“I suppose you have all the yacht’s papers?”

He stroked his chin, bent his head to one side, and asked, “Shall you require them?”

“Of course,” I said; “the transfer must be regular.  We must have her certificate of registry, at the very least.”

“In that case I had better write and get them from my client.”

“Is she not a resident here?”

“I don’t know,” he said, “that I ought to tell you.  But I see no harm—­ you are evidently, sir, a bona fide purchaser.  The lady’s name is Carlingford—­a widow—­residing at present in Bristol.”

“This is annoying,” said I; “but if she lives anywhere near the Temple Mead Station, I might skip a train there and call on her.  She herself desired no delay, and I desire it just as little.  But the papers are necessary.”

After some little demur, he gave me the address, and we parted.  At the door I turned and asked, “By the way, who was the fellow on board the Siren last night as I rowed up to her?”

He gave me a stare of genuine surprise.  “A man on board?  Whoever he was, he had no business there.  I make a point of looking after the yacht myself.”

I hurried to the railway station.  Soon after six that evening I knocked at Mrs. Carlingford’s lodgings in an unattractive street of Bedminster, that unattractive suburb.  A small maid opened the door, took my card, and showed me into a small sitting-room on the ground floor.  I looked about me—­a round table, a horsehair couch, a walnut sideboard with glass panels, a lithograph of John Wesley being rescued from the flames of his father’s rectory, a coloured photograph—­

As the door opened behind me and a woman entered, I jumped back almost into her arms.  The coloured photograph, staring at me from the opposite wall above the mantelshelf, was a portrait—­a portrait of the man I had seen on board the Siren!

“Who is that?” I demanded, wheeling round without ceremony.

But if I was startled, Mrs. Carlingford seemed ready to drop with fright.  The little woman—­she was a very small, shrinking creature, with a pallid face and large nervous eyes—­put out a hand against the jamb of the door, and gasped out—­

“Why do you ask?  What do you want?”

“I beg your pardon,” I said; “it was merely curiosity.  I thought I had seen the face somewhere.”

“He was my husband.”

“He is dead, then?”

“Oh, why do you ask?  Yes; he died abroad.”  She touched her widow’s cap with a shaking finger, and then covered her face with her hands.  “I was there—­I saw it.  Why do you ask?” she repeated.

“I beg your pardon sincerely,” I said; “it was only that the portrait reminded me of somebody—­But my business here is quite different.  I am come about the yacht Siren which you have advertised for sale.”

She seemed more than ever inclined to run.  Her voice scarcely rose above a whisper.