"Why, strike me blind!" stated Ericksen with energy. "Didn't that there swab give me your note sayin' you wouldn't show up?"
Tom Dennis was staggered by this defence.
"What note are you talking about? The one you gave Mrs. Dennis?"
"Aye, that and t'other one! Give 'em to me, he did, and said you wouldn't show up. The note said the same thing, and asked me to call for Mrs. Dennis, see? Well, I done it—and this here is the thanks I get!"
"What kind of a man gave you the notes?"
Ericksen was sweating profusely. At this question he screwed up his eyes and bit on his pipe-stem in thought.
"Well," he answered at length, "a sort o' rakish craft, he was, with little what-d'ye-call-'ems of moustaches, and looked like a dago."
That answered to the description of the assassin, and Dennis hesitated under the impact of a sudden thought.
What if that Frenchman had not been an accomplice of Ericksen at all—but an enemy, with some ulterior purpose at work behind his actions? There was as much in favour of this theory as of the other.
"See here, Ericksen!" Dennis met the light-blue gaze with a frowning level scrutiny. "If your story's true, that same man who gave you the fake message—for it was a fake—tried to murder me about an hour ago. He had a ticket to this compartment, and a return-trip ticket from here to Vancouver in his pocket. Do you know him?"