Captain Shannon by Coulson Kernahan

It was some half-mile or so to the west of Southend pier that the little brown cutter referred to in my last chapter was lying, and, as I had seen no other boat up or down the river which in any way corresponded with the description of the boat I was looking for, I at once decided that before extending my researches in other directions round the coast I must satisfy myself that the craft in question was not the "Odd Trick. " In order to do so, and in order also that the person on board, whoever he might be, should not give me the slip, I told my man to anchor the steam launch off the pier-head, where steam launches are often to be seen lying. It did not take long to discover, by the aid of field-glasses, that there were two people on board the cutter, one of whom was evidently a paid hand and the other presumably his employer. That the latter in any way resembled the man for whom I was looking I could not -- much as I should have liked to lay that flattering unction to my soul -- find justification for thinking -- at all events on the evidence of the field-glasses. And as I observed that he invariably went below if any other boat passed close to the cutter, it did not seem worth while to attract his attention, and perhaps arouse his suspicions, by attempting to come to close quarters in order to make a nearer inspection.

The fact that he seemed anxious to keep out of sight was in itself curious, although no one who was not watching his movements very narrowly would have noticed it. Somewhat curious too was another circumstance which happened soon after our arrival. A small yacht, with three or four young men on board, dropped anchor about a hundred yards from the brown cutter. She had not been there long before I saw that the cutter was getting under way for a cruise; but that the cruise in question was taken chiefly as an excuse to change her quarters I had reason to suspect, for after sailing a little way out and circling once round a buoy, as if for the look of the thing, she sailed in again and brought up a quarter of a mile further west, at a spot where no other boat was lying.