I looked closely at my companion, lest the remark had been made with intentional significance and indicated that he himself entertained suspicions of Mullen’s object in visiting Southend. Such was apparently not the case, however, for after two or three irrelevant observations he got upon the subject of politics, and continued to bore me with his own very positive ideas upon the matter for the rest of the journey. If Mullen were hiding in the neighbourhood of Southend, the chances were that he was somewhere on board a boat. To take a house of any sort would necessitate the giving of references, and might lead to inquiries, and, on the other hand, the keepers of hotels and lodging-houses are often inconveniently inquisitive, and their servants are apt to gossip and pry. If Mullen had a small yacht lying off the town, and lived on board, as men with the yachting craze sometimes do, the only person who need know anything about his movements would be the paid hand, or skipper, and it would be comparatively easy to find a suitable man who was not given to gossip, and to engage him under some explanation which would effectually prevent his entertaining any suspicion as to his employer’s identity. Before commencing my search for Mullen, I thought it advisable to look up an old friend of mine, Hardy Muir, a painter, who lives a mile or two out of Southend. I was sure he would join heart and soul in an enterprise which had for its object the hunting down of such an enemy of the race as Captain Shannon; but to have taken him into my confidence would have been ill-advised, for had we succeeded in laying hands upon that arch-conspirator, no one could have prevented Muir from then and there pounding the monster into a pulp. Personally I had no objection to such a proceeding, but as I considered that the ends of justice would be better served by the handing over to the authorities of Captain Shannon’s person in the whole, rather than in pieces, I decided to withhold from my impetuous friend the exact reason for my being in Southend. As a matter of fact, it was not his assistance that I needed, but that of a very quiet-tongued, shrewd, and reliable man named Quickly, who was employed by Muir as skipper of his yacht. It occurred to me that Quickly would be the very person to find out what I wanted to know about the boats, concerning which I was unable to satisfy myself. Men of his class gossip among themselves very freely, and inquiries made by him would seem as natural as the curiosity of the servants’ hall about the affairs of masters and mistresses, whereas the same inquiries made by me, a stranger, would be certain to arouse suspicion, and might even reach the ears of Mullen himself were he in the neighbourhood.