Page:Burton Stevenson--The marathon mystery.djvu/153

Rh “No, I don’t. Plant him in Potter’s Field and good riddance. I’ll bet he didn’t get any more’n was comin’ to him.”

With which sage reflection, he turned back to his work, while I sought the shore. On the way back to the office, I turned the mate’s story over in my mind. It had, at least, served to establish one thing—a connection, however slender, between Thompson and Tremaine. It was evident that Thompson had intended joining Tremaine at St. Pierre, but when he found him embarking on the Parima, stayed with the vessel so that they might reach New York together. That it was Tremaine who had supplied the other with spirits on the voyage north I did not doubt; Thompson, then, had some claim upon Tremaine—a claim, perhaps, of friendship, of association in crime; a claim, doubtless, to which those missing clippings gave the clew. If I could only find them! But Tremaine had searched for them with a thoroughness which had excited even Godfrey’s admiration. No doubt Miss Croydon had them at this moment in the pocket of her gown; or perhaps she had destroyed them without realising their importance. But she must have realised it, or she would never have dared take them from that repulsive body; she must have known exactly what they contained, if they were the papers she had gone to suite fourteen to get…

I felt that I was getting tangled in a snarl of my own making, and I gave it up.

Godfrey came into the office that evening, just as I was closing my desk.

“I want you to go to dinner with me,” he said. “I