"Maybe she is his daughter; but two hundred is two hundred, and I'm a poor sailor man."
Then Grannis came in for his troubles. What was a chap to do when a pretty girl appealed to him?
"I am sorry, miss, but I can't give you that package. I gave the man a receipt and till it is presented to me the package must remain in yonder safe. You understand enough about the business to realize that. I did not solicit the job. It was thrust upon me. I'd give a hundred dollars if the blame thing was out of my safe. You say it is your fortune. That hasn't been proved. It may be gunpowder, dynamite. I'm sorry, but you will have to find your father and bring the receipt."
The young woman left the warehouse, dabbing her eyes with the sodden handkerchief.
"I wonder," mused Grannis, as he watched her from the window, "I wonder what the deuce that chap Norton is up to. The girl might have been the man's daughter.... Good lord, what an ass I am! There wasn't any man!" And so he reached over for the telephone.
Immediately upon receipt of the message the reporter set his machinery in motion. Some time before dawn he would know who the arch-conspirator was. He questioned Grannis thoroughly, and Grannis' description tallied amazingly with that of Florence Hargreave. But a call over the wire proved to him conclusively that Florence had not been out of the house that morning.
On the morrow the newspapers had scare heads about an attempt to rob the Duffy warehouse. It appeared that the police had been tipped beforehand and were on the grounds in time to gather in several notorious gunmen, who, under pressure of the third degree, vowed that they had been hired and paid by a man in a mask and had not the slightest idea what he wanted them to raid. Nothing further could be got out of the gunmen. That they were lying the police had no doubt, but they were up against a stout wall and all they could do was to hold the men for the grand jury.
Norton was in a fine temper. After all his careful planning he had gained nothing--absolutely nothing. But wait; he had gained something--the bitter enmity of a cunning and desperate man, who had been forced to remain hidden under the pier till almost dawn.
Braine crawled from his uncomfortable hiding place. His clothes were soiled and damp, his hat was gone. By a hair's breadth he had escaped the clever trap laid for him. Hargreave was alive, he had escaped; Braine was as certain of this fact as he was of his own breathing. He now knew how to account for the flickering light in the upper story of the warehouse. His ancient enemy had been watching him all the time. More than this, Hargreave and the meddling reporter were in collusion. In the flare of lights at the end of the gun-play he had caught the profile of the reporter. Here was a dangerous man, who must be watched with the utmost care.