g the cutter. Straight ahead they
drove. A wave, higher than any they yet had had to ride, came boiling
down upon them... and twisting, writhing, upcasting imploring arms to
the elements--the implacable elements--a girl, a dark girl, entwined,
imprisoned in silken garments, swept upon its crest!

Out shot a cork belt into the boiling sea... and fell beyond her
reach. She was swept past the cutter. A second belt was hurled from the
stern...

The Eurasian, uttering a wailing cry like that of a seabird, strove to
grasp it...

Close beside her, out of the wave, uprose a yellow hand,
grasping--seeking--clutching. It fastened itself into the meshes of her
floating hair...

"Here goes!" roared Rogers.

They plunged down into an oily trough; they turned; a second wave grew
up above them, threateningly, built its terrible wall higher and higher
over their side. Round they swung, and round, and round...

Down swept the eager wave... down--down--down... It lapped over
the stern of the cutter; the tiny craft staggered, and paused,
tremulous--dragged back by that iron grip of old Neptune--then leaped
on--away--headed back into the Thames estuary, triumphant.

"God's mercy!" whispered Stringer--"that was touch-and-go!"

No living thing moved upon the waters.

XLI

WESTMINSTER--MIDNIGHT

Detective-Sergeant Sowerby reported himself in Inspector Dunbar's room
at New Scotland Yard.

"I have completed my inquiries in Wharf-end Lane," he said; and pulling
out his bulging pocketbook, he consulted it gravely.

Inspector Dunbar looked up.

"Anything important?" he asked.

"We cannot trace the makers of the sanitary fittings, and so forth, but
they are all of American pattern. There's nothing in the nature of
a trademark to be found from end to end of the place; even the iron
sluice-gate at the bottom of the brick tunnel has had the makers'
name chipped off, apparently with a cold chisel. So you see they were
prepared for all emergencies!"

"Evidently," said Dunbar, resting his chin on the palms of his hands and
his elbows upon the table.

"The office and warehouse staff of the ginger importing concern are
innocent enough, as you know already. Kan-Suh Concessions was conducted
merely as a blind, of course, but it enabled the Chinaman, Ho-Pin,
to appear in Wharf-end Lane at all times of the day and night without
exciting suspicion. He was supposed to be the manager, of course. The
presence of the wharf is suffici