nd Marvillier had a difference of

nobody on earth but himself to blame if the rogue imposed upon him. The head detective had known Medhurst for ten years, he said, as a most respectable man, and even a ratepayer; he had always found him the cleverest of spies, as well he might be, indeed, on the familiar set-a-thief-to-catch-a-thi

I won't trust any more to these private detectives. It's my belief they're a pack of thieves themselves, i

way of being helpful. One must assume a

ing or two. One of them is this: It's not enough to suspect everybody; you must have no preconceptions. Divest yourself entirely of every fixed idea if you wish to cope wit

suing it, Charles

ust like a tiger that has tasted blood. Every successful haul seems only to make him

nection received a communication from the abandoned sw

ears? I have mislaid my account-book, and as this is the season for making the income tax return, I am anxious, as an honest and conscientious citizen, to set down my average profits out of you for the triennial period. For reasons which you will amply understand, I do not this time give m

cal Soc

me think he's well out of the country and far away from Seldon. That means he's meditating another descent. But he told us too much last time, when h

gh and rather happy-go-lucky brown tweed suit, who had the air of a tourist. He was middle-aged, and of middle height; he wore a small leather w

we passed; and Charles muttered a somew

y remember it's one of the Colonel's most marked peculiarities that, like the model child, he never speaks till he's spoken to-never begins an a

bing to a preconception. Avoid fixed ideas. The probability is this man is Colonel Clay. Strangers are generally scarce at Seldon. If he

l us anything about the gentlemanly stranger. Mrs. M'Lachlan replied that he was f

harles inquired, with

e ca'ing a bonny lass," Mrs. M'Lachlan replied; "but

uinting little Mrs. Granton, and as Medhurst's accomplice; and now, he has almost exhausted the possibilities of a disguise for a really young and pretty woman; so

fore in peering into the rocks, and sounding them with a hammer. Charles n

eyes and the build remained the same as ever. He was a trifle stouter, of course, being got up as a man of between forty and fifty; and his forehead was lined in a way which a less consummate art

ather and Mrs. Granton never used to read poems. But that was characteristic of all Colonel Clay's impersonations, and Mrs. Clay's too-for I suppose I must call her so. They were not mere

jection. But on this occasion he had a reason for being courteous, and he approached the lady with a bow of recognition. "

uccumbed to it too often.") "We're stopping at the inn, and my husband is doing a little geology on the hill here. I hope S

e misinformed. I am Sir Charles Vandrift; and I am not a Tartar. If your husband is a man of science I respect and admire him. It is ge

en Madame Picardet and White Heather. "Oh, I'm so sorry," she said, in a confuse

defence to warn trespassers sometimes off our lovely mountains. But I do it with regret-with profound regret. I admire the-er-the beauties of Nature myself; and

"I admire your wish, though not your reservation. I'v

ins, meadows, hi

any severing

them?" And she beam

I doubt whether Charles has ever in his life read a line of poetry, except Doss Chiderdoss in the Sporting Times.) He took the book a

falling a victim to Madame Picardet's attractions. Here he actually suspected her; yet, like a moth round a candle, he was trying his hardest to get his w

d of fossils, but his special hobby was rocks and minerals. He knew a vast deal about cairngorms and agates and such-like pretty things, and showed Charles quartz and felspar and red cornelian, and I don't know what else, in the crags on the hillside. Charles pretended to listen to him with the deepest

showed them everything. He pretended to be polite to the scientific man, and he was really

hem to Amelia with sundry raisings of his eyebrows and contortions of his mouth. "Professor and Mrs. Forbes-Gaskell," he said, half-dislocating his jaw with his violent efforts. "They're stopping a

tainly desirable, for his fingers were grimed with earth and dust from the rocks he h

is man is Colonel Clay-nor, again, that he isn't. We must remember that we have been mistaken in both ways in the past, and must a

stion, in what way are these two people endeavouring to entrap

ective, till he ran away with our notes in the very moment of triumph? What more innocent than White Heather and the little curate, till they landed us with a couple of Amelia's own gems as a splendid bargain? I will not take it for granted any man is not Colonel Clay, merely because I don't happen to spot the particular scheme he is trying to work against me. The rogue has so many schemes, and some of them so well concealed, that up to the moment of the actual explosion you fail to detect the presence of moral dynamite. Therefore, I shall proceed as if there were dynamite everywhere. But in the third place-and this is very

ted man all the time we were at table. It struck me there was something very odd about his hair. It didn't seem quite the same colour all over. The locks that hung down behind, over the collar of his coat, were a trifle

mself, except in the one case of the Honourable David, whose red hair and whiskers even Madame Picardet had admitted to be absurdly false by her action of pointing at them and tittering irrepre

lp myself awkwardly to potato-chips, when the footman offered them, so as to hit the supposed wig with an apparently careless brush of my elbow. But it was of no avail. The fel

w friends round the home garden and show them Charles's famous prize dahlias, while I proc

, and most artistically planted. Men don't notice these things, though wome

a wig, and we spot it, that's all that we need. We are put on our guard; we know with whom we have now to deal. But you can't take a man up on a charge of wig-wearing. The law doesn't interfere with it. Most respectable men may sometimes wear

all. We felt sure, however, that, as on a previous occasion, they would refuse the invitation, in order to be able to slink off unperceived, in case they should find themselves apparently suspected. Should they decline, it was arranged that Césarine should take a room a

s an ill-kept house, and the cookery by no means agreed with her husband's liver. It was sweet of us to invite them; such kindness to perfect strangers was quite

re. Even as David Granton, with far more reason for coming, he wouldn't put him

t in being the slave of prepossessions. He may have some good reason of his own fo

us attention. He positively neglected his other guests in order to keep close to the two new-comers. Mrs. Forbes-Gaskell noticed the

e you with us for so short a time, you know!" Which made Mr

to me. "He works out his parts so well! Could anything exceed the picture he gives one of scientific ardour?" And, inde

nd a little bored by his performance, when, to pass the time, I asked him what a particular small water-worn stone was. He looked at it and smiled. "If there were a l

"it doesn't come up

cent," he murmured in a slow, strang

, then, upon ruining me? "If you

," he said. He was

aid about taking nothing for gran

than was strictly good for him. He was not exactly the worse for it, but he was excited, good-humoured, reckless, and lively. He brought the sprig to Mrs. Forbes-Gaskell, and handed it

in the usual manner. "I-I don't

er for luck," he said, "and-the man who is privil

eased. I somehow felt she su

, nothing came, after all

and!" he cried. "I knew he would. He has come to me to-day with-what

I excl

s that way you know what he's driving at! And what's more, he's got up the subject beforehand; for he began saying to me there had long

s," I said. "Wh

posal for shares in the syndicate to work the mine, or a sum of money

stuck in them, and talking learnedly of the "probable cost of crushing and milling." Charles had heard all that before; in point of fact, he had assisted at the drafting of some dozens of prospectuses.

by the shore one day, in the opposite direction from the Seamew's island. Suddenly we came upon the Professor

ances, and with such a matter at stake as the capture of Colonel Clay, it was necessary to overlook all such minor differences. So Charles managed to disengage the

Cordery?" he asked, wit

l, of the Yorkshire College, a very distinguished man of science. First-rate mineralo

growing doubt. "Have you known him before? This i

s Forbes of Glenluce, my wife's second cousin, and hyphened his name with hers, to keep the property in the family. Know them both most intimately. Came down h

rs a wig!" Charl

s bald as a bat-in front at least-and

d; "disgraceful-taking us in like th

no delicacy. He b

usement. "You thought Forbes-Gaskell was Colonel C

ked out of it in a way unbecoming a gentleman. Besides," he went on, getting angrier at each word, "this fellow, whoever he is, has been trying to cheat me o

"I must go and tell Marmy!" And he rushed off to where

the house. Half an hour later Forbes-Gas

f Charles. "I'm told you've invited my wife and myself here to your house in ord

ly angry. "Perhaps you may be still! Anyhow,

se-fisted and tyrannical old curmudgeon in Scotland. We've been writing to all our friends to say ecstatically that he was, on the contrary, a most hospitable, generous, and large-hearted gentleman. And now we find out he's a disgusting cad, who asks strangers to his house from the meanest motives, and then insults his guests with gratuitous vituperat

assion. For, indeed, as Forbes-Gaskell spoke, and tossed his head angrily, th

, tearing it off to readjust it; and, suiting the action to the word, he brandished it th

made one mistake. We took it for granted that because a man wears a wig, he must be an impostor-which does not necessarily follow. We forgot that not Colonel Clays al

d at last, gazing down upon me with lofty scorn, "your moralising is ill-timed. It app

d sold the Seldon Castle estate (which he did shortly afterward, the place having somehow grown strangely distasteful to him) that the present "Seldon Eldorados, Limited," were put upon the market by Lord Craig-Ellachie, who purchased the place from him. Forbes-Gaskell, as it happened, had reported to Craig-Ellachie that he had found a lode of high-grade ore on an estate

im at the time that this loss was due to a fixed idea-though as a matter of fact it depended upon Cha