But there was one box, lighter than the rest, in which, instead of gold, we found the valuable things of which Hollins had told Mr. Lindsey and Mr. Portlethorpe and myself when he came to us on his lying mission, only the previous midnight.  There they all were—­the presents that had been given to various of the Carstairs baronets by royal donors—­carefully packed and bestowed.  And at sight of them, Mr. Lindsey looked significantly at me, and then at Murray.

“He was a wily and a clever man, this fellow that’s lying behind us,” he muttered.  “He pulled our hair over our eyes to some purpose with his tale of Lady Carstairs and her bicycle—­but I’m forgetting,” he broke off, and drew me aside.  “There’s another thing come out since you left me and Smeaton tonight,” he whispered.  “The police have found out something for themselves—­I’ll give them that credit.  That was all lies—­lies, nothing but lies!—­that Hollins told us,—­all done to throw us off the scent.  You remember the tale of the registered letter from Edinburgh?—­the police found out last evening from the post folks that there never was any registered letter.  You remember Hollins said Lady Carstairs went off on her bicycle?  The police have found out she never went off on any bicycle—­she wasn’t there to go off.  She was away early that morning; she took a train south from Beal station before breakfast—­at least, a veiled woman answering her description did,—­and she’s safe hidden in London, or elsewhere, by now, my lad!”

“But him—­the man—­Sir Gilbert, or whoever he is?” I whispered.  “What of him, Mr. Lindsey?”

“Aye, just so!” he said.  “I’m gradually piecing it together, as we go on.  It would seem to me that he made his way to Edinburgh after getting rid of you, as he thought and hoped—­probably got there the very next morning, through the help of yon fisherman at Largo, Robertson, who, of course, told us and the police a pack of lies!—­and when he’d got the last of these securities from Paley, he worked back here, secretly, and with the help of Hollins, and has no doubt kept quiet in this old tower until they could get away with that gold!  Of course, Hollins has been in at all this—­but now—­who’s killed Hollins?  And where’s the chief party—­the other man?”

“What?” I exclaimed.  “You don’t think he killed Hollins, then?”

“I should be a fool if I did, my lad,” he answered.  “Bethink yourself!—­when all was cut and dried for their getting off, do you think he’d stick a knife in his confederate’s throat?  No!—­I can see their plan, and it was a good one.  Hollins would have run those cases down to Newcastle in a couple of hours; there’d have been no suspicion about them, and no questions which he couldn’t answer—­he’d have gone across to Hamburg with them himself.  As for the man we know as Sir Gilbert, you’ll be hearing something presently from Mr. Elphinstone yonder; but my impression is, as Maisie never saw or heard of him during the night and day, that he got away after his wife last night—­and with those securities on him!”