lmly. "My meaning's
plain enough--we'll want to find out, if we can, who it was that
Gilverthwaite sent you to meet. And--for what reason? And--where it was
that the man was to wait for him? And I'll get the superintendent to
come down presently."

"Make it in, say, half an hour," said I. "This is a queer business
altogether, sergeant, and I'm so much in it that I'm not going to do
things on my own responsibility. I'll call Mr. Lindsey up from his bed,
and get him to come down to talk over what's to be done."

"Aye, you're in the right of it there," he said. "Mr. Lindsey'll know all
the law on such matters. Half an hour or so, then."

He made off to the county police-station, and Maisie and Tom and I went
on to our house, and were presently inside. My mother was so relieved at
the sight of me that she forbore to scold me at that time for going off
on such an errand without telling her of my business; but she grew white
as her cap when I told her of what I had chanced on, and she glanced at
the stair and shook her head.

"And indeed I wish that poor man had never come here, if it's this sort
of dreadfulness follows him!" she said. "And though I was slow to say
it, Hugh, I always had a feeling of mystery about him. However, he's
gone now--and died that suddenly and quietly!--and we've laid him out in
his bed; and--and--what's to be done now?" she exclaimed. "We don't know
who he is!"

"Don't trouble yourself, mother," said I. "You've done your duty by him.
And now that you've seen I'm safe, I'm away to bring Mr. Lindsey down and
he'll tell us all that should be done."

I left Maisie and Tom Dunlop keeping my mother company and made haste to
Mr. Lindsey's house, and after a little trouble roused him out of his bed
and got him down to me. It was nearly daylight by that time, and the grey
morning was breaking over the sea and the river as he and I walked back
through the empty streets--I telling him of all the events of the night,
and he listening with an occasional word of surprise. He was not a native
of our parts, but a Yorkshireman that had bought a practice in the town
some years before, and had gained a great character for shrewdness and
ability, and I knew that he was the very man to turn to in an affair of
this sort.

"There's a lot more in this than's on the surface, Hugh, my lad," he
remarked when I had made an end of my tale. "And it'll be a nice job
to find out all the meaning of it, and if the man that's