Espionage, German -- United States -- Fiction; Germans -- United States -- Fiction; Spy stories
Grant slipped out hurriedly, knowing that the others would follow him.
Ahead of him slouched two men. As he passed, one stopped to scratch
a match against the building. It's flare lighted a face strongly
Teutonic, and as the match died down and was tossed away Grant slowed
up in the darkness and strained his ear to catch their conversation.
They spoke in German. "We did good work at our dock today." Out of
the darkness on the cool night air the words came clearly, though
gutturally, to Grant's ears.
"Yes? What kind?"
"Loading cargo. Dock Fourteen."
They passed out of earshot. A moment later Grant heard the quick steps
of Cavanaugh and the other two operatives, and soon they were swinging
along to the dock. That there had been a note of pride or at least
boastfulness in the voice of the man he had heard speaking by the
wall, Grant was not slow to discern. To see that a man of his type,
whom Grant classed with the agitators of the day on the docks, would
not feel any great pride over the loading of a ship's cargo, did not
take great powers of discernment. Grant with a mind trained to pick up
the faintest clue leaped to the conclusion that here was a thread that
led to something which could be grasped. Evidently something had taken
place that day on the dock which the Criminology Club had overlooked.
"Dock Fourteen" he announced briefly to the others and silently they
followed him. The great hulk of the _Arsulus_ reared itself into the
darkness of the night above the brightly lighted dock.
"Wait here unless I call," said Grant. He scrambled aboard and peered
down the hatchway. His eyes swept the dark interior of the hold. One
side was black, but in the side toward the water piles upon piles of
packing boxes, baskets and clean-crated produce showed dimly.
A voice at his elbow startled him.
"Anything wrong here?" To Grant the figure of the dock foreman,
shock-headed, heavy-jawed, with heavy arms swinging loosely, was
typically bestial. With a quick sense of distaste he straightened.
"Wrong? Somewhat! Unless this is a new style of loading a vessel. How
long since they have been loading the cargo on one side? Looks like
incompetence or--" but the foreman seemed indisposed to listen to
Grant's ideas on the matter, for a second later Grant had crumpled
under his heavy fist and was sliding down the steep stairway.
The foreman leaned forward and surveyed the three figures of the
Criminology Club men on the dock. Picking up a balehook he laid it
within easy reach, then cupping his hands about his mouth he called in
a somewhat subdued but clearly audible voice, "Help. Help!"
He saw the three men leap forward to the ship's side. He flattened
himself against a pile of boxes. A moment more and the men had passed
him and were clambering down the hatch. As the last one disappeared he
sprang to the hatchway and battened it. Grant, Cavanaugh, Stewart and
Sisson were prisoners.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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