ferences were greater than the lapse of time would account
for. Moreover, the man who resembled Jezzard had a rather large mole on
the left cheek just under the eye, while the other man had an eyeglass
stuck in one eye, and wore a waxed moustache, whereas Leach had always
been clean-shaven, and had never used an eyeglass.

"As I was speculating upon the resemblance they looked up, and caught my
intent and inquisitive eye, whereupon they moved away from the window;
and when, having completed my purchases, I came out into the street,
they were nowhere to be seen.

"That evening, as I was walking by the river outside the town before
returning to the station, I overtook a yacht which was being towed
down-stream. Three men were walking ahead on the bank with a long
tow-line, and one man stood in the cockpit steering. As I approached,
and was reading the name _Otter_ on the stern, the man at the helm
looked round, and with a start of surprise I recognized my old
acquaintance Hearn. The recognition, however, was not mutual, for I had
grown a beard in the interval, and I passed on without appearing to
notice him; but when I overtook the other three men, and recognized, as
I had feared, the other three members of the gang, I must have looked
rather hard at Jezzard, for he suddenly halted, and exclaimed: 'Why,
it's our old friend Ted! Our long-lost and lamented brother!' He held
out his hand with effusive cordiality, and began to make inquiries as to
my welfare; but I cut him short with the remark that I was not proposing
to renew the acquaintance, and, turning off on to a footpath that led
away from the river, strode off without looking back.

"Naturally this meeting exercised my mind a good deal, and when I
thought of the two men whom I had seen in the town, I could hardly
believe that their likeness to my quondam friends was a mere
coincidence. And yet when I had met Leach and Jezzard by the river, I
had found them little altered, and had particularly noticed that
Jezzard had no mole on his face, and that Leach was clean-shaven as of
old.

"But a day or two later all my doubts were resolved by a paragraph in
the local paper. It appeared that on the day of my visit to Eastwich a
number of forged cheques had been cashed at the three banks. They had
been presented by three well-dressed, horsy-looking men who looked like
well-to-do farmers. One of them had a mole on the left cheek, another
was distinguished by a waxed moustach