village he remembered to have observed an ancient, weedy houseboat lying

moored beside a tuft of willows. It had stirred in him, in his careless

hours, as he pulled down the river under a more familiar name, a certain

sense of the romantic; and when the nice contrivance of his story was

already complete in his mind, he had come near pulling it all down

again, like an ungrateful clock, in order to introduce a chapter in

which Richard Skill (who was always being decoyed somewhere) should

be decoyed on board that lonely hulk by Lord Bellew and the American

desperado Gin Sling. It was fortunate he had not done so, he reflected,

since the hulk was now required for very different purposes.

Jimson, a man of inconspicuous costume, but insinuating manners,

had little difficulty in finding the hireling who had charge of the

houseboat, and still less in persuading him to resign his care. The rent

was almost nominal, the entry immediate, the key was exchanged against a

suitable advance in money, and Jimson returned to town by the afternoon

train to see about dispatching his piano.

'I will be down tomorrow,' he had said reassuringly. 'My opera is waited

for with such impatience, you know.'

And, sure enough, about the hour of noon on the following day, Jimson

might have been observed ascending the riverside road that goes from

Padwick to Great Haverham, carrying in one hand a basket of provisions,

and under the other arm a leather case containing (it is to be

conjectured) the score of Orange Pekoe. It was October weather; the

stone-grey sky was full of larks, the leaden mirror of the Thames

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