ries, Mr. Parslewe. Too deep for me to theorise about, I mean."
"Aye—well, we'll say speculate, then, instead of theorise," he remarked, drily. "You've indulged in speculations?"
I pointed towards the sideboard behind him.
"I've certainly been wondering what on earth that copper box has to do with it!" said I. "Here's a fat, solemn, self-important old buffer travels—possibly all the way from London—to talk about a copper box in a Newcastle hotel! A Newcastle shopkeeper starts with surprise when I mention a copper box to him! And there—with the firelight glinting on it—there is the copper box!"
"Aye!" he said. "Aye, there it is—and there it'll remain, master!" He closed his lips in a tight, firm fashion that I had already come to know very well, in spite of our brief acquaintance, and when he relaxed them again it was to smile in his sweetest fashion. "But that doesn't explain anything, Craye, does it?" he remarked.
"Explains nothing—to me," I assented.
He got up, threw two or three small logs of wood on the fire, and standing with his
