“I’m going up there!” insisted Case.
“You’ll stay right here with me and watch,” Alex declared, taking his uneasy chum by the arm and holding on tight.
It was dark up at the end of the pier by the side of which the Rambler lay, but farther up, on the north and south street which paralleled the river, a corner lamp threw spears of light toward the stream.
There was no one in sight. Even what could be seen of the thoroughfare under the lamp, and this was not much, seemed deserted. Rainy, windy nights are not popular with pedestrians in Chicago any more than elsewhere.
Even the occupants of vessels tied up at piers above and below the motor boat were silent in cabins or asleep in their bunks. A dull, heavy roar came out of the city, telling of activities in the noisy loop district, but there was little more than the dash of the rain on the deck where the boys stood listening and waiting.
Presently they saw a figure detach itself from the shadows at an angle of the warehouse, where it seemed to have been hiding, and step into the lighted space. There it acted queerly, walking up and down, up and down in the rain! It was too dark for the boys to see the face.
“I don’t believe it is Jule, though,” Case said.
CHAPTER III.—THE BROWN LEATHER BAG
While Alex and Case waited in the doorway, watching the figure near the warehouse, the circle of light in the street beyond, the whole gloomy prospect along the pier, the shrill voice of a police whistle cut the heavy air. The boys started nervously.
“It wouldn’t be strange if Clay got into trouble up there.”