sine, mud
splashed and disreputable, rushed up to the guarded entrance of the
suspended dock master's house at Portsea; and precisely one and a
quarter minutes thereafter Cleek stood in the presence of the three
men most deeply concerned in the clearing up of this mystifying
affair.

He found Sir Charles Fordeck, a dignified and courtly gentleman
of polished manners and measured speech, although now, quite
naturally, labouring under a distress of mind which visibly disturbed
him. He found Mr. Paul Grimsdick, his secretary, a frank-faced,
straight-looking young Englishman of thirty; Mr. Alexander MacInery,
a stolid, unemotional Scotsman of middle age, with a huge knotted
forehead, eyebrows like young moustaches, and a face like a face of
granite; and he found, too, reason to believe that each of these
was, in his separate way, a man to inspire confidence and respect.

"I can hardly express to you, Mr. Cleek, how glad I am to meet you
and to have you make this quick response to my appeal," said the
Admiral Superintendent, offering him a welcoming hand. "I feel
that if any man is likely to get to the bottom of this mysterious
business you are that man. And that you should get to the bottom
of it--quickly, at whatever cost, by whatever means--is a thing to be
desired not only in the nation's interest, but for the honour of
myself and my two colleagues."

"I hardly think that your honour will be called into question, Sir
Charles," replied Cleek, liking him the better for the manliness
which prompted him in that hour of doubt and difficulty to lay aside
all questions of position, and by the word "colleague" lift his
secretary to the level of himself, so that they might be judged
upon a common plane as men, and men alone. "It would be a madman
indeed who would hint at anything approaching treason with regard
to Sir Charles Fordeck."

"No madder than he who would hint it of either of these," said Sir
Charles, laying a hand upon the shoulder of the auditor and the
secretary, and placing himself between them. "I demand to be judged
by the same rule, set upon the same plane with them. We three alone
were in this house when that abominable thing happened; we three
alone had access to the records from which that information was
wired. It never, for so much as the fraction of one second, passed
out of our keeping or our sight; if it was wired at all it must
have been wired from this house, from that room, and in that case,
one