ve the Brent Rock
number.

It was Zita who answered him.

"Eva has gone alone to Baker's dock," she answered to his inquiry, in
half-triumphant jealousy.

Locke did not wait to hear more. There was not a moment to be lost. He
rushed out, disheveled as he was, into the street, slamming the door
after him. It seemed hours before he could find a taxicab.

"Baker's dock!" he yelled. "And twenty dollars if you make it in ten
minutes."

He did not know that the emissaries had robbed him of everything, nor
would it have made any difference, for he could easily have fixed it
with the driver through his police and Secret Service connections.

In the mean time Eva's car had met with misfortune, and she had been
compelled to stop. She jumped out and busied herself with a missing
cylinder.

Locke's taxi was running smoothly and arrived at the dock well within
the time he had ordered. Locke jumped out and started to pay. It was
then that he discovered that he was without money. The driver became
angry and hard to pacify with the story of the robbery, but Locke
finally convinced him that all was right with the Department of Justice.

Locke walked through the gates to the dock and for a moment stood
nonplussed. This dock had none of the turmoil and bustle naturally
associated with docks when a steamer is about to leave.

He cautiously proceeded between the piles of merchandise toward the end
of the wharf. Of one thing he was now certain and a prayer of relief
came to his lips. He was there before Eva and able to guard her from any
danger that might arise.

His eyes were keen, but he failed to notice the emissaries who, from
behind crates and bales, were watching his every move. Nor did he see
that fiend of iron, the Automaton, which, standing rigid, glared at him
from behind an enormous packing-case.

He continued down the wharf as, slinking like coyotes, those sinister
forms glided from hiding-place to hiding-place and were never far from
his heels. He reached the end of the wharf and gazed up and down the
dark river. Here and there he could distinguish the colored lights that
marked a tugboat or some other small craft, but of a large steamer there
was no sign. It is rarely that a boat warps into a dock just a few
moments before leaving for foreign parts, and it flashed upon Locke's
mind that Flint had deceived them about his leaving for Madagascar that
night.

He was still wondering what it could all mean when the em