“How?” said Davies. “We’re under a searchlight here; and if we’re caught——”

“Your plan—ugh!—it’s as risky as mine, and more so,” I replied, rising with a jerk, for a spasm of cramp took me. “We must separate,” I added, as we walked on. “We want, at one stroke, to prove to them that we’re harmless, and to get a fresh start. I go back to London.”

“To London!” said Davies. We were passing under an arc lamp, and, for the dismay his face showed, I might have said Kamchatka.

“Well, after all, it’s where I ought to be at this moment,” I observed.

“Yes, I forgot. And me?”

“You can’t get on without me, so you lay up the yacht here—taking your time.”

“While you?”

“After making inquiries about Dollmann’s past I double back as somebody else, and follow up the clues.”

“You’ll have to be quick,” said Davies, abstractedly.

“I can just do it in time for the 25th.”