"One moment, Mr. Dumphy. You are a shrewd business man. Now do you suppose the person—whoever he or she may be, who has sent Colonel Starbottle to you, relies alone upon your inability to legally prove your wife's death? May they not calculate somewhat on your indisposition to prove it legally; on the theory that you'd rather not open the case, for instance?"
Mr. Dumphy hesitated a moment and bit his lip. "Of course," he said, shortly, "there'd be some talk among my enemies about my deserting my wife"——
"And child," suggested Arthur.
"And child," repeated Dumphy, savagely, "and not coming back again—there'd be suthin' in the papers about it, unless I paid 'em, but what's that!—deserting one's wife isn't such a new thing in California."
"That is so," said Arthur, with a sarcasm that was none the less sincere because he felt its applicability to himself.
"But we're not getting on," said Mr. Dumphy, impatiently. "What's to be done? That's what I've sent to you for."
"Now that we know it is not your wife—we must find out who it is that stands back of Colonel Starbottle. It is evidently some one who knows, at least, as much as we do of the facts; we are lucky if they know no more. Can you think of any one? Who are the survivors? Let's see; you, myself, possibly Grace"——
"It couldn't be Grace Conroy, really alive!" interrupted Dumphy hastily.
"No," said Arthur, quietly, "you remember she was not present at the time."
"Gabriel?"