"Oh!" The doctor's face became a study. "By Jove, if this is true——" He said no more, but soon departed, taking the wine with him, and also a glass of jelly Bulson had brought in for his uncle's use.
"And so you have brought Nelson with you," said Mark Horton. "Perhaps I had better see him."
"Do you remember him?" asked Gertrude, her face flushing. "He was in the library that night——"
"So that is the young man that was here! Gertrude, for the life of me I cannot understand that affair."
"Nelson did not want to explain all he knew, because he wanted to shield a man who used to care for him, uncle. He thought the man came here to rob you, but he made a mistake, for after he left this house he saw the man come out of the house opposite, with Homer Bulson."
"Who was the man?"
"A rough kind of a fellow who keeps a saloon on the East Side. His name is Samuel Pepper."
"Samuel Pepper? Samuel Pepper?" Mark Horton repeated the name slowly. "That sounds familiar. Pepper? Pepper? Ah!" He drew a breath. "Can it be the same?" he mused.
"Shall I bring Nelson up?"