"I see," Mason answered. "Well, I'm sorry I can't help you find him. He and I parted about that time and I have not seen him since. I'm rather sorry, too, for I found him a rather agreeable chap."
"So you don't know where he is?" The stranger's face fell, and a shadow of absolute gloom seemed to come into his earnest eyes. "When I saw you just now, sir, I hoped that you might put me on the track of him."
"He dies hard," Mason mused, now more at his ease. "No, I can't help you," he said, aloud. "If I remember rightly he said something about working his way to England on a cattle-ship."
"England? My God! then I'll not find him at all!" the stranger sighed.
"It would be a difficult job," Mason went on, with real pleasure in the tale he was concocting. Then suddenly he was emboldened to pursue different tactics. "Say," he said, "I think you are the man I saw hanging about our house the night after I noticed you in Madison Square. Am I right?"
Something like a sigh escaped the lips of the stranger. Surely, if he was a detective, he was either a poor one or a most accomplished actor. Mason suddenly decided that he was dealing with the latter when his companion answered:
"Yes, I followed you both to that house, sir. I wanted a word with my friend. I tried to catch his eye in the crowd at Madison Square, but failed."
"But if you wanted to speak to him, or see him, why didn't you do it while he was with me?" Mason demanded, with no little pride now in his skill at cross-examination, and a growing sense of his own security.
"There were reasons why I should not," was the slow answer. "I wanted to see him alone, sir. I watched the house that night till—" The stranger paused as if he had said more than he intended.
"Till I came out and made you run away?" Mason smiled. "I didn't intend to spoil your game, whatever it was."