We’re gaining on him.’ In another minute the dinghy was plainly visible, not twenty yards away, and the sculler--sculling frantically now--was unmistakably Jules--Jules in a light tweed suit and a bowler hat. ‘You were right,’ Hazell said; ‘this is a lark. I believe I’m getting quite excited. It’s more exciting than playing the trombone in an orchestra. I’ll run him down, eh?--and then we can drag the chap in from the water.’ Racksole nodded, but at that moment a barge, with her red sails set, stood out of the fog clean across the bows of the Customs boat, which narrowly escaped instant destruction. When they got clear, and the usual interchange of calm, nonchalant swearing was over, the dinghy was barely to be discerned in the mist, and the fat man was breathing in such a manner that his sighs might almost have been heard on the banks. Racksole wanted violently to do something, but there was nothing to do; he could only sit supine by Hazell’s side in the stern-sheets. Gradually they began again to overtake the dinghy, whose one-man crew was evidently tiring. As they came up, hand over fist, the dinghy’s nose swerved aside, and the tiny craft passed down a water-lane between two anchored mineral barges, which lay black and deserted about fifty yards from the Surrey shore. ‘To starboard,’ said Racksole. ‘No, man!’ Hazell replied; ‘we can’t get through there. He’s bound to come out below; it’s only a feint. I’ll keep our nose straight ahead.’ And they went on, the fat man pounding away, with a face which glistened even in the thick gloom. It was an empty dinghy which emerged from between the two barges and went drifting and revolving down towards Greenwich. The fat man gasped a word to his comrade, and the Customs boat stopped dead. ‘’E’s all right,’ said the man in the bows. ‘If it’s ‘im you want, ‘e’s on one o’ them barges, so you’ve only got to step on and take ‘im orf.’ ‘That’s all,’ said a voice out of the depths of the nearest barge, and it was the voice of Jules, otherwise known as Mr Tom Jackson. ‘’Ear ‘im?’ said the fat man smiling. ‘’E’s a good ‘un, ‘e is. But if I was you, Mr Hazell, or you, sir, I shouldn’t step on to that barge so quick as all that.’ They backed the boat under the stem of the nearest barge and gazed upwards. ‘It’s all right,’ said Racksole to Hazell; ‘I’ve got a revolver. How can I clamber up there?’ ‘Yes, I dare say you’ve got a revolver all right,’ Hazell replied sharply. ‘But you mustn’t use it. There mustn’t be any noise. We should have the river police down on us in a twinkling if there was a revolver shot, and it would be the ruin of me. If an inquiry was held the Commissioners wouldn’t take any official notice of the fact that my superior officer had put me on to this job, and I should be requested to leave the service.’ ‘Have no fear on that score,’ said Racksole. ‘I shall, of course, take all responsibility.’