A haggard face came through the opening. Two sharp eyes glanced along the bank of the channel. They saw the broad back of the man in uniform.
A figure emerged from the pilings. A man swam slowly toward the far side of the bridge. Coming noiselessly, he reached the bank and dropped out of sight.
The man’s hiding place had totally escaped the search of the police. He had reached it through the water, picking a spot where the bank sloped behind the pilings and formed an artificial cave beneath the approach to the bridge.
The man climbed the bank beyond the bridge. He was scarcely visible in the thickening fog. He dragged himself wearily toward the highway, then turned and moved slowly along the bank away from the bridge.
He found a small, leaky rowboat. After a quick glance in all directions, he entered the boat and began to row it noiselessly across the channel. He passed by an anchored barge, silently and almost invisibly.
There was no sound — not even the dripping of his oars.
The rower rested; then resumed his progress. He reached the opposite shore. He turned back to the highway and came to a cigar store. A sign on the door said “Telephone Booth.”
The man peered into the store. The one clerk was busy with a customer. The man slipped through the door and entered the telephone booth unobserved. The clerk did not notice his presence until he noticed the closed door of the booth.
NEITHER Herbert nor Otto would have recognized the man who was telephoning. He bore but little resemblance to the visitor who had pretended to be James Michaels of Chicago.
Pale, wet, and bedraggled, his air of dignity was gone. He seemed a weary, furtive man; yet, despite his condition, he looked younger than the elderly personage who had visited the home of Wilbur Blake.