rtue, he was a man of cultured imagination, and it seemed to him,
as it seemed to Seton Pasha, that the dim light symbolized the life of
the missing woman, of the woman who hovered between the gay world from
which tragically she had vanished and some Chinese hell upon whose brink
she hovered. Neither of the watchers was thinking of the crime and
the criminal, of Sir Lucien Pyne or Kazmah, but of Mrs. Monte Irvin,
mysterious victim of a mysterious tragedy. "Oh, Dan! ye must find her!
ye must find her! Puir weak hairt--dinna ye ken how she is suffering!"
Clairvoyantly, to Kerry's ears was borne an echo of his wife's words.

"The traffic!" he whispered. "If we lose George Martin tonight we
deserve to lose the case!"

"I agree, Chief Inspector," said Seton quietly.

The grating sound made by a boat thrust out from a shingle beach came to
their ears above the whispering of the tide. A ghostly figure in the dim
light, George Martin clambered into his craft and took to the oars.

"If he's for the Greenwich bank," said Seton grimly, "he has a stiff
task."

But for the Greenwich bank the boat was headed; and pulling mightily
against the current, the man struck out into mid-stream. They watched
him for some time, silently, noting how he fought against the tide,
sturdily heading for the point at which the signal had shown. Then:

"What do you suggest?" asked Seton. "He may follow the Surrey bank
up-stream."

"I suggest," said Kerry, "that we drift. Once in Limehouse Reach we'll
hear him. There are no pleasure parties punting about that stretch."

"Let us pull out, then. I propose that we wait for him at some
convenient point between the West India Dock and Limehouse Basin."

"Good," rapped Kerry, thrusting the boat out into the fierce current.
"You may have spent a long time in the East, sir, but you're fairly wise
on the geography of the lower Thames."

Gripped in the strongly running tide they were borne smoothly up-stream,
using the oars merely for the purpose of steering. The gloomy mystery
of the London river claimed them and imposed silence upon them, until
familiar landmarks told of the northern bend of the Thames, and the
light above the Lavender Pond shone out upon the unctuously moving
water.

Each pulling a scull they headed in for the left bank.

"There's a wharf ahead," said Seton, looking back over his shoulder. "If
we put in beside it we can wait there unobserved."

"Good enough," said Kerry.

They