About half-past eight on a fine, sunny June morning, a small yacht crept out of Sennen Cove near the Land's End and headed for the open sea. On the shelving beach of the Cove two women and a man, evidently visitors (or "foreigners" to use the local term), stood watching her departure with valedictory waving of cap or handkerchief, and the boatman who had put the crew on board, aided by two of his comrades, was hauling his boat up above the tide-mark.

Dr. Richard Austin Freeman MRCS LSA (11 April 1862 - 28 September 1943) was a British writer of detective stories, mostly featuring the medico-legal forensic investigator Dr. Thorndyke.