utterly mistaken."

"Two thousand dollars were found on you, and the same on Nick."

"I grant that this fact has a suspicious look about it; and I can not
greatly blame you for your course, though the brutality exercised upon
me was entirely unnecessary. Now I will explain the whole matter to you
just as it was; and you will see that you were greatly mistaken."

"I am ready to hear anything you have to say," I replied.

"That four thousand dollars is a rather annoying coincidence," he
began.

"I should think it might be," I added.

"You quite mistake my meaning. I am willing to admit that I have told
professional lies in the interest of my clients. I am Buckner's
counsel, though I told you to the contrary. He admitted his guilt to
me."

"Did he, indeed? Did he tell you what he did with the package of bills
after he took it from the counter?"

"He did: he acknowledged that he was guilty, and told me how it was
done," replied Cornwood, with easy assurance, of which I had seen a
great deal on his part. "Buckner's wife was at the door of the saloon,
and he gave the package to her as he rushed out. She had it under her
shawl before Nick got half way to the door. She went home; and my
client considers it a successful affair. He offered me five hundred
dollars to get him out of the scrape, and that is the fee for which I
am working just now, in part."

"And he gave you the money, did he?" I asked, hardly able to keep from
laughing in the face of the guileless Floridian.

"Not he, for his wife started for Kentucky, or some other state, as
soon as she got the money. This is where the unlucky coincidence comes
in. My first business in Key West was to see that Nick did not return
home, as I feared you would compel him to do when you found him on
board of the Islander. My second was to pay four thousand dollars,
which I drew from the First National Bank of Florida Friday morning
before I started for Cedar Keys."

"O, I see! That was where the four thousand dollars came from," I
exclaimed.

"Precisely so. I was to pay it into the Marine Court, pending a suit in
which I was interested, against a salvage company."

"But you did not pay it in."

"How could I when it was Sunday? I intended to do so the next day. When
I found that Nick did not mean to stop in Key West, I directed Captain
Blastblow to get up his anchor and hurry to New Orleans before the
Sylvania came in. I could not get ashore myself when I had induced