“I confess,” Merriman went on slowly, “that I should have liked to stay in the neighborhood and see if we couldn’t find out something more about the lorry numbers. It may be a trivial point, but it’s the only direct and definite thing we know of. All the rest are hints or suspicions or probabilities. But here we have a bit of mystery, tangible, in our hands, as it were. Why were those number plates changed? It seems to me a good point of attack.”
“I thought of that, too, and I agree with every word you say,” Hilliard replied eagerly, “but there is the question of our being suspects. I believe we shall be watched out of the place, and I feel sure our only chance of learning anything is to satisfy them of our bona fides.”
Merriman agreed, and they continued discussing the matter in detail, at last deciding to adopt Hilliard’s suggestion and set to work on the English end of the mysterious traffic.
About two that afternoon they swung round the Pointe de Grave into the estuary of the Gironde. The tide, which was then flowing, turned when they were some two-thirds of the way up, and it was well on to seven o’clock when they made fast to the same decaying wharf from which they had set out. Hilliard saw the owner, and arranged with him to let the launch lie at one of his moorings until she should be required. Then the friends went up town, got some dinner, wrote their letters, and took the night train for Paris. Next evening they were in London.
“I say,” Hilliard remarked when later on that same evening they sat in his rooms discussing their plans, “I believe we can find out about the Girondin now. My neighbor on the next landing above is a shipping man. He might have a copy of Lloyd’s Register. I shall go and ask him.”
In a few moments he returned with a bulky volume. “One of the wonders of the world, this, I always think,” he said, as he began to turn over the pages. “It gives, or is supposed to give, information about everything over a hundred tons that floats anywhere over the entire globe. It’ll give the Girondin anyway.” He ran his finger down the columns. “Ah! what’s this? Motor ship Girondin, 350 tons, built and so on. ‘The Landes Pit-Prop Syndicate, Ferriby, Hull.’ Hull, my son. There we are.”
“Hull! I know Hull,” Merriman remarked laconically. “At least, I was there once.”
“We shall know it a jolly sight better than that before we’re through, it seems to me,” his friend replied. “Let’s hope so, anyway.”
“What’s the plan, then? I’m on, provided I have a good sleep at home tonight first.”
“Same here,” Hilliard agreed as he filled his pipe. “I suppose Hull by an early train tomorrow is the scheme.”