“Now on tiptoes,� he said as they reached the stairs. “Hold your bag high and walk on the side of the steps. That’s right, Saidee. Now back toward a window I saw. The door is locked toward the street. I heard him lock it.�
Fay unclasped his fingers from her arm and tried the window. It led out into the courtyard. He raised the sash, guided her through the narrow opening, turned and backed out with both bags. He drew down the
sash until the window was closed. Then he stepped to her side in the gloom.
“This way, pal,� he said with a world of quiet assurance. “There’s the old auto you hired. And there’s the way out. I don’t believe we got a rumble. We’re like two actors beating a board-bill, aren’t we?�
She nodded her head, the plumes of her hat bobbing. She did not do any of the things which might displease him. She walked at his side with swift strides. Her glance was before her without the furtive back-stare of the amateur. Her voice was natural and pitched in a low key. They passed a sleepy burger or two. Once a watchman stepped out and glanced at them. Fay remembered this and took a side street to throw the police off his trail.
They reached the first of the taverns and the quays. Murky, yellow fog wrapped the dykes and lowland. Spars and masts showed. Funnels and ventilators were thrust over the roofs of the warehouses. Sails hung in buntlines and gaskets. Fisher craft loomed through the mists. The tang of the sea was there in that inland port.
“Four o’clock,� said Fay, listening to the strokes of the bell in the Hôtel de Ville. “The police drag-net will be spread. We’ll go this way, Saidee.�
He grasped her arm and led the way down between two storehouses whose ends were thrust like fingers out into the wide pool of the Schwartz Canal. A small boat with oars was moored to the left-hand pier. Fay dropped into this, reached and caught the bags as she tossed them down, then assisted her to a damp seat
in the stern of the boat. He cut the painter with his knife, listened a moment as the boat drifted with the tide, then he got out the oars and started rowing toward the opposite bank.
A winding shroud dropped around them. A billowing mass of wet sea fog rolled over the city and blotted out the view of the shore and the shipping. There was no sound save the rattle of the oars in the locks. Fay bent his back and leaned close to the girl.