A second later the ground gave way beneath my own feet and I was plunged into the blackness of the pit.
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THE SECRET FEAR
A “Creepy” Detective Story
By KENNETH DUANE WHIPPLE
The night was hot and breathless, as had been the day, and the humid tang of the salt air smote my nostrils as, envying Martin his vacation respite from the grind of police reporting, I turned off the broad, paved thoroughfare of Washington Avenue and started down Wharf Street, narrow and dimly lighted, toward my lodgings beyond the bridge.
As I passed the second dirty-globed street light I halted suddenly, with the staccato sound of hurrying footsteps in my ears. Homeward bound from the Journal office, where Martin’s work had kept me until after midnight, I had yielded to the temptation offered by the short cut. Now, with the peculiar emphatic insistence of the footfalls behind me, I began to wonder if I had chosen wisely.
Brass buttons, glinting dully under the corner arc, reassured me. The next instant I was roughly ordered to halt. I recognized the hoarse, panting voice of Patrolman Tom Kenton of the fourth precinct, whose beat, as I knew, lay along the wharves.
“It’s me, Kenton—Jack Bowers, of the Journal,” I said. “What’s doing?”