w nothing of the Port of London, but he happened to know a good deal
of the far more complicated, though somewhat smaller, Port of New York,
and he was sure there ought to be no extraordinary difficulty in getting
hold of Jules' steam launch. To those who are not thoroughly familiar
with it the River Thames and its docks, from London Bridge to Gravesend,
seems a vast and uncharted wilderness of craft--a wilderness in which it
would be perfectly easy to hide even a three-master successfully. To
such people the idea of looking for a steam launch on the river would be
about equivalent to the idea of looking for a needle in a bundle of hay.
But the fact is, there are hundreds of men between St Katherine's Wharf
and Blackwall who literally know the Thames as the suburban householder
knows his back-garden--who can recognize thousands of ships and put a
name to them at a distance of half a mile, who are informed as to every
movement of vessels on the great stream, who know all the captains, all
the engineers, all the lightermen, all the pilots, all the licensed
watermen, and all the unlicensed scoundrels from the Tower to Gravesend,
and a lot further. By these experts of the Thames the slightest unusual
event on the water is noticed and discussed--a wherry cannot change
hands but they will guess shrewdly upon the price paid and the
intentions of the new owner with regard to it. They have a habit of
watching the river for the mere interest of the sight, and they talk
about everything like housewives gathered of an evening round the
cottage door. If the first mate of a Castle Liner gets the sack they
will be able to tell you what he said to the captain, what the old man
said to him, and what both said to the Board, and having finished off
that affair they will cheerfully turn to discussing whether Bill Stevens
sank his barge outside the West Indian No.2 by accident or on purpose.

Theodore Racksole had no satisfactory means of identifying the steam
launch which carried away Mr Tom Jackson. The sky had clouded over soon
after midnight, and there was also a slight mist, and he had only
been able to make out that it was a low craft, about sixty feet long,
probably painted black. He had personally kept a watch all through the
night on vessels going upstream, and during the next morning he had
a man to take his place who warned him whenever a steam launch went
towards Westminster. At noon, after his conversation with Prince
Aribert, h