ical register all right up to that point. His name
is Francis Meekin--he's various medical letters to it. He was in one of
the London hospitals with Gilbert Carstairs--he shared those rooms in
Jermyn Street with Gilbert Carstairs. We found--easily--a man who'd
been their valet, and who remembered their setting off on the hunting
expedition. They never came back--to Jermyn Street, anyway. Nothing was
ever heard or seen of them in their old haunts about that quarter from
that time. And when we'd found all that out, we came straight down,
last evening, to the police--and that's all, Mr. Lindsey. And, of
course, the thing is plain to me--Gilbert probably died while in this
man's company; this man possessed himself of his letters and papers and
so on; and in time, hearing how things were, and when the chance came,
he presented himself to the family solicitors as Gilbert Carstairs.
Could anything be plainer?"

"Nothing!" exclaimed Mr. Lindsey. "It's a sure case--and simple when you
see it in the light of your knowledge; a case of common personation. But
I'm wondering what the connection between the Gilverthwaite and Phillips
affair and this Meekin has been--if we could get at it?"

"Shall I give you my theory?" suggested Mr. Elphinstone. "Of course, I've
read all there's been in the newspapers, and Murray told me a lot last
night before we came to you, and you mentioned Mr. Ridley's
discovery,--well, then, I've no doubt whatever that this young gentleman
is Michael Carstairs' son, and therefore the real owner of the title and
estates! And I'll tell you how I explain the whole thing. Michael
Carstairs, as I remember him--and I saw plenty of him as a lad and a
young man--was what you'd call violently radical in his ideas. He was a
queer, eccentric, dour chap in some ways--kindly enough in others. He'd a
most extraordinary objection to titles, for one thing; another, he
thought that, given a chance, every man ought to make himself. Now, my
opinion is that when he secretly married a girl who was much below him in
station, he went off to America, intending to put his principles in
practice. He evidently wanted his son to owe nothing to his birth; and
though he certainly made ample and generous provision for him, and gave
him a fine start, he wanted him to make his own life and fortune. That
accounts for Mr. Gavin Smeaton's bringing-up. But now as regards the
secret. Michael Carstairs was evidently a rolling stone who came up
agai