He was getting tired by this time, but he was not tired of his work. He was accustomed to spending his days very much in this manner; he was used to taking his sleep in railway carriages, and his meals at unusual hours, whenever and wherever he could get time to take his food. He was getting what he called "peckish" now, and was just going to the coffee-room of the Victoria Hotel with the intention of ordering a steak and a glass of brandy-and-water—Mr. Carter never took beer, which is a sleepy beverage, inimical to that perpetual clearness of intellect necessary to a detective—when he changed his mind, and walked back to the edge of the quay, to prowl along once more with his hands in his pockets, looking at the vessels, and to take another inspection of the deck and captain of the _Crow_. "I shouldn't wonder if my gentleman's gone and hidden himself down below the hatchway of that boat," he thought, as he walked slowly along the quay-side. "I've half a mind to go on board and overhaul her." CHAPTER XLIV. CHASING THE "CROW." Mr. Carter was so familiar with the spot alongside which the _Crow_ lay at anchor, that he made straight for that part of the quay and looked down over the side, fully expecting to see the dirty captain still lying on the tarpaulin, smoking his dirty pipe. But, to his amazement, he saw a strange vessel where he expected to see the _Crow_, and in answer to his eager inquiries amongst the idlers on the quay, and the other idlers on the boats, he was told that the _Crow_ had weighed anchor half an hour ago, and was over yonder. The men pointed to a dingy speck out seaward as they gave Mr. Carter this information—a speck which they assured him was neither more nor less than the _Crow_, bound for Copenhagen. Mr. Carter asked whether she had been expected to sail so soon. No, the men told him; she was not expected to have sailed till daybreak next morning, and there wasn't above two-thirds of her cargo aboard her yet. The detective asked if this wasn't rather a queer proceeding. Yes, the men said, it was queer; but the master of the _Crow_ was a queer chap altogether, and more than one absconding bankrupt had sailed for furrin parts in the _Crow_. One of the men opined that the master had got a swell cove on board to-day, inasmuch as he had seen such a one hanging about the quay-side ten minutes or so before the _Crow_ sailed. "Who'll catch her?" cried Mr. Carter; "which of you will catch her for a couple of sovereigns?" The men shook their heads. The _Crow_ had got too much of a start, they said, considering that the wind was in her favour. "But there's a chance that the wind may change after dark," returned the detective. "Come, my men, don't hang back. Who'll catch the _Crow_ yonder for a fiver, come? Who'll catch her for a fi'-pound note?" "I will," cried a burly young fellow in a scarlet guernsey, and shiny boots that came nearly to his waist; "me and my mate will do it, won't us, Jim?"