He stroked his chin, bent his head to one side, and asked, "Shall you require them?"
"Of course," I said; "the transfer must be regular. We must have her certificate of registry, at the very least."
"In that case I had better write and get them from my client."
"Is she not a resident here?"
"I don't know," he said, "that I ought to tell you. But I see no harm— you are evidently, sir, a bona fide purchaser. The lady's name is Carlingford—a widow—residing at present in Bristol."
"This is annoying," said I; "but if she lives anywhere near the Temple Mead Station, I might skip a train there and call on her. She herself desired no delay, and I desire it just as little. But the papers are necessary."
After some little demur, he gave me the address, and we parted. At the door I turned and asked, "By the way, who was the fellow on board the Siren last night as I rowed up to her?"
He gave me a stare of genuine surprise. "A man on board? Whoever he was, he had no business there. I make a point of looking after the yacht myself."
I hurried to the railway station. Soon after six that evening I knocked at Mrs. Carlingford's lodgings in an unattractive street of Bedminster, that unattractive suburb. A small maid opened the door, took my card, and showed me into a small sitting-room on the ground floor. I looked about me—a round table, a horsehair couch, a walnut sideboard with glass panels, a lithograph of John Wesley being rescued from the flames of his father's rectory, a coloured photograph—
As the door opened behind me and a woman entered, I jumped back almost into her arms. The coloured photograph, staring at me from the opposite wall above the mantelshelf, was a portrait—a portrait of the man I had seen on board the Siren!