The Automaton picked up the body as though it had been a mere feather-weight and stalked out to the waiting emissaries.  A trap-door was opened and Flint’s body was dashed into the river.  Thus it was that all his scheming came to an end and his secret from Madagascar, which he had told Brent, but which now lay locked in that mad-man’s mind, was stilled with Flint’s dead lips.

At the chemist’s shop Locke was by this time recovering from the terrible ordeal through which he had passed.  He bathed his swollen thumbs, and by rubbing them was able somewhat to restore the circulation.  Then he stepped to the telephone and gave the Brent Rock number.

It was Zita who answered him.

“Eva has gone alone to Baker’s dock,” she answered to his inquiry, in half-triumphant jealousy.

Locke did not wait to hear more.  There was not a moment to be lost.  He rushed out, disheveled as he was, into the street, slamming the door after him.  It seemed hours before he could find a taxicab.

“Baker’s dock!” he yelled.  “And twenty dollars if you make it in ten minutes.”

He did not know that the emissaries had robbed him of everything, nor would it have made any difference, for he could easily have fixed it with the driver through his police and Secret Service connections.

In the mean time Eva’s car had met with misfortune, and she had been compelled to stop.  She jumped out and busied herself with a missing cylinder.

Locke’s taxi was running smoothly and arrived at the dock well within the time he had ordered.  Locke jumped out and started to pay.  It was then that he discovered that he was without money.  The driver became angry and hard to pacify with the story of the robbery, but Locke finally convinced him that all was right with the Department of Justice.

Locke walked through the gates to the dock and for a moment stood nonplussed.  This dock had none of the turmoil and bustle naturally associated with docks when a steamer is about to leave.

He cautiously proceeded between the piles of merchandise toward the end of the wharf.  Of one thing he was now certain and a prayer of relief came to his lips.  He was there before Eva and able to guard her from any danger that might arise.

His eyes were keen, but he failed to notice the emissaries who, from behind crates and bales, were watching his every move.  Nor did he see that fiend of iron, the Automaton, which, standing rigid, glared at him from behind an enormous packing-case.

He continued down the wharf as, slinking like coyotes, those sinister forms glided from hiding-place to hiding-place and were never far from his heels.  He reached the end of the wharf and gazed up and down the dark river.  Here and there he could distinguish the colored lights that marked a tugboat or some other small craft, but of a large steamer there was no sign.  It is rarely that a boat warps into a dock just a few moments before leaving for foreign parts, and it flashed upon Locke’s mind that Flint had deceived them about his leaving for Madagascar that night.