"I asked you whether you _recognized_ it?" returned Sir Dace, knitting his brow. "Did you know by its tone that it was Captain Tanerton's?" "Well, no, sir, I did not, if you put it in that way. Captain Tanerton was nearly a stranger to me, and the two shut doors and the passage was between me and him. I had only heard him speak once or twice before, and then in a pleasant, ordinary voice. In this quarrel his voice was raised to a high, rough pitch; and in course I could not know it for his." "In point of fact, then, it comes to this: You did _not_ recognize the voice for Captain Tanerton's." "No, sir; not, I say, if you put it in that light." "Let me put it in this light," was Sir Dace Fontaine's testy rejoinder: "Had three or four people been with Mr. Pym in his parlour, you could not have told whose voice it was quarrelling with him? You would not have known?" "That is so, sir. But, you see, I knew it was his captain that was with him." Sir Dace folded his arms and leaned back in his chair, his cross-questioning over. Mrs. Richenough was done with for the present, and Captain Tanerton entered upon his version of the night's events. "I wished particularly to see Mr. Pym, and went to Ship Street in search of him, as I have already said. He was not there. Later, I went down again----" "I beg your pardon, Captain Tanerton," interrupted the lawyer; "what time do you make it--that second visit?" "It must have been nearly nine o'clock. Mr. Pym was at home, and I went into his parlour. He sat at the table writing, or preparing to write. I asked him the question I had come to ask, and he answered me. Scarcely anything more passed between us. He was three-parts tipsy. I had intended to tell him that he was no longer chief mate of my ship--had been superseded; but, seeing his condition, I did not. I can say positively that I was not more than two minutes in the room." "And you and he did not quarrel?" "We did not. Neither were our voices raised. It is very probable, in his then condition, that he would have attempted to quarrel had he known he was discharged; but he did not know it. We were perfectly civil to each other; and when I wished him good-night, he came into the passage and shut the front-door after me." "You left no one with him?" "No one; so far as I saw. I can answer for it that no one was in the parlour with us: whether any one was in the back room I cannot say. I do not think so." "After that, Captain Tanerton?" "After that I went straight to my hotel in the Minories, and ordered tea. While taking it, Mr. Ferrar came in and told me Edward Pym was dead. I could not at first believe it. I went back to Ship Street and found it too true. In as short a time as I could manage it, I went to carry the news to Sir Dace Fontaine, taking young Saxby with me."