A low cry of bitter hurt came from his compressed lips. It wasn’t only the Woman in Black! Her deadly peril now, the almost certainty of her death, brought him, in an overwhelming surge of anguish and fear the consciousness that it was the woman he loved. He remembered the abhorrence and contempt she held for him in those steadfast, fearless brown eyes of hers, and he loved her for that abhorrence and contempt. It seemed to typify her, as somehow she seemed to typify a purity and a courage that was soul deep—for that contempt and abhorrence was for the man whom she believed to be the Rat, who in turn typified the dregs and lees of all that was vile. But he, Billy Kane, was not the Rat, and some day, as he was conscious now, he had hoped to stand before her in his own person, and with his own name cleared. His hands gripped on the steering wheel until it seemed as though the taut-drawn skin would burst over the knuckles. He remembered the poise of that dainty head, the curve of the full, white, rounded throat, and he saw her now in—— No! He would not let his brain complete that thought. It would drive him mad. He was already in a state bordering on frenzy, almost out of self-control. Ten minutes! There could be very few of those ten minutes left now!
A cry came from him again, but this time one of sudden hope. To his right, from a large building at the head of one of those trafficways that led to the river bank itself, he caught sight of a lighted window. In an instant the machine was tearing forward in that direction; and in a minute more he had leaped out, and was pounding frantically with his fists at the door of the building. This wasn’t Kegler’s, he knew that; but here was some sign of life at last in the deserted neighborhood.
A step sounded from within. It seemed to drag. It seemed as though it were covering some interminable distance inside there. And then the door opened, and an old, decrepit man, who perhaps held down a sort of pensioned night watchman’s job, a lantern in hand, stuck out his head.
“I’ve lost my way,” said Billy Kane quickly. “Can you tell me where Kegler’s place is?”
“You mean the sand docks?” inquired the other.
“Yes,” said Billy Kane.
The man stepped out from the doorway, and pointed back along the river.
“That’s it over there,” he said. “The one beyond our wharf down here.” He glanced at the car. “But you can’t get through here with that car because this bit of road don’t connect—see? You’ll have to go back a bit the way you came.”
Billy Kane held his watch under the lantern’s light. There were neither the five, nor the four, nor the three minutes that he had dared hope might still remain. It was already after ten o’clock!
“Can I get down from here on foot—it’s shorter this way, isn’t it?” asked Billy Kane between closed teeth.