rkins's idea of a
'Lunnon policeman' had pleased him mightily.

CHAPTER XIX

WHAT TOOK PLACE AT "THE PIG AND WHISTLE"

It was a night without a moon. Great gray cloud-banks swamped the sky,
and there was a heavy mist that blurred the outline of tree and fence and
made the broad, flat stretches of the marshes into one impenetrable blot
of inky darkness.

Two men, in ill-fitting corduroys and soiled blue jerseys, their swarthy
necks girt about by vivid handkerchiefs, and their big-peaked caps pulled
well down over their eyes, made their way along the narrow lane that led
from Merriton Towers to Saltfleet Bay. At the junction with Saltfleet
Road, two other figures slipped by them in the half-mist, and after
peering at then from under the screen of dark caps, sang out a husky
"Good-night, mates." They answered in unison, the bigger, broader one
whistling as he swung along, his pace slackening a trifle so that the two
newcomers might pass him and get on into the shadows ahead.

Once they had done so, he ceased his endless, ear-piercing whistle and
turned to his companion, his hand reaching out suddenly and catching the
sleeve nearest him.

"That was Borkins!" he said in a muttered undertone, as the two figures
in front swung away into the shadows. "Did you see his face, lad?"

"I did," responded Dollops, with asperity. "And a fine specimen of a face
it were, too! If I were born wiv that tacked on to me anatomy, I'd drown
meself in the nearest pond afore I'd 'ave courage to survive it.... Yus,
it was Borkins all right, Guv'nor, and the other chap wiv him, the one
wiv the black whiskers and the lanting jor--"

"Hush, boy! Not so loud!" Cleek's voice cut into the whispered undertone,
a mere thread of sound, but a sound to be obeyed. "I recognized him,
too," interrupted Cleek. "My friend of the midnight visit, and the
plugged pillow. I'm not likely to forget that face in a day's march,
I can promise you. And with Borkins! Well, that was to be expected, of
course. The next thing to consider is--what the devil has a common sailor
or factory-hand to do with a chap like Dacre Wynne? Or Merriton, for that
matter. I never heard him say he'd any interest in factories of any kind,
and I dare swear he hasn't. And yet, what's this dark stranger--as the
fortune-tellers say--doing, poking his nose into the affair, and trying
to murder me, just because I happen to be down here to investigate the
question of the Frozen Flames