The clerk paid no further attention to Willie, who stepped into the booth, closed the door, dropped a nickel into the slot, and called his number. Immediately came the reply.
“Sheridan wants a man to help him at once in the neighborhood of South Street and Coenties Slip,” said Willie.
“Is this Sheridan speaking?” came the query.
“No. This is a messenger for Sheridan.”
“Hold the wire a moment, please.” And a little later the voice added: “Tell Sheridan there isn’t a single operative here at present. We’ll send him help if anybody comes in.”
Willie hung up the receiver but remained in the booth, thinking. Sheridan might need help badly. Those bargemen looked like a desperate lot. Yet the office could send him no aid. Possibly he himself could give Sheridan some help. At that thought, Willie’s heart beat wildly. “I’ll try,” said Willie to himself, “and at any rate I must get the message to Sheridan.”
He left the ship-chandler’s and hurried up South Street. Diligently he studied the moving crowd ahead of him. Nowhere could he see any one that resembled either the bargemen or the Secret Service man. Willie felt certain that the latter would be not far from the former. He was equally confident of his own ability to recognize the place the bargemen had entered. He cast about in his mind for possible ways to help Sheridan. Presently he became so excited that he found himself running. At once he took a grip on himself.
“This won’t do,” he muttered. “Above all things you must not do anything to attract attention to yourself. If you are going to be of any use to Sheridan, you’ll have to make yourself as inconspicuous as possible.” At once Willie dropped to a walk and became a cipher in the mass of people moving along the sidewalk. Before it seemed possible, he reached the building into which he was sure the bargemen had disappeared. He knew it by its wooden awning and peculiar dormer-windows.
Something about the place made it seem sinister and forbidding. The building was badly battered, as though it had had hard usage at the hands of hard men. Heavy curtains hung inside the lower sash of each window, as though to conceal something questionable within.
If Willie was right, the bargemen were within this building. Possibly Sheridan was also, though it was quite as likely he might merely be in the neighborhood, keeping watch until the bargemen should come out. So Willie began to scout around for Sheridan. He looked in every likely place he could think of—every accessible place from which a man could see the door of the suspected house and not be easily seen himself. But nowhere could Willie find a trace of Sheridan.