“Good lad!” said Cleek, giving the boy’s arm a squeeze.  “That’s the way to do it!  And is that all you’ve got to tell me?  I’ve done a bit myself, and chummed up with a chap called Jenkins, the tall, thin man who works on the left of me, and he’s let me into the secret of the fishing boat business.  But he’s a close-mouthed devil.  Either doesn’t know anything, or won’t tell.  I’m not quite sure which.  But he wasted a good deal of valuable breath endeavouring to teach me to keep my mouth shut.  Gad!  I’d give something to have a few moments alone with your friend Black Whiskers!  There’s a ripped pillow-case in my portmanteau which ought to interest him.  And what else did you learn, Dollops?”

“Only that what they ships is electric tubin’s ter perfect flexible electric wirin’s wot is used for installations, sir,” returned Dollops.  “That’s what most of the things were wot I set eyes on after workin’-hours, stacked up all ready ter be loaded on ter the boats.  Long, thin things they were, an’ ought ter be easy work, judgin’ from their contents.  But why they make all this mystery about it fair beats me!”

“And me into the bargain, Dollops,” interposed Cleek, with a little sigh.  “But there’s an old saying, that there’s no smoke without fire, and ordinary people don’t make such a devilish fuss about others knowing their business if they’re on the straight.  What all this has got to do with the ‘Frozen Flame’ business I must confess somewhat puzzles me to discover.  But that it has something to do with it is proved by that fishy character Borkins, and the amiable attempt of his friend to murder so humble a person as myself.  Now it’s up to me to find the missing link in the chain....  Hello! here’s a gap in the hedge here.  Looks like it had been made on purpose.  Let’s go and investigate.”

He whipped his little torch round and the circle of light flashing over the ground, revealed to their searching eyes something vastly unexpected in such a place and yet which, after all, seemed to fit into a place where so much mystery and secretiveness was in the air.  They themselves, disguised as such rough characters, fitted into the strange picture, which struck Cleek, even in spite of his many peculiar cases, as very much out of the ordinary.

A gap in the hedge there was, right enough.  And through the gap—­someone must have been working here a very short time before—­a square of turf, cut carefully out and laid upon one side, revealed to their astonished eyes a wooden trap-door, exactly suggestive of the pirates’ den of a child’s imagination, and with a huge iron ring fastened to the centre of it.

Cleek whistled inaudibly, and turning round upon Dollops a happy light in his eyes and a smile, almost of amusement on his lips.

“Gad!” he exclaimed softly.  “Game to try this, Dollops.  I am going to have a shot at it myself.”

“But you ain’t got no firearms on yer, sir, in case o’ h’accidents,” returned the literal minded Dollops, “and no man in ’is senses would attempt to go down that thing without ’em.”