The ill-visaged person in the front room was probably a bank robber himself, though he was not yet implicated in the Buckingham affair. He was a friend of the robbers who had been arrested, and had employed Squire Gilfilian—who was as eloquent in speech as he was skilful in the intricacies of the law—to defend his unfortunate friends. The lawyer would not do so without a fee in advance; and the five hundred dollars had been sent in the letter which had so strangely disappeared. Either the sender knew no better than to trust so large a sum in the mail, or his criminal associations made him diffident about applying for a check or draft.
Hearing nothing from the lawyer, he had written again, stating that he had sent the money at the time agreed upon. The squire had expected the letter, and intended immediately to start for the county town in the jail of which the robbers were confined, in order to examine his case. In reply to the second letter, he telegraphed to his correspondent in Portland that he had not received the first; and then the robbers' agent had come himself. There he was in the front room.
CHAPTER VI.
CAPTAIN CHINKS.
"I'm very glad to see you, Captain Chinks," said Squire Gilfilian, as he conducted the gentleman of doubtful reputation into his private office.
"Is my case likely to come up soon?" asked the captain.
"No, I don't think it will ever come up," answered the lawyer.
"Well, you have changed your tune since I was here before," added Captain Chinks, with a satisfied smile. "Then everything was going to be proved against me; now, nothing."