Flynn’s Weekly Detective Fiction. Vol. 25, No. 2, August 13, 1927

“Eight policemen and two Secret Service operatives await us at the Ferry Street dock. They have a launch, automatic rifles, a machine gun and a flock of tear bombs. It looks like a big evening. Let’s go.”

Chapter XV Keeping Promises

Heywood and I sat in my library. Outside the autumn day waned with pensive grace. I had not seen much of him during the long, hot summer, for he had been out of the city on an assignment and I had dawdled about the beach resorts in half-hearted fashion. But the golden fall had brought us both back and we had spent this whole afternoon drinking and smoking and talking of our great adventure.

“I suppose you knew they convicted Blake to-day,” said Heywood.

“Yes,” said I. “There was a story in the papers.”

“Queer, brazen fellow. Stuck it out to the end and never batted an eye when the judge gave him ten years. Acted just like he did the night we swooped down on his island. Remember?”

“I’ll never forget it. Was Barton a witness for the government?”

“Yes, he was there. Looked a hundred years old. Had to be helped to the stand, and his testimony was so faint that it couldn’t be heard three rows back. That’s the last of it, I guess. Hutchins in the penitentiary, Blake on his way, Barton broken and old, Drummond pardoned, and the girl in the green dress—”

He broke off and looked at me shrewdly.

“You never heard from her?”

“No,” said I. “The last I saw of her was on the island. Why?”

“Oh, nothing. I just had a hunch that perhaps you had found her and she hadn’t— Well, hang it, you know what I mean. I thought maybe she wasn’t up to expectations.”

“I’ve never seen her, Heywood.”

“Just as well that you didn’t. If I may be frank, I’ll say that I always thought she was a member of Blake’s gang, regardless of what kind of a yarn she told you.”

I smiled, but I am afraid that it was not very convincing.

“Wrong, Heywood. She was Drummond’s fiancée in search of the letter to get him out of prison. Romantic, what?”

“Romantic if true. She must have been in pretty good with Blake, though. Remember, she was the only person allowed to enter the mysterious building near the mill. How do you explain that?”

“I’ve never been able to explain it,” I growled. “That’s the only unsatisfactory part of the whole affair. Why a man should have a place all fitted up with padded walls is quite beyond me.”

“Queer,” said Heywood, “damned queer. Oh, well, some day Blake may take a notion to talk and we’ll unravel the whole thing. What a story that would make.”

It was at this juncture that Mrs. Barkley sidled into the room and extended an envelope toward me.

“It was left here a minute ago by a messenger boy,” she explained. “He said he was to tell you it was important and that you were to read it right away.”

I took the envelope.