But there was as little in the way of papers there, as there had been in the case of the murdered man.  There were no letters.  There was a map of the district, and under the names of several of the villages and places on either side of the Tweed, between Berwick and Kelso, heavy marks in blue pencil had been made.  I, who knew something of Gilverthwaite’s habits, took it that these were the places he had visited during his seven weeks’ stay with us.  And folded in the map were scraps of newspaper cuttings, every one of them about some antiquity or other in the neighbourhood, as if such things had an interest for him.  And in another pocket was a guide-book, much thumbed, and between two of the leaves, slipped as if to mark a place, was a registered envelope.

“That’ll be what he got yesterday afternoon!” I exclaimed.  “I’m certain it was whatever there was in it that made him send me out last night, and maybe the letter in it’ll tell us something.”

However, there was no letter in the envelope—­there was nothing.  But on the envelope itself was a postmark, at which Chisholm instantly pointed.

“Peebles!” said he.  “Yon man that you found murdered—­his half-ticket’s for Peebles.  There’s something of a clue, anyway.”

They went on searching the clothing, only to find money—­plenty of it, notes in an old pocket-book, and gold in a wash-leather bag—­and the man’s watch and chain, and his pocket-knife and the like, and a bunch of keys.  And with the keys in his hand Mr. Lindsey turned to the chest.

“If we’re going to find anything that’ll throw any light on the question of this man’s identity, it’ll be in this box,” he said.  “I’ll take the responsibility of opening it, in Mrs. Moneylaws’ interest, anyway.  Lift it on to that table, and let’s see if one of these keys’ll fit the lock.”

There was no difficulty about finding the key—­there were but a few on the bunch, and he hit on the right one straightaway, and we all crowded round him as he threw back the heavy lid.  There was a curious aromatic smell came from within, a sort of mingling of cedar and camphor and spices—­a smell that made you think of foreign parts and queer, far-off places.  And it was indeed a strange collection of things and objects that Mr. Lindsey took out of the chest and set down on the table.  There was an old cigar-box, tied about with twine, full to the brim with money—­over two thousand pounds in bank-notes and gold, as we found on counting it up later on,—­and there were others filled with cigars, and yet others in which the man had packed all manner of curiosities such as three of us at any rate had never seen in our lives before.  But Mr. Lindsey, who was something of a curiosity collector himself, nodded his head at the sight of some of them.

“Wherever else this man may have been in his roving life,” he said, “here’s one thing certain—­he’s spent a lot of time in Mexico and Central America.  And—­what was the name he told you to use as a password once you met his man, Hugh—­wasn’t it Panama?”