gone far down another street before I remembered my canvas and my train. I turned back, got the canvas, and made for the hotel and the station. And of course, through poking my nose into other people's affairs, I had missed the train to Alnwick and Wooler, and there wasn't another until late in the afternoon. So I lunched in the hotel, and idled the time away there—chiefly wondering about this thing. Parslewe—Pawley—White Whiskers—the coppersmith—and that infernal copper box in the middle of them! What was the mystery attached to them and it? Was it fraud?—was it some matter of felony?—was it murder? I was going to tell Parslewe what I had discovered, anyway, and as quickly as possible. But I had to cool my heels until between five and six o'clock, and when at last I walked out on the platform to my train I saw White Whiskers standing at the door of a first-class carriage talking to the man who had gone with him to the coppersmith's shop. White Whiskers had his bag and his rug in the carriage; I glimpsed them as I passed—evidently, he was going northward by my
