He was ashamed of his error. But now he was no longer without resources. He would have to find a hardware store that was still open, and make certain purchases. He would have to learn, after that, the timing of the watchman’s rounds, if the empty warehouse was watched at all. It took him an hour to locate a store. He gave half an hour to watching the warehouse. No man seemed on duty there. He crossed the street in a hard, icy rain — a rain now welcome — and applied himself to the lock on the small warehouse door. It was difficult and he was forced, whenever a pedestrian passed, to exhibit a bunch of keys and pretend he was having trouble finding the right one. Nobody stopped him or questioned him, and eventually the door opened. He went in, turning on a flashlight as he did so.
He hurried through an office that showed, by closed roll-top desks and gritty furnishings, long disuse. Another door led to the main floor of the place. A ramp in the rear sloped up through cavernous emptiness to a floor above. Another like the first rose to the top floor.
Afraid that there might be a partitioned room within-a-room on the two upper floors, Duff climbed both ramps with his flashlight switched off. He found that in the whole building there was nothing — nothing but over-all grime and rubbish in the corners, nothing but spiderwebs and a scuttle of rats somewhere in the walls, nothing but gleaming specks on the ground floor of rock particles such as constitute the underlying base of Manhattan and stick to wheels of vehicles— nothing but hollow silence, the dusty odor of desertion and the dim-heard rumble of the great city outside.
The very emptiness of the building had at first seemed meaningful. The meaning now appeared only to be that it was waiting for some new and perhaps different cargo. It had been a storage garage; more recently a warehouse. Now, perhaps, it had changed hands and was being prepared for other uses by the towering and somehow terrifying figure of the man whose face Duff had not yet clearly seen. The giant. Duff thought of him in that term.
He left the building cautiously and hurried for the subway. No use to call Scotty now; Scotty would be at a post-Christmas party.
And no use, Duff thought to get in touch with the New York FBI office. What would be added to his story by the report of a menacing figure lost in the night and an empty building?
He was hungry, wet and weary as he went up the steps of his nondescript hotel.
The desk clerk stopped him. “Mr. Bogan! A Mr. Smythe has been trying to get in touch with you. Been here twice and phone every fifteen minutes since!”
Puzzled, Duff went into a phone booth and dialed. The ring was answered instantly by Scotty, “Duff! Thank the Lord! Look! Eleanor phoned at half past four this afternoon—”
“Eleanor!”