hey had
thought that Sir Gilbert had sailed his yacht in elsewhere, and that I
would be turning up later, and there had been no great to-do after me
until my own telegram had arrived, when, of course, there was
consternation and alarm, and nothing but hurry to catch the next train
north. But Mr. Lindsey had contrived to find out that nothing had been
seen of Sir Gilbert Carstairs and his yacht at Berwick; and to that point
he and I at once turned when the women had gone to bed and I went with
him into the smoking-room while he had his pipe and his drop of whisky.
By that time I had told him of the secret about the meeting at the
cross-roads, and about my interview with Crone at his shop, and Sir
Gilbert Carstairs at Hathercleugh, when he offered me the stewardship;
and I was greatly relieved when Mr. Lindsey let me down lightly and said
no more than that if I'd told him these things, at first, there might
have been a great difference.

"But we're on the beginning of something," he concluded. "That Sir
Gilbert Carstairs has some connection with these murders, I'm now
convinced--but what it is, I'm not yet certain. What I am certain about
is that he took fright yesterday morning in our court, when I produced
that ice-ax and asked the doctor those questions about it."

"And I'm sure of that, too, Mr. Lindsey," said I. "And I've been
wondering what there was about yon ice-ax that frightened him. You'll
know that yourself, of course?"

"Aye, but I'm not going to tell you!" he answered. "You'll have to await
developments on that point, my man. And now we'll be getting to bed, and
in the morning we'll see this Mr. Gavin Smeaton. It would be a queer
thing now, wouldn't it, if we got some clue to all this through him? But
I'm keenly interested in hearing that he comes from the other side of the
Atlantic, Hugh, for I've been of opinion that it's across there that the
secret of the whole thing will be found."

They had brought me a supply of clothes and money with them, and first
thing in the morning I went off to the docks and found my Samaritan
skipper, and gave him back his sovereign and his blue serge suit, with
my heartiest thanks and a promise to keep him fully posted up in the
development of what he called the case. And then I went back to
breakfast with the rest of them, and at once there was the question of
what was to be done. My mother was all for going homeward as quickly as
possible, and it ended up in our seeing