"I'll tell you," I said. "It was Mr. Lindsey's fault-he let out too much at the police-court. Carstairs was there-he'd a seat on the bench-and Mr. Lindsey frightened him. Maybe it was yon ice-ax. Mr. Lindsey's got some powerful card up his sleeve about that-what it is I don't know. But I'm certain now-now!-that Carstairs took a fear into his head at those proceedings yesterday morning, and he thought he'd settle me once and for all before I could be drawn into it and forced to say things that would be against him."

"I daresay you're right," he agreed. "Well!-it is indeed a strange affair, and there'll be some stranger revelations yet. I'd like to see this Mr. Lindsey-you're sure he'll come to you here?"

"Aye!-unless there's been an earthquake between here and Tweed!" I declared. "He'll be here, right enough, Mr. Smeaton, before many hours are over. And he'll like to see you. You can't think, now, of how, or why, yon Phillips man could have got that bit of letter paper of yours on him? It was like that," I added, pointing to a block of memorandum forms that stood in his stationery case at the desk before him. "Just the same!"

"I can't," said he. "But-there's nothing unusual in that; some correspondent of mine might have handed it to him-torn it off one of my letters, do you see? I've correspondents in a great many seaports and mercantile centres-both here and in America."

"These men will appear to have come from Central America," I remarked.

"They'd seem to have been employed, one way or another, on that Panama Ca.n.a.l affair that there's been so much in the papers about these last few years. You'd notice that in the accounts, Mr. Smeaton?"

"I did," he replied. "And it interested me, because I'm from those parts myself-I was born there."

He said that as if this fact was of no significance. But the news made me p.r.i.c.k up my ears.

"Do you tell me that!" said I. "Where, now, if it's a fair question?"

"New Orleans-near enough, anyway, to those parts," he answered. "But I was sent across here when I was ten years old, to be educated and brought up, and here I've been ever since."

"But-you're a Scotsman?" I made bold to ask him.

"Aye-on both sides-though I was born out of Scotland," he answered with a laugh. And then he got out of his chair. "It's mighty interesting, all this," he went on. "But I'm a married man, and my wife'll be wanting dinner for me. Now, will you bring Mr. Lindsey to see me in the morning-if he comes?"

"He'll come-and I'll bring him," I answered. "He'll be right glad to see you, too-for it may be, Mr. Smeaton, that there is something to be traced out of that bit of letter paper of yours, yet."

"It may be," he agreed. "And if there's any help I can give, it's at your disposal. But you'll be finding this-you're in a dark lane, with some queer turnings in it, before you come to the plain outcome of all this business!"

We went down into the street together, and after he had asked if there was anything he could do for me that night, and I had a.s.sured him there was not, we parted with an agreement that Mr. Lindsey and I should call at his office early next morning. When he had left me, I sought out a place where I could get some supper, and, that over, I idled about the town until it was time for the train from the south to get in. And I was on the platform when it came, and there was my mother and Maisie and Mr. Lindsey, and I saw at a glance that all that was filling each was sheer and infinite surprise. My mother gripped me on the instant.

"Hugh!" she exclaimed. "What are you doing here, and what does all this mean? Such a fright as you've given us! What's the meaning of it?"

I was so taken aback, having been certain that Carstairs would have gone home and told them I was accidentally drowned, that all I could do was to stare from one to the other. As for Maisie, she only looked wonderingly at me; as for Mr. Lindsey, he gazed at me as scrutinizingly as my mother was doing.

"Aye!" said he, "what's the meaning of it, young man? We've done your bidding and more-but-why?"

I found my tongue at that.

"What!" I exclaimed. "Haven't you seen Sir Gilbert Carstairs? Didn't you hear from him that-"

"We know nothing about Sir Gilbert Carstairs," he interrupted. "The fact is, my lad, that until your wire arrived this afternoon, n.o.body had even heard of you and Sir Gilbert Carstairs since you went off in his yacht yesterday. Neither he nor the yacht have ever returned to Berwick. Where are they?"

CHAPTER XXII

I READ MY OWN OBITUARY

It was my turn to stare again-and stare I did, from one to the other in silence, and being far too much amazed to find ready speech. And before I could get my tongue once more, my mother, who was always remarkably sharp of eye, got her word in.

"What're you doing in that new suit of clothes?" she demanded. "And where's your own good clothes that you went away in yesterday noon? I mis...o...b.. this stewardship's leading you into some strange ways!"

"My own good clothes, mother, are somewhere in the North Sea," retorted I. "Top or bottom, sunk or afloat, it's there you'll find them, if you're more anxious about them than me! Do you tell me that Carstairs has never been home?" I went on, turning to Mr. Lindsey, "Then I don't know where he is, nor his yacht either. All I know is that he left me to drown last night, a good twenty miles from land, and that it's only by a special mercy of Providence that I'm here. Wherever he is, yon man's a murderer-I've settled that, Mr. Lindsey!"

The women began to tremble and to exclaim at this news, and to ask one question after another, and Mr. Lindsey shook his head impatiently.

"We can't stand talking our affairs in the station all night," said he. "Let's get to an hotel, my lad-we're all wanting our suppers. You don't seem as if you were in very bad spirits, yourself."

"I'm all right, Mr. Lindsey," I answered cheerfully. "I've been down to Jericho, it's true, and to worse, but I chanced across a good Samaritan or two. And I've looked out a clean and comfortable hotel for you, and we'll go there now."

I led them away to a good hotel that I had noticed in my walks, and while they took their suppers I sat by and told them all my adventure, to the accompaniment of many exclamations from my mother and Maisie. But Mr. Lindsey made none, and I was quick to notice that what most interested him was that I had been to see Mr. Gavin Smeaton.

"But what for did you not come straight home when you were safely on sh.o.r.e again?" asked my mother, who was thinking of the expense I was putting her to. "What's the reason of fetching us all this way when you're alive and well?"

I looked at Mr. Lindsey-knowingly, I suppose.

"Because, mother," I answered her, "I believed yon Carstairs would go back to Berwick and tell that there'd been a sad accident, and I was dead-drowned-and I wanted to let him go on thinking that I was dead-and so I decided to keep away. And if he is alive, it'll be the best thing to let the man still go on thinking I was drowned-as I'll prove to Mr. Lindsey there. If Carstairs is alive, I say, it's the right policy for me to keep out of his sight and our neighbourhood."

"Aye!" agreed Mr. Lindsey, who was a quick hand at taking up things.

"There's something in that, Hugh."

"Well, it's beyond me, all this," observed my mother, "and it all comes of me taking yon Gilverthwaite into the house! But me and Maisie'll away to our beds, and maybe you and Mr. Lindsey'll get more light out of the matter than I can, and glad I'll be when all this mystery's cleared up and we'll be able to live as honest folk should, without all this flying about the country and spending good money."

I contrived to get a few minutes with Maisie, however, before she and my mother retired, and I found then that, had I known it, I need not have been so anxious and disturbed. For they had attached no particular importance to the fact that I had not returned the night before; they had thought that Sir Gilbert had sailed his yacht in elsewhere, and that I would be turning up later, and there had been no great to-do after me until my own telegram had arrived, when, of course, there was consternation and alarm, and nothing but hurry to catch the next train north. But Mr. Lindsey had contrived to find out that nothing had been seen of Sir Gilbert Carstairs and his yacht at Berwick; and to that point he and I at once turned when the women had gone to bed and I went with him into the smoking-room while he had his pipe and his drop of whisky. By that time I had told him of the secret about the meeting at the cross-roads, and about my interview with Crone at his shop, and Sir Gilbert Carstairs at Hathercleugh, when he offered me the stewardship; and I was greatly relieved when Mr. Lindsey let me down lightly and said no more than that if I'd told him these things, at first, there might have been a great difference.

"But we're on the beginning of something," he concluded. "That Sir Gilbert Carstairs has some connection with these murders, I'm now convinced-but what it is, I'm not yet certain. What I am certain about is that he took fright yesterday morning in our court, when I produced that ice-ax and asked the doctor those questions about it."

"And I'm sure of that, too, Mr. Lindsey," said I. "And I've been wondering what there was about yon ice-ax that frightened him. You'll know that yourself, of course?"

"Aye, but I'm not going to tell you!" he answered. "You'll have to await developments on that point, my man. And now we'll be getting to bed, and in the morning we'll see this Mr. Gavin Smeaton. It would be a queer thing now, wouldn't it, if we got some clue to all this through him? But I'm keenly interested in hearing that he comes from the other side of the Atlantic, Hugh, for I've been of opinion that it's across there that the secret of the whole thing will be found."

They had brought me a supply of clothes and money with them, and first thing in the morning I went off to the docks and found my Samaritan skipper, and gave him back his sovereign and his blue serge suit, with my heartiest thanks and a promise to keep him fully posted up in the development of what he called the case. And then I went back to breakfast with the rest of them, and at once there was the question of what was to be done. My mother was all for going homeward as quickly as possible, and it ended up in our seeing her and Maisie away by the next train; Mr. Lindsey having made both swear solemnly that they would not divulge one word of what had happened, nor reveal the fact that I was alive, to any living soul but Andrew Dunlop, who, of course, could be trusted. And my mother agreed, though the proposal was anything but pleasant or proper to her.

"You're putting on me more than any woman ought to be asked to bear, Mr. Lindsey," said she, as we saw them into the train. "You're asking me to go home and behave as if we didn't know whether the lad was alive or dead. I'm not good at the playacting, and I'm far from sure that it's either truthful or honest to be professing things that isn't so. And I'll be much obliged to you if you'll get all this cleared up, and let Hugh there settle down to his work in the proper way, instead of wandering about on business that's no concern of his."

We shook our heads at each other as the train went off, Maisie waving good-bye to us, and my mother sitting very stiff and stern and disapproving in her corner of the compartment.

"No concern of yours, d'ye hear, my lad?" laughed Mr. Lindsey. "Aye, but your mother forgets that in affairs of this sort a lot of people are drawn in where they aren't concerned! It's like being on the edge of a whirlpool-you're dragged into it before you're aware. And now we'll go and see this Mr. Smeaton; but first, where's the telegraph office in this station? I want to wire to Murray, to ask him to keep me posted up during today if any news comes in about the yacht."

When Mr. Lindsey was in the telegraph office, I bought that morning's Dundee Advertiser, more to fill up a few spare moments than from any particular desire to get the news, for I was not a great newspaper reader. I had scarcely opened it when I saw my own name. And there I stood, in the middle of the bustling railway station, enjoying the sensation of reading my own obituary notice.

"Our Berwick-on-Tweed correspondent, telegraphing late last night, says:-Considerable anxiety is being felt in the town respecting the fate of Sir Gilbert Carstairs, Bart., of Hathercleugh House, and Mr. Hugh Moneylaws, who are feared to have suffered a disaster at sea. At noon yesterday, Sir Gilbert, accompanied by Mr. Moneylaws, went out in the former's yacht (a small vessel of light weight) for a sail which, according to certain fishermen who were about when the yacht left, was to be one of a few hours only. The yacht had not returned last night, nor has it been seen or heard of since its departure. Various Berwick fishing craft have been out well off the coast during today, but no tidings of the missing gentlemen have come to hand. Nothing has been heard of, or from, Sir Gilbert at Hathercleugh up to nine o'clock this evening, and the only ray of hope lies in the fact that Mr. Moneylaws' mother left the town hurriedly this afternoon-possibly having received some news of her son. It is believed here, however, that the light vessel was capsized in a sudden squall, and that both occupants have lost their lives. Sir Gilbert Carstairs, who was the seventh baronet, had only recently come to the neighbourhood on succeeding to the t.i.tle and estates. Mr. Moneylaws, who was senior clerk to Mr. Lindsey, solicitor, of Berwick, was a very promising young man of great ability, and had recently been much before the public eye as a witness in connection with the mysterious murders of John Phillips and Abel Crone, which are still attracting so much attention."

I shoved the newspaper into Mr. Lindsey's hand as he came out of the telegraph office. He read the paragraph in silence, smiling as he read.

"Aye!" he said at last, "you have to leave home to get the home news. Well-they're welcome to be thinking that for the present. I've just wired Murray that I'll be here till at any rate this evening, and that he's to telegraph at once if there's tidings of that yacht or of Carstairs. Meanwhile, well go and see this Mr. Smeaton."

Mr. Smeaton was expecting us-he, too, was reading about me in the Advertiser when we entered, and he made some joking remark about it only being great men that were sometimes treated to death-notices before they were dead. And then he turned to Mr. Lindsey, who I noticed had been taking close stock of him.

"I've been thinking out things since Mr. Moneylaws was in here last night," he remarked. "Bringing my mind to bear, do you see, on certain points that I hadn't thought of before. And maybe there's something more than appears at first sight in yon man John Phillips having my name and address on him."

"Aye?" asked Mr. Lindsey, quietly. "How, now?"

"Well," replied Mr. Smeaton, "there may be something in it, and there may be nothing-just nothing at all. But it's the fact that my father hailed from Tweedside-and from some place not so far from Berwick."