As we Forgive Them by William le Queux

The tall old fellow looked at me with his grey eyes and shook his head.

"Burton Blair knew rather too much," he answered evasively. "He had, it seemed, been raised to chief mate of the _Annie Curtis_, when I left her, and Poldo, the man who had held dukes and cardinals and other great men to ransom, worked patiently under him. Then after a bad go of fever Poldo died, and strangely enough gave -- so Blair declared -- the pack of cards with the secret into his hands. Dicky Dawson, however, who was also on board as bo'sun, and who had lived half his life on Italian brigs in the Adriatic, declares that this story is untrue, and that Blair stole the little bag containing the cards from beneath Poldo's pillow half an hour before he died. That, however, may be the truth, or a lie, yet the facts remain, that Poldo must have let out some portion of his secret in the delirium of the fever and that the little cards passed into Blair's possession.