Clambering up a pile of fallen timber which lay in the passage and beckoning Copplestone to follow his example, Spurge looked through a broken slat in the wooden partition into an open shed which fronted the Cut. The shed was empty. Folk were passing to and fro in front of it; the North Sea tug still lay at the wharf beyond; a man who was evidently its skipper sat on a tub on its deck placidly smoking his short pipe--but of Addie Chatfield or of Andrius there was no sign. And the silence in that crumbling, rat-haunted house was deeper than ever. "Guv'nor!" muttered Spurge, "How long is it since you see--her?" "Almost as soon as you'd gone," answered Copplestone. "Ten minutes ago!" sighed Spurge. "Guv'nor--they've done us! They're off! I see it--she must ha' caught sight o' me, nosing round, and she came here and gave the others the office, and they bucked out at the back. The back, Guv'nor! and Lord bless you, at the back o' this shanty there's a perfect rabbit-warren o' places--more by token, they call it the Warren. If they've got in there, why, all the police in Norcaster'll never find 'em--leastways, I mean, to speak truthful, not without a deal o' trouble." "What about upstairs?" asked Copplestone. "Upstairs, now?" said Spurge with a doubtful glance at the ramshackle stairway. "Lord, mister!--I don't believe nobody could get up them stairs! No--they've hooked it through the back here, into the Warren. And once in there--" He ended with an eloquent gesture, and dismounting from his perch made his way along the passage to a door which opened into the shed. Thence he looked out on the quay, and along the crowded maze of Scarvell's Cut. "Here's some of 'em, anyway, guv'nor," he announced. "I see Mr. Vickers and t'other London gentleman, and the old Admiral, at all events. There they are--getting out of a motor at the end. But go to meet 'em, Mr. Copplestone, while I keep my eye on this here tug and its skipper." Copplestone elbowed his way through the crowd until he met Sir Cresswell and his two companions. All three were eager and excited: Copplestone could only respond to their inquiries with a gloomy shake of the head. "We seem to have the devil's own luck!" he growled dismally. "Spurge and I spotted Andrius by sheer accident. He was on a North Sea tug, or trawler, along the quay here. Then Spurge ran off to summon you. While he was away Miss Chatfield appeared--" "Addie Chatfield!" exclaimed Vickers.