d abandoned his curiosity.

The chauffeur nodded. Connery took a sheet of paper, wrote on it,
sealed it in an envelope and handed it over; the chauffeur hastened
back to his car and drove off. Connery, order in hand, stood at the
door watching the car depart. He whistled softly to himself.
Evidently his passenger was to be one of the great men in Eastern
finance who had been brought West by Warden's death. As the car
disappeared, Connery gazed off to the Sound.

The March morning was windy and wet, with a storm blowing in from the
Pacific. East of the mountains--in Idaho and Montana--there was snow,
and a heavy fall of it, as the conductor well knew from the long list
of incoming trains yesterday stalled or badly overdue; but at Seattle,
so far, only rain or a soft, sloppy sleet had appeared. Through this
rose the smoke from tugs and a couple of freighters putting out in
spite of the storm, and from further up Eliot Bay reverberated the roar
of the steam-whistle of some large ship signaling its intention to pass
another to the left. The incoming vessel loomed in sight and showed
the graceful lines, the single funnel and the white- and red-barred
flag of the Japanese line, the Nippon Yusen Kaisha. Connery saw that
it was, as he anticipated, the _Tamba Maru_, due two days before,
having been delayed by bad weather over the Pacific. It would dock,
Connery estimated, just in time to permit a passenger to catch the
Eastern Express if that were held till nine o'clock. So, as he
hastened to the car-line, Connery smiled at himself for taking the
trouble to make his earlier surmises. More probably the train was
being held just for some party on the boat. Going to the chief
dispatcher's office to confirm understanding of his orders, he found
that Mr. Jarvis had sent simply the curt command, "Number Five will run
one hour late." Connery went down to the trainsheds.

The Eastern Express, with its gleaming windows, shining brass and
speckless, painted steel, was standing between the sooty,
slush-splashed trains which had just struggled in from over the
mountain; a dozen passengers, tired of waiting on the warm, cushioned
seats of the Pullmans, sauntered up and down beside the cars,
commenting on the track-conditions which, apparently, prevented even
starting a train on time. Connery looked these over and then got
aboard the train and went from observation to express car. Travel was
light that trip; in addition to t