to
whet your appetite for more."

They had kept my evidence to the last, and if there had been a good deal
of suppressed excitement in the crowded room while Chisholm and the
doctor and the landlord of the inn on the other side of Coldstream Bridge
gave their testimonies, there was much more when I got up to tell my
tale, and to answer any questions that anybody liked to put to me. Mine,
of course, was a straight enough story, told in a few sentences, and I
did not see what great amount of questioning could arise out of it. But
whether it was that he fancied I was keeping something back, or that he
wanted, even at that initial stage of the proceedings, to make matters as
plain as possible, a solicitor that was representing the county police
began to ask me questions.

"There was no one else with you in the room when this man Gilverthwaite
gave you his orders?" he asked.

"No one," I answered.

"And you've told me everything that he said to you?"

"As near as I can recollect it, every word."

"He didn't describe the man you were to meet?"

"He didn't--in any way."

"Nor tell you his name?"

"Nor tell me his name."

"So that you'd no idea whatever as to who it was that you were to meet,
nor for what purpose he was coming to meet Gilverthwaite, if
Gilverthwaite had been able to meet him?"

"I'd no idea," said I. "I knew nothing but that I was to meet a man and
give him a message."

He seemed to consider matters a little, keeping silence, and then he went
off on another tack.

"What do you know of the movements of this man Gilverthwaite while he was
lodging with your mother?" he asked.

"Next to nothing," I replied.

"But how much?" he inquired. "You'd know something."

"Of my own knowledge, next to nothing," I repeated. "I've seen him in the
streets, and on the pier, and taking his walks on the walls and over the
Border Bridge; and I've heard him say that he'd been out in the country.
And that's all."

"Was he always alone?" he asked.

"I never saw him with anybody, never heard of his talking to anybody, nor
of his going to see a soul in the place," I answered; "and first and
last, he never brought any one into our house, nor had anybody asked at
the door for him."

"And with the exception of that registered letter we've heard of, he
never had a letter delivered to him all the time he lodged with
you?" he said.

"Not one," said I. "From first to last, not one."

He was silent again for a time,