Eastward swept the river now, and fresher blew the breeze. As they rounded the blunt point of the “Isle” the fog banks went swirling past them astern, and the lights on either shore showed clearly ahead. A ship’s siren began to roar somewhere behind them. The steamer which they had passed was about to pursue her course. Closer in-shore drew the boat, passing a series of wharves, and beyond these a tract of waste, desolate bank very gloomy in the half light and apparently boasting no habitation of man. The activities of the Greenwich bank seemed remote, and the desolation of the Isle of Dogs very near, touching them intimately with its peculiar gloom. A light sprang into view some little distance inland, notable because it shone lonely in an expanse of utter blackness. Kerry broke the long silence. “Dougal’s,” he said. “Put us ashore here.” The police boat was pulled in under a rickety wooden structure, beneath which the Thames water whispered eerily; and Kerry and Seton disembarked, mounting a short flight of slimy wooden steps and crossing a roughly planked place on to a shingly slope. Climbing this, they were on damp waste ground, pathless and uninviting. “Dougal’s is being watched,” said Kerry. “I think I told you?” “Yes,” replied Seton. “But I have formed the opinion that the dope gang is too clever for the ordinary type of man. Sin Sin Wa is an instance of what I mean. Neither you nor I doubt that he is a receiver of drugs—perhaps _the_ receiver; but where is our case? The only real link connecting him with the West-End habitué is his wife. And she has conveniently deserted him! We cannot possibly prove that she hasn’t while he chooses to maintain that she has.” “H’m,” grunted Kerry, abruptly changing the subject. “I hope I’m not recognized here.” “Have you visited the place before?” “Some years ago. Unless there are any old hands on view tonight, I don’t think I shall be spotted.” He wore a heavy and threadbare overcoat, which was several sizes too large for him, a muffler, and a weed cap—the outfit supplied by Seton Pasha; and he had a very vivid and unpleasant recollection of his appearance as viewed in his little pocket-mirror before leaving Seton’s room. As they proceeded across the muddy wilderness towards the light which marked the site of Dougal’s, they presented a picture of a sufficiently villainous pair. The ground was irregular, and the path wound sinuously about mounds of rubbish; so that often the guiding light was lost, and they stumbled blindly among nondescript litter, which apparently represented the accumulation of centuries. But finally they turned a corner formed by a stack of rusty scrap iron, and found a long, low building before them. From a ground-floor window light streamed out upon the fragments of rubbish strewing the ground, from amid which sickly weeds uprose as if in defiance of nature’s laws. Seton paused, and: “What is Dougal’s exactly?” he asked; “a public house?”