"You have no cause to regret my finding you, Jackson," said the doctor. "I suppose you still call yourself by that name?"
"Yes, Jackson," said the other promptly. "Jack—son, son of Jack. Fine name, eh—good enough for me and good enough for anybody else. Yes, you found me and done me well. I wish you hadn't. How I wish you hadn't."
"Ungrateful fool!" said van Heerden. "I probably saved your life—hid you in Eastbourne, took you to London, whilst the police were searching for you."
"For me!" snarled the other. "A low trick, by the Everlasting Virtues——!"
"Don't be an idiot—whose word would they have taken, yours or mine? Now let's talk—on Thursday next you sail for Quebec...."
He detailed his instructions at length and the man called Jackson, mellowed by repeated visits to the decanter, listened and even approved.
On the other side of the hallway, behind the closed door, Oliva Cresswell, her dining-table covered with papers and books, was working hard.
She was particularly anxious to show Mr. Beale a sample of her work in the morning and was making a fair copy of what she had described to him that afternoon as her "hotel list."
"They are such queer names," she said; "there is one called Scobbs of Red Horse Valley—Scobbs!"