ed.

"I knew that you had stolen my mummy. Yes, you needn't deny it. Bolton,
like the silly fool he was, told you how valuable the mummy was, and you
strangled the poor devil to get my property."

"Go slow," said the captain, in no wise perturbed by this accusation.
"I would have you remember that at the inquest it was stated that the
window was locked and the door was open. How then could I waltz into
that blamed hotel and arrange for a funeral? 'Sides, I guess shooting
is mor'n my line than garrotting. I leave that to the East Coast
Yellow-Stomachs."

Braddock sat down and wiped his face. He saw plainly enough that he had
not a leg to stand on, as Hervey was plainly innocent.

"'Sides," went on the skipper, chewing his cheroot, "I guess if I'd
wanted that old corpse of yours, I'd have yanked Bolton overside, and
set down the accident to bad weather. Better fur me to loot the case
aboard than to make a fool of myself ashore. No, sir, H.H. don't run 'is
own perticler private circus in that blamed way."

"H.H. Who the devil is H.H.?"

"Me, you bet. Hiram Hervey, citizen of the U.S.A. Nantucket neighborhood
for home life. And see, don't you get m'hair riz, or I'll scalp."

"You can't scalp me," chuckled Braddock, passing his hand over a very
bald head. "See here, what do you want?"

"Name a price and I'll float round to get back your verdant corpse."

"I thought you were going to the South Seas?"

"In three months, pearl-fishing. Lots of time, I reckon, to run this old
circus I want you to finance."

"Have you any suspicions?"

"No, 'sept I don't believe in that window business."

"What do you mean?" Braddock sat upright.

"Well," drawled the Yankee, "y'see, I interviewed the gal as told that
perticler lie in court."

"Eliza Flight. Was it a lie she told?"

"Well, not exactly. The window was snibbed, but that was done after the
chap who sent your pal to Kingdom Come had got out."

"Do you mean to say that the window was locked from the outside?" asked
Braddock, and then, when Hervey nodded, he exclaimed "Impossible!"

"Narry an impossibility, you bet. The chap who engineered the circus
was all-fired smart. The snib was an old one, and he yanked a piece of
string round it, and passed the string through the crack between the
upper and lower sash of the window. When outside he pulled, and the snib
slid into place. But he left the string on the ground outside. I picked
it up nex' day and guessed the rack