“That may be, sir,” James assented, “but this feller has come a long bit out of his way to do it, and I don’t think it’s on the level, sir.”

“It is very good of you to come and tell me this, James,” Gorham said, lightly; “but I presume our secret service force already have the gentleman on their list.”

“Oh, he ain’t no gentleman,” James corrected him, “and it ain’t got nothin’ to do with business, sir, so I thought I’d call on you as a friend and tell you what I know.”

“What else can it have to do with?” queried Gorham, incredulously, yet humoring James for his father’s sake.

“With Mrs. Gorham, sir—­leastwise, that’s what he says.”

Gorham’s apathy disappeared, but his visitor observed no change in the calmness of his expression or in the quiet tone in which he spoke.

“You surprise me, James.  What sort of man is he?”

“He’s a blackguard, sir, and a liar.  I’d have told him so, only he was drunk, and I thought he might leak something what would be of interest to you.  He says he used to be Mrs. Gorham’s husband.”

The lines deepened a little in Gorham’s face.  “What is his name?” he asked.

“Buckner, sir—­Ralph Buckner.”

“H’m!  And why do you think he intends to try to make trouble for me?”

“Well, sir, you see it’s this way.  This feller come to the same boardin’-house where I live, but I didn’t pay no attention to him ’til I see him playin’ pool in the saloon opposite.  I’m a Tammany man, sir, and I has to mix with all the new ones what come into my ward.  I got acquainted with him over there, and he drank awful heavy.  He’s quiet enough when he’s sober, but he talks free and easy like when he gets tanked.  One night he says to me, ‘I’m goin’ to make a lot o’ money.’

“‘Good!’ says I, more to be agreeable than because I had any ’special interest—­’how’re you goin’ to do it?’

“Then he laughed, silly-like, and winked at me.  I didn’t say no more, but the next night he talked again.

“‘What do you think,’ he says; ‘I see my wife to-day ridin’ up Fifth Avenue behind the swellest pair o’ horses in New York City.  No wonder she shook me for that.’

“‘What do you mean?’ says I, surprised at his line o’ talk.

“‘She’s Mrs. Robert Gorham now,’ says he, ’but perhaps she won’t be long.’

“Then I laughed at him, and that made him mad.

“‘That’s right,’ says he.  ’There’re people here in this town who tell me that her divorce from me warn’t reg’lar, and I may be takin’ the lady back to New Orleans with me, and a heap o’ money besides.’

“0’ course, all this don’t mean nothin’ to me, but I thought it might to you, sir.”

Mr. Gorham did not reply for so long a time that James became anxious.

“I hope I done right, sir, to come to you with this.”

“Yes, James; quite right.  You are evidently influenced by your loyalty to my family,” Gorham answered.  “It is right that you should be, but it shall not be forgotten.  There probably is nothing in all this, but, since Mrs. Gorham’s name was mentioned, I should like to get to the bottom of it.  I shall depend upon you to keep me posted.”