10
low one. It will lift presently. Then you will see the sun. Have you ever seen Frisco's sun?"
"My dear sir"--this same slow articulation--"I have never seen your sun nor any other."
"Hum!"
It was an answer altogether unexpected. Again the officer found himself gazing into the strange, refined face and wonderful eyes. The man was not blind, of that he was certain. Neither was his voice harsh or testy. Rather was it soft and polite, of one merely stating a fact. Yet how could it be? He remembered the cigar clerk. Neither cigar nor sun! From what manner of land could the man come? A detective has a certain gift of intuition. Though on the face of it, outside of the man's personality, there could be nothing to it but a joke, he chose to act upon the impulse. He pulled back the door which had been closed behind them and re- entered the boat. When he returned the boat had arrived at the pier.
"You are going to Oakland?"
It was a chance question.
"No, to Berkeley. I take a train here, I understand. Do all the trains go to Berkeley?"
"By no means. I am going to Berkeley myself. We can ride together. My name is Jerome. Albert Jerome."
"Thanks. Mine is Avec. Rhamda Avec. I am much obliged. Your company may be instructive."
He did not say more, but watched with unrestrained interest their manoeuvre into the slip. A moment later they were marching with the others down the gangways to the trains waiting. Just as they were seated and the electric train was pulling out of the pier the sun breaking through the mist blazed with splendid light through the cloud rifts. The stranger was next to the window where he could look out over the water and beyond at the citied shoreline, whose sea of housetops extended and rose to the peaks of the first foothills. The sun was just coming over the mountains.
The detective watched. There was sincerity in the man's actions. It was not acting. When the light first broke he turned his eyes full into the radiance. It was the act