that
nature, and there was evidently nothing to be got out of them more than
we had already got. Nor had the police heard of any stranger being seen
about there--though, as the man who was with us observed, there was no
great likelihood of anybody noticing a stranger, for Largo was nowadays a
somewhat popular seaside resort, and down there on the beach there were
many strangers, it being summer, and holiday time, so that a strange man
more or less would pass unobserved.

"Supposing a man landed about the coast, here," asked Mr. Lindsey--"I'm
just putting a case to you--and didn't go into the town, but walked along
the beach--where would he strike a railway station, now?"

The police official replied that there were railway stations to the
right and left of the bay--a man could easily make Edinburgh in one
direction, and St. Andrews in the other; and then, not unnaturally, he
was wanting to know if Mr. Lindsey was suggesting that Sir Gilbert
Carstairs had sailed his yacht ashore, left it, and that it had drifted
out to sea again?

"I'm not suggesting anything," answered Mr. Lindsey. "I'm only
speculating on possibilities. And that's about as idle work as
standing here talking. What will be practical will be to arrange
about this yacht being locked up in some boat-house, and we'd best
see to that at once."

We made arrangements with the owner of a boat-house to pull the yacht in
there, and to keep her under lock and key, and, after settling matters
with the police to have an eye on her, and see that her contents were
untouched until further instructions reached them from Berwick, we went
off to continue our journey. But we had stayed so long in Largo that when
we got to Edinburgh the last train for Berwick had gone, and we were
obliged to turn into an hotel for the night. Naturally, all our talk was
of what had just transpired--the events of the last two days, said Mr.
Lindsey, only made these mysteries deeper than they were before, and why
Sir Gilbert Carstairs should have abandoned his yacht, as he doubtless
had, was a still further addition to the growing problem.

"And I'm not certain, my lad, that I believe yon man Robertson's tale,"
he remarked, as we were discussing matters from every imaginable point of
view just before going to bed. "He may have brought the yacht in, but we
don't know that he didn't bring Carstairs aboard her. Why was that change
of clothes made? Probably because he knew that he'd be describ