There was something odd about Captain Nat's eyes: something new, and something that Viney did not like. Hard and quiet; not anger, it would seem, but some-thing indefinable--and worse. Viney braced himself with another inspiration of breath. "First," he said, "I'm alone here, but I've left word. There's a friend o' mine not far off, waiting. He's waiting where he can hear the clock strike on Shadwell Church, just as you can hear it here; an' if I'm not back with him, safe an' sound, when it strikes one, he's going to the police with some papers I've given him, in an envelope." "Ah! An' what papers?" "Papers I've written myself. Papers with a sort of private log in them--not much like the one they showed 'em at Lloyd's--of the loss of the _Florence_ years enough ago, when a man named Dan Webb was killed. Papers with the names of most of the men aboard, an' hints as to where to find some of 'em: Bill Stagg, for instance, A. B. They may not want to talk, but they can be made." Captain Nat's fixed look was oddly impassive. "Have you got it on the papers," he said, in a curiously even voice, as though he recited a lesson learned by rote; "have you got it on the papers that Dan Webb had got at the rum, an' was lost through bein' drunk?" "No, I haven't; an' much good it 'ud do ye if I had. Drunk or sober he died in that wreck, an' not a man aboard but knew all about that. I've told you, before, what it is by law: Murder. Murder an' the Rope." "Ay," said Captain Nat in the same even voice, though the tones grew in significance as he went on. "Ay, you have; an' you made me pay for the information. Murder it is, an' the Rope, by the law of England." "Well, I want none of your money now; I want my own. I'll go back an' burn those papers--or give 'em to you, if you like--an' you'll never see me again, if you'll do one thing--not with your money." "What?" "Give me my partner's leather pocket-book and my eight hundred and ten pounds that was in it. That's first an' last of my business here to-night, an' all I've got to say." For a moment Captain Nat's impassibility was disturbed, and he looked sharply at Viney. "Ha!" he said, "what's this? Partner's pocket-book? Notes? What?" "I've said it plain, an' you understand me. Time's passing, Cap'en Kemp, an' you'd better not waste it arguing; one o'clock'll strike before long. The money I came an' spoke about when they found Marr in the river; you had it all the time, an' you knew it. That's what I want: nothing o' yours, but my own money. Give me my own money, an' save your neck." Captain Nat compressed his lips, and folded his arms. "There was a woman knew about this," he said slowly, after a pause, "a woman an' a man. They each took a try at that money, in different ways. They must be friends o' yours."