"All the better for you lawyers. Well, I'm off to look for your nautical gentleman." "Do you think he is guilty?" "I can't say," said Hurd, smiling, "and I never speak unless I am quite sure of the truth." "It will be hard to come at, in this case," said the lawyer. Billy the detective smiled pleasantly and shrugged his brown shoulders. "So hard that it may never be discovered," he said. "You know many mysteries are never solved. I suspect this Gwynne Street crime will be one of them." Hurd had learned a great deal about the opal brooch from Sylvia and Deborah, and what they told him resulted in his visiting the Charing Cross Hospital to see Paul Beecot. The young man was much worried. His arm was getting better, and the doctors assured him he would be able to leave the hospital in a few days. But he had received a letter from his mother, whom he had informed of his accident. She bewailed his danger, and wrote with many tears--as Paul saw from the blotted state of the letter--that her domestic tyrant would not allow her to come to London to see her wounded darling. This in itself was annoying enough, but Paul was still more irritated and excited by the report of Aaron's terrible death, which he saw in a newspaper. So much had this moved him that he was thrown into a high state of fever, and the doctor refused to allow him to read the papers. Luckily, Paul, for his own sake, had somewhat calmed down when Hurd arrived, so the detective was permitted to see him. He sat by the bedside and told the patient who he was. Beecot looked at him sharply, and then recognized him. "You are the workman," he said astonished. "Yes, Mr. Beecot, I am. I hear that you have not taken my warning regarding your friend, Mr. Grexon Hay." "Ah! Then you knew his name all the time!" "Of course I did. I merely spoke to you to set you on your guard against him. He'll do you no good." "But he was at school with me," said Beecot, angrily. "That doesn't make him any the better companion," replied Hurd; "see here, Mr. Beecot, we can talk of this matter another time. At present, as I am allowed to converse with you only for a short time, I wish to ask you about the opal serpent." Paul sat up, although Hurd tried to keep him down. "What do you know of that?--why do you come to me?" "I know very little and want to know more. As I told you, my name is Billy Hurd, and, as I did _not_ tell you, I am the detective whom the Treasury has placed in charge of this case." "Norman's murder?" "Yes! Have you read the papers?" "A few, but not enough. The doctors took them from me and--" "Gently, Mr. Beecot. Let us talk as little as possible. Where did you get that brooch?" "Why do you want to know? You don't suspect me, I hope?"