“Especially when he has none of his own,” I laughingly retorted. “Well, come along; bring on your brains—I’m waiting for them.” “I really believe you are laughing at me in your sleeve,” he observed, with a half pathetic look. “It is brave to crush the poor worm under your heel when you know he can’t retaliate.” “You’re a long worm—six feet at least,” I solemnly answered; “a long-winded one, too, unfortunately. I must leave you in the cells for an hour or two——” “Oh, no! I will speak; I will tell you it all in half a minute,” he wildly answered. “The murderer is said to have been a sailor—a short, thick-set fellow, wearing a red neckerchief. I photographed such a man in the forenoon, and I have the first portrait, which didn’t please him, though it is like as life.” “Ah! let me see it. Have you it with you?” I cried, with sudden interest and great eagerness. “Now you change your tune,” he reproachfully answered. “I have it with me, or I should not have given in so easily. I was afraid you might have me searched, and, finding the photo, think me an acquaintance or accomplice of the man,” and, with a little more wearisome talk, he produced the portrait, and slowly put before me the incidents already recorded. When he had done I was not greatly elated. The thread which connected his early customer with the man supposed to have attacked M^cCulloch was of the slenderest. Then I was disappointed that Turnbull’s story looked so real. I had fondly hoped he would stumble and prevaricate enough to allow us to lock him up on suspicion—in other words, that we should find him to be an accomplice, anxious to save himself at the expense of a companion in crime. I took the photograph, but plainly told him that I feared it would be of little use to me. “Ah, you wish to undervalue it in order to get out of paying me a good round sum when the man is caught,” he answered, with a knowing wink. “I haven’t knocked about so much without being able to see through that dodge,” and away he went, as elated and consequential as if he had really laid the man by the heels. When I was alone I had a long study over the notes I had taken during the interview. The sailor photographed had stated that his ship only got in the day before, and that he was on his way home, and merely visiting the race-course in passing. He had not said where he lived or at what port he had come in, but the general impression left on Turnbull’s mind was that the port was not far off. Leith or Granton seemed to me the likeliest places, and I turned to the shipping lists to have a look at the names of new arrivals. At Leith only one vessel had come in on that day, The Shannon; and at Granton, though there were several arrivals, none of them were from long voyages. The sailor had hinted that he had not been home for eighteen months, and that to my mind implied a long voyage, or long voyages.