'_Him!_' almost screeched the man (although, mind you, he never once forgot his hoarse whisper); 'was it him you licked? Sergeant Nickham, I'd go through fire and water for you now, for I hate and despise that wretch; and if I had got a chance to do it safely, I'd have'---- He checked himself very sudden here, as if what he was going to say wasn't exactly the sort of thing to say to a detective. 'I see you are on the right lay,' he begins again; 'but I tell you he has settled with that skipper to have the stuff put on board, if it ain't already there; and then he'll go with it to whatever foreign port the craft comes from.' 'And who is he,' I asked, 'who has arranged with the skipper?' 'Ah, Mr Nickham,' says Wilkins, with a very cunning look, 'as if you didn't know! Haven't you been on the lurk round his house for two days past? Wasn't you there this morning?' Egad! I saw it all now! You might have knocked me down with a feather. I could hardly help saying something which would have shewed my astonishment; but I choked it down, and quite determined to keep the upper hand with him, I said as cool as I could: 'Now, Wilkins, no beating about the bush, or making me help you out. If you've got anything to say, any name to mention, out with it like a man, and I'm your friend. You understand me.' 'Fair and square you are, Mr Nickham,' says Barney; 'and so you'll find me. That young Mr Byrle has got the paper, and he means to go out with the trader. There is people over in Holland awaiting anxious for it; and if once they gets hold of it, it's all U. P. with our bank-notes. Now, I don't know where the paper is; if I had known, bust me if I wouldn't have blowed the gaff long ago!' He meant that he would have exposed the whole transaction, and I noticed that this declaration did not quite agree with his anxiety to have a friend on his side, a point on which he had dwelt so much before; but that didn't signify. 'Now, Mr Nickham,' he went on, 'you must board the craft when the paper is shipped, if it ain't there yet.' 'It ain't there yet, my man,' I said, remembering what had dropped from Edmund Byrle, that 'she would come on board with the material.' 'Then I think it will be to-night,' he continued; 'for a sail-maker as has been at work aboard her says she drops down the river to-morrow; and I think by what I can learn in other quarters, he is right.' I thought so too, and at once made up my mind that the meeting at the _Railway Tavern_ was to settle about shipping the paper. 'I can give a pretty good guess at the man they will engage for the job,' says Wilkins. 'I know him,' I said; 'a tall, sulky-looking, bony-headed old fellow, with a game eye.' 'Why, Mr Nickham,' says Wilkins, 'you're a wonder, a perfect wonder! You're a credit to the force, and Sir Richard ought to hear of it! Why, that's the man, the very man; and here have you only been down two days, and know all about it! Keep your eye on him after dark, and you're all right.'