"Exactly. Yet--"

"Yet?"

"He was very anxious to put you and Fenton into this very Spot."

"That is so. But may it not be that we, too, knew a bit too much?"

He couldn't answer that.

Nevertheless, we were both of us convinced concerning the Rhamda.
It was merely a digression of thought, a conjecture. He might be
good; but we were both positive of his villainy. It was his
motive, of course, that weighed up his character; could we find
that, we would uncover everything.




XIV

A NEW ELEMENT


Budge Kennedy was not so easily found. There were many Kennedys.
About two-thirds of Ireland had apparently migrated to San
Francisco under that name and had lodged in the directory. We went
through the lists on both sides of the bay, but found nothing; the
old directories had mostly been destroyed by fire or had been