Inspector Gerry Wells was the lucky one this time. He very definitely had the soft side of the deal and, while the wretched Gregory was still hurtling through the air in fear of an imminent and horrible death, the Inspector turned his plane north-westward heading back towards Thanet. He was not risking any more night landings in the fields outside Quex Park without adequate reason so he came down on the well-lit landing ground of the Royal Air Force Depot at Mansion, about midway between Quex Park, Margate and Ramsgate. Having presented his official card to the officer on duty, the courtesy of accommodation for his plane was extended to him and he managed to get a lift in a car to Margate where, feeling that he had earned a comfortable night’s rest, he went straight to the Queen’s Highcliffe Hotel.
One of the hotel guests had had to return to London suddenly that evening because his son had been taken dangerously ill. It was only this fortuitous chance which enabled the night porter to give the detective a bed at the height of the August season with every room booked for a month ahead.
Early rising was a habit with Gerry Wells. He was as fit as a fiddle in wind and limb and a few hours of deep healthy sleep were all he needed to prepare him for another almost indefinite period of activity.
Splashing in his bath at half past six he only controlled the impulse to burst into song at the thought of the other guests who were still sleeping. He was not unduly worried about Gregory because he knew the care with which service parachutes are packed and inspected; it never even occurred to him that the great silk balloon might fail to open.
He thought that Gregory might perhaps have had a bit of a shaking when he landed, owing to the fact that he had never had any instruction in parachute jumping, but Mr. Sallust was a tough customer to the Inspector’s mind and, therefore, should come to little harm. Moreover, Wells had made certain that his unofficial colleague would drop well away from the smugglers’ base so there was no likelihood of his descending in the midst of their illegal activities and being bumped on the head for his pains.
As the Inspector rubbed himself vigorously with his towel his thoughts turned to Milly Chalfont at the Park. What a delightful little thing she was, so slight and graceful, so utterly unspoiled, and so friendly too in spite of her apparent shyness. Gerry was rather a shy fellow himself where women were concerned and although he could admire Sabine as a work of art he would have been terrified of having anything to do with her outside his official business.
While he dressed he reviewed the situation and found it good. His investigation had progressed by leaps and bounds in the last forty-eight hours, thanks of course largely to that lean, cynical devil, Gregory Sallust, but Wells had no stupid pride about the matter. It was his job to run Lord Gavin’s crew to earth and he was only too grateful for any help which might be given him. He assumed, quite reasonably, not knowing what a tiger Gregory could be when he had got his teeth into a thing, that his ally, stranded in Romney Marshes, would spend the night at some local inn, whether he had secured any information or not and, therefore, it was most unlikely that he would put in an appearance again much before midday. There was nothing Wells could do to further his inquiry until Gregory turned up and the golden August morning lay before him. His thoughts gravitated again towards Milly and Quex Park. Had Sabine spent the night there or gone off again after all? In any case it obviously seemed his business to go over and find out.
After an early breakfast he paid his bill and left the hotel. Crowds of holiday makers had risen early too. Family parties, the children with their spades and pails, the elders with their towels and bathing costumes slung across their shoulders, were already making their way from boarding houses and apartments down Petman’s Gap to play cricket on the sands, or bathe in the shallow waters of the low tide. Gerry Wells watched them with a smile. He liked to see people happy, but he wondered what they would think if they knew of his last night’s adventure. That he was a Scotland Yard man they might credit easily enough; that he was on a special inquiry and had been allotted an aeroplane to undertake it, would cause interest and a pleasant feeling that they were in the know about the police not being such a slow-witted lot as some people were inclined to think; but if he had told them that this international smuggling racket was something far more important than anyone could suppose; that it might lead to dangerous criminals and agitators being landed secretly by night, and so evading the immigration officers at the ports; that bombs and poison gas might be imported, which would lead to civil war, to the destruction of their homes, and perhaps the loss of their lives caught up into street fighting that was none of their seeking, they would certainly think that he was romancing or an unfortunate fellow who ought to be locked up in an asylum.
On the corner he managed to get a place in a Canterbury bus, already crowded with happy trippers off to see the old cathedral town and the blood-stained stone where Thomas Becket had been foully done to death by the three Knights so many hundreds of years ago.
He dropped off at Birchington churchyard in which Dante Gabriel Rossetti lies buried but he did not pause to visit the poet’s grave. Instead he turned up Park Lane; his thoughts very much with the living. Outside the west gate of Quex Park he met his man who was keeping in touch with Mrs. Bird.
‘Anything fresh, Thompson?’ he asked.
‘No, sir, nothing. There’ve been no more visitors since you left last night and Mrs. Bird tells me the lady who came down by car slept in the place. She’s still there as far as I know.’
Wells nodded and walked on up the wooded driveway then, skirting the back of the museum, he reached the side entrance to the house.
Mrs. Bird appeared from the kitchen garden with a basket full of runner beans just as he reached the door, and she confirmed Thompson’s report.
‘When the foreign lady turned up she had her bit of supper,’ she said, ‘and told me she meant to stay the night. I always keep a couple of bedrooms ready because that’s his lordship’s orders. After her meal she went straight up without a word except that I wasn’t to call her until she rang for breakfast.’
Milly came out at that moment and smiled shyly at the Inspector. He nodded to her cheerfully.
‘We’re on the right track now, but it’s a matter of waiting until midday, or rather until Mr. Sallust turns up again and I doubt if he’ll be here much before then. I’ve got to kick my heels around for the next few hours and so I was wondering…’
‘Wondering what?’ Milly asked him.
‘Well, my plane’s at Manston aerodrome, only a couple of miles away and I was wondering if you meant what you said about liking to come up for a flip some time.’
Milly paled a little under her creamy skin. ‘I—I think it would be rather fun—with you.’
‘You don’t mind, Mrs. Bird?’ he asked the older woman.
‘As long as you bring her back safe I don’t, but aeroplane’s are tricky things, aren’t they?’
‘Not if they’re looked after properly. Night landings in unknown country aren’t much fun, but it’s no more risky than going for a ride in a car on a lovely day like this.’
‘All right, I’ll get my hat.’ Milly turned away, but he stopped her.
‘You don’t need that—only get it blown off as mine’s an open plane. I’ll borrow a leather jacket for you from one of the pilots.’
Milly looked at Mrs. Bird. ‘You’re sure you don’t mind, Aunty?’
‘Of course I don’t, my pet, as long as you take care. Run along now and enjoy yourself.’
Gerry and the girl left the back of the house and made their way by the side path through the shrubbery out on to the east drive. Both were silent for a few minutes, racking their brains for a subject of conversation. Then Gerry glanced towards the old tower which rose out of a coppice some hundred yards away to their right with the steel structure on its top, which looked like a miniature Eiffel Tower and could be seen above the tree-tops of the park for many miles in all directions.
‘What’s that place?’ he asked. ‘Apart, I mean, from the fact that they may use it now as a signal station to guide their planes in.’
‘It’s called the Waterloo tower, I think,’ she said, ‘built in the year of the battle you know, and it has a peal of bells, twelve of them, the finest in Kent up to a few years ago. Canterbury Cathedral had only ten, until they added another couple and came equal with this lot here. There’s another tower over there too,’ she glanced towards their left where a tall brick building crowned a low fenced-in mound that rose from the grass land. ‘The old gardener told me that Major Powell-Cotton’s father was awfully keen on ships and things; so he used to signal from it to his friends in the navy when they sailed across the bay. The sea is hidden from us here by the trees but it’s only a mile away.’
‘I see he made a collection of old cannons too,’ Wells remarked, looking at the six-deep semi-circle of ancient guns which occupied the mound.
‘That’s right. Some of them came from the Royal George, I’m told, and the little baby ones were taken from Kingsgate Castle. The mound itself is an old Saxon burial ground, raised in honour of some great chief, and it’s supposed to be the reason we have a ghost here. She’s called the White Lady and walks along a path through the woods behind the tower at night, until she reaches the mound, then she disappears. They say she’s the chief’s young wife and she haunts the place where he was buried.’
‘Ever seen her?’
‘No, and I don’t think anyone has for a long time now; all the same I wouldn’t walk along that path at night for anything.’
‘Not if I were with you?’ Gerry asked, smiling at her.
She blushed a little. ‘Well, I might then—that would be different.’
A few moments later they reached the park gates and took the by-roads through the open cornfields towards Manston. They were silent for a good portion of their two-mile walk but strangely happy in each other’s company.
At the aerodrome a friendly artificer lent Milly a flying coat and she was soon installed in the observer’s seat of Wells’s Tiger Moth, a little scared, but even more excited at starting on her first flight.
For nearly an hour they cruised over eastern Kent, first along the northern shore over Birchington, Herne Bay and Whitstable, then south-east to Canterbury, where the towers of the ancient cathedral, lifting high above the twisting streets of the town, were thrown up by the strong sunlight which patterned the stonework like delicate lace against the black shadows made by its embrasures. Ten minutes later they had reached the coast again and were circling over Hythe on the southern shore of the county. Turning east they visited Sand-gate, Folkestone and Dover, flying low round the tower of the old castle upon its cliff, while below them the cross-Channel steamers and the destroyers in the Admiralty basin looked like toy ships that one could pick up in the hand and push out with a stick upon a voyage across a pond. Away over the Channel the white cliffs of Calais showed faintly in the summer haze. From Dover they sailed on to Walmer, Deal and Sandwich, then across Pegwell Bay to Ramsgate, and completed the circle of the Thanet coast by passing low over the long beaches of Broadstairs, Margate and Westgate, where the holiday crowd swarmed like black ants in their thousands and countless white faces stared up towards the roaring plane, waving hands and handkerchiefs in salutation as it soared low overhead.
‘Well, how did you like it?’ Gerry Wells turned to glance over his shoulder as he brought the plane to a halt once more on the Manston landing ground.
‘It—it was fine,’ Milly said a little breathlessly. She had feared that she might be air-sick, but the thrill of watching the tiny human figures in the sunlit fields, and town after town as they circled above them, with some new interest constantly arising out of the far horizon had made her completely forget her fear after the first few moments. Her cheeks were glowing now with a gentle flush from the swift wind of their flight and her blue eyes were sparkling in her delicate little face with happy exhilaration.
As Wells helped her out of the plane he had not the least twinge of conscience at having neglected his duties for an hour or so to give her the experience. He had no regular hours and his work often kept him up all night so he felt perfectly justified in taking this little break which had given Milly and himself so much pleasure.
Having seen his plane into its borrowed hangar they set out again for Quex Park and arrived back at the east gate by half past eleven. Their friendship had now grown to such a state that talking no longer proved a difficulty and Milly was giving him an account of her childhood which, although utterly lacking in all interest for most people, he found quite absorbing.
When they reached the house they went into Mrs. Bird’s sitting-room and found a lanky, unshaven, bedraggled figure lounging in one of the worn arm-chairs. It was Gregory and he was in none too good a humour.
He smiled at them with a cynical twist of his thin lips, ‘Well, you had a good time I hope? Thinking of settling down in Thanet for a holiday?’
Gerry Wells raised his eyebrows. ‘So you’re back already? I hardly thought you’d be likely to get here before midday.’
‘It’s lucky I’m here at all,’ snapped Gregory. ‘Having risked my neck with that blasted parachute of yours. Still, I’ve been kicking my heels here just on two hours, while you’ve been disporting yourself, I gather, with the intention of showing Miss Chalfont what a mighty fine pilot you are.’
Milly went crimson. ‘I—I think I’d better go and find Aunty, if you’ll excuse me,’ she murmured uncomfortably, all the gaiety gone out of her pretty little face.
‘Run along, my dear,’ Gregory said more amiably. ‘It’s not your fault if our heroic policeman decides to take time off to amuse himself—and I’m not his boss anyway.’
Wells drew his shoulders back a little as the girl fled from the room. ‘I take what time off I like, Mr. Sallust, but don’t let’s quarrel over that. Did you have any luck when you landed?’
Gregory shrugged. ‘As I survived the ordeal it was almost inevitable that I should. Their headquarters down there is a little place called the Brown Owl Inn. It’s miles from anywhere—in the middle of the marshes—but near the railway line running from Dungeness to Ashford. I had to stagger a mile through every sort of muck before I got near enough to see what was going on and by that time most of the planes had dumped their stuff and got off again. The interesting thing is, though, that while I was there a goods train came in from Dungeness and unloaded several hundred wooden cases, then the cases the planes had brought were loaded on to it instead, and it puffed off, presumably to London. Afterwards the stuff from the train was loaded on to a fleet of lorries which duly trundled away inland; all the gang who had handled both sets of goods going with them. The two different lots of cases, which were swapped over, had exactly the same appearance, by the way.’
Wells’s eyes brightened. ‘I think I get the idea. They’re probably shipping cargoes of non-dutiable goods in a small freighter. Those would be cleared by the customs without any charges in the normal way, of course, then consigned to London by the railway. But they must have got at some of the railway people to halt the goods train for a few moments near their secret landing ground; then the contraband that the planes bring over is substituted for the non-dutiable stuff and delivered in London without any questions being asked.’
‘That’s about it,’ said Gregory, ‘though why they should bother to make the exchange I don’t quite see.’
‘I do,’ Wells grinned. ‘A fleet of lorries anywhere near the coast at night might quite well be pulled up by one of the preventative men. By using this method they eliminate that risk and get the contraband straight through to London. The thing we’ve got to find out now is the address where the goods are to be delivered at the other end—after they leave the London goods depot.’
Gregory produced the carefully folded form of the stolen telegram, addressed to Corot, from his pocket and spread it out although he knew its contents by heart now. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘at the last two lines, “Seventh”, that was yesterday, 43 47, “Eighth”, that’s today, 43, again 47. From the repetition of the numbers it looks a reasonably safe bet they mean to use the same landing ground to run another cargo tonight; but we’re not having any funny business with parachutes this time. We’ll fly over to Ashford this evening, hire a nice safe car there, park it somewhere where it won’t be noticed a few hundred yards from the Brown Owl and see what’s doing. Maybe, if the luck holds, we’ll be able to secure the information you want.’
‘Fine,’ Wells agreed. ‘We’ll have to get on that train somehow, if it’s only for a moment, so that I can get the address to which the goods are being forwarded in London.’
The next move having been arranged, Gregory decided to go in to Margate. It did not trouble him that the room Wells had occupied at the Queen’s had probably already been let again, owing to the holiday rush, as the proprietors of the St. George’s were old friends of his and he felt certain that, however full up they were, they would fix him up with a bath and a bed for the afternoon. Margate too was more convenient than Birchington for Mansion Aerodrome, so it was agreed that Wells should pick him up at the St. George’s, before going out there, at seven o’clock.
As Gregory stood up Mrs. Bird came in. ‘You’d better make yourselves scarce now you two,’ she said. ‘That Miss Szenty is a proper lazy one, lying abed there and wasting all this lovely morning, but I’ve just taken her breakfast up so she’ll be down shortly, and you don’t want her to see either of you about the place. She says she’ll be staying here for the next few nights so you’d best watch out when you visit us again or you may run into her in the garden.’
‘Thanks, Mrs. Bird. I’m just off,’ Gregory told her. It was some small comfort to be reasonably certain that he would be able to find Sabine there if an emergency made it necessary for him to get hold of her in the next day or two. Tired as he was, he wished desperately that he could remain and see her when she came downstairs, if only for a few moments, but he dared not risk it. His previous blunder was still fresh in his mind. It was a hundred to one that she would take to flight again the second she got rid of him and, in addition, it would give away the fact that the police knew Lord Gavin to be the tenant of Quex Park.
‘Coming, Wells?’ he said abruptly.
‘Not your way,’ the Inspector answered with a shade of embarrassment. ‘As I’ll be at a loose end till this evening I thought of spending the afternoon in Birchington.’
‘Take her to lunch at the Beresford,’ suggested Gregory with a cynical twist of his lip. ‘Be careful you don’t get run in for cradle snatching though.’
Gerry Wells flushed angrily. He saw no reason why he should deny himself the pleasure of remaining in Milly’s immediate vicinity, and asking her to lunch with him had been the very thing he had had in mind, but before he could think of an appropriate retort Gregory had turned his back and slouched out of the door.
‘He’s a rum one and no mistake,’ murmured Mrs. Bird gazing after him resentfully.
‘Oh, he’s all right,’ Wells shrugged. ‘Bitter at times as though something had hurt him once, right inside if you know what I mean, but there’s something about him that one can’t help liking, all the same.’
Milly accepted the Inspector’s invitation joyfully and they lunched together at the hotel. An hour later they were bathing in the west bay beyond the town. The tide was in now but a narrow strip of golden sand enabled them to sun themselves afterwards and Wells thought it altogether the most delightful day he had ever experienced.
He would have liked to linger on the beach indefinitely but his sense of duty to be done did not allow him even to consider such an attractive prospect, so, a little after six, he set off again and by seven he had collected Gregory from the St. George’s Hotel, shaved now and refreshed from his bath, sleep, and an excellent dinner. An hour later, having made the hop to Ashford in Wells’s plane, they were running out of the town in a small hired car towards the scene of Gregory’s adventures on the previous night.
By the time they had completed their fifteen-mile run the sun was setting and soon twilight obscured the more distant prospects across the low-lying marshland. They pulled up at the Brown Owl Inn and went inside for a drink; just as though they were a couple of ordinary motorists.
It was a tiny place, much smaller than it had seemed to Gregory when half-obscured by semi-darkness the night before, and boasted only one small parlour which served the purpose of saloon, private bar, lounge and tap-room, all in one. A big red-faced man, who seemed to be the owner of the place, as well as barman, served them. His manner was surly and off-hand so they failed to draw him into conversation, as they did not wish to arouse his suspicions by forcing themselves upon him and appearing too inquisitive.
Gregory, never at a loss for a plausible lie, said that they were employed by the Ordnance Department, and had to spend the night at Lydd, the Artillery depot, in order to witness some experimental firing with a new gun which would take place early the following morning.
The landlord listened to their statement with a nod of his head but made no comment on it. He had accepted a drink for politeness’ sake, but lounged there behind his bar, stolid and apparently uninterested in their business.
Wells stood another round of drinks then, as an old grandfather clock in the corner of the low room chimed nine, he said to Gregory: ‘We’d better be getting on I think,’ so they went out to their car and drove away.
Gregory pointed out the actual landing-place of the smuggler planes as they passed it in the car just after leaving the Brown Owl. It was a long flat stretch of grassland about three hundred yards wide, between the railway embankment and the road. The place showed no trace of occupation in the evening light and they thought it better not to make a closer inspection of it in case they were observed from the windows of the inn.
The Inspector asked Gregory if he thought he could find the place again where he had abandoned the parachute; so that they might try and retrieve that expensive piece of Government property before darkness set in.
‘Drive on for another half-mile or so towards the coast,’ Gregory suggested, ‘then we’ll have a look round and see if we can spot it. We’ve got to park the car somewhere well out of sight, anyway.’
A few moments later they found a grassy stretch to the left of the road, over which they could drive the car for fifty yards, and they pulled up between two low mounds where there was little chance of it being discovered after nightfall.
Gregory got out and, scaling the fence, ran up the railway embankment. The landscape was dusky now in the fading twilight but, almost at once he saw a grey blob, a little to his right on the far side of the railway. It was the parachute; its tangled cords and material draped over some low bushes.
Calling Wells he set off towards it; marvelling at the ease with which he could cross the tricky country compared to the frightful time he had had when blundering over it in pitch darkness.
They bundled up the parachute and got it back to the car, then settled down to wait, knowing that there was no prospect of the smuggler fleet arriving for another two hours at least.
Fortunately they had brought some sandwiches with them and, sitting on two tussocks of coarse grass, they made a leisurely meal which whiled away a fraction of the time before them.
The night had now closed in and the time of waiting seemed interminable but they had known that they would have to face it if they were to see the landing place by daylight. Gradually the hours dragged themselves along until, at half past eleven, they decided to leave the vicinity of the car and conceal themselves somewhere nearer to the landing ground, so that they would be able to overlook it.
They walked back past the inn, where a single light was still burning in one of the windows, and a few moments later discovered the bushes into which Gregory had blundered the night before. Following these they arrived at the gully under the railway embankment, where he had lain hidden, and decided that it was as good a spot as any from which to observe the operations of the smugglers.
They had been settled down there for about twenty minutes when they caught the noise of a car approaching from inland down the lonely road. It halted outside the inn and soon afterwards the shadowy figures of a little group of men appeared on the landing ground. There was a hissing sound and suddenly a bright flare lit the scene, then the watchers saw that the men were planting big acetylene cylinders in the ‘T’ shaped formation, to indicate the direction of the wind. A few moments more and all the flares were burning brightly.
Wells and Gregory sat tight, knowing that no time would be wasted now the flares had been lit and, within a few moments, they heard the roar of an aeroplane engine as it approached from the north-west.
The plane landed and they recognised it as the four seater which both of them had seen leave Quex Park on the previous night. A tall figure descended from it and limped up to the men by the flares. Evidently it was the Limper’s business to see each cargo safely landed and sent on to its unknown destination.
Next, there was a rumble on the road. Gregory and Wells could not see them but, as it ceased somewhere beyond the inn, they guessed that the fleet of lorries had arrived with the crews who would hump the illicit cargo, and about thirty more men came on to the ground in groups of twos and threes. A new note now came from high up in the sky to eastward, a steady drone which rapidly grew louder, then one by one the de Havillands, lightless but obviously well-practised in making night landings at this secret base, came bouncing forward out of the heavy darkness to land in the glare of the flares.
A group of men ran over to each plane as its propellers ceased to twinkle and began to unload its cargo with well-drilled precision. Then, as the last plane landed, there came the puff, puff, puff of the midnight train, and the earth quivered below the embankment until its driver brought it to a standstill.
Wells touched Gregory upon the elbow and began to back away down the gully. Gregory followed, and when they were out of earshot the Inspector whispered: ‘We’ve got to get over the bank—far side of the train—so they can’t see us by those beastly lights. Then we’ll try and get into one of the wagons unobserved.’
Climbing the wire fence, they crawled up the steep slope, crossed the permanent way on hands and knees, slid down the other side, and made their way back to the place where the train was standing.
Intense activity was now in progress on the far side of it. The men were hurling out the boxes from its foremost wagons. Wells scaled the bank again and slung himself up on to one of the rear trucks but found it padlocked. Gregory tried another with the same disappointing result. Dropping off, the two men conferred again in whispers.
‘They won’t unlock the doors of the vans on this side,’ Gregory muttered.
‘No. Got to take a chance on being spotted and reach the boxes,’ Wells replied. ‘Come on, let’s get beneath the train and wait our opportunity.’
They crawled between the wheels, Wells leading, then a little way along, until they were below some couplings where two of the vans were hitched to one another. The smugglers were hard at work unloading within a few feet of them. The planes which had first arrived, now emptied of their cargo, were already leaving.
One of the wooden cases, which the smugglers were pitching out of the wagons, caught in the rough grass only about a third of the way down the embankment. Wells craned his neck to see the markings on it but the side towards him was in deep shadow. He poked his head out from below the train and took a quick glance round. The men were sweating and cursing as they heaved other cases down the bank. Speed seemed to be the essence of the whole operation and they evidently knew it. The drill, as the Inspector saw it, was that less than half an hour should elapse between the lighting of the flares to show the landing ground, and their extinction; while the train paused on its journey for about seven minutes only.
Gerry Wells decided to take a chance. Praying to all his gods that if the men saw him in the semi-darkness they would take him to be one of themselves, he slipped out from beneath the train and, drawing himself upright, launched himself upon the stranded case. As he heaved it up to throw it down among the rest, he tried to read the big label which was tacked to its top, before it left his hands.
‘Hi!’ a shout came out of the darkness in his rear. ‘What’s that feller doing there?’ It was the driver or the fireman who had witnessed his sudden appearance from underneath the train.
Instantly the mob of workers dropped their cases and turned towards him. Next moment a new voice called from the bottom of the embankment. ‘You there—come here—else I’ll plug you.’
A torch flashed out, and Gregory, who was still concealed under the train, an immobile witness of the scene, saw that the order came from the Limper.
For a second Gregory’s hand closed on the butt of his automatic, but this was England. If he shot the fellow all sorts of unpleasantness would result. He shifted his grip swiftly to his torch instead and silently drew himself up between the two coaches. Then, before Wells had time to answer, he flung it with all his force and unerring aim straight at the Limper’s head.
‘Run, man!’ Gregory shouted, as the torch struck the Limper full on the forehead. ‘Run!’
The Limper went down under the impact of the missile. Wells leapt on to the permanent way, but the man who had first spotted the Inspector sprang from the step of the engine cab and grabbed him round the waist.
Next moment the Limper was on his feet again, yelling blasphemous instructions to his men as half a dozen of them closed in on Gregory.
He laid one of them out with a blow behind the ear and tripped another who went plunging head-over-heels down the embankment.
Wells had torn himself from the grip of the man who had jumped off the train and turned to Gregory’s assistance, but below them now the smugglers were running from all directions, throwing themselves over the fence and scrambling up the bank. The Inspector hit out valiantly but he could not reach Gregory, who had been dragged to the ground. A second later he too was hurled off his feet by the rush of a dozen brawny ruffians. He went down with a thud, one of the men kicked him in the ribs and another, kneeling on his back, pinioned his arms behind him.