"None whatever, sir."
"Then, in the demon's name, why have you come forward at all at this time?"
"Because I was advertised for."
"That was months ago."
"But months ago I was at sea and knew nothing of the matter. I have but just returned from a long voyage, and hearing among other matters that Governor Rothsay had been missing since the day of his inauguration, that Governor Kennedy reigned in his stead, and that the latest visitor of the missing man had long been wanting, I have come."
"Do you appreciate the gravity of your own position, sir, under the circumstances?" sternly demanded the Iron King.
"I—don't—understand you," said the skipper, in evident perplexity.
"You don't? That is strange. You are the last man—the last person—who saw Governor-elect Rothsay alive, at eleven o'clock on the night of his disappearance. After that hour he was missing, and you had run away."
The young sailor smiled.
"Steamed away, and sailed away, you should say, sir. I see the suspicion to which your words point, and will answer them at once: On that night in question I was a guest of the Crockett House. I was absent from that house only half an hour—from a quarter to eleven to a quarter after eleven—during which time I walked to this house, saw the governor-elect, and walked back to the hotel, only to pay my bill, take a hack and drive to the railway station. Do you think that in half an hour I could have done all that and murdered the governor, and made away with his body besides, Mr. Rockharrt?"