The club secretary found a packet of cigarettes in the table drawer and lit one. Then he rose to his feet and crossed to the barometer, which he gently tapped with a finger-nail. The pointer moved steadily to halt at the figures 29.95.

“Hum! Barometer beginning to fall. You say that the wind is from the east. TheDo-me might well show up before night.”

“Hope your guess is correct,” Telfer said dryly.

“And,” went on Blade, “if she doesn’t, then one or more of the Eden launches may have word of her when they get in this evening. I’m not worrying a great deal as yet, because of my confidence in Bill Spinks. He knows as much about this coast, and the currents off it, as any man bar old Joe Peace.”

“I still don’t like thisDo-me business,”persisted Constable Telfer. “Listen to me. Yesterday there were three launches out at sea with theDo-me. As you know, they were theGladious, theSnowy and theEdith. The last of those three to sight theDo-me was theGladious just after eleven o’clock. TheDo-me was then still trolling to the east, towards Swordfish Reef.”

Blade regarded the policeman steadily.

“You have been busy today,” he said. “Go on.”

“An hour after he last saw theDo-me, Remmings on theGladious was five miles farther south. There was a haze on the sea, reducing visibility to a few miles, and the current at the south end of Swordfish Reef was setting south. If theDo-me ’s engine had broken down after Remmings lost sight of her, she’d drift southward fairly fast because there wasn’tno wind to fill her sail. In which case a trawler, working six or seven miles south of theGladious, and as far off the land, might easily have seen theDo-me. Unlike the launches, that trawler would work all night in that same area. And last night, or rather early this morning, Remmings ran alongside the trawler and spoke with the captain. No one on the trawler had sighted theDo-me.