"I have an idea that you are about to make a step in the dark, and after
duly considering the matter, came to the conclusion that it was time to
speak--time to let you know my sympathies were with you, time to take a
hand in this game myself."

John hardly knows what to do or say, he is so amazed at such a strange
happening.

"But, professor, I am only going now to see if I can learn anything
about my mother at the house where she staid six weeks ago, when a line
was sent to me."

The little man wags his head wisely.

"That information was given to you by one whom you believed to be Signor
Stucco, otherwise Luther Keene, the person having charge of the police
of Valetta?"

"Yes," replies John, wonderingly.

"At that hour the signer was in his own room, engaged in other business,
and oblivious of the fact whether one John Alexander Craig, M.D., was in
the land of the living or not."

All of which excites the curiosity of the young man not a little.

"Since you know so much, professor, perhaps you can tell me who it is
plays with me, the object he has, and whether my mother was ever in
that house on the Strada Mezzodi."