Page:Lawrence Lynch--The last stroke.djvu/210

198 boat on the morning of the murder? He was seen, it appears, by at least three."

"Umph!" laying down the letter. "If you were here, my dear Barnes, I would tell you frankly—I feel just like being brutally frank with some one—that I have no doubt that the tramp is a link—there seems to be so many of them, and all detached—a link—and that he approached the boat in that tramp disguise, after separating from his confederate at some more distant point. Bah! It looks simple enough. Confederate leaves vehicle—or two horses, possibly—they could slip off the saddles and hobble them in a thicket, where they would look, to the passer-by, like a pair of grazing animals, or they might have used a wagon, travelling thus like two innocent bucolics. Then how plain to me, the assassin goes through the woods, watchfully, like an Indian. The tramp boatman patrols the shore, to signal to the other when the victim appears; or, should the assassin on shore be unable to creep upon his prey, the assassin in the boat may row boldly near, and, at the signal from the other, telling him there is a clear coast, fire upon the victim. If he is sure of his aim, how easy! And if seen by the victim, well—'Dead men tell no tales.'"