thing at all? It was you only who knew the address, and you were
concealing it. Suppose I should communicate with Mr. Pinkerton----"

"Look here!" I interrupted, "communicate with him (if you will permit
me to clothe my idea in a vulgar shape) till you are blue in the face.
There is only one person with whom I refuse to allow you to communicate
further, and that is myself. Good morning."

He could not conceal his rage, disappointment, and surprise; and in the
passage (I have no doubt) was shaken by St. Vitus.

I was disgusted by this interview; it struck me hard to be suspected
on all hands, and to hear again from this trafficker what I had heard
already from Jim's wife; and yet my strongest impression was different
and might rather be described as an impersonal fear. There was something
against nature in the man's craven impudence; it was as though a lamb
had butted me; such daring at the hands of such a dastard, implied
unchangeable resolve, a great pressure of necessity, and powerful means.
I thought of the unknown Carthew, and it sickened me to see this ferret
on his trail.

Upon inquiry I found the lawyer was but just disbarred for some
malpractice; and the discovery added excessively to my disquiet. Here
was a rascal without money or the means of making it, thrust out of the
doors of his own trade, publicly shamed, and doubtless in a deuce of a
bad temper with the universe. Here, on the other hand, was a man with a
secret; rich, terrified, practically in hiding; who had been willing
to pay ten thousand pounds for the bones of the Flying Scud. I slipped
insensibly into a mental alliance with the victim; the business weighed
on me; all day long, I was wondering how much the lawyer knew, how much
he guessed, and when he would open his attack.

Some of these problems are unsolved to this day; others were soon made
clear. Where he got Carthew's name is still a mystery; perhaps some
sailor on the Tempest, perhaps my own sea-lawyer served him for a tool;
but I was actually at his elbow when he learned the address. It fell
so. One evening, when I had an engagement and was killing time until the
hour, I chanced to walk in the court of the hotel while the band played.
The place was bright as day with the electric light; and I recognised,
at some distance among the loiterers, the person of Bellairs in talk
with a gentleman whose face appeared familiar. It was certainly some one
I had seen, and seen recently; but who or