“I’ll tell you,” I said.  “It was Mr. Lindsey’s fault—­he let out too much at the police-court.  Carstairs was there—­he’d a seat on the bench—­and Mr. Lindsey frightened him.  Maybe it was yon ice-ax.  Mr. Lindsey’s got some powerful card up his sleeve about that—­what it is I don’t know.  But I’m certain now—­now!—­that Carstairs took a fear into his head at those proceedings yesterday morning, and he thought he’d settle me once and for all before I could be drawn into it and forced to say things that would be against him.”

“I daresay you’re right,” he agreed.  “Well!—­it is indeed a strange affair, and there’ll be some stranger revelations yet.  I’d like to see this Mr. Lindsey—­you’re sure he’ll come to you here?”

“Aye!—­unless there’s been an earthquake between here and Tweed!” I declared.  “He’ll be here, right enough, Mr. Smeaton, before many hours are over.  And he’ll like to see you.  You can’t think, now, of how, or why, yon Phillips man could have got that bit of letter paper of yours on him?  It was like that,” I added, pointing to a block of memorandum forms that stood in his stationery case at the desk before him.  “Just the same!”

“I can’t,” said he.  “But—­there’s nothing unusual in that; some correspondent of mine might have handed it to him—­torn it off one of my letters, do you see?  I’ve correspondents in a great many seaports and mercantile centres—­both here and in America.”

“These men will appear to have come from Central America,” I remarked.  “They’d seem to have been employed, one way or another, on that Panama Canal affair that there’s been so much in the papers about these last few years.  You’d notice that in the accounts, Mr. Smeaton?”

“I did,” he replied.  “And it interested me, because I’m from those parts myself—­I was born there.”

He said that as if this fact was of no significance.  But the news made me prick up my ears.

“Do you tell me that!” said I.  “Where, now, if it’s a fair question?”

“New Orleans—­near enough, anyway, to those parts,” he answered.  “But I was sent across here when I was ten years old, to be educated and brought up, and here I’ve been ever since.”

“But—­you’re a Scotsman?” I made bold to ask him.

“Aye—­on both sides—­though I was born out of Scotland,” he answered with a laugh.  And then he got out of his chair.  “It’s mighty interesting, all this,” he went on.  “But I’m a married man, and my wife’ll be wanting dinner for me.  Now, will you bring Mr. Lindsey to see me in the morning—­if he comes?”

“He’ll come—­and I’ll bring him,” I answered.  “He’ll be right glad to see you, too—­for it may be, Mr. Smeaton, that there is something to be traced out of that bit of letter paper of yours, yet.”

“It may be,” he agreed.  “And if there’s any help I can give, it’s at your disposal.  But you’ll be finding this—­you’re in a dark lane, with some queer turnings in it, before you come to the plain outcome of all this business!”