r taking the maximum attitude. Mr. Portlethorpe
said that even if we had not come to Edinburgh on a fool's errand--which
appeared to be his secret and private notion--we had at any rate got the
information which Mr. Lindsey wanted, and had far better go home now and
attend to our proper business, which, he added, was not to pry and peep
into other folks' affairs. He was convinced that Sir Gilbert Carstairs
was Sir Gilbert Carstairs, and that Mrs. Ralston's and Mr. Lindsey's
suspicions were all wrong. He failed to see any connection between Sir
Gilbert and the Berwick mysteries and murders; it was ridiculous to
suppose it. As for the yacht incident, he admitted it looked at least
strange; but, he added, with a half-apologetic glance at me, he would
like to hear Sir Gilbert's version of that affair before he himself made
up his mind about it.

"If we can lay hands on him, you'll be hearing his version from the
dock!" retorted Mr. Lindsey. "Your natural love of letting things go
smoothly, Portlethorpe, is leading you into strange courses! Man
alive!--take a look at the whole thing from a dispassionate attitude!
Since the fellow got hold of the Hathercleugh property, he's sold
everything, practically, but Hathercleugh itself; he's lost no time in
converting the proceeds--a couple of hundred thousand pounds!--into
foreign securities, which, says yon man Paley, are convertible into cash
at any moment in any market! Something occurs--we don't know what,
yet--to make him insecure in his position; without doubt, it's mixed
up with Phillips and Gilverthwaite, and no doubt, afterwards, with
Crone. This lad here accidentally knows something which might be
fatal--Carstairs tries, having, as I believe, murdered Crone, to drown
Moneylaws! And what then? It's every evident that, after leaving
Moneylaws, he ran his yacht in somewhere on the Scottish coast, and
turned her adrift; or, which is more likely, fell in with that
fisher-fellow Robertson at Largo, and bribed him to tell a cock-and-bull
tale about the whole thing--made his way to Edinburgh next morning, and
possessed himself of the rest of his securities, after which, he clears
out, to be joined somewhere by his wife, who, if what Hollins told us
last night is true--and it no doubt is,--carried certain valuables off
with her! What does it look like but that he's an impostor, who's just
made all he can out of the property while he'd the chance, and is now
away to enjoy his ill-got