“How long has he been in the employ of Mr. Jennings?”
“As long as two years, I should think.”
“You say that this man is intimate with him?”
“Leonard Craig—he is the nephew—says that Mr. Philip Stark is at his uncle’s house every evening.”
“So he calls himself Philip Stark, does he?”
“Isn’t that his name?”
“I suppose it is one of his names. He was convicted under that name, and retains it here on account of its being so far from the place of his conviction. Whether it is his real name or not, I do not know. What is the name of your bookkeeper?”
“Julius Gibbon.”
“I don’t remember ever having heard it. Evidently there has been some past acquaintance between the two men, and that, I should say, is hardly a recommendation for Mr. Gibbon. Of course that alone is not enough to condemn him, but the intimacy is certainly a suspicious circumstance.”
The two soon reached the house of Mr. Jennings, for the distance was only a quarter of a mile.