But it's not one-half so astonishing as another that I've got at my house." I remembered then that we had been so busily engaged since our return from the North that morning that we had had no time to go into the matter of the letter which Mr.Gavin Smeaton had entrusted to Mr.
Lindsey--here, again, was going to be more work of the ferreting-out sort.

But Mr.Portlethorpe, it was clear, had no taste for mysteries, and no great desire to forsake his own bed, even for Mr.Lindsey's hospitality, and it needed insistence before he consented to go back to Berwick with us.

Go back, however, he did; and before midnight we were in our own town again, and passing the deserted streets towards Mr.
Lindsey's home, I going with the others because Mr.Lindsey insisted that it was now too late for me to go home, and I should be nearer the station if I slept at his place.

And just before we got to the house, which was a quiet villa standing in its own grounds, a little north of the top end of the town, a man who was sauntering ahead of us, suddenly turned and came up to Mr.Lindsey, and in the light of a street lamp I recognized in him the Hathercleugh butler.
Mr.Lindsey recognized the man, too--so also did Mr.Portlethorpe; and they both came to a dead halt, staring.

And both rapped out the same inquiry, in identical words: "Some news ?" I looked as eagerly at the butler as they did.