ined them as they stood talking apart from the rest of us. Now, I knew all such people of our parts well enough by sight, but I did not know this man, who certainly

s been so much talk about lately-Sir Gilbert Carstairs of H

ly was, a hermit. He had been a widower for many long years, and though he had three children, it was little company that he seemed to have ever got out of them, for his elder son, Mr. Michael Carstairs, had long since gone away to foreign parts, and had died there; his younger son, Mr. Gilbert, was, it was understood, a doctor in London, and never came near the old place; and his one daughter, Mrs. Ralston, though she lived within ten miles of her father, was not on good terms with him. It was said that the old gentleman was queer and eccentric, and hard to please or manage; however that may be, it is

here and then to say nothing in my evidence about that meeting, for I had no reason to connect such a great gentleman as Sir Gilbert Carstairs with the murder, and it seemed to me that his presence at those cross-roads was easily enough explained. He was a big, athletic man and was likely fond of a walk, and had been taking one that evening, and, not as yet being over-familiar with the neighbourhood-having lived so long away from it,-had got somewhat out of his way in returning home. No, I would say nothing. I had been brought up to have a firm belief in the old proverb which tells you that the least said is soonest mended. We were all packed pretty tightly in the big room of the inn when the coroner opened his inquiry. And at the very onset of the procee

a very formidable knife or dagger, which had been driven into his heart from behind. There was the evidence which Chisholm and I had collected in Peebles and at Cornhill station, and at the inn across the Coldstream Bridge. There was the telegram which had been sent by Mr. Gavin Smeaton-whoever he might be-from Dundee. And that was about all, and it came to this: that here was a man

here? We have some evidence on that point, and," he added, with one shrewd glance at the legal folk in front of him and another

s much more when I got up to tell my tale, and to answer any questions that anybody liked to put to me. Mine, of course, was a straight enough story, told in a few sentences, and I did not see what great amount of questioning could arise out of it

the room when this man Gilverthwa

," I an

me everything tha

can recollect

ribe the man yo

n't-in

l you hi

ll me h

were to meet, nor for what purpose he was coming to meet G

nothing but that I was to mee

little, keeping silence, and t

f this man Gilverthwaite while he wa

nothing,"

e inquired. "You'

xt to nothing," I repeat

, and taking his walks o

heard him say that he'd

hat's

ways alone

his going to see a soul in the place," I answered; "and first and last, he ne

we've heard of, he never had a letter delivered

I. "From first t

the life of me I could not think what other questions he could get out of his

he was in your house, any reason at al

d he had folk of his own buried in the neighbourhood, and he was minded

ither a native of these parts, or had lived here

hat," I

olk, or where they were buried, or a

"He never mentione

o any particular place to look at any p

that he took his walks into th

th a glance at the coroner, sat down. And the coroner, nodding at him

ighbourhood has evidently so much to do with the death of the other man, whom we know as John Phillips, that we must not n