papers and valuables as he wished
to carry out of the country with him. They were in safe deposit, but
that safe deposit was in his strong room in the center of his house in
Eighty-sixth Street (a room which you will remember in connection with
Sweetwater's adventure). To enter his own door with his own latch-key,
in the security and darkness of a stormy night, seemed to this
self-confident man a matter of no great risk. Nor did he find it so.
He reached his strong room, procured his securities and was leaving
the house, without having suffered an alarm, when some instinct of
self-preservation suggested to him the advisability of arming himself
with a pistol. His own was in Maine, but he remembered where Sears kept
his; he had seen it often enough in that old trunk he had brought with
him from the Sierras. He accordingly went up stairs to the steward's
room, found the pistol and became from that instant invincible. But in
restoring the articles he had pulled out he came across a photograph
of his wife and lost himself over it and went mad, as we have heard the
detective tell. That later, he should succeed in trapping this detective
and should leave the house without a qualm as to his fate shows what
sort of man he was in moments of extreme danger. I doubt, from what I
have heard of him since, if he ever gave two thoughts to the man after
he had sprung the double lock on him; which, considering his extreme
ignorance of who his victim was or what relation he bore to his own
fate, was certainly remarkable.

Back again in C--, he made his final preparations for departure. He had
already communicated with the captain of the launch, who may or may not
have known his passenger's real name. He says that he supposed him to be
some agent of Mr. Fairbrother's; that among the first orders he received
from that gentleman was one to the effect that he was to follow the
instructions of one Wellgood as if they came from himself; that he had
done so, and not till he had Mr. Fairbrother on board had he known whom
he was expected to carry into other waters. However, there are many
who do not believe the captain. Fairbrother had a genius for rousing
devotion in the men who worked for him, and probably this man was
another Sears.

To leave speculation, all was in train, then, and freedom but a quarter
of a mile away, when the boat he was in was stopped by another and he
heard Mr. Grey's voice demanding the jewel.

The shock was severe a