The night was hot and breathless, as had been the day, and the humid
_tang_ of the salt air smote my nostrils as, envying Martin his vacation
respite from the grind of police reporting, I turned off the broad, paved
thoroughfare of Washington Avenue and started down Wharf Street, narrow
and dimly lighted, toward my lodgings beyond the bridge.
As I passed the second dirty-globed street light I halted suddenly, with
the staccato sound of hurrying footsteps in my ears. Homeward bound from
the Journal office, where Martin’s work had kept me until after midnight,
I had yielded to the temptation offered by the short cut. Now, with the
peculiar emphatic insistence of the footfalls behind me, I began to
wonder if I had chosen wisely.
Brass buttons, glinting dully under the corner arc, reassured me. The
next instant I was roughly ordered to halt. I recognized the hoarse,
panting voice of Patrolman Tom Kenton of the fourth precinct, whose beat,
as I knew, lay along the wharves.
“It’s me, Kenton—Jack Bowers, of the _Journal_,” I said. “What’s doing?”
Kenton peered at me keenly in the bad light. Then his face relaxed.
“Man killed in Kellogg’s warehouse, just around the corner there,” he
replied.
“Killed? How?”
“The sergeant didn’t say. I got it from him just now when I reported.
Someone ’phoned in a minute ago. Come along and see, if you want. It’s
right in your line, and you’re a good friend of the captain’s.”