He started to his feet again, and looked round wildly—looked round, like a hunted man who seeks desperately for some way of escape; ran a few paces, and stood listening; came slowly back again. “Great heavens!” he muttered softly—“they’ll think I murdered him!” That was a sufficiently sobering thought; he stood still, the better to work out the new problem which faced him. “Think, Philip Crowdy: you’ve come across the world, to find this man—to wrest from him that which is your right. His real murderer is by this time far away; you are alone with his body, in a place to which you have tracked him. If Dandy Chater has been lured here, and struck down, as is more than likely in such a neighbourhood, for the mere purpose of robbery, there is not the slightest chance—or a very faint one, at best—of finding the man who struck the blow. On the other hand—how do you stand? Tell your story to the world, and, if they believe it, what must inevitably be said: that by this man’s death you benefit—therefore, by logical reasoning, you must have compassed his death. Philip Crowdy—you’re in a remarkably tight place!” Looking at the matter from one standpoint and another, he came to a desperate resolution—even smiled grimly a little to himself, as he bent again over the dead man. Turning the body over, he found that Dandy Chater had been struck down from behind, apparently with a heavy piece of timber which lay near at hand; he must have been wandering at the very edge of the river at the time, for the rising tide was now actually lapping the edges of his garments. Philip Crowdy bent above him and began to search rapidly in the pockets, for whatever they might contain. “Papers—watch and chain—keys—a very little money,” he whispered to himself quickly, as he made his search. “The money I’ll leave; some river shark will get that; the rest I’ll take. The keys I shall want—also the papers.” Carefully stowing away the things in his own pockets, he rose to his feet, and looked about him. It was very late, and there seemed to be no sign of life, either on land or water, save for the distant muffled sound of the steady beat of a tug, working heavily down stream. “I can’t leave him here; for the body to be discovered would spoil everything. And it wouldn’t be particularly nice for Philip Crowdy to be discovered, with Dandy Chater’s private possessions in his pockets. Now—what’s to be done?” The perplexing question was answered for him, in an unexpected way. The beat of the tug sounded nearer and louder, and he saw the gleam of the light which hung from its funnel. Behind it, towering high in the darkness, was a great vessel, which it was dragging manfully down the river. While the man stood there, idly and mechanically watching it, with his dead likeness lying at his feet, there came a sudden disturbance in the water; a great wash from the river swamped up all about him, so that he turned, and ran back hurriedly a few paces, out of the way of it.