"How could you do that?" asked Christy curiously.

"I was educated to be a lawyer; but before I entered upon the
profession, I found I had a taste for the detective service. I did some
amateur work first, and was very successful. I afterwards reached a high
position in the service of the government. I acquired a great deal of
skill in disguising myself, and in all the arts of the profession.
I could open and reseal a letter so that no change could be discovered
in its appearance, and this was what I did in the service of Mr. Davis.
He was a mean man, the stingiest I ever met, and he was as dishonest and
unscrupulous as a Paris thief. I copied all the letters connected with
the case I had in hand, and this enabled me to get to the bottom of the
traitor's plot. He wrote letters himself, not only to England and
Scotland, but to people in the South, sending them to Bermuda and
Nassau. I took copies of all these, and saved one or two originals.
My pay was so small that I resigned my situation," and he flourished a
great file of letters as he finished.




CHAPTER V

AN ABUNDANCE OF EVIDENCE


Captain Passford had certainly kept his own counsel with punctilious
care; for he had never even mentioned the skilful detective in his
family, though the members of it had met the gentleman in Paris and in
Havre. Mr. Gilfleur was in constant communication with him while he was