“Texas, I think.”

“I was not and am not sure which; but I knew that the ship must have an American origin.”

“What then?”

“I searched the Dundee records, and when I found that the barque ‘Lone Star’ was there in January, ’85, my suspicion became a certainty.  I then inquired as to the vessels which lay at present in the port of London.”

“Yes?”

“The ‘Lone Star’ had arrived here last week.  I went down to the Albert Dock and found that she had been taken down the river by the early tide this morning, homeward bound to Savannah.  I wired to Gravesend and learned that she had passed some time ago, and as the wind is easterly I have no doubt that she is now past the Goodwins and not very far from the Isle of Wight.”

“What will you do, then?”

“Oh, I have my hand upon him.  He and the two mates, are as I learn, the only native-born Americans in the ship.  The others are Finns and Germans.  I know, also, that they were all three away from the ship last night.  I had it from the stevedore who has been loading their cargo.  By the time that their sailing-ship reaches Savannah the mail-boat will have carried this letter, and the cable will have informed the police of Savannah that these three gentlemen are badly wanted here upon a charge of murder.”

There is ever a flaw, however, in the best laid of human plans, and the murderers of John Openshaw were never to receive the orange pips which would show them that another, as cunning and as resolute as themselves, was upon their track.  Very long and very severe were the equinoctial gales that year.  We waited long for news of the “Lone Star” of Savannah, but none ever reached us.  We did at last hear that somewhere far out in the Atlantic a shattered stern-post of a boat was seen swinging in the trough of a wave, with the letters “L.  S.” carved upon it, and that is all which we shall ever know of the fate of the “Lone Star.”

ADVENTURE VI.  THE MAN WITH THE TWISTED LIP

Isa Whitney, brother of the late Elias Whitney, D.D., Principal of the Theological College of St. George’s, was much addicted to opium.  The habit grew upon him, as I understand, from some foolish freak when he was at college; for having read De Quincey’s description of his dreams and sensations, he had drenched his tobacco with laudanum in an attempt to produce the same effects.  He found, as so many more have done, that the practice is easier to attain than to get rid of, and for many years he continued to be a slave to the drug, an object of mingled horror and pity to his friends and relatives.  I can see him now, with yellow, pasty face, drooping lids, and pin-point pupils, all huddled in a chair, the wreck and ruin of a noble man.

One night—­it was in June, ’89—­there came a ring to my bell, about the hour when a man gives his first yawn and glances at the clock.  I sat up in my chair, and my wife laid her needle-work down in her lap and made a little face of disappointment.