"The hard thing before us is this," he said, "to get into touch with Robert Redmayne, or his ghost. There are two sorts of ghost, Mark; the real thing--in which you don't believe and concerning which I hold a watching brief; and the manufactured article. Now the manufactured article can be quite as useful to the bulls as the crooks."

"You believe in ghosts!"

"I didn't say so. But I keep an open mind. I've heard some funny things from men whose word could be relied upon."

"If this is a ghost, that's a way out, of course; but in that case why are you frightened for Albert Redmayne's life?"

"I don't say he's a ghost and of course I don't think he's a ghost; but--"

He broke off and changed the subject.

"What I'm doing is to compare your verbal statement with Mr.

Redmayne's written communication," he said, patting his book. "My old friend goes back a long way farther than you would, because he knows a lot more than you did. It's all here. I've got a regard for my eyes, so I had it typed. You'd better read it, however. You'll find the story of Robert Redmayne from childhood and the story of the girl, his niece, and of her dead father. Mrs. Doria's father was a rough customer--scorpions to Robert's whips apparently--a man a bit out of the common; yet he never came to open clash with the law.

You never thought of Robert's dead brother, Henry, did you! But you'd be surprised how we can get at character and explain contradictions by studying the different members of a family."

"I shall like to read the report."

"It's valuable to us, because written without prejudice. That's where it beats your very lucid account, Mark. There was something running through your story, like a thread of silk in cotton, that you won't find here. It challenged me from the jump, my boy, and I'm inclined to think that in that thread of silk I shall just find the reason of your failure, before I've wound it up."

"I don't understand you, Ganns."

"You wouldn't--not yet. But we'll change the metaphor. We'll say there was a red herring drawn across the trail, and that you took the bait and, having started right enough, presently forsook the right scent for the wrong."

"Puzzle--to find the red herring," said Mark.

Mr. Ganns smiled.

"I think I've found it," he replied. "But on the other hand, perhaps I haven't. In twenty-four hours I shall know. I hope I'm right--for your sake. If I am, then you are discharged without a stain on your character; if I'm not, then the case is black against you."

Brendon made no reply. Neither his conscience nor his wit threw any light on the point. Then Peter, turning to his notes, touched on a minor incident and showed the other that it admitted of a doubt.

"D'you remember the night you left 'Crow's Nest' after your first visit? On the way back to Dartmouth you suddenly saw Robert Redmayne standing by a gate; and when the moonlight revealed you to him, he leaped away and disappeared into the trees. Why?"

"He knew me."

"How?"

"We had met at Princetown and we had spoken together for some minutes by the pool in Foggintor Quarry, where I was fishing."

"That's right. But he didn't know who you were then. Even if he'd remembered meeting you six months before in the dusk at Foggintor, why should he think you were a man who was hunting him?"

Mark reflected.

"That's true," he said. "Probably he'd have bolted from anybody that night, not wishing to be seen."

"I only raise the question. Of course it is easily explained on a general a.s.sumption that Redmayne knew every man's hand was against him. He would naturally, in his hunted state, fly the near approach of a man."

"Probably he didn't remember me."

"Probably; but there are possibilities about the action. He might have been warned against you."

"There was n.o.body to warn him. He had not yet seen his niece, nor spoken with her. Who else could have warned him--except Bendigo Redmayne himself?"

Peter did not pursue the subject. He shut his book, yawned, took snuff, and declared himself ready for a meal. The long day pa.s.sed and both men turned in early and slept till daybreak.

Before noon they had left Baveno on a steamer and were crossing the blue depths of Maggiore. Brendon had never seen the Italian lakes before and he fell silent in the presence of such beauty; nor did Mr. Ganns desire to talk. They sat together and watched the panorama unfold, the hills and gorges, the glory of the light over earth and water, the presence of man, his little homes upon the mountains, his little barques upon the lake.

At Luino they left the steamer and proceeded to Tresa. Beside the railroad, on this brief instalment of the journey, there stood lofty palisades of close wire netting hung with bells. Peter, who had travelled here twenty years earlier, explained that they were erected as a safeguard against the eternal smuggling between Switzerland and Italy.

"'Only man is vile' in fact," he concluded and woke a pa.s.sing wave of bitterness in his companion's spirit.

"And our life is concerned with his vileness," Mark answered. "I hate myself sometimes and wish I was a grocer or a linen draper or even a soldier or sailor. It's degrading to let your life's work depend on the wickedness of your fellow creatures, Ganns. I hope a time is coming when our craft will be as obsolete as bows and arrows."

The elder laughed.

"What does Goethe say somewhere?" he asked. "That if man endures for a million years, he'll never lack obstacles to give him trouble, or the pressure of need to make him conquer them. Then there's Montaigne--you ought to read Montaigne--wisest of men. He'll tell you that human wisdom has never reached the perfection of conduct that itself prescribes; and could it arrive there, it would still dictate to itself others beyond. In a word, the world will never be short of crooks while human nature lasts, nor yet of men trained to lay them by the heels. Crime will continue, in some form or other, as long as men do; and as the criminal gets cleverer, so must we."

"I think better of human nature," answered Mark and his friend applauded him.

"Quite right, my boy--at your age," he said.

They wound over Lugano and came in evening light to its northern sh.o.r.e. Then once more they took train, climbed aloft, and fell at last to Menaggio on Como's brink.

"Now," said Peter, "I guess we'll leave our traps here and beat it to Villa Pianezzo right away. We'll scare the old boy a bit, but can tell him things all fell right and so we found that we could jog along a week before we thought to do so. Not a word that I think him to be in danger."

Within twenty minutes their one-horse vehicle had reached Mr.

Redmayne's modest home and they found three persons just about to take an evening meal. Simultaneously there appeared Mr. Redmayne, his niece, and Giuseppe Doria; and while Albert, Italian fashion, embraced Mr. Ganns and planted a kiss upon his cheek, Jenny greeted Mark Brendon and he looked once more into her eyes.

There had come new experiences to her and they did not fail of the man's observation. She smiled indeed and flushed and proclaimed her wonder and admiration at the speed which had brought him across Europe to her uncle's succour; but even in her animation and excitement the new expression persisted. It set Mark's heart throbbing vigorously and told him that perchance he might yet be useful to her. For there hung a shadow of melancholy on Jenny's face her smiles could not dispel.

Doria held back a little while his wife welcomed her uncle's friend; then he came forward, declared his pleasure at meeting Mark again and his belief that time would soon reveal the truth and set a period to the sinister story of the wanderer.

Mr. Redmayne was overjoyed at seeing Ganns and quite forgot the object of his visit in the pleasure of receiving him.

"It has been my last and abiding ambition to introduce you to Virgilio Poggi, dear Peter, so that you, he and I may sit together, hear each other's voices and look into each other's eyes. And now this will happen. Thus the unhappy spirit who wanders upon the hills has unconsciously accomplished a beautiful thing."

Jenny and a.s.sunta, had hastily prepared for the visitors and now all sat at supper and Brendon learned how rooms were already taken for him and Mr. Ganns at the Hotel Victoria.

"That's as may be," he declared to Doria's wife. "You will find, I think, that Mr. Ganns is going to stop here. He takes the lead in this affair. Indeed there was no great reason why I should have intruded again, where I have failed so often."

Jenny looked at him softly.

"I am very thankful you have come," she said--in a whisper for his ear alone.

"Then I am very thankful too," he replied.

After a cheerful meal Peter absolutely declined to cross Como and visit Signor Poggi on the instant.