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The Mystery of the Sea

will depend on your letting me know of anything you are free to tell which might serve me in my work."

"Certainly! I say," I added, "you don't mind my not having worked with you about finding her address."

"Not a bit! I have to find it in my own way; that is all!" There was a sort of satisfaction, if not of triumph, in his tone which set me thinking.

"Then you know it already?" I said.

"Not yet; but I hope to before the night is over."

"Have you a clue?" He laughed.

"Clue? a hundred. Why, man, none of us were born yesterday. There isn't a thing on God's earth that mayn't be a clue now and again if it is properly used. You are a clue yourself if it comes to that." In a flash I saw it all. Adams had come to Cruden to point me out to his detectives. These were the keen-looking men who were at Cruden when he was. Of course they had followed me, and Marjory's secret was no secret now. I said nothing for a little while; for at the first I was angry that Adams should have used me against my will. Then two feelings strove for mastery; one of anxiety lest my unconscious betrayal of her secret might hurt me in Marjory's eyes, the other relief that now she was in a measure protected by the resources of her great country. I was easier in my mind concerning her safety when I thought of those keen, alert men looking after her. Then again I thought that Adams had done nothing which I could find fault with. I should doubtless have done the same myself had occasion arisen. I was chagrined, however, to think that it had all been so childishly simple. I had not even contemplated such a contingency. If I couldn't plot and hide my tracks better than that, I should be but a poor ally for Marjory in the struggle which she had voluntarily undertaken against her unknown foes.