Shortly after breakfast there came a call from Dawson on the telephone. ‘All goes well. Come to my office as soon as possible.’ Cary found Dawson bubbling with professional satisfaction. ‘It was beautiful,’ cried he. ‘Hagan was met at the train, taken to a place we know of, and shadowed by us tight as wax. We now know all his associates--the swine have not even the excuse of being German. He burgled your flat himself while one of his gang watched outside. Never mind where I was; you would be surprised if I told you; but I saw everything. He has the faked papers, is busy making copies, and this afternoon is going down the river in a steamer to get a glimpse of the shipyards and docks and check your Notes as far as can be done. Will they stand all right?’ ‘Quite all right,’ said Cary. ‘The obvious things were given correctly.’ ‘Good. We will be in the steamer.’ Cary went that afternoon, quite unchanged in appearance by Dawson’s order. ‘If you try to disguise yourself,’ declared that expert, ‘you will be spotted at once. Leave the refinements to us.’ Dawson himself went as an elderly dug-out officer with the rank marks of a colonel, and never spoke a word to Cary upon the whole trip down and up the teeming river. Dawson’s men were scattered here and there--one a passenger of inquiring mind, another a deckhand, yet a third--a pretty girl in khaki--sold tea and cakes in the vessel’s saloon. Hagan--who, Cary heard afterwards, wore the brass-bound cap and blue kit of a mate in the American merchant service--was never out of sight for an instant of Dawson or of one of his troupe. He busied himself with a strong pair of marine glasses and now and then asked innocent questions of the ship’s deckhands. He had evidently himself once served as a sailor. One deckhand, an idle fellow to whom Hagan was very civil, told his questioner quite a lot of interesting details about the Navy ships, great and small, which could be seen upon the building slips. All these details tallied strangely with those recorded in Cary’s Notes. The trip up and down the river was a great success for Hagan and for Dawson, but for Cary it was rather a bore. He felt somehow out of the picture. In the evening Dawson called at Cary’s office and broke in upon him. ‘We had a splendid trip to-day,’ said he. ‘It exceeded my utmost hopes. Hagan thinks no end of your Notes, but he is not taking any risks. He leaves in the morning for Glasgow to do the Clyde and to check some more of your stuff. Would you like to come?’ Cary remarked that he was rather busy, and that these river excursions, though doubtless great fun for Dawson, were rather poor sport for himself. Dawson laughed joyously--he was a cheerful soul when he had a spy upon his string. ‘Come along,’ said he. ‘See the thing through. I should like you to be in at the death.’ Cary observed that he had no stomach for cold damp dawns, and firing parties.