y to find money--plenty of it,
notes in an old pocket-book, and gold in a wash-leather bag--and the
man's watch and chain, and his pocket-knife and the like, and a bunch of
keys. And with the keys in his hand Mr. Lindsey turned to the chest.

"If we're going to find anything that'll throw any light on the question
of this man's identity, it'll be in this box," he said. "I'll take the
responsibility of opening it, in Mrs. Moneylaws' interest, anyway. Lift
it on to that table, and let's see if one of these keys'll fit the lock."

There was no difficulty about finding the key--there were but a few on
the bunch, and he hit on the right one straightaway, and we all crowded
round him as he threw back the heavy lid. There was a curious aromatic
smell came from within, a sort of mingling of cedar and camphor and
spices--a smell that made you think of foreign parts and queer, far-off
places. And it was indeed a strange collection of things and objects that
Mr. Lindsey took out of the chest and set down on the table. There was an
old cigar-box, tied about with twine, full to the brim with money--over
two thousand pounds in bank-notes and gold, as we found on counting it up
later on,--and there were others filled with cigars, and yet others in
which the man had packed all manner of curiosities such as three of us at
any rate had never seen in our lives before. But Mr. Lindsey, who was
something of a curiosity collector himself, nodded his head at the sight
of some of them.

"Wherever else this man may have been in his roving life," he said,
"here's one thing certain--he's spent a lot of time in Mexico and Central
America. And--what was the name he told you to use as a password once you
met his man, Hugh--wasn't it Panama?"

"Panama!" I answered. "Just that--Panama."

"Well, and he's picked up lots of these things in those parts--Panama,
Nicaragua, Mexico," he said. "And very interesting matters they are.
But--you see, superintendent?--there's not a paper nor anything in this
chest to tell us who this man is, nor where he came from when he came
here, nor where his relations are to be found, if he has any. There's
literally nothing whatever of that sort."

The police officials nodded in silence.

"And so--there's where things are," concluded Mr. Lindsey. "You've
two dead men on your hands, and you know nothing whatever about
either of them!"

CHAPTER VI

MR. JOHN PHILLIPS

He began to put back the various boxes a