McMurtrie nodded.  “We have to pick up a couple of friends at Sheppey first.  After that we can run straight across to The Hague.”

The proposal was so obviously sensible that, without arousing his suspicion, I could see no way for the moment of raising any objection.  The great thing was to keep the “syndicate” together, and to delay our departure until Latimer had had time to scoop the lot of us.  Could anything provide him with a more favourable opportunity than the collection of the whole crowd in that remote bungalow at Sheppey?  It was surely there if anywhere he would strike first, and I hoped, very feelingly, that he would not be too long about it.  My powers of postponing our voyage to Holland appeared to have a distinct time-limit.

“There seems nothing else to do,” I said.  “I am sorry to have been the cause of changing all our plans; but the whole thing is as much a mystery to me as it is to you.  However the police got on to my track, it wasn’t through any carelessness of mine.  I am no more anxious to go back to Dartmoor now than I was six weeks ago.”

This last observation at least was true; and I can only hope the recording angel jotted it down as a slight set-off against the opposite column.

Savaroff removed his bulky form from in front of the cabin door, and crossing the well, sat down beside the others.  They began to talk again in German; but as before I could only catch the merest scraps of their conversation.  Once I heard Sonia’s name mentioned by McMurtrie, and I just caught Savaroff’s muttered reply to the effect that she was all right where she was, and could follow us to Germany later.  As far as I could judge, they none of them had the remotest suspicion that she was in any way connected with the crisis.

All this while we had been throbbing along down stream at a terrific pace, keeping well to the centre of the river, and giving such small vessels as we passed a reasonably wide berth.  If there was any trouble coming to us it seemed most likely to materialize in the neighbourhood of Southend or Sheerness, which were the two places to which the police would be almost certain to send a description of the launch as soon as they could get to a telephone.  As we reached the first danger-zone, I noticed von Bruenig beginning to cast rather anxious glances towards the shore.  No one seemed to pay any attention to us, however, and without slackening speed, we swept out into the broad highway of the Thames estuary.

There were several torpedo-boats lying off Sheerness, but these also remained utterly indifferent to our presence.  Apparently the police had been too occupied in rescuing their coast-guard allies from a watery grave to reach a telephone in time, and we passed along down the coast unsuspected and unchallenged.

Whatever von Bruenig’s weak points might be, he could certainly steer a motor-boat to perfection.  He turned into the little creek under the bungalow at a pace which I certainly wouldn’t have cared to attempt even in my wildest mood, and brought up in almost the identical spot where we had anchored the Betty on the historic night of Latimer’s rescue.