e him lay a patch of
gray-green bay, flanked on either side by wharves upon which two
black-hulled lumber schooners were disgorging their resinous cargo.
The strike of the longshoremen was still in progress and the
Embarcadero as good as deserted. Armed guards paraded before the
entrance to the docks and only occasional idlers sunned themselves and
viewed the silent and furtive loading of restive craft straining at
their moorings.

He began to wonder dimly whether he had left Storch dead or merely
stunned, and, granting either alternative, how definitely this
circumstance would halt the plot against Hilmer's life. It was
conceivable to him now that Storch might have provided against the
possibility of failure, given the role of assassin into the hands of
an understudy, to be exact. Suppose Ginger should fail in her warning?
Not that he doubted her, but there was a chance that she had been
hedged about with all manner of difficulties--perhaps even death.
Suddenly with an arresting irrelevance he thought of the child upon
Storch's doorstep, hugging her doll close, and as swiftly he
remembered the black kodak case upon the center table. He wondered if
the child were still sitting there ... Perhaps, by this time, a swarm
of children were tumbling about the weather-beaten steps. He asked a
passer-by the hour. Eleven-thirty! In fifteen more minutes, if the
ticking clock within that sinister case performed its function,
Storch's dwelling would be tumbling in upon his prostrate body. And,
in the face of this, children might be prattling before the threshold.
He must go back again!

He jumped to his feet and began to run. In an instant a conflagration
of potential disasters leaped up from the spark of the immediate
danger. He flew along faster, colliding with irate pedestrians,
escaping the wheels of skimming automobiles ... Presently the familiar
cliff and the tawny path scaling it loomed ahead. He began to climb
upward, almost on all-fours, digging his finger nails into the yellow
clay in an instinctive effort to pull himself forward. Finally he
gained the top ... The street, somnolent with approaching noon, was
deserted--the child had disappeared. He recovered his whirling senses
and looked again. This time he saw that the door of the shack stood
open. He took a step forward. A figure loomed in the doorway. He
shaded his eyes from the sun's glare and narrowed his lids. It was a
woman!

The unexpectedness of this presence