My stepfather has been with the company for years, and has charge of all that goes on at the docks.”
“Including the weighing?”
“Yes; everything on which there is a duty when it is taken off the boats has to be weighed, and to do this there are big scales, and for each one a scale house. When a scale is being used there are two men in the scale house. One of these is the Government weigher, who sets the scale to a balance and notes down the weight in a book. The other man, who is an employee of the company, writes the weight also in a book of his own; and he is called the company’s checker. But though there are half a dozen scales, almost everything, when it is possible, is unloaded in front of Scale No. 3, for that is the best berth for ships.”
“And Landers?”
“Landers was the company’s checker on scale No. 3. Well, about five weeks ago I began to see that Mr. Landers was troubled about something. Twice a queer, quiet little man with a scar on his cheek came to see him, and each time they went up to Mr. Landers’ room and talked a long while. Ed’s room was over the sitting room, and after the man had gone I could hear him walking back and forth—walking and walking until it seemed as though he would never stop. I told father about this man who troubled Mr. Landers, and he asked him about it, but Mr. Landers flew into a rage and said it was nothing of importance. Then one night—it was a Wednesday—everybody stayed late at the docks to finish unloading the steamer Covallo. About two o’clock father got home, but Mr. Landers had not been ready to come with him, He did not come all that night, and the next day he did not come home.
“Now, Mr. Trant, they are very careful at the warehouses about who goes in and out, because so many valuable things are stored there. On one side the warehouses open on the docks, and at each end they are fenced off so that you cannot go along the docks and get away from them that way; and on the other side they open on the street through great driveway doors, and at every door, as long as it is open, there stands a watchman, who sees everybody that goes in and out. Only one door was open that Wednesday night, and the watchman there had not seen Mr. Landers go out. And the second night passed, and he did not come home. But the next morning, Friday morning,” the girl caught her breath hysterically, “Mr. Landers’ body was found in the engine room back of scale house No. 3, with the face crushed in horribly!”