"I crawled down to my launch, the cheapest man in the United Kingdom. My engineer was muffled up in a pilot jacket and uncommon surly and cheap too. I hadn't the pluck left in me to resent his impudence, and we crept back to Falmouth. All the way I was pestered with that question, 'What was the cargo I had seen shipped that night in Helford river?' I couldn't get it out of my head. The propeller lashed it out with a sort of vindictiveness. The little waves breaking ashore whispered about it, as though they knew very well, but wouldn't peach. When I had landed in Falmouth, I found that I was walking towards the Free Library. The doors, however, were still closed. I breakfasted in a fever of impatience and was back again at the doors before they were opened. You may take it from me, Mrs. Warriner, I was the first student inside the building that morning. I read over again every scrap of news and comment about the inquest in Scilly which I could pester the Librarian to unearth; and points which in my hurry I had overlooked before, began to take an air of importance. The old man Fournier, for instance; it seemed sort of queer that a taxidermist of Tangier should come all the way to Scilly for a month's holiday. Eh, what? What was old man Fournier doing at Scilly? Scilly's a likely place for wrecks. Was old man Fournier a hanger-on upon chance, a nautical Mr. Micawber waiting for a wreck to turn up which would suit his purpose? Or had he stage-managed by some means or other the _coup de theater_ on Rosevear? It seemed funny that the short-sighted man should spot the wreck on Rosevear before the St. Agnes men, eh? Suppose M. Fournier and Ralph Warriner were partners in that pretty cargo! I walked straight out of that library, feeling quite certain that I held the right end of the skein. I had made a mistake in following up Warriner. I ought to have followed up the taxidermist. I walked about Falmouth all that day puzzling the business out; and I came to the conclusion that the sooner I crossed to the Scillies the better. I was by this time fairly excited, and I think I should have spent my last farthing in the hunt even if I had known that when I had run the mystery to earth, it would not profit me at all. I took a train that very evening, and pottered about from station to station all night. In the morning I got to Penzance, and kicked my heels on the wharf of the little dock there until nine o'clock, when the _Lyonnesse_ started for St. Mary's. Three hours later I saw the islands hump themselves up from the sea, and I stared and stared at them till a genial being standing beside me said, 'I suppose you haven't been home for a good many years.'--By the way, Mrs. Warriner," he suddenly broke off, "I have heard that natural sherry is a drink in some favour hereabouts. I can't say that it's a beverage I have ever hankered after before, but what with the sun and the talk, the thought of it is at the present moment most seductive. What if we rang down