at a large fund you draw. Is Mr. Pinkerton in the
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