said to him, and what both said to the Board, and having finished off that affair they will cheerfully turn to discussing whether Bill Stevens sank his barge outside the West Indian No.2 by accident or on purpose. Theodore Racksole had no satisfactory means of identifying the steam launch which carried away Mr Tom Jackson. The sky had clouded over soon after midnight, and there was also a slight mist, and he had only been able to make out that it was a low craft, about sixty feet long, probably painted black. He had personally kept a watch all through the night on vessels going upstream, and during the next morning he had a man to take his place who warned him whenever a steam launch went towards Westminster. At noon, after his conversation with Prince Aribert, he went down the river in a hired row-boat as far as the Custom House, and poked about everywhere, in search of any vessel which could by any possibility be the one he was in search of. But he found nothing. He was, therefore, tolerably sure that the mysterious launch lay somewhere below the Custom House. At the Custom House stairs, he landed, and asked for a very high official--an official inferior only to a Commissioner--whom he had entertained once in New York, and who had met him in London on business at Lloyd’s. In the large but dingy office of this great man a long conversation took place--a conversation in which Racksole had to exercise a certain amount of persuasive power, and which ultimately ended in the high official ringing his bell. ‘Desire Mr Hazell--room No. 332--to speak to me,’ said the official to the boy who answered the summons, and then, turning to Racksole: ‘I need hardly repeat, my dear Mr Racksole, that this is strictly unofficial.’ ‘Agreed, of course,’ said Racksole. Mr Hazell entered. He was a young man of about thirty, dressed in blue serge, with a pale, keen face, a brown moustache and a rather handsome brown beard. ‘Mr Hazell,’ said the high official, ‘let me introduce you to Mr Theodore Racksole--you will doubtless be familiar with his name. Mr Hazell,’ he went on to Racksole, ‘is one of our outdoor staff--what we call an examining officer. Just now he is doing night duty. He has a boat on the river and a couple of men, and the right to board and examine any craft whatever. What Mr Hazell and his crew don’t know about the Thames between here and Gravesend isn’t knowledge.’ ‘Glad to meet you, sir,’ said Racksole simply, and they shook hands. Racksole observed with satisfaction that Mr Hazell was entirely at his ease. ‘Now, Hazell,’ the high official continued, ‘Mr Racksole wants you to help in a little private expedition on the river to-night. I will give you a night’s leave. I sent for you partly because I thought you would enjoy the affair and partly because I think I can rely on you to regard it as entirely unofficial and not to talk about it. You understand? I dare say you will have no cause to regret having obliged Mr Racksole.’