"Very well. From the brigantine's course, she was evidently making for one of the western harbours. I lay low in Plymouth for a couple of days, and read the shipping news. That wasn't all I did during those two days, though. I went to the Free Library besides, overhauled the file of the _Western Morning News_ and assimilated information about the inquest at St. Mary's. The faceless mariner chucked up on Rosevear struck one as interesting. I noticed too that there had been a good many wrecks in the Channel during the heavy weather and the fog just about that time. But before I had come to any conclusion, I opened my newspaper on the third morning and read that the _Tarifa_ had dropped her anchor at Falmouth. I took the first train out of Plymouth, and sure enough I picked the _Tarifa_ up in Falmouth docks. Then I made friends with the port-officers, but I got never a glimpse of Ralph Warriner." Miranda's hopes revived. She knew very well that Ralph Warriner was not at that time in Falmouth. For the moment, however, she let Wilbraham run on. "I frankly admit that my hopes sank a little," he continued. "Of course Warriner might have been put ashore; but it seemed to me impossible to obtain sufficient certainty of my suspicions unless I actually clapped eyes on him." Miranda agreed, and her prospects of escaping from this man's clutches showed brighter; for she was not in a mood of sufficient calmness to enable her to realise that Wilbraham would hardly have been so frank, if he had not by now at all events acquired absolute certainty. "My hopes were to sink yet more," Wilbraham continued. "The brigantine passed for a tramp out from Tarifa with a cargo of fruit. I saw that cargo unloaded. There was no pretence about it; it was a full cargo of fruit. The boat was sailing back to Tarifa with a cargo of alkali, and I saw that cargo stowed away in her hold. Mrs. Warriner, my spirits began to revive. That cargo of alkali was most uncommon small; the profit on it wouldn't have paid the decky's wages. Again I inferred. I inferred that the alkali was a blind, and that the _Tarifa_ meant to pick up a cargo of another sort somewhere along the coast, though what the cargo would be I could not for the life of me imagine." "But it is all guess-work," said Miranda, with an indifference which she was far from feeling. "I learned one piece of solid cheering information from my friends the port-officers," retorted Wilbraham. "The _Tarifa's_ papers were all quite recent, and yet she was an old boat. She was supposed to be owned by her master." "And no doubt was," added Miranda, with an assumption of weariness.