can tell you exactly what she was, if you like."

"It might be very useful to know that," remarked Scattered, with
emphasis on the last word. "We may want to identify her."

"Well," said Jallanby, "she was a yawl about eighteen tons register;
thirty tons yacht measurement; length forty-two feet; beam thirteen;
draught seven and a half feet; square stern; coppered above the
water-line; carried main, jib-headed mizen, fore-staysail, and jib,
and in addition had a sliding gunter gaff-topsail, and----"

"Here!" interrupted Scarterfield with a smile. "That's all too
technical for me to carry in my head! If we want details, I'll trouble
you to write 'em down later. But I take it this vessel was all ready
for going to sea?"

"Ready any day," asserted Jallanby. "Only just wanted tidying up and
storing. As a matter of fact, she'd been in use, quite recently, but
she was a bit too solid for her late owner's tastes--the truth was,
she'd been originally built for a Penzance fishing-lugger--splendid
sea-going boats, those!"

"Do I understand that this vessel could undertake a longish voyage?"
asked Scarterfield. "For instance, could they have crossed, say, the
Atlantic in her?"

"Atlantic? Lord bless you, yes!" replied the ship-broker. "Or
Pacific, either. Go tens o' thousands o' miles in a craft of that
soundness, as long as you'd got provisions on board!

"Did they buy her?" asked Scarterfield.

"They did--at once," replied Jallanby. "And paid the money for her--in
cash, there and then."

"Cheque?" inquired Scarterfield, laconically.

"No, sir--good Bank of England notes," answered Jallanby. "Oh, they
were all right as regards money--in my case, anyway. And you'll find
the same as regards the tradesmen they dealt with here--cash on the
spot. They fitted her out with provisions as soon as they'd got
her--that, of course, took a few days."

"And then went off--to Norway?" asked Scarterfield.

"So I understand," assented Jallanby. "That's what they said. They
were going, first of all, to Stavanger--then to Bergen--then further
north."

"Just the two of them?" asked Scarterfield.

"Why, no," replied Jallanby. "They were joined, a day or two before they
sailed, by a friend of theirs--a Chinaman. Queer combination--Englishman,
Frenchman, Chinaman. But this Chinaman, he was a swell--what we should
call a gentleman, you know--Mr. Belford told me, in private, that he
belonged to the Chinese Ambassador's suite in London."