“Have you seen Princess Zhukovski? You know her?”
“She went home with Ignati ten minutes or so ago.”
“Excellent!” He wiped his stained cheek with a stained handkerchief, and turned to look at the boat. “That’s Hendrixson’s boat,” he whispered. “They’ve got it and they’ve cast the others off.”
“That would mean they are going to leave by water.”
“Yes,” he agreed, “unless—Shall we have a try at it?”
“You mean jump it?”
“Why not?” he asked. “There can’t be very many aboard. God knows there are enough of them ashore. You’re armed. I’ve a pistol.”
“We’ll size it up first,” I decided, “so we’ll know what we’re jumping.”
“That is wisdom,” he said, and led the way back to the shelter of the buildings.
Hugging the rear walls of the buildings, we stole toward the boat.
The boat grew clearer in the night. A craft perhaps forty-five feet long, its stern to the shore, rising and falling beside a small pier. Across the stern something protruded. Something I couldn’t quite make out. Leather soles scuffled now and then on the wooden deck. Presently a dark head and shoulders showed over the puzzling thing in the stern.
The Russian lad’s eyes were better than mine.
“Masked,” he breathed in my ear. “Something like a stocking over his head and face.”
The masked man was motionless where he stood. We were motionless where we stood.