am you are likely to walk the
world in safety for the rest of your days. If I knew the circumstances I
might become nervous and I must retain my poise or we perish. Your
autobiography for the past week or so would make a ripping narrative,
but you'd better learn to forget. Our yesterdays are as nothing; it's
tomorrow we've got to think about. Those Congdons are rather a
picturesque lot as I catch them in cinema flashes. It appears from the
paper that young Putney's wife had left him, and there was some sort of
row about the children. The old boy we struck at Cornford will probably
be charging the absconding wife with killing Putney the first thing we
know!"

"Charge Mrs. Congdon with killing her husband! O my God!" wailed Archie.

"Control yourself, my dear boy! One would infer from that item that Mrs.
Congdon dropped off the earth after she left Bailey Harbor. She and her
children motored out of Bailey and haven't yet reached their house in
New York, for which she was presumably bound. By Jove, it's woozzy the
way these Congdons keep bobbing up! I'd give something handsome to know
how the old chap and Seebrook came out at Cornford. I learn that they're
holding Silent Tim, the chap I told you would be arrested, and our part
in the delicate transaction is already obscured."

Archie was giving the Governor only half attention. His nerves were
unstrung by the bald, colorless report of Putney Congdon's
disappearance, which shocked him all the more from the fact that it was
so hideously commonplace, merely a bit of journalistic routine. He
wished the Governor would stop reading newspapers. Now that the man's
disappearance had been heralded the police of the entire country would
be searching for him dead or alive and if his body were found there
would be a great hue and cry until his murderer was apprehended.

The Governor was unconcernedly sketching one of the diagrams with which
he seemed to visualize his plans. These he made in small compass, any
scrap of paper serving his purpose. Archie had supposed this was a means
of recalling places and highways and determining the time required to
reach a certain point, but the Governor was always at pains to conceal
these calculations or memoranda. Archie was startled now to hear his
companion muttering to himself:

"Aries, the Lamb, the Fishes! For a time I stumbled and walked in
darkness but the leading light is clearer now. The moving finger
writes--writes!" He dropped his p