The little steamer was showing all its lights, fore and aft, as it hummed through the pitchy darkness, heading straight for the wharf.
Piling into the hack the five were driven furiously to police headquarters—there is no speed limit in Warsaw—where the sergeant reported the situation in brief to his long-headed superior in the inner circle of surveillance.
“Show me the way to catch the transport,” declared Strogoff, bringing his knuckles down with a bang on the table, “and I will show you the spy who blew up the storehouse!”
The chief was on his feet in an instant. “Telephone the shipping bureau,” he sharply ordered, as a desk man responded to an insistent buzz signal, “and ascertain if a high-speed dispatch boat is available for immediate service.”
Five minutes had elapsed when the desk man reappeared. “Sorry, sir,” he said, saluting, “but numbers four, seven and nine, the only fast travelers retained here, are to-night somewhere near Plock, and are not due to return inside of six hours. No other steam vessels in harbor but the slow colliers.”
“Ask them, then,” impatiently commanded the chief, “if the transport can be reached by wire this side of Vloclavek?”
Another wait of several minutes. Again the voice at the door:
“No, sir; the vessel has no wireless apparatus, and the first land station is Vloclavek.”
“Might as well be Siberia,” lamented the sergeant; “those foxes will be off the boat long before the land telegraph can spot them.”
The chief made no reply. He was wrapped in meditation, with lowering brow and thin lips compressed.