“Mind taking me to the Southampton Line?” he asked.

The driver’s answer was to glance around the right-hand side of the taxi, slow to a crawl, then swing the corner with both arms over the wheel.

Fay braced himself for five blocks of cobbled streets upon the surface of which ragged children played ball and dodged death. He stepped down from the taxi as it came to a gliding stop before the ornate entrance to the great dock.

“Mind waiting?”

The driver glanced at the taxi-meter.

“You’ve paid me for a couple of hours.”

“Stay right here. Ill be back in ten minutes.”

Chester Fay found two English detectives covering the dock. With them was a Secret Service operative of slight acquaintance.

“Hello!” he said, drawing this man to one side. “Say, Gardner,” he whispered, “who would know down here what happened last night when the Carpathia’s passengers came down the planks? I want to trace a man who took a Gray taxi. The man is—”

“Putney Steph—Stephney.”

“Yes.” Fay raised his brows. The matter was evidently out.

“Has he been found?”

Fay shook his head. He recalled that Sir Arthur Hilton had not given instructions to make public the matter of the finding of the body on the railroad train at Poughkeepsie.

“Not found yet, eh?” Gardner said. “Well, I did all I could. Come over here. That’s right. Now we can talk. That British team are listening-in.”

“What did you find?”

“Stephney came down the plank, showed his passports, went into a slot-booth, lugged his bag and a leather case out toward the street and there hailed a Gray taxi. That much is settled. The taxi was driven by a chauffeur with reddish-brown hair. His nose was slightly turned up. He had on a yellow coat and leather leggins. He’d been waiting around the dock for over three hours.”

“Must have expected him!”

“Looks that way, Chester. He had plenty of fares offered him. You see, them Gray taxies are all the fashion now. They’re gettin’ the business.”

“You 

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