These admissions made it abundantly clear that French was once more on the right track, and he handed over his five francs with the feeling that he had made the cheapest bargain of his life.
He had no doubt that Dangle had sailed with the senior partner on the tramp, but he felt he must make sure, and he walked slowly back towards the quays, turning over in his mind possible methods for settling the point. One inquiry seemed promising. If the ship had lain at anchor out in the river, and if Dangle had gone aboard her, he must have had a boat to do so. French wondered could he find that boat.
He felt himself held up by the language difficulty. Up to the present he had had extraordinary luck in this respect, but then up to the present he had been interviewing educated persons whose business brought them in contact with foreigners. He doubted if he could make boatmen and loafers about the quays understand what he wanted.
A trial convinced him that his fears were well founded, and he lost a solid hour in finding the Berlitz School and engaging a young linguist with a reputation for discretion. Then, accompanied by M. Jules Renard, he returned to the quays and set systematically to work. He began by inquiring where boats might be hired, and where there were steps at which ships’ boats might come alongside. Taking these in turn he asked had the boatmen taken a passenger out to the L’Escaut between and on the previous Thursday? Or had the loafer, stevedore, shunter, or constable, as the case might be, noticed if a boat had come ashore from the same vessel on the same date and at the same time?
Though the work was easy it bade fair to be tedious, and therefore for more than one reason French felt a glow of satisfaction when at his fourth inquiry his question received an affirmative answer. A wizened old man, one of a small knot of longshoremen whom M. Renard addressed, separated himself from his companions and came forward. He said that he was a boatman, and that he had been hailed by a man—an Englishman, he believed—at the time stated, and had rowed him out to the ship.
“Ask him if that’s the man,” French directed, producing Dangle’s photograph, though he felt there could be no doubt as to the reply.
He was therefore immensely dashed when the boatman shook his head. This was not the man at all. The traveler was a short, rather stout man with a small fair mustache.
French gasped. The description sounded familiar. Taking out Blessington’s photograph he passed it over.
This time the boatman nodded. Yes, that was the man he had rowed out. He had no doubt of him whatever.
This was unexpected but most welcome news, though as French thought over it, he saw that it was not so surprising after all. If Dangle was in it, why not Blessington, and for the matter of that, why not Sime also? In this case he wondered where Susan could be, and more acutely, what had been the fate of Joan Merrill. Possibly, he thought, his inquiries about Dangle would solve these questions also.
Half an hour later he struck oil for the second time. Another boatman, a little further along the quays, had also rowed a passenger out to the L’Escaut, and this one, it appeared, was Dangle. But though French kept working steadily away, he could hear nothing of Sime.
In the end it was a suggestion of Renard’s that put him once more on the trail. The interpreter proved an intelligent youth, and when he had grasped the point at issue, he stopped and pointed to the river.
“You say, monsieur, that the sheep, she lie there, opposite the Musée Steen, is it not so? Bon! We haf walked along all the quays near to that. Your friends would not haf hired boat from farther on—it is too far. You say, too, they come from England secretly, is it not? Bon! They would come to the other side.”
French did not understand.
“The other side?” he repeated questioningly.
“But yes, monsieur, the other side.” The young fellow’s eyes flashed in his eagerness. “Over there, La Gare de Waes.” He pointed out across the great stream to its west bank.
“I didn’t know there was a station across there,” French admitted. “Where does the line go to?”
“Direct to Ghent. Your friends change trains at Ghent. It is a quiet railway. They come unseen.”
“Good man,” said French heartily. “We’ll go and find out. How do you get to the blessed place?”
M. Renard smiled delightedly.
“Ah yes, monsieur. You weesh to cross? Is it not?” he cried. “This way. We take ferry from the Quai Van Dyck. It is near.”
Half an hour later they had reached the Tête de Flandre—the low-lying western bank of the Scheldt. It bore a small but not unpicturesque cluster of old-fashioned houses, nestling about one of the historic Antwerp forts. Renard, now apparently quite as interested in the chase as French, led the way along the river bank from boatman to boatman, with the result that before very many minutes had passed French had obtained the information he wanted.
It appeared that about on the day in question, a strapping young boatman had noticed three strangers approaching from the direction of the Waes Station, a hundred yards or more distant. They consisted of a tall, clean-shaven man of something under middle age and two women, both young. One was tall and strongly made and dark as to hair and eyes, the other was slighter and with red gold hair. The smaller one seemed to be ill, and was stumbling along between the other two, each of whom supported her by an arm. None of the trio could speak French or Flemish, but they managed by signs to convey the information that they wanted
