I shoved the newspaper into Mr. Lindsey's hand as he came out of the telegraph office. He read the paragraph in silence, smiling as he read.
"Aye!" he said at last, "you have to leave home to get the home news. Well—they're welcome to be thinking that for the present. I've just wired Murray that I'll be here till at any rate this evening, and that he's to telegraph at once if there's tidings of that yacht or of Carstairs. Meanwhile, well go and see this Mr. Smeaton."
Mr. Smeaton was expecting us—he, too, was reading about me in the Advertiser when we entered, and he made some joking remark about it only being great men that were sometimes treated to death-notices before they were dead. And then he turned to Mr. Lindsey, who I noticed had been taking close stock of him.
"I've been thinking out things since Mr. Moneylaws was in here last night," he remarked. "Bringing my mind to bear, do you see, on certain points that I hadn't thought of before. And maybe there's something more than appears at first sight in yon man John Phillips having my name and address on him."
"Aye?" asked Mr. Lindsey, quietly. "How, now?"
"Well," replied Mr. Smeaton, "there may be something in it, and there may be nothing—just nothing at all. But it's the fact that my father hailed from Tweedside—and from some place not so far from Berwick."
CHAPTER XXIII
FAMILY HISTORY
I was watching Mr. Lindsey pretty closely, being desirous of seeing how he took to Mr. Gavin Smeaton, and what he made of him, and I saw him prick his ears at this announcement; clearly, it seemed to suggest something of interest to him.
"Aye?" he exclaimed. "Your father hailed from Berwick, or thereabouts?
You don't know exactly from where, Mr. Smeaton?"