“Slept, Gov’nor!” he said.  “Why, bless your ’eart, sir, I couldn’t a slept better on a bed of roses, nor ’ad ’arf such comfort.  Feel like I needed someone to lend me a biff on the coco, sir, to make sure as I aren’t a dreamin’—­it’s so wot a cove fancies ’Eaven to be like, sir.”

And afterward, when the day was older, and they had gone to Richmond, and Cleek—­in his boating flannels—­was pulling him up the shining river and talking to him again as he had talked last night, he felt that it was even more like Heaven than ever.

It was after four—­long after—­when they finally separated and Cleek, leaving the boy in charge of the boat, stepped ashore in the neighbourhood of the inn of the Three Jolly Fishermen and went to keep his appointment with Narkom.

He found him enjoying tea at a little round table in the niche of a big bay window in the small private parlour which lay immediately behind the bar-room.

“My dear chap, do forgive me for not waiting,” said the superintendent contritely, as Cleek came in, looking like a college-bred athlete in his boating-flannels and his brim-tilted panama.  “But the fact is you are a little later than I anticipated; and I was simply famishing.”

“Share the blame of my lateness with me, Mr. Narkom,” said Cleek as he tossed aside his hat and threw the fag-end of his cigarette through the open window.  “You merely said ‘tea-time,’ not any particular hour; and I improved the opportunity to take another spin up the river and to talk like a Dutch uncle to a certain young man whom I shall introduce to your notice in due time.  It isn’t often that duty calls me to a little Eden like this.  The air is like balm to-day; and the river—­oh, the river is a sheer delight.”

Narkom rang for a fresh pot of tea and a further supply of buttered toast, and, when these were served, Cleek sat down and joined him.

“I dare say,” said the superintendent, opening fire at once, “that you wonder what in the world induced me to bring you out here to meet me, my dear fellow, instead of following the usual course and calling at Clarges Street?  Well, the fact is, Cleek, that the gentleman with whom I am now about to put you in touch lives in this vicinity, and is so placed that he cannot get away without running the risk of having the step he is taking discovered.”

“Humph!  He is closely spied upon, then?” commented Cleek.  “The trouble arises from someone or something in his own household?”

“No—­in his father’s.  The ‘trouble,’ so far as I can gather, seems to emanate from his stepmother, a young and very beautiful woman, who was born on the island of Java, where the father of our client met and married her some two years ago, whither he had gone to probe into the truth of the amazing statement that a runic stone had been unearthed in that part of the globe.”