A
ship's siren began to roar somewhere behind them. The steamer which
they had passed was about to pursue her course.
Closer in-shore drew the boat, passing a series of wharves, and beyond
these a tract of waste, desolate bank very gloomy in the half light
and apparently boasting no habitation of man. The activities of the
Greenwich bank seemed remote, and the desolation of the Isle of Dogs
very near, touching them intimately with its peculiar gloom.
A light sprang into view some little distance inland, notable because
it shone lonely in an expanse of utter blackness. Kerry broke the long
silence.
"Dougal's," he said. "Put us ashore here."
The police boat was pulled in under a rickety wooden structure,
beneath which the Thames water whispered eerily; and Kerry and Seton
disembarked, mounting a short flight of slimy wooden steps and
crossing a roughly planked place on to a shingly slope. Climbing this,
they were on damp waste ground, pathless and uninviting.
"Dougal's is being watched," said Kerry. "I think I told you?"
"Yes," replied Seton. "But I have formed the opinion that the dope
gang is too clever for the ordinary type of man. Sin Sin Wa is an
instance of what I mean. Neither you nor I doubt that he is a receiver
of drugs--perhaps the receiver; but where is our case? The only real
link connecting him with the West-End habitue is his wife.
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