"Well, we've got to locate him. I'll stake my life he is George
Ritchie. I compared this snap-shot with the photograph I have with
me. Shave off that dinky little moustache and I'll bet a hundred
to one you'll have Ritchie's mug all right. Hustle back there,
Gilfillan,--you and Simons. He'll be turning up at the house unless
he's got wind of us. Don't let him see you. You stay here with me,
Constable. The chances are he'll come back here to wait for Miss
Crown, if he's as badly stuck on her as you say, Gilfillan. They're
all fools about women."
The hidden listener was no longer quaking. His body was tense, his
mind was working like lightning. He was wide awake, alert; the
fingers that clutched the weapon in his pocket were firm and steady;
he scarcely breathed for fear of betraying his presence, but the
courage of the hunted was in his heart.
The little group broke up. Constable Foss and one of the strangers
remained on the spot, the others vanished up the road. He glanced
over his shoulder in the direction of the wharf. A long dark object
was lying near the edge, while some distance away a small knot of
men stood talking. The moon, riding high, cast a cold, sickly light
upon the scene.
"I've always been kind of suspicious of him," Foss was saying, his
voice lowered. "What did you say his real name is?"
"His real name is Thane, I suppose.
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