“Easy enough.  Same name, George Gordon:  wrote to a friend the ship he was coming home in—­Morning Star.  It was the same; price on G.G.’s head to this day:  shouldn’t mind getting it.  Needn’t pother over it, sir; ’twas Gordon:  but he’d never put his foot in London.”

“If true, it would account for his not showing himself to his friend—­assuming that he did come back,” observed Mr. Carr.

“Friend says not.  Sure that G.G., whatever he might have been guilty of, would go to him direct; knew he might depend on him in any trouble.  A proof, he argues, that G.G. never came back.”

“But I tell you he did come back,” repeated the barrister.  “Strange the similarity of name never struck me,” he added, turning to Lord Hartledon.  “I took some interest in that mutiny at the time; but it never occurred to me to connect this man or his name with it.  A noted name, at any rate, if not a very common one.”

Lord Hartledon nodded.  He had sat silent throughout, a little apart, his face somewhat turned from them, as though the business did not concern him.

“And now I will relate to you what more I know of Gordon,” resumed Mr. Carr, moving his chair nearer the detective, and so partially screening Lord Hartledon.  “He was in London last year, employed by Kedge and Reck, of Gray’s Inn, to serve writs.  What he had done with himself from the time of the mutiny—­allowing that he was identical with the Gordon of that business—­I dare say no one living could tell, himself excepted.  He was calling himself Gorton last autumn.  Not much of a change from his own name.”

“George Gorton,” assented the detective.

“Yes, George Gorton.  I knew this much when I first applied to you.  I did not mention it because I preferred to let you go to work without it.  Understand me; that it is the same man, I know; but there are nevertheless discrepancies in the case that I cannot reconcile; and I thought you might possibly arrive at some knowledge of the man without this clue better than with it.”

“Sorry to differ from you, Mr. Carr; must hold to the belief that George Gorton, employed at Kedge and Reck’s, was not the same man at all,” came the cool and obstinate rejoinder.  “Have sifted the apparent similarity between the two, and drawn conclusions accordingly.”

The remark implied that the detective was wiser on the subject of George Gorton than Mr. Carr had bargained for, and a shadow of apprehension stole over him.  It was by no means his wish that the sharp detective and the man should come into contact with each other; all he wanted was to find out where he was at present, not that he should be meddled with.  This he had fully explained in the first instance, and the other had acquiesced in his curt way.