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
Canal 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
prick 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 assured him there
was not, we parted with an agreement that Mr. Lindsey and I