tly as I saw him dressed at 'Crow's Nest' when Mr. Bendigo
Redmayne disappeared."

"I should like to know his tailor," said Mr. Ganns. "That's a useful
suit he wears."

Then he asked a question that seemed to bear but little on the
subject.

"Plenty of smugglers in the mountains I suppose?"

"Plenty," answered Giuseppe, "and my heart is with them."

"They dodge the customs officers and get across the frontier by
night sometimes I dare say?"

"If I stop here long enough, I shall be better in a position to
know," replied the other cheerfully. "My heart, Signor Ganns, is
with these boys. They are a brave and valiant people and their lives
are very dangerous and thrilling and interesting. They are heroes
and not villains at all. Our woman, Assunta, is the widow of a free
trader. She has good friends among them."

"Now, Peter, tell us all that is in your mind," urged Mr. Redmayne
as he poured out five little glasses of golden liqueur. "You hold
that I go in some peril from this unhappy man?"

"I do think so, Albert. And as to my mind, it is not by any means
made up. You say, 'Catch Robert Redmayne first and decide
afterwards.' Yes; but I will tell you an interesting thing. We are
not going to catch Robert Redmayne."

"You throw up the sponge, signor?" asked Giuseppe in astonishment.

"Surely you have caught everybody you ever tried to catch, Peter?"
asked Albert.

"There is a reason why I shall not catch him," replied Ganns,
sipping from his little Venetian glass.

"Can it be that you think him not a man at all but a ghost, Mr.
Ganns?" asked Jenny, round-eyed.

"He has already suggested a ghost," said Mark, "but there are
different sorts of ghosts, Mrs. Doria. I see that, too. There are
ghosts of flesh and blood."

"If he is a ghost, he is a very solid one indeed," declared Doria.

"He is," admitted Peter. "And yet none the less a ghost in my
opinion. Now let us generalize. It needn't be a sound maxim to seek
the person who benefits by a crime--not always--for often enough the
actual legatee of a murdered man may have had nothing whatever to do
with his death. Albert, for example, will inherit Mr. Bendigo
Redmayne's estate when leave to assume his death is granted by the
law; and Mrs. Doria will inherit her late husband's estate in due
course. But it isn't suggested that your wife killed her first
husband, Signor Doria; and it isn't suggested that my friend here
killed his brother.

"None the less, it'