dinghy when he first caught sight of us, and
then slipped his painter as soon as I'd gone.'

The boat was moving at a rapid pace with the tide. Steering was a matter
of luck and instinct more than anything else. Every now and then Hazell,
who held the lines, was obliged to jerk the boat's head sharply round to
avoid a barge or an anchored vessel. It seemed to Racksole that vessels
were anchored all over the stream. He looked about him anxiously, but
for a long time he could see nothing but mist and vague nautical forms.
Then suddenly he said, quietly enough, 'We're on the right road; I can
see him ahead.

We're gaining on him.' In another minute the dinghy was plainly visible,
not twenty yards away, and the sculler--sculling frantically now--was
unmistakably Jules--Jules in a light tweed suit and a bowler hat.

'You were right,' Hazell said; 'this is a lark. I believe I'm getting
quite excited. It's more exciting than playing the trombone in an
orchestra. I'll run him down, eh?--and then we can drag the chap in from
the water.'

Racksole nodded, but at that moment a barge, with her red sails set,
stood out of the fog clean across the bows of the Customs boat, which
narrowly escaped instant destruction. When they got clear, and the usual
interchange of calm, nonchalant swearing was over, the dinghy was barely
to be discerned in the mist, and the fat man was breathing in such
a manner that his sighs might almost have been heard on the banks.
Racksole wanted violently to do something, but there was nothing to do;
he could only sit supine by Hazell's side in the stern-sheets. Gradually
they began again to overtake the dinghy, whose one-man crew was
evidently tiring. As they came up, hand over fist, the dinghy's nose
swerved aside, and the tiny craft passed down a water-lane between two
anchored mineral barges, which lay black and deserted about fifty yards
from the Surrey shore. 'To starboard,' said Racksole. 'No, man!'

Hazell replied; 'we can't get through there. He's bound to come Out
below; it's only a feint. I'll keep our nose straight ahead.'

And they went on, the fat man pounding away, with a face which glistened
even in the thick gloom. It was an empty dinghy which emerged from
between the two barges and went drifting and revolving down towards
Greenwich.

The fat man gasped a word to his comrade, and the Customs boat stopped
dead.

''E's all right,' said the man in the bows. 'If it's 'im you want, 'e's
o