himself had been temporarily employed."

"Ah," said Mr. Carr, remembering this same Druitt had been mentioned to
him. "But the man was called Gorton, not Gordon. You must have caught up
the wrong name, Taylor. Or perhaps he misunderstood you. That's all; you
may go now."

The clerk departed. Mr. Carr took his hat and followed him down; but
before joining Lord Hartledon he turned into the Temple Gardens, and
strolled towards the river; a few moments of fresh air--fresh to those
hard-worked denizens of close and crowded London--seemed absolutely
necessary to the barrister's heated brain.

He sat down on a bench facing the water, and bared his brow to the
breeze. A cool head, his; never a cooler brought thought to bear upon
perplexity; nevertheless it was not feeling very collected now. He could
not reconcile sundry discrepancies in the trouble he was engaged in
fathoming, and he saw no release whatever for Lord Hartledon.

"It has only complicated the affair," he said, as he watched the steamers
up and down, "this calling in Green the detective, and the news he
brings. Gordon the Gordon of the mutiny! I don't like it: the other
Gordon, simple enough and not bad-hearted, was easy to deal with in
comparison; this man, pirate, robber, murderer, will stand at nothing. We
should have a hold on him, it's true, in his own crime; but what's to
prevent his keeping himself out of the way, and selling Hartledon to
another? Why he has not sold him yet, I can't think. Unless for some
reason he is waiting his time."

He put on his hat and began to count the barges on the other side, to
banish thought. But it would not be banished, and he fell into the train
again.

"Mair's behaving well; with Christian kindness; but it's bad enough to be
even in _his_ power. There's something in Lord Hartledon he 'can't help
loving,' he writes. Who can? Here am I, giving up circuit--such a thing
as never was heard of--calling him friend still, and losing my rest at
night for him! Poor Val! better he had been the one to die!"

"Please, sir, could you tell us the time?"

The spell was broken, and Mr. Carr took out his watch as he turned his
eyes on a ragged urchin who had called to him from below.

The tide was down; and sundry Arabs were regaling their naked feet in the
mud, sporting and shouting. The evening drew in earlier than they did,
and the sun had already set.

Quitting the garden, Mr. Carr stepped into a hansom, and was conveyed to