de sure
of one all-potent fact, was anxious to get away and think the puzzle
over.

I was at the last course of my dinner when the man entered, and having
finished I rose.

"Are you stopping long in San Francisco?" I asked, with my best air of
carelessness.

"A couple of days or so," he said. "See you again to-morrow, I daresay."
It was plain that he was glad to get rid of me. Naturally he was afraid
of all men, strangers to him, who claimed knowledge of him as Harvey
Farnham. He was playing a bold and dangerous game, and no doubt he was
aware that, unless he kept himself in hand, and never for an instant
lost his presence of mind, any moment might find him beaten.

So dizzy was I with the fumes of my discovery that my brain would not
answer to my command. I could not think. I could only say over and over
again--"Not Harvey Farnham! The fellow is a mere decoy!"

Out in the open I knew that I should have a better chance of mastering
myself. On the way to the door I stepped into the "office" again and
glanced at the visitors' book. Harvey Farnham's name was written down
opposite the number 249, and I knew, therefore, that his room must be
near, and in the same wing in the back as mine.

The glorious salt wind soon restored me to myself, and I wandered
through some of the streets I had known and forgotten, thinking busily.
I could understand much now that had been dark to me, though even yet
far too much for my peace of mind remained hidden.

It was no wonder that this counterfeit presentment of a dead man (for I
was certain enough now that poor Farnham was dead) had cumbered himself
with bandages, and simulated sprains, and thickened his voice with an
alleged bronchitis. There was a wonderful family likeness between
voices, when they only spoke in a rough whisper, and the green shade
over the eyes had doubtless proved very advantageous in keeping up the
optical illusion on which the man had courageously dared to count, even
among Farnham's Denver friends. To be sure he had hurried away as soon
as possible from every place where he had stayed since arriving at New
York on the _St. Paul_. In each one he had accomplished an object
vital to the interest of the plot. He had been able to refute the story
of Harvey Farnham's murder, in person, and having evidently been well
grounded in all prominent facts connected with Farnham's life, habits,
and trip to England, had made a _coup_ in his interview with the
New York pol