"They will that, Mr. Smeaton," I said. "I'm much obliged to you."
"You think that man really meant you to drown?" he asked.
"What would you think yourself, Mr. Smeaton?" I replied. "Besides—didn't I see his face as he got himself and his yacht away from me? Yon man is a murderer!"
"It's a queer, strange business," he remarked, nodding his head. "You'll be thinking now, of course, that it was he murdered both Phillips and Crone—eh?"
"Aye, I do think that!" said I. "What else? And he wanted to silence me because I'm the only living person that could let out about seeing him at the cross-roads that night and could prove that Crone saw him too. My own impression is that Crone went straight to him after his talk with me—and paid the penalty."
"That's likely," he assented. "But what do you think made him turn on you so suddenly, yesterday, when things looked like going smoothly about everything, and he'd given you that stewardship—which was, of course, to stop your mouth?"
"I'll tell you," I said. "It was Mr. Lindsey's fault—he let out too much at the police-court. Carstairs was there—he'd a seat on the bench—and Mr. Lindsey frightened him. Maybe it was yon ice-ax. Mr. Lindsey's got some powerful card up his sleeve about that—what it is I don't know. But I'm certain now—now!—that Carstairs took a fear into his head at those proceedings yesterday morning, and he thought he'd settle me once and for all before I could be drawn into it and forced to say things that would be against him."
"I daresay you're right," he agreed. "Well!—it is indeed a strange affair, and there'll be some stranger revelations yet. I'd like to see this Mr. Lindsey—you're sure he'll come to you here?"
"Aye!—unless there's been an earthquake between here and Tweed!" I declared. "He'll be here, right enough, Mr. Smeaton, before many hours are over. And he'll like to see you. You can't think, now, of how, or why, yon Phillips man could have got that bit of letter paper of yours on him? It was like that," I added, pointing to a block of memorandum forms that stood in his stationery case at the desk before him. "Just the same!"
"I can't," said he. "But—there's nothing unusual in that; some correspondent of mine might have handed it to him—torn it off one of my letters, do you see? I've correspondents in a great many seaports and mercantile centres—both here and in America."