"No, not more than a year and a half. He has not been in New York two years."
"Oh! I see. A Boston man?"
"No, I think he came from New Orleans."
A curious sensation passed over Mr. Barnes. There is a superstitious belief, much esteemed by many, that a shudder or chill of this character means that some one is walking over the spot where the person affected is to be buried. Therefore an uncanny thought accompanies it. With Mr. Barnes it is different. He is free from all such notions, yet insensibly he is moved when this occurs to him, because it has so often happened that at the time he just hit upon a clew. Therefore he stopped to consider. All that Mr. Randolph had said was that Mr. Mitchel, he thought, had come from New Orleans. In a moment it flashed across Mr. Barnes's mind that the dead woman had told him that she had lived in New Orleans. Was there any significance in this fact? Did the man and the woman know each other in the southern city?
"How do you know that he is a Southerner?" asked Mr. Barnes.
"Oh! That was easily discovered by his accent," replied Mr. Randolph. "Besides he claims to be from the South, though I think he is rather inclined not to speak of his home. I have an indistinct recollection of his telling me once that he was born in New Orleans and that he had some painful recollection of the place. That is the only time that he ever alluded to it, however."
"I would like to ask you a question about another man, Mr. Randolph. I wonder whether you have met him. His name is Thauret?"
"Alphonse Thauret? Yes I know him, and I do not like him."
"Why not?"
"I don't exactly know. Perhaps it is only a prejudice. Still we are apt to form quick estimates of men, and I have distrusted this man from the first instant that I met him."