Quick as a cat, Celeste scrambled into the chute, crawling through on all fours. At the chute’s exit on the sheltered cement drive, stood the waiting paper truck, its rear door ajar. Already loaded, the driver awaited only this lull in the storm before setting off to deliver his cargo.
Even as Celeste crawled through the chute, the man started the truck engine. The woman did not hesitate. Leaping into the rear of the vehicle, she slammed the door.
Hearing it close, the driver assumed another workman had shut it as a signal for him to pull out. Shifting gears, he drove away with his cargo of papers—and Celeste.
CHAPTER
24
THE GRINNING GARGOYLE
By the time Jerry, Penny and Mr. Rhett unlocked the pressroom door and reached the loading dock, the truck bearing Celeste was far down the street.
“Hey, where’d that truck go?” the reporter shouted to another workman at the far end of the drive.
“Docks at the end of Basset Street,” he answered. “A batch o’ papers go aboard the Monclove for shipment to Presque Isle.”
Jerry’s car stood close by. He sprang in, making room for Penny and Mr. Rhett.
The newspaper truck had disappeared by the time they drove out on the street. Jerry took a short-cut route to the Basset Street docks. Signs and debris of all description cluttered the roadway. Rain had ceased, but the ominous quiet, the heaviness of the air, was even more frightening than the wind had been.
In a distant section of the city they heard the high-pitched whistle of a police siren; otherwise, the streets were as silent as the tomb.