There were two little American boys staying in the hotel who had struck up a great friendship with Hopkins. Going down the main staircase he came upon these two—fighting as usual. "Clear out of this, you young rascals!" growled the Doctor, and the two boys ran away. Two steps lower down the Doctor noticed a brightly coloured stamp on the carpet, stooped down, and found it was one of a new issue of the Patagonian Republic. "Please, sir," said one of the boys coming back, "that’s ours. Mr. Hopkins, the big man who sits at your table, gave it us this morning—tore it off a big envelope." "I’ve never seen one before," said the Doctor, thinking of the strange coincidence. "Mr. Hopkins has a big crackly paper with an enormous green sealing-wax seal just like it," chimed in the boy. "You ought to see it—it’s lovely!" "Phew! that’s odd," he muttered. "What’s Hopkins doing with Patagonian letters? And a ’big crackly paper with an enormous green seal’ means an official document, so I should think. I hardly heard of the name till Helston told me they were trying to buy his ships. Phew! I wonder if he had anything to do with that? I’ll find out." But the Patagonian agency knew nothing of Hopkins. An Austrian by the name of Von Grootze had been engaged in the negotiations for ships, so the Doctor returned puzzled. A few days later the detectives reported that Hopkins had again visited the "doss-house" in Millwall, and that next day a very large number of Chinese had shipped for Antwerp. "Well, he seems to have something to do with these Chinese, receives communications from Patagonia, is a known adventurer, and, perhaps most convincing of all, I don’t like him," thought the Doctor. "Helston is coming back to-morrow, and I’ll have a long yarn with him about this business." So next day he told Helston all the details that were arousing his suspicions, adding, "I don’t suppose there is much in it, but I am a beastly suspicious fellow and don’t like him." "Well," answered Helston very gravely, "do you know what was found in that powder barge? A dead Chinaman!—unrecognizable except for his pigtail. We’ve managed to keep the fact very quiet, but this somehow seems to connect things, doesn’t it?" The best thing to be done, they both agreed, was to keep their eye on Hopkins, and to do that more easily Helston decided to make out his commission as secretary to himself. Later, when he gave it to Hopkins, no one could deny that his expressions of extreme pleasure were genuine. Two nights later, however, the Doctor, coming back to the hotel at midnight, went up to Helston’s room with a very grave face. "Pretty late to turn a fellow out," said Helston, switching on the light. "Hullo, man, you look pretty scared! What’s in the wind now?"