had been simply
dull; but now they were evidently uncomfortable and embarrassed.

The dessert had scarcely been placed upon the table when the ladies
left the room. I seized the opportunity to select a vacant chair
next Captain Prendergast.

"In Heaven's name," I whispered, "what was the matter just now?
What had I said?"

"You mentioned the name of John Dwerrihouse."

"What of that? I had seen him not two hours before."

"It is a most astounding circumstance that you should have seen
him," said Captain Prendergast. "Are you sure it was he?"

"As sure as of my own identity. We were talking all the way between
London and Blackwater. But why does that surprise you?"

"_Because_," replied Captain Prendergast, dropping his voice to
the lowest whisper,--"_because John Dwerrihouse absconded three
months ago, with seventy-five thousand pounds of the company's
money, and has never been heard of since._"

II.

John Dwerrihouse had absconded three months ago,--and I had seen him
only a few hours back. John Dwerrihouse had embezzled seventy-five
thousand pounds of the company's money, yet told me that he carried
that sum upon his person. Were ever facts so strangely incongruous,
so difficult to reconcile? How should he have ventured again into
the light of day? How dared he show himself along the line? Above
all, what had he been doing throughout those mysterious three months
of disappearance?

Perplexing questions these. Questions which at once suggested themselves
to the minds of all concerned, but which admitted of no easy solution.
I could find no reply to them. Captain Prendergast had not even a
suggestion to offer. Jonathan Jelf, who seized the first opportunity
of drawing me aside and learning all that I had to tell, was more
amazed and bewildered than either of us. He came to my room that
night, when all the guests were gone, and we talked the thing over
from every point of view; without, it must be confessed, arriving
at any kind of conclusion.

"I do not ask you," he said, "whether you can have mistaken your
man. That is impossible."

"As impossible as that I should mistake some stranger for yourself."

"It is not a question of looks or voice, but of facts. That he
should have alluded to the fire in the blue room is proof enough
of John Dwerrihouse's identity. How did he look?"

"Older, I thought. Considerably older, paler, and more anxious."

"He has had enough to make him look anxious, anyhow," sai