Dollops cautiously approached, looking over his shoulder as though he expected any minute that the cadaverous face of Borkins would peer in at him, or that perhaps Dacre Wynne himself would rise from the dead and shake an accusing finger in his face.  He reached Cleek and laid a timid hand upon the detective’s arm.  Then he bent his face close to Cleek’s ear.

“Well, I’ve an inklin’ that I’m well on to the untyin’ of it, s’help me if I ain’t!” he whispered in highly melodramatic tones.

Cleek laughed, but looked interested at once, while Mr. Narkom prepared to give his best attention to what the lad had to say.

“Traced the blighter wiv the straggling whiskers on ’is lip, anyway!” he said, triumphantly, casting still another glance over his shoulder in the direction of the door, and lowering his tones still further.  “Caught a glimpse of ’im ’long by the Saltfleet Road this afternoon, Guv’nor, and thinks I to myself, ‘You’re the blinkin’ blighter wot tried to do the Guv’nor in, are you?  Well, you wait, my lad!  There’s a little taste of ‘ell-sauce a-comin’ your way wot’ll make you sit up and bawl for yer muvver.’  He’d got on sailorin’ togs, Mr. Cleek, an’ a black ’at pulled down low over one eye.  Mate wiv ’im looked like a real bad ’un.  Gold rings in ’is ears ‘e’d got like a bloomin’ lydy, an’ a blue sweater, and sailor’s breeches.  Chin whiskers, too, wot were somethin like rotten seaweed.  Oh, a ’eavenly specimen of a chap ’e were, I kin tell you!”

“On the Saltfleet Road, eh?” interposed Cleek, rapidly, as the boy paused a moment for breath.  “So?  My midnight friend is doubtless sailing for foreign parts, as the safest place when coroner’s evidence begins to get too hot for him.  And what then, Dollops?”

“Couldn’t find out much else, Mr. Cleek, ’cept to trace the place where the beggar ’angs out, and that’s a bit of a shanty just off Saltfleet Bay, an’ a stone’s throw from what looks ter me very like a boat-factory of some kind.  Reckon the chap’s employed there, as, from a casual chat wiv a sailorin’ Johnny in the bar parlour of the ‘Pig and Whistle’, where I wuz a-linin’ of me empty stummick (detectin’ is that ’ungry work, sir!) wiv a sossage an’ a pint o’ four-and-er-’arf, this feller tells me that pretty near everyone around here works there.  I arsked ’im wot they did, an’ ’e says, ‘Make boats an’ fings, with now an’ agin a little flurry in shippin’ ter break the monotony.’...  Anyway, I traced the devil wot nearly got you, Guv’nor, and that’s somefing.  And if I don’t give ’im a taste of the ’appy ’ereafter, well, my name’s not Dollops.”

Cleek laughed and laid a hand upon the lad’s shoulder.

“You’ve done a lot toward unravelling the mystery, Dollops, my lad,” he said.  “A regular right-hand man you are, eh, Mr. Narkom?  This evening we’ll hie us to the Saltfleet Road and see what further the ’Pig and Whistle’ can reveal to us.  It’ll be like the old times of the ‘Twisted-Arm’ days, boy, where every second held its own unknown and certain danger.  Give us an appetite for our breakfast, eh?”