"Darned if I don't know as there was something on the crook in this here
affair!" he said, almost cheerily. "Well, well--but I ain't got nothing
to do with it. Warrants?--you say? Ah! And what might be the partiklar'
natur' o' them warrants?"
"Murder!" answered the detective. "That's one charge, anyhow--for one of
'em, at any rate. There's others."
"Murder's enough," responded the skipper. "Well, of course, nobody can
tell a man to be a murderer by merely looking at his mug. Not at
all!--nobody! However, this here is how it is. Last night it
were--evening, to be c'rect--dark. I was on the edge o' the fleet, out
there off the Dogger. A yacht comes up--smart 'un--very fast sailer--and
hails me. Was I going into Norcaster or anywheres about? Being a
Northborough tug, this, I wasn't. Would I go for a consideration--then
and there? Whereupon I asked what consideration? Then we bargains.
Eventual, we struck it at thirty pounds--cash down, which was paid,
prompt. I was to take two men straight and slick into Norcaster, to this
here very slip, Scarvell's Cut, to wait while they put a bit of a cargo
on board, and then to run 'em back to the same spot where I took 'em up.
Done! they come aboard--the yacht goes off east--I come careenin' west.
That's all! That part of it anyway."
"And the men?" suggested the detective. "What sort were they, and where
are they?"
"The men, now!" said the skipper.
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