ort has them.'

I shook my head. 'It's got to be more retired than that,' I said.

'Well, gentlemen, I can't think of anywhere else. Of course, there's
the Ruff--'

'What's that?' I asked.

'The big chalk headland in Kent, close to Bradgate. It's got a lot of
villas on the top, and some of the houses have staircases down to a
private beach. It's a very high-toned sort of place, and the residents
there like to keep by themselves.'

I tore open the Tide Tables and found Bradgate. High tide there was at
10.17 P.m. on the 15th of June.

'We're on the scent at last,' I cried excitedly. 'How can I find out
what is the tide at the Ruff?'

'I can tell you that, Sir,' said the coastguard man. 'I once was lent
a house there in this very month, and I used to go out at night to the
deep-sea fishing. The tide's ten minutes before Bradgate.'

I closed the book and looked round at the company.

'If one of those staircases has thirty-nine steps we have solved the
mystery, gentlemen,' I said. 'I want the loan of your car, Sir Walter,
and a map of the roads. If Mr MacGillivray will spare me ten minutes,
I think we can prepare something for tomorrow.'

It was ridiculous in me to take charge of the business like this, but
they didn't seem to mind, and after all I had been in the show from the
start. Besides, I was used to rough jobs, and these eminent gentlemen
were too clever not to see it. It was General Royer who gave me my
commission. 'I for one,' he said, 'am content to leave the matter in
Mr Hannay's hands.'

By half-past three I was tearing past the moonlit hedgerows of Kent,
with MacGillivray's best man on the seat beside me.

CHAPTER TEN

Various Parties Converging on the Sea

A pink and blue June morning found me at Bradgate looking from the
Griffin Hotel over a smooth sea to the lightship on the Cock sands
which seemed the size of a bell-buoy. A couple of miles farther south
and much nearer the shore a small destroyer was anchored. Scaife,
MacGillivray's man, who had been in the Navy, knew the boat, and told
me her name and her commander's, so I sent off a wire to Sir Walter.

After breakfast Scaife got from a house-agent a key for the gates of
the staircases on the Ruff. I walked with him along the sands, and sat
down in a nook of the cliffs while he investigated the half-dozen of
them. I didn't want to be seen, but the place at this hour was quite
deserted, and all the time I was on tha