e I get into newer."

"What sort of place is this Channel Marsh?" I asked.

"Well, I should think there must be a great many better places to spend
a night in. It must be the dreariest, wettest flat within many miles of
London, and I should like to see the portrait of the man who had the
idea of building a house there. For a house there is, or rather the
ruins of it--deserted for years, and half carried away by rats and
people who wanted slates and firewood and water pipes."

"Is that the place where you intend waiting to-night?"

"It is. I haven't examined it nearly so closely as I should like, for
fear of raising a scare. Channel Marsh is almost an island, with a
narrow neck of an entrance at each end. A foot-track runs the whole
length, and a person in the ruined house can easily see anybody entering
the Marsh from either end. For that reason I reconnoitred from a
boat--the boat you will go in to-night. I think it is the very dirtiest
old tub I ever saw, so that it suited my rig out. I discovered it at a
wharf some little way down the river, and I paid a shilling for the hire
of it. Channel Marsh is banked a bit on one side, and I crept up under
cover of the bank. I learned very little, beyond the general lie of the
land, because I was so mighty cautious. I judged it better to be content
with half an examination, rather than drive away the game. And even as
it is I've an idea I have been seen. I lay up among some reeds till
dark, but after that I am _sure_ there was somebody on the Marsh--and
skulking, too, like me. So after waiting and scouting for a little I
gave it up and paddled quietly back."

"But look here, Hewitt," I said, "this seems a bit mad. Why go and risk
yourself as you talk of doing? You believe Mayes will be there, at the
ruin, or will come there at twelve. Very well, then, why can't the
police send enough men to surround the place and capture him for
certain?"

Hewitt smiled and shook his head. "My dear Brett," he said, "you haven't
seen the place, and I have. It will be hard enough job for you and
Plummer to get near the spot unobserved, guided by a man who knows every
inch. A trampling crowd of policemen would have as much chance as a herd
of elephants, and on such light nights as we are having now they would
be seen a mile off. And who knows what scouts he may have out? No, as I
say, it will be a great piece of luck if you get through unobserved as
it is, and even now I'm not perfectly cert