"I am ready to hear anything you have to say," I replied.
"That four thousand dollars is a rather annoying coincidence," he began.
"I should think it might be," I added.
"You quite mistake my meaning. I am willing to admit that I have told professional lies in the interest of my clients. I am Buckner's counsel, though I told you to the contrary. He admitted his guilt to me."
"Did he, indeed? Did he tell you what he did with the package of bills after he took it from the counter?"
"He did: he acknowledged that he was guilty, and told me how it was done," replied Cornwood, with easy assurance, of which I had seen a great deal on his part. "Buckner's wife was at the door of the saloon, and he gave the package to her as he rushed out. She had it under her shawl before Nick got half way to the door. She went home; and my client considers it a successful affair. He offered me five hundred dollars to get him out of the scrape, and that is the fee for which I am working just now, in part."
"And he gave you the money, did he?" I asked, hardly able to keep from laughing in the face of the guileless Floridian.
"Not he, for his wife started for Kentucky, or some other state, as soon as she got the money. This is where the unlucky coincidence comes in. My first business in Key West was to see that Nick did not return home, as I feared you would compel him to do when you found him on board of the Islander. My second was to pay four thousand dollars, which I drew from the First National Bank of Florida Friday morning before I started for Cedar Keys."
"O, I see! That was where the four thousand dollars came from," I exclaimed.
"Precisely so. I was to pay it into the Marine Court, pending a suit in which I was interested, against a salvage company."