Tracked by a Tattoo by Fergus Hume

It may be here mentioned that Fanks had no intention of arresting Hersham at the present time, he had threatened to do so in order to induce Anne to speak out; but this having failed, he thought no more about the matter. The journalist was being watched, and he could be arrested at any moment; so Fanks was quite at his ease on that score. The slightest false step, and Hersham would find himself within the walls of a jail; but up to the present time Fanks had not collected sufficient evidence against him to warrant any magistrate authorising his imprisonment. The confession of the next week might bring about the intervention of the law, but till then Fanks left Hersham under the eye of the watching detective, and devoted himself to searching for the mysterious negro who had worn the green coat with brass buttons.

It may seem strange to the reader that so astute a man as Mr. Fanks should advertise for a negro, when he was confident that the only negro connected with the matter was in Bombay. But this apparent riddle will be explained when Mr. Fanks receives the expected answer to his paragraph in the "Morning Planet. " This appeared two days after he left Taxton-on-Thames, and read as follows: --