I slipped insensibly into a mental
alliance with the victim. The business weighed on me
all day long; I was wondering how much the lawyer knew,
how much he guessed, and when he would open his attack.
Some of these problems are unsolved to this day; others
were soon made clear. Where he got Carthew's name is
still a mystery; perhaps some sailor on the
TEMPEST, perhaps my own sea-lawyer served him for a
tool; but I was actually at his elbow when he learned
the address. It fell so. One evening when I had an
engagement, and was killing time until the hour, I
chanced to walk in the court of the hotel while the
band played. The place was bright as day with the
electric light, and I recognised, at some distance
among the loiterers, the person of Bellairs in talk
with a gentleman whose face appeared familiar. It was
certainly some one I had seen, and seen recently; but
who or where I knew not. A porter standing hard by
gave me the necessary hint. The stranger was an
English navy man invalided home from Honolulu, where he
had left his ship; indeed, it was only from the change
of clothes and the effects of sickness that I had not
immediately recognised my friend and correspondent,
Lieutenant Sebright.
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