are
not serious--he had one in my room the other night. It is a result of
over-indulgence, and six months in Canada will make a man of him."

She did not reply. With difficulty she restrained an exclamation. So
that was the man who had been in the doctor's room and who was going to
Red Horse Valley! She would have dearly loved to supplement her
information about Mr. Scobbs, proprietor of many hotels, and to have
mystified him with her knowledge of Western Canada, but she refrained.

Instead, she took up the conversation where he had tried to break it
off.

"Do you know Mr. Kitson?"

"Kitson? Oh yes, you mean the lawyer man," he replied reluctantly. "I
know him, but I am afraid I don't know much that is good about him. Now,
I'm going to tell you, Miss Cresswell"--he leant across the table and
spoke in a lower tone--"something that I have never told to a human
being. You raised the question of the Millinborn murder. My view is that
Kitson, the lawyer, knew much more about that murder than any man in
this world. If there is anybody who knows more it is Beale."

"Mr. Beale?" she said incredulously.

"Mr. Beale," he repeated. "You know the story of the murder: you say you
have read it. Millinborn was dying and I had left the room with Kitson
when somebody entered the window and stabbed John Millinborn to the
heart. I have every reason to believe that that murder was witnessed by
this very man I am sending to Canada. He persists in denying that he saw
anything, but later he may change his tune."

A light dawned upon her.

"Then Jackson is the man who was seen by Mr. Kitson in the plantation?"

"Exactly," said the doctor.

"But I don't understand," she said, perplexed. "Aren't the police
searching for Jackson?"

"I do not think that it is in the interests of justice that they should
find him," he said gravely. "I place the utmost reliance on him. I am
sending Mr. Jackson to a farm in Ontario kept by a medical friend of
mine who has made a hobby of dealing with dipsomaniacs."

He met her eyes unfalteringly.

"Dr. van Heerden," she said slowly, "you are sending Mr. Jackson to Red
Horse Valley."

He started back as if he had been struck in the face, and for a moment
was inarticulate.

"What--what do you know?" he asked incoherently.

His face had grown white, his eyes tragic with fear. She was alarmed at
the effect of her words and hastened to remove the impression she had
created.

"I only know that I hea