this man Glass got hold of
a change of clothes. Take Mr. Goodfellow with you, and while you are
playing detective at St. Mawes, he can cross over to Falmouth and
fetch along the corner cupboard. Harry has the key, and we'll open
it here and read what the captain has to say in this famous roll of
paper. It won't do more than tantalize us, I very much fear, seeing
that the chart has disappeared, and likely enough for ever."

But it had not.

It so happened that while I stood by my father's bedside that morning
I had noticed a flag, rolled in a bundle and laid upon the chest of
drawers beside his dressing-table. I concluded at once that Plinny
had fetched it from the summer-house to spread over his coffin.

Women know nothing about flags. This one was a red ensign, in those
days a purely naval flag, carried (since Trafalgar) by the highest
rank of admirals. Ashore, any one could hoist it, but the flag to
cover a soldier's body was the flag of Union.

This had crossed my mind when I caught sight of the red ensign on the
chest of drawers; and again in the summer-house, as I lifted the lid
of the flag-locker and noted the finger-marks in the dust upon it, I
guessed that Plinny had visited it with pious purpose, and,
woman-like, chosen the first flag handy. I had meant to repair her
mistake, and again had forgotten my intention.

Mr. Jack Rogers had driven off for St. Mawes, with Mr. Goodfellow in
the tilbury beside him. Constable Hosken was on his way to Torpoint.
Miss Belcher had withdrawn to her great house, after insisting that I
must be fed once more and packed straight off to bed; and fed I duly
was, and tucked between sheets, to sleep, exhausted, very nearly the
round of the clock.

Footsteps awoke me--footsteps on the landing outside my bedroom.
I sat up, guessing at once that they were the footsteps of the
carpenter and his men, arrived in the dawn with the shell of my
father's coffin. Almost at once I remembered the red ensign, and,
waiting until the footsteps withdrew, stole across, half dressed, to
my father's room to change it. The faint rays of dawn drifted in
through the closed blinds. The coffin-shell lay the length of the
bed, and in it his body. The carpenter's men had left it uncovered.
In the dim light, no doubt, they had overlooked the flag, which I
felt for and found. Tucking it under my arm, I closed the door and
tiptoed downstairs, let myself out at the back, and stole out to the