Bill, mystified that such places still existed in the Great Metropolis, dogged Tom’s footsteps, always careful to keep well out of sight.
He saw Tom pass through these iron gates. A moment later Bill had followed Tom through, though now he had to be far more careful, for every flagstone seemed to give up a hollow bellow.
Tom walked up an iron staircase clinging to a decaying bulk of a dirt-gray stone ramshackle building. He climbed one flight and then disappeared from view.
Bill, very carefully—every nerve alert—followed. A moment later he stepped into a long, dim, lofty corridor, walled with marble of a greenish tint, and smelling faintly of dry-rot.
Picking his steps with the greatest caution, Bill felt his way forward. Somewhere in front of him he saw the shadowy form of Tom.
Bill saw Tom pause before a door, which he opened very slowly. A faint light came from within. A moment later Tom had disappeared from view.
Bill crept forward.
Should he open the door?
“I wish Jack were here,” said Bill to himself.
Jack, it was, who had won the approval of Jacob Jukes, head of the great shipping combine, and father of Tom, for his masterly handling of many difficult situations.