“Why?” bluntly asked Telfer.

“Engine trouble. Or exhausted petrol supply.”

The policeman removed his cap and set it down beside the typewriter on the paper-littered table. While his heavy fingers pressed tobacco into the bowl of an ancient pipe his prominent dark eyes noted the details of the room as though it were the first time he had been in it. He was acquainted with every picture on the wall-pictures of swordfish leaping high above water, of sharks being weighed at the head of the jetty, of world-famous anglers who had sat in the chair he now occupied. He knew the contents of heavy leather cases-huge ball-bearing, geared, still reels capable of taking nine hundred yards of number 36-cord, and that inside the long cylinders resting on wall hooks were heavy rods which even he found difficulty in bending against a knee. He had never once been out after the giants of the sea, being too fearful of sickness, but he was a fishing enthusiast on the river.

“Alf Remmings, of theGladious, tells me that Spinks yesterday morning took on board enough fuel to keep theDo-me ’s engine running for thirty hours,” he said deliberately. “TheDo-me left port yesterday morning at eight o’clock, and her petrol supply would have run out at two o’clock this afternoon. Spinks would know his petrol supply in hours, and he would have been back some time this morning, making sure to give himself a good margin-if he had agreed with his angler to stay out fishing all night.”

“Have you been in touch with the other stations up and down the coast?” asked Blade.

Yes. I’ve been in communication with all police stations within a hundred miles north and south of Bermagui. Not one can report anything concerning theDo-me.”