“Oh, merely a drowned logger. Nobody knows him and he’s been unceremoniously put under ground. Nobody’d have thought anything of it at any other time, for there’s never a spring that one or more of them don’t turn up; but just now we are living on sensations, and it added to the interest that Trafford was on hand and almost the first on the spot.” “Wasn’t it one of Trafford’s men who found it?” the other asked. “So it’s said.” “Was he looking for it, or for something else?” Matthewson persisted. “What do you mean?” “Why should Trafford have sent men to search the lower river, if he didn’t expect to find something? Had some one disappeared? You say a mere logger. What might Trafford say?” “I believe you see a bogy every time you turn round,” Hunter said impatiently. “‘’Tis conscience doth make cowards of us all,’” Matthewson answered. “I don’t like to be in this position. I don’t dare move to find the papers, for fear in doing so I stir suspicions concerning Wing’s death. I don’t dare leave the papers in the uncertain hands where they are, lest they arouse the very same suspicions. It’s a nice position for an innocent man to be in.” The curiosity of the public, no longer fed on rumours and inquests, had begun to flag, giving place to the inevitable sneers at the police and detective force, with renewed predictions daily made that the murder would remain an unsolved mystery. But for the occasional sight of Trafford, and the expectation that the inquest might be reconvened at almost any time, the village would already have begun to forget the murdered man, so easily does a sensation fade into the commonplace. But Trafford remained, or at least reappeared at unexpected moments, like an uneasy spirit that found no rest. He was working now on two murders, confident that if he found the perpetrator of the one, he would solve both. It was an aid to him that the public accepted the second as an accident, he alone having knowledge of the attempted murder of himself which, unaccomplished, had brought this fate on the unhappy wretch who was to be himself a murderer. About this time, however, he had proof that he had not ceased to interest some one. On returning to his room at the hotel one evening, he found that it had been entered during his absence and a thorough search of all his papers and luggage made. At first, he was inclined to complain to the landlord, but this purpose passed as quickly as it came, resulting in his taking apparently no notice of the affair.