"I think a great deal of him, yes." Forrest gave the inspector a level look. "He is one of the best friends I ever had; but 'obligations' is hardly the word." He paused, looking off again into the smoke, then said, "Judge Kingsley is able to meet and brave through--what he must. It's Kingsley's wife I've got to think of. You don't know her, Bates." He paused, steadying his voice. "She has the old, rigorous New England sense of duty; the blood and principles of generations of Puritans are condensed in her. And yet she is so gentle, so sweet--but you can't understand without seeing her."
"I see," said Bates slowly, "I see. But, Forrest, suppose Kingsley is left out of this, could you put us on Stratton's track?"
Forrest swung around. "You ought to know, Bates, I'm not that sort of a man. And she--isn't that kind of a woman. She would wring the misery out of a thing like this, as no other woman would, and suffer the shame of it all her life,--but the expiation would mean something to her. She could stand the disgrace better, when it came to it, than covered guilt."
"I understand all that, Forrest,"--Bates lifted his hand with a sweeping gesture that dismissed that side of the question,--"but it's this way: the _Phantom_ was at her moorings over there at Seattle, when the cutter ran across last night. The captain boarded her immediately, and found Kingsley sleeping like a kid in his cabin below. Stratton had come up from Victoria with him, yes, but he had gone ashore. He couldn't tell just where he was at that time, but he usually put up at the Arlington. And, yes, they had run pretty close to Foulweather Bluff, just as we saw, and he was sorry about the matter of the headlight,--the glass had smashed in and he hadn't the chance to rig another,--but he was ready if they had come to collect the fine. And of course he had heard the cutter's salute, but it was too great a risk to bring the _Phantom_ around in the smoke; we had just come mighty near a collision. Then, when the captain told him he would have to make a thorough search of the yacht, he sat coolly advising him where to look. Hadn't he better cut up the cushions? He never had been certain what was inside. And there was a place on the port side that had always sounded a little hollow. They would find a hatchet in that locker if they wanted to rip off a few boards. In short, Forrest, there was absolutely nothing to show, beyond the fact that the _Phantom_ brought over our man. But, whatever Kingsley knows, or doesn't know, I must get on Stratton's track right away. That thoroughbred which he usually keeps in the Arlington stables when he is in town is gone; and that's about the only clue I have to work on."