he can have me
for the asking. Here I am.' He stood up to his full height on the barge,
tall against the night sky, and all the occupants of the boat could see
that he held firmly clasped in his right hand a short dagger. 'Now, Mr
Racksole, you've been after me for a long time,' he continued; 'here
I am. Why don't you step up? If you haven't got the pluck yourself,
persuade someone else to step up in your place ... the same fair
treatment will be accorded to all.' And Jules laughed a low, penetrating
laugh.

He was in the midst of this laugh when he lurched suddenly forward.

'What'r' you doing of aboard my barge? Off you goes!' It was a boy's
small shrill voice that sounded in the night. A ragged boy's small form
had appeared silently behind Jules, and two small arms with a vicious
shove precipitated him into the water. He fell with a fine gurgling
splash. It was at once obvious that swimming was not among Jules'
accomplishments. He floundered wildly and sank. When he reappeared he
was dragged into the Customs boat. Rope was produced, and in a minute or
two the man lay ignominiously bound in the bottom of the boat. With the
aid of a mudlark--a mere barge boy, who probably had no more right on
the barge than Jules himself--Racksole had won his game. For the first
time for several weeks the millionaire experienced a sensation of
equanimity and satisfaction. He leaned over the prostrate form of Jules,
Hazell's professional skewer in his hand.

'What are you going to do with him now?' asked Hazell.

'We'll row up to the landing steps in front of the Grand Babylon. He
shall be well lodged at my hotel, I promise him.'

Jules spoke no word.

Before Racksole parted company with the Customs man that night Jules
had been safely transported into the Grand Babylon Hotel and the two
watermen had received their L10 apiece.

'You will sleep here?' said the millionaire to Mr George Hazell. 'It is
late.'

'With pleasure,' said Hazell. The next morning he found a sumptuous
breakfast awaiting him, and in his table-napkin was a Bank of England
note for a hundred pounds. But, though he did not hear of them till much
later, many things had happened before Hazell consumed that sumptuous
breakfast.

Chapter Twenty-Seven THE CONFESSION OF MR TOM JACKSON

IT happened that the small bedroom occupied by Jules during the years he
was head-waiter at the Grand Babylon had remained empty since his sudden
dismissal by Theodore Racks