"He is; I tell you he is," replied Olive, resolutely. "I truly believe that man who was murdered in Athelstane Place was the real Carson. The right hand--the diseased hand, you remember--was cut off, no doubt to procure the bracelet for this impostor. This man's clothes smelt of sandal-wood--a most unusual perfume--so did those of the poor wretch who was killed. The newspaper description of the dead man corresponds exactly with the man who calls himself my husband. He never by any chance spoke to me of his father or of his life in India. He never cared for me, and was only too ready to part from me. His only action of note since we were married has been to sell the stock and transfer the proceeds to a foreign bank, where he can deal with it. I am convinced, Mr. Mallow, that he was not Angus Carson. I go even further. I believe that he murdered Angus Carson in order to impersonate him. I am as sure of it as I am that--well, that I am alive; and, God help me, I am married to the wretch!"
Olive became so agitated that Mallow begged her to lie down. Do and say what he would, he could not shake her conviction. When he saw her somewhat more composed he left her and started off for a good brisk walk, that he might turn things over in his mind.
It was quite dusk when he got back to Sandbeach. Half an hour later and he would probably have failed to see a small white package lying on the path-way. He was in a narrow side street leading from the esplanade to the railway station. As it was, he not only saw it, but took the trouble to stop and pick it up. It proved to be a somewhat bulky letter addressed to Jeremiah Trall, Esq., 49, Poplar Street, Soho, London. Mallow's instinct as soon as he read this was to drop it. But the tall figure of a woman coming quickly round the corner arrested his attention. He saw that she was eagerly searching for something. She came up to him. "My letter sir," she ejaculated hurriedly. "I dropped it. Thank you." She snatched it from him, and before he had time to recover himself she was gone.
"Clara Trall!" he gasped, thunderstruck. "Shall I follow her? No, I have no right to do that. Yet the address of that letter is the address of Dr. Drabble in London. More mystery--more scheming. What on earth can it mean?"
But it was many a long day before Mallow found an answer to that question.
[CHAPTER IV.]
"MORE MYSTERY."
For various reasons, Mallow had not taken up his abode in the same hotel as Olive. He had found a clean, unpretentious, little place near the station, which suited him well enough in his present mood. Here he ate a solitary dinner, cooked and served in thoroughly English style. Invariably fastidious over his food, Laurence was not now inclined to be any more particular about it than he was about his lodging. He ate but little. A good cigar and some strong black coffee, he felt, would do more for him just now than any food. He inquired from the waiter how the trains ran to London, for he had no doubt that on the morrow it would be necessary for him to use them. Curiously enough the waiter knew all about the trains, notwithstanding the fact that he was an aboriginal as well as a waiter.
"On'y two decent ones from 'ere to Lunnon," said this Ganymede; "you'll see 'em, sir, in the time-tables. There's one leaves ten 'o the mornin', an' another at six at night. You gits to Lunnon in about three hours; so, yer see, they ain't express like even then."
"Ten in the morning," mused Mallow. "Ah! that's a trifle too early. I may as well have another day with Olive, to cheer her up. The evening train will suit me. I can see Drabble in Soho the next morning--that is, if he is in town."