Dead Men's Money

as for me, I was dumbfounded, for though I had seen well enough that Mr. Gilverthwaite was very ill when I left him, I was certainly a long way from thinking him like to die. Indeed, I was

y. "Mr. Hugh here said he was ill; it would be a tur

an errand for Mr. Gilverthwaite. And I told her, too, what I wasn't so sure of myself, that there'd no harm come to you of it, and that you'd be back soon after twelve, and I went down to your house and waited with her; and when you didn't co

off homewards, and Chisholm wheeled alo

be made stranger by this man's sudden death. I'd been looking to him to

ng!" s

with you seven

ks, and no more at the end of seven years than at the end of seven months. We knew nothing, my mother and I, except that he was a decent, well-spoken man, free with his money a

other that'll throw some light on matters, no

e of solid lead," I answered. "And doubtless he'll have a key on him or about him that'll u

we must trouble your mother to let us take a look at this Mr. Gilv

mean yesterday-afte

r'll be able to certify. But there'll be a searching inquiry in this murder

et. The man I was to meet may have been the murderer; you don't know who the murdered man is. So you'd better pu

o find out, if we can, who it was that Gilverthwaite sent you to meet. And-for what reason? And-whe

and I'm so much in it that I'm not going to do things on my own responsibility. I'll ca

e said. "Mr. Lindsey'll know all the law

so relieved at the sight of me that she forbore to scold me at that time for going off on such an errand without telling her of my

gh I was slow to say it, Hugh, I always had a feeling of mystery about him. However, he's gone now-and died that suddenly

ty by him. And now that you've seen I'm safe, I'm away to brin

morning was breaking over the sea and the river as he and I walked back through the empty streets-I telling him of all the events of the night, and he listening with an occasional word of surprise. He was not a native of

f it, and if the man that's been murdered was the man Gilverthwaite sent you to meet, or if he's some other that got there before you, and was got rid of for some extr

ed, the sheet drawn about him and a napkin over his face; and though the police took a look at him, I kept away, being too much upset by the doings of the night to stand any more just then. What I was anxious about was to get some inkling o

s and his keys," he said. "Go carefully through h

Berwick and Kelso, heavy marks in blue pencil had been made. I, who knew something of Gilverthwaite's habits, took it that these were the places he had visited during his seven weeks' stay with us. And folded in the map were scraps of newspaper cuttings,

certain it was whatever there was in it that made him send me

ere was nothing. But on the envelope itself was

und murdered-his half-ticket's for Peebl

book, and gold in a wash-leather bag-and the man's watch and chain, and his pocket-knife and

it'll be in this box," he said. "I'll take the responsibility of opening it, in Mrs. Moneylaws'

of foreign parts and queer, far-off places. And it was indeed a strange collection of things and objects that Mr. Lindsey took out of the chest and set down on the table. There was an old cigar-box, tied about with twine, full to the brim with money-over two thousand pounds in bank-notes and gold, as we found on co

ng certain-he's spent a lot of time in Mexico and Central America. And-what was the

nswered. "Jus

hey are. But-you see, superintendent?-there's not a paper nor anything in this chest to tell us who this man is, nor where he came

ficials nodde

Lindsey. "You've two dead men on your hands, an