What was it?  We did not stop a moment, but hurried in that direction.

We reached the shore where we saw marks of the explosion and of a fight.  Out on the pier I ran breathlessly.  I rushed to the very edge and gazed over, then climbed down the slippery piling and peered into the black water beneath.

A few bubbles seemed to ooze up from below.  Was that all?

No, as I gazed down I saw that some dark object was there.  Slowly Wu Fang’s body floated to the surface and lay there, rocked by the waves.  Deep in his breast stuck his own knife with its handle of the Sign of the Serpent!

I reached down and seized him, as I peered about for Kennedy.

There was nothing more there.

“Craig!” I called desperately, “Craig!”

There was no answer.  The silence, the echo of the lapping water under the wharf was appalling, mocking.

I managed to call the Secret Service men and they got Wu Fang’s body up on the wharf.

But I could not leave the spot.

Where was Craig?  There was not a sign of him.  I could not realize it, even when the men brought grappling irons and began to search the black water.

It was all a hideous dream.  I saw and heard, in a daze.

. . . . . . .

It was not until late that night that I returned to the Dodge house.

I had delayed my return as long as I could, but I knew that I must see Elaine some time.

As I entered even Jennings must have seen that something was wrong.  Elaine, who was sitting in the library with Aunt Josephine, rose as she saw me.

“Did you get them?” she asked eagerly.

I could not speak.  She seemed to read the tragic look on my haggard face and stopped.

“Why,” she gasped, clutching at the desk, “what is the matter?”

As gently as I could, I told her of the chase, of leaving Craig, of the explosion, of the marks of the struggle and of the finding of Wu Fang.

As I finished, I thought she would faint.

“And you—­you went over everything about the wharf?”

“Everything.  The men even dragged for the—­”

I checked myself over the fateful word.

Elaine looked at me wildly.  I thought that she would lose her reason.  She did not cry.  The shock was too great for that.

Suddenly I remembered the note.  “Before I left him—­the last time,” I blurted out, “he wrote a note—­to you.”

I pulled the crumpled paper from my pocket and Elaine almost tore it from me—­the last word from him—­and read: 

Dearest: 

I may not return until the case is settled and I have found the stolen torpedo.  Matters involving millions of lives and billions of dollars hang on the plot back of it.  No matter what happens, have no fear.  Trust me.

Lovingly, Craig.

She finished reading the note and slowly laid it down.  Then she picked it up and read it again.  Slowly she turned to me.