“Not yet,” I replied; “but it looks as if I should today.”

He brightened up still further at the news, and observing that he hoped there would be some letters to bring the next morning departed on his return journey.

I went back into the hut and shut the door.  Now that matters were so rapidly approaching a climax, I felt curiously cheerful and light-hearted.  I suppose it was a reaction from the strain and hard work of the previous week, but anyhow the thought that in all probability the police were hard on my track didn’t seem to worry me in the least.  The only point was whether they would reach the hut before McMurtrie did.  I hoped not, for I was looking forward to an interview with the doctor, but it certainly seemed as well to take every precaution.

I started by unearthing the box of powder from outside, and filling up my flask from it.  Then, when I had covered it over again, I collected all the papers which I had not burned on the previous day, and stored them away in my inside pockets.  Finally I opened a tinned tongue, and aided by the dry remains of my last loaf, made a healthy if not very exciting breakfast.  I never believe in conducting violent exertions on an empty tummy.

All this time, I need hardly say, I was keeping an uncommonly sharp look-out over the marsh.  The most likely way in which any one who didn’t wish to be seen would attempt to approach the hut was along the Tilbury road, and it was towards the last clump of trees, behind which Sonia had left her car the previous day, that I directed my chief attention.

Three-quarters of an hour passed, and I was just beginning to think that McMurtrie would be the winner after all, when I suddenly caught sight of something dark slinking across the exposed part of the road beyond the plantation.  Standing very still, I watched carefully from the window.  I have excellent eyesight, and I soon made out that there were three separate figures all stooping low and moving with extreme caution towards the shelter of the trees.

A sudden and irresistible desire to laugh seized hold of me; there was something so intensely funny about the strategic pains they were taking, when all the while they might just as well have advanced boldly across the open marsh.  Still it was hardly the time to linger over the comic side of the affair, so retiring from the window, I threw a last quick glance round the hut to make quite sure that I had left nothing I wanted behind.  Then walking to the door I opened it and stepped quietly outside.

I decided that it was impossible to reach the sea-wall without being seen, so I made no attempt to do so.  I just set off in the direction of the creek, strolling along in the easy, unhurried fashion of a man taking a morning constitutional.

I had not gone more than ten yards, when from the corner of my eye I saw three figures break simultaneously out of the plantation.  They no longer made any pretence about their purpose.  One of them cut straight down towards the hut, a second came running directly after me, while the third started off as rapidly as possible along the road, so as to head me off if I attempted to escape inland.