There was nothing going on at this late hour, and Max was able to take stock of the place and of the outlook generally.  Piles of timber to the right of him, the dead wall at the side of a warehouse on the left, gave him but a narrow space in which to pursue his investigations.  And these only amounted to the discovery that the troubled waters of the Thames looked very dark and very cold from this spot; that the opposite bank, with little specks of light, offered a gloomy and depressing prospect, and that the lapping of the water among the black barges which were moored at his feet in a dense mass was the dreariest sound he had ever heard.  He turned away with a shudder, and walked quickly up the narrow lane left by the timber, calling himself a fool for his journey.

And just as he was reaching the narrow street by which he had come he was startled to find a girl’s face peering down at him from the top of a pile of timber.

Max stopped, with an exclamation.  In an instant the girl withdrew the head, which was all he had seen of her, and he heard her crawling back quickly over the timber, out of his sight.

Although he had seen her for a moment only, Max had been chilled to the bone by the expression of the girl’s face.  Ghastly white it had looked in the feeble light of a solitary gas lamp some distance away, and wearing an expression of fear and horror such as he had never seen on any countenance before.  He felt that he must find out where she had gone, his first belief being that she was a lunatic.  Else why should she have disappeared in that stealthy manner, with the look of fear stamped upon her face?  There was nothing in the look or manner of Max himself to alarm her; and if she had been in need of help, why had she not called to him?

He got a footing upon the timber and looked over it.  But he could see nothing more of the girl.  Beyond the stacks were some low-roofed outbuildings and the back of a shut-up warehouse.  Reluctantly he got down, and passed into the narrow street.  Not willing to leave at once a neighborhood which he had come so far to investigate, he turned, after going some dozen yards down the street, into a narrow passage on his left hand which led back to the river.

The width between the high walls and the warehouses on either side was only some five feet.  It was flagged with stone, very dark.  About ten yards from the entrance there was a small warehouse, on the left hand, on which hung an old board, announcing that the building was “To Let.”  And next door to this was a dingy shop, with grimy and broken windows, the door of which was boarded up.  This shop, also, was “To Be Let,” and the board in this case had been up so long that the announcement had to be divined rather than read.

Rather struck by the dilapidated appearance of these two buildings in a place where he supposed land must be valuable, Max paused for an instant.  And as he did so, he became aware that there was some one by his side.