e first, and I hoped,
very feelingly, that he would not be too long about it. My powers
of postponing our voyage to Holland appeared to have a distinct
time-limit.

"There seems nothing else to do," I said. "I am sorry to have been
the cause of changing all our plans; but the whole thing is as much a
mystery to me as it is to you. However the police got on to my track,
it wasn't through any carelessness of mine. I am no more anxious to go
back to Dartmoor now than I was six weeks ago."

This last observation at least was true; and I can only hope the
recording angel jotted it down as a slight set-off against the
opposite column.

Savaroff removed his bulky form from in front of the cabin door, and
crossing the well, sat down beside the others. They began to talk
again in German; but as before I could only catch the merest scraps of
their conversation. Once I heard Sonia's name mentioned by McMurtrie,
and I just caught Savaroff's muttered reply to the effect that she was
all right where she was, and could follow us to Germany later. As far
as I could judge, they none of them had the remotest suspicion that
she was in any way connected with the crisis.

All this while we had been throbbing along down stream at a terrific
pace, keeping well to the centre of the river, and giving such small
vessels as we passed a reasonably wide berth. If there was any trouble
coming to us it seemed most likely to materialize in the neighbourhood
of Southend or Sheerness, which were the two places to which the
police would be almost certain to send a description of the launch
as soon as they could get to a telephone. As we reached the first
danger-zone, I noticed von Bruenig beginning to cast rather anxious
glances towards the shore. No one seemed to pay any attention to us,
however, and without slackening speed, we swept out into the broad
highway of the Thames estuary.

There were several torpedo-boats lying off Sheerness, but these also
remained utterly indifferent to our presence. Apparently the police
had been too occupied in rescuing their coast-guard allies from a
watery grave to reach a telephone in time, and we passed along down
the coast unsuspected and unchallenged.

Whatever von Bruenig's weak points might be, he could certainly steer
a motor-boat to perfection. He turned into the little creek under the
bungalow at a pace which I certainly wouldn't have cared to attempt
even in my wildest mood, and brought up in almost t