"That's my intention, my dear Jacox," was his quick reply, as he handed me his cigarette-case. Then, ten minutes later, when we were seated together alone in a third-class carriage slowly leaving London, he turned to me, and with a deep earnest look upon his face, said: "There's much more behind what appears in the papers regarding this curious affair--depend upon it, old chap. I've wired to Vera to be prepared to come to Maldon on receipt of a telegram. The facts, as far as are at present known, are these," he went on as he slowly lit another cigarette: "At an early hour this morning a farm labourer, on his way to work between Latchingdon and Southminster, discovered, lying in a ditch, the body of James Pavely, aged forty-three, a well-known fisherman and pilot. His head had been crushed by savage blows, his clothes were soaked with blood, and he was nearly buried beneath the snow. The labourer alarmed the police, and the body was conveyed to Southminster. Pavely, who was very popular at the waterside at Maldon, was unmarried, and until recently had been rather well-to-do, but for the past few months bad luck is said to have persistently pursued him, and he had been left without a boat, even without a share in a boat, and more recently he had been out of a job altogether. Now," he added, with a keen look, "I want to fix that point in your mind. For months, ever since the summer, he has been known to be on the verge of starvation, yet the police have found in his trousers' pocket a handkerchief in which, carefully tied up, were forty-nine sovereigns!" "His savings?" I suggested. "No," declared my companion conclusively. "But if he was murdered, why wasn't the money taken?" I queried. Ray smiled, his face assuming that sphinx-like expression by which I knew that he had formed some theory--a theory he was about to put to the test. "The reason we have to discover, Jacox," he said vaguely. "The dead man is a pilot," he added; "and in Maldon are many German spies." "But I don't see that the fact of Pavely pursuing the honourable calling of pilot would arouse the enmity of any secret agent," I remarked. "We shall see," was my friend's response; and he became immersed in his paper. On reaching the prosperous little town of Maldon we left our bags in the cloak-room. The snow was lying thickly, but it was no longer falling. A sharp frost had set in, rendering the roads very slippery. In the darkness infrequent lights glimmered here and there in the quaint old streets and among the barges and coasting vessels which lay along the Hithe. The tide was nearly full, and the river covered with half-congealed snow and ice. Few passengers were abroad that wintry evening, but as we passed a small low-built public-house called the "Goat and Binnacle," at the waterside, we could hear that there were many customers within, all of whom seemed to be talking at once.