Most of the tourists were sightseeing, and, while we had no time for that, still we could not help doing so, in going about the town.

Charlotte Amalie, I may say, proved to be one of the most picturesque towns in the Windward Islands.  The walls of the houses were mostly of a dazzling whiteness, though some were yellow, others gray, orange, blue.  But the roofs were all of a generous bright red which showed up very effectively among the clumps of green trees.  Indeed, the town seemed to be one of gaily tinted villas and palaces.  There were no factories, no slums.  Nature had provided against that and man had not violated the provision.

The people whom we met on the streets were mostly negroes, though there was a fair sprinkling of whites.  What pleased us most was that nearly everywhere we went English was spoken.  I had half expected Danish.  But there was even very little Spanish spoken.

Burke was waiting for us, and in spite of his playing the role of traveling salesman managed to direct us about so that we might as quickly as possible pick up the thread of the mysterious death of Dwight.  It did not take long to gather such meager information as there was about the autopsy that had followed the strange death of Sydney’s predecessor.

We were able to find out little from either the authorities or the doctor who had investigated the case.  Under the stress of suspicion, both the stomach and the contents of the stomach of the unfortunate man had been examined.  No trace of anything out of the way had been found, and there the matter had rested, except for suspicion.

One of our first visits was to the American consulate.  There Sydney, by virtue of his special commission, had, with characteristic energy, established himself with the consul.  Naturally, he, too, had been making inquiries.  But they had led nowhere.  There seemed to be no clue to the mysterious death of Dwight, not even a hint as to the cause.

All that we were able to discover, after some hours of patient inquiry, was that Dwight had suffered from great prostration, marked cyanosis, convulsions, and coma.  Whether it was the result of some strange disease or of a poison no one, not even the doctor, was prepared to say.  All that was known was that the blow, if blow it had been, was swift, sudden, sure.

We ran across Whitson once or twice during the day, busily engaged renewing acquaintance with merchants and planters whom he had known before, but I do not recall having seen either Burleigh or Leontine, which, at the time, I thought rather strange, for the town was small and strangers were few.  The more I thought of it the more firmly convinced I was that Dwight had discovered some secret which it was extremely inconvenient for somebody to have known.  What was it?  Was it connected with the rumors we had heard of gun-running to Mexico?