''Detective gentleman from London has come down,' he grunted. 'They do say that that ship that went down here last November was carrying a mortal lot of gold. Well, she wasn't the first to go down, and she won't be the last.'

''Hear, hear,' chimed in the landlord of the Three Anchors. 'That is a true word you say there, Bill Higgins.'

''I reckon it is, Mr. Kelvin,' said Higgins.

'I looked with some curiosity at the landlord. He was a remarkable man, dark and swarthy, with curiously broad shoulders. His eyes were bloodshot, and he had a curiously furtive way of avoiding one's glance. I suspected that this was the man of whom Newman had spoken, saying he was an interesting survival.

''We don't want interfering foreigners on this coast,' he said somewhat truculently.

''Meaning the police?' asked Newman, smiling.

''Meaning the police - and others,' said Kelvin significantly. 'And don't you forget it, mister.'

''Do you know, Newman, that sounded to me very like a threat,' I said as we climbed the hill homewards.

'My friend laughed.

''Nonsense; I don't do the folk down here any harm.'

'I shook my head doubtfully. There was something sinister and uncivilized about Kelvin. I felt that his mind might run in strange, unrecognized channels.

'I think I date the beginning of my uneasiness from that moment. I had slept well enough that first night, but the next night my sleep was troubled and broken. Sunday dawned, dark and sullen, with an overcast sky and the threatenings of thunder in the air. I am always a bad hand at hiding my feelings, and Newman noticed the change in me.

''What is the matter with you, West? You are a bundle of nerves this morning.'

''I don't know,' I confessed, 'but I have got a horrible feeling of foreboding.'