Meanwhile I went on reading, very much puzzled.

Naturally the style was not that of "The Diamond Gate," which was the style of Tom Castleton and not of Adrian Boldero.

But was what I read the style of Adrian Boldero?
This vivid, virile opening?
This scene of the two derelicts who hated one another, fortuitously meeting on the old tramp steamer?
This cunning, evocation of smells, jute, bilge water, the warm oils of the engine room?
This expert knowledge so carelessly displayed of the various parts of a ship?
How had Adrian, man of luxury, who had never been on a tramp steamer in his life, gained the knowledge?
The people too were lustily drawn.

They had a flavour of the sea and the breeziness of wide spaces; a deep-lunged folk.

So that I should not be interrupted I wandered off to a secluded nook of the garden down the drive away from the house and gave myself up to the story.