r suspicions vague, she doesn't pretend she's
happy and she doesn't pretend that Doria is a good husband, or a
good man. She knows that I know better. She has been longing for
your return and it is a question with me now whether we shall not do
wisely to take her into our confidence. If she knew even what we
know, she would no doubt see much light herself and afford much
light for us. As to her good faith and honour, there can be no
question whatever."

"Well--so be it. I've heard you. Now you've got to hear me. We are
up against a very marvellous performance, Mark. This case has some
of the finest features--some unique even in my experience. Though,
as history repeats itself, I dare say there have been bigger
blackguards than the great unknown--though surely not many."

"Robert Redmayne?"

Peter broke off for a brief exposition. He took snuff, shut his eyes
and began.

"Why do you harp on 'Robert Redmayne,' like a parrot, my son? Just
consider all I've said on that matter and the general subject of
forgeries for a minute. You can forge anything that man ever made,
and a good few things that God has made. You can forge a picture, a
postage stamp, a signature, a finger print; and our human minds,
accustomed to pictures, postage stamps, finger prints, are easily
deceived by appearances and seldom possess the necessary expert
knowledge to recognize a forgery when we see it. And now we are
dealing with people who have forged a human being, for that is what
the red man amounts to.

"Didn't you do the same thing last week? Didn't you forge yourself
and leave yourself dead on the ground? Whether the real Robert
Redmayne is actually a stiff, we can't yet swear, though for my part
I am pretty well prepared to prove it; but this I do know, that the
man who shot at you and missed you and ran away was not Robert
Redmayne."

Brendon demurred. "Remember, I'm not a stranger to him, Ganns. I saw
and spoke with him by the pool in Foggintor Quarry before the
murder."

"What of it? You've never spoken with him since; and, what's more,
you've never seen him since, either. You've seen a forgery. It was a
forgery that looked at you on your way back to Dartmouth in the
moonlight. It was a forgery that robbed the farm for food and lived
in the cave and cut Bendigo Redmayne's throat. It was a forgery that
tried to shoot you and missed."

Mr. Ganns took snuff again and continued.

But as the course of his inquiries belong to the te