“At last,” I said as we sighted the quay, “a soft bed, a hot meal, a good night’s sleep,” but Terence was rowing straight past it.

“Where are you going?” I said.

“To Muchings End,” he said, pulling hard on the oars.

“But you said yourself it’s too late to call,” I said, glancing yearningly back at the quay.

“I know,” he said. “I only want a glimpse of where she lives. I won’t be able to sleep, knowing she’s so close, until I’ve seen her.”

“But it’s dangerous to be on the river at night,” I said. “There are shoals and eddies and things.”

“It’s only a short way,” Terence said, rowing determinedly. “She said it was just past the third island.”

“But we won’t be able to see it at night,” I said. “We’ll get lost and go over a weir and be drowned.”

“There it is,” Terence said, pointing at the shore. “She told me I’d know it by the gazebo.”

The white gazebo gleamed faintly in the starlight, and beyond it, across a sloping lawn, was the house. It was enormous and extremely Victorian, with gables and towers and all sorts of neo-Gothic gingerbread. It looked like a slightly smaller version of Victoria Station.

Its windows were all dark. Good, I thought, they’ve gone to Hampton Court to raise Catherine Howard’s ghost or off to Coventry. I’ll be able to return the cat easily.

“There’s no one there,” I said. “We’d best start back to Streatley. The Swan will be all booked up.”

“No, not yet,” Terence said, gazing at the house. “Let me gaze a moment longer on the hallowed ground whereon she walks, the sacred bower wherein she rests.”

“It does look as though the family has retired for the evening,” Professor Peddick said.

“Perhaps they’ve only got the curtains drawn,” Terence said. “Shh.”

That seemed unlikely, given the pleasantness of the evening, but we obediently listened. There was no sound at all from the shore, only the gentle lap of water, the murmur of a breeze through the rushes, the soft chirrup of frogs croaking. A meowing sound from the bow of the boat.

“There,” Terence said. “Did you hear that?”

“What?” said Professor Peddick.

“Voices,” Terence said, leaning out over the gunwale.

“Crickets,” I said, edging toward the bow.

The cat meowed again. “There!” Terence said. “Did you hear that? It’s someone calling us.”

Cyril sniffed.

“It’s a bird,” I said. I pointed at a tree by the gazebo. “In that willow. A nightingale.”

“It didn’t sound like a nightingale,” Terence said. “Nightingales sing of summer ‘in full-throated ease and pour their souls abroad in ecstasy.’ This didn’t sound like that. Listen.”

There was a snuffling sound in the front of the boat. I whirled round. Cyril was standing on his hind legs, his front paws on the stack of luggage, sniffing at the carpetbag and nudging it with his flat muzzle toward the edge.

“Cyril! Don’t!” I shouted, and four things happened at once. I dived forward to grab the carpetbag, Cyril started guiltily and backed against the wicker basket, Professor Peddick said, “Take care you do not step on the Ugubio fluviatilis,” and leaned sideways to pick the kettle up, and Terence turned round, saw the carpetbag toppling, and dropped the oars.

I tried, in mid-lunge, to avoid the oar and the professor’s hand, and fell flat, Terence intercepted the basket, the professor clutched his kettle of fish to his breast, and I caught the carpetbag by a corner just as it toppled over. The boat rocked dangerously. Water slopped over the bows. I got a better grip on the carpetbag, set it on the stern seat, and pulled myself to a sitting position.

There was a splash. I grabbed for the carpetbag again, but it was still there, and I peered at the bow, wondering if the oar had gone in.

“Cyril!” Terence shouted. “Man overboard!” He began stripping off his jacket. “Professor Peddick, take the oars. Ned, get the life preserver.”

I leaned over the side of the boat, trying to see where he’d gone in.

“Hurry!” Terence said, pulling off his shoes. “Cyril can’t swim.”

“He can’t swim?” I said, bewildered. “I thought all dogs could swim.”

“Indeed. The term ‘dog paddle’ is derived from the instinctive knowledge of swimming Canis familiaris possesses,” Professor Peddick said.

“He knows how to swim,” Terence said, stripping off his socks, “but he can’t. He’s a bulldog.”

He was apparently right. Cyril was dog-paddling manfully toward the boat, but his mouth and nose were both underwater, and he looked desperate. “I’m coming, Cyril,” Terence said and dived in, sending up a wave that nearly sunk him altogether. Terence started to swim toward him. Cyril continued to paddle and sink. Only the top of his wrinkled brow was still above the water.

“Bring the boat to port, no, starboard. To the left,” I shouted and began rummaging for the life preserver, which we had apparently packed on the bottom. “As bad as the Titanic,” I said, and then remembered it hadn’t sunk yet, but no one was listening.

Terence had Cyril by the collar and was holding his head up above the water. “Bring the boat closer,” he shouted, spluttering, and Professor Peddick responded by nearly running him down. “Stop! No!” Terence shouted, waving his arm, and Cyril went under again.

“To port!” I shouted. “The other way!” and leaned over and grabbed Terence by the scruff of his neck. “Not me!” Terence gasped. “Cyril!”

Between us we hoisted a very waterlogged Cyril into the boat where he coughed up several gallons of the Thames. “Put a blanket round him,” Terence said, clinging to the bows.

“I will,” I said, extending my hand. “Now you.”

“I’m all right,” he said, shivering. “Get the blanket first. He catches chills easily.”

I got the blanket, wrapping it round the massive shoulders that had proven Cyril’s downfall, and then we set about the tricky business of getting Terence back in the boat.

“Keep low,” Terence ordered, his teeth chattering, “we don’t want anyone else to go in.”

Terence was no better at following directions than Professor Peddick had been. He persisted in trying to get a leg up over the bow, a motion that caused the bow to slant at an angle almost as bad as that of the Titanic.

“You’ll capsize us,” I said, wedging the carpetbag under the seat. “Hold still and let us haul you in.”

“I’ve done this dozens of times,” Terence said, and swung his leg up.

The gunwale dipped all the way to water level. Cyril, bunched in his blanket, staggered, trying to keep his feet, and the pile of luggage in the bow tilted precariously.

“I’ve never tipped a boat over yet,” Terence said confidently.

“Well, at least wait till I’ve shifted things,” I said, pushing the portmanteau back into place. “Professor Peddick, move all the way to that side,” and to Cyril, who had decided to come over, trailing his blanket, to see how we were doing, “Sit. Stay.”

“It’s all a matter of getting the proper purchase,” Terence said, shifting his grip on the gunwale.

“Wait!” I said. “Careful—”

Terence got his leg into the boat, raised himself on his hands, and pulled his torso up onto the gunwales.

“God himself could not sink this ship,” I murmured, holding the luggage in place.

“All in the balancing.” He hoisted himself into the boat. “There, you see,” he said triumphantly. “Nothing to it,” and the boat went over.

I have no idea how we got to shore. I remember the portmanteau sliding down the deck at me, like the grand piano on the Titanic, and then a lot of swallowing of water and clutching at the life preserver, which turned out to be Cyril, sinking like a stone, followed by more swallowing, and the dead man’s carry, and we were all sitting on the shore dripping and gasping for breath.

Cyril was the first to recover. He tottered to his feet and shook himself all over us, and Terence sat up and looked out at the empty water.