saw it in Van Sneck's hands the day
he was assaulted. I recollect asking him where he got it from, and he
said that it was a present from Henson. He was going off to meet Henson
then by the corner of Brunswick Square."

"Did you see Van Sneck again that day?"

"Later on in the afternoon. We went into the Continental together. Van
Sneck had been drinking."

"You did not see the cigar-case again?"

"No. Van Sneck gave me a cigar which he took from the common sort of case
that they give away with seven cigars for a shilling. I asked him if he
had seen Henson, and he said that he had. He seemed pretty full up
against Henson, and said something about the latter having played him a
scurvy trick and he didn't like it, and that he'd be even yet. I didn't
take any notice of that, because it was no new thing for Henson to play
it low down on his pals."

"Did anything else happen at that interview?" Chris asked, anxiously.
"Think! The most trivial thing to you would perhaps be of the greatest
importance to us."

Merritt knitted his brows thoughtfully.

"We had a rambling kind of talk," he said. "It was mostly Van Sneck who
talked. I left him at last because he got sulky over my refusal to take a
letter for him to Kemp Town."

"Indeed! Do you recollect where that letter was addressed to?"

"Well, of course I've forgotten the address; but it was to some writing
man--Stone, or Flint, or--"

"Steel, perhaps?"

"That's the name! David Steel, Esq. Van Sneck wanted me to take that
letter, saying as it would put a spoke in Reginald Henson's wheel, but I
didn't see it. A boy took the letter at last."

"Did you see an answer come back?"

"Yes, some hour or so later. Van Sneck seemed to be greatly pleased with
it. He said he was going to make an evening call late that night that
would cook Henson's goose. And he was what you call gassy about
it: said he had told Henson plump and plain what he was going to do, and
that he was not afraid of Henson or any man breathing."

Chris asked no further questions for the moment. The track was getting
clearer. She had, of course, heard by this time of the letter presumedly
written by David Steel to the injured man Van Sneck, which had been found
in his pocket by Dr. Cross. The latter had been written most assuredly in
reply to the note Merritt had just alluded to, but certainly not written
by David Steel. Who, then, seeing that it was Steel's private note-paper?
The more Chris thou