initial commit of ebook 10373HEADmain

15 files changed, 66777 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6833f05
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.gitattributes
@@ -0,0 +1,3 @@
+* text=auto
+*.txt text
+*.md text
diff --git a/10373-0.txt b/10373-0.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..373e98a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/10373-0.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,9324 @@
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10373 ***
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+The Middle Temple Murder
+
+by J.S. Fletcher
+
+1919
+
+Contents
+
+ CHAPTER I. THE SCRAP OF GREY PAPER
+ CHAPTER II. HIS FIRST BRIEF
+ CHAPTER III. THE CLUE OF THE CAP
+ CHAPTER IV. THE ANGLO-ORIENT HOTEL
+ CHAPTER V. SPARGO WISHES TO SPECIALIZE
+ CHAPTER VI. WITNESS TO A MEETING
+ CHAPTER VII. MR. AYLMORE
+ CHAPTER VIII. THE MAN FROM THE SAFE DEPOSIT
+ CHAPTER IX. THE DEALER IN RARE STAMPS
+ CHAPTER X. THE LEATHER BOX
+ CHAPTER XI. MR. AYLMORE IS QUESTIONED
+ CHAPTER XII. THE NEW WITNESS
+ CHAPTER XIII. UNDER SUSPICION
+ CHAPTER XIV. THE SILVER TICKET
+ CHAPTER XV. MARKET MILCASTER
+ CHAPTER XVI. THE “YELLOW DRAGON”
+ CHAPTER XVII. MR. QUARTERPAGE HARKS BACK
+ CHAPTER XVIII. AN OLD NEWSPAPER
+ CHAPTER XIX. THE CHAMBERLAYNE STORY
+ CHAPTER XX. MAITLAND _alias_ MARBURY
+ CHAPTER XXI. ARRESTED
+ CHAPTER XXII. THE BLANK PAST
+ CHAPTER XXIII. MISS BAYLIS
+ CHAPTER XXIV. MOTHER GUTCH
+ CHAPTER XXV. REVELATIONS
+ CHAPTER XXVI. STILL SILENT
+ CHAPTER XXVII. MR. ELPHICK’S CHAMBERS
+ CHAPTER XXVIII. OF PROVED IDENTITY
+ CHAPTER XXIX. THE CLOSED DOORS
+ CHAPTER XXX. REVELATION
+ CHAPTER XXXI. THE PENITENT WINDOW-CLEANER
+ CHAPTER XXXII. THE CONTENTS OF THE COFFIN
+ CHAPTER XXXIII. FORESTALLED
+ CHAPTER XXXIV. THE WHIP HAND
+ CHAPTER XXXV. MYERST EXPLAINS
+ CHAPTER XXXVI. THE FINAL TELEGRAM
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER ONE
+THE SCRAP OF GREY PAPER
+
+
+As a rule, Spargo left the _Watchman_ office at two o’clock. The paper
+had then gone to press. There was nothing for him, recently promoted to
+a sub-editorship, to do after he had passed the column for which he was
+responsible; as a matter of fact he could have gone home before the
+machines began their clatter. But he generally hung about, trifling,
+until two o’clock came. On this occasion, the morning of the 22nd of
+June, 1912, he stopped longer than usual, chatting with Hacket, who had
+charge of the foreign news, and who began telling him about a telegram
+which had just come through from Durazzo. What Hacket had to tell was
+interesting: Spargo lingered to hear all about it, and to discuss it.
+Altogether it was well beyond half-past two when he went out of the
+office, unconsciously puffing away from him as he reached the threshold
+the last breath of the atmosphere in which he had spent his midnight.
+In Fleet Street the air was fresh, almost to sweetness, and the first
+grey of the coming dawn was breaking faintly around the high silence of
+St. Paul’s.
+
+Spargo lived in Bloomsbury, on the west side of Russell Square. Every
+night and every morning he walked to and from the _Watchman_ office by
+the same route—Southampton Row, Kingsway, the Strand, Fleet Street. He
+came to know several faces, especially amongst the police; he formed
+the habit of exchanging greetings with various officers whom he
+encountered at regular points as he went slowly homewards, smoking his
+pipe. And on this morning, as he drew near to Middle Temple Lane, he
+saw a policeman whom he knew, one Driscoll, standing at the entrance,
+looking about him. Further away another policeman appeared, sauntering.
+Driscoll raised an arm and signalled; then, turning, he saw Spargo. He
+moved a step or two towards him. Spargo saw news in his face.
+
+“What is it?” asked Spargo.
+
+Driscoll jerked a thumb over his shoulder, towards the partly open door
+of the lane. Within, Spargo saw a man hastily donning a waistcoat and
+jacket.
+
+“He says,” answered Driscoll, “him, there—the porter—that there’s a man
+lying in one of them entries down the lane, and he thinks he’s dead.
+Likewise, he thinks he’s murdered.”
+
+Spargo echoed the word.
+
+“But what makes him think that?” he asked, peeping with curiosity
+beyond Driscoll’s burly form. “Why?”
+
+“He says there’s blood about him,” answered Driscoll. He turned and
+glanced at the oncoming constable, and then turned again to Spargo.
+“You’re a newspaper man, sir?” he suggested.
+
+“I am,” replied Spargo.
+
+“You’d better walk down with us,” said Driscoll, with a grin. “There’ll
+be something to write pieces in the paper about. At least, there may
+be.” Spargo made no answer. He continued to look down the lane,
+wondering what secret it held, until the other policeman came up. At
+the same moment the porter, now fully clothed, came out.
+
+“Come on!” he said shortly. “I’ll show you.”
+
+Driscoll murmured a word or two to the newly-arrived constable, and
+then turned to the porter.
+
+“How came you to find him, then?” he asked
+
+The porter jerked his head at the door which they were leaving.
+
+“I heard that door slam,” he replied, irritably, as if the fact which
+he mentioned caused him offence. “I know I did! So I got up to look
+around. Then—well, I saw that!”
+
+He raised a hand, pointing down the lane. The three men followed his
+outstretched finger. And Spargo then saw a man’s foot, booted,
+grey-socked, protruding from an entry on the left hand.
+
+“Sticking out there, just as you see it now,” said the porter. “I ain’t
+touched it. And so—”
+
+He paused and made a grimace as if at the memory of some unpleasant
+thing. Driscoll nodded comprehendingly.
+
+“And so you went along and looked?” he suggested. “Just so—just to see
+who it belonged to, as it might be.”
+
+“Just to see—what there was to see,” agreed the porter. “Then I saw
+there was blood. And then—well, I made up the lane to tell one of you
+chaps.”
+
+“Best thing you could have done,” said Driscoll. “Well, now then—”
+
+The little procession came to a halt at the entry. The entry was a cold
+and formal thing of itself; not a nice place to lie dead in, having
+glazed white tiles for its walls and concrete for its flooring;
+something about its appearance in that grey morning air suggested to
+Spargo the idea of a mortuary. And that the man whose foot projected
+over the step was dead he had no doubt: the limpness of his pose
+certified to it.
+
+For a moment none of the four men moved or spoke. The two policemen
+unconsciously stuck their thumbs in their belts and made play with
+their fingers; the porter rubbed his chin thoughtfully—Spargo
+remembered afterwards the rasping sound of this action; he himself put
+his hands in his pockets and began to jingle his money and his keys.
+Each man had his own thoughts as he contemplated the piece of human
+wreckage which lay before him.
+
+“You’ll notice,” suddenly observed Driscoll, speaking in a hushed
+voice, “You’ll notice that he’s lying there in a queer way—same as
+if—as if he’d been put there. Sort of propped up against that wall, at
+first, and had slid down, like.”
+
+Spargo was taking in all the details with a professional eye. He saw at
+his feet the body of an elderly man; the face was turned away from him,
+crushed in against the glaze of the wall, but he judged the man to be
+elderly because of grey hair and whitening whisker; it was clothed in a
+good, well-made suit of grey check cloth—tweed—and the boots were good:
+so, too, was the linen cuff which projected from the sleeve that hung
+so limply. One leg was half doubled under the body; the other was
+stretched straight out across the threshold; the trunk was twisted to
+the wall. Over the white glaze of the tiles against which it and the
+shoulder towards which it had sunk were crushed there were gouts and
+stains of blood. And Driscoll, taking a hand out of his belt, pointed a
+finger at them.
+
+“Seems to me,” he said, slowly, “seems to me as how he’s been struck
+down from behind as he came out of here. That blood’s from his
+nose—gushed out as he fell. What do you say, Jim?” The other policeman
+coughed.
+
+“Better get the inspector here,” he said. “And the doctor and the
+ambulance. Dead—ain’t he?”
+
+Driscoll bent down and put a thumb on the hand which lay on the
+pavement.
+
+“As ever they make ’em,” he remarked laconically. “And stiff, too.
+Well, hurry up, Jim!”
+
+Spargo waited until the inspector arrived; waited until the
+hand-ambulance came. More policemen came with it; they moved the body
+for transference to the mortuary, and Spargo then saw the dead man’s
+face. He looked long and steadily at it while the police arranged the
+limbs, wondering all the time who it was that he gazed at, how he came
+to that end, what was the object of his murderer, and many other
+things. There was some professionalism in Spargo’s curiosity, but there
+was also a natural dislike that a fellow-being should have been so
+unceremoniously smitten out of the world.
+
+There was nothing very remarkable about the dead man’s face. It was
+that of a man of apparently sixty to sixty-five years of age; plain,
+even homely of feature, clean-shaven, except for a fringe of white
+whisker, trimmed, after an old-fashioned pattern, between the ear and
+the point of the jaw. The only remarkable thing about it was that it
+was much lined and seamed; the wrinkles were many and deep around the
+corners of the lips and the angles of the eyes; this man, you would
+have said to yourself, has led a hard life and weathered storm, mental
+as well as physical.
+
+Driscoll nudged Spargo with a turn of his elbow. He gave him a wink.
+“Better come down to the dead-house,” he muttered confidentially.
+
+“Why?” asked Spargo.
+
+“They’ll go through him,” whispered Driscoll. “Search him, d’ye see?
+Then you’ll get to know all about him, and so on. Help to write that
+piece in the paper, eh?”
+
+Spargo hesitated. He had had a stiff night’s work, and until his
+encounter with Driscoll he had cherished warm anticipation of the meal
+which would be laid out for him at his rooms, and of the bed into which
+he would subsequently tumble. Besides, a telephone message would send a
+man from the _Watchman_ to the mortuary. This sort of thing was not in
+his line now, now—
+
+“You’ll be for getting one o’ them big play-cards out with something
+about a mystery on it,” suggested Driscoll. “You never know what lies
+at the bottom o’ these affairs, no more you don’t.”
+
+That last observation decided Spargo; moreover, the old instinct for
+getting news began to assert itself.
+
+“All right,” he said. “I’ll go along with you.”
+
+And re-lighting his pipe he followed the little cortège through the
+streets, still deserted and quiet, and as he walked behind he reflected
+on the unobtrusive fashion in which murder could stalk about. Here was
+the work of murder, no doubt, and it was being quietly carried along a
+principal London thoroughfare, without fuss or noise, by officials to
+whom the dealing with it was all a matter of routine. Surely—
+
+“My opinion,” said a voice at Spargo’s elbow, “my opinion is that it
+was done elsewhere. Not there! He was put there. That’s what I say.”
+Spargo turned and saw that the porter was at his side. He, too, was
+accompanying the body.
+
+“Oh!” said Spargo. “You think—”
+
+“I think he was struck down elsewhere and carried there,” said the
+porter. “In somebody’s chambers, maybe. I’ve known of some queer games
+in our bit of London! Well!—he never came in at my lodge last
+night—I’ll stand to that. And who is he, I should like to know? From
+what I see of him, not the sort to be about our place.”
+
+“That’s what we shall hear presently,” said Spargo. “They’re going to
+search him.”
+
+But Spargo was presently made aware that the searchers had found
+nothing. The police-surgeon said that the dead man had, without doubt,
+been struck down from behind by a terrible blow which had fractured the
+skull and caused death almost instantaneously. In Driscoll’s opinion,
+the murder had been committed for the sake of plunder. For there was
+nothing whatever on the body. It was reasonable to suppose that a man
+who is well dressed would possess a watch and chain, and have money in
+his pockets, and possibly rings on his fingers. But there was nothing
+valuable to be found; in fact there was nothing at all to be found that
+could lead to identification—no letters, no papers, nothing. It was
+plain that whoever had struck the dead man down had subsequently
+stripped him of whatever was on him. The only clue to possible identity
+lay in the fact that a soft cap of grey cloth appeared to have been
+newly purchased at a fashionable shop in the West End.
+
+Spargo went home; there seemed to be nothing to stop for. He ate his
+food and he went to bed, only to do poor things in the way of sleeping.
+He was not the sort to be impressed by horrors, but he recognized at
+last that the morning’s event had destroyed his chance of rest; he
+accordingly rose, took a cold bath, drank a cup of coffee, and went
+out. He was not sure of any particular idea when he strolled away from
+Bloomsbury, but it did not surprise him when, half an hour later he
+found that he had walked down to the police station near which the
+unknown man’s body lay in the mortuary. And there he met Driscoll, just
+going off duty. Driscoll grinned at sight of him.
+
+“You’re in luck,” he said. “’Tisn’t five minutes since they found a bit
+of grey writing paper crumpled up in the poor man’s waistcoat pocket—it
+had slipped into a crack. Come in, and you’ll see it.”
+
+Spargo went into the inspector’s office. In another minute he found
+himself staring at the scrap of paper. There was nothing on it but an
+address, scrawled in pencil:—Ronald Breton, Barrister, King’s Bench
+Walk, Temple, London.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWO
+HIS FIRST BRIEF
+
+
+Spargo looked up at the inspector with a quick jerk of his head. “I
+know this man,” he said.
+
+The inspector showed new interest.
+
+“What, Mr. Breton?” he asked.
+
+“Yes. I’m on the _Watchman_, you know, sub-editor. I took an article
+from him the other day—article on ‘Ideal Sites for Campers-Out.’ He
+came to the office about it. So this was in the dead man’s pocket?”
+
+“Found in a hole in his pocket, I understand: I wasn’t present myself.
+It’s not much, but it may afford some clue to identity.”
+
+Spargo picked up the scrap of grey paper and looked closely at it. It
+seemed to him to be the sort of paper that is found in hotels and in
+clubs; it had been torn roughly from the sheet.
+
+“What,” he asked meditatively, “what will you do about getting this man
+identified?”
+
+The inspector shrugged his shoulders.
+
+“Oh, usual thing, I suppose. There’ll be publicity, you know. I suppose
+you’ll be doing a special account yourself, for your paper, eh? Then
+there’ll be the others. And we shall put out the usual notice. Somebody
+will come forward to identify—sure to. And—”
+
+A man came into the office—a stolid-faced, quiet-mannered, soberly
+attired person, who might have been a respectable tradesman out for a
+stroll, and who gave the inspector a sidelong nod as he approached his
+desk, at the same time extending his hand towards the scrap of paper
+which Spargo had just laid down.
+
+“I’ll go along to King’s Bench Walk and see Mr. Breton,” he observed,
+looking at his watch. “It’s just about ten—I daresay he’ll be there
+now.”
+
+“I’m going there, too,” remarked Spargo, but as if speaking to himself.
+“Yes, I’ll go there.”
+
+The newcomer glanced at Spargo, and then at the inspector. The
+inspector nodded at Spargo.
+
+“Journalist,” he said, “Mr. Spargo of the _Watchman_. Mr. Spargo was
+there when the body was found. And he knows Mr. Breton.” Then he nodded
+from Spargo to the stolid-faced person. “This is Detective-Sergeant
+Rathbury, from the Yard,” he said to Spargo. “He’s come to take charge
+of this case.”
+
+“Oh?” said Spargo blankly. “I see—what,” he went on, with sudden
+abruptness, “what shall you do about Breton?”
+
+“Get him to come and look at the body,” replied Rathbury. “He may know
+the man and he mayn’t. Anyway, his name and address are here, aren’t
+they?”
+
+“Come along,” said Spargo. “I’ll walk there with you.”
+
+Spargo remained in a species of brown study all the way along Tudor
+Street; his companion also maintained silence in a fashion which showed
+that he was by nature and custom a man of few words. It was not until
+the two were climbing the old balustrated staircase of the house in
+King’s Bench Walk in which Ronald Breton’s chambers were somewhere
+situate that Spargo spoke.
+
+“Do you think that old chap was killed for what he may have had on
+him?” he asked, suddenly turning on the detective.
+
+“I should like to know what he had on him before I answered that
+question, Mr. Spargo,” replied Rathbury, with a smile.
+
+“Yes,” said Spargo, dreamily. “I suppose so. He might have had—nothing
+on him, eh?”
+
+The detective laughed, and pointed to a board on which names were
+printed.
+
+“We don’t know anything yet, sir,” he observed, “except that Mr. Breton
+is on the fourth floor. By which I conclude that it isn’t long since he
+was eating his dinner.”
+
+“Oh, he’s young—he’s quite young,” said Spargo. “I should say he’s
+about four-and-twenty. I’ve met him only—”
+
+At that moment the unmistakable sounds of girlish laughter came down
+the staircase. Two girls seemed to be laughing—presently masculine
+laughter mingled with the lighter feminine.
+
+“Seems to be studying law in very pleasant fashion up here, anyway,”
+said Rathbury. “Mr. Breton’s chambers, too. And the door’s open.”
+
+The outer oak door of Ronald Breton’s chambers stood thrown wide; the
+inner one was well ajar; through the opening thus made Spargo and the
+detective obtained a full view of the interior of Mr. Ronald Breton’s
+rooms. There, against a background of law books, bundles of papers tied
+up with pink tape, and black-framed pictures of famous legal
+notabilities, they saw a pretty, vivacious-eyed girl, who, perched on a
+chair, wigged and gowned, and flourishing a mass of crisp paper, was
+haranguing an imaginary judge and jury, to the amusement of a young man
+who had his back to the door, and of another girl who leant
+confidentially against his shoulder.
+
+“I put it to you, gentlemen of the jury—I put it to you with
+confidence, feeling that you must be, must necessarily be, some,
+perhaps brothers, perhaps husbands, and fathers, can you, on your
+consciences do my client the great wrong, the irreparable injury,
+the—the—”
+
+“Think of some more adjectives!” exclaimed the young man. “Hot and
+strong ’uns—pile ’em up. That’s what they like—they—Hullo!”
+
+This exclamation arose from the fact that at this point of the
+proceedings the detective rapped at the inner door, and then put his
+head round its edge. Whereupon the young lady who was orating from the
+chair, jumped hastily down; the other young lady withdrew from the
+young man’s protecting arm; there was a feminine giggle and a feminine
+swishing of skirts, and a hasty bolt into an inner room, and Mr. Ronald
+Breton came forward, blushing a little, to greet the interrupter.
+
+“Come in, come in!” he exclaimed hastily. “I—”
+
+Then he paused, catching sight of Spargo, and held out his hand with a
+look of surprise.
+
+“Oh—Mr. Spargo?” he said. “How do you do?—we—I—we were just having a
+lark—I’m off to court in a few minutes. What can I do for you, Mr.
+Spargo?”
+
+He had backed to the inner door as he spoke, and he now closed it and
+turned again to the two men, looking from one to the other. The
+detective, on his part, was looking at the young barrister. He saw a
+tall, slimly-built youth, of handsome features and engaging presence,
+perfectly groomed, and immaculately garbed, and having upon him a
+general air of well-to-do-ness, and he formed the impression from these
+matters that Mr. Breton was one of those fortunate young men who may
+take up a profession but are certainly not dependent upon it. He turned
+and glanced at the journalist.
+
+“How do you do?” said Spargo slowly. “I—the fact is, I came here with
+Mr. Rathbury. He—wants to see you. Detective-Sergeant Rathbury—of New
+Scotland Yard.”
+
+Spargo pronounced this formal introduction as if he were repeating a
+lesson. But he was watching the young barrister’s face. And Breton
+turned to the detective with a look of surprise.
+
+“Oh!” he said. “You wish—”
+
+Rathbury had been fumbling in his pocket for the scrap of grey paper,
+which he had carefully bestowed in a much-worn memorandum-book. “I
+wished to ask a question, Mr. Breton,” he said. “This morning, about a
+quarter to three, a man—elderly man—was found dead in Middle Temple
+Lane, and there seems little doubt that he was murdered. Mr. Spargo
+here—he was present when the body was found.”
+
+“Soon after,” corrected Spargo. “A few minutes after.”
+
+“When this body was examined at the mortuary,” continued Rathbury, in
+his matter-of-fact, business-like tones, “nothing was found that could
+lead to identification. The man appears to have been robbed. There was
+nothing whatever on him—but this bit of torn paper, which was found in
+a hole in the lining of his waistcoat pocket. It’s got your name and
+address on it, Mr. Breton. See?”
+
+Ronald Breton took the scrap of paper and looked at it with knitted
+brows.
+
+“By Jove!” he muttered. “So it has; that’s queer. What’s he like, this
+man?”
+
+Rathbury glanced at a clock which stood on the mantelpiece.
+
+“Will you step round and take a look at him, Mr. Breton?” he said.
+“It’s close by.”
+
+“Well—I—the fact is, I’ve got a case on, in Mr. Justice Borrow’s
+court,” Breton answered, also glancing at his clock. “But it won’t be
+called until after eleven. Will—”
+
+“Plenty of time, sir,” said Rathbury; “it won’t take you ten minutes to
+go round and back again—a look will do. You don’t recognize this
+handwriting, I suppose?”
+
+Breton still held the scrap of paper in his fingers. He looked at it
+again, intently.
+
+“No!” he answered. “I don’t. I don’t know it at all—I can’t think, of
+course, who this man could be, to have my name and address. I thought
+he might have been some country solicitor, wanting my professional
+services, you know,” he went on, with a shy smile at Spargo; “but,
+three—three o’clock in the morning, eh?”
+
+“The doctor,” observed Rathbury, “the doctor thinks he had been dead
+about two and a half hours.”
+
+Breton turned to the inner door.
+
+“I’ll—I’ll just tell these ladies I’m going out for a quarter of an
+hour,” he said. “They’re going over to the court with me—I got my first
+brief yesterday,” he went on with a boyish laugh, glancing right and
+left at his visitors. “It’s nothing much—small case—but I promised my
+fiancée and her sister that they should be present, you know. A
+moment.”
+
+He disappeared into the next room and came back a moment later in all
+the glory of a new silk hat. Spargo, a young man who was never very
+particular about his dress, began to contrast his own attire with the
+butterfly appearance of this youngster; he had been quick to notice
+that the two girls who had whisked into the inner room had been
+similarly garbed in fine raiment, more characteristic of Mayfair than
+of Fleet Street. Already he felt a strange curiosity about Breton, and
+about the young ladies whom he heard talking behind the inner door.
+
+“Well, come on,” said Breton. “Let’s go straight there.”
+
+The mortuary to which Rathbury led the way was cold, drab, repellent to
+the general gay sense of the summer morning. Spargo shivered
+involuntarily as he entered it and took a first glance around. But the
+young barrister showed no sign of feeling or concern; he looked quickly
+about him and stepped alertly to the side of the dead man, from whose
+face the detective was turning back a cloth. He looked steadily and
+earnestly at the fixed features. Then he drew back, shaking his head.
+
+“No!” he said with decision. “Don’t know him—don’t know him from Adam.
+Never set eyes on him in my life, that I know of.”
+
+Rathbury replaced the cloth.
+
+“I didn’t suppose you would,” he remarked. “Well, I expect we must go
+on the usual lines. Somebody’ll identify him.”
+
+“You say he was murdered?” said Breton. “Is that—certain?”
+
+Rathbury jerked his thumb at the corpse.
+
+“The back of his skull is smashed in,” he said laconically. “The doctor
+says he must have been struck down from behind—and a fearful blow, too.
+I’m much obliged to you, Mr. Breton.”
+
+“Oh, all right!” said Breton. “Well, you know where to find me if you
+want me. I shall be curious about this. Good-bye—good-bye, Mr. Spargo.”
+
+The young barrister hurried away, and Rathbury turned to the
+journalist.
+
+“I didn’t expect anything from that,” he remarked. “However, it was a
+thing to be done. You are going to write about this for your paper?”
+
+Spargo nodded.
+
+“Well,” continued Rathbury, “I’ve sent a man to Fiskie’s, the hatter’s,
+where that cap came from, you know. We may get a bit of information
+from that quarter—it’s possible. If you like to meet me here at twelve
+o’clock I’ll tell you anything I’ve heard. Just now I’m going to get
+some breakfast.”
+
+“I’ll meet you here,” said Spargo, “at twelve o’clock.”
+
+He watched Rathbury go away round one corner; he himself suddenly set
+off round another. He went to the _Watchman_ office, wrote a few lines,
+which he enclosed in an envelope for the day-editor, and went out
+again. Somehow or other, his feet led him up Fleet Street, and before
+he quite realized what he was doing he found himself turning into the
+Law Courts.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THREE
+THE CLUE OF THE CAP
+
+
+Having no clear conception of what had led him to these scenes of
+litigation, Spargo went wandering aimlessly about in the great hall and
+the adjacent corridors until an official, who took him to be lost,
+asked him if there was any particular part of the building he wanted.
+For a moment Spargo stared at the man as if he did not comprehend his
+question. Then his mental powers reasserted themselves.
+
+“Isn’t Mr. Justice Borrow sitting in one of the courts this morning?”
+he suddenly asked.
+
+“Number seven,” replied the official. “What’s your case—when’s it
+down?”
+
+“I haven’t got a case,” said Spargo. “I’m a pressman—reporter, you
+know.”
+
+The official stuck out a finger.
+
+“Round the corner—first to your right—second on the left,” he said
+automatically. “You’ll find plenty of room—nothing much doing there
+this morning.”
+
+He turned away, and Spargo recommenced his apparently aimless
+perambulation of the dreary, depressing corridors.
+
+“Upon my honour!” he muttered. “Upon my honour, I really don’t know
+what I’ve come up here for. I’ve no business here.”
+
+Just then he turned a corner and came face to face with Ronald Breton.
+The young barrister was now in his wig and gown and carried a bundle of
+papers tied up with pink tape; he was escorting two young ladies, who
+were laughing and chattering as they tripped along at his side. And
+Spargo, glancing at them meditatively, instinctively told himself which
+of them it was that he and Rathbury had overheard as she made her
+burlesque speech: it was not the elder one, who walked by Ronald Breton
+with something of an air of proprietorship, but the younger, the girl
+with the laughing eyes and the vivacious smile, and it suddenly dawned
+upon him that somewhere, deep within him, there had been a notion, a
+hope of seeing this girl again—why, he could not then think.
+
+Spargo, thus coming face to face with these three, mechanically lifted
+his hat. Breton stopped, half inquisitive. His eyes seemed to ask a
+question.
+
+“Yes,” said Spargo. “I—the fact is, I remembered that you said you were
+coming up here, and I came after you. I want—when you’ve time—to have a
+talk, to ask you a few questions. About—this affair of the dead man,
+you know.”
+
+Breton nodded. He tapped Spargo on the arm.
+
+“Look here,” he said. “When this case of mine is over, I can give you
+as much time as you like. Can you wait a bit? Yes? Well, I say, do me a
+favour. I was taking these ladies round to the gallery—round there, and
+up the stairs—and I’m a bit pressed for time—I’ve a solicitor waiting
+for me. You take them—there’s a good fellow; then, when the case is
+over, bring them down here, and you and I will talk. Here—I’ll
+introduce you all—no ceremony. Miss Aylmore—Miss Jessie Aylmore. Mr.
+Spargo—of the _Watchman_. Now, I’m off!” Breton turned on the instant;
+his gown whisked round a corner, and Spargo found himself staring at
+two smiling girls. He saw then that both were pretty and attractive,
+and that one seemed to be the elder by some three or four years.
+
+“That is very cool of Ronald,” observed the elder young lady. “Perhaps
+his scheme doesn’t fit in with yours, Mr. Spargo? Pray don’t—”
+
+“Oh, it’s all right!” said Spargo, feeling himself uncommonly stupid.
+“I’ve nothing to do. But—where did Mr. Breton say you wished to be
+taken?”
+
+“Into the gallery of number seven court,” said the younger girl
+promptly. “Round this corner—I think I know the way.”
+
+Spargo, still marvelling at the rapidity with which affairs were moving
+that morning, bestirred himself to act as cicerone, and presently led
+the two young ladies to the very front of one of those public galleries
+from which idlers and specially-interested spectators may see and hear
+the proceedings which obtain in the badly-ventilated, ill-lighted tanks
+wherein justice is dispensed at the Law Courts. There was no one else
+in that gallery; the attendant in the corridor outside seemed to be
+vastly amazed that any one should wish to enter it, and he presently
+opened the door, beckoned to Spargo, and came half-way down the stairs
+to meet him.
+
+“Nothing much going on here this morning,” he whispered behind a raised
+hand. “But there’s a nice breach case in number five—get you three good
+seats there if you like.”
+
+Spargo declined this tempting offer, and went back to his charges. He
+had decided by that time that Miss Aylmore was about twenty-three, and
+her sister about eighteen; he also thought that young Breton was a
+lucky dog to be in possession of such a charming future wife and an
+equally charming sister-in-law. And he dropped into a seat at Miss
+Jessie Aylmore’s side, and looked around him as if he were much awed by
+his surroundings.
+
+“I suppose one can talk until the judge enters?” he whispered. “Is this
+really Mr. Breton’s first case?”
+
+“His very first—all on his own responsibility, any way,” replied
+Spargo’s companion, smiling. “And he’s very nervous—and so’s my sister.
+Aren’t you, now, Evelyn?”
+
+Evelyn Aylmore looked at Spargo, and smiled quietly.
+
+“I suppose one’s always nervous about first appearances,” she said.
+“However, I think Ronald’s got plenty of confidence, and, as he says,
+it’s not much of a case: it isn’t even a jury case. I’m afraid you’ll
+find it dull, Mr. Spargo—it’s only something about a promissory note.”
+
+“Oh, I’m all right, thank you,” replied Spargo, unconsciously falling
+back on a favourite formula. “I always like to hear lawyers—they manage
+to say such a lot about—about—”
+
+“About nothing,” said Jessie Aylmore. “But there—so do gentlemen who
+write for the papers, don’t they?”
+
+Spargo was about to admit that there was a good deal to be said on that
+point when Miss Aylmore suddenly drew her sister’s attention to a man
+who had just entered the well of the court.
+
+“Look, Jessie!” she observed. “There’s Mr. Elphick!”
+
+Spargo looked down at the person indicated: an elderly, large-faced,
+smooth-shaven man, a little inclined to stoutness, who, wigged and
+gowned, was slowly making his way to a corner seat just outside that
+charmed inner sanctum wherein only King’s Counsel are permitted to sit.
+He dropped into this in a fashion which showed that he was one of those
+men who loved personal comfort; he bestowed his plump person at the
+most convenient angle and fitting a monocle in his right eye, glanced
+around him. There were a few of his professional brethren in his
+vicinity; there were half a dozen solicitors and their clerks in
+conversation with one or other of them; there were court officials. But
+the gentleman of the monocle swept all these with an indifferent look
+and cast his eyes upward until he caught sight of the two girls.
+Thereupon he made a most gracious bow in their direction; his broad
+face beamed in a genial smile, and he waved a white hand.
+
+“Do you know Mr. Elphick, Mr. Spargo?” enquired the younger Miss
+Aylmore.
+
+“I rather think I’ve seen him, somewhere about the Temple,” answered
+Spargo. “In fact, I’m sure I have.”
+
+“His chambers are in Paper Buildings,” said Jessie. “Sometimes he gives
+tea-parties in them. He is Ronald’s guardian, and preceptor, and
+mentor, and all that, and I suppose he’s dropped into this court to
+hear how his pupil goes on.”
+
+“Here is Ronald,” whispered Miss Aylmore.
+
+“And here,” said her sister, “is his lordship, looking very cross. Now,
+Mr. Spargo, you’re in for it.”
+
+Spargo, to tell the truth, paid little attention to what went on
+beneath him. The case which young Breton presently opened was a
+commercial one, involving certain rights and properties in a promissory
+note; it seemed to the journalist that Breton dealt with it very well,
+showing himself master of the financial details, and speaking with
+readiness and assurance. He was much more interested in his companions,
+and especially in the younger one, and he was meditating on how he
+could improve his further acquaintance when he awoke to the fact that
+the defence, realizing that it stood no chance, had agreed to withdraw,
+and that Mr. Justice Borrow was already giving judgment in Ronald
+Breton’s favour.
+
+In another minute he was walking out of the gallery in rear of the two
+sisters.
+
+“Very good—very good, indeed,” he said, absent-mindedly. “I thought he
+put his facts very clearly and concisely.”
+
+Downstairs, in the corridor, Ronald Breton was talking to Mr. Elphick.
+He pointed a finger at Spargo as the latter came up with the girls:
+Spargo gathered that Breton was speaking of the murder and of his,
+Spargo’s, connection with it. And directly they approached, he spoke.
+
+“This is Mr. Spargo, sub-editor of the _Watchman_.” Breton said. “Mr.
+Elphick—Mr. Spargo. I was just telling Mr. Elphick, Spargo, that you
+saw this poor man soon after he was found.”
+
+Spargo, glancing at Mr. Elphick, saw that he was deeply interested. The
+elderly barrister took him—literally—by the button-hole.
+
+“My dear sir!” he said. “You—saw this poor fellow? Lying dead—in the
+third entry down Middle Temple Lane? The third entry, eh?”
+
+“Yes,” replied Spargo, simply. “I saw him. It was the third entry.”
+
+“Singular!” said Mr. Elphick, musingly. “I know a man who lives in that
+house. In fact, I visited him last night, and did not leave until
+nearly midnight. And this unfortunate man had Mr. Ronald Breton’s name
+and address in his pocket?”
+
+Spargo nodded. He looked at Breton, and pulled out his watch. Just then
+he had no idea of playing the part of informant to Mr. Elphick.
+
+“Yes, that’s so,” he answered shortly. Then, looking at Breton
+significantly, he added, “If you can give me those few minutes, now—?”
+
+“Yes—yes!” responded Ronald Breton, nodding. “I understand. Evelyn—I’ll
+leave you and Jessie to Mr. Elphick; I must go.”
+
+Mr. Elphick seized Spargo once more.
+
+“My dear sir!” he said, eagerly. “Do you—do you think I could possibly
+see—the body?”
+
+“It’s at the mortuary,” answered Spargo. “I don’t know what their
+regulations are.”
+
+Then he escaped with Breton. They had crossed Fleet Street and were in
+the quieter shades of the Temple before Spargo spoke.
+
+“About what I wanted to say to you,” he said at last. “It was—this.
+I—well, I’ve always wanted, as a journalist, to have a real big murder
+case. I think this is one. I want to go right into it—thoroughly, first
+and last. And—I think you can help me.”
+
+“How do you know that it is a murder case?” asked Breton quietly.
+
+“It’s a murder case,” answered Spargo, stolidly. “I feel it. Instinct,
+perhaps. I’m going to ferret out the truth. And it seems to me—”
+
+He paused and gave his companion a sharp glance.
+
+“It seems to me,” he presently continued, “that the clue lies in that
+scrap of paper. That paper and that man are connecting links between
+you and—somebody else.”
+
+“Possibly,” agreed Breton. “You want to find the somebody else?”
+
+“I want you to help me to find the somebody else,” answered Spargo. “I
+believe this is a big, very big affair: I want to do it. I don’t
+believe in police methods—much. By the by, I’m just going to meet
+Rathbury. He may have heard of something. Would you like to come?”
+
+Breton ran into his chambers in King’s Bench Walk, left his gown and
+wig, and walked round with Spargo to the police office. Rathbury came
+out as they were stepping in.
+
+“Oh!” he said. “Ah!—I’ve got what may be helpful, Mr. Spargo. I told
+you I’d sent a man to Fiskie’s, the hatter! Well, he’s just returned.
+The cap which the dead man was wearing was bought at Fiskie’s yesterday
+afternoon, and it was sent to Mr. Marbury, Room 20, at the Anglo-Orient
+Hotel.”
+
+“Where is that?” asked Spargo.
+
+“Waterloo district,” answered Rathbury. “A small house, I believe.
+Well, I’m going there. Are you coming?”
+
+“Yes,” replied Spargo. “Of course. And Mr. Breton wants to come, too.”
+
+“If I’m not in the way,” said Breton.
+
+Rathbury laughed.
+
+“Well, we may find out something about this scrap of paper,” he
+observed. And he waved a signal to the nearest taxi-cab driver.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER FOUR
+THE ANGLO-ORIENT HOTEL
+
+
+The house at which Spargo and his companions presently drew up was an
+old-fashioned place in the immediate vicinity of Waterloo Railway
+Station—a plain-fronted, four-square erection, essentially
+mid-Victorian in appearance, and suggestive, somehow, of the very early
+days of railway travelling. Anything more in contrast with the modern
+ideas of a hotel it would have been difficult to find in London, and
+Ronald Breton said so as he and the others crossed the pavement.
+
+“And yet a good many people used to favour this place on their way to
+and from Southampton in the old days,” remarked Rathbury. “And I
+daresay that old travellers, coming back from the East after a good
+many years’ absence, still rush in here. You see, it’s close to the
+station, and travellers have a knack of walking into the nearest place
+when they’ve a few thousand miles of steamboat and railway train behind
+them. Look there, now!” They had crossed the threshold as the detective
+spoke, and as they entered a square, heavily-furnished hall, he made a
+sidelong motion of his head towards a bar on the left, wherein stood or
+lounged a number of men who from their general appearance, their
+slouched hats, and their bronzed faces appeared to be Colonials, or at
+any rate to have spent a good part of their time beneath Oriental
+skies. There was a murmur of tongues that had a Colonial accent in it;
+an aroma of tobacco that suggested Sumatra and Trichinopoly, and
+Rathbury wagged his head sagely. “Lay you anything the dead man was a
+Colonial, Mr. Spargo,” he remarked. “Well, now, I suppose that’s the
+landlord and landlady.”
+
+There was an office facing them, at the rear of the hall, and a man and
+woman were regarding them from a box window which opened above a ledge
+on which lay a register book. They were middle-aged folk: the man, a
+fleshy, round-faced, somewhat pompous-looking individual, who might at
+some time have been a butler; the woman a tall, spare-figured,
+thin-featured, sharp-eyed person, who examined the newcomers with an
+enquiring gaze. Rathbury went up to them with easy confidence.
+
+“You the landlord of this house, sir?” he asked. “Mr. Walters? Just
+so—and Mrs. Walters, I presume?”
+
+The landlord made a stiff bow and looked sharply at his questioner.
+
+“What can I do for you, sir?” he enquired.
+
+“A little matter of business, Mr. Walters,” replied Rathbury, pulling
+out a card. “You’ll see there who I am—Detective-Sergeant Rathbury, of
+the Yard. This is Mr. Frank Spargo, a newspaper man; this is Mr. Ronald
+Breton, a barrister.”
+
+The landlady, hearing their names and description, pointed to a side
+door, and signed Rathbury and his companions to pass through. Obeying
+her pointed finger, they found themselves in a small private parlour.
+Walters closed the two doors which led into it and looked at his
+principal visitor.
+
+“What is it, Mr. Rathbury?” he enquired. “Anything wrong?”
+
+“We want a bit of information,” answered Rathbury, almost with
+indifference.
+
+“Did anybody of the name of Marbury put up here yesterday—elderly man,
+grey hair, fresh complexion?”
+
+Mrs. Walters started, glancing at her husband.
+
+“There!” she exclaimed. “I knew some enquiry would be made. Yes—a Mr.
+Marbury took a room here yesterday morning, just after the noon train
+got in from Southampton. Number 20 he took. But—he didn’t use it last
+night. He went out—very late—and he never came back.”
+
+Rathbury nodded. Answering a sign from the landlord, he took a chair
+and, sitting down, looked at Mrs. Walters.
+
+“What made you think some enquiry would be made, ma’am?” he asked. “Had
+you noticed anything?”
+
+Mrs. Walters seemed a little confused by this direct question. Her
+husband gave vent to a species of growl.
+
+“Nothing to notice,” he muttered. “Her way of speaking—that’s all.”
+
+“Well—why I said that was this,” said the landlady. “He happened to
+tell us, did Mr. Marbury, that he hadn’t been in London for over twenty
+years, and couldn’t remember anything about it, him, he said, never
+having known much about London at any time. And, of course, when he
+went out so late and never came back, why, naturally, I thought
+something had happened to him, and that there’d be enquiries made.”
+
+“Just so—just so!” said Rathbury. “So you would, ma’am—so you would.
+Well, something has happened to him. He’s dead. What’s more, there’s
+strong reason to think he was murdered.”
+
+Mr. and Mrs. Walters received this announcement with proper surprise
+and horror, and the landlord suggested a little refreshment to his
+visitors. Spargo and Breton declined, on the ground that they had work
+to do during the afternoon; Rathbury accepted it, evidently as a matter
+of course.
+
+“My respects,” he said, lifting his glass. “Well, now, perhaps you’ll
+just tell me what you know of this man? I may as well tell you, Mr. and
+Mrs. Walters, that he was found dead in Middle Temple Lane this
+morning, at a quarter to three; that there wasn’t anything on him but
+his clothes and a scrap of paper which bore this gentleman’s name and
+address; that this gentleman knows nothing whatever of him, and that I
+traced him here because he bought a cap at a West End hatter’s
+yesterday, and had it sent to your hotel.”
+
+“Yes,” said Mrs. Walters quickly, “that’s so. And he went out in that
+cap last night. Well—we don’t know much about him. As I said, he came
+in here about a quarter past twelve yesterday morning, and booked
+Number 20. He had a porter with him that brought a trunk and a
+bag—they’re in 20 now, of course. He told me that he had stayed at this
+house over twenty years ago, on his way to Australia—that, of course,
+was long before we took it. And he signed his name in the book as John
+Marbury.”
+
+“We’ll look at that, if you please,” said Rathbury.
+
+Walters fetched in the register and turned the leaf to the previous
+day’s entries. They all bent over the dead man’s writing.
+
+“‘John Marbury, Coolumbidgee, New South Wales,’” said Rathbury. “Ah—now
+I was wondering if that writing would be the same as that on the scrap
+of paper, Mr. Breton. But, you see, it isn’t—it’s quite different.”
+
+“Quite different,” said Breton. He, too, was regarding the handwriting
+with great interest. And Rathbury noticed his keen inspection of it,
+and asked another question.
+
+“Ever seen that writing before?” he suggested.
+
+“Never,” answered Breton. “And yet—there’s something very familiar
+about it.”
+
+“Then the probability is that you have seen it before,” remarked
+Rathbury. “Well—now we’ll hear a little more about Marbury’s doings
+here. Just tell me all you know, Mr. and Mrs. Walters.”
+
+“My wife knows most,” said Walters. “I scarcely saw the man—I don’t
+remember speaking with him.”
+
+“No,” said Mrs. Walters. “You didn’t—you weren’t much in his way.
+Well,” she continued, “I showed him up to his room. He talked a
+bit—said he’d just landed at Southampton from Melbourne.”
+
+“Did he mention his ship?” asked Rathbury. “But if he didn’t, it
+doesn’t matter, for we can find out.”
+
+“I believe the name’s on his things,” answered the landlady. “There are
+some labels of that sort. Well, he asked for a chop to be cooked for
+him at once, as he was going out. He had his chop, and he went out at
+exactly one o’clock, saying to me that he expected he’d get lost, as he
+didn’t know London well at any time, and shouldn’t know it at all now.
+He went outside there—I saw him—looked about him and walked off towards
+Blackfriars way. During the afternoon the cap you spoke of came for
+him—from Fiskie’s. So, of course, I judged he’d been Piccadilly way.
+But he himself never came in until ten o’clock. And then he brought a
+gentleman with him.”
+
+“Aye?” said Rathbury. “A gentleman, now? Did you see him?”
+
+“Just,” replied the landlady. “They went straight up to 20, and I just
+caught a mere glimpse of the gentleman as they turned up the stairs. A
+tall, well-built gentleman, with a grey beard, very well dressed as far
+as I could see, with a top hat and a white silk muffler round his
+throat, and carrying an umbrella.”
+
+“And they went to Marbury’s room?” said Rathbury. “What then?”
+
+“Well, then, Mr. Marbury rang for some whiskey and soda,” continued
+Mrs. Walters. “He was particular to have a decanter of whiskey: that,
+and a syphon of soda were taken up there. I heard nothing more until
+nearly midnight; then the hall-porter told me that the gentleman in 20
+had gone out, and had asked him if there was a night-porter—as, of
+course, there is. He went out at half-past eleven.”
+
+“And the other gentleman?” asked Rathbury.
+
+“The other gentleman,” answered the landlady, “went out with him. The
+hall-porter said they turned towards the station. And that was the last
+anybody in this house saw of Mr. Marbury. He certainly never came
+back.”
+
+“That,” observed Rathbury with a quiet smile, “that is quite certain,
+ma’am? Well—I suppose we’d better see this Number 20 room, and have a
+look at what he left there.”
+
+“Everything,” said Mrs. Walters, “is just as he left it. Nothing’s been
+touched.”
+
+It seemed to two of the visitors that there was little to touch. On the
+dressing-table lay a few ordinary articles of toilet—none of them of
+any quality or value: the dead man had evidently been satisfied with
+the plain necessities of life. An overcoat hung from a peg: Rathbury,
+without ceremony, went through its pockets; just as unceremoniously he
+proceeded to examine trunk and bag, and finding both unlocked, he laid
+out on the bed every article they contained and examined each
+separately and carefully. And he found nothing whereby he could gather
+any clue to the dead owner’s identity.
+
+“There you are!” he said, making an end of his task. “You see, it’s
+just the same with these things as with the clothes he had on him.
+There are no papers—there’s nothing to tell who he was, what he was
+after, where he’d come from—though that we may find out in other ways.
+But it’s not often that a man travels without some clue to his
+identity. Beyond the fact that some of this linen was, you see, bought
+in Melbourne, we know nothing of him. Yet he must have had papers and
+money on him. Did you see anything of his money, now, ma’am?” he asked,
+suddenly turning to Mrs. Walters. “Did he pull out his purse in your
+presence, now?”
+
+“Yes,” answered the landlady, with promptitude. “He came into the bar
+for a drink after he’d been up to his room. He pulled out a handful of
+gold when he paid for it—a whole handful. There must have been some
+thirty to forty sovereigns and half-sovereigns.”
+
+“And he hadn’t a penny piece on him—when found,” muttered Rathbury.
+
+“I noticed another thing, too,” remarked the landlady. “He was wearing
+a very fine gold watch and chain, and had a splendid ring on his left
+hand—little finger—gold, with a big diamond in it.”
+
+“Yes,” said the detective, thoughtfully, “I noticed that he’d worn a
+ring, and that it had been a bit tight for him. Well—now there’s only
+one thing to ask about. Did your chambermaid notice if he left any torn
+paper around—tore any letters up, or anything like that?”
+
+But the chambermaid, produced, had not noticed anything of the sort; on
+the contrary, the gentleman of Number 20 had left his room very tidy
+indeed. So Rathbury intimated that he had no more to ask, and nothing
+further to say, just then, and he bade the landlord and landlady of the
+Anglo-Orient Hotel good morning, and went away, followed by the two
+young men.
+
+“What next?” asked Spargo, as they gained the street.
+
+“The next thing,” answered Rathbury, “is to find the man with whom
+Marbury left this hotel last night.”
+
+“And how’s that to be done?” asked Spargo.
+
+“At present,” replied Rathbury, “I don’t know.”
+
+And with a careless nod, he walked off, apparently desirous of being
+alone.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER FIVE
+SPARGO WISHES TO SPECIALIZE
+
+
+The barrister and the journalist, left thus unceremoniously on a
+crowded pavement, looked at each other. Breton laughed.
+
+“We don’t seem to have gained much information,” he remarked. “I’m
+about as wise as ever.”
+
+“No—wiser,” said Spargo. “At any rate, I am. I know now that this dead
+man called himself John Marbury; that he came from Australia; that he
+only landed at Southampton yesterday morning, and that he was in the
+company last night of a man whom we have had described to us—a tall,
+grey-bearded, well-dressed man, presumably a gentleman.”
+
+Breton shrugged his shoulders.
+
+“I should say that description would fit a hundred thousand men in
+London,” he remarked.
+
+“Exactly—so it would,” answered Spargo. “But we know that it was one of
+the hundred thousand, or half-million, if you like. The thing is to
+find that one—the one.”
+
+“And you think you can do it?”
+
+“I think I’m going to have a big try at it.”
+
+Breton shrugged his shoulders again.
+
+“What?—by going up to every man who answers the description, and saying
+‘Sir, are you the man who accompanied John Marbury to the Anglo——”
+
+Spargo suddenly interrupted him.
+
+“Look here!” he said. “Didn’t you say that you knew a man who lives in
+that block in the entry of which Marbury was found?”
+
+“No, I didn’t,” answered Breton. “It was Mr. Elphick who said that. All
+the same, I do know that man—he’s Mr. Cardlestone, another barrister.
+He and Mr. Elphick are friends—they’re both enthusiastic
+philatelists—stamp collectors, you know—and I dare say Mr. Elphick was
+round there last night examining something new Cardlestone’s got hold
+of. Why?”
+
+“I’d like to go round there and make some enquiries,” replied Spargo.
+“If you’d be kind enough to——”
+
+“Oh, I’ll go with you!” responded Breton, with alacrity. “I’m just as
+keen about this business as you are, Spargo! I want to know who this
+man Marbury is, and how he came to have my name and address on him.
+Now, if I had been a well-known man in my profession, you know, why—”
+
+“Yes,” said Spargo, as they got into a cab, “yes, that would have
+explained a lot. It seems to me that we’ll get at the murderer through
+that scrap of paper a lot quicker than through Rathbury’s line. Yes,
+that’s what I think.”
+
+Breton looked at his companion with interest.
+
+“But—you don’t know what Rathbury’s line is,” he remarked.
+
+“Yes, I do,” said Spargo. “Rathbury’s gone off to discover who the man
+is with whom Marbury left the Anglo-Orient Hotel last night. That’s his
+line.”
+
+“And you want——?”
+
+“I want to find out the full significance of that bit of paper, and who
+wrote it,” answered Spargo. “I want to know why that old man was coming
+to you when he was murdered.”
+
+Breton started.
+
+“By Jove!” he exclaimed. “I—I never thought of that. You—you really
+think he was coming to me when he was struck down?”
+
+“Certain. Hadn’t he got an address in the Temple? Wasn’t he in the
+Temple? Of course, he was trying to find you.”
+
+“But—the late hour?”
+
+“No matter. How else can you explain his presence in the Temple? I
+think he was asking his way. That’s why I want to make some enquiries
+in this block.”
+
+It appeared to Spargo that a considerable number of people, chiefly of
+the office-boy variety, were desirous of making enquiries about the
+dead man. Being luncheon-hour, that bit of Middle Temple Lane where the
+body was found, was thick with the inquisitive and the
+sensation-seeker, for the news of the murder had spread, and though
+there was nothing to see but the bare stones on which the body had
+lain, there were more open mouths and staring eyes around the entry
+than Spargo had seen for many a day. And the nuisance had become so
+great that the occupants of the adjacent chambers had sent for a
+policeman to move the curious away, and when Spargo and his companion
+presented themselves at the entry this policeman was being lectured as
+to his duties by a little weazen-faced gentleman, in very snuffy and
+old-fashioned garments, and an ancient silk hat, who was obviously
+greatly exercised by the unwonted commotion.
+
+“Drive them all out into the street!” exclaimed this personage. “Drive
+them all away, constable—into Fleet Street or upon the
+Embankment—anywhere, so long as you rid this place of them. This is a
+disgrace, and an inconvenience, a nuisance, a——”
+
+“That’s old Cardlestone,” whispered Breton. “He’s always irascible, and
+I don’t suppose we’ll get anything out of him. Mr. Cardlestone,” he
+continued, making his way up to the old gentleman who was now
+retreating up the stone steps, brandishing an umbrella as ancient as
+himself. “I was just coming to see you, sir. This is Mr. Spargo, a
+journalist, who is much interested in this murder. He——”
+
+“I know nothing about the murder, my dear sir!” exclaimed Mr.
+Cardlestone. “And I never talk to journalists—a pack of busybodies,
+sir, saving your presence. I am not aware that any murder has been
+committed, and I object to my doorway being filled by a pack of office
+boys and street loungers. Murder indeed! I suppose the man fell down
+these steps and broke his neck—drunk, most likely.”
+
+He opened his outer door as he spoke, and Breton, with a reassuring
+smile and a nod at Spargo, followed him into his chambers on the first
+landing, motioning the journalist to keep at their heels.
+
+“Mr. Elphick tells me that he was with you until a late hour last
+evening, Mr. Cardlestone,” he said. “Of course, neither of you heard
+anything suspicious?”
+
+“What should we hear that was suspicious in the Temple, sir?” demanded
+Mr. Cardlestone, angrily. “I hope the Temple is free from that sort of
+thing, young Mr. Breton. Your respected guardian and myself had a quiet
+evening on our usual peaceful pursuits, and when he went away all was
+as quiet as the grave, sir. What may have gone on in the chambers above
+and around me I know not! Fortunately, our walls are thick,
+sir—substantial. I say, sir, the man probably fell down and broke his
+neck. What he was doing here, I do not presume to say.”
+
+“Well, it’s guess, you know, Mr. Cardlestone,” remarked Breton, again
+winking at Spargo. “But all that was found on this man was a scrap of
+paper on which my name and address were written. That’s practically all
+that was known of him, except that he’d just arrived from Australia.”
+
+Mr. Cardlestone suddenly turned on the young barrister with a sharp,
+acute glance.
+
+“Eh?” he exclaimed. “What’s this? You say this man had your name and
+address on him, young Breton!—yours? And that he came from—Australia?”
+
+“That’s so,” answered Breton. “That’s all that’s known.”
+
+Mr. Cardlestone put aside his umbrella, produced a bandanna
+handkerchief of strong colours, and blew his nose in a reflective
+fashion.
+
+“That’s a mysterious thing,” he observed. “Um—does Elphick know all
+that?”
+
+Breton looked at Spargo as if he was asking him for an explanation of
+Mr. Cardlestone’s altered manner. And Spargo took up the conversation.
+
+“No,” he said. “All that Mr. Elphick knows is that Mr. Ronald Breton’s
+name and address were on the scrap of paper found on the body. Mr.
+Elphick”—here Spargo paused and looked at Breton—“Mr. Elphick,” he
+presently continued, slowly transferring his glance to the old
+barrister, “spoke of going to view the body.”
+
+“Ah!” exclaimed Mr. Cardlestone, eagerly. “It can be seen? Then I’ll go
+and see it. Where is it?”
+
+Breton started.
+
+“But—my dear sir!” he said. “Why?”
+
+Mr. Cardlestone picked up his umbrella again.
+
+“I feel a proper curiosity about a mystery which occurs at my very
+door,” he said. “Also, I have known more than one man who went to
+Australia. This might—I say might, young gentlemen—might be a man I had
+once known. Show me where this body is.”
+
+Breton looked helplessly at Spargo: it was plain that he did not
+understand the turn that things were taking. But Spargo was quick to
+seize an opportunity. In another minute he was conducting Mr.
+Cardlestone through the ins and outs of the Temple towards Blackfriars.
+And as they turned into Tudor Street they encountered Mr. Elphick.
+
+“I am going to the mortuary,” he remarked. “So, I suppose, are you,
+Cardlestone? Has anything more been discovered, young man?”
+
+Spargo tried a chance shot—at what he did not know. “The man’s name was
+Marbury,” he said. “He was from Australia.”
+
+He was keeping a keen eye on Mr. Elphick, but he failed to see that Mr.
+Elphick showed any of the surprise which Mr. Cardlestone had exhibited.
+Rather, he seemed indifferent.
+
+“Oh?” he said—“Marbury? And from Australia. Well—I should like to see
+the body.”
+
+Spargo and Breton had to wait outside the mortuary while the two elder
+gentlemen went in. There was nothing to be learnt from either when they
+reappeared.
+
+“We don’t know the man,” said Mr. Elphick, calmly. “As Mr. Cardlestone,
+I understand, has said to you already—we have known men who went to
+Australia, and as this man was evidently wandering about the Temple, we
+thought it might have been one of them, come back. But—we don’t
+recognize him.”
+
+“Couldn’t recognize him,” said Mr. Cardlestone. “No!”
+
+They went away together arm in arm, and Breton looked at Spargo.
+
+“As if anybody on earth ever fancied they’d recognize him!” he said.
+“Well—what are you going to do now, Spargo? I must go.”
+
+Spargo, who had been digging his walking-stick into a crack in the
+pavement, came out of a fit of abstraction.
+
+“I?” he said. “Oh—I’m going to the office.” And he turned abruptly
+away, and walking straight off to the editorial rooms at the
+_Watchman_, made for one in which sat the official guardian of the
+editor. “Try to get me a few minutes with the chief,” he said.
+
+The private secretary looked up.
+
+“Really important?” he asked.
+
+“Big!” answered Spargo. “Fix it.”
+
+Once closeted with the great man, whose idiosyncrasies he knew pretty
+well by that time, Spargo lost no time.
+
+“You’ve heard about this murder in Middle Temple Lane?” he suggested.
+
+“The mere facts,” replied the editor, tersely.
+
+“I was there when the body was found,” continued Spargo, and gave a
+brief résumé of his doings. “I’m certain this is a most unusual
+affair,” he went on. “It’s as full of mystery as—as it could be. I want
+to give my attention to it. I want to specialize on it. I can make such
+a story of it as we haven’t had for some time—ages. Let me have it. And
+to start with, let me have two columns for tomorrow morning. I’ll make
+it—big!”
+
+The editor looked across his desk at Spargo’s eager face.
+
+“Your other work?” he said.
+
+“Well in hand,” replied Spargo. “I’m ahead a whole week—both articles
+and reviews. I can tackle both.”
+
+The editor put his finger tips together.
+
+“Have you got some idea about this, young man?” he asked.
+
+“I’ve got a great idea,” answered Spargo. He faced the great man
+squarely, and stared at him until he had brought a smile to the
+editorial face. “That’s why I want to do it,” he added. “And—it’s not
+mere boasting nor over-confidence—I know I shall do it better than
+anybody else.”
+
+The editor considered matters for a brief moment.
+
+“You mean to find out who killed this man?” he said at last.
+
+Spargo nodded his head—twice.
+
+“I’ll find that out,” he said doggedly.
+
+The editor picked up a pencil, and bent to his desk.
+
+“All right,” he said. “Go ahead. You shall have your two columns.”
+
+Spargo went quietly away to his own nook and corner. He got hold of a
+block of paper and began to write. He was going to show how to do
+things.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER SIX
+WITNESS TO A MEETING
+
+
+Ronald Breton walked into the _Watchman_ office and into Spargo’s room
+next morning holding a copy of the current issue in his hand. He waved
+it at Spargo with an enthusiasm which was almost boyish.
+
+“I say!” he exclaimed. “That’s the way to do it, Spargo! I congratulate
+you. Yes, that’s the way—certain!”
+
+Spargo, idly turning over a pile of exchanges, yawned.
+
+“What way?” he asked indifferently.
+
+“The way you’ve written this thing up,” said Breton. “It’s a hundred
+thousand times better than the usual cut-and-dried account of a murder.
+It’s—it’s like a—a romance!”
+
+“Merely a new method of giving news,” said Spargo. He picked up a copy
+of the _Watchman_, and glanced at his two columns, which had somehow
+managed to make themselves into three, viewing the displayed lettering,
+the photograph of the dead man, the line drawing of the entry in Middle
+Temple Lane, and the facsimile of the scrap of grey paper, with a
+critical eye. “Yes—merely a new method,” he continued. “The question
+is—will it achieve its object?”
+
+“What’s the object?” asked Breton.
+
+Spargo fished out a box of cigarettes from an untidy drawer, pushed it
+over to his visitor, helped himself, and tilting back his chair, put
+his feet on his desk.
+
+“The object?” he said, drily. “Oh, well, the object is the ultimate
+detection of the murderer.”
+
+“You’re after that?”
+
+“I’m after that—just that.”
+
+“And not—not simply out to make effective news?”
+
+“I’m out to find the murderer of John Marbury,” said Spargo
+deliberately slow in his speech. “And I’ll find him.”
+
+“Well, there doesn’t seem to be much in the way of clues, so far,”
+remarked Breton. “I see—nothing. Do you?”
+
+Spargo sent a spiral of scented smoke into the air.
+
+“I want to know an awful lot,” he said. “I’m hungering for news. I want
+to know who John Marbury is. I want to know what he did with himself
+between the time when he walked out of the Anglo-Orient Hotel, alive
+and well, and the time when he was found in Middle Temple Lane, with
+his skull beaten in and dead. I want to know where he got that scrap of
+paper. Above everything, Breton, I want to know what he’d got to do
+with you!”
+
+He gave the young barrister a keen look, and Breton nodded.
+
+“Yes,” he said. “I confess that’s a corker. But I think——”
+
+“Well?” said Spargo.
+
+“I think he may have been a man who had some legal business in hand, or
+in prospect, and had been recommended to—me,” said Breton.
+
+Spargo smiled—a little sardonically.
+
+“That’s good!” he said. “You had your very first brief—yesterday.
+Come—your fame isn’t blown abroad through all the heights yet, my
+friend! Besides—don’t intending clients approach—isn’t it strict
+etiquette for them to approach?—barristers through solicitors?”
+
+“Quite right—in both your remarks,” replied Breton, good-humouredly.
+“Of course, I’m not known a bit, but all the same I’ve known several
+cases where a barrister has been approached in the first instance and
+asked to recommend a solicitor. Somebody who wanted to do me a good
+turn may have given this man my address.”
+
+“Possible,” said Spargo. “But he wouldn’t have come to consult you at
+midnight. Breton!—the more I think of it, the more I’m certain there’s
+a tremendous mystery in this affair! That’s why I got the chief to let
+me write it up as I have done—here. I’m hoping that this
+photograph—though to be sure, it’s of a dead face—and this facsimile of
+the scrap of paper will lead to somebody coming forward who can——”
+
+Just then one of the uniformed youths who hang about the marble
+pillared vestibule of the _Watchman_ office came into the room with the
+unmistakable look and air of one who carries news of moment.
+
+“I dare lay a sovereign to a cent that I know what this is,” muttered
+Spargo in an aside. “Well?” he said to the boy. “What is it?”
+
+The messenger came up to the desk.
+
+“Mr. Spargo,” he said, “there’s a man downstairs who says that he wants
+to see somebody about that murder case that’s in the paper this
+morning, sir. Mr. Barrett said I was to come to you.”
+
+“Who is the man?” asked Spargo.
+
+“Won’t say, sir,” replied the boy. “I gave him a form to fill up, but
+he said he wouldn’t write anything—said all he wanted was to see the
+man who wrote the piece in the paper.”
+
+“Bring him here,” commanded Spargo. He turned to Breton when the boy
+had gone, and he smiled. “I knew we should have somebody here sooner or
+later,” he said. “That’s why I hurried over my breakfast and came down
+at ten o’clock. Now then, what will you bet on the chances of this
+chap’s information proving valuable?”
+
+“Nothing,” replied Breton. “He’s probably some crank or faddist who’s
+got some theory that he wants to ventilate.”
+
+The man who was presently ushered in by the messenger seemed from
+preliminary and outward appearance to justify Breton’s prognostication.
+He was obviously a countryman, a tall, loosely-built, middle-aged man,
+yellow of hair, blue of eye, who was wearing his Sunday-best array of
+pearl-grey trousers and black coat, and sported a necktie in which were
+several distinct colours. Oppressed with the splendour and grandeur of
+the _Watchman_ building, he had removed his hard billycock hat as he
+followed the boy, and he ducked his bared head at the two young men as
+he stepped on to the thick pile of the carpet which made luxurious
+footing in Spargo’s room. His blue eyes, opened to their widest, looked
+round him in astonishment at the sumptuousness of modern
+newspaper-office accommodation.
+
+“How do you do, sir?” said Spargo, pointing a finger to one of the
+easy-chairs for which the _Watchman_ office is famous. “I understand
+that you wish to see me?”
+
+The caller ducked his yellow head again, sat down on the edge of the
+chair, put his hat on the floor, picked it up again, and endeavoured to
+hang it on his knee, and looked at Spargo innocently and shyly.
+
+“What I want to see, sir,” he observed in a rustic accent, “is the
+gentleman as wrote that piece in your newspaper about this here murder
+in Middle Temple Lane.”
+
+“You see him,” said Spargo. “I am that man.”
+
+The caller smiled—generously.
+
+“Indeed, sir?” he said. “A very nice bit of reading, I’m sure. And what
+might your name be, now, sir? I can always talk free-er to a man when I
+know what his name is.”
+
+“So can I,” answered Spargo. “My name is Spargo—Frank Spargo. What’s
+yours?”
+
+“Name of Webster, sir—William Webster. I farm at One Ash Farm, at
+Gosberton, in Oakshire. Me and my wife,” continued Mr. Webster, again
+smiling and distributing his smile between both his hearers, “is at
+present in London on a holiday. And very pleasant we find it—weather
+and all.”
+
+“That’s right,” said Spargo. “And—you wanted to see me about this
+murder, Mr. Webster?”
+
+“I did, sir. Me, I believe, knowing, as I think, something that’ll do
+for you to put in your paper. You see, Mr. Spargo, it come about in
+this fashion—happen you’ll be for me to tell it in my own way.”
+
+“That,” answered Spargo, “is precisely what I desire.”
+
+“Well, to be sure, I couldn’t tell it in no other,” declared Mr.
+Webster. “You see, sir, I read your paper this morning while I was
+waiting for my breakfast—they take their breakfasts so late in them
+hotels—and when I’d read it, and looked at the pictures, I says to my
+wife ‘As soon as I’ve had my breakfast,’ I says, ‘I’m going to where
+they print this newspaper to tell ’em something.’ ‘Aye?’ she says,
+‘Why, what have you to tell, I should like to know?’ just like that,
+Mr. Spargo.”
+
+“Mrs. Webster,” said Spargo, “is a lady of businesslike principles. And
+what have you to tell?”
+
+Mr. Webster looked into the crown of his hat, looked out of it, and
+smiled knowingly.
+
+“Well, sir,” he continued, “Last night, my wife, she went out to a part
+they call Clapham, to take her tea and supper with an old friend of
+hers as lives there, and as they wanted to have a bit of woman-talk,
+like, I didn’t go. So thinks I to myself, I’ll go and see this here
+House of Commons. There was a neighbour of mine as had told me that all
+you’d got to do was to tell the policeman at the door that you wanted
+to see your own Member of Parliament. So when I got there I told ’em
+that I wanted to see our M.P., Mr. Stonewood—you’ll have heard tell of
+him, no doubt; he knows me very well—and they passed me, and I wrote
+out a ticket for him, and they told me to sit down while they found
+him. So I sat down in a grand sort of hall where there were a rare lot
+of people going and coming, and some fine pictures and images to look
+at, and for a time I looked at them, and then I began to take a bit of
+notice of the folk near at hand, waiting, you know, like myself. And as
+sure as I’m a christened man, sir, the gentleman whose picture you’ve
+got in your paper—him as was murdered—was sitting next to me! I knew
+that picture as soon as I saw it this morning.”
+
+Spargo, who had been making unmeaning scribbles on a block of paper,
+suddenly looked at his visitor.
+
+“What time was that?” he asked.
+
+“It was between a quarter and half-past nine, sir,” answered Mr.
+Webster. “It might ha’ been twenty past—it might ha’ been twenty-five
+past.”
+
+“Go on, if you please,” said Spargo.
+
+“Well, sir, me and this here dead gentleman talked a bit. About what a
+long time it took to get a member to attend to you, and such-like. I
+made mention of the fact that I hadn’t been in there before. ‘Neither
+have I!’ he says, ‘I came in out of curiosity,’ he says, and then he
+laughed, sir—queer-like. And it was just after that that what I’m going
+to tell you about happened.”
+
+“Tell,” commanded Spargo.
+
+“Well, sir, there was a gentleman came along, down this grand hall that
+we were sitting in—a tall, handsome gentleman, with a grey beard. He’d
+no hat on, and he was carrying a lot of paper and documents in his
+hand, so I thought he was happen one of the members. And all of a
+sudden this here man at my side, he jumps up with a sort of start and
+an exclamation, and——”
+
+Spargo lifted his hand. He looked keenly at his visitor.
+
+“Now, you’re absolutely sure about what you heard him exclaim?” he
+asked. “Quite sure about it? Because I see you are going to tell us
+what he did exclaim.”
+
+“I’ll tell you naught but what I’m certain of, sir,” replied Webster.
+“What he said as he jumped up was ‘Good God!’ he says, sharp-like—and
+then he said a name, and I didn’t right catch it, but it sounded like
+Danesworth, or Painesworth, or something of that sort—one of them
+there, or very like ’em, at any rate. And then he rushed up to this
+here gentleman, and laid his hand on his arm—sudden-like.”
+
+“And—the gentleman?” asked Spargo, quietly.
+
+“Well, he seemed taken aback, sir. He jumped. Then he stared at the
+man. Then they shook hands. And then, after they’d spoken a few words
+together-like, they walked off, talking. And, of course, I never saw no
+more of ’em. But when I saw your paper this morning, sir, and that
+picture in it, I said to myself ‘That’s the man I sat next to in that
+there hall at the House of Commons!’ Oh, there’s no doubt of it, sir!”
+
+“And supposing you saw a photograph of the tall gentleman with the grey
+beard?” suggested Spargo. “Could you recognize him from that?”
+
+“Make no doubt of it, sir,” answered Mr. Webster. “I observed him
+particular.”
+
+Spargo rose, and going over to a cabinet, took from it a thick volume,
+the leaves of which he turned over for several minutes.
+
+“Come here, if you please, Mr. Webster,” he said.
+
+The farmer went across the room.
+
+“There is a full set of photographs of members of the present House of
+Commons here,” said Spargo. “Now, pick out the one you saw. Take your
+time—and be sure.”
+
+He left his caller turning over the album and went back to Breton.
+
+“There!” he whispered. “Getting nearer—a bit nearer—eh?”
+
+“To what?” asked Breton. “I don’t see—”
+
+A sudden exclamation from the farmer interrupted Breton’s remark.
+
+“This is him, sir!” answered Mr. Webster. “That’s the gentleman—know
+him anywhere!”
+
+The two young men crossed the room. The farmer was pointing a stubby
+finger to a photograph, beneath which was written _Stephen Aylmore,
+Esq., M.P. for Brookminster_.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER SEVEN
+MR. AYLMORE
+
+
+Spargo, keenly observant and watchful, felt, rather than saw, Breton
+start; he himself preserved an imperturbable equanimity. He gave a mere
+glance at the photograph to which Mr. Webster was pointing.
+
+“Oh!” he said. “That he?”
+
+“That’s the gentleman, sir,” replied Webster. “Done to the life, that
+is. No difficulty in recognizing of that, Mr. Spargo.”
+
+“You’re absolutely sure?” demanded Spargo. “There are a lot of men in
+the House of Commons, you know, who wear beards, and many of the beards
+are grey.”
+
+But Webster wagged his head.
+
+“That’s him, sir!” he repeated. “I’m as sure of that as I am that my
+name’s William Webster. That’s the man I saw talking to him whose
+picture you’ve got in your paper. Can’t say no more, sir.”
+
+“Very good,” said Spargo. “I’m much obliged to you. I’ll see Mr.
+Aylmore. Leave me your address in London, Mr. Webster. How long do you
+remain in town?”
+
+“My address is the Beachcroft Hotel, Bloomsbury, sir, and I shall be
+there for another week,” answered the farmer. “Hope I’ve been of some
+use, Mr. Spargo. As I says to my wife——”
+
+Spargo cut his visitor short in polite fashion and bowed him out. He
+turned to Breton, who still stood staring at the album of portraits.
+
+“There!—what did I tell you?” he said. “Didn’t I say I should get some
+news? There it is.”
+
+Breton nodded his head. He seemed thoughtful.
+
+“Yes,” he agreed. “Yes, I say, Spargo!”
+
+“Well?”
+
+“Mr. Aylmore is my prospective father-in-law, you know.”
+
+“Quite aware of it. Didn’t you introduce me to his daughters—only
+yesterday?”
+
+“But—how did you know they were his daughters?”
+
+Spargo laughed as he sat down to his desk.
+
+“Instinct—intuition,” he answered. “However, never mind that, just now.
+Well—I’ve found something out. Marbury—if that is the dead man’s real
+name, and anyway, it’s all we know him by—was in the company of Mr.
+Aylmore that night. Good!”
+
+“What are you going to do about it?” asked Breton.
+
+“Do? See Mr. Aylmore, of course.”
+
+He was turning over the leaves of a telephone address-book; one hand
+had already picked up the mouthpiece of the instrument on his desk.
+
+“Look here,” said Breton. “I know where Mr. Aylmore is always to be
+found at twelve o’clock. At the A. and P.—the Atlantic and Pacific
+Club, you know, in St. James’s. If you like, I’ll go with you.”
+
+Spargo glanced at the clock and laid down the telephone.
+
+“All right,” he said. “Eleven o’clock, now. I’ve something to do. I’ll
+meet you outside the A. and P. at exactly noon.”
+
+“I’ll be there,” agreed Breton. He made for the door, and with his hand
+on it, turned. “What do you expect from—from what we’ve just heard?” he
+asked.
+
+Spargo shrugged his shoulders.
+
+“Wait—until we hear what Mr. Aylmore has to say,” he answered. “I
+suppose this man Marbury was some old acquaintance.”
+
+Breton closed the door and went away: left alone, Spargo began to
+mutter to himself.
+
+“Good God!” he says. “Dainsworth—Painsworth—something of that sort—one
+of the two. Excellent—that our farmer friend should have so much
+observation. Ah!—and why should Mr. Stephen Aylmore be recognized as
+Dainsworth or Painsworth or something of that sort. Now, who is Mr.
+Stephen Aylmore—beyond being what I know him to be?”
+
+Spargo’s fingers went instinctively to one of a number of books of
+reference which stood on his desk: they turned with practised swiftness
+to a page over which his eye ran just as swiftly. He read aloud:
+
+“AYLMORE, STEPHEN, M.P. for Brookminster since 1910. Residences: 23,
+St. Osythe Court, Kensington: Buena Vista, Great Marlow. Member
+Atlantic and Pacific and City Venturers’ Clubs. Interested in South
+American enterprise.”
+
+“Um!” muttered Spargo, putting the book away. “That’s not very
+illuminating. However, we’ve got one move finished. Now we’ll make
+another.”
+
+Going over to the album of photographs, Spargo deftly removed that of
+Mr. Aylmore, put it in an envelope and the envelope in his pocket and,
+leaving the office, hailed a taxi-cab, and ordered its driver to take
+him to the Anglo-Orient Hotel. This was the something-to-do of which he
+had spoken to Breton: Spargo wanted to do it alone.
+
+Mrs. Walters was in her low-windowed office when Spargo entered the
+hall; she recognized him at once and motioned him into her parlour.
+
+“I remember you,” said Mrs. Walters; “you came with the detective—Mr.
+Rathbury.”
+
+“Have you seen him, since?” asked Spargo.
+
+“Not since,” replied Mrs. Walters. “No—and I was wondering if he’d be
+coming round, because——” She paused there and looked at Spargo with
+particular enquiry—“You’re a friend of his, aren’t you?” she asked. “I
+suppose you know as much as he does—about this?”
+
+“He and I,” replied Spargo, with easy confidence, “are working this
+case together. You can tell me anything you’d tell him.”
+
+The landlady rummaged in her pocket and produced an old purse, from an
+inner compartment of which she brought out a small object wrapped in
+tissue paper.
+
+“Well,” she said, unwrapping the paper, “we found this in Number 20
+this morning—it was lying under the dressing-table. The girl that found
+it brought it to me, and I thought it was a bit of glass, but Walters,
+he says as how he shouldn’t be surprised if it’s a diamond. And since
+we found it, the waiter who took the whisky up to 20, after Mr. Marbury
+came in with the other gentleman, has told me that when he went into
+the room the two gentlemen were looking at a paper full of things like
+this. So there?”
+
+Spargo fingered the shining bit of stone.
+
+“That’s a diamond—right enough,” he said. “Put it away, Mrs. Walters—I
+shall see Rathbury presently, and I’ll tell him about it. Now, that
+other gentleman! You told us you saw him. Could you recognize him—I
+mean, a photograph of him? Is this the man?”
+
+Spargo knew from the expression of Mrs. Walters’ face that she had no
+more doubt than Webster had.
+
+“Oh, yes!” she said. “That’s the gentleman who came in with Mr.
+Marbury—I should have known him in a thousand. Anybody would recognize
+him from that—perhaps you’d let our hall-porter and the waiter I
+mentioned just now look at it?”
+
+“I’ll see them separately and see if they’ve ever seen a man who
+resembles this,” replied Spargo.
+
+The two men recognized the photograph at once, without any prompting,
+and Spargo, after a word or two with the landlady, rode off to the
+Atlantic and Pacific Club, and found Ronald Breton awaiting him on the
+steps. He made no reference to his recent doings, and together they
+went into the house and asked for Mr. Aylmore.
+
+Spargo looked with more than uncommon interest at the man who presently
+came to them in the visitors’ room. He was already familiar with Mr.
+Aylmore’s photograph, but he never remembered seeing him in real life;
+the Member for Brookminster was one of that rapidly diminishing body of
+legislators whose members are disposed to work quietly and
+unobtrusively, doing yeoman service on committees, obeying every behest
+of the party whips, without forcing themselves into the limelight or
+seizing every opportunity to air their opinions. Now that Spargo met
+him in the flesh he proved to be pretty much what the journalist had
+expected—a rather cold-mannered, self-contained man, who looked as if
+he had been brought up in a school of rigid repression, and taught not
+to waste words. He showed no more than the merest of languid interests
+in Spargo when Breton introduced him, and his face was quite
+expressionless when Spargo brought to an end his brief explanation
+—purposely shortened—of his object in calling upon him.
+
+“Yes,” he said indifferently. “Yes, it is quite true that I met Marbury
+and spent a little time with him on the evening your informant spoke
+of. I met him, as he told you, in the lobby of the House. I was much
+surprised to meet him. I had not seen him for—I really don’t know how
+many years.”
+
+He paused and looked at Spargo as if he was wondering what he ought or
+not to say to a newspaper man. Spargo remained silent, waiting. And
+presently Mr. Aylmore went on.
+
+“I read your account in the _Watchman_ this morning,” he said. “I was
+wondering, when you called just now, if I would communicate with you or
+with the police. The fact is—I suppose you want this for your paper,
+eh?” he continued after a sudden breaking off.
+
+“I shall not print anything that you wish me not to print,” answered
+Spargo. “If you care to give me any information——”
+
+“Oh, well!” said Mr. Aylmore. “I don’t mind. The fact is, I knew next
+to nothing. Marbury was a man with whom I had some—well, business
+relations, of a sort, a great many years ago. It must be twenty
+years—perhaps more—since I lost sight of him. When he came up to me in
+the lobby the other night, I had to make an effort of memory to recall
+him. He wished me, having once met me, to give him some advice, and as
+there was little doing in the House that night, and as he had once
+been—almost a friend—I walked to his hotel with him, chatting. He told
+me that he had only landed from Australia that morning, and what he
+wanted my advice about, principally, was—diamonds. Australian
+diamonds.”
+
+“I was unaware,” remarked Spargo, “that diamonds were ever found in
+Australia.”
+
+Mr. Aylmore smiled—a little cynically.
+
+“Perhaps so,” he said. “But diamonds have been found in Australia from
+time to time, ever since Australia was known to Europeans, and in the
+opinion of experts, they will eventually be found there in quantity.
+Anyhow, Marbury had got hold of some Australian diamonds, and he showed
+them to me at his hotel—a number of them. We examined them in his
+room.”
+
+“What did he do with them—afterwards?” asked Spargo.
+
+“He put them in his waistcoat pocket—in a very small wash-leather bag,
+from which he had taken them. There were, in all, sixteen or twenty
+stones—not more, and they were all small. I advised him to see some
+expert—I mentioned Streeter’s to him. Now, I can tell you how he got
+hold of Mr. Breton’s address.”
+
+The two young men pricked up their ears. Spargo unconsciously tightened
+his hold on the pencil with which he was making notes.
+
+“He got it from me,” continued Mr. Aylmore. “The handwriting on the
+scrap of paper is mine, hurriedly scrawled. He wanted legal advice. As
+I knew very little about lawyers, I told him that if he called on Mr.
+Breton, Mr. Breton would be able to tell him of a first-class, sharp
+solicitor. I wrote down Mr. Breton’s address for him, on a scrap of
+paper which he tore off a letter that he took from his pocket. By the
+by, I observe that when his body was found there was nothing on it in
+the shape of papers or money. I am quite sure that when I left him he
+had a lot of gold on him, those diamonds, and a breast-pocket full of
+letters.”
+
+“Where did you leave him, sir?” asked Spargo. “You left the hotel
+together, I believe?”
+
+“Yes. We strolled along when we left it. Having once met, we had much
+to talk of, and it was a fine night. We walked across Waterloo Bridge
+and very shortly afterwards he left me. And that is really all I know.
+My own impression——” He paused for a moment and Spargo waited silently.
+
+“My own impression—though I confess it may seem to have no very solid
+grounds—is that Marbury was decoyed to where he was found, and was
+robbed and murdered by some person who knew he had valuables on him.
+There is the fact that he was robbed, at any rate.”
+
+“I’ve had a notion,” said Breton, diffidently. “Mayn’t be worth much,
+but I’ve had it, all the same. Some fellow-passenger of Marbury’s may
+have tracked him all day—Middle Temple Lane’s pretty lonely at night,
+you know.”
+
+No one made any comment upon this suggestion, and on Spargo looking at
+Mr. Aylmore, the Member of Parliament rose and glanced at the door.
+
+“Well, that’s all I can tell you, Mr. Spargo,” he said. “You see, it’s
+not much, after all. Of course, there’ll be an inquest on Marbury, and
+I shall have to re-tell it. But you’re welcome to print what I’ve told
+you.”
+
+Spargo left Breton with his future father-in-law and went away towards
+New Scotland Yard. He and Rathbury had promised to share news—now he
+had some to communicate.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER EIGHT
+THE MAN FROM THE SAFE DEPOSIT
+
+
+Spargo found Rathbury sitting alone in a small, somewhat dismal
+apartment which was chiefly remarkable for the business-like paucity of
+its furnishings and its indefinable air of secrecy. There was a plain
+writing-table and a hard chair or two; a map of London, much
+discoloured, on the wall; a few faded photographs of eminent bands in
+the world of crime, and a similar number of well-thumbed books of
+reference. The detective himself, when Spargo was shown in to him, was
+seated at the table, chewing an unlighted cigar, and engaged in the
+apparently aimless task of drawing hieroglyphics on scraps of paper. He
+looked up as the journalist entered, and held out his hand.
+
+“Well, I congratulate you on what you stuck in the _Watchman_ this
+morning,” he said. “Made extra good reading, I thought. They did right
+to let you tackle that job. Going straight through with it now, I
+suppose, Mr. Spargo?”
+
+Spargo dropped into the chair nearest to Rathbury’s right hand. He
+lighted a cigarette, and having blown out a whiff of smoke, nodded his
+head in a fashion which indicated that the detective might consider his
+question answered in the affirmative.
+
+“Look here,” he said. “We settled yesterday, didn’t we, that you and I
+are to consider ourselves partners, as it were, in this job? That’s all
+right,” he continued, as Rathbury nodded very quietly. “Very well—have
+you made any further progress?”
+
+Rathbury put his thumbs in the armholes of his waistcoat and, leaning
+back in his chair, shook his head.
+
+“Frankly, I haven’t,” he replied. “Of course, there’s a lot being done
+in the usual official-routine way. We’ve men out making various
+enquiries. We’re enquiring about Marbury’s voyage to England. All that
+we know up to now is that he was certainly a passenger on a liner which
+landed at Southampton in accordance with what he told those people at
+the Anglo-Orient, that he left the ship in the usual way and was
+understood to take the train to town—as he did. That’s all. There’s
+nothing in that. We’ve cabled to Melbourne for any news of him from
+there. But I expect little from that.”
+
+“All right,” said Spargo. “And—what are you doing—you, yourself?
+Because, if we’re to share facts, I must know what my partner’s after.
+Just now, you seemed to be—drawing.”
+
+Rathbury laughed.
+
+“Well, to tell you the truth,” he said, “when I want to work things
+out, I come into this room—it’s quiet, as you see—and I scribble
+anything on paper while I think. I was figuring on my next step, and—”
+
+“Do you see it?” asked Spargo, quickly.
+
+“Well—I want to find the man who went with Marbury to that hotel,”
+replied Rathbury. “It seems to me—”
+
+Spargo wagged his finger at his fellow-contriver.
+
+“I’ve found him,” he said. “That’s what I wrote that article for—to
+find him. I knew it would find him. I’ve never had any training in your
+sort of work, but I knew that article would get him. And it has got
+him.”
+
+Rathbury accorded the journalist a look of admiration.
+
+“Good!” he said. “And—who is he?”
+
+“I’ll tell you the story,” answered Spargo, “and in a summary. This
+morning a man named Webster, a farmer, a visitor to London, came to me
+at the office, and said that being at the House of Commons last night
+he witnessed a meeting between Marbury and a man who was evidently a
+Member of Parliament, and saw them go away together. I showed him an
+album of photographs of the present members, and he immediately
+recognized the portrait of one of them as the man in question. I
+thereupon took the portrait to the Anglo-Orient Hotel—Mrs. Walters also
+at once recognized it as that of the man who came to the hotel with
+Marbury, stopped with him a while in his room, and left with him. The
+man is Mr. Stephen Aylmore, the member for Brookminster.”
+
+Rathbury expressed his feelings in a sharp whistle.
+
+“I know him!” he said. “Of course—I remember Mrs. Walters’s description
+now. But his is a familiar type—tall, grey-bearded, well-dressed.
+Um!—well, we’ll have to see Mr. Aylmore at once.”
+
+“I’ve seen him,” said Spargo. “Naturally! For you see, Mrs. Walters
+gave me a bit more evidence. This morning they found a loose diamond on
+the floor of Number 20, and after it was found the waiter who took the
+drinks up to Marbury and his guest that night remembered that when he
+entered the room the two gentlemen were looking at a paper full of
+similar objects. So then I went on to see Mr. Aylmore. You know young
+Breton, the barrister?—you met him with me, you remember?”
+
+“The young fellow whose name and address were found on Marbury,”
+replied Rathbury. “I remember.”
+
+“Breton is engaged to Aylmore’s daughter,” continued Spargo. “Breton
+took me to Aylmore’s club. And Aylmore gives a plain, straightforward
+account of the matter which he’s granted me leave to print. It clears
+up a lot of things. Aylmore knew Marbury over twenty years ago. He lost
+sight of him. They met accidentally in the lobby of the House on the
+evening preceding the murder. Marbury told him that he wanted his
+advice about those rare things, Australian diamonds. He went back with
+him to his hotel and spent a while with him; then they walked out
+together as far as Waterloo Bridge, where Aylmore left him and went
+home. Further, the scrap of grey paper is accounted for. Marbury wanted
+the address of a smart solicitor; Aylmore didn’t know of one but told
+Marbury that if he called on young Breton, he’d know, and would put him
+in the way to find one. Marbury wrote Breton’s address down. That’s
+Aylmore’s story. But it’s got an important addition. Aylmore says that
+when he left Marbury, Marbury had on him a quantity of those diamonds
+in a wash-leather bag, a lot of gold, and a breast-pocket full of
+letters and papers. Now—there was nothing on him when he was found dead
+in Middle Temple Lane.”
+
+Spargo stopped and lighted a fresh cigarette.
+
+“That’s all I know,” he said. “What do you make of it?”
+
+Rathbury leaned back in his chair in his apparently favourite attitude
+and stared hard at the dusty ceiling above him.
+
+“Don’t know,” he said. “It brings things up to a point, certainly.
+Aylmore and Marbury parted at Waterloo Bridge—very late. Waterloo
+Bridge is pretty well next door to the Temple. But—how did Marbury get
+into the Temple, unobserved? We’ve made every enquiry, and we can’t
+trace him in any way as regards that movement. There’s a clue for his
+going there in the scrap of paper bearing Breton’s address, but even a
+Colonial would know that no business was done in the Temple at
+midnight, eh?”
+
+“Well,” said Spargo, “I’ve thought of one or two things. He may have
+been one of those men who like to wander around at night. He may have
+seen—he would see—plenty of lights in the Temple at that hour; he may
+have slipped in unobserved—it’s possible, it’s quite possible. I once
+had a moonlight saunter in the Temple myself after midnight, and had no
+difficulty about walking in and out, either. But—if Marbury was
+murdered for the sake of what he had on him—how did he meet with his
+murderer or murderers in there? Criminals don’t hang about Middle
+Temple Lane.”
+
+The detective shook his head. He picked up his pencil and began making
+more hieroglyphics.
+
+“What’s your theory, Mr. Spargo?” he asked suddenly. “I suppose you’ve
+got one.”
+
+“Have you?” asked Spargo, bluntly.
+
+“Well,” returned Rathbury, hesitatingly, “I hadn’t, up to now. But
+now—now, after what you’ve told me, I think I can make one. It seems to
+me that after Marbury left Aylmore he probably mooned about by himself,
+that he was decoyed into the Temple, and was there murdered and robbed.
+There are a lot of queer ins and outs, nooks and corners in that old
+spot, Mr. Spargo, and the murderer, if he knew his ground well, could
+easily hide himself until he could get away in the morning. He might be
+a man who had access to chambers or offices—think how easy it would be
+for such a man, having once killed and robbed his victim, to lie hid
+for hours afterwards? For aught we know, the man who murdered Marbury
+may have been within twenty feet of you when you first saw his dead
+body that morning. Eh?”
+
+Before Spargo could reply to this suggestion an official entered the
+room and whispered a few words in the detective’s ear.
+
+“Show him in at once,” said Rathbury. He turned to Spargo as the man
+quitted the room and smiled significantly. “Here’s somebody wants to
+tell something about the Marbury case,” he remarked. “Let’s hope it’ll
+be news worth hearing.”
+
+Spargo smiled in his queer fashion.
+
+“It strikes me that you’ve only got to interest an inquisitive public
+in order to get news,” he said. “The principal thing is to investigate
+it when you’ve got it. Who’s this, now?”
+
+The official had returned with a dapper-looking gentleman in a
+frock-coat and silk hat, bearing upon him the unmistakable stamp of the
+city man, who inspected Rathbury with deliberation and Spargo with a
+glance, and being seated turned to the detective as undoubtedly the
+person he desired to converse with.
+
+“I understand that you are the officer in charge of the Marbury murder
+case,” he observed. “I believe I can give you some valuable information
+in respect to that. I read the account of the affair in the _Watchman_
+newspaper this morning, and saw the portrait of the murdered man there,
+and I was at first inclined to go to the _Watchman_ office with my
+information, but I finally decided to approach the police instead of
+the Press, regarding the police as being more—more responsible.”
+
+“Much obliged to you, sir,” said Rathbury, with a glance at Spargo.
+“Whom have I the pleasure of——”
+
+“My name,” replied the visitor, drawing out and laying down a card, “is
+Myerst—Mr. E.P. Myerst, Secretary of the London and Universal Safe
+Deposit Company. I may, I suppose, speak with confidence,” continued
+Mr. Myerst, with a side-glance at Spargo. “My information
+is—confidential.”
+
+Rathbury inclined his head and put his fingers together.
+
+“You may speak with every confidence, Mr. Myerst,” he answered. “If
+what you have to tell has any real bearing on the Marbury case, it will
+probably have to be repeated in public, you know, sir. But at present
+it will be treated as private.”
+
+“It has a very real bearing on the case, I should say,” replied Mr.
+Myerst. “Yes, I should decidedly say so. The fact is that on June 21st
+at about—to be precise—three o’clock in the afternoon, a stranger, who
+gave the name of John Marbury, and his present address as the
+Anglo-Orient Hotel, Waterloo, called at our establishment, and asked if
+he could rent a small safe. He explained to me that he desired to
+deposit in such a safe a small leather box—which, by the by, was of
+remarkably ancient appearance—that he had brought with him. I showed
+him a safe such as he wanted, informed him of the rent, and of the
+rules of the place, and he engaged the safe, paid the rent for one year
+in advance, and deposited his leather box—an affair of about a foot
+square—there and then. After that, having exchanged a remark or two
+about the altered conditions of London, which, I understood him to say,
+he had not seen for a great many years, he took his key and his
+departure. I think there can be no doubt about this being the Mr.
+Marbury who was found murdered.”
+
+“None at all, I should say, Mr. Myerst,” said Rathbury. “And I’m much
+obliged to you for coming here. Now you might tell me a little more,
+sir. Did Marbury tell you anything about the contents of the box?”
+
+“No. He merely remarked that he wished the greatest care to be taken of
+it,” replied the secretary.
+
+“Didn’t give you any hint as to what was in it?” asked Rathbury.
+
+“None. But he was very particular to assure himself that it could not
+be burnt, nor burgled, nor otherwise molested,” replied Mr. Myerst. “He
+appeared to be greatly relieved when he found that it was impossible
+for anyone but himself to take his property from his safe.”
+
+“Ah!” said Rathbury, winking at Spargo. “So he would, no doubt. And
+Marbury himself, sir, now? How did he strike you?”
+
+Mr. Myerst gravely considered this question.
+
+“Mr. Marbury struck me,” he answered at last, “as a man who had
+probably seen strange places. And before leaving he made, what I will
+term, a remarkable remark. About—in fact, about his leather box.”
+
+“His leather box?” said Rathbury. “And what was it, sir?”
+
+“This,” replied the secretary. “‘That box,’ he said, ‘is safe now. But
+it’s been safer. It’s been buried—and deep-down, too—for many and many
+a year!’”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER NINE
+THE DEALER IN RARE STAMPS
+
+
+“Buried—and deep-down, too—for many and many a year,” repeated Mr.
+Myerst, eyeing his companions with keen glances. “I consider that,
+gentlemen, a very remarkable remark—very remarkable!”
+
+Rathbury stuck his thumbs in the armholes of his waistcoat again and
+began swaying backwards and forwards in his chair. He looked at Spargo.
+And with his knowledge of men, he knew that all Spargo’s journalistic
+instincts had been aroused, and that he was keen as mustard to be off
+on a new scent.
+
+“Remarkable—remarkable, Mr. Myerst!” he assented. “What do you say, Mr.
+Spargo?”
+
+Spargo turned slowly, and for the first time since Myerst had entered
+made a careful inspection of him. The inspection lasted several
+seconds; then Spargo spoke.
+
+“And what did you say to that?” he asked quietly.
+
+Myerst looked from his questioner to Rathbury. And Rathbury thought it
+time to enlighten the caller.
+
+“I may as well tell you, Mr. Myerst,” he said smilingly, “that this is
+Mr. Spargo, of the _Watchman_. Mr. Spargo wrote the article about the
+Marbury case of which you spoke when you came in. Mr. Spargo, you’ll
+gather, is deeply interested in this matter—and he and I, in our
+different capacities, are working together. So—you understand?” Myerst
+regarded Spargo in a new light. And while he was so looking at him.
+Spargo repeated the question he had just put.
+
+“I said—What did you say to that?”
+
+Myerst hesitated.
+
+“Well—er—I don’t think I said anything,” he replied. “Nothing that one
+might call material, you know.”
+
+“Didn’t ask him what he meant?” suggested Spargo.
+
+“Oh, no—not at all,” replied Myerst.
+
+Spargo got up abruptly from his chair.
+
+“Then you missed one of the finest opportunities I ever heard of!” he
+said, half-sneeringly. “You might have heard such a story—”
+
+He paused, as if it were not worth while to continue, and turned to
+Rathbury, who was regarding him with amusement.
+
+“Look here, Rathbury,” he said. “Is it possible to get that box
+opened?”
+
+“It’ll have to be opened,” answered Rathbury, rising. “It’s got to be
+opened. It probably contains the clue we want. I’m going to ask Mr.
+Myerst here to go with me just now to take the first steps about having
+it opened. I shall have to get an order. We may get the matter through
+today, but at any rate we’ll have it done tomorrow morning.”
+
+“Can you arrange for me to be present when that comes off?” asked
+Spargo. “You can—certain? That’s all right, Rathbury. Now I’m off, and
+you’ll ring me up or come round if you hear anything, and I’ll do the
+same by you.”
+
+And without further word, Spargo went quickly away, and just as quickly
+returned to the _Watchman_ office. There the assistant who had been
+told off to wait upon his orders during this new crusade met him with a
+business card.
+
+“This gentleman came in to see you about an hour ago, Mr. Spargo,” he
+said. “He thinks he can tell you something about the Marbury affair,
+and he said that as he couldn’t wait, perhaps you’d step round to his
+place when you came in.”
+
+Spargo took the card and read:
+
+MR. JAMES CRIEDIR,
+DEALER IN PHILATELIC RARITIES,
+2,021, STRAND.
+
+
+Spargo put the card in his waistcoat pocket and went out again,
+wondering why Mr. James Criedir could not, would not, or did not call
+himself a dealer in rare postage stamps, and so use plain English. He
+went up Fleet Street and soon found the shop indicated on the card, and
+his first glance at its exterior showed that whatever business might
+have been done by Mr. Criedir in the past at that establishment there
+was to be none done there in the future by him, for there were
+newly-printed bills in the window announcing that the place was to let.
+And inside he found a short, portly, elderly man who was superintending
+the packing-up and removal of the last of his stock. He turned a
+bright, enquiring eye on the journalist.
+
+“Mr. Criedir?” said Spargo.
+
+“The same, sir,” answered the philatelist. “You are—?”
+
+“Mr. Spargo, of the _Watchman_. You called on me.”
+
+Mr. Criedir opened the door of a tiny apartment at the rear of the very
+little shop and motioned his caller to enter. He followed him in and
+carefully closed the door.
+
+“Glad to see you, Mr. Spargo,” he said genially. “Take a seat, sir—I’m
+all in confusion here—giving up business, you see. Yes, I called on
+you. I think, having read the _Watchman_ account of that Marbury
+affair, and having seen the murdered man’s photograph in your columns,
+that I can give you a bit of information.”
+
+“Material?” asked Spargo, tersely.
+
+Mr. Criedir cocked one of his bright eyes at his visitor. He coughed
+drily.
+
+“That’s for you to decide—when you’ve heard it,” he said. “I should
+say, considering everything, that it was material. Well, it’s this—I
+kept open until yesterday—everything as usual, you know—stock in the
+window and so on—so that anybody who was passing would naturally have
+thought that the business was going on, though as a matter of fact, I’m
+retiring—retired,” added Mr. Criedir with a laugh, “last night. Now—but
+won’t you take down what I’ve got to tell you?”
+
+“I am taking it down,” answered Spargo. “Every word. In my head.”
+
+Mr. Criedir laughed and rubbed his hands.
+
+“Oh!” he said. “Ah, well, in my young days journalists used to pull out
+pencil and notebook at the first opportunity. But you modern young
+men—”
+
+“Just so,” agreed Spargo. “This information, now?”
+
+“Well,” said Mr. Criedir, “we’ll go on then. Yesterday afternoon the
+man described as Marbury came into my shop. He—”
+
+“What time—exact time?” asked Spargo.
+
+“Two—to the very minute by St. Clement Danes clock,” answered Mr.
+Criedir. “I’d swear twenty affidavits on that point. He was precisely
+as you’ve described him—dress, everything—I tell you I knew his photo
+as soon as I saw it. He was carrying a little box—”
+
+“What sort of box?” said Spargo.
+
+“A queer, old-fashioned, much-worn leather box—a very miniature trunk,
+in fact,” replied Mr. Criedir. “About a foot square; the sort of thing
+you never see nowadays. It was very much worn; it attracted me for that
+very reason. He set it on the counter and looked at me. ‘You’re a
+dealer in stamps—rare stamps?’ he said. ‘I am,’ I replied. ‘I’ve
+something here I’d like to show you,’ he said, unlocking the box.
+‘It’s—’”
+
+“Stop a bit,” said Spargo. “Where did he take the key from with which
+he unlocked the box?”
+
+“It was one of several which he carried on a split ring, and he took
+the bunch out of his left-hand trousers pocket,” replied Mr. Criedir.
+“Oh, I keep my eyes open, young gentleman! Well—he opened his box. It
+seemed to me to be full of papers—at any rate there were a lot of
+legal-looking documents on the top, tied up with red tape. To show you
+how I notice things I saw that the papers were stained with age, and
+that the red tape was faded to a mere washed-out pink.”
+
+“Good—good!” murmured Spargo. “Excellent! Proceed, sir.”
+
+“He put his hand under the topmost papers and drew out an envelope,”
+continued Mr. Criedir. “From the envelope he produced an exceedingly
+rare, exceedingly valuable set of Colonial stamps—the very-first ever
+issued. ‘I’ve just come from Australia,’ he said. ‘I promised a young
+friend of mine out there to sell these stamps for him in London, and as
+I was passing this way I caught sight of your shop. Will you buy ’em,
+and how much will you give for ’em?’”
+
+“Prompt,” muttered Spargo.
+
+“He seemed to me the sort of man who doesn’t waste words,” agreed Mr.
+Criedir. “Well, there was no doubt about the stamps, nor about their
+great value. But I had to explain to him that I was retiring from
+business that very day, and did not wish to enter into even a single
+deal, and that, therefore, I couldn’t do anything. ‘No matter,’ he
+says, ‘I daresay there are lots of men in your line of trade—perhaps
+you can recommend me to a good firm?’ ‘I could recommend you to a dozen
+extra-good firms,’ I answered. ‘But I can do better for you. I’ll give
+you the name and address of a private buyer who, I haven’t the least
+doubt, will be very glad to buy that set from you and will give you a
+big price.’ ‘Write it down,’ he says, ‘and thank you for your trouble.’
+So I gave him a bit of advice as to the price he ought to get, and I
+wrote the name and address of the man I referred to on the back of one
+of my cards.”
+
+“Whose name and address?” asked Spargo.
+
+“Mr. Nicholas Cardlestone, 2, Pilcox Buildings, Middle Temple Lane,”
+replied Mr. Criedir. “Mr. Cardlestone is one of the most enthusiastic
+and accomplished philatelists in Europe. And I knew he didn’t possess
+that set of stamps.”
+
+“I know Mr. Cardlestone,” remarked Spargo. “It was at the foot of his
+stairs that Marbury was found murdered.”
+
+“Just so,” said Mr. Criedir. “Which makes me think that he was going to
+see Mr. Cardlestone when he was set upon, murdered, and robbed.”
+
+Spargo looked fixedly at the retired stamp-dealer.
+
+“What, going to see an elderly gentleman in his rooms in the Temple, to
+offer to sell him philatelic rarities at—past midnight?” he said. “I
+think—not much!”
+
+“All right,” replied Mr. Criedir. “You think and argue on modern
+lines—which are, of course, highly superior. But—how do you account for
+my having given Marbury Mr. Cardlestone’s address and for his having
+been found dead—murdered—at the foot of Cardlestone’s stairs a few
+hours later?”
+
+“I don’t account for it,” said Spargo. “I’m trying to.”
+
+Mr. Criedir made no comment on this. He looked his visitor up and down
+for a moment; gathered some idea of his capabilities, and suddenly
+offered him a cigarette. Spargo accepted it with a laconic word of
+thanks, and smoked half-way through it before he spoke again.
+
+“Yes,” he said. “I’m trying to account. And I shall account. And I’m
+much obliged to you, Mr. Criedir, for what you’ve told me. Now, then,
+may I ask you a question or two?”
+
+“A thousand!” responded Mr. Criedir with great geniality.
+
+“Very well. Did Marbury say he’d call on Cardlestone?”
+
+“He did. Said he’d call as soon as he could—that day.”
+
+“Have you told Cardlestone what you’ve just told me?”
+
+“I have. But not until an hour ago—on my way back from your office, in
+fact. I met him in Fleet Street and told him.”
+
+“Had he received a call from Marbury?”
+
+“No! Never heard of or seen the man. At least, never heard of him until
+he heard of the murder. He told me he and his friend, Mr. Elphick,
+another philatelist, went to see the body, wondering if they could
+recognize it as any man they’d ever known, but they couldn’t.”
+
+“I know they did,” said Spargo. “I saw ’em at the mortuary. Um!
+Well—one more question. When Marbury left you, did he put those stamps
+in his box again, as before?”
+
+“No,” replied Mr. Criedir. “He put them in his right-hand breast
+pocket, and he locked up his old box, and went off swinging it in his
+left hand.”
+
+Spargo went away down Fleet Street, seeing nobody. He muttered to
+himself, and he was still muttering when he got into his room at the
+office. And what he muttered was the same thing, repeated over and over
+again:
+
+“Six hours—six hours—six hours! Those six hours!”
+
+Next morning the _Watchman_ came out with four leaded columns of
+up-to-date news about the Marbury Case, and right across the top of the
+four ran a heavy double line of great capitals, black and staring:—WHO
+SAW JOHN MARBURY BETWEEN 3.15 P.M. AND 9.15 P.M. ON THE DAY PRECEDING
+HIS MURDER?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TEN
+THE LEATHER BOX
+
+
+Whether Spargo was sanguine enough to expect that his staring headline
+would bring him information of the sort he wanted was a secret which he
+kept to himself. That a good many thousands of human beings must have
+set eyes on John Marbury between the hours which Spargo set forth in
+that headline was certain; the problem was—What particular owner or
+owners of a pair or of many pairs of those eyes would remember him? Why
+should they remember him? Walters and his wife had reason to remember
+him; Criedir had reason to remember him; so had Myerst; so had William
+Webster. But between a quarter past three, when he left the London and
+Universal Safe Deposit, and a quarter past nine, when he sat down by
+Webster’s side in the lobby of the House of Commons, nobody seemed to
+have any recollection of him except Mr. Fiskie, the hatter, and he only
+remembered him faintly, and because Marbury had bought a fashionable
+cloth cap at his shop. At any rate, by noon of that day, nobody had
+come forward with any recollection of him. He must have gone West from
+seeing Myerst, because he bought his cap at Fiskie’s; he must
+eventually have gone South-West, because he turned up at Westminster.
+But where else did he go? What did he do? To whom did he speak? No
+answer came to these questions.
+
+“That shows,” observed young Mr. Ronald Breton, lazing an hour away in
+Spargo’s room at the _Watchman_ at that particular hour which is
+neither noon nor afternoon, wherein even busy men do nothing, “that
+shows how a chap can go about London as if he were merely an ant that
+had strayed into another ant-heap than his own. Nobody notices.”
+
+“You’d better go and read up a little elementary entomology, Breton,”
+said Spargo. “I don’t know much about it myself, but I’ve a pretty good
+idea that when an ant walks into the highways and byways of a colony to
+which he doesn’t belong he doesn’t survive his intrusion by many
+seconds.”
+
+“Well, you know what I mean,” said Breton. “London’s an ant-heap, isn’t
+it? One human ant more or less doesn’t count. This man Marbury must
+have gone about a pretty tidy lot during those six hours. He’d ride on
+a ’bus—almost certain. He’d get into a taxi-cab—I think that’s much
+more certain, because it would be a novelty to him. He’d want some
+tea—anyway, he’d be sure to want a drink, and he’d turn in somewhere to
+get one or the other. He’d buy things in shops—these Colonials always
+do. He’d go somewhere to get his dinner. He’d—but what’s the use of
+enumeration in this case?”
+
+“A mere piling up of platitudes,” answered Spargo.
+
+“What I mean is,” continued Breton, “that piles of people must have
+seen him, and yet it’s now hours and hours since your paper came out
+this morning, and nobody’s come forward to tell anything. And when you
+come to think of it, why should they? Who’d remember an ordinary man in
+a grey tweed suit?”
+
+“‘An ordinary man in a grey tweed suit,’” repeated Spargo. “Good line.
+You haven’t any copyright in it, remember. It would make a good
+cross-heading.”
+
+Breton laughed. “You’re a queer chap, Spargo,” he said. “Seriously, do
+you think you’re getting any nearer anything?”
+
+“I’m getting nearer something with everything that’s done,” Spargo
+answered. “You can’t start on a business like this without evolving
+something out of it, you know.”
+
+“Well,” said Breton, “to me there’s not so much mystery in it. Mr.
+Aylmore’s explained the reason why my address was found on the body;
+Criedir, the stamp-man, has explained—”
+
+Spargo suddenly looked up.
+
+“What?” he said sharply.
+
+“Why, the reason of Marbury’s being found where he was found,” replied
+Breton. “Of course, I see it all! Marbury was mooning around Fleet
+Street; he slipped into Middle Temple Lane, late as it was, just to see
+where old Cardlestone hangs out, and he was set upon and done for. The
+thing’s plain to me. The only thing now is to find who did it.”
+
+“Yes, that’s it,” agreed Spargo. “That’s it.” He turned over the leaves
+of the diary which lay on his desk. “By the by,” he said, looking up
+with some interest, “the adjourned inquest is at eleven o’clock
+tomorrow morning. Are you going?”
+
+“I shall certainly go,” answered Breton. “What’s more, I’m going to
+take Miss Aylmore and her sister. As the gruesome details were over at
+the first sitting, and as there’ll be nothing but this new evidence
+tomorrow, and as they’ve never been in a coroner’s court——”
+
+“Mr. Aylmore’ll be the principal witness tomorrow,” interrupted Spargo.
+“I suppose he’ll be able to tell a lot more than he told—me.”
+
+Breton shrugged his shoulders.
+
+“I don’t see that there’s much more to tell,” he said. “But,” he added,
+with a sly laugh, “I suppose you want some more good copy, eh?”
+
+Spargo glanced at his watch, rose, and picked up his hat. “I’ll tell
+you what I want,” he said. “I want to know who John Marbury was. That
+would make good copy. Who he was—twenty—twenty-five—forty years ago.
+Eh?”
+
+“And you think Mr. Aylmore can tell?” asked Breton.
+
+“Mr. Aylmore,” answered Spargo as they walked towards the door, “is the
+only person I have met so far who has admitted that he knew John
+Marbury in the—past. But he didn’t tell me—much. Perhaps he’ll tell the
+coroner and his jury—more. Now, I’m off Breton—I’ve an appointment.”
+
+And leaving Breton to find his own way out, Spargo hurried away, jumped
+into a taxi-cab and speeded to the London and Universal Safe Deposit.
+At the corner of its building he found Rathbury awaiting him.
+
+“Well?” said Spargo, as he sprang out: “How is it?”
+
+“It’s all right,” answered Rathbury. “You can be present: I got the
+necessary permission. As there are no relations known, there’ll only be
+one or two officials and you, and the Safe Deposit people, and myself.
+Come on—it’s about time.”
+
+“It sounds,” observed Spargo, “like an exhumation.”
+
+Rathbury laughed. “Well, we’re certainly going to dig up a dead man’s
+secrets,” he said. “At least, we may be going to do so. In my opinion,
+Mr. Spargo, we’ll find some clue in this leather box.”
+
+Spargo made no answer. They entered the office, to be shown into a room
+where were already assembled Mr. Myerst, a gentleman who turned out to
+be the chairman of the company, and the officials of whom Rathbury had
+spoken. And in another moment Spargo heard the chairman explaining that
+the company possessed duplicate keys to all safes, and that the proper
+authorization having been received from the proper authorities, those
+present would now proceed to the safe recently tenanted by the late Mr.
+John Marbury, and take from it the property which he himself had
+deposited there, a small leather box, which they would afterwards bring
+to that room and cause to be opened in each other’s presence.
+
+It seemed to Spargo that there was an unending unlocking of bolts and
+bars before he and his fellow-processionists came to the safe so
+recently rented by the late Mr. John Marbury, now undoubtedly deceased.
+And at first sight of it, he saw that it was so small an affair that it
+seemed ludicrous to imagine that it could contain anything of any
+importance. In fact, it looked to be no more than a plain wooden
+locker, one amongst many in a small strong room: it reminded Spargo
+irresistibly of the locker in which, in his school days, he had kept
+his personal belongings and the jam tarts, sausage rolls, and hardbake
+smuggled in from the tuck-shop. Marbury’s name had been newly painted
+upon it; the paint was scarcely dry. But when the wooden door—the front
+door, as it were, of this temple of mystery, had been solemnly opened
+by the chairman, a formidable door of steel was revealed, and
+expectation still leapt in the bosoms of the beholders.
+
+“The duplicate key, Mr. Myerst, if you please,” commanded the chairman,
+“the duplicate key!”
+
+Myerst, who was fully as solemn as his principal, produced a
+curious-looking key: the chairman lifted his hand as if he were about
+to christen a battleship: the steel door swung slowly back. And there,
+in a two-foot square cavity, lay the leather box.
+
+It struck Spargo as they filed back to the secretary’s room that the
+procession became more funereal-like than ever. First walked the
+chairman, abreast with the high official, who had brought the necessary
+authorization from the all-powerful quarter; then came Myerst carrying
+the box: followed two other gentlemen, both legal lights, charged with
+watching official and police interests; Rathbury and Spargo brought up
+the rear. He whispered something of his notions to the detective;
+Rathbury nodded a comprehensive understanding.
+
+“Let’s hope we’re going to see—something!” he said.
+
+In the secretary’s room a man waited who touched his forelock
+respectfully as the heads of the procession entered. Myerst set the box
+on the table: the man made a musical jingle of keys: the other members
+of the procession gathered round.
+
+“As we naturally possess no key to this box,” announced the chairman in
+grave tones, “it becomes our duty to employ professional assistance in
+opening it. Jobson!”
+
+He waved a hand, and the man of the keys stepped forward with alacrity.
+He examined the lock of the box with a knowing eye; it was easy to see
+that he was anxious to fall upon it. While he considered matters,
+Spargo looked at the box. It was pretty much what it had been described
+to him as being; a small, square box of old cow-hide, very strongly
+made, much worn and tarnished, fitted with a handle projecting from the
+lid, and having the appearance of having been hidden away somewhere for
+many a long day.
+
+There was a click, a spring: Jobson stepped back.
+
+“That’s it, if you please, sir,” he said.
+
+The chairman motioned to the high official.
+
+“If you would be good enough to open the box, sir,” he said. “Our duty
+is now concluded.”
+
+As the high official laid his hand on the lid the other men gathered
+round with craning necks and expectant eyes. The lid was lifted:
+somebody sighed deeply. And Spargo pushed his own head and eyes nearer.
+
+The box was empty!
+
+Empty, as anything that can be empty is empty! thought Spargo: there
+was literally nothing in it. They were all staring into the interior of
+a plain, time-worn little receptacle, lined out with old-fashioned
+chintz stuff, such as our Mid-Victorian fore-fathers were familiar
+with, and containing—nothing.
+
+“God bless my soul!” exclaimed the chairman. “This is—dear me!—why,
+there is nothing in the box!”
+
+“That,” remarked the high official, drily, “appears to be obvious.”
+
+The chairman looked at the secretary.
+
+“I understood the box was valuable, Mr. Myerst,” he said, with the
+half-injured air of a man who considers himself to have been robbed of
+an exceptionally fine treat. “Valuable!”
+
+Myerst coughed.
+
+“I can only repeat what I have already said, Sir Benjamin,” he
+answered. “The—er late Mr. Marbury spoke of the deposit as being of
+great value to him; he never permitted it out of his hand until he
+placed it in the safe. He appeared to regard it as of the greatest
+value.”
+
+“But we understand from the evidence of Mr. Criedir, given to the
+_Watchman_ newspaper, that it was full of papers and—and other
+articles,” said the chairman. “Criedir saw papers in it about an hour
+before it was brought here.”
+
+Myerst spread out his hands.
+
+“I can only repeat what I have said, Sir Benjamin,” he answered. “I
+know nothing more.”
+
+“But why should a man deposit an empty box?” began the chairman. “I—”
+
+The high official interposed.
+
+“That the box is empty is certain,” he observed. “Did you ever handle
+it yourself, Mr. Myerst?”
+
+Myerst smiled in a superior fashion.
+
+“I have already observed, sir, that from the time the deceased entered
+this room until the moment he placed the box in the safe which he
+rented, the box was never out of his hands,” he replied.
+
+Then there was silence. At last the high official turned to the
+chairman.
+
+“Very well,” he said. “We’ve made the enquiry. Rathbury, take the box
+away with you and lock it up at the Yard.”
+
+So Spargo went out with Rathbury and the box; and saw excellent, if
+mystifying, material for the article which had already become the daily
+feature of his paper.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER ELEVEN
+MR. AYLMORE IS QUESTIONED
+
+
+It seemed to Spargo as he sat listening to the proceedings at the
+adjourned inquest next day that the whole story of what was now
+world-famous as the Middle Temple Murder Case was being reiterated
+before him for the thousandth time. There was not a detail of the story
+with which he had not become familiar to fulness. The first proceeding
+before the coroner had been of a merely formal nature; these were
+thorough and exhaustive; the representative of the Crown and twelve
+good men and true of the City of London were there to hear and to find
+out and to arrive at a conclusion as to how the man known as John
+Marbury came by his death. And although he knew all about it, Spargo
+found himself tabulating the evidence in a professional manner, and
+noting how each successive witness contributed, as it were, a chapter
+to the story. The story itself ran quite easily, naturally,
+consecutively—you could make it in sections. And Spargo, sitting merely
+to listen, made them:
+
+1. The Temple porter and Constable Driscoll proved the finding of the
+body.
+
+2. The police surgeon testified as to the cause of death—the man had
+been struck down from behind by a blow, a terrible blow—from some heavy
+instrument, and had died immediately.
+
+3. The police and the mortuary officials proved that when the body was
+examined nothing was found in the clothing but the now famous scrap of
+grey paper.
+
+4. Rathbury proved that by means of the dead man’s new fashionable
+cloth cap, bought at Fiskie’s well-known shop in the West-End, he
+traced Marbury to the Anglo-Orient Hotel in the Waterloo District.
+
+5. Mr. and Mrs. Walters gave evidence of the arrival of Marbury at the
+Anglo-Orient Hotel, and of his doings while he was in and about there.
+
+6. The purser of the ss. _Wambarino_ proved that Marbury sailed from
+Melbourne to Southampton on that ship, excited no remark, behaved
+himself like any other well-regulated passenger, and left the
+_Wambarino_ at Southampton early in the morning of what was to be the
+last day of his life in just the ordinary manner.
+
+7. Mr. Criedir gave evidence of his rencontre with Marbury in the
+matter of the stamps.
+
+8. Mr. Myerst told of Marbury’s visit to the Safe Deposit, and further
+proved that the box which he placed there proved, on official
+examination, to be empty.
+
+9. William Webster re-told the story of his encounter with Marbury in
+one of the vestibules of the House of Commons, and of his witnessing
+the meeting between him and the gentleman whom he (Webster) now knew to
+be Mr. Aylmore, a Member of Parliament.
+
+All this led up to the appearance of Mr. Aylmore, M.P., in the
+witness-box. And Spargo knew and felt that it was that appearance for
+which the crowded court was waiting. Thanks to his own vivid and
+realistic specials in the _Watchman_, everybody there had already
+become well and thoroughly acquainted with the mass of evidence
+represented by the nine witnesses who had been in the box before Mr.
+Aylmore entered it. They were familiar, too, with the facts which Mr.
+Aylmore had permitted Spargo to print after the interview at the club,
+which Ronald Breton arranged. Why, then, the extraordinary interest
+which the Member of Parliament’s appearance aroused? For everybody was
+extraordinarily interested; from the Coroner downwards to the last man
+who had managed to squeeze himself into the last available inch of the
+public gallery, all who were there wanted to hear and see the man who
+met Marbury under such dramatic circumstances, and who went to his
+hotel with him, hobnobbed with him, gave him advice, walked out of the
+hotel with him for a stroll from which Marbury never returned. Spargo
+knew well why the interest was so keen—everybody knew that Aylmore was
+the only man who could tell the court anything really pertinent about
+Marbury; who he was, what he was after; what his life had been.
+
+He looked round the court as the Member of Parliament entered the
+witness-box—a tall, handsome, perfectly-groomed man, whose beard was
+only slightly tinged with grey, whose figure was as erect as a
+well-drilled soldier’s, who carried about him an air of conscious
+power. Aylmore’s two daughters sat at a little distance away, opposite
+Spargo, with Ronald Breton in attendance upon them; Spargo had
+encountered their glance as they entered the court, and they had given
+him a friendly nod and smile. He had watched them from time to time; it
+was plain to him that they regarded the whole affair as a novel sort of
+entertainment; they might have been idlers in some Eastern bazaar,
+listening to the unfolding of many tales from the professional
+tale-tellers. Now, as their father entered the box, Spargo looked at
+them again; he saw nothing more than a little heightening of colour in
+their cheeks, a little brightening of their eyes.
+
+“All that they feel,” he thought, “is a bit of extra excitement at the
+idea that their father is mixed up in this delightful mystery. Um!
+Well—now how much is he mixed up?”
+
+And he turned to the witness-box and from that moment never took his
+eyes off the man who now stood in it. For Spargo had ideas about the
+witness which he was anxious to develop.
+
+The folk who expected something immediately sensational in Mr.
+Aylmore’s evidence were disappointed. Aylmore, having been sworn, and
+asked a question or two by the Coroner, requested permission to tell,
+in his own way, what he knew of the dead man and of this sad affair;
+and having received that permission, he went on in a calm,
+unimpassioned manner to repeat precisely what he had told Spargo. It
+sounded a very plain, ordinary story. He had known Marbury many years
+ago. He had lost sight of him for—oh, quite twenty years. He had met
+him accidentally in one of the vestibules of the House of Commons on
+the evening preceding the murder. Marbury had asked his advice. Having
+no particular duty, and willing to do an old acquaintance a good turn,
+he had gone back to the Anglo-Orient Hotel with Marbury, had remained
+awhile with him in his room, examining his Australian diamonds, and had
+afterwards gone out with him. He had given him the advice he wanted;
+they had strolled across Waterloo Bridge; shortly afterwards they had
+parted. That was all he knew.
+
+The court, the public, Spargo, everybody there, knew all this already.
+It had been in print, under a big headline, in the _Watchman_. Aylmore
+had now told it again; having told it, he seemed to consider that his
+next step was to leave the box and the court, and after a perfunctory
+question or two from the Coroner and the foreman of the jury he made a
+motion as if to step down. But Spargo, who had been aware since the
+beginning of the enquiry of the presence of a certain eminent counsel
+who represented the Treasury, cocked his eye in that gentleman’s
+direction, and was not surprised to see him rise in his well-known,
+apparently indifferent fashion, fix his monocle in his right eye, and
+glance at the tall figure in the witness-box.
+
+“The fun is going to begin,” muttered Spargo.
+
+The Treasury representative looked from Aylmore to the Coroner and made
+a jerky bow; from the Coroner to Aylmore and straightened himself. He
+looked like a man who is going to ask indifferent questions about the
+state of the weather, or how Smith’s wife was last time you heard of
+her, or if stocks are likely to rise or fall. But Spargo had heard this
+man before, and he knew many signs of his in voice and manner and
+glance.
+
+“I want to ask you a few questions, Mr. Aylmore, about your
+acquaintanceship with the dead man. It was an acquaintanceship of some
+time ago?” began the suave, seemingly careless voice.
+
+“A considerable time ago,” answered Aylmore.
+
+“How long—roughly speaking?”
+
+“I should say from twenty to twenty-two or three years.”
+
+“Never saw him during that time until you met accidentally in the way
+you have described to us?”
+
+“Never.”
+
+“Ever heard from him?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Ever heard of him?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“But when you met, you knew each other at once?”
+
+“Well—almost at once.”
+
+“Almost at once. Then, I take it, you were very well known to each
+other twenty or twenty-two years ago?”
+
+“We were—yes, well known to each other.”
+
+“Close friends?”
+
+“I said we were acquaintances.”
+
+“Acquaintances. What was his name when you knew him at that time?”
+
+“His name? It was—Marbury.”
+
+“Marbury—the same name. Where did you know him?”
+
+“I—oh, here in London.”
+
+“What was he?”
+
+“Do you mean—what was his occupation?”
+
+“What was his occupation?”
+
+“I believe he was concerned in financial matters.”
+
+“Concerned in financial matters. Had you dealings with him?”
+
+“Well, yes—on occasions.”
+
+“What was his business address in London?”
+
+“I can’t remember that.”
+
+“What was his private address?”
+
+“That I never knew.”
+
+“Where did you transact your business with him?”
+
+“Well, we met, now and then.”
+
+“Where? What place, office, resort?”
+
+“I can’t remember particular places. Sometimes—in the City.”
+
+“In the City. Where in the City? Mansion House, or Lombard Street, or
+St. Paul’s Churchyard, or the Old Bailey, or where?”
+
+“I have recollections of meeting him outside the Stock Exchange.”
+
+“Oh! Was he a member of that institution?”
+
+“Not that I know of.”
+
+“Were you?”
+
+“Certainly not!”
+
+“What were the dealings that you had with him?”
+
+“Financial dealings—small ones.”
+
+“How long did your acquaintanceship with him last—what period did it
+extend over?”
+
+“I should say about six months to nine months.”
+
+“No more?”
+
+“Certainly no more.”
+
+“It was quite a slight acquaintanceship, then?”
+
+“Oh, quite!”
+
+“And yet, after losing sight of this merely slight acquaintance for
+over twenty years, you, on meeting him, take great interest in him?”
+
+“Well, I was willing to do him a good turn, I was interested in what he
+told me the other evening.”
+
+“I see. Now you will not object to my asking you a personal question or
+two. You are a public man, and the facts about the lives of public men
+are more or less public property. You are represented in this work of
+popular reference as coming to this country in 1902, from Argentina,
+where you made a considerable fortune. You have told us, however, that
+you were in London, acquainted with Marbury, about the years, say 1890
+to 1892. Did you then leave England soon after knowing Marbury?”
+
+“I did. I left England in 1891 or 1892—I am not sure which.”
+
+“We are wanting to be very sure about this matter, Mr. Aylmore. We want
+to solve the important question—who is, who was John Marbury, and how
+did he come by his death? You seem to be the only available person who
+knows anything about him. What was your business before you left
+England?”
+
+“I was interested in financial affairs.”
+
+“Like Marbury. Where did you carry on your business?”
+
+“In London, of course.”
+
+“At what address?”
+
+For some moments Aylmore had been growing more and more restive. His
+brow had flushed; his moustache had begun to twitch. And now he squared
+his shoulders and faced his questioner defiantly.
+
+“I resent these questions about my private affairs!” he snapped out.
+
+“Possibly. But I must put them. I repeat my last question.”
+
+“And I refuse to answer it.”
+
+“Then I ask you another. Where did you live in London at the time you
+are telling us of, when you knew John Marbury?”
+
+“I refuse to answer that question also!”
+
+The Treasury Counsel sat down and looked at the Coroner.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWELVE
+THE NEW WITNESS
+
+
+The voice of the Coroner, bland, suave, deprecating, broke the silence.
+He was addressing the witness.
+
+“I am sure, Mr. Aylmore,” he said, “there is no wish to trouble you
+with unnecessary questions. But we are here to get at the truth of this
+matter of John Marbury’s death, and as you are the only witness we have
+had who knew him personally—”
+
+Aylmore turned impatiently to the Coroner.
+
+“I have every wish to respect your authority, sir!” he exclaimed. “And
+I have told you all that I know of Marbury and of what happened when I
+met him the other evening. But I resent being questioned on my private
+affairs of twenty years ago—I very much resent it! Any question that is
+really pertinent I will answer, but I will not answer questions that
+seem to me wholly foreign to the scope of this enquiry.”
+
+The Treasury Counsel rose again. His manner had become of the quietest,
+and Spargo again became keenly attentive.
+
+“Perhaps I can put a question or two to Mr. Aylmore which will not
+yield him offence,” he remarked drily. He turned once more to the
+witness, regarding him as if with interest. “Can you tell us of any
+person now living who knew Marbury in London at the time under
+discussion—twenty to twenty-two or three years ago?” he asked.
+
+Aylmore shook his head angrily.
+
+“No, I can’t,” he replied.
+
+“And yet you and he must have had several business acquaintances at
+that time who knew you both!”
+
+“Possibly—at that time. But when I returned to England my business and
+my life lay in different directions to those of that time. I don’t know
+of anybody who knew Marbury then—anybody.”
+
+The Counsel turned to a clerk who sat behind him, whispered to him;
+Spargo saw the clerk make a sidelong motion of his head towards the
+door of the court. The Counsel looked again at the witness.
+
+“One more question. You told the court a little time since that you
+parted with Marbury on the evening preceding his death at the end of
+Waterloo Bridge—at, I think you said, a quarter to twelve.”
+
+“About that time.”
+
+“And at that place?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“That is all I want to ask you, Mr. Aylmore—just now,” said the
+Counsel. He turned to the Coroner. “I am going to ask you, sir, at this
+point to call a witness who has volunteered certain evidence to the
+police authorities this morning. That evidence is of a very important
+nature, and I think that this is the stage at which it ought to be
+given to you and the jury. If you would be pleased to direct that David
+Lyell be called—”
+
+Spargo turned instinctively to the door, having seen the clerk who had
+sat behind the Treasury Counsel make his way there. There came into
+view, ushered by the clerk, a smart-looking, alert, self-confident
+young man, evidently a Scotsman, who, on the name of David Lyell being
+called, stepped jauntily and readily into the place which the member of
+Parliament just vacated. He took the oath—Scotch fashion—with the same
+readiness and turned easily to the Treasury Counsel. And Spargo,
+glancing quickly round, saw that the court was breathless with
+anticipation, and that its anticipation was that the new witness was
+going to tell something which related to the evidence just given by
+Aylmore.
+
+“Your name is David Lyell?”
+
+“That is my name, sir.”
+
+“And you reside at 23, Cumbrae Side, Kilmarnock, Scotland?”
+
+“I do.”
+
+“What are you, Mr. Lyell?”
+
+“Traveller, sir, for the firm of Messrs. Stevenson, Robertson & Soutar,
+distillers, of Kilmarnock.”
+
+“Your duties take you, I think, over to Paris occasionally?”
+
+“They do—once every six weeks I go to Paris.”
+
+“On the evening of June 21st last were you in London on your way to
+Paris?”
+
+“I was.”
+
+“I believe you stayed at De Keyser’s Hotel, at the Blackfriars end of
+the Embankment?”
+
+“I did—it’s handy for the continental trains.”
+
+“About half-past eleven, or a little later, that evening, did you go
+along the Embankment, on the Temple Gardens side, for a walk?”
+
+“I did, sir. I’m a bad sleeper, and it’s a habit of mine to take a walk
+of half an hour or so last thing before I go to bed.”
+
+“How far did you walk?”
+
+“As far as Waterloo Bridge.”
+
+“Always on the Temple side?”
+
+“Just so, sir—straight along on that side.”
+
+“Very good. When you got close to Waterloo Bridge, did you meet anybody
+you knew?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Mr. Aylmore, the Member of Parliament.”
+
+Spargo could not avoid a glance at the two sisters. The elder’s head
+was averted; the younger was staring at the witness steadily. And
+Breton was nervously tapping his fingers on the crown of his shining
+silk hat.
+
+“Mr. Aylmore, the Member of Parliament,” repeated the Counsel’s suave,
+clear tones. “Oh! And how did you come to recognize Mr. Aylmore, Member
+of Parliament?”
+
+“Well, sir, in this way. At home, I’m the secretary of our Liberal Ward
+Club, and last year we had a demonstration, and it fell to me to
+arrange with the principal speakers. I got Mr. Aylmore to come and
+speak, and naturally I met him several times, in London and in
+Scotland.”
+
+“So that you knew him quite well?”
+
+“Oh yes, sir.”
+
+“Do you see him now, Mr. Lyell?”
+
+Lyell smiled and half turned in the box.
+
+“Why, of course!” he answered. “There is Mr. Aylmore.”
+
+“There is Mr. Aylmore. Very good. Now we go on. You met Mr. Aylmore
+close to Waterloo Bridge? How close?”
+
+“Well, sir, to be exact, Mr. Aylmore came down the steps from the
+bridge on to the Embankment.”
+
+“Alone?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Who was with him?”
+
+“A man, sir.”
+
+“Did you know the man?”
+
+“No. But seeing who he was with. I took a good look at him. I haven’t
+forgotten his face.”
+
+“You haven’t forgotten his face. Mr. Lyell—has anything recalled that
+face to you within this last day or two?”
+
+“Yes, sir, indeed!”
+
+“What?”
+
+“The picture of the man they say was murdered—John Marbury.”
+
+“You’re sure of that?”
+
+“I’m as certain, sir, as that my name’s what it is.”
+
+“It is your belief that Mr. Aylmore, when you met him, was accompanied
+by the man who, according to the photographs, was John Marbury?”
+
+“It is, sir!”
+
+“Very well. Now, having seen Mr. Aylmore and his companion, what did
+you do?”
+
+“Oh, I just turned and walked after them.”
+
+“You walked after them? They were going eastward, then?”
+
+“They were walking by the way I’d come.”
+
+“You followed them eastward?”
+
+“I did—I was going back to the hotel, you see.”
+
+“What were they doing?”
+
+“Talking uncommonly earnestly, sir.”
+
+“How far did you follow them?”
+
+“I followed them until they came to the Embankment lodge of Middle
+Temple Lane, sir.”
+
+“And then?”
+
+“Why, sir, they turned in there, and I went straight on to De Keyser’s,
+and to my bed.”
+
+There was a deeper silence in court at that moment than at any other
+period of the long day, and it grew still deeper when the quiet, keen
+voice put the next question.
+
+“You swear on your oath that you saw Mr. Aylmore take his companion
+into the Temple by the Embankment entrance of Middle Temple Lane on the
+occasion in question?”
+
+“I do! I could swear no other, sir.”
+
+“Can you tell us, as near as possible, what time that would be?”
+
+“Yes. It was, to a minute or so, about five minutes past twelve.”
+
+The Treasury Counsel nodded to the Coroner, and the Coroner, after a
+whispered conference with the foreman of the jury, looked at the
+witness.
+
+“You have only just given this information to the police, I
+understand?” he said.
+
+“Yes, sir. I have been in Paris, and in Amiens, and I only returned by
+this morning’s boat. As soon as I had read all the news in the
+papers—the English papers—and seen the dead man’s photographs I
+determined to tell the police what I knew, and I went to New Scotland
+Yard as soon as I got to London this morning.”
+
+Nobody else wanted to ask Mr. David Lyell any questions, and he stepped
+down. And Mr. Aylmore suddenly came forward again, seeking the
+Coroner’s attention.
+
+“May I be allowed to make an explanation, sir?” he began. “I—”
+
+But the Treasury Counsel was on his feet, this time stern and
+implacable. “I would point out, sir, that you have had Mr. Aylmore in
+the box, and that he was not then at all ready to give explanations, or
+even to answer questions,” he said. “And before you allow him to make
+any explanation now, I ask you to hear another witness whom I wish to
+interpose at this stage. That witness is——”
+
+Mr. Aylmore turned almost angrily to the Coroner.
+
+“After the evidence of the last witness, I think I have a right to be
+heard at once!” he said with emphasis. “As matters stand at present, it
+looks as if I had trifled, sir, with you and the jury, whereas if I am
+allowed to make an explanation—”
+
+“I must respectfully ask that before Mr. Aylmore is allowed to make any
+explanation, the witness I have referred to is heard,” said the
+Treasury Counsel sternly. “There are weighty reasons.”
+
+“I am afraid you must wait a little, Mr. Aylmore, if you wish to give
+an explanation,” said the Coroner. He turned to the Counsel. “Who is
+this other witness?” he asked.
+
+Aylmore stepped back. And Spargo noticed that the younger of his two
+daughters was staring at him with an anxious expression. There was no
+distrust of her father in her face; she was anxious. She, too, slowly
+turned to the next witness. This man was the porter of the Embankment
+lodge of Middle Temple Lane. The Treasury Counsel put a straight
+question to him at once.
+
+“You see that gentleman,” he said, pointing to Aylmore. “Do you know
+him as an inmate of the Temple?”
+
+The man stared at Aylmore, evidently confused.
+
+“Why, certainly, sir!” he answered. “Quite well, sir.”
+
+“Very good. And now—what name do you know him by?”
+
+The man grew evidently more bewildered.
+
+“Name, sir. Why, Mr. Anderson, sir!” he replied. “Mr. Anderson!”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THIRTEEN
+UNDER SUSPICION
+
+
+A distinct, uncontrollable murmur of surprise ran round the packed
+court as this man in the witness-box gave this answer. It signified
+many things—that there were people present who had expected some such
+dramatic development; that there were others present who had not; that
+the answer itself was only a prelude to further developments. And
+Spargo, looking narrowly about him, saw that the answer had aroused
+different feelings in Aylmore’s two daughters. The elder one had
+dropped her face until it was quite hidden; the younger was sitting
+bolt upright, staring at her father in utter and genuine bewilderment.
+And for the first time, Aylmore made no response to her.
+
+But the course of things was going steadily forward. There was no
+stopping the Treasury Counsel now; he was going to get at some truth in
+his own merciless fashion. He had exchanged one glance with the
+Coroner, had whispered a word to the solicitor who sat close by him,
+and now he turned again to the witness.
+
+“So you know that gentleman—make sure now—as Mr. Anderson, an inmate of
+the Temple?”
+
+“Yes, sir.”
+
+“You don’t know him by any other name?”
+
+“No, sir, I don’t.”
+
+“How long have you known him by that name?”
+
+“I should say two or three years, sir.”
+
+“See him go in and out regularly?”
+
+“No, sir—not regularly.”
+
+“How often, then?”
+
+“Now and then, sir—perhaps once a week.”
+
+“Tell us what you know of Mr. Anderson’s goings-in-and-out.”
+
+“Well, sir, I might see him two nights running; then I mightn’t see him
+again for perhaps a week or two. Irregular, as you might say, sir.”
+
+“You say ‘nights.’ Do I understand that you never see Mr. Anderson
+except at night?”
+
+“Yes, sir. I’ve never seen him except at night. Always about the same
+time, sir.”
+
+“What time?”
+
+“Just about midnight, sir.”
+
+“Very well. Do you remember the midnight of June 21st-22nd?”
+
+“I do, sir.”
+
+“Did you see Mr. Anderson enter then?”
+
+“Yes, sir, just after twelve.”
+
+“Was he alone?”
+
+“No, sir; there was another gentleman with him.”
+
+“Remember anything about that other gentleman?”
+
+“Nothing, sir, except that I noticed as they walked through, that the
+other gentleman had grey clothes on.”
+
+“Had grey clothes on. You didn’t see his face?”
+
+“Not to remember it, sir. I don’t remember anything but what I’ve told
+you, sir.”
+
+“That is that the other gentleman wore a grey suit. Where did Mr.
+Anderson and this gentleman in the grey suit go when they’d passed
+through?”
+
+“Straight up the Lane, sir.”
+
+“Do you know where Mr. Anderson’s rooms in the Temple are?”
+
+“Not exactly, sir, but I understood in Fountain Court.”
+
+“Now, on that night in question, did Mr. Anderson leave again by your
+lodge?”
+
+“No, sir.”
+
+“You heard of the discovery of the body of a dead man in Middle Temple
+Lane next morning?”
+
+“I did, sir.”
+
+“Did you connect that man with the gentleman in the grey suit?”
+
+“No, sir, I didn’t. It never occurred to me. A lot of the gentlemen who
+live in the Temple bring friends in late of nights; I never gave the
+matter any particular thought.”
+
+“Never mentioned it to anybody until now, when you were sent for to
+come here?”
+
+“No, sir, never, to anybody.”
+
+“And you have never known the gentleman standing there as anybody but
+Mr. Anderson?”
+
+“No, sir, never heard any other name but Anderson.”
+
+The Coroner glanced at the Counsel.
+
+“I think this may be a convenient opportunity for Mr. Aylmore to give
+the explanation he offered a few minutes ago,” he said. “Do you suggest
+anything?”
+
+“I suggest, sir, that if Mr. Aylmore desires to give any explanation he
+should return to the witness-box and submit himself to examination
+again on his oath,” replied the Counsel. “The matter is in your hands.”
+
+The Coroner turned to Aylmore.
+
+“Do you object to that?” he asked.
+
+Aylmore stepped boldly forward and into the box.
+
+“I object to nothing,” he said in clear tones, “except to being asked
+to reply to questions about matters of the past which have not and
+cannot have anything to do with this case. Ask me what questions you
+like, arising out of the evidence of the last two witnesses, and I will
+answer them so far as I see myself justified in doing so. Ask me
+questions about matters of twenty years ago, and I shall answer them or
+not as I see fit. And I may as well say that I will take all the
+consequences of my silence or my speech.”
+
+The Treasury Counsel rose again.
+
+“Very well, Mr. Aylmore,” he said. “I will put certain questions to
+you. You heard the evidence of David Lyell?”
+
+“I did.”
+
+“Was that quite true as regards yourself?”
+
+“Quite true—absolutely true.”
+
+“And you heard that of the last witness. Was that also true!”
+
+“Equally true.”
+
+“Then you admit that the evidence you gave this morning, before these
+witnesses came on the scene, was not true?”
+
+“No, I do not! Most emphatically I do not. It was true.”
+
+“True? You told me, on oath, that you parted from John Marbury on
+Waterloo Bridge!”
+
+“Pardon me, I said nothing of the sort. I said that from the
+Anglo-Orient Hotel we strolled across Waterloo Bridge, and that shortly
+afterwards we parted—I did not say where we parted. I see there is a
+shorthand writer here who is taking everything down—ask him if that is
+not exactly what I said?”
+
+A reference to the stenographer proved Aylmore to be right, and the
+Treasury Counsel showed plain annoyance.
+
+“Well, at any rate, you so phrased your answer that nine persons out of
+ten would have understood that you parted from Marbury in the open
+streets after crossing Waterloo Bridge,” he said. “Now—?”
+
+Aylmore smiled.
+
+“I am not responsible for the understanding of nine people out of ten
+any more than I am for your understanding,” he said, with a sneer. “I
+said what I now repeat—Marbury and I walked across Waterloo Bridge, and
+shortly afterwards we parted. I told you the truth.”
+
+“Indeed! Perhaps you will continue to tell us the truth. Since you have
+admitted that the evidence of the last two witnesses is absolutely
+correct, perhaps you will tell us exactly where you and Marbury did
+part?”
+
+“I will—willingly. We parted at the door of my chambers in Fountain
+Court.”
+
+“Then—to reiterate—it was you who took Marbury into the Temple that
+night?”
+
+“It was certainly I who took Marbury into the Temple that night.”
+
+There was another murmur amongst the crowded benches. Here at any rate
+was fact—solid, substantial fact. And Spargo began to see a possible
+course of events which he had not anticipated.
+
+“That is a candid admission, Mr. Aylmore. I suppose you see a certain
+danger to yourself in making it.”
+
+“I need not say whether I do or I do not. I have made it.”
+
+“Very good. Why did you not make it before?”
+
+“For my own reasons. I told you as much as I considered necessary for
+the purpose of this enquiry. I have virtually altered nothing now. I
+asked to be allowed to make a statement, to give an explanation, as
+soon as Mr. Lyell had left this box: I was not allowed to do so. I am
+willing to make it now.”
+
+“Make it then.”
+
+“It is simply this,” said Aylmore, turning to the Coroner. “I have
+found it convenient, during the past three years, to rent a simple set
+of chambers in the Temple, where I could occasionally—very
+occasionally, as a rule—go late at night. I also found it convenient,
+for my own reasons—with which, I think, no one has anything to do—to
+rent those chambers under the name of Mr. Anderson. It was to my
+chambers that Marbury accompanied me for a few moments on the midnight
+with which we are dealing. He was not in them more than five minutes at
+the very outside: I parted from him at my outer door, and I understood
+that he would leave the Temple by the way we had entered and would
+drive or walk straight back to his hotel. That is the whole truth. I
+wish to add that I ought perhaps to have told all this at first. I had
+reasons for not doing so. I told what I considered necessary, that I
+parted from Marbury, leaving him well and alive, soon after midnight.”
+
+“What reasons were or are they which prevented you from telling all
+this at first?” asked the Treasury Counsel.
+
+“Reasons which are private to me.”
+
+“Will you tell them to the court?”
+
+“No!”
+
+“Then will you tell us why Marbury went with you to the chambers in
+Fountain Court which you tenant under the name of Anderson?”
+
+“Yes. To fetch a document which I had in my keeping, and had kept for
+him for twenty years or more.”
+
+“A document of importance?”
+
+“Of very great importance.”
+
+“He would have it on him when he was—as we believe he was—murdered and
+robbed?”
+
+“He had it on him when he left me.”
+
+“Will you tell us what it was?”
+
+“Certainly not!”
+
+“In fact, you won’t tell us any more than you choose to tell?”
+
+“I have told you all I can tell of the events of that night.”
+
+“Then I am going to ask you a very pertinent question. Is it not a fact
+that you know a great deal more about John Marbury than you have told
+this court?”
+
+“That I shall not answer.”
+
+“Is it not a fact that you could, if you would, tell this court more
+about John Marbury and your acquaintanceship with him twenty years
+ago?”
+
+“I also decline to answer that.”
+
+The Treasury Counsel made a little movement of his shoulders and turned
+to the Coroner.
+
+“I should suggest, sir, that you adjourn this enquiry,” he said
+quietly.
+
+“For a week,” assented the Coroner, turning to the jury.
+
+The crowd surged out of the court, chattering, murmuring, exclaiming—
+spectators, witnesses, jurymen, reporters, legal folk, police folk, all
+mixed up together. And Spargo, elbowing his own way out, and busily
+reckoning up the value of the new complexions put on everything by the
+day’s work, suddenly felt a hand laid on his arm. Turning he found
+himself gazing at Jessie Aylmore.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER FOURTEEN
+THE SILVER TICKET
+
+
+With a sudden instinct of protection, Spargo quickly drew the girl
+aside from the struggling crowd, and within a moment had led her into a
+quiet by-street. He looked down at her as she stood recovering her
+breath.
+
+“Yes?” he said quietly.
+
+Jessie Aylmore looked up at him, smiling faintly.
+
+“I want to speak to you,” she said. “I must speak to you.”
+
+“Yes,” said Spargo. “But—the others? Your sister?—Breton?”
+
+“I left them on purpose to speak to you,” she answered. “They knew I
+did. I am well accustomed to looking after myself.”
+
+Spargo moved down the by-street, motioning his companion to move with
+him.
+
+“Tea,” he said, “is what you want. I know a queer, old-fashioned place
+close by here where you can get the best China tea in London. Come and
+have some.”
+
+Jessie Aylmore smiled and followed her guide obediently. And Spargo
+said nothing, marching stolidly along with his thumbs in his waistcoat
+pockets, his fingers playing soundless tunes outside, until he had
+installed himself and his companion in a quiet nook in the old
+tea-house he had told her of, and had given an order for tea and hot
+tea-cakes to a waitress who evidently knew him. Then he turned to her.
+
+“You want,” he said, “to talk to me about your father.”
+
+“Yes,” she answered. “I do.”
+
+“Why?” asked Spargo.
+
+The girl gave him a searching look.
+
+“Ronald Breton says you’re the man who’s written all those special
+articles in the _Watchman_ about the Marbury case,” she answered. “Are
+you?”
+
+“I am,” said Spargo.
+
+“Then you’re a man of great influence,” she went on. “You can stir the
+public mind. Mr. Spargo—what are you going to write about my father and
+today’s proceedings?”
+
+Spargo signed to her to pour out the tea which had just arrived. He
+seized, without ceremony, upon a piece of the hot buttered tea-cake,
+and bit a great lump out of it.
+
+“Frankly,” he mumbled, speaking with his mouth full, “frankly, I don’t
+know. I don’t know—yet. But I’ll tell you this—it’s best to be candid—I
+shouldn’t allow myself to be prejudiced or biassed in making up my
+conclusions by anything that you may say to me. Understand?”
+
+Jessie Aylmore took a sudden liking to Spargo because of the
+unconventionality and brusqueness of his manners.
+
+“I’m not wanting to prejudice or bias you,” she said. “All I want is
+that you should be very sure before you say—anything.”
+
+“I’ll be sure,” said Spargo. “Don’t bother. Is the tea all right?”
+
+“Beautiful!” she answered, with a smile that made Spargo look at her
+again. “Delightful! Mr. Spargo, tell me!—what did you think about—about
+what has just happened?”
+
+Spargo, regardless of the fact that his fingers were liberally
+ornamented with butter, lifted a hand and rubbed his always untidy
+hair. Then he ate more tea-cake and gulped more tea.
+
+“Look here!” he said suddenly. “I’m no great hand at talking. I can
+write pretty decently when I’ve a good story to tell, but I don’t talk
+an awful lot, because I never can express what I mean unless I’ve got a
+pen in my hand. Frankly, I find it hard to tell you what I think. When
+I write my article this evening, I’ll get all these things marshalled
+in proper form, and I shall write clearly about ’em. But I’ll tell you
+one thing I do think—I wish your father had made a clean breast of
+things to me at first, when he gave me that interview, or had told
+everything when he first went into that box.”
+
+“Why?” she asked.
+
+“Because he’s now set up an atmosphere of doubt and suspicion around
+himself. People’ll think—Heaven knows what they’ll think! They already
+know that he knows more about Marbury than he’ll tell, that—”
+
+“But does he?” she interrupted quickly. “Do you think he does?”
+
+“Yes!” replied Spargo, with emphasis. “I do. A lot more! If he had only
+been explicit at first—however, he wasn’t. Now it’s done. As things
+stand—look here, does it strike you that your father is in a very
+serious position?”
+
+“Serious?” she exclaimed.
+
+“Dangerous! Here’s the fact—he’s admitted that he took Marbury to his
+rooms in the Temple that midnight. Well, next morning Marbury’s found
+robbed and murdered in an entry, not fifty yards off!”
+
+“Does anybody suppose that my father would murder him for the sake of
+robbing him of whatever he had on him?” she laughed scornfully. “My
+father is a very wealthy man, Mr. Spargo.”
+
+“May be,” answered Spargo. “But millionaires have been known to murder
+men who held secrets.”
+
+“Secrets!” she exclaimed.
+
+“Have some more tea,” said Spargo, nodding at the teapot. “Look
+here—this way it is. The theory that people—some people—will build up
+(I won’t say that it hasn’t suggested itself to me) is this:—There’s
+some mystery about the relationship, acquaintanceship, connection, call
+it what you like, of your father and Marbury twenty odd years ago. Must
+be. There’s some mystery about your father’s life, twenty odd years
+ago. Must be—or else he’d have answered those questions. Very well.
+‘Ha, ha!’ says the general public. ‘Now we have it!’ ‘Marbury,’ says
+the general public, ‘was a man who had a hold on Aylmore. He turned up.
+Aylmore trapped him into the Temple, killed him to preserve his own
+secret, and robbed him of all he had on him as a blind.’ Eh?”
+
+“You think—people will say that?” she exclaimed.
+
+“Cock-sure! They’re saying it. Heard half a dozen of ’em say it, in
+more or less elegant fashion as I came out of that court. Of course,
+they’ll say it. Why, what else could they say?”
+
+For a moment Jessie Aylmore sat looking silently into her tea-cup. Then
+she turned her eyes on Spargo, who immediately manifested a new
+interest in what remained of the tea-cakes.
+
+“Is that what you’re going to say in your article tonight?” she asked,
+quietly.
+
+“No!” replied Spargo, promptly. “It isn’t. I’m going to sit on the
+fence tonight. Besides, the case is _sub judice_. All I’m going to do
+is to tell, in my way, what took place at the inquest.”
+
+The girl impulsively put her hand across the table and laid it on
+Spargo’s big fist.
+
+“Is it what you think?” she asked in a low voice.
+
+“Honour bright, no!” exclaimed Spargo. “It isn’t—it isn’t! I don’t
+think it. I think there’s a most extraordinary mystery at the bottom of
+Marbury’s death, and I think your father knows an enormous lot about
+Marbury that he won’t tell, but I’m certain sure that he neither killed
+Marbury nor knows anything whatever about his death. And as I’m out to
+clear this mystery up, and mean to do it, nothing’ll make me more glad
+than to clear your father. I say, do have some more tea-cake? We’ll
+have fresh ones—and fresh tea.”
+
+“No, thank you,” she said smiling. “And thank you for what you’ve just
+said. I’m going now, Mr. Spargo. You’ve done me good.”
+
+“Oh, rot!” exclaimed Spargo. “Nothing—nothing! I’ve just told you what
+I’m thinking. You must go?…”
+
+He saw her into a taxi-cab presently, and when she had gone stood
+vacantly staring after the cab until a hand clapped him smartly on the
+shoulder. Turning, he found Rathbury grinning at him.
+
+“All right, Mr. Spargo, I saw you!” he said. “Well, it’s a pleasant
+change to squire young ladies after being all day in that court. Look
+here, are you going to start your writing just now?”
+
+“I’m not going to start my writing as you call it, until after I’ve
+dined at seven o’clock and given myself time to digest my modest
+dinner,” answered Spargo. “What is it?”
+
+“Come back with me and have another look at that blessed leather box,”
+said Rathbury. “I’ve got it in my room, and I’d like to examine it for
+myself. Come on!”
+
+“The thing’s empty,” said Spargo.
+
+“There might be a false bottom in it,” remarked Rathbury. “One never
+knows. Here, jump into this!”
+
+He pushed Spargo into a passing taxi-cab, and following, bade the
+driver go straight to the Yard. Arrived there, he locked Spargo and
+himself into the drab-visaged room in which the journalist had seen him
+before.
+
+“What d’ye think of today’s doings, Spargo?” he asked, as he proceeded
+to unlock a cupboard.
+
+“I think,” said Spargo, “that some of you fellows must have had your
+ears set to tingling.”
+
+“That’s so,” assented Rathbury. “Of course, the next thing’ll be to
+find out all about the Mr. Aylmore of twenty years since. When a man
+won’t tell you where he lived twenty years ago, what he was exactly
+doing, what his precise relationship with another man was—why, then,
+you’ve just got to find out, eh? Oh, some of our fellows are at work on
+the life history of Stephen Aylmore, Esq., M.P., already—you bet! Well,
+now, Spargo, here’s the famous box.”
+
+The detective brought the old leather case out of the cupboard in which
+he had been searching, and placed it on his desk. Spargo threw back the
+lid and looked inside, measuring the inner capacity against the
+exterior lines.
+
+“No false bottom in that, Rathbury,” he said. “There’s just the outer
+leather case, and the inner lining, of this old bed-hanging stuff, and
+that’s all. There’s no room for any false bottom or anything of that
+sort, d’you see?”
+
+Rathbury also sized up the box’s capacity.
+
+“Looks like it,” he said disappointedly. “Well, what about the lid,
+then? I remember there was an old box like this in my grandmother’s
+farmhouse, where I was reared—there was a pocket in the lid. Let’s see
+if there’s anything of the sort here?”
+
+He threw the lid back and began to poke about the lining of it with the
+tips of his fingers, and presently he turned to his companion with a
+sharp exclamation.
+
+“By George, Spargo!” he said. “I don’t know about any pocket, but
+there’s something under this lining. Feels like—here, you feel.
+There—and there.”
+
+Spargo put a finger on the places indicated.
+
+“Yes, that’s so,” he agreed. “Feels like two cards—a large and a small
+one. And the small one’s harder than the other. Better cut that lining
+out, Rathbury.”
+
+“That,” remarked Rathbury, producing a pen-knife, “is just what I’m
+going to do. We’ll cut along this seam.”
+
+He ripped the lining carefully open along the upper part of the lining
+of the lid, and looking into the pocket thus made, drew out two objects
+which he dropped on his blotting pad.
+
+“A child’s photograph,” he said, glancing at one of them. “But what on
+earth is that?”
+
+The object to which he pointed was a small, oblong piece of thin,
+much-worn silver, about the size of a railway ticket. On one side of it
+was what seemed to be a heraldic device or coat-of-arms, almost
+obliterated by rubbing; on the other, similarly worn down by friction,
+was the figure of a horse.
+
+“That’s a curious object,” remarked Spargo, picking it up. “I never saw
+anything like that before. What can it be?”
+
+“Don’t know—I never saw anything of the sort either,” said Rathbury.
+“Some old token, I should say. Now this photo. Ah—you see, the
+photographer’s name and address have been torn away or broken
+off—there’s nothing left but just two letters of what’s apparently been
+the name of the town—see. Er—that’s all there is. Portrait of a baby,
+eh?”
+
+Spargo gave, what might have been called in anybody else but him, a
+casual glance at the baby’s portrait. He picked up the silver ticket
+again and turned it over and over.
+
+“Look here, Rathbury,” he said. “Let me take this silver thing. I know
+where I can find out what it is. At least, I think I do.”
+
+“All right,” agreed the detective, “but take the greatest care of it,
+and don’t tell a soul that we found it in this box, you know. No
+connection with the Marbury case, Spargo, remember.”
+
+“Oh, all right,” said Spargo. “Trust me.”
+
+He put the silver ticket in his pocket, and went back to the office,
+wondering about this singular find. And when he had written his article
+that evening, and seen a proof of it, Spargo went into Fleet Street
+intent on seeking peculiar information.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER FIFTEEN
+MARKET MILCASTER
+
+
+The haunt of well-informed men which Spargo had in view when he turned
+out of the _Watchman_ office lay well hidden from ordinary sight and
+knowledge in one of those Fleet Street courts the like of which is not
+elsewhere in the world. Only certain folk knew of it. It was, of
+course, a club; otherwise it would not have been what it was. It is the
+simplest thing in life, in England, at any rate, to form a club of
+congenial spirits. You get so many of your choice friends and
+acquaintances to gather round you; you register yourselves under a name
+of your own choosing; you take a house and furnish it according to your
+means and your taste: you comply with the very easy letter of the law,
+and there you are. Keep within that easy letter, and you can do what
+you please on your own premises. It is much more agreeable to have a
+small paradise of your own of this description than to lounge about
+Fleet Street bars.
+
+The particular club to which Spargo bent his steps was called the
+Octoneumenoi. Who evolved this extraordinary combination of Latin and
+Greek was a dark mystery: there it was, however, on a tiny brass plate
+you once reached the portals. The portals were gained by devious ways.
+You turned out of Fleet Street by an alley so narrow that it seemed as
+if you might suddenly find yourself squeezed between the ancient walls.
+Then you suddenly dived down another alley and found yourself in a
+small court, with high walls around you and a smell of printer’s ink in
+your nose and a whirring of printing presses in your ears. You made
+another dive into a dark entry, much encumbered by bales of paper,
+crates of printing material, jars of printing ink; after falling over a
+few of these you struck an ancient flight of stairs and went up past
+various landings, always travelling in a state of gloom and fear. After
+a lot of twisting and turning you came to the very top of the house and
+found it heavily curtained off. You lifted a curtain and found yourself
+in a small entresol, somewhat artistically painted—the whole and sole
+work of an artistic member who came one day with a formidable array of
+lumber and paint-pots and worked his will on the ancient wood. Then you
+saw the brass plate and its fearful name, and beneath it the formal
+legal notice that this club was duly registered and so on, and if you
+were a member you went in, and if you weren’t a member you tinkled an
+electric bell and asked to see a member—if you knew one.
+
+Spargo was not a member, but he knew many members, and he tinkled the
+bell, and asked the boy who answered it for Mr. Starkey. Mr. Starkey, a
+young gentleman with the biceps of a prize-fighter and a head of curly
+hair that would have done credit to Antinous, came forth in due course
+and shook Spargo by the hand until his teeth rattled.
+
+“Had we known you were coming,” said Mr. Starkey, “we’d have had a
+brass band on the stairs.”
+
+“I want to come in,” remarked Spargo.
+
+“Sure!” said Mr. Starkey. “That’s what you’ve come for.”
+
+“Well, stand out of the way, then, and let’s get in,” said Spargo.
+“Look here,” he continued when they had penetrated into a small
+vestibule, “doesn’t old Crowfoot turn in here about this time every
+night?”
+
+“Every night as true as the clock, my son Spargo, Crowfoot puts his
+nose in at precisely eleven, having by that time finished that daily
+column wherein he informs a section of the populace as to the prospects
+of their spotting a winner tomorrow,” answered Mr. Starkey. “It’s five
+minutes to his hour now. Come in and drink till he comes. Want him?”
+
+“A word with him,” answered Spargo. “A mere word—or two.”
+
+He followed Starkey into a room which was so filled with smoke and
+sound that for a moment it was impossible to either see or hear. But
+the smoke was gradually making itself into a canopy, and beneath the
+canopy Spargo made out various groups of men of all ages, sitting
+around small tables, smoking and drinking, and all talking as if the
+great object of their lives was to get as many words as possible out of
+their mouths in the shortest possible time. In the further corner was a
+small bar; Starkey pulled Spargo up to it.
+
+“Name it, my son,” commanded Starkey. “Try the Octoneumenoi very extra
+special. Two of ’em, Dick. Come to beg to be a member, Spargo?”
+
+“I’ll think about being a member of this ante-room of the infernal
+regions when you start a ventilating fan and provide members with a
+route-map of the way from Fleet Street,” answered Spargo, taking his
+glass. “Phew!—what an atmosphere!”
+
+“We’re considering a ventilating fan,” said Starkey. “I’m on the house
+committee now, and I brought that very matter up at our last meeting.
+But Templeson, of the _Bulletin_—you know Templeson—he says what we
+want is a wine-cooler to stand under that sideboard—says no club is
+proper without a wine-cooler, and that he knows a chap—second-hand
+dealer, don’t you know—what has a beauty to dispose of in old Sheffield
+plate. Now, if you were on our house committee, Spargo, old man, would
+you go in for the wine-cooler or the ventilating fan? You see—”
+
+“There is Crowfoot,” said Spargo. “Shout him over here, Starkey, before
+anybody else collars him.”
+
+Through the door by which Spargo had entered a few minutes previously
+came a man who stood for a moment blinking at the smoke and the lights.
+He was a tall, elderly man with a figure and bearing of a soldier; a
+big, sweeping moustache stood well out against a square-cut jaw and
+beneath a prominent nose; a pair of keen blue eyes looked out from
+beneath a tousled mass of crinkled hair. He wore neither hat nor cap;
+his attire was a carelessly put on Norfolk suit of brown tweed; he
+looked half-unkempt, half-groomed. But knotted at the collar of his
+flannel shirt were the colours of one of the most famous and exclusive
+cricket clubs in the world, and everybody knew that in his day their
+wearer had been a mighty figure in the public eye.
+
+“Hi, Crowfoot!” shouted Starkey above the din and babel. “Crowfoot,
+Crowfoot! Come over here, there’s a chap dying to see you!”
+
+“Yes, that’s the way to get him, isn’t it?” said Spargo. “Here, I’ll
+get him myself.”
+
+He went across the room and accosted the old sporting journalist.
+
+“I want a quiet word with you,” he said. “This place is like a
+pandemonium.”
+
+Crowfoot led the way into a side alcove and ordered a drink.
+
+“Always is, this time,” he said, yawning. “But it’s companionable. What
+is it, Spargo?”
+
+Spargo took a pull at the glass which he had carried with him. “I
+should say,” he said, “that you know as much about sporting matters as
+any man writing about ’em?”
+
+“Well, I think you might say it with truth,” answered Crowfoot.
+
+“And old sporting matters?” said Spargo.
+
+“Yes, and old sporting matters,” replied the other with a sudden flash
+of the eye. “Not that they greatly interest the modern generation, you
+know.”
+
+“Well, there’s something that’s interesting me greatly just now,
+anyway,” said Spargo. “And I believe it’s got to do with old sporting
+affairs. And I came to you for information about it, believing you to
+be the only man I know of that could tell anything.”
+
+“Yes—what is it?” asked Crowfoot.
+
+Spargo drew out an envelope, and took from it the carefully-wrapped-up
+silver ticket. He took off the wrappings and laid the ticket on
+Crowfoot’s outstretched palm.
+
+“Can you tell me what that is?” he asked.
+
+Another sudden flash came into the old sportsman’s eyes—he eagerly
+turned the silver ticket over.
+
+“God bless my soul!” he exclaimed. “Where did you get this?”
+
+“Never mind, just now,” replied Spargo. “You know what it is?”
+
+“Certainly I know what it is! But—Gad! I’ve not seen one of these
+things for Lord knows how many years. It makes me feel something like a
+young ’un again!” said Crowfoot. “Quite a young ’un!”
+
+“But what is it?” asked Spargo.
+
+Crowfoot turned the ticket over, showing the side on which the heraldic
+device was almost worn away.
+
+“It’s one of the original silver stand tickets of the old racecourse at
+Market Milcaster,” answered Crowfoot. “That’s what it is. One of the
+old original silver stand tickets. There are the arms of Market
+Milcaster, you see, nearly worn away by much rubbing. There, on the
+obverse, is the figure of a running horse. Oh, yes, that’s what it is!
+Bless me!—most interesting.”
+
+“Where’s Market Milcaster?” enquired Spargo. “Don’t know it.”
+
+“Market Milcaster,” replied Crowfoot, still turning the silver ticket
+over and over, “is what the topographers call a decayed town in
+Elmshire. It has steadily decayed since the river that led to it got
+gradually silted up. There used to be a famous race-meeting there in
+June every year. It’s nearly forty years since that meeting fell
+through. I went to it often when I was a lad—often!”
+
+“And you say that’s a ticket for the stand?” asked Spargo.
+
+“This is one of fifty silver tickets, or passes, or whatever you like
+to call ’em, which were given by the race committee to fifty burgesses
+of the town,” answered Crowfoot. “It was, I remember, considered a
+great privilege to possess a silver ticket. It admitted its
+possessor—for life, mind you!—to the stand, the paddocks, the ring,
+anywhere. It also gave him a place at the annual race-dinner. Where on
+earth did you get this, Spargo?”
+
+Spargo took the ticket and carefully re-wrapped it, this time putting
+it in his purse.
+
+“I’m awfully obliged to you, Crowfoot,” he said, “The fact is, I can’t
+tell you where I got it just now, but I’ll promise you that I will tell
+you, and all about it, too, as soon as my tongue’s free to do so.”
+
+“Some mystery, eh?” suggested Crowfoot.
+
+“Considerable,” answered Spargo. “Don’t mention to anyone that I showed
+it to you. You shall know everything eventually.”
+
+“Oh, all right, my boy, all right!” said Crowfoot. “Odd how things turn
+up, isn’t it? Now, I’ll wager anything that there aren’t half a dozen
+of these old things outside Market Milcaster itself. As I said, there
+were only fifty, and they were all in possession of burgesses. They
+were so much thought of that they were taken great care of. I’ve been
+in Market Milcaster myself since the races were given up, and I’ve seen
+these tickets carefully framed and hung over mantelpieces—oh, yes!”
+
+Spargo caught at a notion.
+
+“How do you get to Market Milcaster?” he asked.
+
+“Paddington,” replied Crowfoot. “It’s a goodish way.”
+
+“I wonder,” said Spargo, “if there’s any old sporting man there who
+could remember—things. Anything about this ticket, for instance?”
+
+“Old sporting man!” exclaimed Crowfoot. “Egad!—but no, he must be
+dead—anyhow, if he isn’t dead, he must be a veritable patriarch. Old
+Ben Quarterpage, he was an auctioneer in the town, and a rare
+sportsman.”
+
+“I may go down there,” said Spargo. “I’ll see if he’s alive.”
+
+“Then, if you do go down,” suggested Crowfoot, “go to the old ‘Yellow
+Dragon’ in the High Street, a fine old place. Quarterpage’s place of
+business and his private house were exactly opposite the ‘Dragon.’ But
+I’m afraid you’ll find him dead—it’s five and twenty years since I was
+in Market Milcaster, and he was an old bird then. Let’s see, now. If
+Old Ben Quarterpage is alive, Spargo, he’ll be ninety years of age!”
+
+“Well, I’ve known men of ninety who were spry enough, even in my bit of
+experience,” said Spargo. “I know one—now—my own grandfather. Well, the
+best of thanks, Crowfoot, and I’ll tell you all about it some day.”
+
+“Have another drink?” suggested Crowfoot.
+
+But Spargo excused himself. He was going back to the office, he said;
+he still had something to do. And he got himself away from the
+Octoneumenoi, in spite of Starkey, who wished to start a general debate
+on the wisest way of expending the club’s ready money balance, and went
+back to the _Watchman_, and there he sought the presence of the editor,
+and in spite of the fact that it was the busiest hour of the night, saw
+him and remained closeted with him for the extraordinary space of ten
+minutes. And after that Spargo went home and fell into bed.
+
+But next morning, bright and early, he was on the departure platform at
+Paddington, suit-case in hand, and ticket in pocket for Market
+Milcaster, and in the course of that afternoon he found himself in an
+old-fashioned bedroom looking out on Market Milcaster High Street. And
+there, right opposite him, he saw an ancient house, old brick,
+ivy-covered, with an office at its side, over the door of which was the
+name, _Benjamin Quarterpage_.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER SIXTEEN
+THE “YELLOW DRAGON”
+
+
+Spargo, changing his clothes, washing away the dust of his journey, in
+that old-fashioned lavender-scented bedroom, busied his mind in further
+speculations on his plan of campaign in Market Milcaster. He had no
+particularly clear plan. The one thing he was certain of was that in
+the old leather box which the man whom he knew as John Marbury had
+deposited with the London and Universal Safe Deposit Company, he and
+Rathbury had discovered one of the old silver tickets of Market
+Milcaster racecourse, and that he, Spargo, had come to Market
+Milcaster, with the full approval of his editor, in an endeavour to
+trace it. How was he going to set about this difficult task?
+
+“The first thing,” said Spargo to himself as he tied a new tie, “is to
+have a look round. That’ll be no long job.”
+
+For he had already seen as he approached the town, and as he drove from
+the station to the “Yellow Dragon” Hotel, that Market Milcaster was a
+very small place. It chiefly consisted of one long, wide
+thoroughfare—the High Street—with smaller streets leading from it on
+either side. In the High Street seemed to be everything that the town
+could show—the ancient parish church, the town hall, the market cross,
+the principal houses and shops, the bridge, beneath which ran the river
+whereon ships had once come up to the town before its mouth, four miles
+away, became impassably silted up. It was a bright, clean, little town,
+but there were few signs of trade in it, and Spargo had been quick to
+notice that in the “Yellow Dragon,” a big, rambling old hostelry,
+reminiscent of the old coaching days, there seemed to be little doing.
+He had eaten a bit of lunch in the coffee-room immediately on his
+arrival; the coffee-room was big enough to accommodate a hundred and
+fifty people, but beyond himself, an old gentleman and his daughter,
+evidently tourists, two young men talking golf, a man who looked like
+an artist, and an unmistakable honeymooning couple, there was no one in
+it. There was little traffic in the wide street beneath Spargo’s
+windows; little passage of people to and fro on the sidewalks; here a
+countryman drove a lazy cow as lazily along; there a farmer in his
+light cart sat idly chatting with an aproned tradesman, who had come
+out of his shop to talk to him. Over everything lay the quiet of the
+sunlight of the summer afternoon, and through the open windows stole a
+faint, sweet scent of the new-mown hay lying in the meadows outside the
+old houses.
+
+“A veritable Sleepy Hollow,” mused Spargo. “Let’s go down and see if
+there’s anybody to talk to. Great Scott!—to think that I was in the
+poisonous atmosphere of the Octoneumenoi only sixteen hours ago!”
+
+Spargo, after losing himself in various corridors and passages, finally
+landed in the wide, stone-paved hall of the old hotel, and with a sure
+instinct turned into the bar-parlour which he had noticed when he
+entered the place. This was a roomy, comfortable, bow-windowed
+apartment, looking out upon the High Street, and was furnished and
+ornamented with the usual appurtenances of country-town hotels. There
+were old chairs and tables and sideboards and cupboards, which had
+certainly been made a century before, and seemed likely to endure for a
+century or two longer; there were old prints of the road and the chase,
+and an old oil-painting or two of red-faced gentlemen in pink coats;
+there were foxes’ masks on the wall, and a monster pike in a glass case
+on a side-table; there were ancient candlesticks on the mantelpiece and
+an antique snuff-box set between them. Also there was a small,
+old-fashioned bar in a corner of the room, and a new-fashioned young
+woman seated behind it, who was yawning over a piece of fancy
+needlework, and looked at Spargo when he entered as Andromeda may have
+looked at Perseus when he made arrival at her rock. And Spargo,
+treating himself to a suitable drink and choosing a cigar to accompany
+it, noted the look, and dropped into the nearest chair.
+
+“This,” he remarked, eyeing the damsel with enquiry, “appears to me to
+be a very quiet place.”
+
+“Quiet!” exclaimed the lady. “Quiet?”
+
+“That,” continued Spargo, “is precisely what I observed. Quiet. I see
+that you agree with me. You expressed your agreement with two shades of
+emphasis, the surprised and the scornful. We may conclude, thus far,
+that the place is undoubtedly quiet.”
+
+The damsel looked at Spargo as if she considered him in the light of a
+new specimen, and picking up her needlework she quitted the bar and
+coming out into the room took a chair near his own.
+
+“It makes you thankful to see a funeral go by here,” she remarked.
+“It’s about all that one ever does see.”
+
+“Are there many?” asked Spargo. “Do the inhabitants die much of
+inanition?”
+
+The damsel gave Spargo another critical inspection.
+
+“Oh, you’re joking!” she said. “It’s well you can. Nothing ever happens
+here. This place is a back number.”
+
+“Even the back numbers make pleasant reading at times,” murmured
+Spargo. “And the backwaters of life are refreshing. Nothing doing in
+this town, then?” he added in a louder voice.
+
+“Nothing!” replied his companion. “It’s fast asleep. I came here from
+Birmingham, and I didn’t know what I was coming to. In Birmingham you
+see as many people in ten minutes as you see here in ten months.”
+
+“Ah!” said Spargo. “What you are suffering from is dulness. You must
+have an antidote.”
+
+“Dulness!” exclaimed the damsel. “That’s the right word for Market
+Milcaster. There’s just a few regular old customers drop in here of a
+morning, between eleven and one. A stray caller looks in—perhaps during
+the afternoon. Then, at night, a lot of old fogies sit round that end
+of the room and talk about old times. Old times, indeed!—what they want
+in Market Milcaster is new times.”
+
+Spargo pricked up his ears.
+
+“Well, but it’s rather interesting to hear old fogies talk about old
+times,” he said. “I love it!”
+
+“Then you can get as much of it as ever you want here,” remarked the
+barmaid. “Look in tonight any time after eight o’clock, and if you
+don’t know more about the history of Market Milcaster by ten than you
+did when you sat down, you must be deaf. There are some old gentlemen
+drop in here every night, regular as clockwork, who seem to feel that
+they couldn’t go to bed unless they’ve told each other stories about
+old days which I should think they’ve heard a thousand times already!”
+
+“Very old men?” asked Spargo.
+
+“Methuselahs,” replied the lady. “There’s old Mr. Quarterpage, across
+the way there, the auctioneer, though he doesn’t do any business
+now—they say he’s ninety, though I’m sure you wouldn’t take him for
+more than seventy. And there’s Mr. Lummis, further down the street—he’s
+eighty-one. And Mr. Skene, and Mr. Kaye—they’re regular patriarchs.
+I’ve sat here and listened to them till I believe I could write a
+history of Market Milcaster since the year One.”
+
+“I can conceive of that as a pleasant and profitable occupation,” said
+Spargo.
+
+He chatted a while longer in a fashion calculated to cheer the
+barmaid’s spirits, after which he went out and strolled around the town
+until seven o’clock, the “Dragon’s” hour for dinner. There were no more
+people in the big coffee-room than there had been at lunch and Spargo
+was glad, when his solitary meal was over, to escape to the
+bar-parlour, where he took his coffee in a corner near to that sacred
+part in which the old townsmen had been reported to him to sit.
+
+“And mind you don’t sit in one of their chairs,” said the barmaid,
+warningly. “They all have their own special chairs and their special
+pipes there on that rack, and I suppose the ceiling would fall in if
+anybody touched pipe or chair. But you’re all right there, and you’ll
+hear all they’ve got to say.”
+
+To Spargo, who had never seen anything of the sort before, and who,
+twenty-four hours previously, would have believed the thing impossible,
+the proceedings of that evening in the bar-parlour of the “Yellow
+Dragon” at Market Milcaster were like a sudden transference to the
+eighteenth century. Precisely as the clock struck eight and a bell
+began to toll somewhere in the recesses of the High Street, an old
+gentleman walked in, and the barmaid, catching Spargo’s eye, gave him a
+glance which showed that the play was about to begin.
+
+“Good evening, Mr. Kaye,” said the barmaid. “You’re first tonight.”
+
+“Evening,” said Mr. Kaye and took a seat, scowled around him, and
+became silent. He was a tall, lank old gentleman, clad in rusty black
+clothes, with a pointed collar sticking up on both sides of his fringe
+of grey whisker and a voluminous black neckcloth folded several times
+round his neck, and by the expression of his countenance was inclined
+to look on life severely. “Nobody been in yet?” asked Mr. Kaye. “No,
+but here’s Mr. Lummis and Mr. Skene,” replied the barmaid.
+
+Two more old gentlemen entered the bar-parlour. Of these, one was a
+little, dapper-figured man, clad in clothes of an eminently sporting
+cut, and of very loud pattern; he sported a bright blue necktie, a
+flower in his lapel, and a tall white hat, which he wore at a rakish
+angle. The other was a big, portly, bearded man with a Falstaffian
+swagger and a rakish eye, who chaffed the barmaid as he entered, and
+gave her a good-humoured chuck under the chin as he passed her. These
+two also sank into chairs which seemed to have been specially designed
+to meet them, and the stout man slapped the arms of his as familiarly
+as he had greeted the barmaid. He looked at his two cronies.
+
+“Well?” he said, “Here’s three of us. And there’s a symposium.”
+
+“Wait a bit, wait a bit,” said the dapper little man. “Grandpa’ll be
+here in a minute. We’ll start fair.”
+
+The barmaid glanced out of the window.
+
+“There’s Mr. Quarterpage coming across the street now,” she announced.
+“Shall I put the things on the table?”
+
+“Aye, put them on, my dear, put them on!” commanded the fat man. “Have
+all in readiness.”
+
+The barmaid thereupon placed a round table before the sacred chairs,
+set out upon it a fine old punch-bowl and the various ingredients for
+making punch, a box of cigars, and an old leaden tobacco-box, and she
+had just completed this interesting prelude to the evening’s discourse
+when the door opened again and in walked one of the most remarkable old
+men Spargo had ever seen. And by this time, knowing that this was the
+venerable Mr. Benjamin Quarterpage, of whom Crowfoot had told him, he
+took good stock of the newcomer as he took his place amongst his
+friends, who on their part received him with ebullitions of delight
+which were positively boyish.
+
+Mr. Quarterpage was a youthful buck of ninety—a middle-sized,
+sturdily-built man, straight as a dart, still active of limb,
+clear-eyed, and strong of voice. His clean-shaven old countenance was
+ruddy as a sun-warmed pippin; his hair was still only silvered; his
+hand was steady as a rock. His clothes of buff-coloured whipcord were
+smart and jaunty, his neckerchief as gay as if he had been going to a
+fair. It seemed to Spargo that Mr. Quarterpage had a pretty long lease
+of life before him even at his age.
+
+Spargo, in his corner, sat fascinated while the old gentlemen began
+their symposium. Another, making five, came in and joined them—the five
+had the end of the bar-parlour to themselves. Mr. Quarterpage made the
+punch with all due solemnity and ceremony; when it was ladled out each
+man lighted his pipe or took a cigar, and the tongues began to wag.
+Other folk came and went; the old gentlemen were oblivious of anything
+but their own talk. Now and then a young gentleman of the town dropped
+in to take his modest half-pint of bitter beer and to dally in the
+presence of the barmaid; such looked with awe at the patriarchs: as for
+the patriarchs themselves they were lost in the past.
+
+Spargo began to understand what the damsel behind the bar meant when
+she said that she believed she could write a history of Market
+Milcaster since the year One. After discussing the weather, the local
+events of the day, and various personal matters, the old fellows got to
+reminiscences of the past, telling tale after tale, recalling incident
+upon incident of long years before. At last they turned to memories of
+racing days at Market Milcaster. And at that Spargo determined on a
+bold stroke. Now was the time to get some information. Taking the
+silver ticket from his purse, he laid it, the heraldic device
+uppermost, on the palm of his hand, and approaching the group with a
+polite bow, said quietly:
+
+“Gentlemen, can any of you tell me anything about that?”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
+MR. QUARTERPAGE HARKS BACK
+
+
+If Spargo had upset the old gentlemen’s bowl of punch—the second of the
+evening—or had dropped an infernal machine in their midst, he could
+scarcely have produced a more startling effect than that wrought upon
+them by his sudden production of the silver ticket. Their babble of
+conversation died out; one of them dropped his pipe; another took his
+cigar out of his mouth as if he had suddenly discovered that he was
+sucking a stick of poison; all lifted astonished faces to the
+interrupter, staring from him to the shining object exhibited in his
+outstretched palm, from it back to him. And at last Mr. Quarterpage, to
+whom Spargo had more particularly addressed himself, spoke, pointing
+with great _empressement_ to the ticket.
+
+“Young gentleman!” he said, in accents that seemed to Spargo to tremble
+a little, “young gentleman, where did you get that?”
+
+“You know what it is, then?” asked Spargo, willing to dally a little
+with the matter. “You recognize it?”
+
+“Know it! Recognize it!” exclaimed Mr. Quarterpage. “Yes, and so does
+every gentleman present. And it is just because I see you are a
+stranger to this town that I ask you where you got it. Not, I think,
+young gentleman, in this town.”
+
+“No,” replied Spargo. “Certainly not in this town. How should I get it
+in this town if I’m a stranger?”
+
+“Quite true, quite true!” murmured Mr. Quarterpage. “I cannot conceive
+how any person in the town who is in possession of one of those—what
+shall we call them—heirlooms?—yes, heirlooms of antiquity, could
+possibly be base enough to part with it. Therefore, I ask again—Where
+did you get that, young gentleman?”
+
+“Before I tell you that,” answered Spargo, who, in answer to a silent
+sign from the fat man had drawn a chair amongst them, “perhaps you will
+tell me exactly what this is? I see it to be a bit of old, polished,
+much worn silver, having on the obverse the arms or heraldic bearings
+of somebody or something; on the reverse the figure of a running horse.
+But—what is it?”
+
+The five old men all glanced at each other and made simultaneous
+grunts. Then Mr. Quarterpage spoke.
+
+“It is one of the original fifty burgess tickets of Market Milcaster,
+young sir, which gave its holder special and greatly valued privileges
+in respect to attendance at our once famous race-meeting, now
+unfortunately a thing of the past,” he added. “Fifty—aye, forty!—years
+ago, to be in possession of one of those tickets was—was—”
+
+“A grand thing!” said one of the old gentlemen.
+
+“Mr. Lummis is right,” said Mr. Quarterpage. “It was a grand thing—a
+very grand thing. Those tickets, sir, were treasured—are treasured. And
+yet you, a stranger, show us one! You got it, sir—”
+
+Spargo saw that it was now necessary to cut matters short.
+
+“I found this ticket—under mysterious circumstances—in London,” he
+answered. “I want to trace it. I want to know who its original owner
+was. That is why I have come to Market Milcaster.”
+
+Mr. Quarterpage slowly looked round the circle of faces.
+
+“Wonderful!” he said. “Wonderful! He found this ticket—one of our
+famous fifty—in London, and under mysterious circumstances. He wants to
+trace it—he wants to know to whom it belonged! That is why he has come
+to Market Milcaster. Most extraordinary! Gentlemen, I appeal to you if
+this is not the most extraordinary event that has happened in Market
+Milcaster for—I don’t know how many years?”
+
+There was a general murmur of assent, and Spargo found everybody
+looking at him as if he had just announced that he had come to buy the
+whole town.
+
+“But—why?” he asked, showing great surprise. “Why?”
+
+“Why?” exclaimed Mr. Quarterpage. “Why? He asks—why? Because, young
+gentleman, it is the greatest surprise to me, and to these friends of
+mine, too, every man jack of ’em, to hear that any one of our fifty
+tickets ever passed out of the possession of any of the fifty families
+to whom they belonged! And unless I am vastly, greatly, most
+unexplainably mistaken, young sir, you are not a member of any Market
+Milcaster family.”
+
+“No, I’m not,” admitted Spargo. And he was going to add that until the
+previous evening he had never even heard of Market Milcaster, but he
+wisely refrained. “No, I’m certainly not,” he added.
+
+Mr. Quarterpage waved his long pipe.
+
+“I believe,” he said, “I believe that if the evening were not drawing
+to a close—it is already within a few minutes of our departure, young
+gentleman—I believe, I say, that if I had time, I could, from memory,
+give the names of the fifty families who held those tickets when the
+race-meeting came to an end. I believe I could!”
+
+“I’m sure you could!” asserted the little man in the loud suit. “Never
+was such a memory as yours, never!”
+
+“Especially for anything relating to the old racing matters,” said the
+fat man. “Mr. Quarterpage is a walking encyclopaedia.”
+
+“My memory is good,” said Mr. Quarterpage. “It’s the greatest blessing
+I have in my declining years. Yes, I am sure I could do that, with a
+little thought. And what’s more, nearly every one of those fifty
+families is still in the town, or if not in the town, close by it, or
+if not close by it, I know where they are. Therefore, I cannot make out
+how this young gentleman—from London, did you say, sir?”
+
+“From London,” answered Spargo.
+
+“This young gentleman from London comes to be in possession of one of
+our tickets,” continued Mr. Quarterpage. “It is—wonderful! But I tell
+you what, young gentleman from London, if you will do me the honour to
+breakfast with me in the morning, sir, I will show you my racing books
+and papers and we will speedily discover who the original holder of
+that ticket was. My name, sir, is Quarterpage—Benjamin Quarterpage—and
+I reside at the ivy-covered house exactly opposite this inn, and my
+breakfast hour is nine o’clock sharp, and I shall bid you heartily
+welcome!”
+
+Spargo made his best bow.
+
+“Sir,” he said, “I am greatly obliged by your kind invitation, and I
+shall consider it an honour to wait upon you to the moment.”
+
+Accordingly, at five minutes to nine next morning, Spargo found himself
+in an old-fashioned parlour, looking out upon a delightful garden, gay
+with summer flowers, and being introduced by Mr. Quarterpage, Senior,
+to Mr. Quarterpage, Junior—a pleasant gentleman of sixty, always
+referred to by his father as something quite juvenile—and to Miss
+Quarterpage, a young-old lady of something a little less elderly than
+her brother, and to a breakfast table bounteously spread with all the
+choice fare of the season. Mr. Quarterpage, Senior, was as fresh and
+rosy as a cherub; it was a revelation to Spargo to encounter so old a
+man who was still in possession of such life and spirits, and of such a
+vigorous and healthy appetite.
+
+Naturally, the talk over the breakfast table ran on Spargo’s possession
+of the old silver ticket, upon which subject it was evident Mr.
+Quarterpage was still exercising his intellect. And Spargo, who had
+judged it well to enlighten his host as to who he was, and had
+exhibited a letter with which the editor of the _Watchman_ had
+furnished him, told how in the exercise of his journalistic duties he
+had discovered the ticket in the lining of an old box. But he made no
+mention of the Marbury matter, being anxious to see first whither Mr.
+Quarterpage’s revelations would lead him.
+
+“You have no idea, Mr. Spargo,” said the old gentleman, when, breakfast
+over, he and Spargo were closeted together in a little library in which
+were abundant evidences of the host’s taste in sporting matters; “you
+have no idea of the value which was attached to the possession of one
+of those silver tickets. There is mine, as you see, securely framed and
+just as securely fastened to the wall. Those fifty silver tickets, my
+dear sir, were made when our old race-meeting was initiated, in the
+year 1781. They were made in the town by a local silversmith, whose
+great-great-grandson still carries on the business. The fifty were
+distributed amongst the fifty leading burgesses of the town to be kept
+in their families for ever—nobody ever anticipated in those days that
+our race-meeting would ever be discontinued. The ticket carried great
+privileges. It made its holder, and all members of his family, male and
+female, free of the stands, rings, and paddocks. It gave the holder
+himself and his eldest son, if of age, the right to a seat at our grand
+race banquet—at which, I may tell you, Mr. Spargo, Royalty itself has
+been present in the good old days. Consequently, as you see, to be the
+holder of a silver ticket was to be somebody.”
+
+“And when the race-meeting fell through?” asked Spargo. “What then?”
+
+“Then, of course, the families who held the tickets looked upon them as
+heirlooms, to be taken great care of,” replied Mr. Quarterpage. “They
+were dealt with as I dealt with mine—framed on velvet, and hung up—or
+locked away: I am sure that anybody who had one took the greatest care
+of it. Now, I said last night, over there at the ‘Dragon,’ that I could
+repeat the names of all the families who held these tickets. So I can.
+But here”—the old gentleman drew out a drawer and produced from it a
+parchment-bound book which he handled with great reverence—“here is a
+little volume of my own handwriting—memoranda relating to Market
+Milcaster Races—in which is a list of the original holders, together
+with another list showing who held the tickets when the races were
+given up. I make bold to say, Mr. Spargo, that by going through the
+second list, I could trace every ticket—except the one you have in your
+purse.”
+
+“Every one?” said Spargo, in some surprise.
+
+“Every one! For as I told you,” continued Mr. Quarterpage, “the
+families are either in the town (we’re a conservative people here in
+Market Milcaster and we don’t move far afield) or they’re just outside
+the town, or they’re not far away. I can’t conceive how the ticket you
+have—and it’s genuine enough—could ever get out of possession of one of
+these families, and—”
+
+“Perhaps,” suggested Spargo, “it never has been out of possession. I
+told you it was found in the lining of a box—that box belonged to a
+dead man.”
+
+“A dead man!” exclaimed Mr. Quarterpage. “A dead man! Who could—ah!
+Perhaps—perhaps I have an idea. Yes!—an idea. I remember something now
+that I had never thought of.”
+
+The old gentleman unfastened the clasp of his parchment-bound book, and
+turned over its pages until he came to one whereon was a list of names.
+He pointed this out to Spargo.
+
+“There is the list of holders of the silver tickets at the time the
+race-meetings came to an end,” he said. “If you were acquainted with
+this town you would know that those are the names of our best-known
+inhabitants—all, of course, burgesses. There’s mine, you
+see—Quarterpage. There’s Lummis, there’s Kaye, there’s Skene, there’s
+Templeby—the gentlemen you saw last night. All good old town names.
+They all are—on this list. I know every family mentioned. The holders
+of that time are many of them dead; but their successors have the
+tickets. Yes—and now that I think of it, there’s only one man who held
+a ticket when this list was made about whom I don’t know anything—at
+least, anything recent. The ticket, Mr. Spargo, which you’ve found must
+have been his. But I thought—I thought somebody else had it!”
+
+“And this man, sir? Who was he?” asked Spargo, intuitively conscious
+that he was coming to news. “Is his name there?”
+
+The old man ran the tip of his finger down the list of names.
+
+“There it is!” he said. “John Maitland.”
+
+Spargo bent over the fine writing.
+
+“Yes, John Maitland,” he observed. “And who was John Maitland?”
+
+Mr. Quarterpage shook his head. He turned to another of the many
+drawers in an ancient bureau, and began to search amongst a mass of old
+newspapers, carefully sorted into small bundles and tied up.
+
+“If you had lived in Market Milcaster one-and-twenty years ago, Mr.
+Spargo,” he said, “you would have known who John Maitland was. For some
+time, sir, he was the best-known man in the place—aye, and in this
+corner of the world. But—aye, here it is—the newspaper of October 5th,
+1891. Now, Mr. Spargo, you’ll find in this old newspaper who John
+Maitland was, and all about him. Now, I’ll tell you what to do. I’ve
+just got to go into my office for an hour to talk the day’s business
+over with my son—you take this newspaper out into the garden there with
+one of these cigars, and read what’ll you find in it, and when you’ve
+read that we’ll have some more talk.”
+
+Spargo carried the old newspaper into the sunlit garden.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
+AN OLD NEWSPAPER
+
+
+As soon as Spargo unfolded the paper he saw what he wanted on the
+middle page, headed in two lines of big capitals. He lighted a cigar
+and settled down to read.
+
+“MARKET MILCASTER QUARTER SESSIONS
+“TRIAL OF JOHN MAITLAND
+
+
+“The Quarter Sessions for the Borough of Market Milcaster were held on
+Wednesday last, October 3rd, 1891, in the Town Hall, before the
+Recorder, Henry John Campernowne, Esq., K.C., who was accompanied on
+the bench by the Worshipful the Mayor of Market Milcaster (Alderman
+Pettiford), the Vicar of Market Milcaster (the Rev. P.B. Clabberton,
+M.A., R.D.), Alderman Banks, J.P., Alderman Peters, J.P., Sir Gervais
+Racton, J.P., Colonel Fludgate, J.P., Captain Murrill, J.P., and other
+magistrates and gentlemen. There was a crowded attendance of the public
+in anticipation of the trial of John Maitland, ex-manager of the Market
+Milcaster Bank, and the reserved portions of the Court were filled with
+the _élite_ of the town and neighbourhood, including a considerable
+number of ladies who manifested the greatest interest in the
+proceedings.
+
+“The Recorder, in charging the Grand Jury, said he regretted that the
+very pleasant and gratifying experience which had been his upon the
+occasion of his last two official visits to Market Milcaster—he
+referred to the fact that on both those occasions his friend the
+Worshipful Mayor had been able to present him with a pair of white
+gloves—was not to be repeated on the present occasion. It would be
+their sad and regrettable lot to have before them a fellow-townsman
+whose family had for generations occupied a foremost position in the
+life of the borough. That fellow-townsman was charged with one of the
+most serious offences known to a commercial nation like ours: the
+offence of embezzling the moneys of the bank of which he had for many
+years been the trusted manager, and with which he had been connected
+all his life since his school days. He understood that the prisoner who
+would shortly be put before the court on his trial was about to plead
+guilty, and there would accordingly be no need for him to direct the
+gentlemen of the Grand Jury on this matter—what he had to say
+respecting the gravity and even enormity of the offence he would
+reserve. The Recorder then addressed himself to the Grand Jury on the
+merits of two minor cases, which came before the court at a later
+period of the morning, after which they retired, and having formally
+returned a true bill against the prisoner, and a petty jury, chosen
+from well-known burgesses of the town having been duly sworn.
+
+“JOHN MAITLAND, aged 42, bank manager, of the Bank House, High Street,
+Market Milcaster, was formally charged with embezzling, on April 23rd,
+1891, the sum of £4,875 10_s_. 6_d_., the moneys of his employers, the
+Market Milcaster Banking Company Ltd., and converting the same to his
+own use. The prisoner, who appeared to feel his position most acutely,
+and who looked very pale and much worn, was represented by Mr. Charles
+Doolittle, the well-known barrister of Kingshaven; Mr. Stephens, K.C.,
+appeared on behalf of the prosecution.
+
+“Maitland, upon being charged, pleaded guilty.
+
+“Mr. Stephens, K.C., addressing the Recorder, said that without any
+desire to unduly press upon the prisoner, who, he ventured to think,
+had taken a very wise course in pleading guilty to that particular
+count in the indictment with which he stood charged, he felt bound, in
+the interests of justice, to set forth to the Court some particulars of
+the defalcations which had arisen through the prisoner’s much lamented
+dishonesty. He proposed to offer a clear and succinct account of the
+matter. The prisoner, John Maitland, was the last of an old Market
+Milcaster family—he was, in fact, he believed, with the exception of
+his own infant son, the very last of the race. His father had been
+manager of the bank before him. Maitland himself had entered the
+service of the bank at the age of eighteen, when he left the local
+Grammar School; he succeeded his father as manager at the age of
+thirty-two; he had therefore occupied this highest position of trust
+for ten years. His directors had the fullest confidence in him; they
+relied on his honesty and his honour; they gave him discretionary
+powers such as no bank-manager, probably, ever enjoyed or held before.
+In fact, he was so trusted that he was, to all intents and purposes,
+the Market Milcaster Banking Company; in other words he was allowed
+full control over everything, and given full licence to do what he
+liked. Whether the directors were wise in extending such liberty to
+even the most trusted servant, it was not for him (Mr. Stephens) to
+say; it was some consolation, under the circumstances, to know that the
+loss would fall upon the directors, inasmuch as they themselves held
+nearly the whole of the shares. But he had to speak of the loss—of the
+serious defalcations which Maitland had committed. The prisoner had
+wisely pleaded guilty to the first count of the indictment. But there
+were no less than seventeen counts in the indictment. He had pleaded
+guilty to embezzling a sum of £4,875 odd. But the total amount of the
+defalcations, comprised in the seventeen counts, was no less—it seemed
+a most amazing sum!—than £221,573 8_s_. 6_d_.! There was the fact—the
+banking company had been robbed of over two hundred thousand pounds by
+the prisoner in the dock before a mere accident, the most trifling
+chance, had revealed to the astounded directors that he was robbing
+them at all. And the most serious feature of the whole case was that
+not one penny of this money had been, or ever could be, recovered. He
+believed that the prisoner’s learned counsel was about to urge upon the
+Court that the prisoner himself had been tricked and deceived by
+another man, unfortunately not before the Court—a man, he understood,
+also well known in Market Milcaster, who was now dead, and therefore
+could not be called, but whether he was so tricked or deceived was no
+excuse for his clever and wholesale robbing of his employers. He had
+thought it necessary to put these facts—which would not be
+denied—before the Court, in order that it might be known how heavy the
+defalcations really had been, and that they should be considered in
+dealing with the prisoner.
+
+“The Recorder asked if there was no possibility of recovering any part
+of the vast sum concerned.
+
+“Mr. Stephens replied that they were informed that there was not the
+remotest chance—the money, it was said by prisoner and those acting on
+his behalf, had utterly vanished with the death of the man to whom he
+had just made reference.
+
+“Mr. Doolittle, on behalf of the prisoner, craved to address a few
+words to the Court in mitigation of sentence. He thanked Mr. Stephens
+for the considerate and eminently dispassionate manner in which he had
+outlined the main facts of the case. He had no desire to minimize the
+prisoner’s guilt. But, on prisoner’s behalf, he desired to tell the
+true story as to how these things came to be. Until as recently as
+three years previously the prisoner had never made the slightest
+deviation from the straight path of integrity. Unfortunately for him,
+and, he believed, for some others in Market Milcaster, there came to
+the town three years before the present proceedings, a man named
+Chamberlayne, who commenced business in the High Street as a
+stock-and-share broker. A man of good address and the most plausible
+manners, Chamberlayne attracted a good many people—amongst them his
+unfortunate client. It was matter of common knowledge that Chamberlayne
+had induced numerous persons in Market Milcaster to enter into
+financial transactions with him; it was matter of common repute that
+those transactions had not always turned out well for Chamberlayne’s
+clients. Unhappily for himself, Maitland had great faith in
+Chamberlayne. He had begun to have transactions with him in a large
+way; they had gone on and on in a large way until he was involved to
+vast amounts. Believing thoroughly in Chamberlayne and his methods, he
+had entrusted him with very large sums of money.
+
+“The Recorder interrupted Mr. Doolittle at this point to ask if he was
+to understand that Mr. Doolittle was referring to the prisoner’s own
+money.
+
+“Mr. Doolittle replied that he was afraid the large sums he referred to
+were the property of the bank. But the prisoner had such belief in
+Chamberlayne that he firmly anticipated that all would be well, and
+that these sums would be repaid, and that a vast profit would result
+from their use.
+
+“The Recorder remarked that he supposed the prisoner intended to put
+the profit into his own pockets.
+
+“Mr. Doolittle said at any rate the prisoner assured him that of the
+two hundred and twenty thousand pounds which was in question,
+Chamberlayne had had the immediate handling of at least two hundred
+thousand, and he, the prisoner, had not the ghost of a notion as to
+what Chamberlayne had done with it. Unfortunately for everybody, for
+the bank, for some other people, and especially for his unhappy client,
+Chamberlayne died, very suddenly, just as these proceedings were
+instituted, and so far it had been absolutely impossible to trace
+anything of the moneys concerned. He had died under mysterious
+circumstances, and there was just as much mystery about his affairs.
+
+“The Recorder observed that he was still waiting to hear what Mr.
+Doolittle had to urge in mitigation of any sentence he, the Recorder,
+might think fit to pass.
+
+“Mr. Doolittle said that he would trouble the Court with as few remarks
+as possible. All that he could urge on behalf of the unfortunate man in
+the dock was that until three years ago he had borne a most exemplary
+character, and had never committed a dishonest action. It had been his
+misfortune, his folly, to allow a plausible man to persuade him to
+these acts of dishonesty. That man had been called to another account,
+and the prisoner was left to bear the consequences of his association
+with him. It seemed as if Chamberlayne had made away with the money for
+his own purposes, and it might be that it would yet be recovered. He
+would only ask the Court to remember the prisoner’s antecedents and his
+previous good conduct, and to bear in mind that whatever his near
+future might be he was, in a commercial sense, ruined for life.
+
+“The Recorder, in passing sentence, said that he had not heard a single
+word of valid excuse for Maitland’s conduct. Such dishonesty must be
+punished in the most severe fashion, and the prisoner must go to penal
+servitude for ten years.
+
+“Maitland, who heard the sentence unmoved, was removed from the town
+later in the day to the county jail at Saxchester.”
+
+Spargo read all this swiftly; then went over it again, noting certain
+points in it. At last he folded up the newspaper and turned to the
+house—to see old Quarterpage beckoning to him from the library window.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER NINETEEN
+THE CHAMBERLAYNE STORY
+
+
+“I perceive, sir,” said Mr. Quarterpage, as Spargo entered the library,
+“that you have read the account of the Maitland trial.”
+
+“Twice,” replied Spargo.
+
+“And you have come to the conclusion that—but what conclusion have you
+come to?” asked Mr. Quarterpage.
+
+“That the silver ticket in my purse was Maitland’s property,” said
+Spargo, who was not going to give all his conclusions at once.
+
+“Just so,” agreed the old gentleman. “I think so—I can’t think anything
+else. But I was under the impression that I could have accounted for
+that ticket, just as I am sure I can account for the other forty-nine.”
+
+“Yes—and how?” asked Spargo.
+
+Mr. Quarterpage turned to a corner cupboard and in silence produced a
+decanter and two curiously-shaped old wine-glasses. He carefully
+polished the glasses with a cloth which he took from a drawer, and set
+glasses and decanter on a table in the window, motioning Spargo to take
+a chair in proximity thereto. He himself pulled up his own elbow-chair.
+
+“We’ll take a glass of my old brown sherry,” he said. “Though I say it
+as shouldn’t, as the saying goes, I don’t think you could find better
+brown sherry than that from Land’s End to Berwick-upon-Tweed, Mr.
+Spargo—no, nor further north either, where they used to have good taste
+in liquor in my young days! Well, here’s your good health, sir, and
+I’ll tell you about Maitland.”
+
+“I’m curious,” said Spargo. “And about more than Maitland. I want to
+know about a lot of things arising out of that newspaper report. I want
+to know something about the man referred to so much—the stockbroker,
+Chamberlayne.”
+
+“Just so,” observed Mr. Quarterpage, smiling. “I thought that would
+touch your sense of the inquisitive. But Maitland first. Now, when
+Maitland went to prison, he left behind him a child, a boy, just then
+about two years old. The child’s mother was dead. Her sister, a Miss
+Baylis, appeared on the scene—Maitland had married his wife from a
+distance—and took possession of the child and of Maitland’s personal
+effects. He had been made bankrupt while he was awaiting his trial, and
+all his household goods were sold. But this Miss Baylis took some small
+personal things, and I always believed that she took the silver ticket.
+And she may have done, for anything I know to the contrary. Anyway, she
+took the child away, and there was an end of the Maitland family in
+Market Milcaster. Maitland, of course, was in due procedure of things
+removed to Dartmoor, and there he served his term. There were people
+who were very anxious to get hold of him when he came out—the bank
+people, for they believed that he knew more about the disposition of
+that money than he’d ever told, and they wanted to induce him to tell
+what they hoped he knew—between ourselves, Mr. Spargo, they were going
+to make it worth his while to tell.”
+
+Spargo tapped the newspaper, which he had retained while the old
+gentleman talked.
+
+“Then they didn’t believe what his counsel said—that Chamberlayne got
+all the money?” he asked.
+
+Mr. Quarterpage laughed.
+
+“No—nor anybody else!” he answered. “There was a strong idea in the
+town—you’ll see why afterwards—that it was all a put-up job, and that
+Maitland cheerfully underwent his punishment knowing that there was a
+nice fortune waiting for him when he came out. And as I say, the bank
+people meant to get hold of him. But though they sent a special agent
+to meet him on his release, they never did get hold of him. Some
+mistake arose—when Maitland was released, he got clear away. Nobody’s
+ever heard a word of him from that day to this. Unless Miss Baylis
+has.”
+
+“Where does this Miss Baylis live?” asked Spargo.
+
+“Well, I don’t know,” replied Mr. Quarterpage. “She did live in
+Brighton when she took the child away, and her address was known, and I
+have it somewhere. But when the bank people sought her out after
+Maitland’s release, she, too, had clean disappeared, and all efforts to
+trace her failed. In fact, according to the folks who lived near her in
+Brighton, she’d completely disappeared, with the child, five years
+before. So there wasn’t a clue to Maitland. He served his time—made a
+model prisoner—they did find that much out!—earned the maximum
+remission, was released, and vanished. And for that very reason there’s
+a theory about him in this very town to this very day!”
+
+“What?” asked Spargo.
+
+“This. That he’s now living comfortably, luxuriously abroad on what he
+got from the bank,” replied Mr. Quarterpage. “They say that the
+sister-in-law was in at the game; that when she disappeared with the
+child, she went abroad somewhere and made a home ready for Maitland,
+and that he went off to them as soon as he came out. Do you see?”
+
+“I suppose that was possible,” said Spargo.
+
+“Quite possible, sir. But now,” continued the old gentleman,
+replenishing the glasses, “now we come on to the Chamberlayne story.
+It’s a good deal more to do with the Maitland story than appears at
+first sight, I’ll tell it to you and you can form your own conclusions.
+Chamberlayne was a man who came to Market Milcaster—I don’t know from
+where—in 1886—five years before the Maitland smash-up. He was then
+about Maitland’s age—a man of thirty-seven or eight. He came as clerk
+to old Mr. Vallas, the rope and twine manufacturer: Vallas’s place is
+still there, at the bottom of the High Street, near the river, though
+old Vallas is dead. He was a smart, cute, pushing chap, this
+Chamberlayne; he made himself indispensable to old Vallas, and old
+Vallas paid him a rare good salary. He settled down in the town, and he
+married a town girl, one of the Corkindales, the saddlers, when he’d
+been here three years. Unfortunately she died in childbirth within a
+year of their marriage. It was very soon after that that Chamberlayne
+threw up his post at Vallas’s, and started business as a
+stock-and-share broker. He’d been a saving man; he’d got a nice bit of
+money with his wife; he always let it be known that he had money of his
+own, and he started in a good way. He was a man of the most plausible
+manners: he’d have coaxed butter out of a dog’s throat if he’d wanted
+to. The moneyed men of the town believed in him—I believed in him
+myself, Mr. Spargo—I’d many a transaction with him, and I never lost
+aught by him—on the contrary, he did very well for me. He did well for
+most of his clients—there were, of course, ups and downs, but on the
+whole he satisfied his clients uncommonly well. But, naturally, nobody
+ever knew what was going on between him and Maitland.”
+
+“I gather from this report,” said Spargo, “that everything came out
+suddenly—unexpectedly?”
+
+“That was so, sir,” replied Mr. Quarterpage. “Sudden? Unexpected? Aye,
+as a crack of thunder on a fine winter’s day. Nobody had the ghost of a
+notion that anything was wrong. John Maitland was much respected in the
+town; much thought of by everybody; well known to everybody. I can
+assure you, Mr. Spargo, that it was no pleasant thing to have to sit on
+that grand jury as I did—I was its foreman, sir,—and hear a man
+sentenced that you’d regarded as a bosom friend. But there it was!”
+
+“How was the thing discovered?” asked Spargo, anxious to get at facts.
+
+“In this way,” replied Mr. Quarterpage. “The Market Milcaster Bank is
+in reality almost entirely the property of two old families in the
+town, the Gutchbys and the Hostables. Owing to the death of his father,
+a young Hostable, fresh from college, came into the business. He was a
+shrewd, keen young fellow; he got some suspicion, somehow, about
+Maitland, and he insisted on the other partners consenting to a special
+investigation, and on their making it suddenly. And Maitland was caught
+before he had a chance. But we’re talking about Chamberlayne.”
+
+“Yes, about Chamberlayne,” agreed Spargo.
+
+“Well, now, Maitland was arrested one evening,” continued Mr.
+Quarterpage. “Of course, the news of his arrest ran through the town
+like wild-fire. Everybody was astonished; he was at that time—aye, and
+had been for years—a churchwarden at the Parish Church, and I don’t
+think there could have been more surprise if we’d heard that the Vicar
+had been arrested for bigamy. In a little town like this, news is all
+over the place in a few minutes. Of course, Chamberlayne would hear
+that news like everybody else. But it was remembered, and often
+remarked upon afterwards, that from the moment of Maitland’s arrest
+nobody in Market Milcaster ever had speech with Chamberlayne again.
+After his wife’s death he’d taken to spending an hour or so of an
+evening across there at the ‘Dragon,’ where you saw me and my friends
+last night, but on that night he didn’t go to the ‘Dragon.’ And next
+morning he caught the eight o’clock train to London. He happened to
+remark to the stationmaster as he got into the train that he expected
+to be back late that night, and that he should have a tiring day of it.
+But Chamberlayne didn’t come back that night, Mr. Spargo. He didn’t
+come back to Market Milcaster for four days, and when he did come back
+it was in a coffin!”
+
+“Dead?” exclaimed Spargo. “That was sudden!”
+
+“Very sudden,” agreed Mr. Quarterpage. “Yes, sir, he came back in his
+coffin, did Chamberlayne. On the very evening on which he’d spoken of
+being back, there came a telegram here to say that he’d died very
+suddenly at the Cosmopolitan Hotel. That telegram came to his
+brother-in-law, Corkindale, the saddler—you’ll find him down the
+street, opposite the Town Hall. It was sent to Corkindale by a nephew
+of Chamberlayne’s, another Chamberlayne, Stephen, who lived in London,
+and was understood to be on the Stock Exchange there. I saw that
+telegram, Mr. Spargo, and it was a long one. It said that Chamberlayne
+had had a sudden seizure, and though a doctor had been got to him he’d
+died shortly afterwards. Now, as Chamberlayne had his nephew and
+friends in London, his brother-in-law, Tom Corkindale, didn’t feel that
+there was any necessity for him to go up to town, so he just sent off a
+wire to Stephen Chamberlayne asking if there was aught he could do. And
+next morning came another wire from Stephen saying that no inquest
+would be necessary, as the doctor had been present and able to certify
+the cause of death, and would Corkindale make all arrangements for the
+funeral two days later. You see, Chamberlayne had bought a vault in our
+cemetery when he buried his wife, so naturally they wished to bury him
+in it, with her.”
+
+Spargo nodded. He was beginning to imagine all sorts of things and
+theories; he was taking everything in.
+
+“Well,” continued Mr. Quarterpage, “on the second day after that, they
+brought Chamberlayne’s body down. Three of ’em came with it—Stephen
+Chamberlayne, the doctor who’d been called in, and a solicitor.
+Everything was done according to proper form and usage. As Chamberlayne
+had been well known in the town, a good number of townsfolk met the
+body at the station and followed it to the cemetery. Of course, many of
+us who had been clients of Chamberlayne’s were anxious to know how he
+had come to such a sudden end. According to Stephen Chamberlayne’s
+account, our Chamberlayne had wired to him and to his solicitor to meet
+him at the Cosmopolitan to do some business. They were awaiting him
+there when he arrived, and they had lunch together. After that, they
+got to their business in a private room. Towards the end of the
+afternoon, Chamberlayne was taken suddenly ill, and though they got a
+doctor to him at once, he died before evening. The doctor said he’d a
+diseased heart. Anyhow, he was able to certify the cause of his death,
+so there was no inquest and they buried him, as I have told you.”
+
+The old gentleman paused and, taking a sip at his sherry, smiled at
+some reminiscence which occurred to him.
+
+“Well,” he said, presently going on, “of course, on that came all the
+Maitland revelations, and Maitland vowed and declared that Chamberlayne
+had not only had nearly all the money, but that he was absolutely
+certain that most of it was in his hands in hard cash. But
+Chamberlayne, Mr. Spargo, had left practically nothing. All that could
+be traced was about three or four thousand pounds. He’d left everything
+to his nephew, Stephen. There wasn’t a trace, a clue to the vast sums
+with which Maitland had entrusted him. And then people began to talk,
+and they said what some of them say to this very day!”
+
+“What’s that?” asked Spargo.
+
+Mr. Quarterpage leaned forward and tapped his guest on the arm.
+
+“That Chamberlayne never did die, and that that coffin was weighted
+with lead!” he answered.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY
+MAITLAND _ALIAS_ MARBURY
+
+
+This remarkable declaration awoke such a new conception of matters in
+Spargo’s mind, aroused such infinitely new possibilities in his
+imagination, that for a full moment he sat silently staring at his
+informant, who chuckled with quiet enjoyment at his visitor’s surprise.
+
+“Do you mean to tell me,” said Spargo at last, “that there are people
+in this town who still believe that the coffin in your cemetery which
+is said to contain Chamberlayne’s body contains—lead?”
+
+“Lots of ’em, my dear sir!” replied Mr. Quarterpage. “Lots of ’em! Go
+out in the street and ask the first six men you meet, and I’ll go bail
+that four out of the six believe it.”
+
+“Then why, in the sacred name of common sense did no one ever take
+steps to make certain?” asked Spargo. “Why didn’t they get an order for
+exhumation?”
+
+“Because it was nobody’s particular business to do so,” answered Mr.
+Quarterpage. “You don’t know country-town life, my dear sir. In towns
+like Market Milcaster folks talk and gossip a great deal, but they’re
+always slow to do anything. It’s a case of who’ll start first—of
+initiative. And if they see it’s going to cost anything—then they’ll
+have nothing to do with it.”
+
+“But—the bank people?” suggested Spargo.
+
+Mr. Quarterpage shook his head.
+
+“They’re amongst the lot who believe that Chamberlayne did die,” he
+said. “They’re very old-fashioned, conservative-minded people, the
+Gutchbys and the Hostables, and they accepted the version of the
+nephew, and the doctor, and the solicitor. But now I’ll tell you
+something about those three. There was a man here in the town, a
+gentleman of your own profession, who came to edit that paper you’ve
+got on your knee. He got interested in this Chamberlayne case, and he
+began to make enquiries with the idea of getting hold of some good—what
+do you call it?”
+
+“I suppose he’d call it ‘copy,’” said Spargo.
+
+“‘Copy’—that was his term,” agreed Mr. Quarterpage. “Well, he took the
+trouble to go to London to ask some quiet questions of the nephew,
+Stephen. That was just twelve months after Chamberlayne had been
+buried. But he found that Stephen Chamberlayne had left England—months
+before. Gone, they said, to one of the colonies, but they didn’t know
+which. And the solicitor had also gone. And the doctor—couldn’t be
+traced, no, sir, not even through the Medical Register. What do you
+think of all that, Mr. Spargo?”
+
+“I think,” answered Spargo, “that Market Milcaster folk are
+considerably slow. I should have had that death and burial enquired
+into. The whole thing looks to me like a conspiracy.”
+
+“Well, sir, it was, as I say, nobody’s business,” said Mr. Quarterpage.
+“The newspaper gentleman tried to stir up interest in it, but it was no
+good, and very soon afterwards he left. And there it is.”
+
+“Mr. Quarterpage,” said Spargo, “what’s your own honest opinion?”
+
+The old gentleman smiled.
+
+“Ah!” he said. “I’ve often wondered, Mr. Spargo, if I really have an
+opinion on that point. I think that what I probably feel about the
+whole affair is that there was a good deal of mystery attaching to it.
+But we seem, sir, to have gone a long way from the question of that old
+silver ticket which you’ve got in your purse. Now——”
+
+“No!” said Spargo, interrupting his host with an accompanying wag of
+his forefinger. “No! I think we’re coming nearer to it. Now you’ve
+given me a great deal of your time, Mr. Quarterpage, and told me a lot,
+and, first of all, before I tell you a lot, I’m going to show you
+something.”
+
+And Spargo took out of his pocket-book a carefully-mounted photograph
+of John Marbury—the original of the process-picture which he had had
+made for the _Watchman_. He handed it over.
+
+“Do you recognize that photograph as that of anybody you know?” he
+asked. “Look at it well and closely.”
+
+Mr. Quarterpage put on a special pair of spectacles and studied the
+photograph from several points of view.
+
+“No, sir,” he said at last with a shake of the head. “I don’t recognize
+it at all.”
+
+“Can’t see in it any resemblance to any man you’ve ever known?” asked
+Spargo.
+
+“No, sir, none!” replied Mr. Quarterpage. “None whatever.”
+
+“Very well,” said Spargo, laying the photograph on the table between
+them. “Now, then, I want you to tell me what John Maitland was like
+when you knew him. Also, I want you to describe Chamberlayne as he was
+when he died, or was supposed to die. You remember them, of course,
+quite well?”
+
+Mr. Quarterpage got up and moved to the door.
+
+“I can do better than that,” he said. “I can show you photographs of
+both men as they were just before Maitland’s trial. I have a photograph
+of a small group of Market Milcaster notabilities which was taken at a
+municipal garden-party; Maitland and Chamberlayne are both in it. It’s
+been put away in a cabinet in my drawing-room for many a long year, and
+I’ve no doubt it’s as fresh as when it was taken.”
+
+He left the room and presently returned with a large mounted photograph
+which he laid on the table before his visitor.
+
+“There you are, sir,” he said. “Quite fresh, you see—it must be getting
+on to twenty years since that was taken out of the drawer that it’s
+been kept in. Now, that’s Maitland. And that’s Chamberlayne.”
+
+Spargo found himself looking at a group of men who stood against an
+ivy-covered wall in the stiff attitudes in which photographers arrange
+masses of sitters. He fixed his attention on the two figures indicated
+by Mr. Quarterpage, and saw two medium-heighted, rather sturdily-built
+men about whom there was nothing very specially noticeable.
+
+“Um!” he said, musingly. “Both bearded.”
+
+“Yes, they both wore beards—full beards,” assented Mr. Quarterpage.
+“And you see, they weren’t so much alike. But Maitland was a much
+darker man than Chamberlayne, and he had brown eyes, while
+Chamberlayne’s were rather a bright blue.”
+
+“The removal of a beard makes a great difference,” remarked Spargo. He
+looked at the photograph of Maitland in the group, comparing it with
+that of Marbury which he had taken from his pocket. “And twenty years
+makes a difference, too,” he added musingly.
+
+“To some people twenty years makes a vast difference, sir,” said the
+old gentleman. “To others it makes none—I haven’t changed much, they
+tell me, during the past twenty years. But I’ve known men change—age,
+almost beyond recognition!—in five years. It depends, sir, on what they
+go through.”
+
+Spargo suddenly laid aside the photographs, put his hands in his
+pockets, and looked steadfastly at Mr. Quarterpage.
+
+“Look here!” he said. “I’m going to tell you what I’m after, Mr.
+Quarterpage. I’m sure you’ve heard all about what’s known as the Middle
+Temple Murder—the Marbury case?”
+
+“Yes, I’ve read of it,” replied Mr. Quarterpage.
+
+“Have you read the accounts of it in my paper, the _Watchman_?” asked
+Spargo.
+
+Mr. Quarterpage shook his head.
+
+“I’ve only read one newspaper, sir, since I was a young man,” he
+replied. “I take the _Times_, sir—we always took it, aye, even in the
+days when newspapers were taxed.”
+
+“Very good,” said Spargo. “But perhaps I can tell you a little more
+than you’ve read, for I’ve been working up that case ever since the
+body of the man known as John Marbury was found. Now, if you’ll just
+give me your attention, I’ll tell you the whole story from that moment
+until—now.”
+
+And Spargo, briefly, succinctly, re-told the story of the Marbury case
+from the first instant of his own connection with it until the
+discovery of the silver ticket, and Mr. Quarterpage listened in rapt
+attention, nodding his head from time to time as the younger man made
+his points.
+
+“And now, Mr. Quarterpage,” concluded Spargo, “this is the point I’ve
+come to. I believe that the man who came to the Anglo-Orient Hotel as
+John Marbury and who was undoubtedly murdered in Middle Temple Lane
+that night, was John Maitland—I haven’t a doubt about it after learning
+what you tell me about the silver ticket. I’ve found out a great deal
+that’s valuable here, and I think I’m getting nearer to a solution of
+the mystery. That is, of course, to find out who murdered John
+Maitland, or Marbury. What you have told me about the Chamberlayne
+affair has led me to think this—there may have been people, or a
+person, in London, who was anxious to get Marbury, as we’ll call him,
+out of the way, and who somehow encountered him that night—anxious to
+silence him, I mean, because of the Chamberlayne affair. And I
+wondered, as there is so much mystery about him, and as he won’t give
+any account of himself, if this man Aylmore was really Chamberlayne.
+Yes, I wondered that! But Aylmore’s a tall, finely-built man, quite six
+feet in height, and his beard, though it’s now getting grizzled, has
+been very dark, and Chamberlayne, you say, was a medium-sized, fair
+man, with blue eyes.”
+
+“That’s so, sir,” assented Mr. Quarterpage. “Yes, a middling-sized man,
+and fair—very fair. Deary me, Mr. Spargo!—this is a revelation. And you
+really think, sir, that John Maitland and John Marbury are one and the
+same person?”
+
+“I’m sure of it, now,” said Spargo. “I see it in this way. Maitland, on
+his release, went out to Australia, and there he stopped. At last he
+comes back, evidently well-to-do. He’s murdered the very day of his
+arrival. Aylmore is the only man who knows anything of him—Aylmore
+won’t tell all he knows; that’s flat. But Aylmore’s admitted that he
+knew him at some vague date, say from twenty-one to twenty-two or three
+years ago. Now, where did Aylmore know him? He says in London. That’s a
+vague term. He won’t say where—he won’t say anything definite—he won’t
+even say what he, Aylmore, himself was in those days. Do you recollect
+anything of anybody like Aylmore coming here to see Maitland, Mr.
+Quarterpage?”
+
+“I don’t,” answered Mr. Quarterpage. “Maitland was a very quiet,
+retiring fellow, sir: he was about the quietest man in the town. I
+never remember that he had visitors; certainly I’ve no recollection of
+such a friend of his as this Aylmore, from your description of him,
+would be at that time.”
+
+“Did Maitland go up to London much in those days?” asked Spargo.
+
+Mr. Quarterpage laughed.
+
+“Well, now, to show you what a good memory I have,” he said, “I’ll tell
+you of something that occurred across there at the ‘Dragon’ only a few
+months before the Maitland affair came out. There were some of us in
+there one evening, and, for a rare thing, Maitland came in with
+Chamberlayne. Chamberlayne happened to remark that he was going up to
+town next day—he was always to and fro—and we got talking about London.
+And Maitland said in course of conversation, that he believed he was
+about the only man of his age in England—and, of course, he meant of
+his class and means—who’d never even seen London! And I don’t think he
+ever went there between that time and his trial: in fact, I’m sure he
+didn’t, for if he had, I should have heard of it.”
+
+“Well, that’s queer,” remarked Spargo. “It’s very queer. For I’m
+certain Maitland and Marbury are one and the same person. My theory
+about that old leather box is that Maitland had that carefully planted
+before his arrest; that he dug it up when he came put of Dartmoor; that
+he took it off to Australia with him; that he brought it back with him;
+and that, of course, the silver ticket and the photograph had been in
+it all these years. Now——”
+
+At that moment the door of the library was opened, and a parlourmaid
+looked in at her master.
+
+“There’s the boots from the ‘Dragon’ at the front door, sir,” she said.
+“He’s brought two telegrams across from there for Mr. Spargo, thinking
+he might like to have them at once.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
+ARRESTED
+
+
+Spargo hurried out to the hall, took the two telegrams from the boots
+of the “Dragon,” and, tearing open the envelopes, read the messages
+hastily. He went back to Mr. Quarterpage.
+
+“Here’s important news,” he said as he closed the library door and
+resumed his seat. “I’ll read these telegrams to you, sir, and then we
+can discuss them in the light of what we’ve been talking about this
+morning. The first is from our office. I told you we sent over to
+Australia for a full report about Marbury at the place he said he
+hailed from—Coolumbidgee. That report’s just reached the _Watchman_,
+and they’ve wired it on to me. It’s from the chief of police at
+Coolumbidgee to the editor of the _Watchman_, London:—
+
+“John Marbury came to Coolumbidgee in the winter of 1898-9. He was
+unaccompanied. He appeared to be in possession of fairly considerable
+means and bought a share in a small sheep-farm from its proprietor,
+Andrew Robertson, who is still here, and who says that Marbury never
+told him anything about himself except that he had emigrated for health
+reasons and was a widower. He mentioned that he had had a son who was
+dead, and was now without relations. He lived a very quiet, steady life
+on the sheep-farm, never leaving it for many years. About six months
+ago, however, he paid a visit to Melbourne, and on returning told
+Robertson that he had decided to return to England in consequence of
+some news he had received, and must therefore sell his share in the
+farm. Robertson bought it from him for three thousand pounds, and
+Marbury shortly afterwards left for Melbourne. From what we could
+gather, Robertson thinks Marbury was probably in command of five or six
+thousand when he left Coolumbidgee. He told Robertson that he had met a
+man in Melbourne who had given him news that surprised him, but did not
+say what news. He had in his possession when he left Robertson exactly
+the luggage he brought with him when he came—a stout portmanteau and a
+small, square leather box. There are no effects of his left behind at
+Coolumbidgee.”
+
+
+“That’s all,” said Spargo, laying the first of the telegrams on the
+table. “And it seems to me to signify a good deal. But now here’s more
+startling news. This is from Rathbury, the Scotland Yard detective that
+I told you of, Mr. Quarterpage—he promised, you know, to keep me posted
+in what went on in my absence. Here’s what he says:
+
+“Fresh evidence tending to incriminate Aylmore has come to hand.
+Authorities have decided to arrest him on suspicion. You’d better hurry
+back if you want material for to-morrow’s paper.”
+
+
+Spargo threw that telegram down, too, waited while the old gentleman
+glanced at both of them with evident curiosity, and then jumped up.
+
+“Well, I shall have to go, Mr. Quarterpage,” he said. “I looked the
+trains out this morning so as to be in readiness. I can catch the 1.20
+to Paddington—that’ll get me in before half-past four. I’ve an hour
+yet. Now, there’s another man I want to see in Market Milcaster. That’s
+the photographer—or a photographer. You remember I told you of the
+photograph found with the silver ticket? Well, I’m calculating that
+that photograph was taken here, and I want to see the man who took
+it—if he’s alive and I can find him.”
+
+Mr. Quarterpage rose and put on his hat.
+
+“There’s only one photographer in this town, sir,” he said, “and he’s
+been here for a good many years—Cooper. I’ll take you to him—it’s only
+a few doors away.”
+
+Spargo wasted no time in letting the photographer know what he wanted.
+He put a direct question to Mr. Cooper—an elderly man.
+
+“Do you remember taking a photograph of the child of John Maitland, the
+bank manager, some twenty or twenty-one years ago?” he asked, after Mr.
+Quarterpage had introduced him as a gentleman from London who wanted to
+ask a few questions.
+
+“Quite well, sir,” replied Mr. Cooper. “As well as if it had been
+yesterday.”
+
+“Do you still happen to have a copy of it?” asked Spargo.
+
+But Mr. Cooper had already turned to a row of file albums. He took down
+one labelled 1891, and began to search its pages. In a minute or two he
+laid it on his table before his callers.
+
+“There you are, sir,” he said. “That’s the child!”
+
+Spargo gave one glance at the photograph and turned to Mr. Quarterpage.
+“Just as I thought,” he said. “That’s the same photograph we found in
+the leather box with the silver ticket. I’m obliged to you, Mr. Cooper.
+Now, there’s just one more question I want to ask. Did you ever supply
+any further copies of this photograph to anybody after the Maitland
+affair?—that is; after the family had left the town?”
+
+“Yes,” replied the photographer. “I supplied half a dozen copies to
+Miss Baylis, the child’s aunt, who, as a matter of fact, brought him
+here to be photographed. And I can give you her address, too,” he
+continued, beginning to turn over another old file. “I have it
+somewhere.”
+
+Mr. Quarterpage nudged Spargo.
+
+“That’s something I couldn’t have done!” he remarked. “As I told you,
+she’d disappeared from Brighton when enquiries were made after
+Maitland’s release.”
+
+“Here you are,” said Mr. Cooper. “I sent six copies of that photograph
+to Miss Baylis in April, 1895. Her address was then 6, Chichester
+Square, Bayswater, W.”
+
+Spargo rapidly wrote this address down, thanked the photographer for
+his courtesy, and went out with Mr. Quarterpage. In the street he
+turned to the old gentleman with a smile.
+
+“Well, I don’t think there’s much doubt about that!” he exclaimed.
+“Maitland and Marbury are the same man, Mr. Quarterpage. I’m as certain
+of that as that I see your Town Hall there.”
+
+“And what will you do next, sir?” enquired Mr. Quarterpage.
+
+“Thank you—as I do—for all your kindness and assistance, and get off to
+town by this 1.20,” replied Spargo. “And I shan’t fail to let you know
+how things go on.”
+
+“One moment,” said the old gentleman, as Spargo was hurrying away, “do
+you think this Mr. Aylmore really murdered Maitland?”
+
+“No!” answered Spargo with emphasis. “I don’t! And I think we’ve got a
+good deal to do before we find out who did.”
+
+Spargo purposely let the Marbury case drop out of his mind during his
+journey to town. He ate a hearty lunch in the train and talked with his
+neighbours; it was a relief to let his mind and attention turn to
+something else than the theme which had occupied it unceasingly for so
+many days. But at Reading the newspaper boys were shouting the news of
+the arrest of a Member of Parliament, and Spargo, glancing out of the
+window, caught sight of a newspaper placard:
+
+THE MARBURY MURDER CASE
+ARREST OF MR. AYLMORE
+
+
+He snatched a paper from a boy as the train moved out and, unfolding
+it, found a mere announcement in the space reserved for stop-press
+news:
+
+“Mr. Stephen Aylmore, M.P., was arrested at two o’clock this afternoon,
+on his way to the House of Commons, on a charge of being concerned in
+the murder of John Marbury in Middle Temple Lane on the night of June
+21st last. It is understood he will be brought up at Bow Street at ten
+o’clock tomorrow morning.”
+
+
+Spargo hurried to New Scotland Yard as soon as he reached Paddington.
+He met Rathbury coming away from his room. At sight of him, the
+detective turned back.
+
+“Well, so there you are!” he said. “I suppose you’ve heard the news?”
+
+Spargo nodded as he dropped into a chair.
+
+“What led to it?” he asked abruptly. “There must have been something.”
+
+“There was something,” he replied. “The thing—stick, bludgeon, whatever
+you like to call it, some foreign article—with which Marbury was struck
+down was found last night.”
+
+“Well?” asked Spargo.
+
+“It was proved to be Aylmore’s property,” answered Rathbury. “It was a
+South American curio that he had in his rooms in Fountain Court.”
+
+“Where was it found?” asked Spargo.
+
+Rathbury laughed.
+
+“He was a clumsy fellow who did it, whether he was Aylmore or whoever
+he was!” he replied. “Do you know, it had been dropped into a
+sewer-trap in Middle Temple Lane—actually! Perhaps the murderer thought
+it would be washed out into the Thames and float away. But, of course,
+it was bound to come to light. A sewer man found it yesterday evening,
+and it was quickly recognized by the woman who cleans up for Aylmore as
+having been in his rooms ever since she knew them.”
+
+“What does Aylmore say about it?” asked Spargo. “I suppose he’s said
+something?”
+
+“Says that the bludgeon is certainly his, and that he brought it from
+South America with him,” announced Rathbury; “but that he doesn’t
+remember seeing it in his rooms for some time, and thinks that it was
+stolen from them.”
+
+“Um!” said Spargo, musingly. “But—how do you know that was the thing
+that Marbury was struck down with?”
+
+Rathbury smiled grimly.
+
+“There’s some of his hair on it—mixed with blood,” he answered. “No
+doubt about that. Well—anything come of your jaunt westward?”
+
+“Yes,” replied Spargo. “Lots!”
+
+“Good?” asked Rathbury.
+
+“Extra good. I’ve found out who Marbury really was.”
+
+“No! Really?”
+
+“No doubt, to my mind. I’m certain of it.”
+
+Rathbury sat down at his desk, watching Spargo with rapt attention.
+
+“And who was he?” he asked.
+
+“John Maitland, once of Market Milcaster,” replied Spargo. “Ex-bank
+manager. Also ex-convict.”
+
+“Ex-convict!”
+
+“Ex-convict. He was sentenced, at Market Milcaster Quarter Sessions, in
+autumn, 1891, to ten years’ penal servitude, for embezzling the bank’s
+money, to the tune of over two hundred thousand pounds. Served his term
+at Dartmoor. Went to Australia as soon, or soon after, he came out.
+That’s who Marbury was—Maitland. Dead—certain!”
+
+Rathbury still stared at his caller.
+
+“Go on!” he said. “Tell all about it, Spargo. Let’s hear every detail.
+I’ll tell you all I know after. But what I know’s nothing to that.”
+
+Spargo told him the whole story of his adventures at Market Milcaster,
+and the detective listened with rapt attention.
+
+“Yes,” he said at the end. “Yes—I don’t think there’s much doubt about
+that. Well, that clears up a lot, doesn’t it?”
+
+Spargo yawned.
+
+“Yes, a whole slate full is wiped off there,” he said. “I haven’t so
+much interest in Marbury, or Maitland now. My interest is all in
+Aylmore.”
+
+Rathbury nodded.
+
+“Yes,” he said. “The thing to find out is—who is Aylmore, or who was
+he, twenty years ago?”
+
+“Your people haven’t found anything out, then?” asked Spargo.
+
+“Nothing beyond the irreproachable history of Mr. Aylmore since he
+returned to this country, a very rich man, some ten years since,”
+answered Rathbury, smiling. “They’ve no previous dates to go on. What
+are you going to do next, Spargo?”
+
+“Seek out that Miss Baylis,” replied Spargo.
+
+“You think you could get something there?” asked Rathbury.
+
+“Look here!” said Spargo. “I don’t believe for a second Aylmore killed
+Marbury. I believe I shall get at the truth by following up what I call
+the Maitland trail. This Miss Baylis must know something—if she’s
+alive. Well, now I’m going to report at the office. Keep in touch with
+me, Rathbury.”
+
+He went on then to the _Watchman_ office, and as he got out of his
+taxi-cab at its door, another cab came up and set down Mr. Aylmore’s
+daughters.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
+THE BLANK PAST
+
+
+Jessie Aylmore came forward to meet Spargo with ready confidence; the
+elder girl hung back diffidently.
+
+“May we speak to you?” said Jessie. “We have come on purpose to speak
+to you. Evelyn didn’t want to come, but I made her come.”
+
+Spargo shook hands silently with Evelyn Aylmore and motioned them both
+to follow him. He took them straight upstairs to his room and bestowed
+them in his easiest chairs before he addressed them.
+
+“I’ve only just got back to town,” he said abruptly. “I was sorry to
+hear the news about your father. That’s what’s brought you here, of
+course. But—I’m afraid I can’t do much.”
+
+“I told you that we had no right to trouble Mr. Spargo, Jessie,” said
+Evelyn Aylmore. “What can he do to help us?”
+
+Jessie shook her head impatiently.
+
+“The _Watchman’s_ about the most powerful paper in London, isn’t it?”
+she said. “And isn’t Mr. Spargo writing all these articles about the
+Marbury case? Mr. Spargo, you must help us!”
+
+Spargo sat down at his desk and began turning over the letters and
+papers which had accumulated during his absence.
+
+“To be absolutely frank with you,” he said, presently, “I don’t see how
+anybody’s going to help, so long as your father keeps up that mystery
+about the past.”
+
+“That,” said Evelyn, quietly, “is exactly what Ronald says, Jessie. But
+we can’t make our father speak, Mr. Spargo. That he is as innocent as
+we are of this terrible crime we are certain, and we don’t know why he
+wouldn’t answer the questions put to him at the inquest. And—we know no
+more than you know or anyone knows, and though I have begged my father
+to speak, he won’t say a word. We saw his danger: Ronald—Mr.
+Breton—told us, and we implored him to tell everything he knew about
+Mr. Marbury. But so far he has simply laughed at the idea that he had
+anything to do with the murder, or could be arrested for it, and now——”
+
+“And now he’s locked up,” said Spargo in his usual matter-of-fact
+fashion. “Well, there are people who have to be saved from themselves,
+you know. Perhaps you’ll have to save your father from the consequences
+of his own—shall we say obstinacy? Now, look here, between ourselves,
+how much do you know about your father’s—past?”
+
+The two sisters looked at each other and then at Spargo.
+
+“Nothing,” said the elder.
+
+“Absolutely nothing!” said the younger.
+
+“Answer a few plain questions,” said Spargo. “I’m not going to print
+your replies, nor make use of them in any way: I’m only asking the
+questions with a desire to help you. Have you any relations in
+England?”
+
+“None that we know of,” replied Evelyn.
+
+“Nobody you could go to for information about the past?” asked Spargo.
+
+“No—nobody!”
+
+Spargo drummed his fingers on his blotting-pad. He was thinking hard.
+
+“How old is your father?” he asked suddenly.
+
+“He was fifty-nine a few weeks ago,” answered Evelyn.
+
+“And how old are you, and how old is your sister?” demanded Spargo.
+
+“I am twenty, and Jessie is nearly nineteen.”
+
+“Where were you born?”
+
+“Both of us at San Gregorio, which is in the San José province of
+Argentina, north of Monte Video.”
+
+“Your father was in business there?”
+
+“He was in business in the export trade, Mr. Spargo. There’s no secret
+about that. He exported all sorts of things to England and to
+France—skins, hides, wools, dried salts, fruit. That’s how he made his
+money.”
+
+“You don’t know how long he’d been there when you were born?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Was he married when he went out there?”
+
+“No, he wasn’t. We do know that. He’s told us the circumstances of his
+marriage, because they were romantic. When he sailed from England to
+Buenos Ayres, he met on the steamer a young lady who, he said, was like
+himself, relationless and nearly friendless. She was going out to
+Argentina as a governess. She and my father fell in love with each
+other, and they were married in Buenos Ayres soon after the steamer
+arrived.”
+
+“And your mother is dead?”
+
+“My mother died before we came to England. I was eight years old, and
+Jessie six, then.”
+
+“And you came to England—how long after that?”
+
+“Two years.”
+
+“So that you’ve been in England ten years. And you know nothing
+whatever of your father’s past beyond what you’ve told me?”
+
+“Nothing—absolutely nothing.”
+
+“Never heard him talk of—you see, according to your account, your
+father was a man of getting on to forty when he went out to Argentina.
+He must have had a career of some sort in this country. Have you never
+heard him speak of his boyhood? Did he never talk of old times, or that
+sort of thing?”
+
+“I never remember hearing my father speak of any period antecedent to
+his marriage,” replied Evelyn.
+
+“I once asked him a question about his childhood.” said Jessie. “He
+answered that his early days had not been very happy ones, and that he
+had done his best to forget them. So I never asked him anything again.”
+
+“So that it really comes to this,” remarked Spargo. “You know nothing
+whatever about your father, his family, his fortunes, his life, beyond
+what you yourselves have observed since you were able to observe?
+That’s about it, isn’t it?”
+
+“I should say that that is exactly it,” answered Evelyn.
+
+“Just so,” said Spargo. “And therefore, as I told your sister the other
+day, the public will say that your father has some dark secret behind
+him, and that Marbury had possession of it, and that your father killed
+him in order to silence him. That isn’t my view. I not only believe
+your father to be absolutely innocent, but I believe that he knows no
+more than a child unborn of Marbury’s murder, and I’m doing my best to
+find out who that murderer was. By the by, since you’ll see all about
+it in tomorrow morning’s _Watchman_, I may as well tell you that I’ve
+found out who Marbury really was. He——”
+
+At this moment Spargo’s door was opened and in walked Ronald Breton. He
+shook his head at sight of the two sisters.
+
+“I thought I should find you here,” he said. “Jessie said she was
+coming to see you, Spargo. I don’t know what good you can do—I don’t
+see what good the most powerful newspaper in the world can do. My
+God!—everything’s about as black as ever it can be. Mr. Aylmore—I’ve
+just come away from him; his solicitor, Stratton, and I have been with
+him for an hour—is obstinate as ever—he will not tell more than he has
+told. Whatever good can you do, Spargo, when he won’t speak about that
+knowledge of Marbury which he must have?”
+
+“Oh, well!” said Spargo. “Perhaps we can give him some information
+about Marbury. Mr. Aylmore has forgotten that it’s not such a difficult
+thing to rake up the past as he seems to think it is. For example, as I
+was just telling these young ladies, I myself have discovered who
+Marbury really was.”
+
+Breton started.
+
+“You have? Without doubt?” he exclaimed.
+
+“Without reasonable doubt. Marbury was an ex-convict.”
+
+Spargo watched the effect of this sudden announcement. The two girls
+showed no sign of astonishment or of unusual curiosity; they received
+the news with as much unconcern as if Spargo had told them that Marbury
+was a famous musician. But Ronald Breton started, and it seemed to
+Spargo that he saw a sense of suspicion dawn in his eyes.
+
+“Marbury—an ex-convict!” he exclaimed. “You mean that?”
+
+“Read your _Watchman_ in the morning,” said Spargo. “You’ll find the
+whole story there—I’m going to write it tonight when you people have
+gone. It’ll make good reading.”
+
+Evelyn and Jessie Aylmore took Spargo’s hint and went away, Spargo
+seeing them to the door with another assurance of his belief in their
+father’s innocence and his determination to hunt down the real
+criminal. Ronald Breton went down with them to the street and saw them
+into a cab, but in another minute he was back in Spargo’s room as
+Spargo had expected. He shut the door carefully behind him and turned
+to Spargo with an eager face.
+
+“I say, Spargo, is that really so?” he asked. “About Marbury being an
+ex-convict?”
+
+“That’s so, Breton. I’ve no more doubt about it than I have that I see
+you. Marbury was in reality one John Maitland, a bank manager, of
+Market Milcaster, who got ten years’ penal servitude in 1891 for
+embezzlement.”
+
+“In 1891? Why—that’s just about the time that Aylmore says he knew
+him!”
+
+“Exactly. And—it just strikes me,” said Spargo, sitting down at his
+desk and making a hurried note, “it just strikes me—didn’t Aylmore say
+he knew Marbury in London?”
+
+“Certainly,” replied Breton. “In London.”
+
+“Um!” mused Spargo. “That’s queer, because Maitland had never been in
+London up to the time of his going to Dartmoor, whatever he may have
+done when he came out of Dartmoor, and, of course, Aylmore had gone to
+South America long before that. Look here, Breton,” he continued,
+aloud, “have you access to Aylmore? Will you, can you, see him before
+he’s brought up at Bow Street tomorrow?”
+
+“Yes,” answered Breton. “I can see him with his solicitor.”
+
+“Then listen,” said Spargo. “Tomorrow morning you’ll find the whole
+story of how I proved Marbury’s identity with Maitland in the
+_Watchman_. Read it as early as you can; get an interview with Aylmore
+as early as you can; make him read it, every word, before he’s brought
+up. Beg him if he values his own safety and his daughters’ peace of
+mind to throw away all that foolish reserve, and to tell all he knows
+about Maitland twenty years ago. He should have done that at first.
+Why, I was asking his daughters some questions before you came in—they
+know absolutely nothing of their father’s history previous to the time
+when they began to understand things! Don’t you see that Aylmore’s
+career, previous to his return to England, is a blank past!”
+
+“I know—I know!” said Breton. “Yes—although I’ve gone there a great
+deal, I never heard Aylmore speak of anything earlier than his
+Argentine experiences. And yet, he must have been getting on when he
+went out there.”
+
+“Thirty-seven or eight, at least,” remarked Spargo. “Well, Aylmore’s
+more or less of a public man, and no public man can keep his life
+hidden nowadays. By the by, how did you get to know the Aylmores?”
+
+“My guardian, Mr. Elphick, and I met them in Switzerland,” answered
+Breton. “We kept up the acquaintance after our return.”
+
+“Mr. Elphick still interesting himself in the Marbury case?” asked
+Spargo.
+
+“Very much so. And so is old Cardlestone, at the foot of whose stairs
+the thing came off. I dined with them last night and they talked of
+little else,” said Breton.
+
+“And their theory—”
+
+“Oh, still the murder for the sake of robbery!” replied Breton. “Old
+Cardlestone is furious that such a thing could have happened at his
+very door. He says that there ought to be a thorough enquiry into every
+tenant of the Temple.”
+
+“Longish business that,” observed Spargo. “Well, run away now, Breton—I
+must write.”
+
+“Shall you be at Bow Street tomorrow morning?” asked Breton as he moved
+to the door. “It’s to be at ten-thirty.”
+
+“No, I shan’t!” replied Spargo. “It’ll only be a remand, and I know
+already just as much as I should hear there. I’ve got something much
+more important to do. But you’ll remember what I asked of you—get
+Aylmore to read my story in the _Watchman_, and beg him to speak out
+and tell all he knows—all!”
+
+And when Breton had gone, Spargo again murmured those last words: “All
+he knows—all!”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
+MISS BAYLIS
+
+
+Next day, a little before noon, Spargo found himself in one of those
+pretentious yet dismal Bayswater squares, which are almost entirely
+given up to the trade, calling, or occupation of the lodging and
+boarding-house keeper. They are very pretentious, those squares, with
+their many-storied houses, their stuccoed frontages, and their
+pilastered and balconied doorways; innocent country folk, coming into
+them from the neighbouring station of Paddington, take them to be the
+residences of the dukes and earls who, of course, live nowhere else but
+in London. They are further encouraged in this belief by the fact that
+young male persons in evening dress are often seen at the doorways in
+more or less elegant attitudes. These, of course, are taken by the
+country folk to be young lords enjoying the air of Bayswater, but
+others, more knowing, are aware that they are Swiss or German waiters
+whose linen might be cleaner.
+
+Spargo gauged the character of the house at which he called as soon as
+the door was opened to him. There was the usual smell of eggs and
+bacon, of fish and chops; the usual mixed and ancient collection of
+overcoats, wraps, and sticks in the hall; the usual sort of parlourmaid
+to answer the bell. And presently, in answer to his enquiries, there
+was the usual type of landlady confronting him, a more than middle-aged
+person who desired to look younger, and made attempts in the way of
+false hair, teeth, and a little rouge, and who wore that somewhat air
+and smile which in its wearer—under these circumstances—always means
+that she is considering whether you will be able to cheat her or
+whether she will be able to see you.
+
+“You wish to see Miss Baylis?” said this person, examining Spargo
+closely. “Miss Baylis does not often see anybody.”
+
+“I hope,” said Spargo politely, “that Miss Baylis is not an invalid?”
+
+“No, she’s not an invalid,” replied the landlady; “but she’s not as
+young as she was, and she’s an objection to strangers. Is it anything I
+can tell her?”
+
+“No,” said Spargo. “But you can, if you please, take her a message from
+me. Will you kindly give her my card, and tell her that I wish to ask
+her a question about John Maitland of Market Milcaster, and that I
+should be much obliged if she would give me a few minutes.”
+
+“Perhaps you will sit down,” said the landlady. She led Spargo into a
+room which opened out upon a garden; in it two or three old ladies,
+evidently inmates, were sitting. The landlady left Spargo to sit with
+them and to amuse himself by watching them knit or sew or read the
+papers, and he wondered if they always did these things every day, and
+if they would go on doing them until a day would come when they would
+do them no more, and he was beginning to feel very dreary when the door
+opened and a woman entered whom Spargo, after one sharp glance at her,
+decided to be a person who was undoubtedly out of the common. And as
+she slowly walked across the room towards him he let his first glance
+lengthen into a look of steady inspection.
+
+The woman whom Spargo thus narrowly inspected was of very remarkable
+appearance. She was almost masculine; she stood nearly six feet in
+height; she was of a masculine gait and tread, and spare, muscular, and
+athletic. What at once struck Spargo about her face was the strange
+contrast between her dark eyes and her white hair; the hair, worn in
+abundant coils round a well-shaped head, was of the most snowy
+whiteness; the eyes of a real coal-blackness, as were also the eyebrows
+above them. The features were well-cut and of a striking firmness; the
+jaw square and determined. And Spargo’s first thought on taking all
+this in was that Miss Baylis seemed to have been fitted by Nature to be
+a prison wardress, or the matron of a hospital, or the governess of an
+unruly girl, and he began to wonder if he would ever manage to extract
+anything out of those firmly-locked lips.
+
+Miss Baylis, on her part, looked Spargo over as if she was half-minded
+to order him to instant execution. And Spargo was so impressed by her
+that he made a profound bow and found a difficulty in finding his
+tongue.
+
+“Mr. Spargo?” she said in a deep voice which seemed peculiarly suited
+to her. “Of, I see, the _Watchman_? You wish to speak to me?”
+
+Spargo again bowed in silence. She signed him to the window near which
+they were standing.
+
+“Open the casement, if you please,” she commanded him. “We will walk in
+the garden. This is not private.”
+
+Spargo obediently obeyed her orders; she swept through the opened
+window and he followed her. It was not until they had reached the
+bottom of the garden that she spoke again.
+
+“I understand that you desire to ask me some question about John
+Maitland, of Market Milcaster?” she said. “Before you put it. I must
+ask you a question. Do you wish any reply I may give you for
+publication?”
+
+“Not without your permission,” replied Spargo. “I should not think of
+publishing anything you may tell me except with your express
+permission.”
+
+She looked at him gloomily, seemed to gather an impression of his good
+faith, and nodded her head.
+
+“In that case,” she said, “what do you want to ask?”
+
+“I have lately had reason for making certain enquiries about John
+Maitland,” answered Spargo. “I suppose you read the newspapers and
+possibly the _Watchman_, Miss Baylis?”
+
+But Miss Baylis shook her head.
+
+“I read no newspapers,” she said. “I have no interest in the affairs of
+the world. I have work which occupies all my time: I give my whole
+devotion to it.”
+
+“Then you have not recently heard of what is known as the Marbury
+case—a case of a man who was found murdered?” asked Spargo.
+
+“I have not,” she answered. “I am not likely to hear such things.”
+
+Spargo suddenly realized that the power of the Press is not quite as
+great nor as far-reaching as very young journalists hold it to be, and
+that there actually are, even in London, people who can live quite
+cheerfully without a newspaper. He concealed his astonishment and went
+on.
+
+“Well,” he said, “I believe that the murdered man, known to the police
+as John Marbury, was, in reality, your brother-in-law, John Maitland.
+In fact, Miss Baylis, I’m absolutely certain of it!”
+
+He made this declaration with some emphasis, and looked at his stern
+companion to see how she was impressed. But Miss Baylis showed no sign
+of being impressed.
+
+“I can quite believe that, Mr. Spargo,” she said coldly. “It is no
+surprise to me that John Maitland should come to such an end. He was a
+thoroughly bad and unprincipled man, who brought the most terrible
+disgrace on those who were, unfortunately, connected with him. He was
+likely to die a bad man’s death.”
+
+“I may ask you a few questions about him?” suggested Spargo in his most
+insinuating manner.
+
+“You may, so long as you do not drag my name into the papers,” she
+replied. “But pray, how do you know that I have the sad shame of being
+John Maitland’s sister-in-law?”
+
+“I found that out at Market Milcaster,” said Spargo. “The photographer
+told me—Cooper.”
+
+“Ah!” she exclaimed.
+
+“The questions I want to ask are very simple,” said Spargo. “But your
+answers may materially help me. You remember Maitland going to prison,
+of course?”
+
+Miss Baylis laughed—a laugh of scorn.
+
+“Could I ever forget it?” she exclaimed.
+
+“Did you ever visit him in prison?” asked Spargo.
+
+“Visit him in prison!” she said indignantly. “Visits in prison are to
+be paid to those who deserve them, who are repentant; not to scoundrels
+who are hardened in their sin!”
+
+“All right. Did you ever see him after he left prison?”
+
+“I saw him, for he forced himself upon me—I could not help myself. He
+was in my presence before I was aware that he had even been released.”
+
+“What did he come for?” asked Spargo.
+
+“To ask for his son—who had been in my charge,” she replied.
+
+“That’s a thing I want to know about,” said Spargo. “Do you know what a
+certain lot of people in Market Milcaster say to this day, Miss
+Baylis?—they say that you were in at the game with Maitland; that you
+had a lot of the money placed in your charge; that when Maitland went
+to prison, you took the child away, first to Brighton, then
+abroad—disappeared with him—and that you made a home ready for Maitland
+when he came out. That’s what’s said by some people in Market
+Milcaster.”
+
+Miss Baylis’s stern lips curled.
+
+“People in Market Milcaster!” she exclaimed. “All the people I ever
+knew in Market Milcaster had about as many brains between them as that
+cat on the wall there. As for making a home for John Maitland, I would
+have seen him die in the gutter, of absolute want, before I would have
+given him a crust of dry bread!”
+
+“You appear to have a terrible dislike of this man,” observed Spargo,
+astonished at her vehemence.
+
+“I had—and I have,” she answered. “He tricked my sister into a marriage
+with him when he knew that she would rather have married an honest man
+who worshipped her; he treated her with quiet, infernal cruelty; he
+robbed her and me of the small fortunes our father left us.”
+
+“Ah!” said Spargo. “Well, so you say Maitland came to you, when he came
+out of prison, to ask for his boy. Did he take the boy?”
+
+“No—the boy was dead.”
+
+“Dead, eh? Then I suppose Maitland did not stop long with you?”
+
+Miss Baylis laughed her scornful laugh.
+
+“I showed him the door!” she said.
+
+“Well, did he tell you that he was going to Australia?” enquired
+Spargo.
+
+“I should not have listened to anything that he told me, Mr. Spargo,”
+she answered.
+
+“Then, in short,” said Spargo, “you never heard of him again?”
+
+“I never heard of him again,” she declared passionately, “and I only
+hope that what you tell me is true, and that Marbury really was
+Maitland!”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
+MOTHER GUTCH
+
+
+Spargo, having exhausted the list of questions which he had thought out
+on his way to Bayswater, was about to take his leave of Miss Baylis,
+when a new idea suddenly occurred to him, and he turned back to that
+formidable lady.
+
+“I’ve just thought of something else,” he said. “I told you that I’m
+certain Marbury was Maitland, and that he came to a sad end—murdered.”
+
+“And I’ve told you,” she replied scornfully, “that in my opinion no end
+could be too bad for him.”
+
+“Just so—I understand you,” said Spargo. “But I didn’t tell you that he
+was not only murdered but robbed—robbed of probably a good deal.
+There’s good reason to believe that he had securities, bank notes,
+loose diamonds, and other things on him to the value of a large amount.
+He’d several thousand pounds when he left Coolumbidgee, in New South
+Wales, where he’d lived quietly for some years.”
+
+Miss Baylis smiled sourly.
+
+“What’s all this to me?” she asked.
+
+“Possibly nothing. But you see, that money, those securities, may be
+recovered. And as the boy you speak of is dead, there surely must be
+somebody who’s entitled to the lot. It’s worth having, Miss Baylis, and
+there’s strong belief on the part of the police that it will turn up.”
+
+This was a bit of ingenious bluff on the part of Spargo; he watched its
+effect with keen eyes. But Miss Baylis was adamant, and she looked as
+scornful as ever.
+
+“I say again what’s all that to me?” she exclaimed.
+
+“Well, but hadn’t the dead boy any relatives on his father’s side?”
+asked Spargo. “I know you’re his aunt on the mother’s side, and as
+you’re indifferent perhaps, I can find some on the other side. It’s
+very easy to find all these things out, you know.”
+
+Miss Baylis, who had begun to stalk back to the house in gloomy and
+majestic fashion, and had let Spargo see plainly that this part of the
+interview was distasteful to her, suddenly paused in her stride and
+glared at the young journalist.
+
+“Easy to find all these things out?” she repeated.
+
+Spargo caught, or fancied he caught, a note of anxiety in her tone. He
+was quick to turn his fancy to practical purpose.
+
+“Oh, easy enough!” he said. “I could find out all about Maitland’s
+family through that boy. Quite, quite easily!”
+
+Miss Baylis had stopped now, and stood glaring at him. “How?” she
+demanded.
+
+“I’ll tell you,” said Spargo with cheerful alacrity. “It is, of course,
+the easiest thing in the world to trace all about his short life. I
+suppose I can find the register of his birth at Market Milcaster, and
+you, of course, will tell me where he died. By the by, when did he die,
+Miss Baylis?”
+
+But Miss Baylis was going on again to the house.
+
+“I shall tell you nothing more,” she said angrily. “I’ve told you too
+much already, and I believe all you’re here for is to get some news for
+your paper. But I will, at any rate tell you this—when Maitland went to
+prison his child would have been defenceless but for me; he’d have had
+to go to the workhouse but for me; he hadn’t a single relation in the
+world but me, on either father’s or mother’s side. And even at my age,
+old woman as I am, I’d rather beg my bread in the street, I’d rather
+starve and die, than touch a penny piece that had come from John
+Maitland! That’s all.”
+
+Then without further word, without offering to show Spargo the way out,
+she marched in at the open window and disappeared. And Spargo, knowing
+no other way, was about to follow her when he heard a sudden rustling
+sound in the shadow by which they had stood, and the next moment a
+queer, cracked, horrible voice, suggesting all sorts of things, said
+distinctly and yet in a whisper:
+
+“Young man!”
+
+Spargo turned and stared at the privet hedge behind him. It was thick
+and bushy, and in its full summer green, but it seemed to him that he
+saw a nondescript shape behind. “Who’s there?” he demanded. “Somebody
+listening?”
+
+There was a curious cackle of laughter from behind the hedge; then the
+cracked, husky voice spoke again.
+
+“Young man, don’t you move or look as if you were talking to anybody.
+Do you know where the ‘King of Madagascar’ public-house is in this
+quarter of the town, young man?”
+
+“No!” answered Spargo. “Certainly not!”
+
+“Well, anybody’ll tell you when you get outside, young man,” continued
+the queer voice of the unseen person. “Go there, and wait at the corner
+by the ‘King of Madagascar,’ and I’ll come there to you at the end of
+half an hour. Then I’ll tell you something, young man—I’ll tell you
+something. Now run away, young man, run away to the ‘King of
+Madagascar’—I’m coming!”
+
+The voice ended in low, horrible cachinnation which made Spargo feel
+queer. But he was young enough to be in love with adventure, and he
+immediately turned on his heel without so much as a glance at the
+privet hedge, and went across the garden and through the house, and let
+himself out at the door. And at the next corner of the square he met a
+policeman and asked him if he knew where the “King of Madagascar” was.
+
+“First to the right, second to the left,” answered the policeman
+tersely. “You can’t miss it anywhere round there—it’s a landmark.”
+
+And Spargo found the landmark—a great, square-built tavern—easily, and
+he waited at a corner of it wondering what he was going to see, and
+intensely curious about the owner of the queer voice, with all its
+suggestions of he knew not what. And suddenly there came up to him an
+old woman and leered at him in a fashion that made him suddenly realize
+how dreadful old age may be.
+
+Spargo had never seen such an old woman as this in his life. She was
+dressed respectably, better than respectably. Her gown was good; her
+bonnet was smart; her smaller fittings were good. But her face was
+evil; it showed unmistakable signs of a long devotion to the bottle;
+the old eyes leered and ogled, the old lips were wicked. Spargo felt a
+sense of disgust almost amounting to nausea, but he was going to hear
+what the old harridan had to say and he tried not to look what he felt.
+
+“Well?” he said, almost roughly. “Well?”
+
+“Well, young man, there you are,” said his new acquaintance. “Let us go
+inside, young man; there’s a quiet little place where a lady can sit
+and take her drop of gin—I’ll show you. And if you’re good to me, I’ll
+tell you something about that cat that you were talking to just now.
+But you’ll give me a little matter to put in my pocket, young man? Old
+ladies like me have a right to buy little comforts, you know, little
+comforts.”
+
+Spargo followed this extraordinary person into a small parlour within;
+the attendant who came in response to a ring showed no astonishment at
+her presence; he also seemed to know exactly what she required, which
+was a certain brand of gin, sweetened, and warm. And Spargo watched her
+curiously as with shaking hand she pushed up the veil which hid little
+of her wicked old face, and lifted the glass to her mouth with a zest
+which was not thirst but pure greed of liquor. Almost instantly he saw
+a new light steal into her eyes, and she laughed in a voice that grew
+clearer with every sound she made.
+
+“Ah, young man!” she said with a confidential nudge of the elbow that
+made Spargo long to get up and fly. “I wanted that! It’s done me good.
+When I’ve finished that, you’ll pay for another for me—and perhaps
+another? They’ll do me still more good. And you’ll give me a little
+matter of money, won’t you, young man?”
+
+“Not till I know what I’m giving it for,” replied Spargo.
+
+“You’ll be giving it because I’m going to tell you that if it’s made
+worth my while I can tell you, or somebody that sent you, more about
+Jane Baylis than anybody in the world. I’m not going to tell you that
+now, young man—I’m sure you don’t carry in your pocket what I shall
+want for my secret, not you, by the look of you! I’m only going to show
+you that I have the secret. Eh?”
+
+“Who are you?” asked Spargo.
+
+The woman leered and chuckled. “What are you going to give me, young
+man?” she asked.
+
+Spargo put his fingers in his pocket and pulled out two
+half-sovereigns.
+
+“Look here,” he said, showing his companion the coins, “if you can tell
+me anything of importance you shall have these. But no trifling, now.
+And no wasting of time. If you have anything to tell, out with it!”
+
+The woman stretched out a trembling, claw-like hand.
+
+“But let me hold one of those, young man!” she implored. “Let me hold
+one of the beautiful bits of gold. I shall tell you all the better if I
+hold one of them. Let me—there’s a good young gentleman.”
+
+Spargo gave her one of the coins, and resigned himself to his fate,
+whatever it might be.
+
+“You won’t get the other unless you tell something,” he said. “Who are
+you, anyway?”
+
+The woman, who had begun mumbling and chuckling over the
+half-sovereign, grinned horribly.
+
+“At the boarding-house yonder, young man, they call me Mother Gutch,”
+she answered; “but my proper name is Mrs. Sabina Gutch, and once upon a
+time I was a good-looking young woman. And when my husband died I went
+to Jane Baylis as housekeeper, and when she retired from that and came
+to live in that boarding-house where we live now, she was forced to
+bring me with her and to keep me. Why had she to do that, young man?”
+
+“Heaven knows!” answered Spargo.
+
+“Because I’ve got a hold on her, young man—I’ve got a secret of hers,”
+continued Mother Gutch. “She’d be scared to death if she knew I’d been
+behind that hedge and had heard what she said to you, and she’d be more
+than scared if she knew that you and I were here, talking. But she’s
+grown hard and near with me, and she won’t give me a penny to get a
+drop of anything with, and an old woman like me has a right to her
+little comforts, and if you’ll buy the secret, young man, I’ll split on
+her, there and then, when you pay the money.”
+
+“Before I talk about buying any secret,” said Spargo, “you’ll have to
+prove to me that you’ve a secret to sell that’s worth my buying.”
+
+“And I will prove it!” said Mother Gutch with sudden fierceness. “Touch
+the bell, and let me have another glass, and then I’ll tell you. Now,”
+she went on, more quietly—Spargo noticed that the more she drank, the
+more rational she became, and that her nerves seemed to gain strength
+and her whole appearance to be improved—“now, you came to her to find
+out about her brother-in-law, Maitland, that went to prison, didn’t
+you?”
+
+“Well?” demanded Spargo.
+
+“And about that boy of his?” she continued.
+
+“You heard all that was said,” answered Spargo. “I’m waiting to hear
+what you have to say.”
+
+But Mother Gutch was resolute in having her own way. She continued her
+questions:
+
+“And she told you that Maitland came and asked for the boy, and that
+she told him the boy was dead, didn’t she?” she went on.
+
+“Well?” said Spargo despairingly. “She did. What then?”
+
+Mother Gutch took an appreciative pull at her glass and smiled
+knowingly. “What then?” she chuckled. “All lies, young man, the boy
+isn’t dead—any more than I am. And my secret is—”
+
+“Well?” demanded Spargo impatiently. “What is it?”
+
+“This!” answered Mother Gutch, digging her companion in the ribs, “I
+know what she did with him!”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
+REVELATIONS
+
+
+Spargo turned on his disreputable and dissolute companion with all his
+journalistic energies and instincts roused. He had not been sure, since
+entering the “King of Madagascar,” that he was going to hear anything
+material to the Middle Temple Murder; he had more than once feared that
+this old gin-drinking harridan was deceiving him, for the purpose of
+extracting drink and money from him. But now, at the mere prospect of
+getting important information from her, he forgot all about Mother
+Gutch’s unfortunate propensities, evil eyes, and sodden face; he only
+saw in her somebody who could tell him something. He turned on her
+eagerly.
+
+“You say that John Maitland’s son didn’t die!” he exclaimed.
+
+“The boy did not die,” replied Mother Gutch.
+
+“And that you know where he is?” asked Spargo.
+
+Mother Gutch shook her head.
+
+“I didn’t say that I know where he is, young man,” she replied. “I said
+I knew what she did with him.”
+
+“What, then?” demanded Spargo.
+
+Mother Gutch drew herself up in a vast assumption of dignity, and
+favoured Spargo with a look.
+
+“That’s the secret, young man,” she said. “I’m willing to sell that
+secret, but not for two half-sovereigns and two or three drops of cold
+gin. If Maitland left all that money you told Jane Baylis of, when I
+was listening to you from behind the hedge, my secret’s worth
+something.”
+
+Spargo suddenly remembered his bit of bluff to Miss Baylis. Here was an
+unexpected result of it.
+
+“Nobody but me can help you to trace Maitland’s boy,” continued Mother
+Gutch, “and I shall expect to be paid accordingly. That’s plain
+language, young man.”
+
+Spargo considered the situation in silence for a minute or two. Could
+this wretched, bibulous old woman really be in possession of a secret
+which would lead to the solving of the mystery of the Middle Temple
+Murder? Well, it would be a fine thing for the _Watchman_ if the
+clearing up of everything came through one of its men. And the
+_Watchman_ was noted for being generous even to extravagance in laying
+out money on all sorts of objects: it had spent money like water on
+much less serious matters than this.
+
+“How much do you want for your secret?” he suddenly asked, turning to
+his companion.
+
+Mother Gutch began to smooth out a pleat in her gown. It was really
+wonderful to Spargo to find how very sober and normal this old harridan
+had become; he did not understand that her nerves had been all a-quiver
+and on edge when he first met her, and that a resort to her favourite
+form of alcohol in liberal quantity had calmed and quickened them;
+secretly he was regarding her with astonishment as the most
+extraordinary old person he had ever met, and he was almost afraid of
+her as he waited for her decision. At last Mother Gutch spoke.
+
+“Well, young man,” she said, “having considered matters, and having a
+right to look well to myself, I think that what I should prefer to have
+would be one of those annuities. A nice, comfortable annuity, paid
+weekly—none of your monthlies or quarterlies, but regular and punctual,
+every Saturday morning. Or Monday morning, as was convenient to the
+parties concerned—but punctual and regular. I know a good many ladies
+in my sphere of life as enjoys annuities, and it’s a great comfort to
+have ’em paid weekly.”
+
+It occurred to Spargo that Mrs. Gutch would probably get rid of her
+weekly dole on the day it was paid, whether that day happened to be
+Monday or Saturday, but that, after all, was no concern of his, so he
+came back to first principles.
+
+“Even now you haven’t said how much,” he remarked.
+
+“Three pound a week,” replied Mother Gutch. “And cheap, too!”
+
+Spargo thought hard for two minutes. The secret might—might!—lead to
+something big. This wretched old woman would probably drink herself to
+death within a year or two. Anyhow, a few hundreds of pounds was
+nothing to the _Watchman_. He glanced at his watch. At that hour—for
+the next hour—the great man of the _Watchman_ would be at the office.
+He jumped to his feet, suddenly resolved and alert.
+
+“Here, I’ll take you to see my principals,” he said. “We’ll run along
+in a taxi-cab.”
+
+“With all the pleasure in the world, young man,” replied Mother Gutch;
+“when you’ve given me that other half-sovereign. As for principals, I’d
+far rather talk business with masters than with men—though I mean no
+disrespect to you.”
+
+Spargo, feeling that he was in for it, handed over the second
+half-sovereign, and busied himself in ordering a taxi-cab. But when
+that came round he had to wait while Mrs. Gutch consumed a third glass
+of gin and purchased a flask of the same beverage to put in her pocket.
+At last he got her off, and in due course to the _Watchman_ office,
+where the hall-porter and the messenger boys stared at her in
+amazement, well used as they were to seeing strange folk, and he got
+her to his own room, and locked her in, and then he sought the presence
+of the mighty.
+
+What Spargo said to his editor and to the great man who controlled the
+fortunes and workings of the _Watchman_ he never knew. It was probably
+fortunate for him that they were both thoroughly conversant with the
+facts of the Middle Temple Murder, and saw that there might be an
+advantage in securing the revelations of which Spargo had got the
+conditional promise. At any rate, they accompanied Spargo to his room,
+intent on seeing, hearing and bargaining with the lady he had locked up
+there.
+
+Spargo’s room smelt heavily of unsweetened gin, but Mother Gutch was
+soberer than ever. She insisted upon being introduced to proprietor and
+editor in due and proper form, and in discussing terms with them before
+going into any further particulars. The editor was all for temporizing
+with her until something could be done to find out what likelihood of
+truth there was in her, but the proprietor, after sizing her up in his
+own shrewd fashion, took his two companions out of the room.
+
+“We’ll hear what the old woman has to say on her own terms,” he said.
+“She may have something to tell that is really of the greatest
+importance in this case: she certainly has something to tell. And, as
+Spargo says, she’ll probably drink herself to death in about as short a
+time as possible. Come back—let’s hear her story.” So they returned to
+the gin-scented atmosphere, and a formal document was drawn out by
+which the proprietor of the _Watchman_ bound himself to pay Mrs. Gutch
+the sum of three pounds a week for life (Mrs. Gutch insisting on the
+insertion of the words “every Saturday morning, punctual and regular”)
+and then Mrs. Gutch was invited to tell her tale. And Mrs. Gutch
+settled herself to do so, and Spargo prepared to take it down, word for
+word.
+
+“Which the story, as that young man called it, is not so long as a
+monkey’s tail nor so short as a Manx cat’s, gentlemen,” said Mrs.
+Gutch; “but full of meat as an egg. Now, you see, when that Maitland
+affair at Market Milcaster came off, I was housekeeper to Miss Jane
+Baylis at Brighton. She kept a boarding-house there, in Kemp Town, and
+close to the sea-front, and a very good thing she made out of it, and
+had saved a nice bit, and having, like her sister, Mrs. Maitland, had a
+little fortune left her by her father, as was at one time a publican
+here in London, she had a good lump of money. And all that money was in
+this here Maitland’s hands, every penny. I very well remember the day
+when the news came about that affair of Maitland robbing the bank. Miss
+Baylis, she was like a mad thing when she saw it in the paper, and
+before she’d seen it an hour she was off to Market Milcaster. I went up
+to the station with her, and she told me then before she got in the
+train that Maitland had all her fortune and her savings, and her
+sister’s, his wife’s, too, and that she feared all would be lost.”
+
+“Mrs. Maitland was then dead,” observed Spargo without looking up from
+his writing-block.
+
+“She was, young man, and a good thing, too,” continued Mrs. Gutch.
+“Well, away went Miss Baylis, and no more did I hear or see for nearly
+a week, and then back she comes, and brings a little boy with her—which
+was Maitland’s. And she told me that night that she’d lost every penny
+she had in the world, and that her sister’s money, what ought to have
+been the child’s, was gone, too, and she said her say about Maitland.
+However, she saw well to that child; nobody could have seen better. And
+very soon after, when Maitland was sent to prison for ten years, her
+and me talked about things. ‘What’s the use,’ says I to her, ‘of your
+letting yourself get so fond of that child, and looking after it as you
+do, and educating it, and so on?’ I says. ‘Why not?’ says she. ‘’Tisn’t
+yours,’ I says, ‘you haven’t no right to it,’ I says. ‘As soon as ever
+its father comes out,’ says I,’ he’ll come and claim it, and you can’t
+do nothing to stop him.’ Well, gentlemen, if you’ll believe me, never
+did I see a woman look as she did when I says all that. And she up and
+swore that Maitland should never see or touch the child again—not under
+no circumstances whatever.”
+
+Mrs. Gutch paused to take a little refreshment from her pocket-flask,
+with an apologetic remark as to the state of her heart. She resumed,
+presently, apparently refreshed.
+
+“Well, gentlemen, that notion, about Maitland’s taking the child away
+from her seemed to get on her mind, and she used to talk to me at times
+about it, always saying the same thing—that Maitland should never have
+him. And one day she told me she was going to London to see lawyers
+about it, and she went, and she came back, seeming more satisfied, and
+a day or two afterwards, there came a gentleman who looked like a
+lawyer, and he stopped a day or two, and he came again and again, until
+one day she came to me, and she says, ‘You don’t know who that
+gentleman is that’s come so much lately?’ she says. ‘Not I,’ I says,
+‘unless he’s after you.’ ‘After me!’ she says, tossing her head:
+‘That’s the gentleman that ought to have married my poor sister if that
+scoundrel Maitland hadn’t tricked her into throwing him over!’ ‘You
+don’t say so!’ I says. ‘Then by rights he ought to have been the
+child’s pa!’ ‘He’s going to be a father to the boy,’ she says. ‘He’s
+going to take him and educate him in the highest fashion, and make a
+gentleman of him,’ she says, ‘for his mother’s sake.’ ‘Mercy on us!’
+says I. ‘What’ll Maitland say when he comes for him?’ ‘Maitland’ll
+never come for him,’ she says, ‘for I’m going to leave here, and the
+boy’ll be gone before then. This is all being done,’ she says, ‘so that
+the child’ll never know his father’s shame—he’ll never know who his
+father was.’ And true enough, the boy was taken away, but Maitland came
+before she’d gone, and she told him the child was dead, and I never see
+a man so cut up. However, it wasn’t no concern of mine. And so there’s
+so much of the secret, gentlemen, and I would like to know if I ain’t
+giving good value.”
+
+“Very good,” said the proprietor. “Go on.” But Spargo intervened.
+
+“Did you ever hear the name of the gentleman who took the boy away?” he
+asked.
+
+“Yes, I did,” replied Mrs. Gutch. “Of course I did. Which it was
+Elphick.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
+STILL SILENT
+
+
+Spargo dropped his pen on the desk before him with a sharp clatter that
+made Mrs. Gutch jump. A steady devotion to the bottle had made her
+nerves to be none of the strongest, and she looked at the startler of
+them with angry malevolence.
+
+“Don’t do that again, young man!” she exclaimed sharply. “I can’t
+a-bear to be jumped out of my skin, and it’s bad manners. I observed
+that the gentleman’s name was Elphick.”
+
+Spargo contrived to get in a glance at his proprietor and his editor—a
+glance which came near to being a wink.
+
+“Just so—Elphick,” he said. “A law gentleman I think you said, Mrs.
+Gutch?”
+
+“I said,” answered Mrs. Gutch, “as how he looked like a lawyer
+gentleman. And since you’re so particular, young man, though I wasn’t
+addressing you but your principals, he was a lawyer gentleman. One of
+the sort that wears wigs and gowns—ain’t I seen his picture in Jane
+Baylis’s room at the boarding-house where you saw her this morning?”
+
+“Elderly man?” asked Spargo.
+
+“Elderly he will be now,” replied the informant; “but when he took the
+boy away he was a middle-aged man. About his age,” she added, pointing
+to the editor in a fashion which made that worthy man wince and the
+proprietor desire to laugh unconsumedly; “and not so very unlike him
+neither, being one as had no hair on his face.”
+
+“Ah!” said Spargo. “And where did this Mr. Elphick take the boy, Mrs.
+Gutch?”
+
+But Mrs. Gutch shook her head.
+
+“Ain’t no idea,” she said. “He took him. Then, as I told you, Maitland
+came, and Jane Baylis told him that the boy was dead. And after that
+she never even told me anything about the boy. She kept a tight tongue.
+Once or twice I asked her, and she says, ‘Never you mind,’ she says;
+‘he’s all right for life, if he lives to be as old as Methusalem.’ And
+she never said more, and I never said more. But,” continued Mrs. Gutch,
+whose pocket-flask was empty, and who began to wipe tears away, “she’s
+treated me hard has Jane Baylis, never allowing me a little comfort
+such as a lady of my age should have, and when I hears the two of you
+a-talking this morning the other side of that privet hedge, thinks I,
+‘Now’s the time to have my knife into you, my fine madam!’ And I hope I
+done it.”
+
+Spargo looked at the editor and the proprietor, nodding his head
+slightly. He meant them to understand that he had got all he wanted
+from Mother Gutch.
+
+“What are you going to do, Mrs. Gutch, when you leave here?” he asked.
+“You shall be driven straight back to Bayswater, if you like.”
+
+“Which I shall be obliged for, young man,” said Mrs. Gutch, “and
+likewise for the first week of the annuity, and will call every
+Saturday for the same at eleven punctual, or can be posted to me on a
+Friday, whichever is agreeable to you gentlemen. And having my first
+week in my purse, and being driven to Bayswater, I shall take my boxes
+and go to a friend of mine where I shall be hearty welcome, shaking the
+dust of my feet off against Jane Baylis and where I’ve been living with
+her.”
+
+“Yes, but, Mrs. Gutch,” said Spargo, with some anxiety, “if you go back
+there tonight, you’ll be very careful not to tell Miss Baylis that
+you’ve been here and told us all this?”
+
+Mrs. Gutch rose, dignified and composed.
+
+“Young man,” she said, “you mean well, but you ain’t used to dealing
+with ladies. I can keep my tongue as still as anybody when I like. I
+wouldn’t tell Jane Baylis my affairs—my new affairs, gentlemen, thanks
+to you—not for two annuities, paid twice a week!”
+
+“Take Mrs. Gutch downstairs, Spargo, and see her all right, and then
+come to my room,” said the editor. “And don’t you forget, Mrs.
+Gutch—keep a quiet tongue in your head—no more talk—or there’ll be no
+annuities on Saturday mornings.”
+
+So Spargo took Mother Gutch to the cashier’s department and paid her
+her first week’s money, and he got her a taxi-cab, and paid for it, and
+saw her depart, and then he went to the editor’s room, strangely
+thoughtful. The editor and the proprietor were talking, but they
+stopped when Spargo entered and looked at him eagerly. “I think we’ve
+done it,” said Spargo quietly.
+
+“What, precisely, have we found out?” asked the editor.
+
+“A great deal more than I’d anticipated,” answered Spargo, “and I don’t
+know what fields it doesn’t open out. If you look back, you’ll remember
+that the only thing found on Marbury’s body was a scrap of grey paper
+on which was a name and address—Ronald Breton, King’s Bench Walk.”
+
+“Well?”
+
+“Breton is a young barrister. Also he writes a bit—I have accepted two
+or three articles of his for our literary page.”
+
+“Well?”
+
+“Further, he is engaged to Miss Aylmore, the eldest daughter of
+Aylmore, the Member of Parliament who has been charged at Bow Street
+today with the murder of Marbury.”
+
+“I know. Well, what then, Spargo?”
+
+“But the most important matter,” continued Spargo, speaking very
+deliberately, “is this—that is, taking that old woman’s statement to be
+true, as I personally believe it is—that Breton, as he has told me
+himself (I have seen a good deal of him) was brought up by a guardian.
+That guardian is Mr. Septimus Elphick, the barrister.”
+
+The proprietor and the editor looked at each other. Their faces wore
+the expression of men thinking on the same lines and arriving at the
+same conclusion. And the proprietor suddenly turned on Spargo with a
+sharp interrogation: “You think then——”
+
+Spargo nodded.
+
+“I think that Mr. Septimus Elphick is the Elphick, and that Breton is
+the young Maitland of whom Mrs. Gutch has been talking,” he answered.
+
+The editor got up, thrust his hands in his pockets, and began to pace
+the room.
+
+“If that’s so,” he said, “if that’s so, the mystery deepens. What do
+you propose to do, Spargo?”
+
+“I think,” said Spargo, slowly, “I think that without telling him
+anything of what we have learnt, I should like to see young Breton and
+get an introduction from him to Mr. Elphick. I can make a good excuse
+for wanting an interview with him. If you will leave it in my hands—”
+
+“Yes, yes!” said the proprietor, waving a hand. “Leave it entirely in
+Spargo’s hands.”
+
+“Keep me informed,” said the editor. “Do what you think. It strikes me
+you’re on the track.”
+
+Spargo left their presence, and going back to his own room, still
+faintly redolent of the personality of Mrs. Gutch, got hold of the
+reporter who had been present at Bow Street when Aylmore was brought up
+that morning. There was nothing new; the authorities had merely asked
+for another remand. So far as the reporter knew, Aylmore had said
+nothing fresh to anybody.
+
+Spargo went round to the Temple and up to Ronald Breton’s chambers. He
+found the young barrister just preparing to leave, and looking
+unusually grave and thoughtful. At sight of Spargo he turned back from
+his outer door, beckoned the journalist to follow him, and led him into
+an inner room.
+
+“I say, Spargo!” he said, as he motioned his visitor to take a chair.
+“This is becoming something more than serious. You know what you told
+me to do yesterday as regards Aylmore?”
+
+“To get him to tell all?—Yes,” said Spargo.
+
+Breton shook his head.
+
+“Stratton—his solicitor, you know—and I saw him this morning before the
+police-court proceedings,” he continued. “I told him of my talk with
+you; I even went as far as to tell him that his daughters had been to
+the _Watchman_ office. Stratton and I both begged him to take your
+advice and tell all, everything, no matter at what cost to his private
+feelings. We pointed out to him the serious nature of the evidence
+against him; how he had damaged himself by not telling the whole truth
+at once; how he had certainly done a great deal to excite suspicion
+against himself; how, as the evidence stands at present, any jury could
+scarcely do less than convict him. And it was all no good, Spargo!”
+
+“He won’t say anything?”
+
+“He’ll say no more. He was adamant. ‘I told the entire truth in respect
+to my dealings with Marbury on the night he met his death at the
+inquest,’ he said, over and over again, ‘and I shall say nothing
+further on any consideration. If the law likes to hang an innocent man
+on such evidence as that, let it!’ And he persisted in that until we
+left him. Spargo, I don’t know what’s to be done.”
+
+“And nothing happened at the police-court?”
+
+“Nothing—another remand. Stratton and I saw Aylmore again before he was
+removed. He left us with a sort of sardonic remark—‘If you all want to
+prove me innocent,’ he said, ‘find the guilty man.’”
+
+“Well, there was a tremendous lot of common sense in that,” said
+Spargo.
+
+“Yes, of course, but how, how, how is it going to be done?” exclaimed
+Breton. “Are you any nearer—is Rathbury any nearer? Is there the
+slightest clue that will fasten the guilt on anybody else?”
+
+Spargo gave no answer to these questions. He remained silent a while,
+apparently thinking.
+
+“Was Rathbury in court?” he suddenly asked.
+
+“He was,” replied Breton. “He was there with two or three other men who
+I suppose were detectives, and seemed to be greatly interested in
+Aylmore.”
+
+“If I don’t see Rathbury tonight I’ll see him in the morning,” said
+Spargo. He rose as if to go, but after lingering a moment, sat down
+again. “Look here,” he continued, “I don’t know how this thing stands
+in law, but would it be a very weak case against Aylmore if the
+prosecution couldn’t show some motive for his killing Marbury?”
+
+Breton smiled.
+
+“There’s no necessity to prove motive in murder,” he said. “But I’ll
+tell you what, Spargo—if the prosecution can show that Aylmore had a
+motive for getting rid of Marbury, if they could prove that it was to
+Aylmore’s advantage to silence him—why, then, I don’t think he’s a
+chance.”
+
+“I see. But so far no motive, no reason for his killing Marbury has
+been shown.”
+
+“I know of none.”
+
+Spargo rose and moved to the door.
+
+“Well, I’m off,” he said. Then, as if he suddenly recollected
+something, he turned back. “Oh, by the by,” he said, “isn’t your
+guardian, Mr. Elphick, a big authority on philately?”
+
+“One of the biggest. Awful enthusiast.”
+
+“Do you think he’d tell me a bit about those Australian stamps which
+Marbury showed to Criedir, the dealer?”
+
+“Certain, he would—delighted. Here”—and Breton scribbled a few words on
+a card—“there’s his address and a word from me. I’ll tell you when you
+can always find him in, five nights out of seven—at nine o’clock, after
+he’s dined. I’d go with you tonight, but I must go to Aylmore’s. The
+two girls are in terrible trouble.”
+
+“Give them a message from me,” said Spargo as they went out together.
+“Tell them to keep up their hearts and their courage.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
+MR. ELPHICK’S CHAMBERS
+
+
+Spargo went round again to the Temple that night at nine o’clock,
+asking himself over and over again two questions—the first, how much
+does Elphick know? the second, how much shall I tell him?
+
+The old house in the Temple to which he repaired and in which many a
+generation of old fogies had lived since the days of Queen Anne, was
+full of stairs and passages, and as Spargo had forgotten to get the
+exact number of the set of chambers he wanted, he was obliged to wander
+about in what was a deserted building. So wandering, he suddenly heard
+steps, firm, decisive steps coming up a staircase which he himself had
+just climbed. He looked over the banisters down into the hollow
+beneath. And there, marching up resolutely, was the figure of a tall,
+veiled woman, and Spargo suddenly realized, with a sharp quickening of
+his pulses, that for the second time that day he was beneath one roof
+with Miss Baylis.
+
+Spargo’s mind acted quickly. Knowing what he now knew, from his
+extraordinary dealings with Mother Gutch, he had no doubt whatever that
+Miss Baylis had come to see Mr. Elphick—come, of course, to tell Mr.
+Elphick that he, Spargo, had visited her that morning, and that he was
+on the track of the Maitland secret history. He had never thought of it
+before, for he had been busily engaged since the departure of Mother
+Gutch; but, naturally, Miss Baylis and Mr. Elphick would keep in
+communication with each other. At any rate, here she was, and her
+destination was, surely, Elphick’s chambers. And the question for him,
+Spargo, was—what to do?
+
+What Spargo did was to remain in absolute silence, motionless, tense,
+where he was on the stair, and to trust to the chance that the woman
+did not look up. But Miss Baylis neither looked up nor down: she
+reached a landing, turned along a corridor with decision, and marched
+forward. A moment later Spargo heard a sharp double knock on a door: a
+moment after that he heard a door heavily shut; he knew then that Miss
+Baylis had sought and gained admittance—somewhere.
+
+To find out precisely where that somewhere was drew Spargo down to the
+landing which Miss Baylis had just left. There was no one about—he had
+not, in fact, seen a soul since he entered the building. Accordingly he
+went along the corridor into which he had seen Miss Baylis turn. He
+knew that all the doors in that house were double ones, and that the
+outer oak in each was solid and substantial enough to be sound proof.
+Yet, as men will under such circumstances, he walked softly; he said to
+himself, smiling at the thought, that he would be sure to start if
+somebody suddenly opened a door on him. But no hand opened any door,
+and at last he came to the end of the corridor and found himself
+confronting a small board on which was painted in white letters on a
+black ground, Mr. Elphick’s Chambers.
+
+Having satisfied himself as to his exact whereabouts, Spargo drew back
+as quietly as he had come. There was a window half-way along the
+corridor from which, he had noticed as he came along, one could catch a
+glimpse of the Embankment and the Thames; to this he withdrew, and
+leaning on the sill looked out and considered matters. Should he go
+and—if he could gain admittance—beard these two conspirators? Should he
+wait until the woman came out and let her see that he was on the track?
+Should he hide again until she went, and then see Elphick alone?
+
+In the end Spargo did none of these things immediately. He let things
+slide for the moment. He lighted a cigarette and stared at the river
+and the brown sails, and the buildings across on the Surrey side. Ten
+minutes went by—twenty minutes—nothing happened. Then, as half-past
+nine struck from all the neighbouring clocks, Spargo flung away a
+second cigarette, marched straight down the corridor and knocked boldly
+at Mr. Elphick’s door.
+
+Greatly to Spargo’s surprise, the door was opened before there was any
+necessity to knock again. And there, calmly confronting him, a
+benevolent, yet somewhat deprecating expression on his spectacled and
+placid face, stood Mr. Elphick, a smoking cap on his head, a tasseled
+smoking jacket over his dress shirt, and a short pipe in his hand.
+
+Spargo was taken aback: Mr. Elphick apparently was not. He held the
+door well open, and motioned the journalist to enter.
+
+“Come in, Mr. Spargo,” he said. “I was expecting you. Walk forward into
+my sitting-room.”
+
+Spargo, much astonished at this reception, passed through an ante-room
+into a handsomely furnished apartment full of books and pictures. In
+spite of the fact that it was still very little past midsummer there
+was a cheery fire in the grate, and on a table set near a roomy
+arm-chair was set such creature comforts as a spirit-case, a syphon, a
+tumbler, and a novel—from which things Spargo argued that Mr. Elphick
+had been taking his ease since his dinner. But in another armchair on
+the opposite side of the hearth was the forbidding figure of Miss
+Baylis, blacker, gloomier, more mysterious than ever. She neither spoke
+nor moved when Spargo entered: she did not even look at him. And Spargo
+stood staring at her until Mr. Elphick, having closed his doors,
+touched him on the elbow, and motioned him courteously to a seat.
+
+“Yes, I was expecting you, Mr. Spargo,” he said, as he resumed his own
+chair. “I have been expecting you at any time, ever since you took up
+your investigation of the Marbury affair, in some of the earlier stages
+of which you saw me, you will remember, at the mortuary. But since Miss
+Baylis told me, twenty minutes ago, that you had been to her this
+morning I felt sure that it would not be more than a few hours before
+you would come to me.”
+
+“Why, Mr. Elphick, should you suppose that I should come to you at
+all?” asked Spargo, now in full possession of his wits.
+
+“Because I felt sure that you would leave no stone unturned, no corner
+unexplored,” replied Mr. Elphick. “The curiosity of the modern pressman
+is insatiable.”
+
+Spargo stiffened.
+
+“I have no curiosity, Mr. Elphick,” he said. “I am charged by my paper
+to investigate the circumstances of the death of the man who was found
+in Middle Temple Lane, and, if possible, to track his murderer, and——”
+
+Mr. Elphick laughed slightly and waved his hand.
+
+“My good young gentleman!” he said. “You exaggerate your own
+importance. I don’t approve of modern journalism nor of its methods. In
+your own case you have got hold of some absurd notion that the man John
+Marbury was in reality one John Maitland, once of Market Milcaster, and
+you have been trying to frighten Miss Baylis here into——”
+
+Spargo suddenly rose from his chair. There was a certain temper in him
+which, when once roused, led him to straight hitting, and it was roused
+now. He looked the old barrister full in the face.
+
+“Mr. Elphick,” he said, “you are evidently unaware of all that I know.
+So I will tell you what I will do. I will go back to my office, and I
+will write down what I do know, and give the true and absolute proofs
+of what I know, and, if you will trouble yourself to read the
+_Watchman_ tomorrow morning, then you, too, will know.”
+
+“Dear me—dear me!” said Mr. Elphick, banteringly. “We are so used to
+ultra-sensational stories from the _Watchman_ that—but I am a curious
+and inquisitive old man, my good young sir, so perhaps you will tell me
+in a word what it is you do know, eh?”
+
+Spargo reflected for a second. Then he bent forward across the table
+and looked the old barrister straight in the face.
+
+“Yes,” he said quietly. “I will tell you what I know beyond doubt. I
+know that the man murdered under the name of John Marbury was, without
+doubt, John Maitland, of Market Milcaster, and that Ronald Breton is
+his son, whom you took from that woman!”
+
+If Spargo had desired a complete revenge for the cavalier fashion in
+which Mr. Elphick had treated it he could not have been afforded a more
+ample one than that offered to him by the old barrister’s reception of
+this news. Mr. Elphick’s face not only fell, but changed; his
+expression of almost sneering contempt was transformed to one clearly
+resembling abject terror; he dropped his pipe, fell back in his chair,
+recovered himself, gripped the chair’s arms, and stared at Spargo as if
+the young man had suddenly announced to him that in another minute he
+must be led to instant execution. And Spargo, quick to see his
+advantage, followed it up.
+
+“That is what I know, Mr. Elphick, and if I choose, all the world shall
+know it tomorrow morning!” he said firmly. “Ronald Breton is the son of
+the murdered man, and Ronald Breton is engaged to be married to the
+daughter of the man charged with the murder. Do you hear that? It is
+not matter of suspicion, or of idea, or of conjecture, it is
+fact—fact!”
+
+Mr. Elphick slowly turned his face to Miss Baylis. He gasped out a few
+words.
+
+“You—did—not—tell—me—this!”
+
+Then Spargo, turning to the woman, saw that she, too, was white to the
+lips and as frightened as the man.
+
+“I—didn’t know!” she muttered. “He didn’t tell me. He only told me this
+morning what—what I’ve told you.”
+
+Spargo picked up his hat.
+
+“Good-night, Mr. Elphick,” he said.
+
+But before he could reach the door the old barrister had leapt from his
+chair and seized him with trembling hands. Spargo turned and looked at
+him. He knew then that for some reason or other he had given Mr.
+Septimus Elphick a thoroughly bad fright.
+
+“Well?” he growled.
+
+“My dear young gentleman!” implored Mr. Elphick. “Don’t go! I’ll—I’ll
+do anything for you if you won’t go away to print that. I’ll—I’ll give
+you a thousand pounds!”
+
+Spargo shook him off.
+
+“That’s enough!” he snarled. “Now, I am off! What, you’d try to bribe
+me?”
+
+Mr. Elphick wrung his hands.
+
+“I didn’t mean that—indeed I didn’t!” he almost wailed. “I—I don’t know
+what I meant. Stay, young gentleman, stay a little, and let us—let us
+talk. Let me have a word with you—as many words as you please. I
+implore you!”
+
+Spargo made a fine pretence of hesitation.
+
+“If I stay,” he said, at last, “it will only be on the strict condition
+that you answer—and answer truly—whatever questions I like to ask you.
+Otherwise——”
+
+He made another move to the door, and again Mr. Elphick laid beseeching
+hands on him.
+
+“Stay!” he said. “I’ll answer anything you like!”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
+OF PROVED IDENTITY
+
+
+Spargo sat down again in the chair which he had just left, and looked
+at the two people upon whom his startling announcement had produced
+such a curious effect. And he recognized as he looked at them that,
+while they were both frightened, they were frightened in different
+ways. Miss Baylis had already recovered her composure; she now sat
+sombre and stern as ever, returning Spargo’s look with something of
+indifferent defiance; he thought he could see that in her mind a
+certain fear was battling with a certain amount of wonder that he had
+discovered the secret. It seemed to him that so far as she was
+concerned the secret had come to an end; it was as if she said in so
+many words that now the secret was out he might do his worst.
+
+But upon Mr. Septimus Elphick the effect was very different. He was
+still trembling from excitement; he groaned as he sank into his chair
+and the hand with which he poured out a glass of spirits shook; the
+glass rattled against his teeth when he raised it to his lips. The
+half-contemptuous fashion of his reception of Spargo had now wholly
+disappeared; he was a man who had received a shock, and a bad one. And
+Spargo, watching him keenly, said to himself: This man knows a great
+deal more than, a great deal beyond, the mere fact that Marbury was
+Maitland, and that Ronald Breton is in reality Maitland’s son; he knows
+something which he never wanted anybody to know, which he firmly
+believed it impossible anybody ever could know. It was as if he had
+buried something deep, deep down in the lowest depths, and was as
+astounded as he was frightened to find that it had been at last flung
+up to the broad light of day.
+
+“I shall wait,” suddenly said Spargo, “until you are composed, Mr.
+Elphick. I have no wish to distress you. But I see, of course, that the
+truths which I have told you are of a sort that cause you
+considerable—shall we say fear?”
+
+Elphick took another stiff pull at his liquor. His hand had grown
+steadier, and the colour was coming back to his face.
+
+“If you will let me explain,” he said. “If you will hear what was done
+for the boy’s sake—eh?”
+
+“That,” answered Spargo, “is precisely what I wish. I can tell you
+this—I am the last man in the world to wish harm of any sort to Mr.
+Breton.”
+
+Miss Baylis relieved her feelings with a scornful sniff. “He says
+that!” she exclaimed, addressing the ceiling. “He says that, knowing
+that he means to tell the world in his rag of a paper that Ronald
+Breton, on whom every care has been lavished, is the son of a
+scoundrel, an ex-convict, a——”
+
+Elphick lifted his hand.
+
+“Hush—hush!” he said imploringly. “Mr. Spargo means well, I am sure—I
+am convinced. If Mr. Spargo will hear me——”
+
+But before Spargo could reply, a loud insistent knocking came at the
+outer door. Elphick started nervously, but presently he moved across
+the room, walking as if he had received a blow, and opened the door. A
+boy’s voice penetrated into the sitting-room.
+
+“If you please, sir, is Mr. Spargo, of the _Watchman_, here? He left
+this address in case he was wanted.”
+
+Spargo recognized the voice as that of one of the office messenger
+boys, and jumping up, went to the door.
+
+“What is it, Rawlins?” he asked.
+
+“Will you please come back to the office, sir, at once? There’s Mr.
+Rathbury there and says he must see you instantly.”
+
+“All right,” answered Spargo. “I’m coming just now.”
+
+He motioned the lad away, and turned to Elphick.
+
+“I shall have to go,” he said. “I may be kept. Now, Mr. Elphick, can I
+come to see you tomorrow morning?”
+
+“Yes, yes, tomorrow morning!” replied Elphick eagerly. “Tomorrow
+morning, certainly. At eleven—eleven o’clock. That will do?”
+
+“I shall be here at eleven,” said Spargo. “Eleven sharp.”
+
+He was moving away when Elphick caught him by the sleeve.
+
+“A word—just a word!” he said. “You—you have not told the—the
+boy—Ronald—of what you know? You haven’t?”
+
+“I haven’t,” replied Spargo.
+
+Elphick tightened his grip on Spargo’s sleeve. He looked into his face
+beseechingly.
+
+“Promise me—promise me, Mr. Spargo, that you won’t tell him until you
+have seen me in the morning!” he implored. “I beg you to promise me
+this.”
+
+Spargo hesitated, considering matters.
+
+“Very well—I promise,” he said.
+
+“And you won’t print it?” continued Elphick, still clinging to him.
+“Say you won’t print it tonight?”
+
+“I shall not print it tonight,” answered Spargo. “That’s certain.”
+
+Elphick released his grip on the young man’s arm.
+
+“Come—at eleven tomorrow morning,” he said, and drew back and closed
+the door.
+
+Spargo ran quickly to the office and hurried up to his own room. And
+there, calmly seated in an easy-chair, smoking a cigar, and reading an
+evening newspaper, was Rathbury, unconcerned and outwardly as
+imperturbable as ever. He greeted Spargo with a careless nod and a
+smile.
+
+“Well,” he said, “how’s things?”
+
+Spargo, half-breathless, dropped into his desk-chair.
+
+“You didn’t come here to tell me that,” he said.
+
+Rathbury laughed.
+
+“No,” he said, throwing the newspaper aside, “I didn’t. I came to tell
+you my latest. You’re at full liberty to stick it into your paper
+tonight: it may just as well be known.”
+
+“Well?” said Spargo.
+
+Rathbury took his cigar out of his lips and yawned.
+
+“Aylmore’s identified,” he said lazily.
+
+Spargo sat up, sharply.
+
+“Identified!”
+
+“Identified, my son. Beyond doubt.”
+
+“But as whom—as what?” exclaimed Spargo.
+
+Rathbury laughed.
+
+“He’s an old lag—an ex-convict. Served his time partly at Dartmoor.
+That, of course, is where he met Maitland or Marbury. D’ye see? Clear
+as noontide now, Spargo.”
+
+Spargo sat drumming his fingers on the desk before him. His eyes were
+fixed on a map of London that hung on the opposite wall; his ears heard
+the throbbing of the printing-machines far below. But what he really
+saw was the faces of the two girls; what he really heard was the voices
+of two girls …
+
+“Clear as noontide—as noontide,” repeated Rathbury with great
+cheerfulness.
+
+Spargo came back to the earth of plain and brutal fact.
+
+“What’s clear as noontide?” he asked sharply.
+
+“What? Why, the whole thing! Motive—everything,” answered Rathbury.
+“Don’t you see, Maitland and Aylmore (his real name is Ainsworth, by
+the by) meet at Dartmoor, probably, or, rather, certainly, just before
+Aylmore’s release. Aylmore goes abroad, makes money, in time comes
+back, starts new career, gets into Parliament, becomes big man. In
+time, Maitland, who, after his time, has also gone abroad, also comes
+back. The two meet. Maitland probably tries to blackmail Aylmore or
+threatens to let folk know that the flourishing Mr. Aylmore, M.P., is
+an ex-convict. Result—Aylmore lures him to the Temple and quiets him.
+Pooh!—the whole thing’s clear as noontide, as I say. As—noontide!”
+
+Spargo drummed his fingers again.
+
+“How?” he asked quietly. “How came Aylmore to be identified?”
+
+“My work,” said Rathbury proudly. “My work, my son. You see, I thought
+a lot. And especially after we’d found out that Marbury was Maitland.”
+
+“You mean after I’d found out,” remarked Spargo.
+
+Rathbury waved his cigar.
+
+“Well, well, it’s all the same,” he said. “You help me, and I help you,
+eh? Well, as I say, I thought a considerable lot. I thought—now, where
+did Maitland, or Marbury, know or meet Aylmore twenty or twenty-two
+years ago? Not in London, because we knew Maitland never was in
+London—at any rate, before his trial, and we haven’t the least proof
+that he was in London after. And why won’t Aylmore tell? Clearly
+because it must have been in some undesirable place. And then, all of a
+sudden, it flashed on me in a moment of—what do you writing fellows
+call those moments, Spargo?”
+
+“Inspiration, I should think,” said Spargo. “Direct inspiration.”
+
+“That’s it. In a moment of direct inspiration, it flashed on me—why,
+twenty years ago, Maitland was in Dartmoor—they must have met there!
+And so, we got some old warders who’d been there at that time to come
+to town, and we gave ’em opportunities to see Aylmore and to study him.
+Of course, he’s twenty years older, and he’s grown a beard, but they
+began to recall him, and then one man remembered that if he was the man
+they thought he’d a certain birth-mark. And—he has!”
+
+“Does Aylmore know that he’s been identified?” asked Spargo.
+
+Rathbury pitched his cigar into the fireplace and laughed.
+
+“Know!” he said scornfully. “Know? He’s admitted it. What was the use
+of standing out against proof like that. He admitted it tonight in my
+presence. Oh, he knows all right!”
+
+“And what did he say?”
+
+Rathbury laughed contemptuously.
+
+“Say? Oh, not much. Pretty much what he said about this affair—that
+when he was convicted the time before he was an innocent man. He’s
+certainly a good hand at playing the innocent game.”
+
+“And of what was he convicted?”
+
+“Oh, of course, we know all about it—now. As soon as we found out who
+he really was, we had all the particulars turned up. Aylmore, or
+Ainsworth (Stephen Ainsworth his name really is) was a man who ran a
+sort of what they call a Mutual Benefit Society in a town right away up
+in the North—Cloudhampton—some thirty years ago. He was nominally
+secretary, but it was really his own affair. It was patronized by the
+working classes—Cloudhampton’s a purely artisan population—and they
+stuck a lot of their brass, as they call it, in it. Then suddenly it
+came to smash, and there was nothing. He—Ainsworth, or Aylmore—pleaded
+that he was robbed and duped by another man, but the court didn’t
+believe him, and he got seven years. Plain story you see, Spargo, when
+it all comes out, eh?”
+
+“All stories are quite plain—when they come out,” observed Spargo. “And
+he kept silence now, I suppose, because he didn’t want his daughters to
+know about his past?”
+
+“Just so,” agreed Rathbury. “And I don’t know that I blame him. He
+thought, of course, that he’d go scot-free over this Marbury affair.
+But he made his mistake in the initial stages, my boy—oh, yes!”
+
+Spargo got up from his desk and walked around his room for a few
+minutes, Rathbury meanwhile finding and lighting another cigar. At last
+Spargo came back and clapped a hand on the detective’s shoulder.
+
+“Look here, Rathbury!” he said. “It’s very evident that you’re now
+going on the lines that Aylmore did murder Marbury. Eh?”
+
+Rathbury looked up. His face showed astonishment.
+
+“After evidence like that!” he exclaimed. “Why, of course. There’s the
+motive, my son, the motive!”
+
+Spargo laughed.
+
+“Rathbury!” he said. “Aylmore no more murdered Marbury than you did!”
+
+The detective got up and put on his hat.
+
+“Oh!” he said. “Perhaps you know who did, then?”
+
+“I shall know in a few days,” answered Spargo.
+
+Rathbury stared wonderingly at him. Then he suddenly walked to the
+door. “Good-night!” he said gruffly.
+
+“Good-night, Rathbury,” replied Spargo and sat down at his desk.
+
+But that night Spargo wrote nothing for the _Watchman_. All he wrote
+was a short telegram addressed to Aylmore’s daughters. There were only
+three words on it—_Have no fear._
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
+THE CLOSED DOORS
+
+
+Alone of all the London morning newspapers, the _Watchman_ appeared
+next day destitute of sensationalism in respect to the Middle Temple
+Murder. The other daily journals published more or less vivid accounts
+of the identification of Mr. Stephen Aylmore, M.P. for the Brookminster
+Division, as the _ci-devant_ Stephen Ainsworth, ex-convict, once upon a
+time founder and secretary of the Hearth and Home Mutual Benefit
+Society, the headquarters of which had been at Cloudhampton, in
+Daleshire; the fall of which had involved thousands of honest working
+folk in terrible distress if not in absolute ruin. Most of them had
+raked up Ainsworth’s past to considerable journalistic purpose: it had
+been an easy matter to turn up old files, to recount the fall of the
+Hearth and Home, to tell anew the story of the privations of the humble
+investors whose small hoards had gone in the crash; it had been easy,
+too, to set out again the history of Ainsworth’s arrest, trial, and
+fate. There was plenty of romance in the story: it was that of a man
+who by his financial ability had built up a great industrial insurance
+society; had—as was alleged—converted the large sums entrusted to him
+to his own purposes; had been detected and punished; had disappeared,
+after his punishment, so effectually that no one knew where he had
+gone; had come back, comparatively a few years later, under another
+name, a very rich man, and had entered Parliament and been, in a modest
+way, a public character without any of those who knew him in his new
+career suspecting that he had once worn a dress liberally ornamented
+with the broad arrow. Fine copy, excellent copy: some of the morning
+newspapers made a couple of columns of it.
+
+But the _Watchman_, up to then easily ahead of all its contemporaries
+in keeping the public informed of all the latest news in connection
+with the Marbury affair, contented itself with a brief announcement.
+For after Rathbury had left him, Spargo had sought his proprietor and
+his editor, and had sat long in consultation with them, and the result
+of their talk had been that all the _Watchman_ thought fit to tell its
+readers next morning was contained in a curt paragraph:
+
+“We understand that Mr. Stephen Aylmore, M.P., who is charged with the
+murder of John Marbury, or Maitland, in the Temple on June 21st last,
+was yesterday afternoon identified by certain officials as Stephen
+Ainsworth, who was sentenced to a term of penal servitude in connection
+with the Hearth and Home Mutual Benefit Society funds nearly thirty
+years ago.”
+
+Coming down to Fleet Street that morning, Spargo, strolling jauntily
+along the front of the Law Courts, encountered a fellow-journalist, a
+man on an opposition newspaper, who grinned at him in a fashion which
+indicated derision.
+
+“Left behind a bit, that rag of yours, this morning, Spargo, my boy!”
+he remarked elegantly. “Why, you’ve missed one of the finest
+opportunities I ever heard of in connection with that Aylmore affair. A
+miserable paragraph!—why, I worked off a column and a half in ours!
+What were you doing last night, old man?”
+
+“Sleeping,” said Spargo and went by with a nod. “Sleeping!”
+
+He left the other staring at him, and crossed the road to Middle Temple
+Lane. It was just on the stroke of eleven as he walked up the stairs to
+Mr. Elphick’s chambers; precisely eleven as he knocked at the outer
+door. It is seldom that outer doors are closed in the Temple at that
+hour, but Elphick’s door was closed fast enough. The night before it
+had been promptly opened, but there was no response to Spargo’s first
+knock, nor to his second, nor to his third. And half-unconsciously he
+murmured aloud: “Elphick’s door is closed!”
+
+It never occurred to Spargo to knock again: instinct told him that
+Elphick’s door was closed because Elphick was not there; closed because
+Elphick was not going to keep the appointment. He turned and walked
+slowly back along the corridor. And just as he reached the head of the
+stairs Ronald Breton, pale and anxious, came running up them, and at
+sight of Spargo paused, staring questioningly at him. As if with a
+mutual sympathy the two young men shook hands.
+
+“I’m glad you didn’t print more than those two or three lines in the
+_Watchman_ this morning,” said Breton. “It was—considerate. As for the
+other papers!—Aylmore assured me last night, Spargo, that though he did
+serve that term at Dartmoor he was innocent enough! He was scapegoat
+for another man who disappeared.”
+
+Then, as Spargo merely nodded, he added, awkwardly:
+
+“And I’m obliged to you, too, old chap, for sending that wire to the
+two girls last night—it was good of you. They want all the comfort they
+can get, poor things! But—what are you doing here, Spargo?”
+
+Spargo leant against the head of the stairs and folded his hands.
+
+“I came here,” he said, “to keep an appointment with Mr. Elphick—an
+appointment which he made when I called on him, as you suggested, at
+nine o’clock. The appointment—a most important one—was for eleven
+o’clock.”
+
+Breton glanced at his watch.
+
+“Come on, then,” he said. “It’s well past that now, and my guardian’s a
+very martinet in the matter of punctuality.”
+
+But Spargo did not move. Instead, he shook his head, regarding Breton
+with troubled eyes.
+
+“So am I,” he answered. “I was trained to it. Your guardian isn’t
+there, Breton.”
+
+“Not there? If he made an appointment for eleven? Nonsense—I never knew
+him miss an appointment!”
+
+“I knocked three times—three separate times,” answered Spargo.
+
+“You should have knocked half a dozen times—he may have overslept
+himself. He sits up late—he and old Cardlestone often sit up half the
+night, talking stamps or playing piquet,” said Breton. “Come on—you’ll
+see!”
+
+Spargo shook his head again.
+
+“He’s not there, Breton,” he said. “He’s gone!”
+
+Breton stared at the journalist as if he had just announced that he had
+seen Mr. Septimus Elphick riding down Fleet Street on a dromedary. He
+seized Spargo’s elbow.
+
+“Come on!” he said. “I have a key to Mr. Elphick’s door, so that I can
+go in and out as I like. I’ll soon show you whether he’s gone or not.”
+
+Spargo followed the young barrister down the corridor.
+
+“All the same,” he said meditatively as Breton fitted a key to the
+latch, “he’s not there, Breton. He’s—off!”
+
+“Good heavens, man, I don’t know what you’re talking about!” exclaimed
+Breton, opening the door and walking into the lobby. “Off! Where on
+earth should he be off to, when he’s made an appointment with you for
+eleven, and—Hullo!”
+
+He had opened the door of the room in which Spargo had met Elphick and
+Miss Baylis the night before, and was walking in when he pulled himself
+up on the threshold with a sharp exclamation.
+
+“Good God!” he cried. “What—what’s all this?”
+
+Spargo quietly looked over Breton’s shoulder. It needed but one quick
+glance to show him that much had happened in that quiet room since he
+had quitted it the night before. There stood the easy-chair in which he
+had left Elphick; there, close by it, but pushed aside, as if by a
+hurried hand, was the little table with its spirit case, its syphon,
+its glass, in which stale liquid still stood; there was the novel,
+turned face downwards; there, upon the novel, was Elphick’s pipe. But
+the rest of the room was in dire confusion. The drawers of a bureau had
+been pulled open and never put back; papers of all descriptions, old
+legal-looking documents, old letters, littered the centre-table and the
+floor; in one corner of the room a black japanned box had been opened,
+its contents strewn about, and the lid left yawning. And in the grate,
+and all over the fender there were masses of burned and charred paper;
+it was only too evident that the occupant of the chambers, wherever he
+might have disappeared to, had spent some time before his disappearance
+in destroying a considerable heap of documents and papers, and in such
+haste that he had not troubled to put matters straight before he went.
+
+Breton stared at this scene for a moment in utter consternation. Then
+he made one step towards an inner door, and Spargo followed him.
+Together they entered an inner room—a sleeping apartment. There was no
+one in it, but there were evidences that Elphick had just as hastily
+packed a bag as he had destroyed his papers. The clothes which Spargo
+had seen him wearing the previous evening were flung here, there,
+everywhere: the gorgeous smoking-jacket was tossed unceremoniously in
+one corner, a dress-shirt, in the bosom of which valuable studs still
+glistened, in another. One or two suitcases lay about, as if they had
+been examined and discarded in favour of something more portable; here,
+too, drawers, revealing stocks of linen and underclothing, had been
+torn open and left open; open, too, swung the door of a wardrobe,
+revealing a quantity of expensive clothing. And Spargo, looking around
+him, seemed to see all that had happened—the hasty, almost frantic
+search for and tearing up and burning of papers; the hurried change of
+clothing, of packing necessaries into a bag that could be carried, and
+then the flight the getting away, the——
+
+“What on earth does all this mean?” exclaimed Breton. “What is it,
+Spargo?”
+
+“I mean exactly what I told you,” answered Spargo. “He’s off! Off!”
+
+“Off! But why off? What—my guardian!—as quiet an old gentleman as there
+is in the Temple—off!” cried Breton. “For what reason, eh? It
+isn’t—good God, Spargo, it isn’t because of anything you said to him
+last night!”
+
+“I should say it is precisely because of something that I said to him
+last night,” replied Spargo. “I was a fool ever to let him out of my
+sight.”
+
+Breton turned on his companion and gasped.
+
+“Out—of—your—sight!” he exclaimed. “Why—why—you don’t mean to say that
+Mr. Elphick has anything to do with this Marbury affair? For God’s
+sake, Spargo——”
+
+Spargo laid a hand on the young barrister’s shoulder.
+
+“I’m afraid you’ll have to hear a good deal, Breton,” he said. “I was
+going to talk to you today in any case. You see——”
+
+Before Spargo could say more a woman, bearing the implements which
+denote the charwoman’s profession, entered the room and immediately
+cried out at what she saw. Breton turned on her almost savagely.
+
+“Here, you!” he said. “Have you seen anything of Mr. Elphick this
+morning?”
+
+The charwoman rolled her eyes and lifted her hands.
+
+“Me, sir! Not a sign of him, sir. Which I never comes here much before
+half-past eleven, sir, Mr. Elphick being then gone out to his
+breakfast. I see him yesterday morning, sir, which he was then in his
+usual state of good health, sir, if any thing’s the matter with him
+now. No, sir, I ain’t seen nothing of him.”
+
+Breton let out another exclamation of impatience.
+
+“You’d better leave all this,” he said. “Mr. Elphick’s evidently gone
+away in a hurry, and you mustn’t touch anything here until he comes
+back. I’m going to lock up the chambers: if you’ve a key of them give
+it to me.”
+
+The charwoman handed over a key, gave another astonished look at the
+rooms, and vanished, muttering, and Breton turned to Spargo.
+
+“What do you say?” he demanded. “I must hear—a good deal! Out with it,
+then, man, for Heaven’s sake.”
+
+But Spargo shook his head.
+
+“Not now, Breton,” he answered. “Presently, I tell you, for Miss
+Aylmore’s sake, and your own, the first thing to do is to get on your
+guardian’s track. We must—must, I say!—and at once.”
+
+Breton stood staring at Spargo for a moment as if he could not credit
+his own senses. Then he suddenly motioned Spargo out of the room.
+
+“Come on!” he said. “I know who’ll know where he is, if anybody does.”
+
+“Who, then?” asked Spargo, as they hurried out.
+
+“Cardlestone,” answered Breton, grimly. “Cardlestone!”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THIRTY
+REVELATION
+
+
+There was as much bright sunshine that morning in Middle Temple Lane as
+ever manages to get into it, and some of it was shining in the entry
+into which Spargo and Breton presently hurried. Full of haste as he was
+Breton paused at the foot of the stair. He looked down at the floor and
+at the wall at its side.
+
+“Wasn’t it there?” he said in a low voice, pointing at the place he
+looked at. “Wasn’t it there, Spargo, just there, that Marbury, or,
+rather, Maitland, was found?”
+
+“It was just there,” answered Spargo.
+
+“You saw him?”
+
+“I saw him.”
+
+“Soon—afterwards?”
+
+“Immediately after he was found. You know all that, Breton. Why do you
+ask now?”
+
+Breton, who was still staring at the place on which he had fixed his
+eyes on walking into the entry, shook his head.
+
+“Don’t know,” he answered. “I—but come on—let’s see if old Cardlestone
+can tell us anything.”
+
+There was another charwoman, armed with pails and buckets, outside
+Cardlestone’s door, into which she was just fitting a key. It was
+evident to Spargo that she knew Breton, for she smiled at him as she
+opened the door.
+
+“I don’t think Mr. Cardlestone’ll be in, sir,” she said. “He’s
+generally gone out to breakfast at this time—him and Mr. Elphick goes
+together.”
+
+“Just see,” said Breton. “I want to see him if he is in.” The charwoman
+entered the chambers and immediately screamed.
+
+“Quite so,” remarked Spargo. “That’s what I expected to hear.
+Cardlestone, you see, Breton, is also—off!”
+
+Breton made no reply. He rushed after the charwoman, with Spargo in
+close attendance.
+
+“Good God—another!” groaned Breton.
+
+If the confusion in Elphick’s rooms had been bad, that in Cardlestone’s
+chambers was worse. Here again all the features of the previous scene
+were repeated—drawers had been torn open, papers thrown about; the
+hearth was choked with light ashes; everything was at sixes and sevens.
+An open door leading into an inner room showed that Cardlestone, like
+Elphick, had hastily packed a bag; like Elphick had changed his
+clothes, and had thrown his discarded garments anywhere, into any
+corner. Spargo began to realize what had taken place—Elphick, having
+made his own preparations for flight, had come to Cardlestone, and had
+expedited him, and they had fled together. But—why?
+
+The charwoman sat down in the nearest chair and began to moan and sob;
+Breton strode forward, across the heaps of papers and miscellaneous
+objects tossed aside in that hurried search and clearing up, into the
+inner room. And Spargo, looking about him, suddenly caught sight of
+something lying on the floor at which he made a sharp clutch. He had
+just secured it and hurried it into his pocket when Breton came back.
+
+“I don’t know what all this means, Spargo,” he said, almost wearily. “I
+suppose you do. Look here,” he went on, turning to the charwoman, “stop
+that row—that’ll do no good, you know. I suppose Mr. Cardlestone’s gone
+away in a hurry. You’d better—what had she better do, Spargo?”
+
+“Leave things exactly as they are, lock up the chambers, and as you’re
+a friend of Mr. Cardlestone’s give you the key,” answered Spargo, with
+a significant glance. “Do that, now, and let’s go—I’ve something to
+do.”
+
+Once outside, with the startled charwoman gone away, Spargo turned to
+Breton.
+
+“I’ll tell you all I know, presently, Breton,” he said. “In the
+meantime, I want to find out if the lodge porter saw Mr. Elphick or Mr.
+Cardlestone leave. I must know where they’ve gone—if I can only find
+out. I don’t suppose they went on foot.”
+
+“All right,” responded Breton, gloomily. “We’ll go and ask. But this is
+all beyond me. You don’t mean to say——”
+
+“Wait a while,” answered Spargo. “One thing at once,” he continued, as
+they walked up Middle Temple Lane. “This is the first thing. You ask
+the porter if he’s seen anything of either of them—he knows you.”
+
+The porter, duly interrogated, responded with alacrity.
+
+“Anything of Mr. Elphick this morning, Mr. Breton?” he answered.
+“Certainly, sir. I got a taxi for Mr. Elphick and Mr. Cardlestone early
+this morning—soon after seven. Mr. Elphick said they were going to
+Paris, and they’d breakfast at Charing Cross before the train left.”
+
+“Say when they’d be back?” asked Breton, with an assumption of entire
+carelessness.
+
+“No, sir, Mr. Elphick didn’t,” answered the porter. “But I should say
+they wouldn’t be long because they’d only got small suit-cases with
+them—such as they’d put a day or two’s things in, sir.”
+
+“All right,” said Breton. He turned away towards Spargo who had already
+moved off. “What next?” he asked. “Charing Cross, I suppose!”
+
+Spargo smiled and shook his head.
+
+“No,” he answered. “I’ve no use for Charing Cross. They haven’t gone to
+Paris. That was all a blind. For the present let’s go back to your
+chambers. Then I’ll talk to you.”
+
+Once within Breton’s inner room, with the door closed upon them, Spargo
+dropped into an easy-chair and looked at the young barrister with
+earnest attention.
+
+“Breton!” he said. “I believe we’re coming in sight of land. You want
+to save your prospective father-in-law, don’t you?”
+
+“Of course!” growled Breton. “That goes without saying. But——”
+
+“But you may have to make some sacrifices in order to do it,” said
+Spargo. “You see——”
+
+“Sacrifices!” exclaimed Breton. “What——”
+
+“You may have to sacrifice some ideas—you may find that you’ll not be
+able to think as well of some people in the future as you have thought
+of them in the past. For instance—Mr. Elphick.”
+
+Breton’s face grew dark.
+
+“Speak plainly, Spargo!” he said. “It’s best with me.”
+
+“Very well,” replied Spargo. “Mr. Elphick, then, is in some way
+connected with this affair.”
+
+“You mean the—murder?”
+
+“I mean the murder. So is Cardlestone. Of that I’m now dead certain.
+And that’s why they’re off. I startled Elphick last night. It’s evident
+that he immediately communicated with Cardlestone, and that they made a
+rapid exit. Why?”
+
+“Why? That’s what I’m asking you! Why? Why? Why?”
+
+“Because they’re afraid of something coming out. And being afraid,
+their first instinct is to—run. They’ve run at the first alarm.
+Foolish—but instinctive.”
+
+Breton, who had flung himself into the elbow-chair at his desk, jumped
+to his feet and thumped his blotting-pad.
+
+“Spargo!” he exclaimed. “Are you telling me that you accuse my guardian
+and his friend, Mr. Cardlestone, of being—murderers?”
+
+“Nothing of the sort. I am accusing Mr. Elphick and Mr. Cardlestone of
+knowing more about the murder than they care to tell or want to tell. I
+am also accusing them, and especially your guardian, of knowing all
+about Maitland, alias Marbury. I made him confess last night that he
+knew this dead man to be John Maitland.”
+
+“You did!”
+
+“I did. And now, Breton, since it’s got to come out, we’ll have the
+truth. Pull yourself together—get your nerves ready, for you’ll have to
+stand a shock or two. But I know what I’m talking about—I can prove
+every word I’m going to say to you. And first let me ask you a few
+questions. Do you know anything about your parentage?”
+
+“Nothing—beyond what Mr. Elphick has told me.”
+
+“And what was that?”
+
+“That my parents were old friends of his, who died young, leaving me
+unprovided for, and that he took me up and looked after me.”
+
+“And he’s never given you any documentary evidence of any sort to prove
+the truth of that story?”
+
+“Never! I never questioned his statement. Why should I?”
+
+“You never remember anything of your childhood—I mean of any person who
+was particularly near you in your childhood?”
+
+“I remember the people who brought me up from the time I was three
+years old. And I have just a faint, shadowy recollection of some woman,
+a tall, dark woman, I think, before that.”
+
+“Miss Baylis,” said Spargo to himself. “All right, Breton,” he went on
+aloud. “I’m going to tell you the truth. I’ll tell it to you straight
+out and give you all the explanations afterwards. Your real name is not
+Breton at all. Your real name is Maitland, and you’re the only child of
+the man who was found murdered at the foot of Cardlestone’s staircase!”
+
+Spargo had been wondering how Breton would take this, and he gazed at
+him with some anxiety as he got out the last words. What would he
+do?—what would he say?—what——
+
+Breton sat down quietly at his desk and looked Spargo hard between the
+eyes.
+
+“Prove that to me, Spargo,” he said, in hard, matter-of-fact tones.
+“Prove it to me, every word. Every word, Spargo!”
+
+Spargo nodded.
+
+“I will—every word,” he answered. “It’s the right thing. Listen, then.”
+
+It was a quarter to twelve, Spargo noticed, throwing a glance at the
+clock outside, as he began his story; it was past one when he brought
+it to an end. And all that time Breton listened with the keenest
+attention, only asking a question now and then; now and then making a
+brief note on a sheet of paper which he had drawn to him.
+
+“That’s all,” said Spargo at last.
+
+“It’s plenty,” observed Breton laconically.
+
+He sat staring at his notes for a moment; then he looked up at Spargo.
+“What do you really think?” he asked.
+
+“About—what?” said Spargo.
+
+“This flight of Elphick’s and Cardlestone’s.”
+
+“I think, as I said, that they knew something which they think may be
+forced upon them. I never saw a man in a greater fright than that I saw
+Elphick in last night. And it’s evident that Cardlestone shares in that
+fright, or they wouldn’t have gone off in this way together.”
+
+“Do you think they know anything of the actual murder?”
+
+Spargo shook his head.
+
+“I don’t know. Probably. They know something. And—look here!”
+
+Spargo put his hand in his breast pocket and drew something out which
+he handed to Breton, who gazed at it curiously.
+
+“What’s this?” he demanded. “Stamps?”
+
+“That, from the description of Criedir, the stamp-dealer, is a sheet of
+those rare Australian stamps which Maitland had on him—carried on him.
+I picked it up just now in Cardlestone’s room, when you were looking
+into his bedroom.”
+
+“But that, after all, proves nothing. Those mayn’t be the identical
+stamps. And whether they are or not——”
+
+“What are the probabilities?” interrupted Spargo sharply. “I believe
+that those are the stamps which Maitland—your father!—had on him, and I
+want to know how they came to be in Cardlestone’s rooms. And I will
+know.”
+
+Breton handed the stamps back.
+
+“But the general thing, Spargo?” he said. “If they didn’t murder—I
+can’t realize the thing yet!—my father——”
+
+“If they didn’t murder your father, they know who did!” exclaimed
+Spargo. “Now, then, it’s time for more action. Let Elphick and
+Cardlestone alone for the moment—they’ll be tracked easily enough. I
+want to tackle something else for the moment. How do you get an
+authority from the Government to open a grave?”
+
+“Order from the Home Secretary, which will have to be obtained by
+showing the very strongest reasons why it should be made.”
+
+“Good! We’ll give the reasons. I want to have a grave opened.”
+
+“A grave opened! Whose grave?”
+
+“The grave of the man Chamberlayne at Market Milcaster,” replied
+Spargo.
+
+Breton started.
+
+“His? In Heaven’s name, why?” he demanded.
+
+Spargo laughed as he got up.
+
+“Because I believe it’s empty,” he answered. “Because I believe that
+Chamberlayne is alive, and that his other name is—Cardlestone!”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
+THE PENITENT WINDOW-CLEANER
+
+
+That afternoon Spargo had another of his momentous interviews with his
+proprietor and his editor. The first result was that all three drove to
+the offices of the legal gentleman who catered for the _Watchman_ when
+it wanted any law, and that things were put in shape for an immediate
+application to the Home Office for permission to open the Chamberlayne
+grave at Market Milcaster; the second was that on the following morning
+there appeared in the _Watchman_ a notice which set half the mouths of
+London a-watering. That notice; penned by Spargo, ran as follows:—
+
+“ONE THOUSAND POUNDS REWARD.
+
+
+“WHEREAS, on some date within the past twelve months, there was stolen,
+abstracted, or taken from the chambers in Fountain Court, Temple,
+occupied by Mr. Stephen Aylmore, M.P., under the name of Mr. Anderson,
+a walking-stick, or stout staff, of foreign make, and of curious
+workmanship, which stick was probably used in the murder of John
+Marbury, or Maitland, in Middle Temple Lane, on the night of June 21–22
+last, and is now in the hands of the police:
+    “This is to give notice that the Proprietor of the _Watchman_
+    newspaper will pay the above-mentioned reward (ONE THOUSAND POUNDS
+    STERLING) at once and in cash to whosoever will prove that he or
+    she stole, abstracted, or took away the said stick from the said
+    chambers, and will further give full information as to his or her
+    disposal of the same, and the Proprietor of the _Watchman_ moreover
+    engages to treat any revelation affecting the said stick in the
+    most strictly private and confidential manner, and to abstain from
+    using it in any way detrimental to the informant, who should call
+    at the _Watchman_ office, and ask for Mr. Frank Spargo at any time
+    between eleven and one o’clock midday, and seven and eleven o’clock
+    in the evening.”
+
+
+“And you really expect to get some information through that?” asked
+Breton, who came into Spargo’s room about noon on the day on which the
+promising announcement came out. “You really do?”
+
+“Before today is out,” said Spargo confidently. “There is more magic in
+a thousand-pound reward than you fancy, Breton. I’ll have the history
+of that stick before midnight.”
+
+“How are you to tell that you won’t be imposed upon?” suggested Breton.
+“Anybody can say that he or she stole the stick.”
+
+“Whoever comes here with any tale of a stick will have to prove to me
+how he or she got the stick and what was done with the stick,” said
+Spargo. “I haven’t the least doubt that that stick was stolen or taken
+away from Aylmore’s rooms in Fountain Court, and that it got into the
+hands of—”
+
+“Yes, of whom?”
+
+“That’s what I want to know in some fashion. I’ve an idea, already. But
+I can afford to wait for definite information. I know one thing—when I
+get that information—as I shall—we shall be a long way on the road
+towards establishing Aylmore’s innocence.”
+
+Breton made no remark upon this. He was looking at Spargo with a
+meditative expression.
+
+“Spargo,” he said, suddenly, “do you think you’ll get that order for
+the opening of the grave at Market Milcaster?”
+
+“I was talking to the solicitors over the ’phone just now,” answered
+Spargo. “They’ve every confidence about it. In fact, it’s possible it
+may be made this afternoon. In that case, the opening will be made
+early tomorrow morning.”
+
+“Shall you go?” asked Breton.
+
+“Certainly. And you can go with me, if you like. Better keep in touch
+with us all day in case we hear. You ought to be there—you’re
+concerned.”
+
+“I should like to go—I will go,” said Breton. “And if that grave proves
+to be—empty—I’ll—I’ll tell you something.”
+
+Spargo looked up with sharp instinct.
+
+“You’ll tell me something? Something? What?”
+
+“Never mind—wait until we see if that coffin contains a dead body or
+lead and sawdust. If there’s no body there——”
+
+At that moment one of the senior messenger boys came in and approached
+Spargo. His countenance, usually subdued to an official stolidity,
+showed signs of something very like excitement.
+
+“There’s a man downstairs asking for you, Mr. Spargo,” he said. “He’s
+been hanging about a bit, sir,—seems very shy about coming up. He won’t
+say what he wants, and he won’t fill up a form, sir. Says all he wants
+is a word or two with you.”
+
+“Bring him up at once!” commanded Spargo. He turned to Breton when the
+boy had gone. “There!” he said, laughing. “This is the man about the
+stick—you see if it isn’t.”
+
+“You’re such a cock-sure chap, Spargo,” said Breton. “You’re always
+going on a straight line.”
+
+“Trying to, you mean,” retorted Spargo. “Well, stop here, and hear what
+this chap has to say: it’ll no doubt be amusing.”
+
+The messenger boy, deeply conscious that he was ushering into Spargo’s
+room an individual who might shortly carry away a thousand pounds of
+good _Watchman_ money in his pocket, opened the door and introduced a
+shy and self-conscious young man, whose nervousness was painfully
+apparent to everybody and deeply felt by himself. He halted on the
+threshold, looking round the comfortably-furnished room, and at the two
+well-dressed young men which it framed as if he feared to enter on a
+scene of such grandeur.
+
+“Come in, come in!” said Spargo, rising and pointing to an easy-chair
+at the side of his desk. “Take a seat. You’ve called about that reward,
+of course.”
+
+The man in the chair eyed the two of them cautiously, and not without
+suspicion. He cleared his throat with a palpable effort.
+
+“Of course,” he said. “It’s all on the strict private. Name of Edward
+Mollison, sir.”
+
+“And where do you live, and what do you do?” asked Spargo.
+
+“You might put it down Rowton House, Whitechapel,” answered Edward
+Mollison. “Leastways, that’s where I generally hang out when I can
+afford it. And—window-cleaner. Leastways, I was window cleaning
+when—when——”
+
+“When you came in contact with the stick we’ve been advertising about,”
+suggested Spargo. “Just so. Well, Mollison—what about the stick?”
+
+Mollison looked round at the door, and then at the windows, and then at
+Breton.
+
+“There ain’t no danger of me being got into trouble along of that
+stick?” he asked. “’Cause if there is, I ain’t a-going to say a
+word—no, not for no thousand pounds! Me never having been in no trouble
+of any sort, guv’nor—though a poor man.”
+
+“Not the slightest danger in the world, Mollison,” replied Spargo. “Not
+the least. All you’ve got to do is to tell the truth—and prove that it
+is the truth. So it was you who took that queer-looking stick out of
+Mr. Aylmore’s rooms in Fountain Court, was it?”
+
+Mollison appeared to find this direct question soothing to his
+feelings. He smiled weakly.
+
+“It was cert’nly me as took it, sir,” he said. “Not that I meant to
+pinch it—not me! And, as you might say, I didn’t take it, when all’s
+said and done. It was—put on me.”
+
+“Put on you, was it?” said Spargo. “That’s interesting. And how was it
+put on you?”
+
+Mollison grinned again and rubbed his chin.
+
+“It was this here way,” he answered. “You see, I was working at that
+time—near on to nine months since, it is—for the Universal Daylight
+Window Cleaning Company, and I used to clean a many windows here and
+there in the Temple, and them windows at Mr. Aylmore’s—only I knew them
+as Mr. Anderson’s—among ’em. And I was there one morning, early it was,
+when the charwoman she says to me, ‘I wish you’d take these two or
+three hearthrugs,’ she says, ‘and give ’em a good beating,’ she says.
+And me being always a ready one to oblige, ‘All right!’ I says, and
+takes ’em. ‘Here’s something to wallop ’em with,’ she says, and pulls
+that there old stick out of a lot that was in a stand in a corner of
+the lobby. And that’s how I came to handle it, sir.”
+
+“I see,” said Spargo. “A good explanation. And when you had beaten the
+hearthrugs—what then?”
+
+Mollison smiled his weak smile again.
+
+“Well, sir, I looked at that there stick and I see it was something
+uncommon,” he answered. “And I thinks—‘Well, this Mr. Anderson, he’s
+got a bundle of sticks and walking canes up there—he’ll never miss this
+old thing,’ I thinks. And so I left it in a corner when I’d done
+beating the rugs, and when I went away with my things I took it with
+me.”
+
+“You took it with you?” said Spargo. “Just so. To keep as a curiosity,
+I suppose?”
+
+Mollison’s weak smile turned to one of cunning. He was obviously losing
+his nervousness; the sound of his own voice and the reception of his
+news was imparting confidence to him.
+
+“Not half!” he answered. “You see, guv’nor, there was an old cove as I
+knew in the Temple there as is, or was, ’cause I ain’t been there
+since, a collector of antikities, like, and I’d sold him a queer old
+thing, time and again. And, of course, I had him in my eye when I took
+the stick away—see?”
+
+“I see. And you took the stick to him?”
+
+“I took it there and then,” replied Mollison. “Pitched him a tale, I
+did, about it having been brought from foreign parts by Uncle
+Simon—which I never had no Uncle Simon. Made out it was a rare
+curiosity—which it might ha’ been one, for all I know.”
+
+“Exactly. And the old cove took a fancy to it, eh?”
+
+“Bought it there and then,” answered Mollison, with something very like
+a wink.
+
+“Ah! Bought it there and then. And how much did he give you for it?”
+asked Spargo. “Something handsome, I hope?”
+
+“Couple o’ quid,” replied Mollison. “Me not wishing to part with a
+family heirloom for less.”
+
+“Just so. And do you happen to be able to tell me the old cove’s name
+and his address, Mollison?” asked Spargo.
+
+“I do, sir. Which they’ve painted on his entry—the fifth or sixth as
+you go down Middle Temple Lane,” answered Mollison. “Mr. Nicholas
+Cardlestone, first floor up the staircase.”
+
+Spargo rose from his seat without as much as a look at Breton.
+
+“Come this way, Mollison,” he said. “We’ll go and see about your little
+reward. Excuse me, Breton.”
+
+Breton kicked his heels in solitude for half an hour. Then Spargo came
+back.
+
+“There—that’s one matter settled, Breton,” he said. “Now for the next.
+The Home Secretary’s made the order for the opening of the grave at
+Market Milcaster. I’m going down there at once, and I suppose you’re
+coming. And remember, if that grave’s empty——”
+
+“If that grave’s empty,” said Breton, “I’ll tell you—a good deal.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
+THE CONTENTS OF THE COFFIN
+
+
+There travelled down together to Market Milcaster late that afternoon,
+Spargo, Breton, the officials from the Home Office, entrusted with the
+order for the opening of the Chamberlayne grave, and a solicitor acting
+on behalf of the proprietor of the _Watchman_. It was late in the
+evening when they reached the little town, but Spargo, having looked in
+at the parlour of the “Yellow Dragon” and ascertained that Mr.
+Quarterpage had only just gone home, took Breton across the street to
+the old gentleman’s house. Mr. Quarterpage himself came to the door,
+and recognized Spargo immediately. Nothing would satisfy him but that
+the two should go in; his family, he said, had just retired, but he
+himself was going to take a final nightcap and a cigar, and they must
+share it.
+
+“For a few minutes only then, Mr. Quarterpage,” said Spargo as they
+followed the old man into his dining-room. “We have to be up at
+daybreak. And—possibly—you, too, would like to be up just as early.”
+
+Mr. Quarterpage looked an enquiry over the top of a decanter which he
+was handling.
+
+“At daybreak?” he exclaimed.
+
+“The fact is,” said Spargo, “that grave of Chamberlayne’s is going to
+be opened at daybreak. We have managed to get an order from the Home
+Secretary for the exhumation of Chamberlayne’s body: the officials in
+charge of it have come down in the same train with us; we’re all
+staying across there at the ‘Dragon.’ The officials have gone to make
+the proper arrangements with your authorities. It will be at daybreak,
+or as near it as can conveniently be managed. And I suppose, now that
+you know of it, you’ll be there?”
+
+“God bless me!” exclaimed Mr. Quarterpage. “You’ve really done that!
+Well, well, so we shall know the truth at last, after all these years.
+You’re a very wonderful young man, Mr. Spargo, upon my word. And this
+other young gentleman?”
+
+Spargo looked at Breton, who had already given him permission to speak.
+“Mr. Quarterpage,” he said, “this young gentleman is, without doubt,
+John Maitland’s son. He’s the young barrister, Mr. Ronald Breton, that
+I told you of, but there’s no doubt about his parentage. And I’m sure
+you’ll shake hands with him and wish him well.”
+
+Mr. Quarterpage set down decanter and glass and hastened to give Breton
+his hand.
+
+“My dear young sir!” he exclaimed. “That I will indeed! And as to
+wishing you well—ah, I never wished anything but well to your poor
+father. He was led away, sir, led away by Chamberlayne. God bless me,
+what a night of surprises! Why, Mr. Spargo, supposing that coffin is
+found empty—what then?”
+
+“Then,” answered Spargo, “then I think we shall be able to put our
+hands on the man who is supposed to be in it.”
+
+“You think my father was worked upon by this man Chamberlayne, sir?”
+observed Breton a few minutes later when they had all sat down round
+Mr. Quarterpage’s hospitable hearth. “You think he was unduly
+influenced by him?”
+
+Mr. Quarterpage shook his head sadly.
+
+“Chamberlayne, my dear young sir,” he answered. “Chamberlayne was a
+plausible and a clever fellow. Nobody knew anything about him until he
+came to this town, and yet before he had been here very long he had
+contrived to ingratiate himself with everybody—of course, to his own
+advantage. I firmly believe that he twisted your father round his
+little finger. As I told Mr. Spargo there when he was making his
+enquiries of me a short while back, it would never have been any
+surprise to me to hear—definitely, I mean, young gentlemen—that all
+this money that was in question went into Chamberlayne’s pockets. Dear
+me—dear me!—and you really believe that Chamberlayne is actually alive,
+Mr. Spargo?”
+
+Spargo pulled out his watch. “We shall all know whether he was buried
+in that grave before another six hours are over, Mr. Quarterpage,” he
+said.
+
+He might well have spoken of four hours instead of six, for it was then
+nearly midnight, and before three o’clock Spargo and Breton, with the
+other men who had accompanied them from London were out of the “Yellow
+Dragon” and on their way to the cemetery just outside the little town.
+Over the hills to the eastward the grey dawn was slowly breaking: the
+long stretch of marshland which lies between Market Milcaster and the
+sea was white with fog: on the cypresses and acacias of the cemetery
+hung veils and webs of gossamer: everything around them was quiet as
+the dead folk who lay beneath their feet. And the people actively
+concerned went quietly to work, and those who could do nothing but
+watch stood around in silence.
+
+“In all my long life of over ninety years,” whispered old Quarterpage,
+who had met them at the cemetery gates, looking fresh and brisk in
+spite of his shortened rest, “I have never seen this done before. It
+seems a strange, strange thing to interfere with a dead man’s last
+resting-place—a dreadful thing.”
+
+“If there is a dead man there,” said Spargo.
+
+He himself was mainly curious about the details of this exhumation; he
+had no scruples, sentimental or otherwise, about the breaking in upon
+the dead. He watched all that was done. The men employed by the local
+authorities, instructed over-night, had fenced in the grave with
+canvas; the proceedings were accordingly conducted in strict privacy; a
+man was posted to keep away any very early passersby, who might be
+attracted by the unusual proceedings. At first there was nothing to do
+but wait, and Spargo occupied himself by reflecting that every spadeful
+of earth thrown out of that grave was bringing him nearer to the truth;
+he had an unconquerable intuition that the truth of at any rate one
+phase of the Marbury case was going to be revealed to them. If the
+coffin to which they were digging down contained a body, and that the
+body of the stockbroker, Chamberlayne, then a good deal of his,
+Spargo’s, latest theory, would be dissolved to nothingness. But if that
+coffin contained no body at all, then—”
+
+“They’re down to it!” whispered Breton.
+
+Presently they all went and looked down into the grave. The workmen had
+uncovered the coffin preparatory to lifting it to the surface; one of
+them was brushing the earth away from the name-plate. And in the now
+strong light they could all read the lettering on it.
+
+JAMES CARTWRIGHT CHAMBERLAYNE
+Born 1852
+Died 1891
+
+
+Spargo turned away as the men began to lift the coffin out of the
+grave.
+
+“We shall know now!” he whispered to Breton. “And yet—what is it we
+shall know if——”
+
+“If what?” said Breton. “If—what?”
+
+But Spargo shook his head. This was one of the great moments he had
+lately been working for, and the issues were tremendous.
+
+“Now for it!” said the _Watchman’s_ solicitor in an undertone. “Come,
+Mr. Spargo, now we shall see.”
+
+They all gathered round the coffin, set on low trestles at the
+graveside, as the workmen silently went to work on the screws. The
+screws were rusted in their sockets; they grated as the men slowly
+worked them out. It seemed to Spargo that each man grew slower and
+slower in his movements; he felt that he himself was getting fidgety.
+Then he heard a voice of authority.
+
+“Lift the lid off!”
+
+A man at the head of the coffin, a man at the foot suddenly and swiftly
+raised the lid: the men gathered round craned their necks with a quick
+movement.
+
+Sawdust!
+
+The coffin was packed to the brim with sawdust, tightly pressed down.
+The surface lay smooth, undisturbed, levelled as some hand had levelled
+it long years before. They were not in the presence of death, but of
+deceit.
+
+Somebody laughed faintly. The sound of the laughter broke the spell.
+The chief official present looked round him with a smile.
+
+“It is evident that there were good grounds for suspicion,” he
+remarked. “Here is no dead body, gentlemen. See if anything lies
+beneath the sawdust,” he added, turning to the workmen. “Turn it out!”
+
+The workmen began to scoop out the sawdust with their hands; one of
+them, evidently desirous of making sure that no body was in the coffin,
+thrust down his fingers at various places along its length. He, too,
+laughed.
+
+“The coffin’s weighted with lead!” he remarked. “See!”
+
+And tearing the sawdust aside, he showed those around him that at three
+intervals bars of lead had been tightly wedged into the coffin where
+the head, the middle, and the feet of a corpse would have rested.
+
+“Done it cleverly,” he remarked, looking round. “You see how these
+weights have been adjusted. When a body’s laid out in a coffin, you
+know, all the weight’s in the end where the head and trunk rest. Here
+you see the heaviest bar of lead is in the middle; the lightest at the
+feet. Clever!”
+
+“Clear out all the sawdust,” said some one. “Let’s see if there’s
+anything else.”
+
+There was something else. At the bottom of the coffin two bundles of
+papers, tied up with pink tape. The legal gentlemen present immediately
+manifested great interest in these. So did Spargo, who, pulling Breton
+along with him, forced his way to where the officials from the Home
+Office and the solicitor sent by the _Watchman_ were hastily examining
+their discoveries.
+
+The first bundle of papers opened evidently related to transactions at
+Market Milcaster: Spargo caught glimpses of names that were familiar to
+him, Mr. Quarterpage’s amongst them. He was not at all astonished to
+see these things. But he was something more than astonished when, on
+the second parcel being opened, a quantity of papers relating to
+Cloudhampton and the Hearth and Home Mutual Benefit Society were
+revealed. He gave a hasty glance at these and drew Breton aside.
+
+“It strikes me we’ve found a good deal more than we ever bargained
+for!” he exclaimed. “Didn’t Aylmore say that the real culprit at
+Cloudhampton was another man—his clerk or something of that sort?”
+
+“He did,” agreed Breton. “He insists on it.”
+
+“Then this fellow Chamberlayne must have been the man,” said Spargo.
+“He came to Market Milcaster from the north. What’ll be done with those
+papers?” he asked, turning to the officials.
+
+“We are going to seal them up at once, and take them to London,”
+replied the principal person in authority. “They will be quite safe,
+Mr. Spargo; have no fear. We don’t know what they may reveal.”
+
+“You don’t, indeed!” said Spargo. “But I may as well tell you that I
+have a strong belief that they’ll reveal a good deal that nobody dreams
+of, so take the greatest care of them.”
+
+Then, without waiting for further talk with any one, Spargo hurried
+Breton out of the cemetery. At the gate, he seized him by the arm.
+
+“Now, then, Breton!” he commanded. “Out with it!”
+
+“With what?”
+
+“You promised to tell me something—a great deal, you said—if we found
+that coffin empty. It is empty. Come on—quick!”
+
+“All right. I believe I know where Elphick and Cardlestone can be
+found. That’s all.”
+
+“All! It’s enough. Where, then, in heaven’s name?”
+
+“Elphick has a queer little place where he and Cardlestone sometimes go
+fishing—right away up in one of the wildest parts of the Yorkshire
+moors. I expect they’ve gone there. Nobody knows even their names
+there—they could go and lie quiet there for—ages.”
+
+“Do you know the way to it?”
+
+“I do—I’ve been there.”
+
+Spargo motioned him to hurry.
+
+“Come on, then,” he said. “We’re going there by the very first train
+out of this. I know the train, too—we’ve just time to snatch a mouthful
+of breakfast and to send a wire to the _Watchman_, and then we’ll be
+off. Yorkshire!—Gad, Breton, that’s over three hundred miles away!”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
+FORESTALLED
+
+
+Travelling all that long summer day, first from the south-west of
+England to the Midlands, then from the Midlands to the north, Spargo
+and Breton came late at night to Hawes’ Junction, on the border of
+Yorkshire and Westmoreland, and saw rising all around them in the
+half-darkness the mighty bulks of the great fells which rise amongst
+that wild and lonely stretch of land. At that hour of the night and
+amidst that weird silence, broken only by the murmur of some adjacent
+waterfall the scene was impressive and suggestive; it seemed to Spargo
+as if London were a million miles away, and the rush and bustle of
+human life a thing of another planet. Here and there in the valleys he
+saw a light, but such lights were few and far between; even as he
+looked some of them twinkled and went out. It was evident that he and
+Breton were presently to be alone with the night.
+
+“How far?” he asked Breton as they walked away from the station.
+
+“We’d better discuss matters,” answered Breton. “The place is in a
+narrow valley called Fossdale, some six or seven miles away across
+these fells, and as wild a walk as any lover of such things could wish
+for. It’s half-past nine now, Spargo: I reckon it will take us a good
+two and a half hours, if not more, to do it. Now, the question is—Do we
+go straight there, or do we put up for the night? There’s an inn here
+at this junction: there’s the Moor Cock Inn a mile or so along the road
+which we must take before we turn off to the moorland and the fells.
+It’s going to be a black night—look at those masses of black cloud
+gathering there!—and possibly a wet one, and we’ve no waterproofs. But
+it’s for you to say—I’m game for whatever you like.”
+
+“Do you know the way?” asked Spargo.
+
+“I’ve been the way. In the daytime I could go straight ahead. I
+remember all the landmarks. Even in the darkness I believe I can find
+my way. But it’s rough walking.”
+
+“We’ll go straight there,” said Spargo. “Every minute’s precious.
+But—can we get a mouthful of bread and cheese and a glass of ale
+first?”
+
+“Good idea! We’ll call in at the ‘Moor Cock.’ Now then, while we’re on
+this firm road, step it out lively.”
+
+The “Moor Cock” was almost deserted at that hour: there was scarcely a
+soul in it when the two travellers turned in to its dimly-lighted
+parlour. The landlord, bringing the desired refreshment, looked hard at
+Breton.
+
+“Come our way again then, sir?” he remarked with a sudden grin of
+recognition.
+
+“Ah, you remember me?” said Breton.
+
+“I call in mind when you came here with the two old gents last year,”
+replied the landlord. “I hear they’re here again—Tom Summers was coming
+across that way this morning, and said he’d seen ’em at the little
+cottage. Going to join ’em, I reckon, sir?”
+
+Breton kicked Spargo under the table.
+
+“Yes, we’re going to have a day or two with them,” he answered. “Just
+to get a breath of your moorland air.”
+
+“Well, you’ll have a roughish walk over there tonight, gentlemen,” said
+the landlord. “There’s going to be a storm. And it’s a stiffish way to
+make out at this time o’night.”
+
+“Oh, we’ll manage,” said Breton, nonchalantly. “I know the way, and
+we’re not afraid of a wet skin.”
+
+The landlord laughed, and sitting down on his long settle folded his
+arms and scratched his elbows.
+
+“There was a gentleman—London gentleman by his tongue—came in here this
+afternoon, and asked the way to Fossdale,” he observed. “He’ll be there
+long since—he’d have daylight for his walk. Happen he’s one of your
+party?—he asked where the old gentlemen’s little cottage was.”
+
+Again Spargo felt his shin kicked and made no sign. “One of their
+friends, perhaps,” answered Breton. “What was he like?”
+
+The landlord ruminated. He was not good at description and was
+conscious of the fact.
+
+“Well, a darkish, serious-faced gentleman,” he said. “Stranger
+hereabouts, at all events. Wore a grey suit—something like your
+friend’s there. Yes—he took some bread and cheese with him when he
+heard what a long way it was.”
+
+“Wise man,” remarked Breton. He hastily finished his own bread and
+cheese, and drank off the rest of his pint of ale. “Come on,” he said,
+“let’s be stepping.”
+
+Outside, in the almost tangible darkness, Breton clutched Spargo’s arm.
+“Who’s the man?” he said. “Can you think, Spargo?”
+
+“Can’t,” answered Spargo. “I was trying to, while that chap was
+talking. But—it’s somebody that’s got in before us. Not Rathbury,
+anyhow—he’s not serious-faced. Heavens, Breton, however are you going
+to find your way in this darkness?”
+
+“You’ll see presently. We follow the road a little. Then we turn up the
+fell side there. On the top, if the night clears a bit, we ought to see
+Great Shunnor Fell and Lovely Seat—they’re both well over two thousand
+feet, and they stand up well. We want to make for a point clear between
+them. But I warn you, Spargo, it’s stiff going!”
+
+“Go ahead!” said Spargo. “It’s the first time in my life I ever did
+anything of this sort, but we’re going on if it takes us all night. I
+couldn’t sleep in any bed now that I’ve heard there’s somebody ahead of
+us. Go first, old chap, and I’ll follow.”
+
+Breton went steadily forward along the road. That was easy work, but
+when he turned off and began to thread his way up the fell-side by what
+was obviously no more than a sheep-track, Spargo’s troubles began. It
+seemed to him that he was walking as in a nightmare; all that he saw
+was magnified and heightened; the darkening sky above; the faint
+outlines of the towering hills; the gaunt spectres of fir and pine; the
+figure of Breton forging stolidly and surely ahead. Now the ground was
+soft and spongy under his feet; now it was stony and rugged; more than
+once he caught an ankle in the wire-like heather and tripped, bruising
+his knees. And in the end he resigned himself to keeping his eye on
+Breton, outlined against the sky, and following doggedly in his
+footsteps.
+
+“Was there no other way than this?” he asked after a long interval of
+silence. “Do you mean to say those two—Elphick and Cardlestone—would
+take this way?”
+
+“There is another way—down the valley, by Thwaite Bridge and Hardraw,”
+answered Breton, “but it’s miles and miles round. This is a straight
+cut across country, and in daylight it’s a delightful walk. But at
+night—Gad!—here’s the rain, Spargo!”
+
+The rain came down as it does in that part of the world, with a
+suddenness that was as fierce as it was heavy. The whole of the grey
+night was blotted out; Spargo was only conscious that he stood in a
+vast solitude and was being gradually drowned. But Breton, whose sight
+was keener, and who had more knowledge of the situation dragged his
+companion into the shelter of a group of rocks. He laughed a little as
+they huddled closely together.
+
+“This is a different sort of thing to pursuing detective work in Fleet
+Street, Spargo,” he said. “You would come on, you know.”
+
+“I’m going on if we go through cataracts and floods,” answered Spargo.
+“I might have been induced to stop at the ‘Moor Cock’ overnight if we
+hadn’t heard of that chap in front. If he’s after those two he’s
+somebody who knows something. What I can’t make out is—who he can be.”
+
+“Nor I,” said Breton. “I can’t think of anybody who knows of this
+retreat. But—has it ever struck you, Spargo, that somebody beside
+yourself may have been investigating?”
+
+“Possible,” replied Spargo. “One never knows. I only wish we’d been a
+few hours earlier. For I wanted to have the first word with those two.”
+
+The rain ceased as suddenly as it had come. Just as suddenly the
+heavens cleared. And going forward to the top of the ridge which they
+were then crossing, Breton pointed an arm to something shining far away
+below them.
+
+“You see that?” he said. “That’s a sheet of water lying between us and
+Cotterdale. We leave that on our right hand, climb the fell beyond it,
+drop down into Cotterdale, cross two more ranges of fell, and come down
+into Fossdale under Lovely Seat. There’s a good two hours and a half
+stiff pull yet, Spargo. Think you can stick it?”
+
+Spargo set his teeth.
+
+“Go on!” he said.
+
+Up hill, down dale, now up to his ankles in peaty ground, now tearing
+his shins, now bruising his knees, Spargo, yearning for the London
+lights, the well-paved London streets, the convenient taxi-cab, even
+the humble omnibus, plodded forward after his guide. It seemed to him
+that they had walked for ages and had traversed a whole continent of
+mountains and valley when at last Breton, halting on the summit of a
+wind-swept ridge, laid one hand on his companion’s shoulder and pointed
+downward with the other.
+
+“There!” he said. “There!”
+
+Spargo looked ahead into the night. Far away, at what seemed to him to
+be a considerable distance, he saw the faint, very faint glimmer of a
+light—a mere spark of a light.
+
+“That’s the cottage,” said Breton, “Late as it is, you see, they’re up.
+And here’s the roughest bit of the journey. It’ll take me all my time
+to find the track across this moor, Spargo, so step carefully after
+me—there are bogs and holes hereabouts.”
+
+Another hour had gone by ere the two came to the cottage. Sometimes the
+guiding light had vanished, blotted out by intervening rises in the
+ground; always, when they saw it again, they were slowly drawing nearer
+to it. And now when they were at last close to it, Spargo realized that
+he found himself in one of the loneliest places he had ever been
+capable of imagining—so lonely and desolate a spot he had certainly
+never seen. In the dim light he could see a narrow, crawling stream,
+making its way down over rocks and stones from the high ground of Great
+Shunnor Fell. Opposite to the place at which they stood, on the edge of
+the moorland, a horseshoe like formation of ground was backed by a ring
+of fir and pine; beneath this protecting fringe of trees stood a small
+building of grey stone which looked as if it had been originally built
+by some shepherd as a pen for the moorland sheep. It was of no more
+than one storey in height, but of some length; a considerable part of
+it was hidden by shrubs and brushwood. And from one uncurtained,
+blindless window the light of a lamp shone boldly into the fading
+darkness without.
+
+Breton pulled up on the edge of the crawling stream.
+
+“We’ve got to get across there, Spargo,” he said. “But as we’re already
+soaked to the knee it doesn’t matter about getting another wetting.
+Have you any idea how long we’ve been walking?”
+
+“Hours—days—years!” replied Spargo.
+
+“I should say quite four hours,” said Breton. “In that case, it’s well
+past two o’clock, and the light will be breaking in another hour or so.
+Now, once across this stream, what shall we do?”
+
+“What have we come to do? Go to the cottage, of course!”
+
+“Wait a bit. No need to startle them. By the fact they’ve got a light,
+I take it that they’re up. Look there!”
+
+As he spoke, a figure crossed the window passing between it and the
+light.
+
+“That’s not Elphick, nor yet Cardlestone,” said Spargo. “They’re
+medium-heighted men. That’s a tallish man.”
+
+“Then it’s the man the landlord of the ‘Moor Cock’ told us about,” said
+Breton. “Now, look here—I know every inch of this place. When we’re
+across let me go up to the cottage, and I’ll take an observation
+through that window and see who’s inside. Come on.”
+
+He led Spargo across the stream at a place where a succession of
+boulders made a natural bridge, and bidding him keep quiet, went up the
+bank to the cottage. Spargo, watching him, saw him make his way past
+the shrubs and undergrowth until he came to a great bush which stood
+between the lighted window and the projecting porch of the cottage. He
+lingered in the shadow of this bush but for a short moment; then came
+swiftly and noiselessly back to his companion. His hand fell on
+Spargo’s arm with a clutch of nervous excitement.
+
+“Spargo!” he whispered. “Who on earth do you think the other man is?”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
+THE WHIP HAND
+
+
+Spargo, almost irritable from desire to get at close grips with the
+objects of his long journey, shook off Breton’s hand with a growl of
+resentment.
+
+“And how on earth can I waste time guessing?” he exclaimed. “Who is
+he?”
+
+Breton laughed softly.
+
+“Steady, Spargo, steady!” he said. “It’s Myerst—the Safe Deposit man.
+Myerst!”
+
+Spargo started as if something had bitten him.
+
+“Myerst!” he almost shouted. “Myerst! Good Lord!—why did I never think
+of him? Myerst! Then——”
+
+“I don’t know why you should have thought of him,” said Breton.
+“But—he’s there.”
+
+Spargo took a step towards the cottage: Breton pulled him back.
+
+“Wait!” he said. “We’ve got to discuss this. I’d better tell you what
+they’re doing.”
+
+“What are they doing, then?” demanded Spargo impatiently.
+
+“Well,” answered Breton. “They’re going through a quantity of papers.
+The two old gentlemen look very ill and very miserable. Myerst is
+evidently laying down the law to them in some fashion or other. I’ve
+formed a notion, Spargo.”
+
+“What notion?”
+
+“Myerst is in possession of whatever secret they have, and he’s
+followed them down here to blackmail them. That’s my notion.”
+
+Spargo thought awhile, pacing up and down the river bank.
+
+“I daresay you’re right,” he said. “Now, what’s to be done?”
+
+Breton, too, considered matters.
+
+“I wish,” he said at last, “I wish we could get in there and overhear
+what’s going on. But that’s impossible—I know that cottage. The only
+thing we can do is this—we must catch Myerst unawares. He’s here for no
+good. Look here!”
+
+And reaching round to his hip-pocket Breton drew out a Browning
+revolver and wagged it in his hand with a smile.
+
+“That’s a useful thing to have, Spargo,” he remarked. “I slipped it
+into my pocket the other day, wondering why on earth I did it. Now
+it’ll come in handy. For anything we know Myerst may be armed.”
+
+“Well?” said Spargo.
+
+“Come up to the cottage. If things turn out as I think they will,
+Myerst, when he’s got what he wants, will be off. Now, you shall get
+where I did just now, behind that bush, and I’ll station myself in the
+doorway. You can report to me, and when Myerst comes out I’ll cover
+him. Come on, Spargo; it’s beginning to get light already.”
+
+Breton cautiously led the way along the river bank, making use of such
+cover as the willows and alders afforded. Together, he and Spargo made
+their way to the front of the cottage. Arrived at the door, Breton
+posted himself in the porch, motioning to Spargo to creep in behind the
+bushes and to look through the window. And Spargo noiselessly followed
+his directions and slightly parting the branches which concealed him
+looked in through the uncurtained glass.
+
+The interior into which he looked was rough and comfortless in the
+extreme. There were the bare accessories of a moorland cottage; rough
+chairs and tables, plastered walls, a fishing rod or two piled in a
+corner; some food set out on a side table. At the table in the middle
+of the floor the three men sat. Cardlestone’s face was in the shadow;
+Myerst had his back to the window; old Elphick bending over the table
+was laboriously writing with shaking fingers. And Spargo twisted his
+head round to his companion.
+
+“Elphick,” he said, “is writing a cheque. Myerst has another cheque in
+his hand. Be ready!—when he gets that second cheque I guess he’ll be
+off.”
+
+Breton smiled grimly and nodded. A moment later Spargo whispered again.
+
+“Look out, Breton! He’s coming.”
+
+Breton drew back into the angle of the porch; Spargo quitted his
+protecting bush and took the other angle. The door opened. And they
+heard Myerst’s voice, threatening, commanding in tone.
+
+“Now, remember all I’ve said! And don’t you forget—I’ve the whip hand
+of both of you—the whip hand!”
+
+Then Myerst turned and stepped out into the grey light—to find himself
+confronted by an athletic young man who held the muzzle of an ugly
+revolver within two inches of the bridge of his nose and in a
+remarkably firm and steady grip. Another glance showed him the figure
+of a second business-like looking young man at his side, whose attitude
+showed a desire to grapple with him.
+
+“Good-morning, Mr. Myerst,” said Breton with cold and ironic
+politeness. “We are glad to meet you so unexpectedly. And—I must
+trouble you to put up your hands. Quick!”
+
+Myerst made one hurried movement of his right hand towards his hip, but
+a sudden growl from Breton made him shift it just as quickly above his
+head, whither the left followed it. Breton laughed softly.
+
+“That’s wise, Mr. Myerst,” he said, keeping his revolver steadily
+pointed at his prisoner’s nose. “Discretion will certainly be the
+better part of your valour on this occasion. Spargo—may I trouble you
+to see what Mr. Myerst carries in his pockets? Go through them
+carefully. Not for papers or documents—just now. We can leave that
+matter—we’ve plenty of time. See if he’s got a weapon of any sort on
+him, Spargo—that’s the important thing.”
+
+Considering that Spargo had never gone through the experience of
+searching a man before, he made sharp and creditable work of seeing
+what the prisoner carried. And he forthwith drew out and exhibited a
+revolver, while Myerst, finding his tongue, cursed them both, heartily
+and with profusion.
+
+“Excellent!” said Breton, laughing again. “Sure he’s got nothing else
+on him that’s dangerous, Spargo? All right. Now, Mr. Myerst, right
+about face! Walk into the cottage, hands up, and remember there are two
+revolvers behind your back. March!”
+
+Myerst obeyed this peremptory order with more curses. The three walked
+into the cottage. Breton kept his eye on his captive; Spargo gave a
+glance at the two old men. Cardlestone, white and shaking, was lying
+back in his chair; Elphick, scarcely less alarmed, had risen, and was
+coming forward with trembling limbs.
+
+“Wait a moment,” said Breton, soothingly. “Don’t alarm yourself. We’ll
+deal with Mr. Myerst here first. Now, Myerst, my man, sit down in that
+chair—it’s the heaviest the place affords. Into it, now! Spargo, you
+see that coil of rope there. Tie Myerst up—hand and foot—to that chair.
+And tie him well. All the knots to be double, Spargo, and behind him.”
+
+Myerst suddenly laughed. “You damned young bully!” he exclaimed. “If
+you put a rope round me, you’re only putting ropes round the necks of
+these two old villains. Mark that, my fine fellows!”
+
+“We’ll see about that later,” answered Breton. He kept Myerst covered
+while Spargo made play with the rope. “Don’t be afraid of hurting him,
+Spargo,” he said. “Tie him well and strong. He won’t shift that chair
+in a hurry.”
+
+Spargo spliced his man to the chair in a fashion that would have done
+credit to a sailor. He left Myerst literally unable to move either hand
+or foot, and Myerst cursed him from crown to heel for his pains.
+“That’ll do,” said Breton at last. He dropped his revolver into his
+pocket and turned to the two old men. Elphick averted his eyes and sank
+into a chair in the darkest corner of the room: old Cardlestone shook
+as with palsy and muttered words which the two young men could not
+catch. “Guardian,” continued Breton, “don’t be frightened! And don’t
+you be frightened, either, Mr. Cardlestone. There’s nothing to be
+afraid of, just yet, whatever there may be later on. It seems to me
+that Mr. Spargo and I came just in time. Now, guardian, what was this
+fellow after?”
+
+Old Elphick lifted his head and shook it; he was plainly on the verge
+of tears; as for Cardlestone, it was evident that his nerve was
+completely gone. And Breton pointed Spargo to an old corner cupboard.
+
+“Spargo,” he said, “I’m pretty sure you’ll find whisky in there. Give
+them both a stiff dose: they’ve broken up. Now, guardian,” he
+continued, when Spargo had carried out this order, “what was he after?
+Shall I suggest it? Was it—blackmail?”
+
+Cardlestone began to whimper; Elphick nodded his head. “Yes, yes!” he
+muttered. “Blackmail! That was it—blackmail. He—he got
+money—papers—from us. They’re on him.”
+
+Breton turned on the captive with a look of contempt.
+
+“I thought as much, Mr. Myerst,” he said. “Spargo, let’s see what he
+has on him.”
+
+Spargo began to search the prisoner’s pockets. He laid out everything
+on the table as he found it. It was plain that Myerst had contemplated
+some sort of flight or a long, long journey. There was a quantity of
+loose gold; a number of bank-notes of the more easily negotiated
+denominations; various foreign securities, realizable in Paris. And
+there was an open cheque, signed by Cardlestone for ten thousand
+pounds, and another, with Elphick’s name at the foot, also open, for
+half that amount. Breton examined all these matters as Spargo handed
+them out. He turned to old Elphick.
+
+“Guardian,” he said, “why have you or Mr. Cardlestone given this man
+these cheques and securities? What hold has he on you?”
+
+Old Cardlestone began to whimper afresh; Elphick turned a troubled face
+on his ward.
+
+“He—he threatened to accuse us of the murder of Marbury!” he faltered.
+“We—we didn’t see that we had a chance.”
+
+“What does he know of the murder of Marbury and of you in connection
+with it?” demanded Breton. “Come—tell me the truth now.”
+
+“He’s been investigating—so he says,” answered Elphick. “He lives in
+that house in Middle Temple Lane, you know, in the top-floor rooms
+above Cardlestone’s. And—and he says he’s the fullest evidence against
+Cardlestone—and against me as an accessory after the fact.”
+
+“And—it’s a lie?” asked Breton.
+
+“A lie!” answered Elphick. “Of course, it’s a lie. But—he’s so clever
+that—that——”
+
+“That you don’t know how you could prove it otherwise,” said Breton.
+“Ah! And so this fellow lives over Mr. Cardlestone there, does he? That
+may account for a good many things. Now we must have the police here.”
+He sat down at the table and drew the writing materials to him. “Look
+here, Spargo,” he continued. “I’m going to write a note to the
+superintendent of police at Hawes—there’s a farm half a mile from here
+where I can get a man to ride down to Hawes with the note. Now, if you
+want to send a wire to the _Watchman_, draft it out, and he’ll take it
+with him.”
+
+Elphick began to move in his corner.
+
+“Must the police come?” he said. “Must——”
+
+“The police must come,” answered Breton firmly. “Go ahead with your
+wire, Spargo, while I write this note.”
+
+Three quarters of an hour later, when Breton came back from the farm,
+he sat down at Elphick’s side and laid his hand on the old man’s.
+
+“Now, guardian,” he said, quietly, “you’ve got to tell us the truth.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
+MYERST EXPLAINS
+
+
+It had been apparent to Spargo, from the moment of his entering the
+cottage, that the two old men were suffering badly from shock and
+fright: Cardlestone still sat in his corner shivering and trembling; he
+looked incapable of explaining anything; Elphick was scarcely more
+fitted to speak. And when Breton issued his peremptory invitation to
+his guardian to tell the truth, Spargo intervened.
+
+“Far better leave him alone, Breton,” he said in a low voice. “Don’t
+you see the old chap’s done up? They’re both done up. We don’t know
+what they’ve gone through with this fellow before we came, and it’s
+certain they’ve had no sleep. Leave it all till later—after all, we’ve
+found them and we’ve found him.” He jerked his thumb over his shoulder
+in Myerst’s direction, and Breton involuntarily followed the movement.
+He caught the prisoner’s eye, and Myerst laughed.
+
+“I daresay you two young men think yourselves very clever,” he said
+sneeringly. “Don’t you, now?”
+
+“We’ve been clever enough to catch you, anyway,” retorted Breton. “And
+now we’ve got you we’ll keep you till the police can relieve us of
+you.”
+
+“Oh!” said Myerst, with another sneering laugh. “And on what charge do
+you propose to hand me over to the police? It strikes me you’ll have
+some difficulty in formulating one, Mr. Breton.”
+
+“Well see about that later,” said Breton. “You’ve extorted money by
+menaces from these gentlemen, at any rate.”
+
+“Have I? How do you know they didn’t entrust me with these cheques as
+their agent?” exclaimed Myerst. “Answer me that! Or, rather, let them
+answer if they dare. Here you, Cardlestone, you Elphick—didn’t you give
+me these cheques as your agent? Speak up now, and quick!”
+
+Spargo, watching the two old men, saw them both quiver at the sound of
+Myerst’s voice; Cardlestone indeed, began to whimper softly.
+
+“Look here, Breton,” he said, whispering, “this scoundrel’s got some
+hold on these two old chaps—they’re frightened to death of him. Leave
+them alone: it would be best for them if they could get some rest. Hold
+your tongue, you!” he added aloud, turning to Myerst. “When we want you
+to speak we’ll tell you.”
+
+But Myerst laughed again.
+
+“All very high and mighty, Mr. Spargo of the _Watchman_!” he sneered.
+“You’re another of the cock-sure lot. And you’re very clever, but not
+clever enough. Now, look here! Supposing—”
+
+Spargo turned his back on him. He went over to old Cardlestone and felt
+his hands. And he turned to Breton with a look of concern.
+
+“I say!” he exclaimed. “He’s more than frightened—he’s ill! What’s to
+be done?”
+
+“I asked the police to bring a doctor along with them,” answered
+Breton. “In the meantime, let’s put him to bed—there are beds in that
+inner room. We’ll get him to bed and give him something hot to
+drink—that’s all I can think of for the present.”
+
+Between them they managed to get Cardlestone to his bed, and Spargo,
+with a happy thought, boiled water on the rusty stove and put hot
+bottles to his feet. When that was done they persuaded Elphick to lie
+down in the inner room. Presently both old men fell asleep, and then
+Breton and Spargo suddenly realized that they themselves were hungry
+and wet and weary.
+
+“There ought to be food in the cupboard,” said Breton, beginning to
+rummage. “They’ve generally had a good stock of tinned things. Here we
+are, Spargo—these are tongues and sardines. Make some hot coffee while
+I open one of these tins.”
+
+The prisoner watched the preparations for a rough and ready breakfast
+with eyes that eventually began to glisten.
+
+“I may remind you that I’m hungry, too,” he said as Spargo set the
+coffee on the table. “And you’ve no right to starve me, even if you’ve
+the physical ability to keep me tied up. Give me something to eat, if
+you please.”
+
+“You shan’t starve,” said Breton, carelessly. He cut an ample supply of
+bread and meat, filled a cup with coffee and placed cup and plate
+before Myerst. “Untie his right arm, Spargo,” he continued. “I think we
+can give him that liberty. We’ve got his revolver, anyhow.”
+
+For a while the three men ate and drank in silence. At last Myerst
+pushed his plate away. He looked scrutinizingly at his two captors.
+“Look here!” he said. “You think you know a lot about all this affair,
+Spargo, but there’s only one person who knows all about it. That’s me!”
+
+“We’re taking that for granted,” said Spargo. “We guessed as much when
+we found you here. You’ll have ample opportunity for explanation, you
+know, later on.”
+
+“I’ll explain now, if you care to hear,” said Myerst with another of
+his cynical laughs. “And if I do, I’ll tell you the truth. I know
+you’ve got an idea in your heads that isn’t favourable to me, but
+you’re utterly wrong, whatever you may think. Look here!—I’ll make you
+a fair offer. There are some cigars in my case there—give me one, and
+mix me a drink of that whisky—a good ’un—and I’ll tell you what I know
+about this matter. Come on!—anything’s better than sitting here doing
+nothing.”
+
+The two young men looked at each other. Then Breton nodded. “Let him
+talk if he likes,” he said. “We’re not bound to believe him. And we may
+hear something that’s true. Give him his cigar and his drink.”
+
+Myerst took a stiff pull at the contents of the tumbler which Spargo
+presently set before him. He laughed as he inhaled the first fumes of
+his cigar.
+
+“As it happens, you’ll hear nothing but the truth,” he observed. “Now
+that things are as they are, there’s no reason why I shouldn’t tell the
+truth. The fact is, I’ve nothing to fear. You can’t give me in charge,
+for it so happens that I’ve got a power of attorney from these two old
+chaps inside there to act for them in regard to the money they
+entrusted me with. It’s in an inside pocket of that letter-case, and if
+you look at it, Breton, you’ll see it’s in order. I’m not even going to
+dare you to interfere with or destroy it—you’re a barrister, and you’ll
+respect the law. But that’s a fact—and if anybody’s got a case against
+anybody, I have against you two for assault and illegal detention. But
+I’m not a vindictive man, and——”
+
+Breton took up Myerst’s letter-case and examined its contents. And
+presently he turned to Spargo.
+
+“He’s right!” he whispered. “This is quite in order.” He turned to
+Myerst. “All the same,” he said, addressing him, “we shan’t release
+you, because we believe you’re concerned in the murder of John Marbury.
+We’re justified in holding you on that account.”
+
+“All right, my young friend,” said Myerst. “Have your own stupid way.
+But I said I’d tell you the plain truth. Well, the plain truth is that
+I know no more of the absolute murder of your father than I know of
+what is going on in Timbuctoo at this moment! I do not know who killed
+John Maitland. That’s a fact! It may have been the old man in there
+who’s already at his own last gasp, or it mayn’t. I tell you I don’t
+know—though, like you, Spargo, I’ve tried hard to find out. That’s the
+truth—I do not know.”
+
+“You expect us to believe that?” exclaimed Breton incredulously.
+
+“Believe it or not, as you like—it’s the truth,” answered Myerst. “Now,
+look here—I said nobody knew as much of this affair as I know, and
+that’s true also. And here’s the truth of what I know. The old man in
+that room, whom you know as Nicholas Cardlestone, is in reality
+Chamberlayne, the stockbroker, of Market Milcaster, whose name was so
+freely mentioned when your father was tried there. That’s another
+fact!”
+
+“How,” asked Breton, sternly, “can you prove it? How do you know it?”
+
+“Because,” replied Myerst, with a cunning grin, “I helped to carry out
+his mock death and burial—I was a solicitor in those days, and my name
+was—something else. There were three of us at it: Chamberlayne’s
+nephew; a doctor of no reputation; and myself. We carried it out very
+cleverly, and Chamberlayne gave us five thousand pounds apiece for our
+trouble. It was not the first time that I had helped him and been well
+paid for my help. The first time was in connection with the
+Cloudhampton Hearth and Home Mutual Benefit Society affair—Aylmore, or
+Ainsworth, was as innocent as a child in that!—Chamberlayne was the man
+at the back. But, unfortunately, Chamberlayne didn’t profit—he lost all
+he got by it, pretty quick. That was why be transferred his abilities
+to Market Milcaster.”
+
+“You can prove all this, I suppose?” remarked Spargo.
+
+“Every word—every letter! But about the Market Milcaster affair: Your
+father, Breton, was right in what he said about Chamberlayne having all
+the money that was got from the bank. He had—and he engineered that
+mock death and funeral so that he could disappear, and he paid us who
+helped him generously, as I’ve told you. The thing couldn’t have been
+better done. When it was done, the nephew disappeared; the doctor
+disappeared; Chamberlayne disappeared. I had bad luck—to tell you the
+truth, I was struck off the rolls for a technical offence. So I changed
+my name and became Mr. Myerst, and eventually what I am now. And it was
+not until three years ago that I found Chamberlayne. I found him in
+this way: After I became secretary to the Safe Deposit Company, I took
+chambers in the Temple, above Cardlestone’s. And I speedily found out
+who he was. Instead of going abroad, the old fox—though he was a
+comparatively young ’un, then!—had shaved off his beard, settled down
+in the Temple and given himself up to his two hobbies, collecting
+curiosities and stamps. There he’d lived quietly all these years, and
+nobody had ever recognized or suspected him. Indeed, I don’t see how
+they could; he lived such a quiet, secluded life, with his collections,
+his old port, and his little whims and fads. But—I knew him!”
+
+“And you doubtless profited by your recognition,” suggested Breton.
+
+“I certainly did. He was glad to pay me a nice sum every quarter to
+hold my tongue,” replied Myerst, “and I was glad to take it and,
+naturally, I gained a considerable knowledge of him. He had only one
+friend—Mr. Elphick, in there. Now, I’ll tell you about him.”
+
+“Only if you are going to speak respectfully of him,” said Breton
+sternly.
+
+“I’ve no reason to do otherwise. Elphick is the man who ought to have
+married your mother. When things turned out as they did, Elphick took
+you and brought you up as he has done, so that you should never know of
+your father’s disgrace. Elphick never knew until last night that
+Cardlestone is Chamberlayne. Even the biggest scoundrels have
+friends—Elphick’s very fond of Cardlestone. He——”
+
+Spargo turned sharply on Myerst.
+
+“You say Elphick didn’t know until last night!” he exclaimed. “Why,
+then, this running away? What were they running from?”
+
+“I have no more notion than you have, Spargo,” replied Myerst. “I tell
+you one or other of them knows something that I don’t. Elphick, I
+gather, took fright from you, and went to Cardlestone—then they both
+vanished. It may be that Cardlestone did kill Maitland—I don’t know.
+But I’ll tell you what I know about the actual murder—for I do know a
+good deal about it, though, as I say, I don’t know who killed Maitland.
+Now, first, you know all that about Maitland’s having papers and
+valuables and gold on him? Very well—I’ve got all that. The whole lot
+is locked up—safely—and I’m willing to hand it over to you, Breton,
+when we go back to town, and the necessary proof is given—as it will
+be—that you’re Maitland’s son.”
+
+Myerst paused to see the effect of this announcement, and laughed when
+he saw the blank astonishment which stole over his hearers’ faces.
+
+“And still more,” he continued, “I’ve got all the contents of that
+leather box which Maitland deposited with me—that’s safely locked up,
+too, and at your disposal. I took possession of that the day after the
+murder. Then, for purposes of my own, I went to Scotland Yard, as
+Spargo there is aware. You see, I was playing a game—and it required
+some ingenuity.”
+
+“A game!” exclaimed Breton. “Good heavens—what game?”
+
+“I never knew until I had possession of all these things that Marbury
+was Maitland of Market Milcaster,” answered Myerst. “When I did know
+then I began to put things together and to pursue my own line,
+independent of everybody. I tell you I had all Maitland’s papers and
+possessions, by that time—except one thing. That packet of Australian
+stamps. And—I found out that those stamps were in the hands
+of—Cardlestone!”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX.
+THE FINAL TELEGRAM
+
+
+Myerst paused, to take a pull at his glass, and to look at the two
+amazed listeners with a smile of conscious triumph.
+
+“In the hands of Cardlestone,” he repeated. “Now, what did I argue from
+that? Why, of course, that Maitland had been to Cardlestone’s rooms
+that night. Wasn’t he found lying dead at the foot of Cardlestone’s
+stairs? Aye—but who found him? Not the porter—not the police—not you,
+Master Spargo, with all your cleverness. The man who found Maitland
+lying dead there that night was—I!”
+
+In the silence that followed, Spargo, who had been making notes of what
+Myerst said, suddenly dropped his pencil and thrusting his hands in his
+pockets sat bolt upright with a look which Breton, who was watching him
+seriously, could not make out. It was the look of a man whose ideas and
+conceptions are being rudely upset. And Myerst, too, saw it and he
+laughed, more sneeringly than ever.
+
+“That’s one for you, Spargo!” he said. “That surprises you—that makes
+you think. Now what do you think?—if one may ask.”
+
+“I think,” said Spargo, “that you are either a consummate liar, or that
+this mystery is bigger than before.”
+
+“I can lie when it’s necessary,” retorted Myerst. “Just now it isn’t
+necessary. I’m telling you the plain truth: there’s no reason why I
+shouldn’t. As I’ve said before, although you two young bullies have
+tied me up in this fashion, you can’t do anything against me. I’ve a
+power of attorney from those two old men in there, and that’s enough to
+satisfy anybody as to my possession of their cheques and securities.
+I’ve the whip hand of you, my sons, in all ways. And that’s why I’m
+telling you the truth—to amuse myself during this period of waiting.
+The plain truth, my sons!”
+
+“In pursuance of which,” observed Breton, drily, “I think you mentioned
+that you were the first person to find my father lying dead?”
+
+“I was. That is—as far as I can gather. I’ll tell you all about it. As
+I said, I live over Cardlestone. That night I came home very late—it
+was well past one o’clock. There was nobody about—as a matter of fact,
+no one has residential chambers in that building but Cardlestone and
+myself. I found the body of a man lying in the entry. I struck a match
+and immediately recognized my visitor of the afternoon—John Marbury.
+Now, although I was so late in going home, I was as sober as a man can
+be, and I think pretty quickly at all times. I thought at double extra
+speed just then. And the first thing I did was to strip the body of
+every article it had on it—money, papers, everything. All these things
+are safely locked up—they’ve never been tracked. Next day, using my
+facilities as secretary to the Safe Deposit Company, I secured the
+things in that box. Then I found out who the dead man really was. And
+then I deliberately set to work to throw dust in the eyes of the police
+and of the newspapers, and particularly in the eyes of young Master
+Spargo there. I had an object.”
+
+“What?” asked Breton.
+
+“What! Knowing all I did, I firmly believed that Marbury, or, rather,
+Maitland, had been murdered by either Cardlestone or Elphick. I put it
+to myself in this way, and my opinion was strengthened as you, Spargo,
+inserted news in your paper—Maitland, finding himself in the vicinity
+of Cardlestone after leaving Aylmore’s rooms that night, turned into
+our building, perhaps just to see where Cardlestone lived. He met
+Cardlestone accidentally, or he perhaps met Cardlestone and Elphick
+together—they recognized each other. Maitland probably threatened to
+expose Cardlestone, or, rather, Chamberlayne—nobody, of course, could
+know what happened, but my theory was that Chamberlayne killed him.
+There, at any rate, was the fact that Maitland was found murdered at
+Chamberlayne’s very threshold. And, in the course of a few days, I
+proved, to my own positive satisfaction, by getting access to
+Chamberlayne’s rooms in his absence that Maitland had been there, had
+been in those rooms. For I found there, in Chamberlayne’s desk, the
+rare Australian stamps of which Criedir told at the inquest. That was
+proof positive.”
+
+Spargo looked at Breton. They knew what Myerst did not know—that the
+stamps of which he spoke were lying in Spargo’s breast pocket, where
+they had lain since he had picked them up from the litter and confusion
+of Chamberlayne’s floor.
+
+“Why,” asked Breton, after a pause, “why did you never accuse
+Cardlestone, or Chamberlayne, of the murder?”
+
+“I did! I have accused him a score of times—and Elphick, too,” replied
+Myerst with emphasis. “Not at first, mind you—I never let Chamberlayne
+know that I ever suspected him for some time. I had my own game to
+play. But at last—not so many days ago—I did. I accused them both.
+That’s how I got the whip hand of them. They began to be afraid—by that
+time Elphick had got to know all about Cardlestone’s past as
+Chamberlayne. And as I tell you, Elphick’s fond of Cardlestone. It’s
+queer, but he is. He—wants to shield him.”
+
+“What did they say when you accused them?” asked Breton. “Let’s keep to
+that point—never mind their feelings for one another.”
+
+“Just so, but that feeling’s a lot more to do with this mystery than
+you think, my young friend,” said Myerst. “What did they say, you ask?
+Why, they strenuously denied it, Cardlestone swore solemnly to me that
+he had no part or lot in the murder of Maitland. So did Elphick.
+But—they know something about the murder. If those two old men can’t
+tell you definitely who actually struck John Maitland down, I’m certain
+that they have a very clear idea in their minds as to who really did!
+They—”
+
+A sudden sharp cry from the inner room interrupted Myerst. Breton and
+Spargo started to their feet and made for the door. But before they
+could reach it Elphick came out, white and shaking.
+
+“He’s gone!” he exclaimed in quavering accents. “My old friend’s
+gone—he’s dead! I was—asleep. I woke suddenly and looked at him. He——”
+
+Spargo forced the old man into a chair and gave him some whisky; Breton
+passed quickly into the inner room; only to come back shaking his head.
+
+“He’s dead,” he said. “He evidently died in his sleep.”
+
+“Then his secret’s gone with him,” remarked Myerst, calmly. “And now we
+shall never know if he did kill John Maitland or if he didn’t. So
+that’s done with!”
+
+Old Elphick suddenly sat up in his chair, pushing Spargo fiercely away
+from his side.
+
+“He didn’t kill John Maitland!” he cried angrily, attempting to shake
+his fist at Myerst. “Whoever says he killed Maitland lies. He was as
+innocent as I am. You’ve tortured and tormented him to his death with
+that charge, as you’re torturing me—among you. I tell you he’d nothing
+to do with John Maitland’s death—nothing!”
+
+Myerst laughed.
+
+“Who had, then?” he said.
+
+“Hold your tongue!” commanded Breton, turning angrily on him. He sat
+down by Elphick’s side and laid his hand soothingly on the old man’s
+arm.
+
+“Guardian,” he said, “why don’t you tell what you know? Don’t be afraid
+of that fellow there—he’s safe enough. Tell Spargo and me what you know
+of the matter. Remember, nothing can hurt Cardlestone, or Chamberlayne,
+or whoever he is or was, now.”
+
+Elphick sat for a moment shaking his head. He allowed Spargo to give
+him another drink; he lifted his head and looked at the two young men
+with something of an appeal.
+
+“I’m badly shaken,” he said. “I’ve suffered much lately—I’ve learnt
+things that I didn’t know. Perhaps I ought to have spoken before, but I
+was afraid for—for him. He was a good friend, Cardlestone, whatever
+else he may have been—a good friend. And—I don’t know any more than
+what happened that night.”
+
+“Tell us what happened that night,” said Breton.
+
+“Well, that night I went round, as I often did, to play piquet with
+Cardlestone. That was about ten o’clock. About eleven Jane Baylis came
+to Cardlestone’s—she’d been to my rooms to find me—wanted to see me
+particularly—and she’d come on there, knowing where I should be.
+Cardlestone would make her have a glass of wine and a biscuit; she sat
+down and we all talked. Then, about, I should think, a quarter to
+twelve, a knock came at Cardlestone’s door—his outer door was open, and
+of course anybody outside could see lights within. Cardlestone went to
+the door: we heard a man’s voice enquire for him by name; then the
+voice added that Criedir, the stamp dealer, had advised him to call on
+Mr. Cardlestone to show him some rare Australian stamps, and that
+seeing a light under his door he had knocked. Cardlestone asked him
+in—he came in. That was the man we saw next day at the mortuary. Upon
+my honour, we didn’t know him, either that night or next day!”
+
+“What happened when he came in?” asked Breton.
+
+“Cardlestone asked him to sit down: he offered and gave him a drink.
+The man said Criedir had given him Cardlestone’s address, and that he’d
+been with a friend at some rooms in Fountain Court, and as he was
+passing our building he’d just looked to make sure where Cardlestone
+lived, and as he’d noticed a light he’d made bold to knock. He and
+Cardlestone began to examine the stamps. Jane Baylis said good-night,
+and she and I left Cardlestone and the man together.”
+
+“No one had recognized him?” said Breton.
+
+“No one! Remember, I only once or twice saw Maitland in all my life.
+The others certainly did not recognize him. At least, I never knew that
+they did—if they did.”
+
+“Tell us,” said Spargo, joining in for the first time, “tell us what
+you and Miss Baylis did?”
+
+“At the foot of the stairs Jane Baylis suddenly said she’d forgotten
+something in Cardlestone’s lobby. As she was going out in to Fleet
+Street, and I was going down Middle Temple Lane to turn off to my own
+rooms we said good-night. She went back upstairs. And I went home. And
+upon my soul and honour that’s all I know!”
+
+Spargo suddenly leapt to his feet. He snatched at his cap—a sodden and
+bedraggled headgear which he had thrown down when they entered the
+cottage.
+
+“That’s enough!” he almost shouted. “I’ve got it—at last!
+Breton—where’s the nearest telegraph office? Hawes? Straight down this
+valley? Then, here’s for it! Look after things till I’m back, or, when
+the police come, join me there. I shall catch the first train to town,
+anyhow, after wiring.”
+
+“But—what are you after, Spargo?” exclaimed Breton. “Stop! What on
+earth——”
+
+But Spargo had closed the door and was running for all he was worth
+down the valley. Three quarters of an hour later he startled a quiet
+and peaceful telegraphist by darting, breathless and dirty, into a
+sleepy country post office, snatching a telegraph form and scribbling
+down a message in shaky handwriting:—
+
+_Rathbury, New Scotland Yard, London._
+_Arrest Jane Baylis at once for murder of John Maitland._
+_Coming straight to town with full evidence._
+          _Frank Spargo_.
+
+
+Then Spargo dropped on the office bench, and while the wondering
+operator set the wires ticking, strove to get his breath, utterly spent
+in his mad race across the heather. And when it was got he set out
+again—to find the station.
+
+
+Some days later, Spargo, having seen Stephen Aylmore walk out of the
+Bow Street dock, cleared of the charge against him, and in a fair way
+of being cleared of the affair of twenty years before, found himself in
+a very quiet corner of the Court holding the hand of Jessie Aylmore,
+who, he discovered, was saying things to him which he scarcely
+comprehended. There was nobody near them and the girl spoke freely and
+warmly.
+
+“But you will come—you will come today—and be properly thanked,” she
+said. “You will—won’t you?”
+
+Spargo allowed himself to retain possession of the hand. Also he took a
+straight look into Jessie Aylmore’s eyes.
+
+“I don’t want thanks,” he said. “It was all a lot of luck. And if I
+come—today—it will be to see—just you!”
+
+Jessie Aylmore looked down at the two hands.
+
+“I think,” she whispered, “I think that is what I really meant!”
+
+THE END
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10373 ***
diff --git a/10373-h/10373-h.htm b/10373-h/10373-h.htm
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..7113871
--- /dev/null
+++ b/10373-h/10373-h.htm
@@ -0,0 +1,13807 @@
+<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
+"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
+<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en">
+<head>
+<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=UTF-8" />
+<meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" />
+<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Middle Temple Murder, by J.S. Fletcher</title>
+<link rel="coverpage" href="images/cover.jpg" />
+<style type="text/css">
+
+body { margin-left: 20%;
+       margin-right: 20%;
+       text-align: justify; }
+
+h1, h2, h3, h4, h5 {text-align: center; font-style: normal; font-weight:
+normal; line-height: 1.5; margin-top: .5em; margin-bottom: .5em;}
+
+h1 {font-size: 300%;
+    margin-top: 0.6em;
+    margin-bottom: 0.6em;
+    letter-spacing: 0.12em;
+    word-spacing: 0.2em;
+    text-indent: 0em;}
+h2 {font-size: 150%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 1em;}
+h3 {font-size: 130%; margin-top: 1em;}
+h4 {font-size: 120%;}
+h5 {font-size: 110%;}
+
+.no-break {page-break-before: avoid;} /* for epubs */
+
+div.chapter {page-break-before: always; margin-top: 4em;}
+
+hr {width: 80%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 2em;}
+
+p {text-indent: 1em;
+   margin-top: 0.25em;
+   margin-bottom: 0.25em; }
+
+p.letter {text-indent: 0%;
+          margin-left: 10%;
+          margin-right: 10%;
+          margin-top: 1em;
+          margin-bottom: 1em; }
+
+p.noindent {text-indent: 0% }
+
+p.center  {text-align: center;
+           text-indent: 0em;
+           margin-top: 1em;
+           margin-bottom: 1em; }
+
+div.fig { display:block;
+          margin:0 auto;
+          text-align:center;
+          margin-top: 1em;
+          margin-bottom: 1em;}
+
+a:link {color:blue; text-decoration:none}
+a:visited {color:blue; text-decoration:none}
+a:hover {color:red}
+
+</style>
+
+</head>
+
+<body>
+<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10373 ***</div>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:55%;">
+<img src="images/cover.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="[Illustration]" />
+</div>
+
+<h1>The Middle Temple Murder</h1>
+
+<h2 class="no-break">by J.S. Fletcher</h2>
+
+<h4>1919</h4>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2>Contents</h2>
+
+<table summary="" style="">
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap01">CHAPTER I. THE SCRAP OF GREY PAPER</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap02">CHAPTER II. HIS FIRST BRIEF</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap03">CHAPTER III. THE CLUE OF THE CAP</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap04">CHAPTER IV. THE ANGLO-ORIENT HOTEL</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap05">CHAPTER V. SPARGO WISHES TO SPECIALIZE</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap06">CHAPTER VI. WITNESS TO A MEETING</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap07">CHAPTER VII. MR. AYLMORE</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap08">CHAPTER VIII. THE MAN FROM THE SAFE DEPOSIT</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap09">CHAPTER IX. THE DEALER IN RARE STAMPS</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap10">CHAPTER X. THE LEATHER BOX</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap11">CHAPTER XI. MR. AYLMORE IS QUESTIONED</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap12">CHAPTER XII. THE NEW WITNESS</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap13">CHAPTER XIII. UNDER SUSPICION</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap14">CHAPTER XIV. THE SILVER TICKET</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap15">CHAPTER XV. MARKET MILCASTER</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap16">CHAPTER XVI. THE &ldquo;YELLOW DRAGON&rdquo;</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap17">CHAPTER XVII. MR. QUARTERPAGE HARKS BACK</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap18">CHAPTER XVIII. AN OLD NEWSPAPER</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap19">CHAPTER XIX. THE CHAMBERLAYNE STORY</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap20">CHAPTER XX. MAITLAND <i>alias</i> MARBURY</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap21">CHAPTER XXI. ARRESTED</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap22">CHAPTER XXII. THE BLANK PAST</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap23">CHAPTER XXIII. MISS BAYLIS</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap24">CHAPTER XXIV. MOTHER GUTCH</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap25">CHAPTER XXV. REVELATIONS</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap26">CHAPTER XXVI. STILL SILENT</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap27">CHAPTER XXVII. MR. ELPHICK&rsquo;S CHAMBERS</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap28">CHAPTER XXVIII. OF PROVED IDENTITY</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap29">CHAPTER XXIX. THE CLOSED DOORS</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap30">CHAPTER XXX. REVELATION</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap31">CHAPTER XXXI. THE PENITENT WINDOW-CLEANER</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap32">CHAPTER XXXII. THE CONTENTS OF THE COFFIN</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap33">CHAPTER XXXIII. FORESTALLED</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap34">CHAPTER XXXIV. THE WHIP HAND</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap35">CHAPTER XXXV. MYERST EXPLAINS</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap36">CHAPTER XXXVI. THE FINAL TELEGRAM</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+
+</table>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap01"></a>CHAPTER ONE<br/>
+THE SCRAP OF GREY PAPER</h2>
+
+<p>
+As a rule, Spargo left the <i>Watchman</i> office at two o&rsquo;clock. The
+paper had then gone to press. There was nothing for him, recently promoted to a
+sub-editorship, to do after he had passed the column for which he was
+responsible; as a matter of fact he could have gone home before the machines
+began their clatter. But he generally hung about, trifling, until two
+o&rsquo;clock came. On this occasion, the morning of the 22nd of June, 1912, he
+stopped longer than usual, chatting with Hacket, who had charge of the foreign
+news, and who began telling him about a telegram which had just come through
+from Durazzo. What Hacket had to tell was interesting: Spargo lingered to hear
+all about it, and to discuss it. Altogether it was well beyond half-past two
+when he went out of the office, unconsciously puffing away from him as he
+reached the threshold the last breath of the atmosphere in which he had spent
+his midnight. In Fleet Street the air was fresh, almost to sweetness, and the
+first grey of the coming dawn was breaking faintly around the high silence of
+St. Paul&rsquo;s.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo lived in Bloomsbury, on the west side of Russell Square. Every night and
+every morning he walked to and from the <i>Watchman</i> office by the same
+route&mdash;Southampton Row, Kingsway, the Strand, Fleet Street. He came to
+know several faces, especially amongst the police; he formed the habit of
+exchanging greetings with various officers whom he encountered at regular
+points as he went slowly homewards, smoking his pipe. And on this morning, as
+he drew near to Middle Temple Lane, he saw a policeman whom he knew, one
+Driscoll, standing at the entrance, looking about him. Further away another
+policeman appeared, sauntering. Driscoll raised an arm and signalled; then,
+turning, he saw Spargo. He moved a step or two towards him. Spargo saw news in
+his face.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What is it?&rdquo; asked Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Driscoll jerked a thumb over his shoulder, towards the partly open door of the
+lane. Within, Spargo saw a man hastily donning a waistcoat and jacket.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He says,&rdquo; answered Driscoll, &ldquo;him, there&mdash;the
+porter&mdash;that there&rsquo;s a man lying in one of them entries down the
+lane, and he thinks he&rsquo;s dead. Likewise, he thinks he&rsquo;s
+murdered.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo echoed the word.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But what makes him think that?&rdquo; he asked, peeping with curiosity
+beyond Driscoll&rsquo;s burly form. &ldquo;Why?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He says there&rsquo;s blood about him,&rdquo; answered Driscoll. He
+turned and glanced at the oncoming constable, and then turned again to Spargo.
+&ldquo;You&rsquo;re a newspaper man, sir?&rdquo; he suggested.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am,&rdquo; replied Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You&rsquo;d better walk down with us,&rdquo; said Driscoll, with a grin.
+&ldquo;There&rsquo;ll be something to write pieces in the paper about. At
+least, there may be.&rdquo; Spargo made no answer. He continued to look down
+the lane, wondering what secret it held, until the other policeman came up. At
+the same moment the porter, now fully clothed, came out.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Come on!&rdquo; he said shortly. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll show you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Driscoll murmured a word or two to the newly-arrived constable, and then turned
+to the porter.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How came you to find him, then?&rdquo; he asked
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The porter jerked his head at the door which they were leaving.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I heard that door slam,&rdquo; he replied, irritably, as if the fact
+which he mentioned caused him offence. &ldquo;I know I did! So I got up to look
+around. Then&mdash;well, I saw that!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He raised a hand, pointing down the lane. The three men followed his
+outstretched finger. And Spargo then saw a man&rsquo;s foot, booted,
+grey-socked, protruding from an entry on the left hand.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Sticking out there, just as you see it now,&rdquo; said the porter.
+&ldquo;I ain&rsquo;t touched it. And so&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He paused and made a grimace as if at the memory of some unpleasant thing.
+Driscoll nodded comprehendingly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And so you went along and looked?&rdquo; he suggested. &ldquo;Just
+so&mdash;just to see who it belonged to, as it might be.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Just to see&mdash;what there was to see,&rdquo; agreed the porter.
+&ldquo;Then I saw there was blood. And then&mdash;well, I made up the lane to
+tell one of you chaps.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Best thing you could have done,&rdquo; said Driscoll. &ldquo;Well, now
+then&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The little procession came to a halt at the entry. The entry was a cold and
+formal thing of itself; not a nice place to lie dead in, having glazed white
+tiles for its walls and concrete for its flooring; something about its
+appearance in that grey morning air suggested to Spargo the idea of a mortuary.
+And that the man whose foot projected over the step was dead he had no doubt:
+the limpness of his pose certified to it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For a moment none of the four men moved or spoke. The two policemen
+unconsciously stuck their thumbs in their belts and made play with their
+fingers; the porter rubbed his chin thoughtfully&mdash;Spargo remembered
+afterwards the rasping sound of this action; he himself put his hands in his
+pockets and began to jingle his money and his keys. Each man had his own
+thoughts as he contemplated the piece of human wreckage which lay before him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You&rsquo;ll notice,&rdquo; suddenly observed Driscoll, speaking in a
+hushed voice, &ldquo;You&rsquo;ll notice that he&rsquo;s lying there in a queer
+way&mdash;same as if&mdash;as if he&rsquo;d been put there. Sort of propped up
+against that wall, at first, and had slid down, like.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo was taking in all the details with a professional eye. He saw at his
+feet the body of an elderly man; the face was turned away from him, crushed in
+against the glaze of the wall, but he judged the man to be elderly because of
+grey hair and whitening whisker; it was clothed in a good, well-made suit of
+grey check cloth&mdash;tweed&mdash;and the boots were good: so, too, was the
+linen cuff which projected from the sleeve that hung so limply. One leg was
+half doubled under the body; the other was stretched straight out across the
+threshold; the trunk was twisted to the wall. Over the white glaze of the tiles
+against which it and the shoulder towards which it had sunk were crushed there
+were gouts and stains of blood. And Driscoll, taking a hand out of his belt,
+pointed a finger at them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Seems to me,&rdquo; he said, slowly, &ldquo;seems to me as how
+he&rsquo;s been struck down from behind as he came out of here. That
+blood&rsquo;s from his nose&mdash;gushed out as he fell. What do you say,
+Jim?&rdquo; The other policeman coughed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Better get the inspector here,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;And the doctor and
+the ambulance. Dead&mdash;ain&rsquo;t he?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Driscoll bent down and put a thumb on the hand which lay on the pavement.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;As ever they make &rsquo;em,&rdquo; he remarked laconically. &ldquo;And
+stiff, too. Well, hurry up, Jim!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo waited until the inspector arrived; waited until the hand-ambulance
+came. More policemen came with it; they moved the body for transference to the
+mortuary, and Spargo then saw the dead man&rsquo;s face. He looked long and
+steadily at it while the police arranged the limbs, wondering all the time who
+it was that he gazed at, how he came to that end, what was the object of his
+murderer, and many other things. There was some professionalism in
+Spargo&rsquo;s curiosity, but there was also a natural dislike that a
+fellow-being should have been so unceremoniously smitten out of the world.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was nothing very remarkable about the dead man&rsquo;s face. It was that
+of a man of apparently sixty to sixty-five years of age; plain, even homely of
+feature, clean-shaven, except for a fringe of white whisker, trimmed, after an
+old-fashioned pattern, between the ear and the point of the jaw. The only
+remarkable thing about it was that it was much lined and seamed; the wrinkles
+were many and deep around the corners of the lips and the angles of the eyes;
+this man, you would have said to yourself, has led a hard life and weathered
+storm, mental as well as physical.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Driscoll nudged Spargo with a turn of his elbow. He gave him a wink.
+&ldquo;Better come down to the dead-house,&rdquo; he muttered confidentially.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why?&rdquo; asked Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;They&rsquo;ll go through him,&rdquo; whispered Driscoll. &ldquo;Search
+him, d&rsquo;ye see? Then you&rsquo;ll get to know all about him, and so on.
+Help to write that piece in the paper, eh?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo hesitated. He had had a stiff night&rsquo;s work, and until his
+encounter with Driscoll he had cherished warm anticipation of the meal which
+would be laid out for him at his rooms, and of the bed into which he would
+subsequently tumble. Besides, a telephone message would send a man from the
+<i>Watchman</i> to the mortuary. This sort of thing was not in his line now,
+now&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You&rsquo;ll be for getting one o&rsquo; them big play-cards out with
+something about a mystery on it,&rdquo; suggested Driscoll. &ldquo;You never
+know what lies at the bottom o&rsquo; these affairs, no more you
+don&rsquo;t.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+That last observation decided Spargo; moreover, the old instinct for getting
+news began to assert itself.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;All right,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll go along with you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And re-lighting his pipe he followed the little cortège through the streets,
+still deserted and quiet, and as he walked behind he reflected on the
+unobtrusive fashion in which murder could stalk about. Here was the work of
+murder, no doubt, and it was being quietly carried along a principal London
+thoroughfare, without fuss or noise, by officials to whom the dealing with it
+was all a matter of routine. Surely&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;My opinion,&rdquo; said a voice at Spargo&rsquo;s elbow, &ldquo;my
+opinion is that it was done elsewhere. Not there! He was put there.
+That&rsquo;s what I say.&rdquo; Spargo turned and saw that the porter was at
+his side. He, too, was accompanying the body.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh!&rdquo; said Spargo. &ldquo;You think&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I think he was struck down elsewhere and carried there,&rdquo; said the
+porter. &ldquo;In somebody&rsquo;s chambers, maybe. I&rsquo;ve known of some
+queer games in our bit of London! Well!&mdash;he never came in at my lodge last
+night&mdash;I&rsquo;ll stand to that. And who is he, I should like to know?
+From what I see of him, not the sort to be about our place.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s what we shall hear presently,&rdquo; said Spargo.
+&ldquo;They&rsquo;re going to search him.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But Spargo was presently made aware that the searchers had found nothing. The
+police-surgeon said that the dead man had, without doubt, been struck down from
+behind by a terrible blow which had fractured the skull and caused death almost
+instantaneously. In Driscoll&rsquo;s opinion, the murder had been committed for
+the sake of plunder. For there was nothing whatever on the body. It was
+reasonable to suppose that a man who is well dressed would possess a watch and
+chain, and have money in his pockets, and possibly rings on his fingers. But
+there was nothing valuable to be found; in fact there was nothing at all to be
+found that could lead to identification&mdash;no letters, no papers, nothing.
+It was plain that whoever had struck the dead man down had subsequently
+stripped him of whatever was on him. The only clue to possible identity lay in
+the fact that a soft cap of grey cloth appeared to have been newly purchased at
+a fashionable shop in the West End.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo went home; there seemed to be nothing to stop for. He ate his food and
+he went to bed, only to do poor things in the way of sleeping. He was not the
+sort to be impressed by horrors, but he recognized at last that the
+morning&rsquo;s event had destroyed his chance of rest; he accordingly rose,
+took a cold bath, drank a cup of coffee, and went out. He was not sure of any
+particular idea when he strolled away from Bloomsbury, but it did not surprise
+him when, half an hour later he found that he had walked down to the police
+station near which the unknown man&rsquo;s body lay in the mortuary. And there
+he met Driscoll, just going off duty. Driscoll grinned at sight of him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You&rsquo;re in luck,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;&rsquo;Tisn&rsquo;t five
+minutes since they found a bit of grey writing paper crumpled up in the poor
+man&rsquo;s waistcoat pocket&mdash;it had slipped into a crack. Come in, and
+you&rsquo;ll see it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo went into the inspector&rsquo;s office. In another minute he found
+himself staring at the scrap of paper. There was nothing on it but an address,
+scrawled in pencil:&mdash;Ronald Breton, Barrister, King&rsquo;s Bench Walk,
+Temple, London.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap02"></a>CHAPTER TWO<br/>
+HIS FIRST BRIEF</h2>
+
+<p>
+Spargo looked up at the inspector with a quick jerk of his head. &ldquo;I know
+this man,&rdquo; he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The inspector showed new interest.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What, Mr. Breton?&rdquo; he asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes. I&rsquo;m on the <i>Watchman</i>, you know, sub-editor. I took an
+article from him the other day&mdash;article on &lsquo;Ideal Sites for
+Campers-Out.&rsquo; He came to the office about it. So this was in the dead
+man&rsquo;s pocket?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Found in a hole in his pocket, I understand: I wasn&rsquo;t present
+myself. It&rsquo;s not much, but it may afford some clue to identity.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo picked up the scrap of grey paper and looked closely at it. It seemed to
+him to be the sort of paper that is found in hotels and in clubs; it had been
+torn roughly from the sheet.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What,&rdquo; he asked meditatively, &ldquo;what will you do about
+getting this man identified?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The inspector shrugged his shoulders.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, usual thing, I suppose. There&rsquo;ll be publicity, you know. I
+suppose you&rsquo;ll be doing a special account yourself, for your paper, eh?
+Then there&rsquo;ll be the others. And we shall put out the usual notice.
+Somebody will come forward to identify&mdash;sure to. And&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A man came into the office&mdash;a stolid-faced, quiet-mannered, soberly
+attired person, who might have been a respectable tradesman out for a stroll,
+and who gave the inspector a sidelong nod as he approached his desk, at the
+same time extending his hand towards the scrap of paper which Spargo had just
+laid down.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll go along to King&rsquo;s Bench Walk and see Mr.
+Breton,&rdquo; he observed, looking at his watch. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s just about
+ten&mdash;I daresay he&rsquo;ll be there now.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;m going there, too,&rdquo; remarked Spargo, but as if speaking
+to himself. &ldquo;Yes, I&rsquo;ll go there.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The newcomer glanced at Spargo, and then at the inspector. The inspector nodded
+at Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Journalist,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;Mr. Spargo of the <i>Watchman</i>.
+Mr. Spargo was there when the body was found. And he knows Mr. Breton.&rdquo;
+Then he nodded from Spargo to the stolid-faced person. &ldquo;This is
+Detective-Sergeant Rathbury, from the Yard,&rdquo; he said to Spargo.
+&ldquo;He&rsquo;s come to take charge of this case.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh?&rdquo; said Spargo blankly. &ldquo;I see&mdash;what,&rdquo; he went
+on, with sudden abruptness, &ldquo;what shall you do about Breton?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Get him to come and look at the body,&rdquo; replied Rathbury. &ldquo;He
+may know the man and he mayn&rsquo;t. Anyway, his name and address are here,
+aren&rsquo;t they?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Come along,&rdquo; said Spargo. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll walk there with
+you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo remained in a species of brown study all the way along Tudor Street; his
+companion also maintained silence in a fashion which showed that he was by
+nature and custom a man of few words. It was not until the two were climbing
+the old balustrated staircase of the house in King&rsquo;s Bench Walk in which
+Ronald Breton&rsquo;s chambers were somewhere situate that Spargo spoke.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Do you think that old chap was killed for what he may have had on
+him?&rdquo; he asked, suddenly turning on the detective.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I should like to know what he had on him before I answered that
+question, Mr. Spargo,&rdquo; replied Rathbury, with a smile.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; said Spargo, dreamily. &ldquo;I suppose so. He might have
+had&mdash;nothing on him, eh?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The detective laughed, and pointed to a board on which names were printed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We don&rsquo;t know anything yet, sir,&rdquo; he observed, &ldquo;except
+that Mr. Breton is on the fourth floor. By which I conclude that it isn&rsquo;t
+long since he was eating his dinner.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, he&rsquo;s young&mdash;he&rsquo;s quite young,&rdquo; said Spargo.
+&ldquo;I should say he&rsquo;s about four-and-twenty. I&rsquo;ve met him
+only&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At that moment the unmistakable sounds of girlish laughter came down the
+staircase. Two girls seemed to be laughing&mdash;presently masculine laughter
+mingled with the lighter feminine.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Seems to be studying law in very pleasant fashion up here,
+anyway,&rdquo; said Rathbury. &ldquo;Mr. Breton&rsquo;s chambers, too. And the
+door&rsquo;s open.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The outer oak door of Ronald Breton&rsquo;s chambers stood thrown wide; the
+inner one was well ajar; through the opening thus made Spargo and the detective
+obtained a full view of the interior of Mr. Ronald Breton&rsquo;s rooms. There,
+against a background of law books, bundles of papers tied up with pink tape,
+and black-framed pictures of famous legal notabilities, they saw a pretty,
+vivacious-eyed girl, who, perched on a chair, wigged and gowned, and
+flourishing a mass of crisp paper, was haranguing an imaginary judge and jury,
+to the amusement of a young man who had his back to the door, and of another
+girl who leant confidentially against his shoulder.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I put it to you, gentlemen of the jury&mdash;I put it to you with
+confidence, feeling that you must be, must necessarily be, some, perhaps
+brothers, perhaps husbands, and fathers, can you, on your consciences do my
+client the great wrong, the irreparable injury, the&mdash;the&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Think of some more adjectives!&rdquo; exclaimed the young man.
+&ldquo;Hot and strong &rsquo;uns&mdash;pile &rsquo;em up. That&rsquo;s what
+they like&mdash;they&mdash;Hullo!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This exclamation arose from the fact that at this point of the proceedings the
+detective rapped at the inner door, and then put his head round its edge.
+Whereupon the young lady who was orating from the chair, jumped hastily down;
+the other young lady withdrew from the young man&rsquo;s protecting arm; there
+was a feminine giggle and a feminine swishing of skirts, and a hasty bolt into
+an inner room, and Mr. Ronald Breton came forward, blushing a little, to greet
+the interrupter.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Come in, come in!&rdquo; he exclaimed hastily. &ldquo;I&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then he paused, catching sight of Spargo, and held out his hand with a look of
+surprise.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh&mdash;Mr. Spargo?&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;How do you
+do?&mdash;we&mdash;I&mdash;we were just having a lark&mdash;I&rsquo;m off to
+court in a few minutes. What can I do for you, Mr. Spargo?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He had backed to the inner door as he spoke, and he now closed it and turned
+again to the two men, looking from one to the other. The detective, on his
+part, was looking at the young barrister. He saw a tall, slimly-built youth, of
+handsome features and engaging presence, perfectly groomed, and immaculately
+garbed, and having upon him a general air of well-to-do-ness, and he formed the
+impression from these matters that Mr. Breton was one of those fortunate young
+men who may take up a profession but are certainly not dependent upon it. He
+turned and glanced at the journalist.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How do you do?&rdquo; said Spargo slowly. &ldquo;I&mdash;the fact is, I
+came here with Mr. Rathbury. He&mdash;wants to see you. Detective-Sergeant
+Rathbury&mdash;of New Scotland Yard.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo pronounced this formal introduction as if he were repeating a lesson.
+But he was watching the young barrister&rsquo;s face. And Breton turned to the
+detective with a look of surprise.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh!&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;You wish&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Rathbury had been fumbling in his pocket for the scrap of grey paper, which he
+had carefully bestowed in a much-worn memorandum-book. &ldquo;I wished to ask a
+question, Mr. Breton,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;This morning, about a quarter to
+three, a man&mdash;elderly man&mdash;was found dead in Middle Temple Lane, and
+there seems little doubt that he was murdered. Mr. Spargo here&mdash;he was
+present when the body was found.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Soon after,&rdquo; corrected Spargo. &ldquo;A few minutes after.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;When this body was examined at the mortuary,&rdquo; continued Rathbury,
+in his matter-of-fact, business-like tones, &ldquo;nothing was found that could
+lead to identification. The man appears to have been robbed. There was nothing
+whatever on him&mdash;but this bit of torn paper, which was found in a hole in
+the lining of his waistcoat pocket. It&rsquo;s got your name and address on it,
+Mr. Breton. See?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ronald Breton took the scrap of paper and looked at it with knitted brows.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;By Jove!&rdquo; he muttered. &ldquo;So it has; that&rsquo;s queer.
+What&rsquo;s he like, this man?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Rathbury glanced at a clock which stood on the mantelpiece.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Will you step round and take a look at him, Mr. Breton?&rdquo; he said.
+&ldquo;It&rsquo;s close by.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well&mdash;I&mdash;the fact is, I&rsquo;ve got a case on, in Mr. Justice
+Borrow&rsquo;s court,&rdquo; Breton answered, also glancing at his clock.
+&ldquo;But it won&rsquo;t be called until after eleven. Will&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Plenty of time, sir,&rdquo; said Rathbury; &ldquo;it won&rsquo;t take
+you ten minutes to go round and back again&mdash;a look will do. You
+don&rsquo;t recognize this handwriting, I suppose?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Breton still held the scrap of paper in his fingers. He looked at it again,
+intently.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No!&rdquo; he answered. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t. I don&rsquo;t know it at
+all&mdash;I can&rsquo;t think, of course, who this man could be, to have my
+name and address. I thought he might have been some country solicitor, wanting
+my professional services, you know,&rdquo; he went on, with a shy smile at
+Spargo; &ldquo;but, three&mdash;three o&rsquo;clock in the morning, eh?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The doctor,&rdquo; observed Rathbury, &ldquo;the doctor thinks he had
+been dead about two and a half hours.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Breton turned to the inner door.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll&mdash;I&rsquo;ll just tell these ladies I&rsquo;m going out
+for a quarter of an hour,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;They&rsquo;re going over to
+the court with me&mdash;I got my first brief yesterday,&rdquo; he went on with
+a boyish laugh, glancing right and left at his visitors. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s
+nothing much&mdash;small case&mdash;but I promised my fiancée and her sister
+that they should be present, you know. A moment.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He disappeared into the next room and came back a moment later in all the glory
+of a new silk hat. Spargo, a young man who was never very particular about his
+dress, began to contrast his own attire with the butterfly appearance of this
+youngster; he had been quick to notice that the two girls who had whisked into
+the inner room had been similarly garbed in fine raiment, more characteristic
+of Mayfair than of Fleet Street. Already he felt a strange curiosity about
+Breton, and about the young ladies whom he heard talking behind the inner door.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, come on,&rdquo; said Breton. &ldquo;Let&rsquo;s go straight
+there.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The mortuary to which Rathbury led the way was cold, drab, repellent to the
+general gay sense of the summer morning. Spargo shivered involuntarily as he
+entered it and took a first glance around. But the young barrister showed no
+sign of feeling or concern; he looked quickly about him and stepped alertly to
+the side of the dead man, from whose face the detective was turning back a
+cloth. He looked steadily and earnestly at the fixed features. Then he drew
+back, shaking his head.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No!&rdquo; he said with decision. &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t know
+him&mdash;don&rsquo;t know him from Adam. Never set eyes on him in my life,
+that I know of.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Rathbury replaced the cloth.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t suppose you would,&rdquo; he remarked. &ldquo;Well, I
+expect we must go on the usual lines. Somebody&rsquo;ll identify him.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You say he was murdered?&rdquo; said Breton. &ldquo;Is
+that&mdash;certain?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Rathbury jerked his thumb at the corpse.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The back of his skull is smashed in,&rdquo; he said laconically.
+&ldquo;The doctor says he must have been struck down from behind&mdash;and a
+fearful blow, too. I&rsquo;m much obliged to you, Mr. Breton.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, all right!&rdquo; said Breton. &ldquo;Well, you know where to find
+me if you want me. I shall be curious about this. Good-bye&mdash;good-bye, Mr.
+Spargo.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The young barrister hurried away, and Rathbury turned to the journalist.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t expect anything from that,&rdquo; he remarked.
+&ldquo;However, it was a thing to be done. You are going to write about this
+for your paper?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo nodded.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well,&rdquo; continued Rathbury, &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve sent a man to
+Fiskie&rsquo;s, the hatter&rsquo;s, where that cap came from, you know. We may
+get a bit of information from that quarter&mdash;it&rsquo;s possible. If you
+like to meet me here at twelve o&rsquo;clock I&rsquo;ll tell you anything
+I&rsquo;ve heard. Just now I&rsquo;m going to get some breakfast.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll meet you here,&rdquo; said Spargo, &ldquo;at twelve
+o&rsquo;clock.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He watched Rathbury go away round one corner; he himself suddenly set off round
+another. He went to the <i>Watchman</i> office, wrote a few lines, which he
+enclosed in an envelope for the day-editor, and went out again. Somehow or
+other, his feet led him up Fleet Street, and before he quite realized what he
+was doing he found himself turning into the Law Courts.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap03"></a>CHAPTER THREE<br/>
+THE CLUE OF THE CAP</h2>
+
+<p>
+Having no clear conception of what had led him to these scenes of litigation,
+Spargo went wandering aimlessly about in the great hall and the adjacent
+corridors until an official, who took him to be lost, asked him if there was
+any particular part of the building he wanted. For a moment Spargo stared at
+the man as if he did not comprehend his question. Then his mental powers
+reasserted themselves.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Isn&rsquo;t Mr. Justice Borrow sitting in one of the courts this
+morning?&rdquo; he suddenly asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Number seven,&rdquo; replied the official. &ldquo;What&rsquo;s your
+case&mdash;when&rsquo;s it down?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I haven&rsquo;t got a case,&rdquo; said Spargo. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m a
+pressman&mdash;reporter, you know.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The official stuck out a finger.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Round the corner&mdash;first to your right&mdash;second on the
+left,&rdquo; he said automatically. &ldquo;You&rsquo;ll find plenty of
+room&mdash;nothing much doing there this morning.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He turned away, and Spargo recommenced his apparently aimless perambulation of
+the dreary, depressing corridors.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Upon my honour!&rdquo; he muttered. &ldquo;Upon my honour, I really
+don&rsquo;t know what I&rsquo;ve come up here for. I&rsquo;ve no business
+here.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Just then he turned a corner and came face to face with Ronald Breton. The
+young barrister was now in his wig and gown and carried a bundle of papers tied
+up with pink tape; he was escorting two young ladies, who were laughing and
+chattering as they tripped along at his side. And Spargo, glancing at them
+meditatively, instinctively told himself which of them it was that he and
+Rathbury had overheard as she made her burlesque speech: it was not the elder
+one, who walked by Ronald Breton with something of an air of proprietorship,
+but the younger, the girl with the laughing eyes and the vivacious smile, and
+it suddenly dawned upon him that somewhere, deep within him, there had been a
+notion, a hope of seeing this girl again&mdash;why, he could not then think.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo, thus coming face to face with these three, mechanically lifted his hat.
+Breton stopped, half inquisitive. His eyes seemed to ask a question.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; said Spargo. &ldquo;I&mdash;the fact is, I remembered that
+you said you were coming up here, and I came after you. I want&mdash;when
+you&rsquo;ve time&mdash;to have a talk, to ask you a few questions.
+About&mdash;this affair of the dead man, you know.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Breton nodded. He tapped Spargo on the arm.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Look here,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;When this case of mine is over, I can
+give you as much time as you like. Can you wait a bit? Yes? Well, I say, do me
+a favour. I was taking these ladies round to the gallery&mdash;round there, and
+up the stairs&mdash;and I&rsquo;m a bit pressed for time&mdash;I&rsquo;ve a
+solicitor waiting for me. You take them&mdash;there&rsquo;s a good fellow;
+then, when the case is over, bring them down here, and you and I will talk.
+Here&mdash;I&rsquo;ll introduce you all&mdash;no ceremony. Miss
+Aylmore&mdash;Miss Jessie Aylmore. Mr. Spargo&mdash;of the <i>Watchman</i>.
+Now, I&rsquo;m off!&rdquo; Breton turned on the instant; his gown whisked round
+a corner, and Spargo found himself staring at two smiling girls. He saw then
+that both were pretty and attractive, and that one seemed to be the elder by
+some three or four years.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That is very cool of Ronald,&rdquo; observed the elder young lady.
+&ldquo;Perhaps his scheme doesn&rsquo;t fit in with yours, Mr. Spargo? Pray
+don&rsquo;t&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, it&rsquo;s all right!&rdquo; said Spargo, feeling himself uncommonly
+stupid. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve nothing to do. But&mdash;where did Mr. Breton say you
+wished to be taken?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Into the gallery of number seven court,&rdquo; said the younger girl
+promptly. &ldquo;Round this corner&mdash;I think I know the way.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo, still marvelling at the rapidity with which affairs were moving that
+morning, bestirred himself to act as cicerone, and presently led the two young
+ladies to the very front of one of those public galleries from which idlers and
+specially-interested spectators may see and hear the proceedings which obtain
+in the badly-ventilated, ill-lighted tanks wherein justice is dispensed at the
+Law Courts. There was no one else in that gallery; the attendant in the
+corridor outside seemed to be vastly amazed that any one should wish to enter
+it, and he presently opened the door, beckoned to Spargo, and came half-way
+down the stairs to meet him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nothing much going on here this morning,&rdquo; he whispered behind a
+raised hand. &ldquo;But there&rsquo;s a nice breach case in number
+five&mdash;get you three good seats there if you like.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo declined this tempting offer, and went back to his charges. He had
+decided by that time that Miss Aylmore was about twenty-three, and her sister
+about eighteen; he also thought that young Breton was a lucky dog to be in
+possession of such a charming future wife and an equally charming
+sister-in-law. And he dropped into a seat at Miss Jessie Aylmore&rsquo;s side,
+and looked around him as if he were much awed by his surroundings.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I suppose one can talk until the judge enters?&rdquo; he whispered.
+&ldquo;Is this really Mr. Breton&rsquo;s first case?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;His very first&mdash;all on his own responsibility, any way,&rdquo;
+replied Spargo&rsquo;s companion, smiling. &ldquo;And he&rsquo;s very
+nervous&mdash;and so&rsquo;s my sister. Aren&rsquo;t you, now, Evelyn?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Evelyn Aylmore looked at Spargo, and smiled quietly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I suppose one&rsquo;s always nervous about first appearances,&rdquo; she
+said. &ldquo;However, I think Ronald&rsquo;s got plenty of confidence, and, as
+he says, it&rsquo;s not much of a case: it isn&rsquo;t even a jury case.
+I&rsquo;m afraid you&rsquo;ll find it dull, Mr. Spargo&mdash;it&rsquo;s only
+something about a promissory note.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, I&rsquo;m all right, thank you,&rdquo; replied Spargo, unconsciously
+falling back on a favourite formula. &ldquo;I always like to hear
+lawyers&mdash;they manage to say such a lot about&mdash;about&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;About nothing,&rdquo; said Jessie Aylmore. &ldquo;But there&mdash;so do
+gentlemen who write for the papers, don&rsquo;t they?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo was about to admit that there was a good deal to be said on that point
+when Miss Aylmore suddenly drew her sister&rsquo;s attention to a man who had
+just entered the well of the court.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Look, Jessie!&rdquo; she observed. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s Mr.
+Elphick!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo looked down at the person indicated: an elderly, large-faced,
+smooth-shaven man, a little inclined to stoutness, who, wigged and gowned, was
+slowly making his way to a corner seat just outside that charmed inner sanctum
+wherein only King&rsquo;s Counsel are permitted to sit. He dropped into this in
+a fashion which showed that he was one of those men who loved personal comfort;
+he bestowed his plump person at the most convenient angle and fitting a monocle
+in his right eye, glanced around him. There were a few of his professional
+brethren in his vicinity; there were half a dozen solicitors and their clerks
+in conversation with one or other of them; there were court officials. But the
+gentleman of the monocle swept all these with an indifferent look and cast his
+eyes upward until he caught sight of the two girls. Thereupon he made a most
+gracious bow in their direction; his broad face beamed in a genial smile, and
+he waved a white hand.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Do you know Mr. Elphick, Mr. Spargo?&rdquo; enquired the younger Miss
+Aylmore.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I rather think I&rsquo;ve seen him, somewhere about the Temple,&rdquo;
+answered Spargo. &ldquo;In fact, I&rsquo;m sure I have.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;His chambers are in Paper Buildings,&rdquo; said Jessie.
+&ldquo;Sometimes he gives tea-parties in them. He is Ronald&rsquo;s guardian,
+and preceptor, and mentor, and all that, and I suppose he&rsquo;s dropped into
+this court to hear how his pupil goes on.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Here is Ronald,&rdquo; whispered Miss Aylmore.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And here,&rdquo; said her sister, &ldquo;is his lordship, looking very
+cross. Now, Mr. Spargo, you&rsquo;re in for it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo, to tell the truth, paid little attention to what went on beneath him.
+The case which young Breton presently opened was a commercial one, involving
+certain rights and properties in a promissory note; it seemed to the journalist
+that Breton dealt with it very well, showing himself master of the financial
+details, and speaking with readiness and assurance. He was much more interested
+in his companions, and especially in the younger one, and he was meditating on
+how he could improve his further acquaintance when he awoke to the fact that
+the defence, realizing that it stood no chance, had agreed to withdraw, and
+that Mr. Justice Borrow was already giving judgment in Ronald Breton&rsquo;s
+favour.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In another minute he was walking out of the gallery in rear of the two sisters.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Very good&mdash;very good, indeed,&rdquo; he said, absent-mindedly.
+&ldquo;I thought he put his facts very clearly and concisely.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Downstairs, in the corridor, Ronald Breton was talking to Mr. Elphick. He
+pointed a finger at Spargo as the latter came up with the girls: Spargo
+gathered that Breton was speaking of the murder and of his, Spargo&rsquo;s,
+connection with it. And directly they approached, he spoke.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;This is Mr. Spargo, sub-editor of the <i>Watchman</i>.&rdquo; Breton
+said. &ldquo;Mr. Elphick&mdash;Mr. Spargo. I was just telling Mr. Elphick,
+Spargo, that you saw this poor man soon after he was found.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo, glancing at Mr. Elphick, saw that he was deeply interested. The elderly
+barrister took him&mdash;literally&mdash;by the button-hole.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;My dear sir!&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;You&mdash;saw this poor fellow?
+Lying dead&mdash;in the third entry down Middle Temple Lane? The third entry,
+eh?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; replied Spargo, simply. &ldquo;I saw him. It was the third
+entry.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Singular!&rdquo; said Mr. Elphick, musingly. &ldquo;I know a man who
+lives in that house. In fact, I visited him last night, and did not leave until
+nearly midnight. And this unfortunate man had Mr. Ronald Breton&rsquo;s name
+and address in his pocket?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo nodded. He looked at Breton, and pulled out his watch. Just then he had
+no idea of playing the part of informant to Mr. Elphick.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, that&rsquo;s so,&rdquo; he answered shortly. Then, looking at
+Breton significantly, he added, &ldquo;If you can give me those few minutes,
+now&mdash;?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes&mdash;yes!&rdquo; responded Ronald Breton, nodding. &ldquo;I
+understand. Evelyn&mdash;I&rsquo;ll leave you and Jessie to Mr. Elphick; I must
+go.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Elphick seized Spargo once more.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;My dear sir!&rdquo; he said, eagerly. &ldquo;Do you&mdash;do you think I
+could possibly see&mdash;the body?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It&rsquo;s at the mortuary,&rdquo; answered Spargo. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t
+know what their regulations are.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then he escaped with Breton. They had crossed Fleet Street and were in the
+quieter shades of the Temple before Spargo spoke.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;About what I wanted to say to you,&rdquo; he said at last. &ldquo;It
+was&mdash;this. I&mdash;well, I&rsquo;ve always wanted, as a journalist, to
+have a real big murder case. I think this is one. I want to go right into
+it&mdash;thoroughly, first and last. And&mdash;I think you can help me.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How do you know that it is a murder case?&rdquo; asked Breton quietly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It&rsquo;s a murder case,&rdquo; answered Spargo, stolidly. &ldquo;I
+feel it. Instinct, perhaps. I&rsquo;m going to ferret out the truth. And it
+seems to me&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He paused and gave his companion a sharp glance.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It seems to me,&rdquo; he presently continued, &ldquo;that the clue lies
+in that scrap of paper. That paper and that man are connecting links between
+you and&mdash;somebody else.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Possibly,&rdquo; agreed Breton. &ldquo;You want to find the somebody
+else?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I want you to help me to find the somebody else,&rdquo; answered Spargo.
+&ldquo;I believe this is a big, very big affair: I want to do it. I don&rsquo;t
+believe in police methods&mdash;much. By the by, I&rsquo;m just going to meet
+Rathbury. He may have heard of something. Would you like to come?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Breton ran into his chambers in King&rsquo;s Bench Walk, left his gown and wig,
+and walked round with Spargo to the police office. Rathbury came out as they
+were stepping in.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh!&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Ah!&mdash;I&rsquo;ve got what may be helpful,
+Mr. Spargo. I told you I&rsquo;d sent a man to Fiskie&rsquo;s, the hatter!
+Well, he&rsquo;s just returned. The cap which the dead man was wearing was
+bought at Fiskie&rsquo;s yesterday afternoon, and it was sent to Mr. Marbury,
+Room 20, at the Anglo-Orient Hotel.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Where is that?&rdquo; asked Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Waterloo district,&rdquo; answered Rathbury. &ldquo;A small house, I
+believe. Well, I&rsquo;m going there. Are you coming?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; replied Spargo. &ldquo;Of course. And Mr. Breton wants to
+come, too.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If I&rsquo;m not in the way,&rdquo; said Breton.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Rathbury laughed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, we may find out something about this scrap of paper,&rdquo; he
+observed. And he waved a signal to the nearest taxi-cab driver.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap04"></a>CHAPTER FOUR<br/>
+THE ANGLO-ORIENT HOTEL</h2>
+
+<p>
+The house at which Spargo and his companions presently drew up was an
+old-fashioned place in the immediate vicinity of Waterloo Railway
+Station&mdash;a plain-fronted, four-square erection, essentially mid-Victorian
+in appearance, and suggestive, somehow, of the very early days of railway
+travelling. Anything more in contrast with the modern ideas of a hotel it would
+have been difficult to find in London, and Ronald Breton said so as he and the
+others crossed the pavement.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And yet a good many people used to favour this place on their way to and
+from Southampton in the old days,&rdquo; remarked Rathbury. &ldquo;And I
+daresay that old travellers, coming back from the East after a good many
+years&rsquo; absence, still rush in here. You see, it&rsquo;s close to the
+station, and travellers have a knack of walking into the nearest place when
+they&rsquo;ve a few thousand miles of steamboat and railway train behind them.
+Look there, now!&rdquo; They had crossed the threshold as the detective spoke,
+and as they entered a square, heavily-furnished hall, he made a sidelong motion
+of his head towards a bar on the left, wherein stood or lounged a number of men
+who from their general appearance, their slouched hats, and their bronzed faces
+appeared to be Colonials, or at any rate to have spent a good part of their
+time beneath Oriental skies. There was a murmur of tongues that had a Colonial
+accent in it; an aroma of tobacco that suggested Sumatra and Trichinopoly, and
+Rathbury wagged his head sagely. &ldquo;Lay you anything the dead man was a
+Colonial, Mr. Spargo,&rdquo; he remarked. &ldquo;Well, now, I suppose
+that&rsquo;s the landlord and landlady.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was an office facing them, at the rear of the hall, and a man and woman
+were regarding them from a box window which opened above a ledge on which lay a
+register book. They were middle-aged folk: the man, a fleshy, round-faced,
+somewhat pompous-looking individual, who might at some time have been a butler;
+the woman a tall, spare-figured, thin-featured, sharp-eyed person, who examined
+the newcomers with an enquiring gaze. Rathbury went up to them with easy
+confidence.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You the landlord of this house, sir?&rdquo; he asked. &ldquo;Mr.
+Walters? Just so&mdash;and Mrs. Walters, I presume?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The landlord made a stiff bow and looked sharply at his questioner.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What can I do for you, sir?&rdquo; he enquired.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A little matter of business, Mr. Walters,&rdquo; replied Rathbury,
+pulling out a card. &ldquo;You&rsquo;ll see there who I
+am&mdash;Detective-Sergeant Rathbury, of the Yard. This is Mr. Frank Spargo, a
+newspaper man; this is Mr. Ronald Breton, a barrister.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The landlady, hearing their names and description, pointed to a side door, and
+signed Rathbury and his companions to pass through. Obeying her pointed finger,
+they found themselves in a small private parlour. Walters closed the two doors
+which led into it and looked at his principal visitor.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What is it, Mr. Rathbury?&rdquo; he enquired. &ldquo;Anything
+wrong?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We want a bit of information,&rdquo; answered Rathbury, almost with
+indifference.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Did anybody of the name of Marbury put up here yesterday&mdash;elderly
+man, grey hair, fresh complexion?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mrs. Walters started, glancing at her husband.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There!&rdquo; she exclaimed. &ldquo;I knew some enquiry would be made.
+Yes&mdash;a Mr. Marbury took a room here yesterday morning, just after the noon
+train got in from Southampton. Number 20 he took. But&mdash;he didn&rsquo;t use
+it last night. He went out&mdash;very late&mdash;and he never came back.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Rathbury nodded. Answering a sign from the landlord, he took a chair and,
+sitting down, looked at Mrs. Walters.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What made you think some enquiry would be made, ma&rsquo;am?&rdquo; he
+asked. &ldquo;Had you noticed anything?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mrs. Walters seemed a little confused by this direct question. Her husband gave
+vent to a species of growl.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nothing to notice,&rdquo; he muttered. &ldquo;Her way of
+speaking&mdash;that&rsquo;s all.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well&mdash;why I said that was this,&rdquo; said the landlady. &ldquo;He
+happened to tell us, did Mr. Marbury, that he hadn&rsquo;t been in London for
+over twenty years, and couldn&rsquo;t remember anything about it, him, he said,
+never having known much about London at any time. And, of course, when he went
+out so late and never came back, why, naturally, I thought something had
+happened to him, and that there&rsquo;d be enquiries made.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Just so&mdash;just so!&rdquo; said Rathbury. &ldquo;So you would,
+ma&rsquo;am&mdash;so you would. Well, something has happened to him. He&rsquo;s
+dead. What&rsquo;s more, there&rsquo;s strong reason to think he was
+murdered.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. and Mrs. Walters received this announcement with proper surprise and
+horror, and the landlord suggested a little refreshment to his visitors. Spargo
+and Breton declined, on the ground that they had work to do during the
+afternoon; Rathbury accepted it, evidently as a matter of course.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;My respects,&rdquo; he said, lifting his glass. &ldquo;Well, now,
+perhaps you&rsquo;ll just tell me what you know of this man? I may as well tell
+you, Mr. and Mrs. Walters, that he was found dead in Middle Temple Lane this
+morning, at a quarter to three; that there wasn&rsquo;t anything on him but his
+clothes and a scrap of paper which bore this gentleman&rsquo;s name and
+address; that this gentleman knows nothing whatever of him, and that I traced
+him here because he bought a cap at a West End hatter&rsquo;s yesterday, and
+had it sent to your hotel.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; said Mrs. Walters quickly, &ldquo;that&rsquo;s so. And he
+went out in that cap last night. Well&mdash;we don&rsquo;t know much about him.
+As I said, he came in here about a quarter past twelve yesterday morning, and
+booked Number 20. He had a porter with him that brought a trunk and a
+bag&mdash;they&rsquo;re in 20 now, of course. He told me that he had stayed at
+this house over twenty years ago, on his way to Australia&mdash;that, of
+course, was long before we took it. And he signed his name in the book as John
+Marbury.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We&rsquo;ll look at that, if you please,&rdquo; said Rathbury.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Walters fetched in the register and turned the leaf to the previous day&rsquo;s
+entries. They all bent over the dead man&rsquo;s writing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;John Marbury, Coolumbidgee, New South Wales,&rsquo;&rdquo; said
+Rathbury. &ldquo;Ah&mdash;now I was wondering if that writing would be the same
+as that on the scrap of paper, Mr. Breton. But, you see, it
+isn&rsquo;t&mdash;it&rsquo;s quite different.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Quite different,&rdquo; said Breton. He, too, was regarding the
+handwriting with great interest. And Rathbury noticed his keen inspection of
+it, and asked another question.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ever seen that writing before?&rdquo; he suggested.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Never,&rdquo; answered Breton. &ldquo;And yet&mdash;there&rsquo;s
+something very familiar about it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then the probability is that you have seen it before,&rdquo; remarked
+Rathbury. &ldquo;Well&mdash;now we&rsquo;ll hear a little more about
+Marbury&rsquo;s doings here. Just tell me all you know, Mr. and Mrs.
+Walters.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;My wife knows most,&rdquo; said Walters. &ldquo;I scarcely saw the
+man&mdash;I don&rsquo;t remember speaking with him.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No,&rdquo; said Mrs. Walters. &ldquo;You didn&rsquo;t&mdash;you
+weren&rsquo;t much in his way. Well,&rdquo; she continued, &ldquo;I showed him
+up to his room. He talked a bit&mdash;said he&rsquo;d just landed at
+Southampton from Melbourne.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Did he mention his ship?&rdquo; asked Rathbury. &ldquo;But if he
+didn&rsquo;t, it doesn&rsquo;t matter, for we can find out.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I believe the name&rsquo;s on his things,&rdquo; answered the landlady.
+&ldquo;There are some labels of that sort. Well, he asked for a chop to be
+cooked for him at once, as he was going out. He had his chop, and he went out
+at exactly one o&rsquo;clock, saying to me that he expected he&rsquo;d get
+lost, as he didn&rsquo;t know London well at any time, and shouldn&rsquo;t know
+it at all now. He went outside there&mdash;I saw him&mdash;looked about him and
+walked off towards Blackfriars way. During the afternoon the cap you spoke of
+came for him&mdash;from Fiskie&rsquo;s. So, of course, I judged he&rsquo;d been
+Piccadilly way. But he himself never came in until ten o&rsquo;clock. And then
+he brought a gentleman with him.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Aye?&rdquo; said Rathbury. &ldquo;A gentleman, now? Did you see
+him?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Just,&rdquo; replied the landlady. &ldquo;They went straight up to 20,
+and I just caught a mere glimpse of the gentleman as they turned up the stairs.
+A tall, well-built gentleman, with a grey beard, very well dressed as far as I
+could see, with a top hat and a white silk muffler round his throat, and
+carrying an umbrella.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And they went to Marbury&rsquo;s room?&rdquo; said Rathbury. &ldquo;What
+then?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, then, Mr. Marbury rang for some whiskey and soda,&rdquo; continued
+Mrs. Walters. &ldquo;He was particular to have a decanter of whiskey: that, and
+a syphon of soda were taken up there. I heard nothing more until nearly
+midnight; then the hall-porter told me that the gentleman in 20 had gone out,
+and had asked him if there was a night-porter&mdash;as, of course, there is. He
+went out at half-past eleven.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And the other gentleman?&rdquo; asked Rathbury.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The other gentleman,&rdquo; answered the landlady, &ldquo;went out with
+him. The hall-porter said they turned towards the station. And that was the
+last anybody in this house saw of Mr. Marbury. He certainly never came
+back.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That,&rdquo; observed Rathbury with a quiet smile, &ldquo;that is quite
+certain, ma&rsquo;am? Well&mdash;I suppose we&rsquo;d better see this Number 20
+room, and have a look at what he left there.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Everything,&rdquo; said Mrs. Walters, &ldquo;is just as he left it.
+Nothing&rsquo;s been touched.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It seemed to two of the visitors that there was little to touch. On the
+dressing-table lay a few ordinary articles of toilet&mdash;none of them of any
+quality or value: the dead man had evidently been satisfied with the plain
+necessities of life. An overcoat hung from a peg: Rathbury, without ceremony,
+went through its pockets; just as unceremoniously he proceeded to examine trunk
+and bag, and finding both unlocked, he laid out on the bed every article they
+contained and examined each separately and carefully. And he found nothing
+whereby he could gather any clue to the dead owner&rsquo;s identity.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There you are!&rdquo; he said, making an end of his task. &ldquo;You
+see, it&rsquo;s just the same with these things as with the clothes he had on
+him. There are no papers&mdash;there&rsquo;s nothing to tell who he was, what
+he was after, where he&rsquo;d come from&mdash;though that we may find out in
+other ways. But it&rsquo;s not often that a man travels without some clue to
+his identity. Beyond the fact that some of this linen was, you see, bought in
+Melbourne, we know nothing of him. Yet he must have had papers and money on
+him. Did you see anything of his money, now, ma&rsquo;am?&rdquo; he asked,
+suddenly turning to Mrs. Walters. &ldquo;Did he pull out his purse in your
+presence, now?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; answered the landlady, with promptitude. &ldquo;He came into
+the bar for a drink after he&rsquo;d been up to his room. He pulled out a
+handful of gold when he paid for it&mdash;a whole handful. There must have been
+some thirty to forty sovereigns and half-sovereigns.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And he hadn&rsquo;t a penny piece on him&mdash;when found,&rdquo;
+muttered Rathbury.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I noticed another thing, too,&rdquo; remarked the landlady. &ldquo;He
+was wearing a very fine gold watch and chain, and had a splendid ring on his
+left hand&mdash;little finger&mdash;gold, with a big diamond in it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; said the detective, thoughtfully, &ldquo;I noticed that
+he&rsquo;d worn a ring, and that it had been a bit tight for him.
+Well&mdash;now there&rsquo;s only one thing to ask about. Did your chambermaid
+notice if he left any torn paper around&mdash;tore any letters up, or anything
+like that?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But the chambermaid, produced, had not noticed anything of the sort; on the
+contrary, the gentleman of Number 20 had left his room very tidy indeed. So
+Rathbury intimated that he had no more to ask, and nothing further to say, just
+then, and he bade the landlord and landlady of the Anglo-Orient Hotel good
+morning, and went away, followed by the two young men.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What next?&rdquo; asked Spargo, as they gained the street.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The next thing,&rdquo; answered Rathbury, &ldquo;is to find the man with
+whom Marbury left this hotel last night.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And how&rsquo;s that to be done?&rdquo; asked Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;At present,&rdquo; replied Rathbury, &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And with a careless nod, he walked off, apparently desirous of being alone.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap05"></a>CHAPTER FIVE<br/>
+SPARGO WISHES TO SPECIALIZE</h2>
+
+<p>
+The barrister and the journalist, left thus unceremoniously on a crowded
+pavement, looked at each other. Breton laughed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We don&rsquo;t seem to have gained much information,&rdquo; he remarked.
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;m about as wise as ever.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No&mdash;wiser,&rdquo; said Spargo. &ldquo;At any rate, I am. I know now
+that this dead man called himself John Marbury; that he came from Australia;
+that he only landed at Southampton yesterday morning, and that he was in the
+company last night of a man whom we have had described to us&mdash;a tall,
+grey-bearded, well-dressed man, presumably a gentleman.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Breton shrugged his shoulders.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I should say that description would fit a hundred thousand men in
+London,&rdquo; he remarked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Exactly&mdash;so it would,&rdquo; answered Spargo. &ldquo;But we know
+that it was one of the hundred thousand, or half-million, if you like. The
+thing is to find that one&mdash;the one.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And you think you can do it?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I think I&rsquo;m going to have a big try at it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Breton shrugged his shoulders again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What?&mdash;by going up to every man who answers the description, and
+saying &lsquo;Sir, are you the man who accompanied John Marbury to the
+Anglo&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo suddenly interrupted him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Look here!&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Didn&rsquo;t you say that you knew a
+man who lives in that block in the entry of which Marbury was found?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, I didn&rsquo;t,&rdquo; answered Breton. &ldquo;It was Mr. Elphick
+who said that. All the same, I do know that man&mdash;he&rsquo;s Mr.
+Cardlestone, another barrister. He and Mr. Elphick are
+friends&mdash;they&rsquo;re both enthusiastic philatelists&mdash;stamp
+collectors, you know&mdash;and I dare say Mr. Elphick was round there last
+night examining something new Cardlestone&rsquo;s got hold of. Why?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;d like to go round there and make some enquiries,&rdquo; replied
+Spargo. &ldquo;If you&rsquo;d be kind enough to&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, I&rsquo;ll go with you!&rdquo; responded Breton, with alacrity.
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;m just as keen about this business as you are, Spargo! I want to
+know who this man Marbury is, and how he came to have my name and address on
+him. Now, if I had been a well-known man in my profession, you know,
+why&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; said Spargo, as they got into a cab, &ldquo;yes, that would
+have explained a lot. It seems to me that we&rsquo;ll get at the murderer
+through that scrap of paper a lot quicker than through Rathbury&rsquo;s line.
+Yes, that&rsquo;s what I think.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Breton looked at his companion with interest.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But&mdash;you don&rsquo;t know what Rathbury&rsquo;s line is,&rdquo; he
+remarked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, I do,&rdquo; said Spargo. &ldquo;Rathbury&rsquo;s gone off to
+discover who the man is with whom Marbury left the Anglo-Orient Hotel last
+night. That&rsquo;s his line.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And you want&mdash;&mdash;?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I want to find out the full significance of that bit of paper, and who
+wrote it,&rdquo; answered Spargo. &ldquo;I want to know why that old man was
+coming to you when he was murdered.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Breton started.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;By Jove!&rdquo; he exclaimed. &ldquo;I&mdash;I never thought of that.
+You&mdash;you really think he was coming to me when he was struck down?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Certain. Hadn&rsquo;t he got an address in the Temple? Wasn&rsquo;t he
+in the Temple? Of course, he was trying to find you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But&mdash;the late hour?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No matter. How else can you explain his presence in the Temple? I think
+he was asking his way. That&rsquo;s why I want to make some enquiries in this
+block.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It appeared to Spargo that a considerable number of people, chiefly of the
+office-boy variety, were desirous of making enquiries about the dead man. Being
+luncheon-hour, that bit of Middle Temple Lane where the body was found, was
+thick with the inquisitive and the sensation-seeker, for the news of the murder
+had spread, and though there was nothing to see but the bare stones on which
+the body had lain, there were more open mouths and staring eyes around the
+entry than Spargo had seen for many a day. And the nuisance had become so great
+that the occupants of the adjacent chambers had sent for a policeman to move
+the curious away, and when Spargo and his companion presented themselves at the
+entry this policeman was being lectured as to his duties by a little
+weazen-faced gentleman, in very snuffy and old-fashioned garments, and an
+ancient silk hat, who was obviously greatly exercised by the unwonted
+commotion.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Drive them all out into the street!&rdquo; exclaimed this personage.
+&ldquo;Drive them all away, constable&mdash;into Fleet Street or upon the
+Embankment&mdash;anywhere, so long as you rid this place of them. This is a
+disgrace, and an inconvenience, a nuisance, a&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s old Cardlestone,&rdquo; whispered Breton. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s
+always irascible, and I don&rsquo;t suppose we&rsquo;ll get anything out of
+him. Mr. Cardlestone,&rdquo; he continued, making his way up to the old
+gentleman who was now retreating up the stone steps, brandishing an umbrella as
+ancient as himself. &ldquo;I was just coming to see you, sir. This is Mr.
+Spargo, a journalist, who is much interested in this murder.
+He&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I know nothing about the murder, my dear sir!&rdquo; exclaimed Mr.
+Cardlestone. &ldquo;And I never talk to journalists&mdash;a pack of busybodies,
+sir, saving your presence. I am not aware that any murder has been committed,
+and I object to my doorway being filled by a pack of office boys and street
+loungers. Murder indeed! I suppose the man fell down these steps and broke his
+neck&mdash;drunk, most likely.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He opened his outer door as he spoke, and Breton, with a reassuring smile and a
+nod at Spargo, followed him into his chambers on the first landing, motioning
+the journalist to keep at their heels.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mr. Elphick tells me that he was with you until a late hour last
+evening, Mr. Cardlestone,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Of course, neither of you
+heard anything suspicious?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What should we hear that was suspicious in the Temple, sir?&rdquo;
+demanded Mr. Cardlestone, angrily. &ldquo;I hope the Temple is free from that
+sort of thing, young Mr. Breton. Your respected guardian and myself had a quiet
+evening on our usual peaceful pursuits, and when he went away all was as quiet
+as the grave, sir. What may have gone on in the chambers above and around me I
+know not! Fortunately, our walls are thick, sir&mdash;substantial. I say, sir,
+the man probably fell down and broke his neck. What he was doing here, I do not
+presume to say.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, it&rsquo;s guess, you know, Mr. Cardlestone,&rdquo; remarked
+Breton, again winking at Spargo. &ldquo;But all that was found on this man was
+a scrap of paper on which my name and address were written. That&rsquo;s
+practically all that was known of him, except that he&rsquo;d just arrived from
+Australia.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Cardlestone suddenly turned on the young barrister with a sharp, acute
+glance.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Eh?&rdquo; he exclaimed. &ldquo;What&rsquo;s this? You say this man had
+your name and address on him, young Breton!&mdash;yours? And that he came
+from&mdash;Australia?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s so,&rdquo; answered Breton. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s all
+that&rsquo;s known.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Cardlestone put aside his umbrella, produced a bandanna handkerchief of
+strong colours, and blew his nose in a reflective fashion.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s a mysterious thing,&rdquo; he observed.
+&ldquo;Um&mdash;does Elphick know all that?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Breton looked at Spargo as if he was asking him for an explanation of Mr.
+Cardlestone&rsquo;s altered manner. And Spargo took up the conversation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;All that Mr. Elphick knows is that Mr. Ronald
+Breton&rsquo;s name and address were on the scrap of paper found on the body.
+Mr. Elphick&rdquo;&mdash;here Spargo paused and looked at
+Breton&mdash;&ldquo;Mr. Elphick,&rdquo; he presently continued, slowly
+transferring his glance to the old barrister, &ldquo;spoke of going to view the
+body.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah!&rdquo; exclaimed Mr. Cardlestone, eagerly. &ldquo;It can be seen?
+Then I&rsquo;ll go and see it. Where is it?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Breton started.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But&mdash;my dear sir!&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Why?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Cardlestone picked up his umbrella again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I feel a proper curiosity about a mystery which occurs at my very
+door,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Also, I have known more than one man who went to
+Australia. This might&mdash;I say might, young gentlemen&mdash;might be a man I
+had once known. Show me where this body is.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Breton looked helplessly at Spargo: it was plain that he did not understand the
+turn that things were taking. But Spargo was quick to seize an opportunity. In
+another minute he was conducting Mr. Cardlestone through the ins and outs of
+the Temple towards Blackfriars. And as they turned into Tudor Street they
+encountered Mr. Elphick.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am going to the mortuary,&rdquo; he remarked. &ldquo;So, I suppose,
+are you, Cardlestone? Has anything more been discovered, young man?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo tried a chance shot&mdash;at what he did not know. &ldquo;The
+man&rsquo;s name was Marbury,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;He was from
+Australia.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He was keeping a keen eye on Mr. Elphick, but he failed to see that Mr. Elphick
+showed any of the surprise which Mr. Cardlestone had exhibited. Rather, he
+seemed indifferent.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh?&rdquo; he said&mdash;&ldquo;Marbury? And from Australia.
+Well&mdash;I should like to see the body.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo and Breton had to wait outside the mortuary while the two elder
+gentlemen went in. There was nothing to be learnt from either when they
+reappeared.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We don&rsquo;t know the man,&rdquo; said Mr. Elphick, calmly. &ldquo;As
+Mr. Cardlestone, I understand, has said to you already&mdash;we have known men
+who went to Australia, and as this man was evidently wandering about the
+Temple, we thought it might have been one of them, come back. But&mdash;we
+don&rsquo;t recognize him.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Couldn&rsquo;t recognize him,&rdquo; said Mr. Cardlestone.
+&ldquo;No!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They went away together arm in arm, and Breton looked at Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;As if anybody on earth ever fancied they&rsquo;d recognize him!&rdquo;
+he said. &ldquo;Well&mdash;what are you going to do now, Spargo? I must
+go.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo, who had been digging his walking-stick into a crack in the pavement,
+came out of a fit of abstraction.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I?&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Oh&mdash;I&rsquo;m going to the office.&rdquo;
+And he turned abruptly away, and walking straight off to the editorial rooms at
+the <i>Watchman</i>, made for one in which sat the official guardian of the
+editor. &ldquo;Try to get me a few minutes with the chief,&rdquo; he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The private secretary looked up.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Really important?&rdquo; he asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Big!&rdquo; answered Spargo. &ldquo;Fix it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Once closeted with the great man, whose idiosyncrasies he knew pretty well by
+that time, Spargo lost no time.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You&rsquo;ve heard about this murder in Middle Temple Lane?&rdquo; he
+suggested.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The mere facts,&rdquo; replied the editor, tersely.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I was there when the body was found,&rdquo; continued Spargo, and gave a
+brief résumé of his doings. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m certain this is a most unusual
+affair,&rdquo; he went on. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s as full of mystery as&mdash;as it
+could be. I want to give my attention to it. I want to specialize on it. I can
+make such a story of it as we haven&rsquo;t had for some time&mdash;ages. Let
+me have it. And to start with, let me have two columns for tomorrow morning.
+I&rsquo;ll make it&mdash;big!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The editor looked across his desk at Spargo&rsquo;s eager face.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Your other work?&rdquo; he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well in hand,&rdquo; replied Spargo. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m ahead a whole
+week&mdash;both articles and reviews. I can tackle both.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The editor put his finger tips together.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Have you got some idea about this, young man?&rdquo; he asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve got a great idea,&rdquo; answered Spargo. He faced the great
+man squarely, and stared at him until he had brought a smile to the editorial
+face. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s why I want to do it,&rdquo; he added.
+&ldquo;And&mdash;it&rsquo;s not mere boasting nor over-confidence&mdash;I know
+I shall do it better than anybody else.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The editor considered matters for a brief moment.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You mean to find out who killed this man?&rdquo; he said at last.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo nodded his head&mdash;twice.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll find that out,&rdquo; he said doggedly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The editor picked up a pencil, and bent to his desk.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;All right,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Go ahead. You shall have your two
+columns.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo went quietly away to his own nook and corner. He got hold of a block of
+paper and began to write. He was going to show how to do things.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap06"></a>CHAPTER SIX<br/>
+WITNESS TO A MEETING</h2>
+
+<p>
+Ronald Breton walked into the <i>Watchman</i> office and into Spargo&rsquo;s
+room next morning holding a copy of the current issue in his hand. He waved it
+at Spargo with an enthusiasm which was almost boyish.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I say!&rdquo; he exclaimed. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s the way to do it,
+Spargo! I congratulate you. Yes, that&rsquo;s the way&mdash;certain!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo, idly turning over a pile of exchanges, yawned.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What way?&rdquo; he asked indifferently.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The way you&rsquo;ve written this thing up,&rdquo; said Breton.
+&ldquo;It&rsquo;s a hundred thousand times better than the usual cut-and-dried
+account of a murder. It&rsquo;s&mdash;it&rsquo;s like a&mdash;a romance!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Merely a new method of giving news,&rdquo; said Spargo. He picked up a
+copy of the <i>Watchman</i>, and glanced at his two columns, which had somehow
+managed to make themselves into three, viewing the displayed lettering, the
+photograph of the dead man, the line drawing of the entry in Middle Temple
+Lane, and the facsimile of the scrap of grey paper, with a critical eye.
+&ldquo;Yes&mdash;merely a new method,&rdquo; he continued. &ldquo;The question
+is&mdash;will it achieve its object?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What&rsquo;s the object?&rdquo; asked Breton.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo fished out a box of cigarettes from an untidy drawer, pushed it over to
+his visitor, helped himself, and tilting back his chair, put his feet on his
+desk.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The object?&rdquo; he said, drily. &ldquo;Oh, well, the object is the
+ultimate detection of the murderer.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You&rsquo;re after that?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;m after that&mdash;just that.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And not&mdash;not simply out to make effective news?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;m out to find the murderer of John Marbury,&rdquo; said Spargo
+deliberately slow in his speech. &ldquo;And I&rsquo;ll find him.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, there doesn&rsquo;t seem to be much in the way of clues, so
+far,&rdquo; remarked Breton. &ldquo;I see&mdash;nothing. Do you?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo sent a spiral of scented smoke into the air.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I want to know an awful lot,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m hungering
+for news. I want to know who John Marbury is. I want to know what he did with
+himself between the time when he walked out of the Anglo-Orient Hotel, alive
+and well, and the time when he was found in Middle Temple Lane, with his skull
+beaten in and dead. I want to know where he got that scrap of paper. Above
+everything, Breton, I want to know what he&rsquo;d got to do with you!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He gave the young barrister a keen look, and Breton nodded.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I confess that&rsquo;s a corker. But I
+think&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well?&rdquo; said Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I think he may have been a man who had some legal business in hand, or
+in prospect, and had been recommended to&mdash;me,&rdquo; said Breton.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo smiled&mdash;a little sardonically.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s good!&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;You had your very first
+brief&mdash;yesterday. Come&mdash;your fame isn&rsquo;t blown abroad through
+all the heights yet, my friend! Besides&mdash;don&rsquo;t intending clients
+approach&mdash;isn&rsquo;t it strict etiquette for them to
+approach?&mdash;barristers through solicitors?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Quite right&mdash;in both your remarks,&rdquo; replied Breton,
+good-humouredly. &ldquo;Of course, I&rsquo;m not known a bit, but all the same
+I&rsquo;ve known several cases where a barrister has been approached in the
+first instance and asked to recommend a solicitor. Somebody who wanted to do me
+a good turn may have given this man my address.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Possible,&rdquo; said Spargo. &ldquo;But he wouldn&rsquo;t have come to
+consult you at midnight. Breton!&mdash;the more I think of it, the more
+I&rsquo;m certain there&rsquo;s a tremendous mystery in this affair!
+That&rsquo;s why I got the chief to let me write it up as I have
+done&mdash;here. I&rsquo;m hoping that this photograph&mdash;though to be sure,
+it&rsquo;s of a dead face&mdash;and this facsimile of the scrap of paper will
+lead to somebody coming forward who can&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Just then one of the uniformed youths who hang about the marble pillared
+vestibule of the <i>Watchman</i> office came into the room with the
+unmistakable look and air of one who carries news of moment.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I dare lay a sovereign to a cent that I know what this is,&rdquo;
+muttered Spargo in an aside. &ldquo;Well?&rdquo; he said to the boy.
+&ldquo;What is it?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The messenger came up to the desk.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mr. Spargo,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;there&rsquo;s a man downstairs who
+says that he wants to see somebody about that murder case that&rsquo;s in the
+paper this morning, sir. Mr. Barrett said I was to come to you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Who is the man?&rdquo; asked Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Won&rsquo;t say, sir,&rdquo; replied the boy. &ldquo;I gave him a form
+to fill up, but he said he wouldn&rsquo;t write anything&mdash;said all he
+wanted was to see the man who wrote the piece in the paper.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Bring him here,&rdquo; commanded Spargo. He turned to Breton when the
+boy had gone, and he smiled. &ldquo;I knew we should have somebody here sooner
+or later,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s why I hurried over my breakfast
+and came down at ten o&rsquo;clock. Now then, what will you bet on the chances
+of this chap&rsquo;s information proving valuable?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nothing,&rdquo; replied Breton. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s probably some crank or
+faddist who&rsquo;s got some theory that he wants to ventilate.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The man who was presently ushered in by the messenger seemed from preliminary
+and outward appearance to justify Breton&rsquo;s prognostication. He was
+obviously a countryman, a tall, loosely-built, middle-aged man, yellow of hair,
+blue of eye, who was wearing his Sunday-best array of pearl-grey trousers and
+black coat, and sported a necktie in which were several distinct colours.
+Oppressed with the splendour and grandeur of the <i>Watchman</i> building, he
+had removed his hard billycock hat as he followed the boy, and he ducked his
+bared head at the two young men as he stepped on to the thick pile of the
+carpet which made luxurious footing in Spargo&rsquo;s room. His blue eyes,
+opened to their widest, looked round him in astonishment at the sumptuousness
+of modern newspaper-office accommodation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How do you do, sir?&rdquo; said Spargo, pointing a finger to one of the
+easy-chairs for which the <i>Watchman</i> office is famous. &ldquo;I understand
+that you wish to see me?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The caller ducked his yellow head again, sat down on the edge of the chair, put
+his hat on the floor, picked it up again, and endeavoured to hang it on his
+knee, and looked at Spargo innocently and shyly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What I want to see, sir,&rdquo; he observed in a rustic accent,
+&ldquo;is the gentleman as wrote that piece in your newspaper about this here
+murder in Middle Temple Lane.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You see him,&rdquo; said Spargo. &ldquo;I am that man.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The caller smiled&mdash;generously.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Indeed, sir?&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;A very nice bit of reading,
+I&rsquo;m sure. And what might your name be, now, sir? I can always talk
+free-er to a man when I know what his name is.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;So can I,&rdquo; answered Spargo. &ldquo;My name is Spargo&mdash;Frank
+Spargo. What&rsquo;s yours?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Name of Webster, sir&mdash;William Webster. I farm at One Ash Farm, at
+Gosberton, in Oakshire. Me and my wife,&rdquo; continued Mr. Webster, again
+smiling and distributing his smile between both his hearers, &ldquo;is at
+present in London on a holiday. And very pleasant we find it&mdash;weather and
+all.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s right,&rdquo; said Spargo. &ldquo;And&mdash;you wanted to
+see me about this murder, Mr. Webster?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I did, sir. Me, I believe, knowing, as I think, something that&rsquo;ll
+do for you to put in your paper. You see, Mr. Spargo, it come about in this
+fashion&mdash;happen you&rsquo;ll be for me to tell it in my own way.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That,&rdquo; answered Spargo, &ldquo;is precisely what I desire.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, to be sure, I couldn&rsquo;t tell it in no other,&rdquo; declared
+Mr. Webster. &ldquo;You see, sir, I read your paper this morning while I was
+waiting for my breakfast&mdash;they take their breakfasts so late in them
+hotels&mdash;and when I&rsquo;d read it, and looked at the pictures, I says to
+my wife &lsquo;As soon as I&rsquo;ve had my breakfast,&rsquo; I says,
+&lsquo;I&rsquo;m going to where they print this newspaper to tell &rsquo;em
+something.&rsquo; &lsquo;Aye?&rsquo; she says, &lsquo;Why, what have you to
+tell, I should like to know?&rsquo; just like that, Mr. Spargo.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mrs. Webster,&rdquo; said Spargo, &ldquo;is a lady of businesslike
+principles. And what have you to tell?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Webster looked into the crown of his hat, looked out of it, and smiled
+knowingly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, sir,&rdquo; he continued, &ldquo;Last night, my wife, she went out
+to a part they call Clapham, to take her tea and supper with an old friend of
+hers as lives there, and as they wanted to have a bit of woman-talk, like, I
+didn&rsquo;t go. So thinks I to myself, I&rsquo;ll go and see this here House
+of Commons. There was a neighbour of mine as had told me that all you&rsquo;d
+got to do was to tell the policeman at the door that you wanted to see your own
+Member of Parliament. So when I got there I told &rsquo;em that I wanted to see
+our M.P., Mr. Stonewood&mdash;you&rsquo;ll have heard tell of him, no doubt; he
+knows me very well&mdash;and they passed me, and I wrote out a ticket for him,
+and they told me to sit down while they found him. So I sat down in a grand
+sort of hall where there were a rare lot of people going and coming, and some
+fine pictures and images to look at, and for a time I looked at them, and then
+I began to take a bit of notice of the folk near at hand, waiting, you know,
+like myself. And as sure as I&rsquo;m a christened man, sir, the gentleman
+whose picture you&rsquo;ve got in your paper&mdash;him as was
+murdered&mdash;was sitting next to me! I knew that picture as soon as I saw it
+this morning.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo, who had been making unmeaning scribbles on a block of paper, suddenly
+looked at his visitor.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What time was that?&rdquo; he asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It was between a quarter and half-past nine, sir,&rdquo; answered Mr.
+Webster. &ldquo;It might ha&rsquo; been twenty past&mdash;it might ha&rsquo;
+been twenty-five past.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Go on, if you please,&rdquo; said Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, sir, me and this here dead gentleman talked a bit. About what a
+long time it took to get a member to attend to you, and such-like. I made
+mention of the fact that I hadn&rsquo;t been in there before. &lsquo;Neither
+have I!&rsquo; he says, &lsquo;I came in out of curiosity,&rsquo; he says, and
+then he laughed, sir&mdash;queer-like. And it was just after that that what
+I&rsquo;m going to tell you about happened.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Tell,&rdquo; commanded Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, sir, there was a gentleman came along, down this grand hall that
+we were sitting in&mdash;a tall, handsome gentleman, with a grey beard.
+He&rsquo;d no hat on, and he was carrying a lot of paper and documents in his
+hand, so I thought he was happen one of the members. And all of a sudden this
+here man at my side, he jumps up with a sort of start and an exclamation,
+and&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo lifted his hand. He looked keenly at his visitor.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now, you&rsquo;re absolutely sure about what you heard him
+exclaim?&rdquo; he asked. &ldquo;Quite sure about it? Because I see you are
+going to tell us what he did exclaim.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll tell you naught but what I&rsquo;m certain of, sir,&rdquo;
+replied Webster. &ldquo;What he said as he jumped up was &lsquo;Good
+God!&rsquo; he says, sharp-like&mdash;and then he said a name, and I
+didn&rsquo;t right catch it, but it sounded like Danesworth, or Painesworth, or
+something of that sort&mdash;one of them there, or very like &rsquo;em, at any
+rate. And then he rushed up to this here gentleman, and laid his hand on his
+arm&mdash;sudden-like.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And&mdash;the gentleman?&rdquo; asked Spargo, quietly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, he seemed taken aback, sir. He jumped. Then he stared at the man.
+Then they shook hands. And then, after they&rsquo;d spoken a few words
+together-like, they walked off, talking. And, of course, I never saw no more of
+&rsquo;em. But when I saw your paper this morning, sir, and that picture in it,
+I said to myself &lsquo;That&rsquo;s the man I sat next to in that there hall
+at the House of Commons!&rsquo; Oh, there&rsquo;s no doubt of it, sir!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And supposing you saw a photograph of the tall gentleman with the grey
+beard?&rdquo; suggested Spargo. &ldquo;Could you recognize him from
+that?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Make no doubt of it, sir,&rdquo; answered Mr. Webster. &ldquo;I observed
+him particular.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo rose, and going over to a cabinet, took from it a thick volume, the
+leaves of which he turned over for several minutes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Come here, if you please, Mr. Webster,&rdquo; he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The farmer went across the room.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There is a full set of photographs of members of the present House of
+Commons here,&rdquo; said Spargo. &ldquo;Now, pick out the one you saw. Take
+your time&mdash;and be sure.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He left his caller turning over the album and went back to Breton.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There!&rdquo; he whispered. &ldquo;Getting nearer&mdash;a bit
+nearer&mdash;eh?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;To what?&rdquo; asked Breton. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t see&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A sudden exclamation from the farmer interrupted Breton&rsquo;s remark.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;This is him, sir!&rdquo; answered Mr. Webster. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s the
+gentleman&mdash;know him anywhere!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The two young men crossed the room. The farmer was pointing a stubby finger to
+a photograph, beneath which was written <i>Stephen Aylmore, Esq., M.P. for
+Brookminster</i>.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap07"></a>CHAPTER SEVEN<br/>
+MR. AYLMORE</h2>
+
+<p>
+Spargo, keenly observant and watchful, felt, rather than saw, Breton start; he
+himself preserved an imperturbable equanimity. He gave a mere glance at the
+photograph to which Mr. Webster was pointing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh!&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;That he?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s the gentleman, sir,&rdquo; replied Webster. &ldquo;Done to
+the life, that is. No difficulty in recognizing of that, Mr. Spargo.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You&rsquo;re absolutely sure?&rdquo; demanded Spargo. &ldquo;There are a
+lot of men in the House of Commons, you know, who wear beards, and many of the
+beards are grey.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But Webster wagged his head.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s him, sir!&rdquo; he repeated. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m as sure of
+that as I am that my name&rsquo;s William Webster. That&rsquo;s the man I saw
+talking to him whose picture you&rsquo;ve got in your paper. Can&rsquo;t say no
+more, sir.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Very good,&rdquo; said Spargo. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m much obliged to you.
+I&rsquo;ll see Mr. Aylmore. Leave me your address in London, Mr. Webster. How
+long do you remain in town?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;My address is the Beachcroft Hotel, Bloomsbury, sir, and I shall be
+there for another week,&rdquo; answered the farmer. &ldquo;Hope I&rsquo;ve been
+of some use, Mr. Spargo. As I says to my wife&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo cut his visitor short in polite fashion and bowed him out. He turned to
+Breton, who still stood staring at the album of portraits.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There!&mdash;what did I tell you?&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Didn&rsquo;t I
+say I should get some news? There it is.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Breton nodded his head. He seemed thoughtful.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; he agreed. &ldquo;Yes, I say, Spargo!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mr. Aylmore is my prospective father-in-law, you know.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Quite aware of it. Didn&rsquo;t you introduce me to his
+daughters&mdash;only yesterday?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But&mdash;how did you know they were his daughters?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo laughed as he sat down to his desk.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Instinct&mdash;intuition,&rdquo; he answered. &ldquo;However, never mind
+that, just now. Well&mdash;I&rsquo;ve found something out. Marbury&mdash;if
+that is the dead man&rsquo;s real name, and anyway, it&rsquo;s all we know him
+by&mdash;was in the company of Mr. Aylmore that night. Good!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What are you going to do about it?&rdquo; asked Breton.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Do? See Mr. Aylmore, of course.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He was turning over the leaves of a telephone address-book; one hand had
+already picked up the mouthpiece of the instrument on his desk.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Look here,&rdquo; said Breton. &ldquo;I know where Mr. Aylmore is always
+to be found at twelve o&rsquo;clock. At the A. and P.&mdash;the Atlantic and
+Pacific Club, you know, in St. James&rsquo;s. If you like, I&rsquo;ll go with
+you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo glanced at the clock and laid down the telephone.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;All right,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Eleven o&rsquo;clock, now. I&rsquo;ve
+something to do. I&rsquo;ll meet you outside the A. and P. at exactly
+noon.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll be there,&rdquo; agreed Breton. He made for the door, and
+with his hand on it, turned. &ldquo;What do you expect from&mdash;from what
+we&rsquo;ve just heard?&rdquo; he asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo shrugged his shoulders.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Wait&mdash;until we hear what Mr. Aylmore has to say,&rdquo; he
+answered. &ldquo;I suppose this man Marbury was some old acquaintance.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Breton closed the door and went away: left alone, Spargo began to mutter to
+himself.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Good God!&rdquo; he says.
+&ldquo;Dainsworth&mdash;Painsworth&mdash;something of that sort&mdash;one of
+the two. Excellent&mdash;that our farmer friend should have so much
+observation. Ah!&mdash;and why should Mr. Stephen Aylmore be recognized as
+Dainsworth or Painsworth or something of that sort. Now, who is Mr. Stephen
+Aylmore&mdash;beyond being what I know him to be?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo&rsquo;s fingers went instinctively to one of a number of books of
+reference which stood on his desk: they turned with practised swiftness to a
+page over which his eye ran just as swiftly. He read aloud:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;AYLMORE, STEPHEN, M.P. for Brookminster since 1910. Residences: 23, St.
+Osythe Court, Kensington: Buena Vista, Great Marlow. Member Atlantic and
+Pacific and City Venturers&rsquo; Clubs. Interested in South American
+enterprise.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Um!&rdquo; muttered Spargo, putting the book away. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s
+not very illuminating. However, we&rsquo;ve got one move finished. Now
+we&rsquo;ll make another.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Going over to the album of photographs, Spargo deftly removed that of Mr.
+Aylmore, put it in an envelope and the envelope in his pocket and, leaving the
+office, hailed a taxi-cab, and ordered its driver to take him to the
+Anglo-Orient Hotel. This was the something-to-do of which he had spoken to
+Breton: Spargo wanted to do it alone.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mrs. Walters was in her low-windowed office when Spargo entered the hall; she
+recognized him at once and motioned him into her parlour.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I remember you,&rdquo; said Mrs. Walters; &ldquo;you came with the
+detective&mdash;Mr. Rathbury.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Have you seen him, since?&rdquo; asked Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not since,&rdquo; replied Mrs. Walters. &ldquo;No&mdash;and I was
+wondering if he&rsquo;d be coming round, because&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo; She
+paused there and looked at Spargo with particular
+enquiry&mdash;&ldquo;You&rsquo;re a friend of his, aren&rsquo;t you?&rdquo; she
+asked. &ldquo;I suppose you know as much as he does&mdash;about this?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He and I,&rdquo; replied Spargo, with easy confidence, &ldquo;are
+working this case together. You can tell me anything you&rsquo;d tell
+him.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The landlady rummaged in her pocket and produced an old purse, from an inner
+compartment of which she brought out a small object wrapped in tissue paper.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well,&rdquo; she said, unwrapping the paper, &ldquo;we found this in
+Number 20 this morning&mdash;it was lying under the dressing-table. The girl
+that found it brought it to me, and I thought it was a bit of glass, but
+Walters, he says as how he shouldn&rsquo;t be surprised if it&rsquo;s a
+diamond. And since we found it, the waiter who took the whisky up to 20, after
+Mr. Marbury came in with the other gentleman, has told me that when he went
+into the room the two gentlemen were looking at a paper full of things like
+this. So there?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo fingered the shining bit of stone.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s a diamond&mdash;right enough,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Put it
+away, Mrs. Walters&mdash;I shall see Rathbury presently, and I&rsquo;ll tell
+him about it. Now, that other gentleman! You told us you saw him. Could you
+recognize him&mdash;I mean, a photograph of him? Is this the man?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo knew from the expression of Mrs. Walters&rsquo; face that she had no
+more doubt than Webster had.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, yes!&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s the gentleman who came in
+with Mr. Marbury&mdash;I should have known him in a thousand. Anybody would
+recognize him from that&mdash;perhaps you&rsquo;d let our hall-porter and the
+waiter I mentioned just now look at it?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll see them separately and see if they&rsquo;ve ever seen a man
+who resembles this,&rdquo; replied Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The two men recognized the photograph at once, without any prompting, and
+Spargo, after a word or two with the landlady, rode off to the Atlantic and
+Pacific Club, and found Ronald Breton awaiting him on the steps. He made no
+reference to his recent doings, and together they went into the house and asked
+for Mr. Aylmore.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo looked with more than uncommon interest at the man who presently came to
+them in the visitors&rsquo; room. He was already familiar with Mr.
+Aylmore&rsquo;s photograph, but he never remembered seeing him in real life;
+the Member for Brookminster was one of that rapidly diminishing body of
+legislators whose members are disposed to work quietly and unobtrusively, doing
+yeoman service on committees, obeying every behest of the party whips, without
+forcing themselves into the limelight or seizing every opportunity to air their
+opinions. Now that Spargo met him in the flesh he proved to be pretty much what
+the journalist had expected&mdash;a rather cold-mannered, self-contained man,
+who looked as if he had been brought up in a school of rigid repression, and
+taught not to waste words. He showed no more than the merest of languid
+interests in Spargo when Breton introduced him, and his face was quite
+expressionless when Spargo brought to an end his brief explanation
+&mdash;purposely shortened&mdash;of his object in calling upon him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; he said indifferently. &ldquo;Yes, it is quite true that I
+met Marbury and spent a little time with him on the evening your informant
+spoke of. I met him, as he told you, in the lobby of the House. I was much
+surprised to meet him. I had not seen him for&mdash;I really don&rsquo;t know
+how many years.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He paused and looked at Spargo as if he was wondering what he ought or not to
+say to a newspaper man. Spargo remained silent, waiting. And presently Mr.
+Aylmore went on.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I read your account in the <i>Watchman</i> this morning,&rdquo; he said.
+&ldquo;I was wondering, when you called just now, if I would communicate with
+you or with the police. The fact is&mdash;I suppose you want this for your
+paper, eh?&rdquo; he continued after a sudden breaking off.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I shall not print anything that you wish me not to print,&rdquo;
+answered Spargo. &ldquo;If you care to give me any
+information&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, well!&rdquo; said Mr. Aylmore. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t mind. The fact
+is, I knew next to nothing. Marbury was a man with whom I had some&mdash;well,
+business relations, of a sort, a great many years ago. It must be twenty
+years&mdash;perhaps more&mdash;since I lost sight of him. When he came up to me
+in the lobby the other night, I had to make an effort of memory to recall him.
+He wished me, having once met me, to give him some advice, and as there was
+little doing in the House that night, and as he had once been&mdash;almost a
+friend&mdash;I walked to his hotel with him, chatting. He told me that he had
+only landed from Australia that morning, and what he wanted my advice about,
+principally, was&mdash;diamonds. Australian diamonds.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I was unaware,&rdquo; remarked Spargo, &ldquo;that diamonds were ever
+found in Australia.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Aylmore smiled&mdash;a little cynically.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Perhaps so,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;But diamonds have been found in
+Australia from time to time, ever since Australia was known to Europeans, and
+in the opinion of experts, they will eventually be found there in quantity.
+Anyhow, Marbury had got hold of some Australian diamonds, and he showed them to
+me at his hotel&mdash;a number of them. We examined them in his room.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What did he do with them&mdash;afterwards?&rdquo; asked Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He put them in his waistcoat pocket&mdash;in a very small wash-leather
+bag, from which he had taken them. There were, in all, sixteen or twenty
+stones&mdash;not more, and they were all small. I advised him to see some
+expert&mdash;I mentioned Streeter&rsquo;s to him. Now, I can tell you how he
+got hold of Mr. Breton&rsquo;s address.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The two young men pricked up their ears. Spargo unconsciously tightened his
+hold on the pencil with which he was making notes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He got it from me,&rdquo; continued Mr. Aylmore. &ldquo;The handwriting
+on the scrap of paper is mine, hurriedly scrawled. He wanted legal advice. As I
+knew very little about lawyers, I told him that if he called on Mr. Breton, Mr.
+Breton would be able to tell him of a first-class, sharp solicitor. I wrote
+down Mr. Breton&rsquo;s address for him, on a scrap of paper which he tore off
+a letter that he took from his pocket. By the by, I observe that when his body
+was found there was nothing on it in the shape of papers or money. I am quite
+sure that when I left him he had a lot of gold on him, those diamonds, and a
+breast-pocket full of letters.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Where did you leave him, sir?&rdquo; asked Spargo. &ldquo;You left the
+hotel together, I believe?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes. We strolled along when we left it. Having once met, we had much to
+talk of, and it was a fine night. We walked across Waterloo Bridge and very
+shortly afterwards he left me. And that is really all I know. My own
+impression&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo; He paused for a moment and Spargo waited
+silently.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;My own impression&mdash;though I confess it may seem to have no very
+solid grounds&mdash;is that Marbury was decoyed to where he was found, and was
+robbed and murdered by some person who knew he had valuables on him. There is
+the fact that he was robbed, at any rate.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve had a notion,&rdquo; said Breton, diffidently.
+&ldquo;Mayn&rsquo;t be worth much, but I&rsquo;ve had it, all the same. Some
+fellow-passenger of Marbury&rsquo;s may have tracked him all day&mdash;Middle
+Temple Lane&rsquo;s pretty lonely at night, you know.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+No one made any comment upon this suggestion, and on Spargo looking at Mr.
+Aylmore, the Member of Parliament rose and glanced at the door.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, that&rsquo;s all I can tell you, Mr. Spargo,&rdquo; he said.
+&ldquo;You see, it&rsquo;s not much, after all. Of course, there&rsquo;ll be an
+inquest on Marbury, and I shall have to re-tell it. But you&rsquo;re welcome to
+print what I&rsquo;ve told you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo left Breton with his future father-in-law and went away towards New
+Scotland Yard. He and Rathbury had promised to share news&mdash;now he had some
+to communicate.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap08"></a>CHAPTER EIGHT<br/>
+THE MAN FROM THE SAFE DEPOSIT</h2>
+
+<p>
+Spargo found Rathbury sitting alone in a small, somewhat dismal apartment which
+was chiefly remarkable for the business-like paucity of its furnishings and its
+indefinable air of secrecy. There was a plain writing-table and a hard chair or
+two; a map of London, much discoloured, on the wall; a few faded photographs of
+eminent bands in the world of crime, and a similar number of well-thumbed books
+of reference. The detective himself, when Spargo was shown in to him, was
+seated at the table, chewing an unlighted cigar, and engaged in the apparently
+aimless task of drawing hieroglyphics on scraps of paper. He looked up as the
+journalist entered, and held out his hand.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, I congratulate you on what you stuck in the <i>Watchman</i> this
+morning,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Made extra good reading, I thought. They did
+right to let you tackle that job. Going straight through with it now, I
+suppose, Mr. Spargo?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo dropped into the chair nearest to Rathbury&rsquo;s right hand. He
+lighted a cigarette, and having blown out a whiff of smoke, nodded his head in
+a fashion which indicated that the detective might consider his question
+answered in the affirmative.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Look here,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;We settled yesterday, didn&rsquo;t we,
+that you and I are to consider ourselves partners, as it were, in this job?
+That&rsquo;s all right,&rdquo; he continued, as Rathbury nodded very quietly.
+&ldquo;Very well&mdash;have you made any further progress?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Rathbury put his thumbs in the armholes of his waistcoat and, leaning back in
+his chair, shook his head.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Frankly, I haven&rsquo;t,&rdquo; he replied. &ldquo;Of course,
+there&rsquo;s a lot being done in the usual official-routine way. We&rsquo;ve
+men out making various enquiries. We&rsquo;re enquiring about Marbury&rsquo;s
+voyage to England. All that we know up to now is that he was certainly a
+passenger on a liner which landed at Southampton in accordance with what he
+told those people at the Anglo-Orient, that he left the ship in the usual way
+and was understood to take the train to town&mdash;as he did. That&rsquo;s all.
+There&rsquo;s nothing in that. We&rsquo;ve cabled to Melbourne for any news of
+him from there. But I expect little from that.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;All right,&rdquo; said Spargo. &ldquo;And&mdash;what are you
+doing&mdash;you, yourself? Because, if we&rsquo;re to share facts, I must know
+what my partner&rsquo;s after. Just now, you seemed to be&mdash;drawing.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Rathbury laughed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, to tell you the truth,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;when I want to work
+things out, I come into this room&mdash;it&rsquo;s quiet, as you see&mdash;and
+I scribble anything on paper while I think. I was figuring on my next step,
+and&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Do you see it?&rdquo; asked Spargo, quickly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well&mdash;I want to find the man who went with Marbury to that
+hotel,&rdquo; replied Rathbury. &ldquo;It seems to me&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo wagged his finger at his fellow-contriver.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve found him,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s what I wrote
+that article for&mdash;to find him. I knew it would find him. I&rsquo;ve never
+had any training in your sort of work, but I knew that article would get him.
+And it has got him.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Rathbury accorded the journalist a look of admiration.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Good!&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;And&mdash;who is he?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll tell you the story,&rdquo; answered Spargo, &ldquo;and in a
+summary. This morning a man named Webster, a farmer, a visitor to London, came
+to me at the office, and said that being at the House of Commons last night he
+witnessed a meeting between Marbury and a man who was evidently a Member of
+Parliament, and saw them go away together. I showed him an album of photographs
+of the present members, and he immediately recognized the portrait of one of
+them as the man in question. I thereupon took the portrait to the Anglo-Orient
+Hotel&mdash;Mrs. Walters also at once recognized it as that of the man who came
+to the hotel with Marbury, stopped with him a while in his room, and left with
+him. The man is Mr. Stephen Aylmore, the member for Brookminster.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Rathbury expressed his feelings in a sharp whistle.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I know him!&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Of course&mdash;I remember Mrs.
+Walters&rsquo;s description now. But his is a familiar type&mdash;tall,
+grey-bearded, well-dressed. Um!&mdash;well, we&rsquo;ll have to see Mr. Aylmore
+at once.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve seen him,&rdquo; said Spargo. &ldquo;Naturally! For you see,
+Mrs. Walters gave me a bit more evidence. This morning they found a loose
+diamond on the floor of Number 20, and after it was found the waiter who took
+the drinks up to Marbury and his guest that night remembered that when he
+entered the room the two gentlemen were looking at a paper full of similar
+objects. So then I went on to see Mr. Aylmore. You know young Breton, the
+barrister?&mdash;you met him with me, you remember?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The young fellow whose name and address were found on Marbury,&rdquo;
+replied Rathbury. &ldquo;I remember.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Breton is engaged to Aylmore&rsquo;s daughter,&rdquo; continued Spargo.
+&ldquo;Breton took me to Aylmore&rsquo;s club. And Aylmore gives a plain,
+straightforward account of the matter which he&rsquo;s granted me leave to
+print. It clears up a lot of things. Aylmore knew Marbury over twenty years
+ago. He lost sight of him. They met accidentally in the lobby of the House on
+the evening preceding the murder. Marbury told him that he wanted his advice
+about those rare things, Australian diamonds. He went back with him to his
+hotel and spent a while with him; then they walked out together as far as
+Waterloo Bridge, where Aylmore left him and went home. Further, the scrap of
+grey paper is accounted for. Marbury wanted the address of a smart solicitor;
+Aylmore didn&rsquo;t know of one but told Marbury that if he called on young
+Breton, he&rsquo;d know, and would put him in the way to find one. Marbury
+wrote Breton&rsquo;s address down. That&rsquo;s Aylmore&rsquo;s story. But
+it&rsquo;s got an important addition. Aylmore says that when he left Marbury,
+Marbury had on him a quantity of those diamonds in a wash-leather bag, a lot of
+gold, and a breast-pocket full of letters and papers. Now&mdash;there was
+nothing on him when he was found dead in Middle Temple Lane.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo stopped and lighted a fresh cigarette.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s all I know,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;What do you make of
+it?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Rathbury leaned back in his chair in his apparently favourite attitude and
+stared hard at the dusty ceiling above him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t know,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;It brings things up to a point,
+certainly. Aylmore and Marbury parted at Waterloo Bridge&mdash;very late.
+Waterloo Bridge is pretty well next door to the Temple. But&mdash;how did
+Marbury get into the Temple, unobserved? We&rsquo;ve made every enquiry, and we
+can&rsquo;t trace him in any way as regards that movement. There&rsquo;s a clue
+for his going there in the scrap of paper bearing Breton&rsquo;s address, but
+even a Colonial would know that no business was done in the Temple at midnight,
+eh?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well,&rdquo; said Spargo, &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve thought of one or two
+things. He may have been one of those men who like to wander around at night.
+He may have seen&mdash;he would see&mdash;plenty of lights in the Temple at
+that hour; he may have slipped in unobserved&mdash;it&rsquo;s possible,
+it&rsquo;s quite possible. I once had a moonlight saunter in the Temple myself
+after midnight, and had no difficulty about walking in and out, either.
+But&mdash;if Marbury was murdered for the sake of what he had on him&mdash;how
+did he meet with his murderer or murderers in there? Criminals don&rsquo;t hang
+about Middle Temple Lane.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The detective shook his head. He picked up his pencil and began making more
+hieroglyphics.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What&rsquo;s your theory, Mr. Spargo?&rdquo; he asked suddenly. &ldquo;I
+suppose you&rsquo;ve got one.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Have you?&rdquo; asked Spargo, bluntly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well,&rdquo; returned Rathbury, hesitatingly, &ldquo;I hadn&rsquo;t, up
+to now. But now&mdash;now, after what you&rsquo;ve told me, I think I can make
+one. It seems to me that after Marbury left Aylmore he probably mooned about by
+himself, that he was decoyed into the Temple, and was there murdered and
+robbed. There are a lot of queer ins and outs, nooks and corners in that old
+spot, Mr. Spargo, and the murderer, if he knew his ground well, could easily
+hide himself until he could get away in the morning. He might be a man who had
+access to chambers or offices&mdash;think how easy it would be for such a man,
+having once killed and robbed his victim, to lie hid for hours afterwards? For
+aught we know, the man who murdered Marbury may have been within twenty feet of
+you when you first saw his dead body that morning. Eh?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Before Spargo could reply to this suggestion an official entered the room and
+whispered a few words in the detective&rsquo;s ear.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Show him in at once,&rdquo; said Rathbury. He turned to Spargo as the
+man quitted the room and smiled significantly. &ldquo;Here&rsquo;s somebody
+wants to tell something about the Marbury case,&rdquo; he remarked.
+&ldquo;Let&rsquo;s hope it&rsquo;ll be news worth hearing.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo smiled in his queer fashion.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It strikes me that you&rsquo;ve only got to interest an inquisitive
+public in order to get news,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;The principal thing is to
+investigate it when you&rsquo;ve got it. Who&rsquo;s this, now?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The official had returned with a dapper-looking gentleman in a frock-coat and
+silk hat, bearing upon him the unmistakable stamp of the city man, who
+inspected Rathbury with deliberation and Spargo with a glance, and being seated
+turned to the detective as undoubtedly the person he desired to converse with.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I understand that you are the officer in charge of the Marbury murder
+case,&rdquo; he observed. &ldquo;I believe I can give you some valuable
+information in respect to that. I read the account of the affair in the
+<i>Watchman</i> newspaper this morning, and saw the portrait of the murdered
+man there, and I was at first inclined to go to the <i>Watchman</i> office with
+my information, but I finally decided to approach the police instead of the
+Press, regarding the police as being more&mdash;more responsible.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Much obliged to you, sir,&rdquo; said Rathbury, with a glance at Spargo.
+&ldquo;Whom have I the pleasure of&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;My name,&rdquo; replied the visitor, drawing out and laying down a card,
+&ldquo;is Myerst&mdash;Mr. E.P. Myerst, Secretary of the London and Universal
+Safe Deposit Company. I may, I suppose, speak with confidence,&rdquo; continued
+Mr. Myerst, with a side-glance at Spargo. &ldquo;My information
+is&mdash;confidential.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Rathbury inclined his head and put his fingers together.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You may speak with every confidence, Mr. Myerst,&rdquo; he answered.
+&ldquo;If what you have to tell has any real bearing on the Marbury case, it
+will probably have to be repeated in public, you know, sir. But at present it
+will be treated as private.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It has a very real bearing on the case, I should say,&rdquo; replied Mr.
+Myerst. &ldquo;Yes, I should decidedly say so. The fact is that on June 21st at
+about&mdash;to be precise&mdash;three o&rsquo;clock in the afternoon, a
+stranger, who gave the name of John Marbury, and his present address as the
+Anglo-Orient Hotel, Waterloo, called at our establishment, and asked if he
+could rent a small safe. He explained to me that he desired to deposit in such
+a safe a small leather box&mdash;which, by the by, was of remarkably ancient
+appearance&mdash;that he had brought with him. I showed him a safe such as he
+wanted, informed him of the rent, and of the rules of the place, and he engaged
+the safe, paid the rent for one year in advance, and deposited his leather
+box&mdash;an affair of about a foot square&mdash;there and then. After that,
+having exchanged a remark or two about the altered conditions of London, which,
+I understood him to say, he had not seen for a great many years, he took his
+key and his departure. I think there can be no doubt about this being the Mr.
+Marbury who was found murdered.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;None at all, I should say, Mr. Myerst,&rdquo; said Rathbury. &ldquo;And
+I&rsquo;m much obliged to you for coming here. Now you might tell me a little
+more, sir. Did Marbury tell you anything about the contents of the box?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No. He merely remarked that he wished the greatest care to be taken of
+it,&rdquo; replied the secretary.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Didn&rsquo;t give you any hint as to what was in it?&rdquo; asked
+Rathbury.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;None. But he was very particular to assure himself that it could not be
+burnt, nor burgled, nor otherwise molested,&rdquo; replied Mr. Myerst.
+&ldquo;He appeared to be greatly relieved when he found that it was impossible
+for anyone but himself to take his property from his safe.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah!&rdquo; said Rathbury, winking at Spargo. &ldquo;So he would, no
+doubt. And Marbury himself, sir, now? How did he strike you?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Myerst gravely considered this question.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mr. Marbury struck me,&rdquo; he answered at last, &ldquo;as a man who
+had probably seen strange places. And before leaving he made, what I will term,
+a remarkable remark. About&mdash;in fact, about his leather box.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;His leather box?&rdquo; said Rathbury. &ldquo;And what was it,
+sir?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;This,&rdquo; replied the secretary. &ldquo;&lsquo;That box,&rsquo; he
+said, &lsquo;is safe now. But it&rsquo;s been safer. It&rsquo;s been
+buried&mdash;and deep-down, too&mdash;for many and many a year!&rsquo;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap09"></a>CHAPTER NINE<br/>
+THE DEALER IN RARE STAMPS</h2>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Buried&mdash;and deep-down, too&mdash;for many and many a year,&rdquo;
+repeated Mr. Myerst, eyeing his companions with keen glances. &ldquo;I consider
+that, gentlemen, a very remarkable remark&mdash;very remarkable!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Rathbury stuck his thumbs in the armholes of his waistcoat again and began
+swaying backwards and forwards in his chair. He looked at Spargo. And with his
+knowledge of men, he knew that all Spargo&rsquo;s journalistic instincts had
+been aroused, and that he was keen as mustard to be off on a new scent.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Remarkable&mdash;remarkable, Mr. Myerst!&rdquo; he assented. &ldquo;What
+do you say, Mr. Spargo?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo turned slowly, and for the first time since Myerst had entered made a
+careful inspection of him. The inspection lasted several seconds; then Spargo
+spoke.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And what did you say to that?&rdquo; he asked quietly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myerst looked from his questioner to Rathbury. And Rathbury thought it time to
+enlighten the caller.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I may as well tell you, Mr. Myerst,&rdquo; he said smilingly,
+&ldquo;that this is Mr. Spargo, of the <i>Watchman</i>. Mr. Spargo wrote the
+article about the Marbury case of which you spoke when you came in. Mr. Spargo,
+you&rsquo;ll gather, is deeply interested in this matter&mdash;and he and I, in
+our different capacities, are working together. So&mdash;you understand?&rdquo;
+Myerst regarded Spargo in a new light. And while he was so looking at him.
+Spargo repeated the question he had just put.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I said&mdash;What did you say to that?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myerst hesitated.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well&mdash;er&mdash;I don&rsquo;t think I said anything,&rdquo; he
+replied. &ldquo;Nothing that one might call material, you know.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Didn&rsquo;t ask him what he meant?&rdquo; suggested Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, no&mdash;not at all,&rdquo; replied Myerst.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo got up abruptly from his chair.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then you missed one of the finest opportunities I ever heard of!&rdquo;
+he said, half-sneeringly. &ldquo;You might have heard such a
+story&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He paused, as if it were not worth while to continue, and turned to Rathbury,
+who was regarding him with amusement.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Look here, Rathbury,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Is it possible to get that
+box opened?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It&rsquo;ll have to be opened,&rdquo; answered Rathbury, rising.
+&ldquo;It&rsquo;s got to be opened. It probably contains the clue we want.
+I&rsquo;m going to ask Mr. Myerst here to go with me just now to take the first
+steps about having it opened. I shall have to get an order. We may get the
+matter through today, but at any rate we&rsquo;ll have it done tomorrow
+morning.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Can you arrange for me to be present when that comes off?&rdquo; asked
+Spargo. &ldquo;You can&mdash;certain? That&rsquo;s all right, Rathbury. Now
+I&rsquo;m off, and you&rsquo;ll ring me up or come round if you hear anything,
+and I&rsquo;ll do the same by you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And without further word, Spargo went quickly away, and just as quickly
+returned to the <i>Watchman</i> office. There the assistant who had been told
+off to wait upon his orders during this new crusade met him with a business
+card.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;This gentleman came in to see you about an hour ago, Mr. Spargo,&rdquo;
+he said. &ldquo;He thinks he can tell you something about the Marbury affair,
+and he said that as he couldn&rsquo;t wait, perhaps you&rsquo;d step round to
+his place when you came in.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo took the card and read:
+</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+MR. JAMES CRIEDIR,<br/>
+DEALER IN PHILATELIC RARITIES,<br/>
+2,021, STRAND.
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+Spargo put the card in his waistcoat pocket and went out again, wondering why
+Mr. James Criedir could not, would not, or did not call himself a dealer in
+rare postage stamps, and so use plain English. He went up Fleet Street and soon
+found the shop indicated on the card, and his first glance at its exterior
+showed that whatever business might have been done by Mr. Criedir in the past
+at that establishment there was to be none done there in the future by him, for
+there were newly-printed bills in the window announcing that the place was to
+let. And inside he found a short, portly, elderly man who was superintending
+the packing-up and removal of the last of his stock. He turned a bright,
+enquiring eye on the journalist.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mr. Criedir?&rdquo; said Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The same, sir,&rdquo; answered the philatelist. &ldquo;You
+are&mdash;?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mr. Spargo, of the <i>Watchman</i>. You called on me.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Criedir opened the door of a tiny apartment at the rear of the very little
+shop and motioned his caller to enter. He followed him in and carefully closed
+the door.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Glad to see you, Mr. Spargo,&rdquo; he said genially. &ldquo;Take a
+seat, sir&mdash;I&rsquo;m all in confusion here&mdash;giving up business, you
+see. Yes, I called on you. I think, having read the <i>Watchman</i> account of
+that Marbury affair, and having seen the murdered man&rsquo;s photograph in
+your columns, that I can give you a bit of information.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Material?&rdquo; asked Spargo, tersely.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Criedir cocked one of his bright eyes at his visitor. He coughed drily.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s for you to decide&mdash;when you&rsquo;ve heard it,&rdquo;
+he said. &ldquo;I should say, considering everything, that it was material.
+Well, it&rsquo;s this&mdash;I kept open until yesterday&mdash;everything as
+usual, you know&mdash;stock in the window and so on&mdash;so that anybody who
+was passing would naturally have thought that the business was going on, though
+as a matter of fact, I&rsquo;m retiring&mdash;retired,&rdquo; added Mr. Criedir
+with a laugh, &ldquo;last night. Now&mdash;but won&rsquo;t you take down what
+I&rsquo;ve got to tell you?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am taking it down,&rdquo; answered Spargo. &ldquo;Every word. In my
+head.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Criedir laughed and rubbed his hands.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh!&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Ah, well, in my young days journalists used
+to pull out pencil and notebook at the first opportunity. But you modern young
+men&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Just so,&rdquo; agreed Spargo. &ldquo;This information, now?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well,&rdquo; said Mr. Criedir, &ldquo;we&rsquo;ll go on then. Yesterday
+afternoon the man described as Marbury came into my shop. He&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What time&mdash;exact time?&rdquo; asked Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Two&mdash;to the very minute by St. Clement Danes clock,&rdquo; answered
+Mr. Criedir. &ldquo;I&rsquo;d swear twenty affidavits on that point. He was
+precisely as you&rsquo;ve described him&mdash;dress, everything&mdash;I tell
+you I knew his photo as soon as I saw it. He was carrying a little
+box&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What sort of box?&rdquo; said Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A queer, old-fashioned, much-worn leather box&mdash;a very miniature
+trunk, in fact,&rdquo; replied Mr. Criedir. &ldquo;About a foot square; the
+sort of thing you never see nowadays. It was very much worn; it attracted me
+for that very reason. He set it on the counter and looked at me.
+&lsquo;You&rsquo;re a dealer in stamps&mdash;rare stamps?&rsquo; he said.
+&lsquo;I am,&rsquo; I replied. &lsquo;I&rsquo;ve something here I&rsquo;d like
+to show you,&rsquo; he said, unlocking the box.
+&lsquo;It&rsquo;s&mdash;&rsquo;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Stop a bit,&rdquo; said Spargo. &ldquo;Where did he take the key from
+with which he unlocked the box?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It was one of several which he carried on a split ring, and he took the
+bunch out of his left-hand trousers pocket,&rdquo; replied Mr. Criedir.
+&ldquo;Oh, I keep my eyes open, young gentleman! Well&mdash;he opened his box.
+It seemed to me to be full of papers&mdash;at any rate there were a lot of
+legal-looking documents on the top, tied up with red tape. To show you how I
+notice things I saw that the papers were stained with age, and that the red
+tape was faded to a mere washed-out pink.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Good&mdash;good!&rdquo; murmured Spargo. &ldquo;Excellent! Proceed,
+sir.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He put his hand under the topmost papers and drew out an
+envelope,&rdquo; continued Mr. Criedir. &ldquo;From the envelope he produced an
+exceedingly rare, exceedingly valuable set of Colonial stamps&mdash;the
+very-first ever issued. &lsquo;I&rsquo;ve just come from Australia,&rsquo; he
+said. &lsquo;I promised a young friend of mine out there to sell these stamps
+for him in London, and as I was passing this way I caught sight of your shop.
+Will you buy &rsquo;em, and how much will you give for &rsquo;em?&rsquo;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Prompt,&rdquo; muttered Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He seemed to me the sort of man who doesn&rsquo;t waste words,&rdquo;
+agreed Mr. Criedir. &ldquo;Well, there was no doubt about the stamps, nor about
+their great value. But I had to explain to him that I was retiring from
+business that very day, and did not wish to enter into even a single deal, and
+that, therefore, I couldn&rsquo;t do anything. &lsquo;No matter,&rsquo; he
+says, &lsquo;I daresay there are lots of men in your line of
+trade&mdash;perhaps you can recommend me to a good firm?&rsquo; &lsquo;I could
+recommend you to a dozen extra-good firms,&rsquo; I answered. &lsquo;But I can
+do better for you. I&rsquo;ll give you the name and address of a private buyer
+who, I haven&rsquo;t the least doubt, will be very glad to buy that set from
+you and will give you a big price.&rsquo; &lsquo;Write it down,&rsquo; he says,
+&lsquo;and thank you for your trouble.&rsquo; So I gave him a bit of advice as
+to the price he ought to get, and I wrote the name and address of the man I
+referred to on the back of one of my cards.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Whose name and address?&rdquo; asked Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mr. Nicholas Cardlestone, 2, Pilcox Buildings, Middle Temple
+Lane,&rdquo; replied Mr. Criedir. &ldquo;Mr. Cardlestone is one of the most
+enthusiastic and accomplished philatelists in Europe. And I knew he
+didn&rsquo;t possess that set of stamps.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I know Mr. Cardlestone,&rdquo; remarked Spargo. &ldquo;It was at the
+foot of his stairs that Marbury was found murdered.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Just so,&rdquo; said Mr. Criedir. &ldquo;Which makes me think that he
+was going to see Mr. Cardlestone when he was set upon, murdered, and
+robbed.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo looked fixedly at the retired stamp-dealer.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What, going to see an elderly gentleman in his rooms in the Temple, to
+offer to sell him philatelic rarities at&mdash;past midnight?&rdquo; he said.
+&ldquo;I think&mdash;not much!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;All right,&rdquo; replied Mr. Criedir. &ldquo;You think and argue on
+modern lines&mdash;which are, of course, highly superior. But&mdash;how do you
+account for my having given Marbury Mr. Cardlestone&rsquo;s address and for his
+having been found dead&mdash;murdered&mdash;at the foot of Cardlestone&rsquo;s
+stairs a few hours later?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t account for it,&rdquo; said Spargo. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m
+trying to.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Criedir made no comment on this. He looked his visitor up and down for a
+moment; gathered some idea of his capabilities, and suddenly offered him a
+cigarette. Spargo accepted it with a laconic word of thanks, and smoked
+half-way through it before he spoke again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m trying to account. And I shall
+account. And I&rsquo;m much obliged to you, Mr. Criedir, for what you&rsquo;ve
+told me. Now, then, may I ask you a question or two?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A thousand!&rdquo; responded Mr. Criedir with great geniality.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Very well. Did Marbury say he&rsquo;d call on Cardlestone?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He did. Said he&rsquo;d call as soon as he could&mdash;that day.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Have you told Cardlestone what you&rsquo;ve just told me?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have. But not until an hour ago&mdash;on my way back from your office,
+in fact. I met him in Fleet Street and told him.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Had he received a call from Marbury?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No! Never heard of or seen the man. At least, never heard of him until
+he heard of the murder. He told me he and his friend, Mr. Elphick, another
+philatelist, went to see the body, wondering if they could recognize it as any
+man they&rsquo;d ever known, but they couldn&rsquo;t.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I know they did,&rdquo; said Spargo. &ldquo;I saw &rsquo;em at the
+mortuary. Um! Well&mdash;one more question. When Marbury left you, did he put
+those stamps in his box again, as before?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No,&rdquo; replied Mr. Criedir. &ldquo;He put them in his right-hand
+breast pocket, and he locked up his old box, and went off swinging it in his
+left hand.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo went away down Fleet Street, seeing nobody. He muttered to himself, and
+he was still muttering when he got into his room at the office. And what he
+muttered was the same thing, repeated over and over again:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Six hours&mdash;six hours&mdash;six hours! Those six hours!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Next morning the <i>Watchman</i> came out with four leaded columns of
+up-to-date news about the Marbury Case, and right across the top of the four
+ran a heavy double line of great capitals, black and staring:&mdash;WHO SAW
+JOHN MARBURY BETWEEN 3.15 P.M. AND 9.15 P.M. ON THE DAY PRECEDING HIS MURDER?
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap10"></a>CHAPTER TEN<br/>
+THE LEATHER BOX</h2>
+
+<p>
+Whether Spargo was sanguine enough to expect that his staring headline would
+bring him information of the sort he wanted was a secret which he kept to
+himself. That a good many thousands of human beings must have set eyes on John
+Marbury between the hours which Spargo set forth in that headline was certain;
+the problem was&mdash;What particular owner or owners of a pair or of many
+pairs of those eyes would remember him? Why should they remember him? Walters
+and his wife had reason to remember him; Criedir had reason to remember him; so
+had Myerst; so had William Webster. But between a quarter past three, when he
+left the London and Universal Safe Deposit, and a quarter past nine, when he
+sat down by Webster&rsquo;s side in the lobby of the House of Commons, nobody
+seemed to have any recollection of him except Mr. Fiskie, the hatter, and he
+only remembered him faintly, and because Marbury had bought a fashionable cloth
+cap at his shop. At any rate, by noon of that day, nobody had come forward with
+any recollection of him. He must have gone West from seeing Myerst, because he
+bought his cap at Fiskie&rsquo;s; he must eventually have gone South-West,
+because he turned up at Westminster. But where else did he go? What did he do?
+To whom did he speak? No answer came to these questions.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That shows,&rdquo; observed young Mr. Ronald Breton, lazing an hour away
+in Spargo&rsquo;s room at the <i>Watchman</i> at that particular hour which is
+neither noon nor afternoon, wherein even busy men do nothing, &ldquo;that shows
+how a chap can go about London as if he were merely an ant that had strayed
+into another ant-heap than his own. Nobody notices.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You&rsquo;d better go and read up a little elementary entomology,
+Breton,&rdquo; said Spargo. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know much about it myself, but
+I&rsquo;ve a pretty good idea that when an ant walks into the highways and
+byways of a colony to which he doesn&rsquo;t belong he doesn&rsquo;t survive
+his intrusion by many seconds.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, you know what I mean,&rdquo; said Breton. &ldquo;London&rsquo;s an
+ant-heap, isn&rsquo;t it? One human ant more or less doesn&rsquo;t count. This
+man Marbury must have gone about a pretty tidy lot during those six hours.
+He&rsquo;d ride on a &rsquo;bus&mdash;almost certain. He&rsquo;d get into a
+taxi-cab&mdash;I think that&rsquo;s much more certain, because it would be a
+novelty to him. He&rsquo;d want some tea&mdash;anyway, he&rsquo;d be sure to
+want a drink, and he&rsquo;d turn in somewhere to get one or the other.
+He&rsquo;d buy things in shops&mdash;these Colonials always do. He&rsquo;d go
+somewhere to get his dinner. He&rsquo;d&mdash;but what&rsquo;s the use of
+enumeration in this case?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A mere piling up of platitudes,&rdquo; answered Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What I mean is,&rdquo; continued Breton, &ldquo;that piles of people
+must have seen him, and yet it&rsquo;s now hours and hours since your paper
+came out this morning, and nobody&rsquo;s come forward to tell anything. And
+when you come to think of it, why should they? Who&rsquo;d remember an ordinary
+man in a grey tweed suit?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;An ordinary man in a grey tweed suit,&rsquo;&rdquo; repeated
+Spargo. &ldquo;Good line. You haven&rsquo;t any copyright in it, remember. It
+would make a good cross-heading.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Breton laughed. &ldquo;You&rsquo;re a queer chap, Spargo,&rdquo; he said.
+&ldquo;Seriously, do you think you&rsquo;re getting any nearer anything?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;m getting nearer something with everything that&rsquo;s
+done,&rdquo; Spargo answered. &ldquo;You can&rsquo;t start on a business like
+this without evolving something out of it, you know.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well,&rdquo; said Breton, &ldquo;to me there&rsquo;s not so much mystery
+in it. Mr. Aylmore&rsquo;s explained the reason why my address was found on the
+body; Criedir, the stamp-man, has explained&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo suddenly looked up.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What?&rdquo; he said sharply.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why, the reason of Marbury&rsquo;s being found where he was
+found,&rdquo; replied Breton. &ldquo;Of course, I see it all! Marbury was
+mooning around Fleet Street; he slipped into Middle Temple Lane, late as it
+was, just to see where old Cardlestone hangs out, and he was set upon and done
+for. The thing&rsquo;s plain to me. The only thing now is to find who did
+it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, that&rsquo;s it,&rdquo; agreed Spargo. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s
+it.&rdquo; He turned over the leaves of the diary which lay on his desk.
+&ldquo;By the by,&rdquo; he said, looking up with some interest, &ldquo;the
+adjourned inquest is at eleven o&rsquo;clock tomorrow morning. Are you
+going?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I shall certainly go,&rdquo; answered Breton. &ldquo;What&rsquo;s more,
+I&rsquo;m going to take Miss Aylmore and her sister. As the gruesome details
+were over at the first sitting, and as there&rsquo;ll be nothing but this new
+evidence tomorrow, and as they&rsquo;ve never been in a coroner&rsquo;s
+court&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mr. Aylmore&rsquo;ll be the principal witness tomorrow,&rdquo;
+interrupted Spargo. &ldquo;I suppose he&rsquo;ll be able to tell a lot more
+than he told&mdash;me.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Breton shrugged his shoulders.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t see that there&rsquo;s much more to tell,&rdquo; he said.
+&ldquo;But,&rdquo; he added, with a sly laugh, &ldquo;I suppose you want some
+more good copy, eh?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo glanced at his watch, rose, and picked up his hat. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll
+tell you what I want,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I want to know who John Marbury
+was. That would make good copy. Who he
+was&mdash;twenty&mdash;twenty-five&mdash;forty years ago. Eh?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And you think Mr. Aylmore can tell?&rdquo; asked Breton.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mr. Aylmore,&rdquo; answered Spargo as they walked towards the door,
+&ldquo;is the only person I have met so far who has admitted that he knew John
+Marbury in the&mdash;past. But he didn&rsquo;t tell me&mdash;much. Perhaps
+he&rsquo;ll tell the coroner and his jury&mdash;more. Now, I&rsquo;m off
+Breton&mdash;I&rsquo;ve an appointment.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And leaving Breton to find his own way out, Spargo hurried away, jumped into a
+taxi-cab and speeded to the London and Universal Safe Deposit. At the corner of
+its building he found Rathbury awaiting him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well?&rdquo; said Spargo, as he sprang out: &ldquo;How is it?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It&rsquo;s all right,&rdquo; answered Rathbury. &ldquo;You can be
+present: I got the necessary permission. As there are no relations known,
+there&rsquo;ll only be one or two officials and you, and the Safe Deposit
+people, and myself. Come on&mdash;it&rsquo;s about time.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It sounds,&rdquo; observed Spargo, &ldquo;like an exhumation.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Rathbury laughed. &ldquo;Well, we&rsquo;re certainly going to dig up a dead
+man&rsquo;s secrets,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;At least, we may be going to do so.
+In my opinion, Mr. Spargo, we&rsquo;ll find some clue in this leather
+box.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo made no answer. They entered the office, to be shown into a room where
+were already assembled Mr. Myerst, a gentleman who turned out to be the
+chairman of the company, and the officials of whom Rathbury had spoken. And in
+another moment Spargo heard the chairman explaining that the company possessed
+duplicate keys to all safes, and that the proper authorization having been
+received from the proper authorities, those present would now proceed to the
+safe recently tenanted by the late Mr. John Marbury, and take from it the
+property which he himself had deposited there, a small leather box, which they
+would afterwards bring to that room and cause to be opened in each
+other&rsquo;s presence.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It seemed to Spargo that there was an unending unlocking of bolts and bars
+before he and his fellow-processionists came to the safe so recently rented by
+the late Mr. John Marbury, now undoubtedly deceased. And at first sight of it,
+he saw that it was so small an affair that it seemed ludicrous to imagine that
+it could contain anything of any importance. In fact, it looked to be no more
+than a plain wooden locker, one amongst many in a small strong room: it
+reminded Spargo irresistibly of the locker in which, in his school days, he had
+kept his personal belongings and the jam tarts, sausage rolls, and hardbake
+smuggled in from the tuck-shop. Marbury&rsquo;s name had been newly painted
+upon it; the paint was scarcely dry. But when the wooden door&mdash;the front
+door, as it were, of this temple of mystery, had been solemnly opened by the
+chairman, a formidable door of steel was revealed, and expectation still leapt
+in the bosoms of the beholders.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The duplicate key, Mr. Myerst, if you please,&rdquo; commanded the
+chairman, &ldquo;the duplicate key!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myerst, who was fully as solemn as his principal, produced a curious-looking
+key: the chairman lifted his hand as if he were about to christen a battleship:
+the steel door swung slowly back. And there, in a two-foot square cavity, lay
+the leather box.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It struck Spargo as they filed back to the secretary&rsquo;s room that the
+procession became more funereal-like than ever. First walked the chairman,
+abreast with the high official, who had brought the necessary authorization
+from the all-powerful quarter; then came Myerst carrying the box: followed two
+other gentlemen, both legal lights, charged with watching official and police
+interests; Rathbury and Spargo brought up the rear. He whispered something of
+his notions to the detective; Rathbury nodded a comprehensive understanding.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Let&rsquo;s hope we&rsquo;re going to see&mdash;something!&rdquo; he
+said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the secretary&rsquo;s room a man waited who touched his forelock
+respectfully as the heads of the procession entered. Myerst set the box on the
+table: the man made a musical jingle of keys: the other members of the
+procession gathered round.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;As we naturally possess no key to this box,&rdquo; announced the
+chairman in grave tones, &ldquo;it becomes our duty to employ professional
+assistance in opening it. Jobson!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He waved a hand, and the man of the keys stepped forward with alacrity. He
+examined the lock of the box with a knowing eye; it was easy to see that he was
+anxious to fall upon it. While he considered matters, Spargo looked at the box.
+It was pretty much what it had been described to him as being; a small, square
+box of old cow-hide, very strongly made, much worn and tarnished, fitted with a
+handle projecting from the lid, and having the appearance of having been hidden
+away somewhere for many a long day.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was a click, a spring: Jobson stepped back.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s it, if you please, sir,&rdquo; he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The chairman motioned to the high official.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If you would be good enough to open the box, sir,&rdquo; he said.
+&ldquo;Our duty is now concluded.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As the high official laid his hand on the lid the other men gathered round with
+craning necks and expectant eyes. The lid was lifted: somebody sighed deeply.
+And Spargo pushed his own head and eyes nearer.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The box was empty!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Empty, as anything that can be empty is empty! thought Spargo: there was
+literally nothing in it. They were all staring into the interior of a plain,
+time-worn little receptacle, lined out with old-fashioned chintz stuff, such as
+our Mid-Victorian fore-fathers were familiar with, and
+containing&mdash;nothing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;God bless my soul!&rdquo; exclaimed the chairman. &ldquo;This
+is&mdash;dear me!&mdash;why, there is nothing in the box!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That,&rdquo; remarked the high official, drily, &ldquo;appears to be
+obvious.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The chairman looked at the secretary.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I understood the box was valuable, Mr. Myerst,&rdquo; he said, with the
+half-injured air of a man who considers himself to have been robbed of an
+exceptionally fine treat. &ldquo;Valuable!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myerst coughed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I can only repeat what I have already said, Sir Benjamin,&rdquo; he
+answered. &ldquo;The&mdash;er late Mr. Marbury spoke of the deposit as being of
+great value to him; he never permitted it out of his hand until he placed it in
+the safe. He appeared to regard it as of the greatest value.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But we understand from the evidence of Mr. Criedir, given to the
+<i>Watchman</i> newspaper, that it was full of papers and&mdash;and other
+articles,&rdquo; said the chairman. &ldquo;Criedir saw papers in it about an
+hour before it was brought here.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myerst spread out his hands.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I can only repeat what I have said, Sir Benjamin,&rdquo; he answered.
+&ldquo;I know nothing more.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But why should a man deposit an empty box?&rdquo; began the chairman.
+&ldquo;I&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The high official interposed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That the box is empty is certain,&rdquo; he observed. &ldquo;Did you
+ever handle it yourself, Mr. Myerst?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myerst smiled in a superior fashion.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have already observed, sir, that from the time the deceased entered
+this room until the moment he placed the box in the safe which he rented, the
+box was never out of his hands,&rdquo; he replied.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then there was silence. At last the high official turned to the chairman.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Very well,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ve made the enquiry.
+Rathbury, take the box away with you and lock it up at the Yard.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+So Spargo went out with Rathbury and the box; and saw excellent, if mystifying,
+material for the article which had already become the daily feature of his
+paper.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap11"></a>CHAPTER ELEVEN<br/>
+MR. AYLMORE IS QUESTIONED</h2>
+
+<p>
+It seemed to Spargo as he sat listening to the proceedings at the adjourned
+inquest next day that the whole story of what was now world-famous as the
+Middle Temple Murder Case was being reiterated before him for the thousandth
+time. There was not a detail of the story with which he had not become familiar
+to fulness. The first proceeding before the coroner had been of a merely formal
+nature; these were thorough and exhaustive; the representative of the Crown and
+twelve good men and true of the City of London were there to hear and to find
+out and to arrive at a conclusion as to how the man known as John Marbury came
+by his death. And although he knew all about it, Spargo found himself
+tabulating the evidence in a professional manner, and noting how each
+successive witness contributed, as it were, a chapter to the story. The story
+itself ran quite easily, naturally, consecutively&mdash;you could make it in
+sections. And Spargo, sitting merely to listen, made them:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+1. The Temple porter and Constable Driscoll proved the finding of the body.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+2. The police surgeon testified as to the cause of death&mdash;the man had been
+struck down from behind by a blow, a terrible blow&mdash;from some heavy
+instrument, and had died immediately.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+3. The police and the mortuary officials proved that when the body was examined
+nothing was found in the clothing but the now famous scrap of grey paper.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+4. Rathbury proved that by means of the dead man&rsquo;s new fashionable cloth
+cap, bought at Fiskie&rsquo;s well-known shop in the West-End, he traced
+Marbury to the Anglo-Orient Hotel in the Waterloo District.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+5. Mr. and Mrs. Walters gave evidence of the arrival of Marbury at the
+Anglo-Orient Hotel, and of his doings while he was in and about there.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+6. The purser of the ss. <i>Wambarino</i> proved that Marbury sailed from
+Melbourne to Southampton on that ship, excited no remark, behaved himself like
+any other well-regulated passenger, and left the <i>Wambarino</i> at
+Southampton early in the morning of what was to be the last day of his life in
+just the ordinary manner.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+7. Mr. Criedir gave evidence of his rencontre with Marbury in the matter of the
+stamps.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+8. Mr. Myerst told of Marbury&rsquo;s visit to the Safe Deposit, and further
+proved that the box which he placed there proved, on official examination, to
+be empty.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+9. William Webster re-told the story of his encounter with Marbury in one of
+the vestibules of the House of Commons, and of his witnessing the meeting
+between him and the gentleman whom he (Webster) now knew to be Mr. Aylmore, a
+Member of Parliament.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+All this led up to the appearance of Mr. Aylmore, M.P., in the witness-box. And
+Spargo knew and felt that it was that appearance for which the crowded court
+was waiting. Thanks to his own vivid and realistic specials in the
+<i>Watchman</i>, everybody there had already become well and thoroughly
+acquainted with the mass of evidence represented by the nine witnesses who had
+been in the box before Mr. Aylmore entered it. They were familiar, too, with
+the facts which Mr. Aylmore had permitted Spargo to print after the interview
+at the club, which Ronald Breton arranged. Why, then, the extraordinary
+interest which the Member of Parliament&rsquo;s appearance aroused? For
+everybody was extraordinarily interested; from the Coroner downwards to the
+last man who had managed to squeeze himself into the last available inch of the
+public gallery, all who were there wanted to hear and see the man who met
+Marbury under such dramatic circumstances, and who went to his hotel with him,
+hobnobbed with him, gave him advice, walked out of the hotel with him for a
+stroll from which Marbury never returned. Spargo knew well why the interest was
+so keen&mdash;everybody knew that Aylmore was the only man who could tell the
+court anything really pertinent about Marbury; who he was, what he was after;
+what his life had been.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He looked round the court as the Member of Parliament entered the
+witness-box&mdash;a tall, handsome, perfectly-groomed man, whose beard was only
+slightly tinged with grey, whose figure was as erect as a well-drilled
+soldier&rsquo;s, who carried about him an air of conscious power.
+Aylmore&rsquo;s two daughters sat at a little distance away, opposite Spargo,
+with Ronald Breton in attendance upon them; Spargo had encountered their glance
+as they entered the court, and they had given him a friendly nod and smile. He
+had watched them from time to time; it was plain to him that they regarded the
+whole affair as a novel sort of entertainment; they might have been idlers in
+some Eastern bazaar, listening to the unfolding of many tales from the
+professional tale-tellers. Now, as their father entered the box, Spargo looked
+at them again; he saw nothing more than a little heightening of colour in their
+cheeks, a little brightening of their eyes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;All that they feel,&rdquo; he thought, &ldquo;is a bit of extra
+excitement at the idea that their father is mixed up in this delightful
+mystery. Um! Well&mdash;now how much is he mixed up?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And he turned to the witness-box and from that moment never took his eyes off
+the man who now stood in it. For Spargo had ideas about the witness which he
+was anxious to develop.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The folk who expected something immediately sensational in Mr. Aylmore&rsquo;s
+evidence were disappointed. Aylmore, having been sworn, and asked a question or
+two by the Coroner, requested permission to tell, in his own way, what he knew
+of the dead man and of this sad affair; and having received that permission, he
+went on in a calm, unimpassioned manner to repeat precisely what he had told
+Spargo. It sounded a very plain, ordinary story. He had known Marbury many
+years ago. He had lost sight of him for&mdash;oh, quite twenty years. He had
+met him accidentally in one of the vestibules of the House of Commons on the
+evening preceding the murder. Marbury had asked his advice. Having no
+particular duty, and willing to do an old acquaintance a good turn, he had gone
+back to the Anglo-Orient Hotel with Marbury, had remained awhile with him in
+his room, examining his Australian diamonds, and had afterwards gone out with
+him. He had given him the advice he wanted; they had strolled across Waterloo
+Bridge; shortly afterwards they had parted. That was all he knew.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The court, the public, Spargo, everybody there, knew all this already. It had
+been in print, under a big headline, in the <i>Watchman</i>. Aylmore had now
+told it again; having told it, he seemed to consider that his next step was to
+leave the box and the court, and after a perfunctory question or two from the
+Coroner and the foreman of the jury he made a motion as if to step down. But
+Spargo, who had been aware since the beginning of the enquiry of the presence
+of a certain eminent counsel who represented the Treasury, cocked his eye in
+that gentleman&rsquo;s direction, and was not surprised to see him rise in his
+well-known, apparently indifferent fashion, fix his monocle in his right eye,
+and glance at the tall figure in the witness-box.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The fun is going to begin,&rdquo; muttered Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Treasury representative looked from Aylmore to the Coroner and made a jerky
+bow; from the Coroner to Aylmore and straightened himself. He looked like a man
+who is going to ask indifferent questions about the state of the weather, or
+how Smith&rsquo;s wife was last time you heard of her, or if stocks are likely
+to rise or fall. But Spargo had heard this man before, and he knew many signs
+of his in voice and manner and glance.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I want to ask you a few questions, Mr. Aylmore, about your
+acquaintanceship with the dead man. It was an acquaintanceship of some time
+ago?&rdquo; began the suave, seemingly careless voice.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A considerable time ago,&rdquo; answered Aylmore.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How long&mdash;roughly speaking?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I should say from twenty to twenty-two or three years.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Never saw him during that time until you met accidentally in the way you
+have described to us?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Never.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ever heard from him?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ever heard of him?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But when you met, you knew each other at once?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well&mdash;almost at once.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Almost at once. Then, I take it, you were very well known to each other
+twenty or twenty-two years ago?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We were&mdash;yes, well known to each other.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Close friends?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I said we were acquaintances.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Acquaintances. What was his name when you knew him at that time?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;His name? It was&mdash;Marbury.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Marbury&mdash;the same name. Where did you know him?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&mdash;oh, here in London.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What was he?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Do you mean&mdash;what was his occupation?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What was his occupation?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I believe he was concerned in financial matters.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Concerned in financial matters. Had you dealings with him?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, yes&mdash;on occasions.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What was his business address in London?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I can&rsquo;t remember that.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What was his private address?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That I never knew.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Where did you transact your business with him?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, we met, now and then.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Where? What place, office, resort?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I can&rsquo;t remember particular places. Sometimes&mdash;in the
+City.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;In the City. Where in the City? Mansion House, or Lombard Street, or St.
+Paul&rsquo;s Churchyard, or the Old Bailey, or where?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have recollections of meeting him outside the Stock Exchange.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh! Was he a member of that institution?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not that I know of.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Were you?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Certainly not!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What were the dealings that you had with him?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Financial dealings&mdash;small ones.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How long did your acquaintanceship with him last&mdash;what period did
+it extend over?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I should say about six months to nine months.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No more?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Certainly no more.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It was quite a slight acquaintanceship, then?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, quite!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And yet, after losing sight of this merely slight acquaintance for over
+twenty years, you, on meeting him, take great interest in him?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, I was willing to do him a good turn, I was interested in what he
+told me the other evening.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I see. Now you will not object to my asking you a personal question or
+two. You are a public man, and the facts about the lives of public men are more
+or less public property. You are represented in this work of popular reference
+as coming to this country in 1902, from Argentina, where you made a
+considerable fortune. You have told us, however, that you were in London,
+acquainted with Marbury, about the years, say 1890 to 1892. Did you then leave
+England soon after knowing Marbury?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I did. I left England in 1891 or 1892&mdash;I am not sure which.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We are wanting to be very sure about this matter, Mr. Aylmore. We want
+to solve the important question&mdash;who is, who was John Marbury, and how did
+he come by his death? You seem to be the only available person who knows
+anything about him. What was your business before you left England?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I was interested in financial affairs.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Like Marbury. Where did you carry on your business?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;In London, of course.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;At what address?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For some moments Aylmore had been growing more and more restive. His brow had
+flushed; his moustache had begun to twitch. And now he squared his shoulders
+and faced his questioner defiantly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I resent these questions about my private affairs!&rdquo; he snapped
+out.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Possibly. But I must put them. I repeat my last question.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And I refuse to answer it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then I ask you another. Where did you live in London at the time you are
+telling us of, when you knew John Marbury?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I refuse to answer that question also!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Treasury Counsel sat down and looked at the Coroner.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap12"></a>CHAPTER TWELVE<br/>
+THE NEW WITNESS</h2>
+
+<p>
+The voice of the Coroner, bland, suave, deprecating, broke the silence. He was
+addressing the witness.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am sure, Mr. Aylmore,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;there is no wish to
+trouble you with unnecessary questions. But we are here to get at the truth of
+this matter of John Marbury&rsquo;s death, and as you are the only witness we
+have had who knew him personally&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Aylmore turned impatiently to the Coroner.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have every wish to respect your authority, sir!&rdquo; he exclaimed.
+&ldquo;And I have told you all that I know of Marbury and of what happened when
+I met him the other evening. But I resent being questioned on my private
+affairs of twenty years ago&mdash;I very much resent it! Any question that is
+really pertinent I will answer, but I will not answer questions that seem to me
+wholly foreign to the scope of this enquiry.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Treasury Counsel rose again. His manner had become of the quietest, and
+Spargo again became keenly attentive.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Perhaps I can put a question or two to Mr. Aylmore which will not yield
+him offence,&rdquo; he remarked drily. He turned once more to the witness,
+regarding him as if with interest. &ldquo;Can you tell us of any person now
+living who knew Marbury in London at the time under discussion&mdash;twenty to
+twenty-two or three years ago?&rdquo; he asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Aylmore shook his head angrily.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, I can&rsquo;t,&rdquo; he replied.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And yet you and he must have had several business acquaintances at that
+time who knew you both!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Possibly&mdash;at that time. But when I returned to England my business
+and my life lay in different directions to those of that time. I don&rsquo;t
+know of anybody who knew Marbury then&mdash;anybody.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Counsel turned to a clerk who sat behind him, whispered to him; Spargo saw
+the clerk make a sidelong motion of his head towards the door of the court. The
+Counsel looked again at the witness.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;One more question. You told the court a little time since that you
+parted with Marbury on the evening preceding his death at the end of Waterloo
+Bridge&mdash;at, I think you said, a quarter to twelve.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;About that time.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And at that place?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That is all I want to ask you, Mr. Aylmore&mdash;just now,&rdquo; said
+the Counsel. He turned to the Coroner. &ldquo;I am going to ask you, sir, at
+this point to call a witness who has volunteered certain evidence to the police
+authorities this morning. That evidence is of a very important nature, and I
+think that this is the stage at which it ought to be given to you and the jury.
+If you would be pleased to direct that David Lyell be called&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo turned instinctively to the door, having seen the clerk who had sat
+behind the Treasury Counsel make his way there. There came into view, ushered
+by the clerk, a smart-looking, alert, self-confident young man, evidently a
+Scotsman, who, on the name of David Lyell being called, stepped jauntily and
+readily into the place which the member of Parliament just vacated. He took the
+oath&mdash;Scotch fashion&mdash;with the same readiness and turned easily to
+the Treasury Counsel. And Spargo, glancing quickly round, saw that the court
+was breathless with anticipation, and that its anticipation was that the new
+witness was going to tell something which related to the evidence just given by
+Aylmore.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Your name is David Lyell?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That is my name, sir.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And you reside at 23, Cumbrae Side, Kilmarnock, Scotland?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I do.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What are you, Mr. Lyell?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Traveller, sir, for the firm of Messrs. Stevenson, Robertson &amp;
+Soutar, distillers, of Kilmarnock.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Your duties take you, I think, over to Paris occasionally?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;They do&mdash;once every six weeks I go to Paris.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;On the evening of June 21st last were you in London on your way to
+Paris?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I was.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I believe you stayed at De Keyser&rsquo;s Hotel, at the Blackfriars end
+of the Embankment?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I did&mdash;it&rsquo;s handy for the continental trains.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;About half-past eleven, or a little later, that evening, did you go
+along the Embankment, on the Temple Gardens side, for a walk?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I did, sir. I&rsquo;m a bad sleeper, and it&rsquo;s a habit of mine to
+take a walk of half an hour or so last thing before I go to bed.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How far did you walk?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;As far as Waterloo Bridge.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Always on the Temple side?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Just so, sir&mdash;straight along on that side.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Very good. When you got close to Waterloo Bridge, did you meet anybody
+you knew?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mr. Aylmore, the Member of Parliament.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo could not avoid a glance at the two sisters. The elder&rsquo;s head was
+averted; the younger was staring at the witness steadily. And Breton was
+nervously tapping his fingers on the crown of his shining silk hat.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mr. Aylmore, the Member of Parliament,&rdquo; repeated the
+Counsel&rsquo;s suave, clear tones. &ldquo;Oh! And how did you come to
+recognize Mr. Aylmore, Member of Parliament?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, sir, in this way. At home, I&rsquo;m the secretary of our Liberal
+Ward Club, and last year we had a demonstration, and it fell to me to arrange
+with the principal speakers. I got Mr. Aylmore to come and speak, and naturally
+I met him several times, in London and in Scotland.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;So that you knew him quite well?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh yes, sir.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Do you see him now, Mr. Lyell?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Lyell smiled and half turned in the box.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why, of course!&rdquo; he answered. &ldquo;There is Mr. Aylmore.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There is Mr. Aylmore. Very good. Now we go on. You met Mr. Aylmore close
+to Waterloo Bridge? How close?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, sir, to be exact, Mr. Aylmore came down the steps from the bridge
+on to the Embankment.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Alone?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Who was with him?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A man, sir.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Did you know the man?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No. But seeing who he was with. I took a good look at him. I
+haven&rsquo;t forgotten his face.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You haven&rsquo;t forgotten his face. Mr. Lyell&mdash;has anything
+recalled that face to you within this last day or two?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, sir, indeed!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The picture of the man they say was murdered&mdash;John Marbury.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You&rsquo;re sure of that?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;m as certain, sir, as that my name&rsquo;s what it is.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is your belief that Mr. Aylmore, when you met him, was accompanied by
+the man who, according to the photographs, was John Marbury?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is, sir!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Very well. Now, having seen Mr. Aylmore and his companion, what did you
+do?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, I just turned and walked after them.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You walked after them? They were going eastward, then?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;They were walking by the way I&rsquo;d come.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You followed them eastward?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I did&mdash;I was going back to the hotel, you see.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What were they doing?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Talking uncommonly earnestly, sir.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How far did you follow them?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I followed them until they came to the Embankment lodge of Middle Temple
+Lane, sir.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And then?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why, sir, they turned in there, and I went straight on to De
+Keyser&rsquo;s, and to my bed.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was a deeper silence in court at that moment than at any other period of
+the long day, and it grew still deeper when the quiet, keen voice put the next
+question.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You swear on your oath that you saw Mr. Aylmore take his companion into
+the Temple by the Embankment entrance of Middle Temple Lane on the occasion in
+question?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I do! I could swear no other, sir.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Can you tell us, as near as possible, what time that would be?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes. It was, to a minute or so, about five minutes past twelve.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Treasury Counsel nodded to the Coroner, and the Coroner, after a whispered
+conference with the foreman of the jury, looked at the witness.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You have only just given this information to the police, I
+understand?&rdquo; he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, sir. I have been in Paris, and in Amiens, and I only returned by
+this morning&rsquo;s boat. As soon as I had read all the news in the
+papers&mdash;the English papers&mdash;and seen the dead man&rsquo;s photographs
+I determined to tell the police what I knew, and I went to New Scotland Yard as
+soon as I got to London this morning.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Nobody else wanted to ask Mr. David Lyell any questions, and he stepped down.
+And Mr. Aylmore suddenly came forward again, seeking the Coroner&rsquo;s
+attention.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;May I be allowed to make an explanation, sir?&rdquo; he began.
+&ldquo;I&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But the Treasury Counsel was on his feet, this time stern and implacable.
+&ldquo;I would point out, sir, that you have had Mr. Aylmore in the box, and
+that he was not then at all ready to give explanations, or even to answer
+questions,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;And before you allow him to make any
+explanation now, I ask you to hear another witness whom I wish to interpose at
+this stage. That witness is&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Aylmore turned almost angrily to the Coroner.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;After the evidence of the last witness, I think I have a right to be
+heard at once!&rdquo; he said with emphasis. &ldquo;As matters stand at
+present, it looks as if I had trifled, sir, with you and the jury, whereas if I
+am allowed to make an explanation&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I must respectfully ask that before Mr. Aylmore is allowed to make any
+explanation, the witness I have referred to is heard,&rdquo; said the Treasury
+Counsel sternly. &ldquo;There are weighty reasons.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am afraid you must wait a little, Mr. Aylmore, if you wish to give an
+explanation,&rdquo; said the Coroner. He turned to the Counsel. &ldquo;Who is
+this other witness?&rdquo; he asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Aylmore stepped back. And Spargo noticed that the younger of his two daughters
+was staring at him with an anxious expression. There was no distrust of her
+father in her face; she was anxious. She, too, slowly turned to the next
+witness. This man was the porter of the Embankment lodge of Middle Temple Lane.
+The Treasury Counsel put a straight question to him at once.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You see that gentleman,&rdquo; he said, pointing to Aylmore. &ldquo;Do
+you know him as an inmate of the Temple?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The man stared at Aylmore, evidently confused.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why, certainly, sir!&rdquo; he answered. &ldquo;Quite well, sir.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Very good. And now&mdash;what name do you know him by?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The man grew evidently more bewildered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Name, sir. Why, Mr. Anderson, sir!&rdquo; he replied. &ldquo;Mr.
+Anderson!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap13"></a>CHAPTER THIRTEEN<br/>
+UNDER SUSPICION</h2>
+
+<p>
+A distinct, uncontrollable murmur of surprise ran round the packed court as
+this man in the witness-box gave this answer. It signified many
+things&mdash;that there were people present who had expected some such dramatic
+development; that there were others present who had not; that the answer itself
+was only a prelude to further developments. And Spargo, looking narrowly about
+him, saw that the answer had aroused different feelings in Aylmore&rsquo;s two
+daughters. The elder one had dropped her face until it was quite hidden; the
+younger was sitting bolt upright, staring at her father in utter and genuine
+bewilderment. And for the first time, Aylmore made no response to her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But the course of things was going steadily forward. There was no stopping the
+Treasury Counsel now; he was going to get at some truth in his own merciless
+fashion. He had exchanged one glance with the Coroner, had whispered a word to
+the solicitor who sat close by him, and now he turned again to the witness.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;So you know that gentleman&mdash;make sure now&mdash;as Mr. Anderson, an
+inmate of the Temple?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, sir.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You don&rsquo;t know him by any other name?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, sir, I don&rsquo;t.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How long have you known him by that name?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I should say two or three years, sir.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;See him go in and out regularly?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, sir&mdash;not regularly.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How often, then?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now and then, sir&mdash;perhaps once a week.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Tell us what you know of Mr. Anderson&rsquo;s goings-in-and-out.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, sir, I might see him two nights running; then I mightn&rsquo;t see
+him again for perhaps a week or two. Irregular, as you might say, sir.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You say &lsquo;nights.&rsquo; Do I understand that you never see Mr.
+Anderson except at night?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, sir. I&rsquo;ve never seen him except at night. Always about the
+same time, sir.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What time?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Just about midnight, sir.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Very well. Do you remember the midnight of June 21st-22nd?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I do, sir.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Did you see Mr. Anderson enter then?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, sir, just after twelve.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Was he alone?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, sir; there was another gentleman with him.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Remember anything about that other gentleman?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nothing, sir, except that I noticed as they walked through, that the
+other gentleman had grey clothes on.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Had grey clothes on. You didn&rsquo;t see his face?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not to remember it, sir. I don&rsquo;t remember anything but what
+I&rsquo;ve told you, sir.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That is that the other gentleman wore a grey suit. Where did Mr.
+Anderson and this gentleman in the grey suit go when they&rsquo;d passed
+through?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Straight up the Lane, sir.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Do you know where Mr. Anderson&rsquo;s rooms in the Temple are?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not exactly, sir, but I understood in Fountain Court.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now, on that night in question, did Mr. Anderson leave again by your
+lodge?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, sir.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You heard of the discovery of the body of a dead man in Middle Temple
+Lane next morning?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I did, sir.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Did you connect that man with the gentleman in the grey suit?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, sir, I didn&rsquo;t. It never occurred to me. A lot of the gentlemen
+who live in the Temple bring friends in late of nights; I never gave the matter
+any particular thought.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Never mentioned it to anybody until now, when you were sent for to come
+here?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, sir, never, to anybody.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And you have never known the gentleman standing there as anybody but Mr.
+Anderson?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, sir, never heard any other name but Anderson.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Coroner glanced at the Counsel.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I think this may be a convenient opportunity for Mr. Aylmore to give the
+explanation he offered a few minutes ago,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Do you suggest
+anything?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I suggest, sir, that if Mr. Aylmore desires to give any explanation he
+should return to the witness-box and submit himself to examination again on his
+oath,&rdquo; replied the Counsel. &ldquo;The matter is in your hands.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Coroner turned to Aylmore.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Do you object to that?&rdquo; he asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Aylmore stepped boldly forward and into the box.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I object to nothing,&rdquo; he said in clear tones, &ldquo;except to
+being asked to reply to questions about matters of the past which have not and
+cannot have anything to do with this case. Ask me what questions you like,
+arising out of the evidence of the last two witnesses, and I will answer them
+so far as I see myself justified in doing so. Ask me questions about matters of
+twenty years ago, and I shall answer them or not as I see fit. And I may as
+well say that I will take all the consequences of my silence or my
+speech.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Treasury Counsel rose again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Very well, Mr. Aylmore,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I will put certain
+questions to you. You heard the evidence of David Lyell?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I did.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Was that quite true as regards yourself?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Quite true&mdash;absolutely true.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And you heard that of the last witness. Was that also true!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Equally true.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then you admit that the evidence you gave this morning, before these
+witnesses came on the scene, was not true?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, I do not! Most emphatically I do not. It was true.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;True? You told me, on oath, that you parted from John Marbury on
+Waterloo Bridge!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Pardon me, I said nothing of the sort. I said that from the Anglo-Orient
+Hotel we strolled across Waterloo Bridge, and that shortly afterwards we
+parted&mdash;I did not say where we parted. I see there is a shorthand writer
+here who is taking everything down&mdash;ask him if that is not exactly what I
+said?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A reference to the stenographer proved Aylmore to be right, and the Treasury
+Counsel showed plain annoyance.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, at any rate, you so phrased your answer that nine persons out of
+ten would have understood that you parted from Marbury in the open streets
+after crossing Waterloo Bridge,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Now&mdash;?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Aylmore smiled.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am not responsible for the understanding of nine people out of ten any
+more than I am for your understanding,&rdquo; he said, with a sneer. &ldquo;I
+said what I now repeat&mdash;Marbury and I walked across Waterloo Bridge, and
+shortly afterwards we parted. I told you the truth.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Indeed! Perhaps you will continue to tell us the truth. Since you have
+admitted that the evidence of the last two witnesses is absolutely correct,
+perhaps you will tell us exactly where you and Marbury did part?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I will&mdash;willingly. We parted at the door of my chambers in Fountain
+Court.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then&mdash;to reiterate&mdash;it was you who took Marbury into the
+Temple that night?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It was certainly I who took Marbury into the Temple that night.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was another murmur amongst the crowded benches. Here at any rate was
+fact&mdash;solid, substantial fact. And Spargo began to see a possible course
+of events which he had not anticipated.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That is a candid admission, Mr. Aylmore. I suppose you see a certain
+danger to yourself in making it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I need not say whether I do or I do not. I have made it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Very good. Why did you not make it before?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;For my own reasons. I told you as much as I considered necessary for the
+purpose of this enquiry. I have virtually altered nothing now. I asked to be
+allowed to make a statement, to give an explanation, as soon as Mr. Lyell had
+left this box: I was not allowed to do so. I am willing to make it now.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Make it then.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is simply this,&rdquo; said Aylmore, turning to the Coroner. &ldquo;I
+have found it convenient, during the past three years, to rent a simple set of
+chambers in the Temple, where I could occasionally&mdash;very occasionally, as
+a rule&mdash;go late at night. I also found it convenient, for my own
+reasons&mdash;with which, I think, no one has anything to do&mdash;to rent
+those chambers under the name of Mr. Anderson. It was to my chambers that
+Marbury accompanied me for a few moments on the midnight with which we are
+dealing. He was not in them more than five minutes at the very outside: I
+parted from him at my outer door, and I understood that he would leave the
+Temple by the way we had entered and would drive or walk straight back to his
+hotel. That is the whole truth. I wish to add that I ought perhaps to have told
+all this at first. I had reasons for not doing so. I told what I considered
+necessary, that I parted from Marbury, leaving him well and alive, soon after
+midnight.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What reasons were or are they which prevented you from telling all this
+at first?&rdquo; asked the Treasury Counsel.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Reasons which are private to me.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Will you tell them to the court?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then will you tell us why Marbury went with you to the chambers in
+Fountain Court which you tenant under the name of Anderson?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes. To fetch a document which I had in my keeping, and had kept for him
+for twenty years or more.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A document of importance?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Of very great importance.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He would have it on him when he was&mdash;as we believe he
+was&mdash;murdered and robbed?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He had it on him when he left me.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Will you tell us what it was?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Certainly not!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;In fact, you won&rsquo;t tell us any more than you choose to
+tell?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have told you all I can tell of the events of that night.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then I am going to ask you a very pertinent question. Is it not a fact
+that you know a great deal more about John Marbury than you have told this
+court?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That I shall not answer.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Is it not a fact that you could, if you would, tell this court more
+about John Marbury and your acquaintanceship with him twenty years ago?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I also decline to answer that.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Treasury Counsel made a little movement of his shoulders and turned to the
+Coroner.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I should suggest, sir, that you adjourn this enquiry,&rdquo; he said
+quietly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;For a week,&rdquo; assented the Coroner, turning to the jury.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The crowd surged out of the court, chattering, murmuring, exclaiming&mdash;
+spectators, witnesses, jurymen, reporters, legal folk, police folk, all mixed
+up together. And Spargo, elbowing his own way out, and busily reckoning up the
+value of the new complexions put on everything by the day&rsquo;s work,
+suddenly felt a hand laid on his arm. Turning he found himself gazing at Jessie
+Aylmore.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap14"></a>CHAPTER FOURTEEN<br/>
+THE SILVER TICKET</h2>
+
+<p>
+With a sudden instinct of protection, Spargo quickly drew the girl aside from
+the struggling crowd, and within a moment had led her into a quiet by-street.
+He looked down at her as she stood recovering her breath.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes?&rdquo; he said quietly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jessie Aylmore looked up at him, smiling faintly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I want to speak to you,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I must speak to
+you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; said Spargo. &ldquo;But&mdash;the others? Your
+sister?&mdash;Breton?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I left them on purpose to speak to you,&rdquo; she answered. &ldquo;They
+knew I did. I am well accustomed to looking after myself.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo moved down the by-street, motioning his companion to move with him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Tea,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;is what you want. I know a queer,
+old-fashioned place close by here where you can get the best China tea in
+London. Come and have some.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jessie Aylmore smiled and followed her guide obediently. And Spargo said
+nothing, marching stolidly along with his thumbs in his waistcoat pockets, his
+fingers playing soundless tunes outside, until he had installed himself and his
+companion in a quiet nook in the old tea-house he had told her of, and had
+given an order for tea and hot tea-cakes to a waitress who evidently knew him.
+Then he turned to her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You want,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;to talk to me about your father.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; she answered. &ldquo;I do.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why?&rdquo; asked Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The girl gave him a searching look.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ronald Breton says you&rsquo;re the man who&rsquo;s written all those
+special articles in the <i>Watchman</i> about the Marbury case,&rdquo; she
+answered. &ldquo;Are you?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am,&rdquo; said Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then you&rsquo;re a man of great influence,&rdquo; she went on.
+&ldquo;You can stir the public mind. Mr. Spargo&mdash;what are you going to
+write about my father and today&rsquo;s proceedings?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo signed to her to pour out the tea which had just arrived. He seized,
+without ceremony, upon a piece of the hot buttered tea-cake, and bit a great
+lump out of it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Frankly,&rdquo; he mumbled, speaking with his mouth full,
+&ldquo;frankly, I don&rsquo;t know. I don&rsquo;t know&mdash;yet. But
+I&rsquo;ll tell you this&mdash;it&rsquo;s best to be candid&mdash;I
+shouldn&rsquo;t allow myself to be prejudiced or biassed in making up my
+conclusions by anything that you may say to me. Understand?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jessie Aylmore took a sudden liking to Spargo because of the unconventionality
+and brusqueness of his manners.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;m not wanting to prejudice or bias you,&rdquo; she said.
+&ldquo;All I want is that you should be very sure before you
+say&mdash;anything.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll be sure,&rdquo; said Spargo. &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t bother. Is
+the tea all right?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Beautiful!&rdquo; she answered, with a smile that made Spargo look at
+her again. &ldquo;Delightful! Mr. Spargo, tell me!&mdash;what did you think
+about&mdash;about what has just happened?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo, regardless of the fact that his fingers were liberally ornamented with
+butter, lifted a hand and rubbed his always untidy hair. Then he ate more
+tea-cake and gulped more tea.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Look here!&rdquo; he said suddenly. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m no great hand at
+talking. I can write pretty decently when I&rsquo;ve a good story to tell, but
+I don&rsquo;t talk an awful lot, because I never can express what I mean unless
+I&rsquo;ve got a pen in my hand. Frankly, I find it hard to tell you what I
+think. When I write my article this evening, I&rsquo;ll get all these things
+marshalled in proper form, and I shall write clearly about &rsquo;em. But
+I&rsquo;ll tell you one thing I do think&mdash;I wish your father had made a
+clean breast of things to me at first, when he gave me that interview, or had
+told everything when he first went into that box.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why?&rdquo; she asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Because he&rsquo;s now set up an atmosphere of doubt and suspicion
+around himself. People&rsquo;ll think&mdash;Heaven knows what they&rsquo;ll
+think! They already know that he knows more about Marbury than he&rsquo;ll
+tell, that&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But does he?&rdquo; she interrupted quickly. &ldquo;Do you think he
+does?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes!&rdquo; replied Spargo, with emphasis. &ldquo;I do. A lot more! If
+he had only been explicit at first&mdash;however, he wasn&rsquo;t. Now
+it&rsquo;s done. As things stand&mdash;look here, does it strike you that your
+father is in a very serious position?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Serious?&rdquo; she exclaimed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Dangerous! Here&rsquo;s the fact&mdash;he&rsquo;s admitted that he took
+Marbury to his rooms in the Temple that midnight. Well, next morning
+Marbury&rsquo;s found robbed and murdered in an entry, not fifty yards
+off!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Does anybody suppose that my father would murder him for the sake of
+robbing him of whatever he had on him?&rdquo; she laughed scornfully. &ldquo;My
+father is a very wealthy man, Mr. Spargo.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;May be,&rdquo; answered Spargo. &ldquo;But millionaires have been known
+to murder men who held secrets.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Secrets!&rdquo; she exclaimed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Have some more tea,&rdquo; said Spargo, nodding at the teapot.
+&ldquo;Look here&mdash;this way it is. The theory that people&mdash;some
+people&mdash;will build up (I won&rsquo;t say that it hasn&rsquo;t suggested
+itself to me) is this:&mdash;There&rsquo;s some mystery about the relationship,
+acquaintanceship, connection, call it what you like, of your father and Marbury
+twenty odd years ago. Must be. There&rsquo;s some mystery about your
+father&rsquo;s life, twenty odd years ago. Must be&mdash;or else he&rsquo;d
+have answered those questions. Very well. &lsquo;Ha, ha!&rsquo; says the
+general public. &lsquo;Now we have it!&rsquo; &lsquo;Marbury,&rsquo; says the
+general public, &lsquo;was a man who had a hold on Aylmore. He turned up.
+Aylmore trapped him into the Temple, killed him to preserve his own secret, and
+robbed him of all he had on him as a blind.&rsquo; Eh?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You think&mdash;people will say that?&rdquo; she exclaimed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Cock-sure! They&rsquo;re saying it. Heard half a dozen of &rsquo;em say
+it, in more or less elegant fashion as I came out of that court. Of course,
+they&rsquo;ll say it. Why, what else could they say?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For a moment Jessie Aylmore sat looking silently into her tea-cup. Then she
+turned her eyes on Spargo, who immediately manifested a new interest in what
+remained of the tea-cakes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Is that what you&rsquo;re going to say in your article tonight?&rdquo;
+she asked, quietly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No!&rdquo; replied Spargo, promptly. &ldquo;It isn&rsquo;t. I&rsquo;m
+going to sit on the fence tonight. Besides, the case is <i>sub judice</i>. All
+I&rsquo;m going to do is to tell, in my way, what took place at the
+inquest.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The girl impulsively put her hand across the table and laid it on
+Spargo&rsquo;s big fist.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Is it what you think?&rdquo; she asked in a low voice.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Honour bright, no!&rdquo; exclaimed Spargo. &ldquo;It
+isn&rsquo;t&mdash;it isn&rsquo;t! I don&rsquo;t think it. I think there&rsquo;s
+a most extraordinary mystery at the bottom of Marbury&rsquo;s death, and I
+think your father knows an enormous lot about Marbury that he won&rsquo;t tell,
+but I&rsquo;m certain sure that he neither killed Marbury nor knows anything
+whatever about his death. And as I&rsquo;m out to clear this mystery up, and
+mean to do it, nothing&rsquo;ll make me more glad than to clear your father. I
+say, do have some more tea-cake? We&rsquo;ll have fresh ones&mdash;and fresh
+tea.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, thank you,&rdquo; she said smiling. &ldquo;And thank you for what
+you&rsquo;ve just said. I&rsquo;m going now, Mr. Spargo. You&rsquo;ve done me
+good.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, rot!&rdquo; exclaimed Spargo. &ldquo;Nothing&mdash;nothing!
+I&rsquo;ve just told you what I&rsquo;m thinking. You must go?…&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He saw her into a taxi-cab presently, and when she had gone stood vacantly
+staring after the cab until a hand clapped him smartly on the shoulder.
+Turning, he found Rathbury grinning at him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;All right, Mr. Spargo, I saw you!&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Well,
+it&rsquo;s a pleasant change to squire young ladies after being all day in that
+court. Look here, are you going to start your writing just now?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;m not going to start my writing as you call it, until after
+I&rsquo;ve dined at seven o&rsquo;clock and given myself time to digest my
+modest dinner,&rdquo; answered Spargo. &ldquo;What is it?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Come back with me and have another look at that blessed leather
+box,&rdquo; said Rathbury. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve got it in my room, and I&rsquo;d
+like to examine it for myself. Come on!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The thing&rsquo;s empty,&rdquo; said Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There might be a false bottom in it,&rdquo; remarked Rathbury.
+&ldquo;One never knows. Here, jump into this!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He pushed Spargo into a passing taxi-cab, and following, bade the driver go
+straight to the Yard. Arrived there, he locked Spargo and himself into the
+drab-visaged room in which the journalist had seen him before.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What d&rsquo;ye think of today&rsquo;s doings, Spargo?&rdquo; he asked,
+as he proceeded to unlock a cupboard.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I think,&rdquo; said Spargo, &ldquo;that some of you fellows must have
+had your ears set to tingling.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s so,&rdquo; assented Rathbury. &ldquo;Of course, the next
+thing&rsquo;ll be to find out all about the Mr. Aylmore of twenty years since.
+When a man won&rsquo;t tell you where he lived twenty years ago, what he was
+exactly doing, what his precise relationship with another man was&mdash;why,
+then, you&rsquo;ve just got to find out, eh? Oh, some of our fellows are at
+work on the life history of Stephen Aylmore, Esq., M.P., already&mdash;you bet!
+Well, now, Spargo, here&rsquo;s the famous box.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The detective brought the old leather case out of the cupboard in which he had
+been searching, and placed it on his desk. Spargo threw back the lid and looked
+inside, measuring the inner capacity against the exterior lines.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No false bottom in that, Rathbury,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s
+just the outer leather case, and the inner lining, of this old bed-hanging
+stuff, and that&rsquo;s all. There&rsquo;s no room for any false bottom or
+anything of that sort, d&rsquo;you see?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Rathbury also sized up the box&rsquo;s capacity.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Looks like it,&rdquo; he said disappointedly. &ldquo;Well, what about
+the lid, then? I remember there was an old box like this in my
+grandmother&rsquo;s farmhouse, where I was reared&mdash;there was a pocket in
+the lid. Let&rsquo;s see if there&rsquo;s anything of the sort here?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He threw the lid back and began to poke about the lining of it with the tips of
+his fingers, and presently he turned to his companion with a sharp exclamation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;By George, Spargo!&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know about any
+pocket, but there&rsquo;s something under this lining. Feels like&mdash;here,
+you feel. There&mdash;and there.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo put a finger on the places indicated.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, that&rsquo;s so,&rdquo; he agreed. &ldquo;Feels like two
+cards&mdash;a large and a small one. And the small one&rsquo;s harder than the
+other. Better cut that lining out, Rathbury.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That,&rdquo; remarked Rathbury, producing a pen-knife, &ldquo;is just
+what I&rsquo;m going to do. We&rsquo;ll cut along this seam.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He ripped the lining carefully open along the upper part of the lining of the
+lid, and looking into the pocket thus made, drew out two objects which he
+dropped on his blotting pad.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A child&rsquo;s photograph,&rdquo; he said, glancing at one of them.
+&ldquo;But what on earth is that?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The object to which he pointed was a small, oblong piece of thin, much-worn
+silver, about the size of a railway ticket. On one side of it was what seemed
+to be a heraldic device or coat-of-arms, almost obliterated by rubbing; on the
+other, similarly worn down by friction, was the figure of a horse.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s a curious object,&rdquo; remarked Spargo, picking it up.
+&ldquo;I never saw anything like that before. What can it be?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t know&mdash;I never saw anything of the sort either,&rdquo;
+said Rathbury. &ldquo;Some old token, I should say. Now this photo.
+Ah&mdash;you see, the photographer&rsquo;s name and address have been torn away
+or broken off&mdash;there&rsquo;s nothing left but just two letters of
+what&rsquo;s apparently been the name of the town&mdash;see.
+Er&mdash;that&rsquo;s all there is. Portrait of a baby, eh?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo gave, what might have been called in anybody else but him, a casual
+glance at the baby&rsquo;s portrait. He picked up the silver ticket again and
+turned it over and over.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Look here, Rathbury,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Let me take this silver
+thing. I know where I can find out what it is. At least, I think I do.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;All right,&rdquo; agreed the detective, &ldquo;but take the greatest
+care of it, and don&rsquo;t tell a soul that we found it in this box, you know.
+No connection with the Marbury case, Spargo, remember.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, all right,&rdquo; said Spargo. &ldquo;Trust me.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He put the silver ticket in his pocket, and went back to the office, wondering
+about this singular find. And when he had written his article that evening, and
+seen a proof of it, Spargo went into Fleet Street intent on seeking peculiar
+information.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap15"></a>CHAPTER FIFTEEN<br/>
+MARKET MILCASTER</h2>
+
+<p>
+The haunt of well-informed men which Spargo had in view when he turned out of
+the <i>Watchman</i> office lay well hidden from ordinary sight and knowledge in
+one of those Fleet Street courts the like of which is not elsewhere in the
+world. Only certain folk knew of it. It was, of course, a club; otherwise it
+would not have been what it was. It is the simplest thing in life, in England,
+at any rate, to form a club of congenial spirits. You get so many of your
+choice friends and acquaintances to gather round you; you register yourselves
+under a name of your own choosing; you take a house and furnish it according to
+your means and your taste: you comply with the very easy letter of the law, and
+there you are. Keep within that easy letter, and you can do what you please on
+your own premises. It is much more agreeable to have a small paradise of your
+own of this description than to lounge about Fleet Street bars.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The particular club to which Spargo bent his steps was called the Octoneumenoi.
+Who evolved this extraordinary combination of Latin and Greek was a dark
+mystery: there it was, however, on a tiny brass plate you once reached the
+portals. The portals were gained by devious ways. You turned out of Fleet
+Street by an alley so narrow that it seemed as if you might suddenly find
+yourself squeezed between the ancient walls. Then you suddenly dived down
+another alley and found yourself in a small court, with high walls around you
+and a smell of printer&rsquo;s ink in your nose and a whirring of printing
+presses in your ears. You made another dive into a dark entry, much encumbered
+by bales of paper, crates of printing material, jars of printing ink; after
+falling over a few of these you struck an ancient flight of stairs and went up
+past various landings, always travelling in a state of gloom and fear. After a
+lot of twisting and turning you came to the very top of the house and found it
+heavily curtained off. You lifted a curtain and found yourself in a small
+entresol, somewhat artistically painted&mdash;the whole and sole work of an
+artistic member who came one day with a formidable array of lumber and
+paint-pots and worked his will on the ancient wood. Then you saw the brass
+plate and its fearful name, and beneath it the formal legal notice that this
+club was duly registered and so on, and if you were a member you went in, and
+if you weren&rsquo;t a member you tinkled an electric bell and asked to see a
+member&mdash;if you knew one.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo was not a member, but he knew many members, and he tinkled the bell, and
+asked the boy who answered it for Mr. Starkey. Mr. Starkey, a young gentleman
+with the biceps of a prize-fighter and a head of curly hair that would have
+done credit to Antinous, came forth in due course and shook Spargo by the hand
+until his teeth rattled.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Had we known you were coming,&rdquo; said Mr. Starkey, &ldquo;we&rsquo;d
+have had a brass band on the stairs.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I want to come in,&rdquo; remarked Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Sure!&rdquo; said Mr. Starkey. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s what you&rsquo;ve
+come for.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, stand out of the way, then, and let&rsquo;s get in,&rdquo; said
+Spargo. &ldquo;Look here,&rdquo; he continued when they had penetrated into a
+small vestibule, &ldquo;doesn&rsquo;t old Crowfoot turn in here about this time
+every night?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Every night as true as the clock, my son Spargo, Crowfoot puts his nose
+in at precisely eleven, having by that time finished that daily column wherein
+he informs a section of the populace as to the prospects of their spotting a
+winner tomorrow,&rdquo; answered Mr. Starkey. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s five minutes to
+his hour now. Come in and drink till he comes. Want him?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A word with him,&rdquo; answered Spargo. &ldquo;A mere word&mdash;or
+two.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He followed Starkey into a room which was so filled with smoke and sound that
+for a moment it was impossible to either see or hear. But the smoke was
+gradually making itself into a canopy, and beneath the canopy Spargo made out
+various groups of men of all ages, sitting around small tables, smoking and
+drinking, and all talking as if the great object of their lives was to get as
+many words as possible out of their mouths in the shortest possible time. In
+the further corner was a small bar; Starkey pulled Spargo up to it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Name it, my son,&rdquo; commanded Starkey. &ldquo;Try the Octoneumenoi
+very extra special. Two of &rsquo;em, Dick. Come to beg to be a member,
+Spargo?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll think about being a member of this ante-room of the infernal
+regions when you start a ventilating fan and provide members with a route-map
+of the way from Fleet Street,&rdquo; answered Spargo, taking his glass.
+&ldquo;Phew!&mdash;what an atmosphere!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We&rsquo;re considering a ventilating fan,&rdquo; said Starkey.
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;m on the house committee now, and I brought that very matter up
+at our last meeting. But Templeson, of the <i>Bulletin</i>&mdash;you know
+Templeson&mdash;he says what we want is a wine-cooler to stand under that
+sideboard&mdash;says no club is proper without a wine-cooler, and that he knows
+a chap&mdash;second-hand dealer, don&rsquo;t you know&mdash;what has a beauty
+to dispose of in old Sheffield plate. Now, if you were on our house committee,
+Spargo, old man, would you go in for the wine-cooler or the ventilating fan?
+You see&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There is Crowfoot,&rdquo; said Spargo. &ldquo;Shout him over here,
+Starkey, before anybody else collars him.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Through the door by which Spargo had entered a few minutes previously came a
+man who stood for a moment blinking at the smoke and the lights. He was a tall,
+elderly man with a figure and bearing of a soldier; a big, sweeping moustache
+stood well out against a square-cut jaw and beneath a prominent nose; a pair of
+keen blue eyes looked out from beneath a tousled mass of crinkled hair. He wore
+neither hat nor cap; his attire was a carelessly put on Norfolk suit of brown
+tweed; he looked half-unkempt, half-groomed. But knotted at the collar of his
+flannel shirt were the colours of one of the most famous and exclusive cricket
+clubs in the world, and everybody knew that in his day their wearer had been a
+mighty figure in the public eye.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Hi, Crowfoot!&rdquo; shouted Starkey above the din and babel.
+&ldquo;Crowfoot, Crowfoot! Come over here, there&rsquo;s a chap dying to see
+you!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, that&rsquo;s the way to get him, isn&rsquo;t it?&rdquo; said
+Spargo. &ldquo;Here, I&rsquo;ll get him myself.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He went across the room and accosted the old sporting journalist.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I want a quiet word with you,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;This place is like
+a pandemonium.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Crowfoot led the way into a side alcove and ordered a drink.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Always is, this time,&rdquo; he said, yawning. &ldquo;But it&rsquo;s
+companionable. What is it, Spargo?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo took a pull at the glass which he had carried with him. &ldquo;I should
+say,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;that you know as much about sporting matters as any
+man writing about &rsquo;em?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, I think you might say it with truth,&rdquo; answered Crowfoot.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And old sporting matters?&rdquo; said Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, and old sporting matters,&rdquo; replied the other with a sudden
+flash of the eye. &ldquo;Not that they greatly interest the modern generation,
+you know.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, there&rsquo;s something that&rsquo;s interesting me greatly just
+now, anyway,&rdquo; said Spargo. &ldquo;And I believe it&rsquo;s got to do with
+old sporting affairs. And I came to you for information about it, believing you
+to be the only man I know of that could tell anything.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes&mdash;what is it?&rdquo; asked Crowfoot.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo drew out an envelope, and took from it the carefully-wrapped-up silver
+ticket. He took off the wrappings and laid the ticket on Crowfoot&rsquo;s
+outstretched palm.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Can you tell me what that is?&rdquo; he asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Another sudden flash came into the old sportsman&rsquo;s eyes&mdash;he eagerly
+turned the silver ticket over.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;God bless my soul!&rdquo; he exclaimed. &ldquo;Where did you get
+this?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Never mind, just now,&rdquo; replied Spargo. &ldquo;You know what it
+is?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Certainly I know what it is! But&mdash;Gad! I&rsquo;ve not seen one of
+these things for Lord knows how many years. It makes me feel something like a
+young &rsquo;un again!&rdquo; said Crowfoot. &ldquo;Quite a young
+&rsquo;un!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But what is it?&rdquo; asked Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Crowfoot turned the ticket over, showing the side on which the heraldic device
+was almost worn away.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It&rsquo;s one of the original silver stand tickets of the old
+racecourse at Market Milcaster,&rdquo; answered Crowfoot. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s
+what it is. One of the old original silver stand tickets. There are the arms of
+Market Milcaster, you see, nearly worn away by much rubbing. There, on the
+obverse, is the figure of a running horse. Oh, yes, that&rsquo;s what it is!
+Bless me!&mdash;most interesting.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Where&rsquo;s Market Milcaster?&rdquo; enquired Spargo.
+&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t know it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Market Milcaster,&rdquo; replied Crowfoot, still turning the silver
+ticket over and over, &ldquo;is what the topographers call a decayed town in
+Elmshire. It has steadily decayed since the river that led to it got gradually
+silted up. There used to be a famous race-meeting there in June every year.
+It&rsquo;s nearly forty years since that meeting fell through. I went to it
+often when I was a lad&mdash;often!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And you say that&rsquo;s a ticket for the stand?&rdquo; asked Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;This is one of fifty silver tickets, or passes, or whatever you like to
+call &rsquo;em, which were given by the race committee to fifty burgesses of
+the town,&rdquo; answered Crowfoot. &ldquo;It was, I remember, considered a
+great privilege to possess a silver ticket. It admitted its possessor&mdash;for
+life, mind you!&mdash;to the stand, the paddocks, the ring, anywhere. It also
+gave him a place at the annual race-dinner. Where on earth did you get this,
+Spargo?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo took the ticket and carefully re-wrapped it, this time putting it in his
+purse.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;m awfully obliged to you, Crowfoot,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;The
+fact is, I can&rsquo;t tell you where I got it just now, but I&rsquo;ll promise
+you that I will tell you, and all about it, too, as soon as my tongue&rsquo;s
+free to do so.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Some mystery, eh?&rdquo; suggested Crowfoot.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Considerable,&rdquo; answered Spargo. &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t mention to
+anyone that I showed it to you. You shall know everything eventually.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, all right, my boy, all right!&rdquo; said Crowfoot. &ldquo;Odd how
+things turn up, isn&rsquo;t it? Now, I&rsquo;ll wager anything that there
+aren&rsquo;t half a dozen of these old things outside Market Milcaster itself.
+As I said, there were only fifty, and they were all in possession of burgesses.
+They were so much thought of that they were taken great care of. I&rsquo;ve
+been in Market Milcaster myself since the races were given up, and I&rsquo;ve
+seen these tickets carefully framed and hung over mantelpieces&mdash;oh,
+yes!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo caught at a notion.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How do you get to Market Milcaster?&rdquo; he asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Paddington,&rdquo; replied Crowfoot. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a goodish
+way.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I wonder,&rdquo; said Spargo, &ldquo;if there&rsquo;s any old sporting
+man there who could remember&mdash;things. Anything about this ticket, for
+instance?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Old sporting man!&rdquo; exclaimed Crowfoot. &ldquo;Egad!&mdash;but no,
+he must be dead&mdash;anyhow, if he isn&rsquo;t dead, he must be a veritable
+patriarch. Old Ben Quarterpage, he was an auctioneer in the town, and a rare
+sportsman.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I may go down there,&rdquo; said Spargo. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll see if
+he&rsquo;s alive.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then, if you do go down,&rdquo; suggested Crowfoot, &ldquo;go to the old
+&lsquo;Yellow Dragon&rsquo; in the High Street, a fine old place.
+Quarterpage&rsquo;s place of business and his private house were exactly
+opposite the &lsquo;Dragon.&rsquo; But I&rsquo;m afraid you&rsquo;ll find him
+dead&mdash;it&rsquo;s five and twenty years since I was in Market Milcaster,
+and he was an old bird then. Let&rsquo;s see, now. If Old Ben Quarterpage is
+alive, Spargo, he&rsquo;ll be ninety years of age!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, I&rsquo;ve known men of ninety who were spry enough, even in my
+bit of experience,&rdquo; said Spargo. &ldquo;I know one&mdash;now&mdash;my own
+grandfather. Well, the best of thanks, Crowfoot, and I&rsquo;ll tell you all
+about it some day.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Have another drink?&rdquo; suggested Crowfoot.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But Spargo excused himself. He was going back to the office, he said; he still
+had something to do. And he got himself away from the Octoneumenoi, in spite of
+Starkey, who wished to start a general debate on the wisest way of expending
+the club&rsquo;s ready money balance, and went back to the <i>Watchman</i>, and
+there he sought the presence of the editor, and in spite of the fact that it
+was the busiest hour of the night, saw him and remained closeted with him for
+the extraordinary space of ten minutes. And after that Spargo went home and
+fell into bed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But next morning, bright and early, he was on the departure platform at
+Paddington, suit-case in hand, and ticket in pocket for Market Milcaster, and
+in the course of that afternoon he found himself in an old-fashioned bedroom
+looking out on Market Milcaster High Street. And there, right opposite him, he
+saw an ancient house, old brick, ivy-covered, with an office at its side, over
+the door of which was the name, <i>Benjamin Quarterpage</i>.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap16"></a>CHAPTER SIXTEEN<br/>
+THE &ldquo;YELLOW DRAGON&rdquo;</h2>
+
+<p>
+Spargo, changing his clothes, washing away the dust of his journey, in that
+old-fashioned lavender-scented bedroom, busied his mind in further speculations
+on his plan of campaign in Market Milcaster. He had no particularly clear plan.
+The one thing he was certain of was that in the old leather box which the man
+whom he knew as John Marbury had deposited with the London and Universal Safe
+Deposit Company, he and Rathbury had discovered one of the old silver tickets
+of Market Milcaster racecourse, and that he, Spargo, had come to Market
+Milcaster, with the full approval of his editor, in an endeavour to trace it.
+How was he going to set about this difficult task?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The first thing,&rdquo; said Spargo to himself as he tied a new tie,
+&ldquo;is to have a look round. That&rsquo;ll be no long job.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For he had already seen as he approached the town, and as he drove from the
+station to the &ldquo;Yellow Dragon&rdquo; Hotel, that Market Milcaster was a
+very small place. It chiefly consisted of one long, wide thoroughfare&mdash;the
+High Street&mdash;with smaller streets leading from it on either side. In the
+High Street seemed to be everything that the town could show&mdash;the ancient
+parish church, the town hall, the market cross, the principal houses and shops,
+the bridge, beneath which ran the river whereon ships had once come up to the
+town before its mouth, four miles away, became impassably silted up. It was a
+bright, clean, little town, but there were few signs of trade in it, and Spargo
+had been quick to notice that in the &ldquo;Yellow Dragon,&rdquo; a big,
+rambling old hostelry, reminiscent of the old coaching days, there seemed to be
+little doing. He had eaten a bit of lunch in the coffee-room immediately on his
+arrival; the coffee-room was big enough to accommodate a hundred and fifty
+people, but beyond himself, an old gentleman and his daughter, evidently
+tourists, two young men talking golf, a man who looked like an artist, and an
+unmistakable honeymooning couple, there was no one in it. There was little
+traffic in the wide street beneath Spargo&rsquo;s windows; little passage of
+people to and fro on the sidewalks; here a countryman drove a lazy cow as
+lazily along; there a farmer in his light cart sat idly chatting with an
+aproned tradesman, who had come out of his shop to talk to him. Over everything
+lay the quiet of the sunlight of the summer afternoon, and through the open
+windows stole a faint, sweet scent of the new-mown hay lying in the meadows
+outside the old houses.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A veritable Sleepy Hollow,&rdquo; mused Spargo. &ldquo;Let&rsquo;s go
+down and see if there&rsquo;s anybody to talk to. Great Scott!&mdash;to think
+that I was in the poisonous atmosphere of the Octoneumenoi only sixteen hours
+ago!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo, after losing himself in various corridors and passages, finally landed
+in the wide, stone-paved hall of the old hotel, and with a sure instinct turned
+into the bar-parlour which he had noticed when he entered the place. This was a
+roomy, comfortable, bow-windowed apartment, looking out upon the High Street,
+and was furnished and ornamented with the usual appurtenances of country-town
+hotels. There were old chairs and tables and sideboards and cupboards, which
+had certainly been made a century before, and seemed likely to endure for a
+century or two longer; there were old prints of the road and the chase, and an
+old oil-painting or two of red-faced gentlemen in pink coats; there were
+foxes&rsquo; masks on the wall, and a monster pike in a glass case on a
+side-table; there were ancient candlesticks on the mantelpiece and an antique
+snuff-box set between them. Also there was a small, old-fashioned bar in a
+corner of the room, and a new-fashioned young woman seated behind it, who was
+yawning over a piece of fancy needlework, and looked at Spargo when he entered
+as Andromeda may have looked at Perseus when he made arrival at her rock. And
+Spargo, treating himself to a suitable drink and choosing a cigar to accompany
+it, noted the look, and dropped into the nearest chair.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;This,&rdquo; he remarked, eyeing the damsel with enquiry, &ldquo;appears
+to me to be a very quiet place.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Quiet!&rdquo; exclaimed the lady. &ldquo;Quiet?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That,&rdquo; continued Spargo, &ldquo;is precisely what I observed.
+Quiet. I see that you agree with me. You expressed your agreement with two
+shades of emphasis, the surprised and the scornful. We may conclude, thus far,
+that the place is undoubtedly quiet.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The damsel looked at Spargo as if she considered him in the light of a new
+specimen, and picking up her needlework she quitted the bar and coming out into
+the room took a chair near his own.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It makes you thankful to see a funeral go by here,&rdquo; she remarked.
+&ldquo;It&rsquo;s about all that one ever does see.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Are there many?&rdquo; asked Spargo. &ldquo;Do the inhabitants die much
+of inanition?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The damsel gave Spargo another critical inspection.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, you&rsquo;re joking!&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s well you
+can. Nothing ever happens here. This place is a back number.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Even the back numbers make pleasant reading at times,&rdquo; murmured
+Spargo. &ldquo;And the backwaters of life are refreshing. Nothing doing in this
+town, then?&rdquo; he added in a louder voice.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nothing!&rdquo; replied his companion. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s fast asleep. I
+came here from Birmingham, and I didn&rsquo;t know what I was coming to. In
+Birmingham you see as many people in ten minutes as you see here in ten
+months.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah!&rdquo; said Spargo. &ldquo;What you are suffering from is dulness.
+You must have an antidote.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Dulness!&rdquo; exclaimed the damsel. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s the right word
+for Market Milcaster. There&rsquo;s just a few regular old customers drop in
+here of a morning, between eleven and one. A stray caller looks
+in&mdash;perhaps during the afternoon. Then, at night, a lot of old fogies sit
+round that end of the room and talk about old times. Old times,
+indeed!&mdash;what they want in Market Milcaster is new times.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo pricked up his ears.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, but it&rsquo;s rather interesting to hear old fogies talk about
+old times,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I love it!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then you can get as much of it as ever you want here,&rdquo; remarked
+the barmaid. &ldquo;Look in tonight any time after eight o&rsquo;clock, and if
+you don&rsquo;t know more about the history of Market Milcaster by ten than you
+did when you sat down, you must be deaf. There are some old gentlemen drop in
+here every night, regular as clockwork, who seem to feel that they
+couldn&rsquo;t go to bed unless they&rsquo;ve told each other stories about old
+days which I should think they&rsquo;ve heard a thousand times already!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Very old men?&rdquo; asked Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Methuselahs,&rdquo; replied the lady. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s old Mr.
+Quarterpage, across the way there, the auctioneer, though he doesn&rsquo;t do
+any business now&mdash;they say he&rsquo;s ninety, though I&rsquo;m sure you
+wouldn&rsquo;t take him for more than seventy. And there&rsquo;s Mr. Lummis,
+further down the street&mdash;he&rsquo;s eighty-one. And Mr. Skene, and Mr.
+Kaye&mdash;they&rsquo;re regular patriarchs. I&rsquo;ve sat here and listened
+to them till I believe I could write a history of Market Milcaster since the
+year One.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I can conceive of that as a pleasant and profitable occupation,&rdquo;
+said Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He chatted a while longer in a fashion calculated to cheer the barmaid&rsquo;s
+spirits, after which he went out and strolled around the town until seven
+o&rsquo;clock, the &ldquo;Dragon&rsquo;s&rdquo; hour for dinner. There were no
+more people in the big coffee-room than there had been at lunch and Spargo was
+glad, when his solitary meal was over, to escape to the bar-parlour, where he
+took his coffee in a corner near to that sacred part in which the old townsmen
+had been reported to him to sit.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And mind you don&rsquo;t sit in one of their chairs,&rdquo; said the
+barmaid, warningly. &ldquo;They all have their own special chairs and their
+special pipes there on that rack, and I suppose the ceiling would fall in if
+anybody touched pipe or chair. But you&rsquo;re all right there, and
+you&rsquo;ll hear all they&rsquo;ve got to say.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+To Spargo, who had never seen anything of the sort before, and who, twenty-four
+hours previously, would have believed the thing impossible, the proceedings of
+that evening in the bar-parlour of the &ldquo;Yellow Dragon&rdquo; at Market
+Milcaster were like a sudden transference to the eighteenth century. Precisely
+as the clock struck eight and a bell began to toll somewhere in the recesses of
+the High Street, an old gentleman walked in, and the barmaid, catching
+Spargo&rsquo;s eye, gave him a glance which showed that the play was about to
+begin.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Good evening, Mr. Kaye,&rdquo; said the barmaid. &ldquo;You&rsquo;re
+first tonight.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Evening,&rdquo; said Mr. Kaye and took a seat, scowled around him, and
+became silent. He was a tall, lank old gentleman, clad in rusty black clothes,
+with a pointed collar sticking up on both sides of his fringe of grey whisker
+and a voluminous black neckcloth folded several times round his neck, and by
+the expression of his countenance was inclined to look on life severely.
+&ldquo;Nobody been in yet?&rdquo; asked Mr. Kaye. &ldquo;No, but here&rsquo;s
+Mr. Lummis and Mr. Skene,&rdquo; replied the barmaid.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Two more old gentlemen entered the bar-parlour. Of these, one was a little,
+dapper-figured man, clad in clothes of an eminently sporting cut, and of very
+loud pattern; he sported a bright blue necktie, a flower in his lapel, and a
+tall white hat, which he wore at a rakish angle. The other was a big, portly,
+bearded man with a Falstaffian swagger and a rakish eye, who chaffed the
+barmaid as he entered, and gave her a good-humoured chuck under the chin as he
+passed her. These two also sank into chairs which seemed to have been specially
+designed to meet them, and the stout man slapped the arms of his as familiarly
+as he had greeted the barmaid. He looked at his two cronies.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well?&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;Here&rsquo;s three of us. And there&rsquo;s
+a symposium.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Wait a bit, wait a bit,&rdquo; said the dapper little man.
+&ldquo;Grandpa&rsquo;ll be here in a minute. We&rsquo;ll start fair.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The barmaid glanced out of the window.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There&rsquo;s Mr. Quarterpage coming across the street now,&rdquo; she
+announced. &ldquo;Shall I put the things on the table?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Aye, put them on, my dear, put them on!&rdquo; commanded the fat man.
+&ldquo;Have all in readiness.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The barmaid thereupon placed a round table before the sacred chairs, set out
+upon it a fine old punch-bowl and the various ingredients for making punch, a
+box of cigars, and an old leaden tobacco-box, and she had just completed this
+interesting prelude to the evening&rsquo;s discourse when the door opened again
+and in walked one of the most remarkable old men Spargo had ever seen. And by
+this time, knowing that this was the venerable Mr. Benjamin Quarterpage, of
+whom Crowfoot had told him, he took good stock of the newcomer as he took his
+place amongst his friends, who on their part received him with ebullitions of
+delight which were positively boyish.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Quarterpage was a youthful buck of ninety&mdash;a middle-sized,
+sturdily-built man, straight as a dart, still active of limb, clear-eyed, and
+strong of voice. His clean-shaven old countenance was ruddy as a sun-warmed
+pippin; his hair was still only silvered; his hand was steady as a rock. His
+clothes of buff-coloured whipcord were smart and jaunty, his neckerchief as gay
+as if he had been going to a fair. It seemed to Spargo that Mr. Quarterpage had
+a pretty long lease of life before him even at his age.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo, in his corner, sat fascinated while the old gentlemen began their
+symposium. Another, making five, came in and joined them&mdash;the five had the
+end of the bar-parlour to themselves. Mr. Quarterpage made the punch with all
+due solemnity and ceremony; when it was ladled out each man lighted his pipe or
+took a cigar, and the tongues began to wag. Other folk came and went; the old
+gentlemen were oblivious of anything but their own talk. Now and then a young
+gentleman of the town dropped in to take his modest half-pint of bitter beer
+and to dally in the presence of the barmaid; such looked with awe at the
+patriarchs: as for the patriarchs themselves they were lost in the past.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo began to understand what the damsel behind the bar meant when she said
+that she believed she could write a history of Market Milcaster since the year
+One. After discussing the weather, the local events of the day, and various
+personal matters, the old fellows got to reminiscences of the past, telling
+tale after tale, recalling incident upon incident of long years before. At last
+they turned to memories of racing days at Market Milcaster. And at that Spargo
+determined on a bold stroke. Now was the time to get some information. Taking
+the silver ticket from his purse, he laid it, the heraldic device uppermost, on
+the palm of his hand, and approaching the group with a polite bow, said
+quietly:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Gentlemen, can any of you tell me anything about that?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap17"></a>CHAPTER SEVENTEEN<br/>
+MR. QUARTERPAGE HARKS BACK</h2>
+
+<p>
+If Spargo had upset the old gentlemen&rsquo;s bowl of punch&mdash;the second of
+the evening&mdash;or had dropped an infernal machine in their midst, he could
+scarcely have produced a more startling effect than that wrought upon them by
+his sudden production of the silver ticket. Their babble of conversation died
+out; one of them dropped his pipe; another took his cigar out of his mouth as
+if he had suddenly discovered that he was sucking a stick of poison; all lifted
+astonished faces to the interrupter, staring from him to the shining object
+exhibited in his outstretched palm, from it back to him. And at last Mr.
+Quarterpage, to whom Spargo had more particularly addressed himself, spoke,
+pointing with great <i>empressement</i> to the ticket.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Young gentleman!&rdquo; he said, in accents that seemed to Spargo to
+tremble a little, &ldquo;young gentleman, where did you get that?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You know what it is, then?&rdquo; asked Spargo, willing to dally a
+little with the matter. &ldquo;You recognize it?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Know it! Recognize it!&rdquo; exclaimed Mr. Quarterpage. &ldquo;Yes, and
+so does every gentleman present. And it is just because I see you are a
+stranger to this town that I ask you where you got it. Not, I think, young
+gentleman, in this town.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No,&rdquo; replied Spargo. &ldquo;Certainly not in this town. How should
+I get it in this town if I&rsquo;m a stranger?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Quite true, quite true!&rdquo; murmured Mr. Quarterpage. &ldquo;I cannot
+conceive how any person in the town who is in possession of one of
+those&mdash;what shall we call them&mdash;heirlooms?&mdash;yes, heirlooms of
+antiquity, could possibly be base enough to part with it. Therefore, I ask
+again&mdash;Where did you get that, young gentleman?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Before I tell you that,&rdquo; answered Spargo, who, in answer to a
+silent sign from the fat man had drawn a chair amongst them, &ldquo;perhaps you
+will tell me exactly what this is? I see it to be a bit of old, polished, much
+worn silver, having on the obverse the arms or heraldic bearings of somebody or
+something; on the reverse the figure of a running horse. But&mdash;what is
+it?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The five old men all glanced at each other and made simultaneous grunts. Then
+Mr. Quarterpage spoke.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is one of the original fifty burgess tickets of Market Milcaster,
+young sir, which gave its holder special and greatly valued privileges in
+respect to attendance at our once famous race-meeting, now unfortunately a
+thing of the past,&rdquo; he added. &ldquo;Fifty&mdash;aye, forty!&mdash;years
+ago, to be in possession of one of those tickets was&mdash;was&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A grand thing!&rdquo; said one of the old gentlemen.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mr. Lummis is right,&rdquo; said Mr. Quarterpage. &ldquo;It was a grand
+thing&mdash;a very grand thing. Those tickets, sir, were treasured&mdash;are
+treasured. And yet you, a stranger, show us one! You got it, sir&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo saw that it was now necessary to cut matters short.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I found this ticket&mdash;under mysterious circumstances&mdash;in
+London,&rdquo; he answered. &ldquo;I want to trace it. I want to know who its
+original owner was. That is why I have come to Market Milcaster.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Quarterpage slowly looked round the circle of faces.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Wonderful!&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Wonderful! He found this
+ticket&mdash;one of our famous fifty&mdash;in London, and under mysterious
+circumstances. He wants to trace it&mdash;he wants to know to whom it belonged!
+That is why he has come to Market Milcaster. Most extraordinary! Gentlemen, I
+appeal to you if this is not the most extraordinary event that has happened in
+Market Milcaster for&mdash;I don&rsquo;t know how many years?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was a general murmur of assent, and Spargo found everybody looking at him
+as if he had just announced that he had come to buy the whole town.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But&mdash;why?&rdquo; he asked, showing great surprise.
+&ldquo;Why?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why?&rdquo; exclaimed Mr. Quarterpage. &ldquo;Why? He asks&mdash;why?
+Because, young gentleman, it is the greatest surprise to me, and to these
+friends of mine, too, every man jack of &rsquo;em, to hear that any one of our
+fifty tickets ever passed out of the possession of any of the fifty families to
+whom they belonged! And unless I am vastly, greatly, most unexplainably
+mistaken, young sir, you are not a member of any Market Milcaster
+family.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, I&rsquo;m not,&rdquo; admitted Spargo. And he was going to add that
+until the previous evening he had never even heard of Market Milcaster, but he
+wisely refrained. &ldquo;No, I&rsquo;m certainly not,&rdquo; he added.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Quarterpage waved his long pipe.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I believe,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;I believe that if the evening were not
+drawing to a close&mdash;it is already within a few minutes of our departure,
+young gentleman&mdash;I believe, I say, that if I had time, I could, from
+memory, give the names of the fifty families who held those tickets when the
+race-meeting came to an end. I believe I could!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;m sure you could!&rdquo; asserted the little man in the loud
+suit. &ldquo;Never was such a memory as yours, never!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Especially for anything relating to the old racing matters,&rdquo; said
+the fat man. &ldquo;Mr. Quarterpage is a walking encyclopaedia.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;My memory is good,&rdquo; said Mr. Quarterpage. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s the
+greatest blessing I have in my declining years. Yes, I am sure I could do that,
+with a little thought. And what&rsquo;s more, nearly every one of those fifty
+families is still in the town, or if not in the town, close by it, or if not
+close by it, I know where they are. Therefore, I cannot make out how this young
+gentleman&mdash;from London, did you say, sir?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;From London,&rdquo; answered Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;This young gentleman from London comes to be in possession of one of our
+tickets,&rdquo; continued Mr. Quarterpage. &ldquo;It is&mdash;wonderful! But I
+tell you what, young gentleman from London, if you will do me the honour to
+breakfast with me in the morning, sir, I will show you my racing books and
+papers and we will speedily discover who the original holder of that ticket
+was. My name, sir, is Quarterpage&mdash;Benjamin Quarterpage&mdash;and I reside
+at the ivy-covered house exactly opposite this inn, and my breakfast hour is
+nine o&rsquo;clock sharp, and I shall bid you heartily welcome!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo made his best bow.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Sir,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;I am greatly obliged by your kind
+invitation, and I shall consider it an honour to wait upon you to the
+moment.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Accordingly, at five minutes to nine next morning, Spargo found himself in an
+old-fashioned parlour, looking out upon a delightful garden, gay with summer
+flowers, and being introduced by Mr. Quarterpage, Senior, to Mr. Quarterpage,
+Junior&mdash;a pleasant gentleman of sixty, always referred to by his father as
+something quite juvenile&mdash;and to Miss Quarterpage, a young-old lady of
+something a little less elderly than her brother, and to a breakfast table
+bounteously spread with all the choice fare of the season. Mr. Quarterpage,
+Senior, was as fresh and rosy as a cherub; it was a revelation to Spargo to
+encounter so old a man who was still in possession of such life and spirits,
+and of such a vigorous and healthy appetite.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Naturally, the talk over the breakfast table ran on Spargo&rsquo;s possession
+of the old silver ticket, upon which subject it was evident Mr. Quarterpage was
+still exercising his intellect. And Spargo, who had judged it well to enlighten
+his host as to who he was, and had exhibited a letter with which the editor of
+the <i>Watchman</i> had furnished him, told how in the exercise of his
+journalistic duties he had discovered the ticket in the lining of an old box.
+But he made no mention of the Marbury matter, being anxious to see first
+whither Mr. Quarterpage&rsquo;s revelations would lead him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You have no idea, Mr. Spargo,&rdquo; said the old gentleman, when,
+breakfast over, he and Spargo were closeted together in a little library in
+which were abundant evidences of the host&rsquo;s taste in sporting matters;
+&ldquo;you have no idea of the value which was attached to the possession of
+one of those silver tickets. There is mine, as you see, securely framed and
+just as securely fastened to the wall. Those fifty silver tickets, my dear sir,
+were made when our old race-meeting was initiated, in the year 1781. They were
+made in the town by a local silversmith, whose great-great-grandson still
+carries on the business. The fifty were distributed amongst the fifty leading
+burgesses of the town to be kept in their families for ever&mdash;nobody ever
+anticipated in those days that our race-meeting would ever be discontinued. The
+ticket carried great privileges. It made its holder, and all members of his
+family, male and female, free of the stands, rings, and paddocks. It gave the
+holder himself and his eldest son, if of age, the right to a seat at our grand
+race banquet&mdash;at which, I may tell you, Mr. Spargo, Royalty itself has
+been present in the good old days. Consequently, as you see, to be the holder
+of a silver ticket was to be somebody.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And when the race-meeting fell through?&rdquo; asked Spargo. &ldquo;What
+then?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then, of course, the families who held the tickets looked upon them as
+heirlooms, to be taken great care of,&rdquo; replied Mr. Quarterpage.
+&ldquo;They were dealt with as I dealt with mine&mdash;framed on velvet, and
+hung up&mdash;or locked away: I am sure that anybody who had one took the
+greatest care of it. Now, I said last night, over there at the
+&lsquo;Dragon,&rsquo; that I could repeat the names of all the families who
+held these tickets. So I can. But here&rdquo;&mdash;the old gentleman drew out
+a drawer and produced from it a parchment-bound book which he handled with
+great reverence&mdash;&ldquo;here is a little volume of my own
+handwriting&mdash;memoranda relating to Market Milcaster Races&mdash;in which
+is a list of the original holders, together with another list showing who held
+the tickets when the races were given up. I make bold to say, Mr. Spargo, that
+by going through the second list, I could trace every ticket&mdash;except the
+one you have in your purse.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Every one?&rdquo; said Spargo, in some surprise.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Every one! For as I told you,&rdquo; continued Mr. Quarterpage,
+&ldquo;the families are either in the town (we&rsquo;re a conservative people
+here in Market Milcaster and we don&rsquo;t move far afield) or they&rsquo;re
+just outside the town, or they&rsquo;re not far away. I can&rsquo;t conceive
+how the ticket you have&mdash;and it&rsquo;s genuine enough&mdash;could ever
+get out of possession of one of these families, and&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Perhaps,&rdquo; suggested Spargo, &ldquo;it never has been out of
+possession. I told you it was found in the lining of a box&mdash;that box
+belonged to a dead man.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A dead man!&rdquo; exclaimed Mr. Quarterpage. &ldquo;A dead man! Who
+could&mdash;ah! Perhaps&mdash;perhaps I have an idea. Yes!&mdash;an idea. I
+remember something now that I had never thought of.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The old gentleman unfastened the clasp of his parchment-bound book, and turned
+over its pages until he came to one whereon was a list of names. He pointed
+this out to Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There is the list of holders of the silver tickets at the time the
+race-meetings came to an end,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;If you were acquainted
+with this town you would know that those are the names of our best-known
+inhabitants&mdash;all, of course, burgesses. There&rsquo;s mine, you
+see&mdash;Quarterpage. There&rsquo;s Lummis, there&rsquo;s Kaye, there&rsquo;s
+Skene, there&rsquo;s Templeby&mdash;the gentlemen you saw last night. All good
+old town names. They all are&mdash;on this list. I know every family mentioned.
+The holders of that time are many of them dead; but their successors have the
+tickets. Yes&mdash;and now that I think of it, there&rsquo;s only one man who
+held a ticket when this list was made about whom I don&rsquo;t know
+anything&mdash;at least, anything recent. The ticket, Mr. Spargo, which
+you&rsquo;ve found must have been his. But I thought&mdash;I thought somebody
+else had it!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And this man, sir? Who was he?&rdquo; asked Spargo, intuitively
+conscious that he was coming to news. &ldquo;Is his name there?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The old man ran the tip of his finger down the list of names.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There it is!&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;John Maitland.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo bent over the fine writing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, John Maitland,&rdquo; he observed. &ldquo;And who was John
+Maitland?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Quarterpage shook his head. He turned to another of the many drawers in an
+ancient bureau, and began to search amongst a mass of old newspapers, carefully
+sorted into small bundles and tied up.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If you had lived in Market Milcaster one-and-twenty years ago, Mr.
+Spargo,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;you would have known who John Maitland was. For
+some time, sir, he was the best-known man in the place&mdash;aye, and in this
+corner of the world. But&mdash;aye, here it is&mdash;the newspaper of October
+5th, 1891. Now, Mr. Spargo, you&rsquo;ll find in this old newspaper who John
+Maitland was, and all about him. Now, I&rsquo;ll tell you what to do.
+I&rsquo;ve just got to go into my office for an hour to talk the day&rsquo;s
+business over with my son&mdash;you take this newspaper out into the garden
+there with one of these cigars, and read what&rsquo;ll you find in it, and when
+you&rsquo;ve read that we&rsquo;ll have some more talk.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo carried the old newspaper into the sunlit garden.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap18"></a>CHAPTER EIGHTEEN<br/>
+AN OLD NEWSPAPER</h2>
+
+<p>
+As soon as Spargo unfolded the paper he saw what he wanted on the middle page,
+headed in two lines of big capitals. He lighted a cigar and settled down to
+read.
+</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+&ldquo;MARKET MILCASTER QUARTER SESSIONS<br/>
+&ldquo;TRIAL OF JOHN MAITLAND
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The Quarter Sessions for the Borough of Market Milcaster were held on
+Wednesday last, October 3rd, 1891, in the Town Hall, before the Recorder, Henry
+John Campernowne, Esq., K.C., who was accompanied on the bench by the
+Worshipful the Mayor of Market Milcaster (Alderman Pettiford), the Vicar of
+Market Milcaster (the Rev. P.B. Clabberton, M.A., R.D.), Alderman Banks, J.P.,
+Alderman Peters, J.P., Sir Gervais Racton, J.P., Colonel Fludgate, J.P.,
+Captain Murrill, J.P., and other magistrates and gentlemen. There was a crowded
+attendance of the public in anticipation of the trial of John Maitland,
+ex-manager of the Market Milcaster Bank, and the reserved portions of the Court
+were filled with the <i>élite</i> of the town and neighbourhood, including a
+considerable number of ladies who manifested the greatest interest in the
+proceedings.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The Recorder, in charging the Grand Jury, said he regretted that the
+very pleasant and gratifying experience which had been his upon the occasion of
+his last two official visits to Market Milcaster&mdash;he referred to the fact
+that on both those occasions his friend the Worshipful Mayor had been able to
+present him with a pair of white gloves&mdash;was not to be repeated on the
+present occasion. It would be their sad and regrettable lot to have before them
+a fellow-townsman whose family had for generations occupied a foremost position
+in the life of the borough. That fellow-townsman was charged with one of the
+most serious offences known to a commercial nation like ours: the offence of
+embezzling the moneys of the bank of which he had for many years been the
+trusted manager, and with which he had been connected all his life since his
+school days. He understood that the prisoner who would shortly be put before
+the court on his trial was about to plead guilty, and there would accordingly
+be no need for him to direct the gentlemen of the Grand Jury on this
+matter&mdash;what he had to say respecting the gravity and even enormity of the
+offence he would reserve. The Recorder then addressed himself to the Grand Jury
+on the merits of two minor cases, which came before the court at a later period
+of the morning, after which they retired, and having formally returned a true
+bill against the prisoner, and a petty jury, chosen from well-known burgesses
+of the town having been duly sworn.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;JOHN MAITLAND, aged 42, bank manager, of the Bank House, High Street,
+Market Milcaster, was formally charged with embezzling, on April 23rd, 1891,
+the sum of £4,875 10_s_. 6_d_., the moneys of his employers, the Market
+Milcaster Banking Company Ltd., and converting the same to his own use. The
+prisoner, who appeared to feel his position most acutely, and who looked very
+pale and much worn, was represented by Mr. Charles Doolittle, the well-known
+barrister of Kingshaven; Mr. Stephens, K.C., appeared on behalf of the
+prosecution.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Maitland, upon being charged, pleaded guilty.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mr. Stephens, K.C., addressing the Recorder, said that without any
+desire to unduly press upon the prisoner, who, he ventured to think, had taken
+a very wise course in pleading guilty to that particular count in the
+indictment with which he stood charged, he felt bound, in the interests of
+justice, to set forth to the Court some particulars of the defalcations which
+had arisen through the prisoner&rsquo;s much lamented dishonesty. He proposed
+to offer a clear and succinct account of the matter. The prisoner, John
+Maitland, was the last of an old Market Milcaster family&mdash;he was, in fact,
+he believed, with the exception of his own infant son, the very last of the
+race. His father had been manager of the bank before him. Maitland himself had
+entered the service of the bank at the age of eighteen, when he left the local
+Grammar School; he succeeded his father as manager at the age of thirty-two; he
+had therefore occupied this highest position of trust for ten years. His
+directors had the fullest confidence in him; they relied on his honesty and his
+honour; they gave him discretionary powers such as no bank-manager, probably,
+ever enjoyed or held before. In fact, he was so trusted that he was, to all
+intents and purposes, the Market Milcaster Banking Company; in other words he
+was allowed full control over everything, and given full licence to do what he
+liked. Whether the directors were wise in extending such liberty to even the
+most trusted servant, it was not for him (Mr. Stephens) to say; it was some
+consolation, under the circumstances, to know that the loss would fall upon the
+directors, inasmuch as they themselves held nearly the whole of the shares. But
+he had to speak of the loss&mdash;of the serious defalcations which Maitland
+had committed. The prisoner had wisely pleaded guilty to the first count of the
+indictment. But there were no less than seventeen counts in the indictment. He
+had pleaded guilty to embezzling a sum of £4,875 odd. But the total amount of
+the defalcations, comprised in the seventeen counts, was no less&mdash;it
+seemed a most amazing sum!&mdash;than £221,573 8_s_. 6_d_.! There was the
+fact&mdash;the banking company had been robbed of over two hundred thousand
+pounds by the prisoner in the dock before a mere accident, the most trifling
+chance, had revealed to the astounded directors that he was robbing them at
+all. And the most serious feature of the whole case was that not one penny of
+this money had been, or ever could be, recovered. He believed that the
+prisoner&rsquo;s learned counsel was about to urge upon the Court that the
+prisoner himself had been tricked and deceived by another man, unfortunately
+not before the Court&mdash;a man, he understood, also well known in Market
+Milcaster, who was now dead, and therefore could not be called, but whether he
+was so tricked or deceived was no excuse for his clever and wholesale robbing
+of his employers. He had thought it necessary to put these facts&mdash;which
+would not be denied&mdash;before the Court, in order that it might be known how
+heavy the defalcations really had been, and that they should be considered in
+dealing with the prisoner.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The Recorder asked if there was no possibility of recovering any part of
+the vast sum concerned.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mr. Stephens replied that they were informed that there was not the
+remotest chance&mdash;the money, it was said by prisoner and those acting on
+his behalf, had utterly vanished with the death of the man to whom he had just
+made reference.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mr. Doolittle, on behalf of the prisoner, craved to address a few words
+to the Court in mitigation of sentence. He thanked Mr. Stephens for the
+considerate and eminently dispassionate manner in which he had outlined the
+main facts of the case. He had no desire to minimize the prisoner&rsquo;s
+guilt. But, on prisoner&rsquo;s behalf, he desired to tell the true story as to
+how these things came to be. Until as recently as three years previously the
+prisoner had never made the slightest deviation from the straight path of
+integrity. Unfortunately for him, and, he believed, for some others in Market
+Milcaster, there came to the town three years before the present proceedings, a
+man named Chamberlayne, who commenced business in the High Street as a
+stock-and-share broker. A man of good address and the most plausible manners,
+Chamberlayne attracted a good many people&mdash;amongst them his unfortunate
+client. It was matter of common knowledge that Chamberlayne had induced
+numerous persons in Market Milcaster to enter into financial transactions with
+him; it was matter of common repute that those transactions had not always
+turned out well for Chamberlayne&rsquo;s clients. Unhappily for himself,
+Maitland had great faith in Chamberlayne. He had begun to have transactions
+with him in a large way; they had gone on and on in a large way until he was
+involved to vast amounts. Believing thoroughly in Chamberlayne and his methods,
+he had entrusted him with very large sums of money.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The Recorder interrupted Mr. Doolittle at this point to ask if he was to
+understand that Mr. Doolittle was referring to the prisoner&rsquo;s own money.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mr. Doolittle replied that he was afraid the large sums he referred to
+were the property of the bank. But the prisoner had such belief in Chamberlayne
+that he firmly anticipated that all would be well, and that these sums would be
+repaid, and that a vast profit would result from their use.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The Recorder remarked that he supposed the prisoner intended to put the
+profit into his own pockets.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mr. Doolittle said at any rate the prisoner assured him that of the two
+hundred and twenty thousand pounds which was in question, Chamberlayne had had
+the immediate handling of at least two hundred thousand, and he, the prisoner,
+had not the ghost of a notion as to what Chamberlayne had done with it.
+Unfortunately for everybody, for the bank, for some other people, and
+especially for his unhappy client, Chamberlayne died, very suddenly, just as
+these proceedings were instituted, and so far it had been absolutely impossible
+to trace anything of the moneys concerned. He had died under mysterious
+circumstances, and there was just as much mystery about his affairs.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The Recorder observed that he was still waiting to hear what Mr.
+Doolittle had to urge in mitigation of any sentence he, the Recorder, might
+think fit to pass.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mr. Doolittle said that he would trouble the Court with as few remarks
+as possible. All that he could urge on behalf of the unfortunate man in the
+dock was that until three years ago he had borne a most exemplary character,
+and had never committed a dishonest action. It had been his misfortune, his
+folly, to allow a plausible man to persuade him to these acts of dishonesty.
+That man had been called to another account, and the prisoner was left to bear
+the consequences of his association with him. It seemed as if Chamberlayne had
+made away with the money for his own purposes, and it might be that it would
+yet be recovered. He would only ask the Court to remember the prisoner&rsquo;s
+antecedents and his previous good conduct, and to bear in mind that whatever
+his near future might be he was, in a commercial sense, ruined for life.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The Recorder, in passing sentence, said that he had not heard a single
+word of valid excuse for Maitland&rsquo;s conduct. Such dishonesty must be
+punished in the most severe fashion, and the prisoner must go to penal
+servitude for ten years.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Maitland, who heard the sentence unmoved, was removed from the town
+later in the day to the county jail at Saxchester.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo read all this swiftly; then went over it again, noting certain points in
+it. At last he folded up the newspaper and turned to the house&mdash;to see old
+Quarterpage beckoning to him from the library window.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap19"></a>CHAPTER NINETEEN<br/>
+THE CHAMBERLAYNE STORY</h2>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I perceive, sir,&rdquo; said Mr. Quarterpage, as Spargo entered the
+library, &ldquo;that you have read the account of the Maitland trial.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Twice,&rdquo; replied Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And you have come to the conclusion that&mdash;but what conclusion have
+you come to?&rdquo; asked Mr. Quarterpage.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That the silver ticket in my purse was Maitland&rsquo;s property,&rdquo;
+said Spargo, who was not going to give all his conclusions at once.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Just so,&rdquo; agreed the old gentleman. &ldquo;I think so&mdash;I
+can&rsquo;t think anything else. But I was under the impression that I could
+have accounted for that ticket, just as I am sure I can account for the other
+forty-nine.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes&mdash;and how?&rdquo; asked Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Quarterpage turned to a corner cupboard and in silence produced a decanter
+and two curiously-shaped old wine-glasses. He carefully polished the glasses
+with a cloth which he took from a drawer, and set glasses and decanter on a
+table in the window, motioning Spargo to take a chair in proximity thereto. He
+himself pulled up his own elbow-chair.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We&rsquo;ll take a glass of my old brown sherry,&rdquo; he said.
+&ldquo;Though I say it as shouldn&rsquo;t, as the saying goes, I don&rsquo;t
+think you could find better brown sherry than that from Land&rsquo;s End to
+Berwick-upon-Tweed, Mr. Spargo&mdash;no, nor further north either, where they
+used to have good taste in liquor in my young days! Well, here&rsquo;s your
+good health, sir, and I&rsquo;ll tell you about Maitland.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;m curious,&rdquo; said Spargo. &ldquo;And about more than
+Maitland. I want to know about a lot of things arising out of that newspaper
+report. I want to know something about the man referred to so much&mdash;the
+stockbroker, Chamberlayne.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Just so,&rdquo; observed Mr. Quarterpage, smiling. &ldquo;I thought that
+would touch your sense of the inquisitive. But Maitland first. Now, when
+Maitland went to prison, he left behind him a child, a boy, just then about two
+years old. The child&rsquo;s mother was dead. Her sister, a Miss Baylis,
+appeared on the scene&mdash;Maitland had married his wife from a
+distance&mdash;and took possession of the child and of Maitland&rsquo;s
+personal effects. He had been made bankrupt while he was awaiting his trial,
+and all his household goods were sold. But this Miss Baylis took some small
+personal things, and I always believed that she took the silver ticket. And she
+may have done, for anything I know to the contrary. Anyway, she took the child
+away, and there was an end of the Maitland family in Market Milcaster.
+Maitland, of course, was in due procedure of things removed to Dartmoor, and
+there he served his term. There were people who were very anxious to get hold
+of him when he came out&mdash;the bank people, for they believed that he knew
+more about the disposition of that money than he&rsquo;d ever told, and they
+wanted to induce him to tell what they hoped he knew&mdash;between ourselves,
+Mr. Spargo, they were going to make it worth his while to tell.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo tapped the newspaper, which he had retained while the old gentleman
+talked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then they didn&rsquo;t believe what his counsel said&mdash;that
+Chamberlayne got all the money?&rdquo; he asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Quarterpage laughed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No&mdash;nor anybody else!&rdquo; he answered. &ldquo;There was a strong
+idea in the town&mdash;you&rsquo;ll see why afterwards&mdash;that it was all a
+put-up job, and that Maitland cheerfully underwent his punishment knowing that
+there was a nice fortune waiting for him when he came out. And as I say, the
+bank people meant to get hold of him. But though they sent a special agent to
+meet him on his release, they never did get hold of him. Some mistake
+arose&mdash;when Maitland was released, he got clear away. Nobody&rsquo;s ever
+heard a word of him from that day to this. Unless Miss Baylis has.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Where does this Miss Baylis live?&rdquo; asked Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, I don&rsquo;t know,&rdquo; replied Mr. Quarterpage. &ldquo;She did
+live in Brighton when she took the child away, and her address was known, and I
+have it somewhere. But when the bank people sought her out after
+Maitland&rsquo;s release, she, too, had clean disappeared, and all efforts to
+trace her failed. In fact, according to the folks who lived near her in
+Brighton, she&rsquo;d completely disappeared, with the child, five years
+before. So there wasn&rsquo;t a clue to Maitland. He served his time&mdash;made
+a model prisoner&mdash;they did find that much out!&mdash;earned the maximum
+remission, was released, and vanished. And for that very reason there&rsquo;s a
+theory about him in this very town to this very day!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What?&rdquo; asked Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;This. That he&rsquo;s now living comfortably, luxuriously abroad on what
+he got from the bank,&rdquo; replied Mr. Quarterpage. &ldquo;They say that the
+sister-in-law was in at the game; that when she disappeared with the child, she
+went abroad somewhere and made a home ready for Maitland, and that he went off
+to them as soon as he came out. Do you see?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I suppose that was possible,&rdquo; said Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Quite possible, sir. But now,&rdquo; continued the old gentleman,
+replenishing the glasses, &ldquo;now we come on to the Chamberlayne story.
+It&rsquo;s a good deal more to do with the Maitland story than appears at first
+sight, I&rsquo;ll tell it to you and you can form your own conclusions.
+Chamberlayne was a man who came to Market Milcaster&mdash;I don&rsquo;t know
+from where&mdash;in 1886&mdash;five years before the Maitland smash-up. He was
+then about Maitland&rsquo;s age&mdash;a man of thirty-seven or eight. He came
+as clerk to old Mr. Vallas, the rope and twine manufacturer: Vallas&rsquo;s
+place is still there, at the bottom of the High Street, near the river, though
+old Vallas is dead. He was a smart, cute, pushing chap, this Chamberlayne; he
+made himself indispensable to old Vallas, and old Vallas paid him a rare good
+salary. He settled down in the town, and he married a town girl, one of the
+Corkindales, the saddlers, when he&rsquo;d been here three years. Unfortunately
+she died in childbirth within a year of their marriage. It was very soon after
+that that Chamberlayne threw up his post at Vallas&rsquo;s, and started
+business as a stock-and-share broker. He&rsquo;d been a saving man; he&rsquo;d
+got a nice bit of money with his wife; he always let it be known that he had
+money of his own, and he started in a good way. He was a man of the most
+plausible manners: he&rsquo;d have coaxed butter out of a dog&rsquo;s throat if
+he&rsquo;d wanted to. The moneyed men of the town believed in him&mdash;I
+believed in him myself, Mr. Spargo&mdash;I&rsquo;d many a transaction with him,
+and I never lost aught by him&mdash;on the contrary, he did very well for me.
+He did well for most of his clients&mdash;there were, of course, ups and downs,
+but on the whole he satisfied his clients uncommonly well. But, naturally,
+nobody ever knew what was going on between him and Maitland.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I gather from this report,&rdquo; said Spargo, &ldquo;that everything
+came out suddenly&mdash;unexpectedly?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That was so, sir,&rdquo; replied Mr. Quarterpage. &ldquo;Sudden?
+Unexpected? Aye, as a crack of thunder on a fine winter&rsquo;s day. Nobody had
+the ghost of a notion that anything was wrong. John Maitland was much respected
+in the town; much thought of by everybody; well known to everybody. I can
+assure you, Mr. Spargo, that it was no pleasant thing to have to sit on that
+grand jury as I did&mdash;I was its foreman, sir,&mdash;and hear a man
+sentenced that you&rsquo;d regarded as a bosom friend. But there it was!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How was the thing discovered?&rdquo; asked Spargo, anxious to get at
+facts.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;In this way,&rdquo; replied Mr. Quarterpage. &ldquo;The Market Milcaster
+Bank is in reality almost entirely the property of two old families in the
+town, the Gutchbys and the Hostables. Owing to the death of his father, a young
+Hostable, fresh from college, came into the business. He was a shrewd, keen
+young fellow; he got some suspicion, somehow, about Maitland, and he insisted
+on the other partners consenting to a special investigation, and on their
+making it suddenly. And Maitland was caught before he had a chance. But
+we&rsquo;re talking about Chamberlayne.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, about Chamberlayne,&rdquo; agreed Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, now, Maitland was arrested one evening,&rdquo; continued Mr.
+Quarterpage. &ldquo;Of course, the news of his arrest ran through the town like
+wild-fire. Everybody was astonished; he was at that time&mdash;aye, and had
+been for years&mdash;a churchwarden at the Parish Church, and I don&rsquo;t
+think there could have been more surprise if we&rsquo;d heard that the Vicar
+had been arrested for bigamy. In a little town like this, news is all over the
+place in a few minutes. Of course, Chamberlayne would hear that news like
+everybody else. But it was remembered, and often remarked upon afterwards, that
+from the moment of Maitland&rsquo;s arrest nobody in Market Milcaster ever had
+speech with Chamberlayne again. After his wife&rsquo;s death he&rsquo;d taken
+to spending an hour or so of an evening across there at the
+&lsquo;Dragon,&rsquo; where you saw me and my friends last night, but on that
+night he didn&rsquo;t go to the &lsquo;Dragon.&rsquo; And next morning he
+caught the eight o&rsquo;clock train to London. He happened to remark to the
+stationmaster as he got into the train that he expected to be back late that
+night, and that he should have a tiring day of it. But Chamberlayne
+didn&rsquo;t come back that night, Mr. Spargo. He didn&rsquo;t come back to
+Market Milcaster for four days, and when he did come back it was in a
+coffin!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Dead?&rdquo; exclaimed Spargo. &ldquo;That was sudden!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Very sudden,&rdquo; agreed Mr. Quarterpage. &ldquo;Yes, sir, he came
+back in his coffin, did Chamberlayne. On the very evening on which he&rsquo;d
+spoken of being back, there came a telegram here to say that he&rsquo;d died
+very suddenly at the Cosmopolitan Hotel. That telegram came to his
+brother-in-law, Corkindale, the saddler&mdash;you&rsquo;ll find him down the
+street, opposite the Town Hall. It was sent to Corkindale by a nephew of
+Chamberlayne&rsquo;s, another Chamberlayne, Stephen, who lived in London, and
+was understood to be on the Stock Exchange there. I saw that telegram, Mr.
+Spargo, and it was a long one. It said that Chamberlayne had had a sudden
+seizure, and though a doctor had been got to him he&rsquo;d died shortly
+afterwards. Now, as Chamberlayne had his nephew and friends in London, his
+brother-in-law, Tom Corkindale, didn&rsquo;t feel that there was any necessity
+for him to go up to town, so he just sent off a wire to Stephen Chamberlayne
+asking if there was aught he could do. And next morning came another wire from
+Stephen saying that no inquest would be necessary, as the doctor had been
+present and able to certify the cause of death, and would Corkindale make all
+arrangements for the funeral two days later. You see, Chamberlayne had bought a
+vault in our cemetery when he buried his wife, so naturally they wished to bury
+him in it, with her.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo nodded. He was beginning to imagine all sorts of things and theories; he
+was taking everything in.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well,&rdquo; continued Mr. Quarterpage, &ldquo;on the second day after
+that, they brought Chamberlayne&rsquo;s body down. Three of &rsquo;em came with
+it&mdash;Stephen Chamberlayne, the doctor who&rsquo;d been called in, and a
+solicitor. Everything was done according to proper form and usage. As
+Chamberlayne had been well known in the town, a good number of townsfolk met
+the body at the station and followed it to the cemetery. Of course, many of us
+who had been clients of Chamberlayne&rsquo;s were anxious to know how he had
+come to such a sudden end. According to Stephen Chamberlayne&rsquo;s account,
+our Chamberlayne had wired to him and to his solicitor to meet him at the
+Cosmopolitan to do some business. They were awaiting him there when he arrived,
+and they had lunch together. After that, they got to their business in a
+private room. Towards the end of the afternoon, Chamberlayne was taken suddenly
+ill, and though they got a doctor to him at once, he died before evening. The
+doctor said he&rsquo;d a diseased heart. Anyhow, he was able to certify the
+cause of his death, so there was no inquest and they buried him, as I have told
+you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The old gentleman paused and, taking a sip at his sherry, smiled at some
+reminiscence which occurred to him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well,&rdquo; he said, presently going on, &ldquo;of course, on that came
+all the Maitland revelations, and Maitland vowed and declared that Chamberlayne
+had not only had nearly all the money, but that he was absolutely certain that
+most of it was in his hands in hard cash. But Chamberlayne, Mr. Spargo, had
+left practically nothing. All that could be traced was about three or four
+thousand pounds. He&rsquo;d left everything to his nephew, Stephen. There
+wasn&rsquo;t a trace, a clue to the vast sums with which Maitland had entrusted
+him. And then people began to talk, and they said what some of them say to this
+very day!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What&rsquo;s that?&rdquo; asked Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Quarterpage leaned forward and tapped his guest on the arm.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That Chamberlayne never did die, and that that coffin was weighted with
+lead!&rdquo; he answered.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap20"></a>CHAPTER TWENTY<br/>
+MAITLAND <i>ALIAS</i> MARBURY</h2>
+
+<p>
+This remarkable declaration awoke such a new conception of matters in
+Spargo&rsquo;s mind, aroused such infinitely new possibilities in his
+imagination, that for a full moment he sat silently staring at his informant,
+who chuckled with quiet enjoyment at his visitor&rsquo;s surprise.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Do you mean to tell me,&rdquo; said Spargo at last, &ldquo;that there
+are people in this town who still believe that the coffin in your cemetery
+which is said to contain Chamberlayne&rsquo;s body contains&mdash;lead?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Lots of &rsquo;em, my dear sir!&rdquo; replied Mr. Quarterpage.
+&ldquo;Lots of &rsquo;em! Go out in the street and ask the first six men you
+meet, and I&rsquo;ll go bail that four out of the six believe it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then why, in the sacred name of common sense did no one ever take steps
+to make certain?&rdquo; asked Spargo. &ldquo;Why didn&rsquo;t they get an order
+for exhumation?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Because it was nobody&rsquo;s particular business to do so,&rdquo;
+answered Mr. Quarterpage. &ldquo;You don&rsquo;t know country-town life, my
+dear sir. In towns like Market Milcaster folks talk and gossip a great deal,
+but they&rsquo;re always slow to do anything. It&rsquo;s a case of who&rsquo;ll
+start first&mdash;of initiative. And if they see it&rsquo;s going to cost
+anything&mdash;then they&rsquo;ll have nothing to do with it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But&mdash;the bank people?&rdquo; suggested Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Quarterpage shook his head.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;They&rsquo;re amongst the lot who believe that Chamberlayne did
+die,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;They&rsquo;re very old-fashioned,
+conservative-minded people, the Gutchbys and the Hostables, and they accepted
+the version of the nephew, and the doctor, and the solicitor. But now
+I&rsquo;ll tell you something about those three. There was a man here in the
+town, a gentleman of your own profession, who came to edit that paper
+you&rsquo;ve got on your knee. He got interested in this Chamberlayne case, and
+he began to make enquiries with the idea of getting hold of some
+good&mdash;what do you call it?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I suppose he&rsquo;d call it &lsquo;copy,&rsquo;&rdquo; said Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;Copy&rsquo;&mdash;that was his term,&rdquo; agreed Mr.
+Quarterpage. &ldquo;Well, he took the trouble to go to London to ask some quiet
+questions of the nephew, Stephen. That was just twelve months after
+Chamberlayne had been buried. But he found that Stephen Chamberlayne had left
+England&mdash;months before. Gone, they said, to one of the colonies, but they
+didn&rsquo;t know which. And the solicitor had also gone. And the
+doctor&mdash;couldn&rsquo;t be traced, no, sir, not even through the Medical
+Register. What do you think of all that, Mr. Spargo?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I think,&rdquo; answered Spargo, &ldquo;that Market Milcaster folk are
+considerably slow. I should have had that death and burial enquired into. The
+whole thing looks to me like a conspiracy.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, sir, it was, as I say, nobody&rsquo;s business,&rdquo; said Mr.
+Quarterpage. &ldquo;The newspaper gentleman tried to stir up interest in it,
+but it was no good, and very soon afterwards he left. And there it is.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mr. Quarterpage,&rdquo; said Spargo, &ldquo;what&rsquo;s your own honest
+opinion?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The old gentleman smiled.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah!&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve often wondered, Mr. Spargo, if I
+really have an opinion on that point. I think that what I probably feel about
+the whole affair is that there was a good deal of mystery attaching to it. But
+we seem, sir, to have gone a long way from the question of that old silver
+ticket which you&rsquo;ve got in your purse. Now&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No!&rdquo; said Spargo, interrupting his host with an accompanying wag
+of his forefinger. &ldquo;No! I think we&rsquo;re coming nearer to it. Now
+you&rsquo;ve given me a great deal of your time, Mr. Quarterpage, and told me a
+lot, and, first of all, before I tell you a lot, I&rsquo;m going to show you
+something.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And Spargo took out of his pocket-book a carefully-mounted photograph of John
+Marbury&mdash;the original of the process-picture which he had had made for the
+<i>Watchman</i>. He handed it over.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Do you recognize that photograph as that of anybody you know?&rdquo; he
+asked. &ldquo;Look at it well and closely.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Quarterpage put on a special pair of spectacles and studied the photograph
+from several points of view.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, sir,&rdquo; he said at last with a shake of the head. &ldquo;I
+don&rsquo;t recognize it at all.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Can&rsquo;t see in it any resemblance to any man you&rsquo;ve ever
+known?&rdquo; asked Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, sir, none!&rdquo; replied Mr. Quarterpage. &ldquo;None
+whatever.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Very well,&rdquo; said Spargo, laying the photograph on the table
+between them. &ldquo;Now, then, I want you to tell me what John Maitland was
+like when you knew him. Also, I want you to describe Chamberlayne as he was
+when he died, or was supposed to die. You remember them, of course, quite
+well?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Quarterpage got up and moved to the door.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I can do better than that,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I can show you
+photographs of both men as they were just before Maitland&rsquo;s trial. I have
+a photograph of a small group of Market Milcaster notabilities which was taken
+at a municipal garden-party; Maitland and Chamberlayne are both in it.
+It&rsquo;s been put away in a cabinet in my drawing-room for many a long year,
+and I&rsquo;ve no doubt it&rsquo;s as fresh as when it was taken.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He left the room and presently returned with a large mounted photograph which
+he laid on the table before his visitor.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There you are, sir,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Quite fresh, you see&mdash;it
+must be getting on to twenty years since that was taken out of the drawer that
+it&rsquo;s been kept in. Now, that&rsquo;s Maitland. And that&rsquo;s
+Chamberlayne.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo found himself looking at a group of men who stood against an ivy-covered
+wall in the stiff attitudes in which photographers arrange masses of sitters.
+He fixed his attention on the two figures indicated by Mr. Quarterpage, and saw
+two medium-heighted, rather sturdily-built men about whom there was nothing
+very specially noticeable.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Um!&rdquo; he said, musingly. &ldquo;Both bearded.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, they both wore beards&mdash;full beards,&rdquo; assented Mr.
+Quarterpage. &ldquo;And you see, they weren&rsquo;t so much alike. But Maitland
+was a much darker man than Chamberlayne, and he had brown eyes, while
+Chamberlayne&rsquo;s were rather a bright blue.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The removal of a beard makes a great difference,&rdquo; remarked Spargo.
+He looked at the photograph of Maitland in the group, comparing it with that of
+Marbury which he had taken from his pocket. &ldquo;And twenty years makes a
+difference, too,&rdquo; he added musingly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;To some people twenty years makes a vast difference, sir,&rdquo; said
+the old gentleman. &ldquo;To others it makes none&mdash;I haven&rsquo;t changed
+much, they tell me, during the past twenty years. But I&rsquo;ve known men
+change&mdash;age, almost beyond recognition!&mdash;in five years. It depends,
+sir, on what they go through.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo suddenly laid aside the photographs, put his hands in his pockets, and
+looked steadfastly at Mr. Quarterpage.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Look here!&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m going to tell you what
+I&rsquo;m after, Mr. Quarterpage. I&rsquo;m sure you&rsquo;ve heard all about
+what&rsquo;s known as the Middle Temple Murder&mdash;the Marbury case?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, I&rsquo;ve read of it,&rdquo; replied Mr. Quarterpage.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Have you read the accounts of it in my paper, the
+<i>Watchman</i>?&rdquo; asked Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Quarterpage shook his head.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve only read one newspaper, sir, since I was a young man,&rdquo;
+he replied. &ldquo;I take the <i>Times</i>, sir&mdash;we always took it, aye,
+even in the days when newspapers were taxed.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Very good,&rdquo; said Spargo. &ldquo;But perhaps I can tell you a
+little more than you&rsquo;ve read, for I&rsquo;ve been working up that case
+ever since the body of the man known as John Marbury was found. Now, if
+you&rsquo;ll just give me your attention, I&rsquo;ll tell you the whole story
+from that moment until&mdash;now.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And Spargo, briefly, succinctly, re-told the story of the Marbury case from the
+first instant of his own connection with it until the discovery of the silver
+ticket, and Mr. Quarterpage listened in rapt attention, nodding his head from
+time to time as the younger man made his points.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And now, Mr. Quarterpage,&rdquo; concluded Spargo, &ldquo;this is the
+point I&rsquo;ve come to. I believe that the man who came to the Anglo-Orient
+Hotel as John Marbury and who was undoubtedly murdered in Middle Temple Lane
+that night, was John Maitland&mdash;I haven&rsquo;t a doubt about it after
+learning what you tell me about the silver ticket. I&rsquo;ve found out a great
+deal that&rsquo;s valuable here, and I think I&rsquo;m getting nearer to a
+solution of the mystery. That is, of course, to find out who murdered John
+Maitland, or Marbury. What you have told me about the Chamberlayne affair has
+led me to think this&mdash;there may have been people, or a person, in London,
+who was anxious to get Marbury, as we&rsquo;ll call him, out of the way, and
+who somehow encountered him that night&mdash;anxious to silence him, I mean,
+because of the Chamberlayne affair. And I wondered, as there is so much mystery
+about him, and as he won&rsquo;t give any account of himself, if this man
+Aylmore was really Chamberlayne. Yes, I wondered that! But Aylmore&rsquo;s a
+tall, finely-built man, quite six feet in height, and his beard, though
+it&rsquo;s now getting grizzled, has been very dark, and Chamberlayne, you say,
+was a medium-sized, fair man, with blue eyes.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s so, sir,&rdquo; assented Mr. Quarterpage. &ldquo;Yes, a
+middling-sized man, and fair&mdash;very fair. Deary me, Mr. Spargo!&mdash;this
+is a revelation. And you really think, sir, that John Maitland and John Marbury
+are one and the same person?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;m sure of it, now,&rdquo; said Spargo. &ldquo;I see it in this
+way. Maitland, on his release, went out to Australia, and there he stopped. At
+last he comes back, evidently well-to-do. He&rsquo;s murdered the very day of
+his arrival. Aylmore is the only man who knows anything of him&mdash;Aylmore
+won&rsquo;t tell all he knows; that&rsquo;s flat. But Aylmore&rsquo;s admitted
+that he knew him at some vague date, say from twenty-one to twenty-two or three
+years ago. Now, where did Aylmore know him? He says in London. That&rsquo;s a
+vague term. He won&rsquo;t say where&mdash;he won&rsquo;t say anything
+definite&mdash;he won&rsquo;t even say what he, Aylmore, himself was in those
+days. Do you recollect anything of anybody like Aylmore coming here to see
+Maitland, Mr. Quarterpage?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t,&rdquo; answered Mr. Quarterpage. &ldquo;Maitland was a
+very quiet, retiring fellow, sir: he was about the quietest man in the town. I
+never remember that he had visitors; certainly I&rsquo;ve no recollection of
+such a friend of his as this Aylmore, from your description of him, would be at
+that time.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Did Maitland go up to London much in those days?&rdquo; asked Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Quarterpage laughed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, now, to show you what a good memory I have,&rdquo; he said,
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll tell you of something that occurred across there at the
+&lsquo;Dragon&rsquo; only a few months before the Maitland affair came out.
+There were some of us in there one evening, and, for a rare thing, Maitland
+came in with Chamberlayne. Chamberlayne happened to remark that he was going up
+to town next day&mdash;he was always to and fro&mdash;and we got talking about
+London. And Maitland said in course of conversation, that he believed he was
+about the only man of his age in England&mdash;and, of course, he meant of his
+class and means&mdash;who&rsquo;d never even seen London! And I don&rsquo;t
+think he ever went there between that time and his trial: in fact, I&rsquo;m
+sure he didn&rsquo;t, for if he had, I should have heard of it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, that&rsquo;s queer,&rdquo; remarked Spargo. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s very
+queer. For I&rsquo;m certain Maitland and Marbury are one and the same person.
+My theory about that old leather box is that Maitland had that carefully
+planted before his arrest; that he dug it up when he came put of Dartmoor; that
+he took it off to Australia with him; that he brought it back with him; and
+that, of course, the silver ticket and the photograph had been in it all these
+years. Now&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At that moment the door of the library was opened, and a parlourmaid looked in
+at her master.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There&rsquo;s the boots from the &lsquo;Dragon&rsquo; at the front door,
+sir,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s brought two telegrams across from there
+for Mr. Spargo, thinking he might like to have them at once.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap21"></a>CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE<br/>
+ARRESTED</h2>
+
+<p>
+Spargo hurried out to the hall, took the two telegrams from the boots of the
+&ldquo;Dragon,&rdquo; and, tearing open the envelopes, read the messages
+hastily. He went back to Mr. Quarterpage.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Here&rsquo;s important news,&rdquo; he said as he closed the library
+door and resumed his seat. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll read these telegrams to you, sir,
+and then we can discuss them in the light of what we&rsquo;ve been talking
+about this morning. The first is from our office. I told you we sent over to
+Australia for a full report about Marbury at the place he said he hailed
+from&mdash;Coolumbidgee. That report&rsquo;s just reached the <i>Watchman</i>,
+and they&rsquo;ve wired it on to me. It&rsquo;s from the chief of police at
+Coolumbidgee to the editor of the <i>Watchman</i>, London:&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p class="letter">
+&ldquo;John Marbury came to Coolumbidgee in the winter of 1898-9. He was
+unaccompanied. He appeared to be in possession of fairly considerable means and
+bought a share in a small sheep-farm from its proprietor, Andrew Robertson, who
+is still here, and who says that Marbury never told him anything about himself
+except that he had emigrated for health reasons and was a widower. He mentioned
+that he had had a son who was dead, and was now without relations. He lived a
+very quiet, steady life on the sheep-farm, never leaving it for many years.
+About six months ago, however, he paid a visit to Melbourne, and on returning
+told Robertson that he had decided to return to England in consequence of some
+news he had received, and must therefore sell his share in the farm. Robertson
+bought it from him for three thousand pounds, and Marbury shortly afterwards
+left for Melbourne. From what we could gather, Robertson thinks Marbury was
+probably in command of five or six thousand when he left Coolumbidgee. He told
+Robertson that he had met a man in Melbourne who had given him news that
+surprised him, but did not say what news. He had in his possession when he left
+Robertson exactly the luggage he brought with him when he came&mdash;a stout
+portmanteau and a small, square leather box. There are no effects of his left
+behind at Coolumbidgee.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s all,&rdquo; said Spargo, laying the first of the telegrams
+on the table. &ldquo;And it seems to me to signify a good deal. But now
+here&rsquo;s more startling news. This is from Rathbury, the Scotland Yard
+detective that I told you of, Mr. Quarterpage&mdash;he promised, you know, to
+keep me posted in what went on in my absence. Here&rsquo;s what he says:
+</p>
+
+<p class="letter">
+&ldquo;Fresh evidence tending to incriminate Aylmore has come to hand.
+Authorities have decided to arrest him on suspicion. You&rsquo;d better hurry
+back if you want material for to-morrow&rsquo;s paper.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo threw that telegram down, too, waited while the old gentleman glanced at
+both of them with evident curiosity, and then jumped up.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, I shall have to go, Mr. Quarterpage,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I
+looked the trains out this morning so as to be in readiness. I can catch the
+1.20 to Paddington&mdash;that&rsquo;ll get me in before half-past four.
+I&rsquo;ve an hour yet. Now, there&rsquo;s another man I want to see in Market
+Milcaster. That&rsquo;s the photographer&mdash;or a photographer. You remember
+I told you of the photograph found with the silver ticket? Well, I&rsquo;m
+calculating that that photograph was taken here, and I want to see the man who
+took it&mdash;if he&rsquo;s alive and I can find him.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Quarterpage rose and put on his hat.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There&rsquo;s only one photographer in this town, sir,&rdquo; he said,
+&ldquo;and he&rsquo;s been here for a good many years&mdash;Cooper. I&rsquo;ll
+take you to him&mdash;it&rsquo;s only a few doors away.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo wasted no time in letting the photographer know what he wanted. He put a
+direct question to Mr. Cooper&mdash;an elderly man.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Do you remember taking a photograph of the child of John Maitland, the
+bank manager, some twenty or twenty-one years ago?&rdquo; he asked, after Mr.
+Quarterpage had introduced him as a gentleman from London who wanted to ask a
+few questions.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Quite well, sir,&rdquo; replied Mr. Cooper. &ldquo;As well as if it had
+been yesterday.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Do you still happen to have a copy of it?&rdquo; asked Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But Mr. Cooper had already turned to a row of file albums. He took down one
+labelled 1891, and began to search its pages. In a minute or two he laid it on
+his table before his callers.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There you are, sir,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s the
+child!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo gave one glance at the photograph and turned to Mr. Quarterpage.
+&ldquo;Just as I thought,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s the same
+photograph we found in the leather box with the silver ticket. I&rsquo;m
+obliged to you, Mr. Cooper. Now, there&rsquo;s just one more question I want to
+ask. Did you ever supply any further copies of this photograph to anybody after
+the Maitland affair?&mdash;that is; after the family had left the town?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; replied the photographer. &ldquo;I supplied half a dozen
+copies to Miss Baylis, the child&rsquo;s aunt, who, as a matter of fact,
+brought him here to be photographed. And I can give you her address,
+too,&rdquo; he continued, beginning to turn over another old file. &ldquo;I
+have it somewhere.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Quarterpage nudged Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s something I couldn&rsquo;t have done!&rdquo; he remarked.
+&ldquo;As I told you, she&rsquo;d disappeared from Brighton when enquiries were
+made after Maitland&rsquo;s release.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Here you are,&rdquo; said Mr. Cooper. &ldquo;I sent six copies of that
+photograph to Miss Baylis in April, 1895. Her address was then 6, Chichester
+Square, Bayswater, W.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo rapidly wrote this address down, thanked the photographer for his
+courtesy, and went out with Mr. Quarterpage. In the street he turned to the old
+gentleman with a smile.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, I don&rsquo;t think there&rsquo;s much doubt about that!&rdquo; he
+exclaimed. &ldquo;Maitland and Marbury are the same man, Mr. Quarterpage.
+I&rsquo;m as certain of that as that I see your Town Hall there.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And what will you do next, sir?&rdquo; enquired Mr. Quarterpage.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Thank you&mdash;as I do&mdash;for all your kindness and assistance, and
+get off to town by this 1.20,&rdquo; replied Spargo. &ldquo;And I shan&rsquo;t
+fail to let you know how things go on.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;One moment,&rdquo; said the old gentleman, as Spargo was hurrying away,
+&ldquo;do you think this Mr. Aylmore really murdered Maitland?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No!&rdquo; answered Spargo with emphasis. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t! And I
+think we&rsquo;ve got a good deal to do before we find out who did.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo purposely let the Marbury case drop out of his mind during his journey
+to town. He ate a hearty lunch in the train and talked with his neighbours; it
+was a relief to let his mind and attention turn to something else than the
+theme which had occupied it unceasingly for so many days. But at Reading the
+newspaper boys were shouting the news of the arrest of a Member of Parliament,
+and Spargo, glancing out of the window, caught sight of a newspaper placard:
+</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+THE MARBURY MURDER CASE<br/>
+ARREST OF MR. AYLMORE
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He snatched a paper from a boy as the train moved out and, unfolding it, found
+a mere announcement in the space reserved for stop-press news:
+</p>
+
+<p class="letter">
+&ldquo;Mr. Stephen Aylmore, M.P., was arrested at two o&rsquo;clock this
+afternoon, on his way to the House of Commons, on a charge of being concerned
+in the murder of John Marbury in Middle Temple Lane on the night of June 21st
+last. It is understood he will be brought up at Bow Street at ten o&rsquo;clock
+tomorrow morning.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo hurried to New Scotland Yard as soon as he reached Paddington. He met
+Rathbury coming away from his room. At sight of him, the detective turned back.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, so there you are!&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I suppose you&rsquo;ve
+heard the news?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo nodded as he dropped into a chair.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What led to it?&rdquo; he asked abruptly. &ldquo;There must have been
+something.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There was something,&rdquo; he replied. &ldquo;The thing&mdash;stick,
+bludgeon, whatever you like to call it, some foreign article&mdash;with which
+Marbury was struck down was found last night.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well?&rdquo; asked Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It was proved to be Aylmore&rsquo;s property,&rdquo; answered Rathbury.
+&ldquo;It was a South American curio that he had in his rooms in Fountain
+Court.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Where was it found?&rdquo; asked Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Rathbury laughed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He was a clumsy fellow who did it, whether he was Aylmore or whoever he
+was!&rdquo; he replied. &ldquo;Do you know, it had been dropped into a
+sewer-trap in Middle Temple Lane&mdash;actually! Perhaps the murderer thought
+it would be washed out into the Thames and float away. But, of course, it was
+bound to come to light. A sewer man found it yesterday evening, and it was
+quickly recognized by the woman who cleans up for Aylmore as having been in his
+rooms ever since she knew them.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What does Aylmore say about it?&rdquo; asked Spargo. &ldquo;I suppose
+he&rsquo;s said something?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Says that the bludgeon is certainly his, and that he brought it from
+South America with him,&rdquo; announced Rathbury; &ldquo;but that he
+doesn&rsquo;t remember seeing it in his rooms for some time, and thinks that it
+was stolen from them.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Um!&rdquo; said Spargo, musingly. &ldquo;But&mdash;how do you know that
+was the thing that Marbury was struck down with?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Rathbury smiled grimly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There&rsquo;s some of his hair on it&mdash;mixed with blood,&rdquo; he
+answered. &ldquo;No doubt about that. Well&mdash;anything come of your jaunt
+westward?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; replied Spargo. &ldquo;Lots!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Good?&rdquo; asked Rathbury.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Extra good. I&rsquo;ve found out who Marbury really was.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No! Really?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No doubt, to my mind. I&rsquo;m certain of it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Rathbury sat down at his desk, watching Spargo with rapt attention.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And who was he?&rdquo; he asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;John Maitland, once of Market Milcaster,&rdquo; replied Spargo.
+&ldquo;Ex-bank manager. Also ex-convict.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ex-convict!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ex-convict. He was sentenced, at Market Milcaster Quarter Sessions, in
+autumn, 1891, to ten years&rsquo; penal servitude, for embezzling the
+bank&rsquo;s money, to the tune of over two hundred thousand pounds. Served his
+term at Dartmoor. Went to Australia as soon, or soon after, he came out.
+That&rsquo;s who Marbury was&mdash;Maitland. Dead&mdash;certain!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Rathbury still stared at his caller.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Go on!&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Tell all about it, Spargo. Let&rsquo;s
+hear every detail. I&rsquo;ll tell you all I know after. But what I
+know&rsquo;s nothing to that.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo told him the whole story of his adventures at Market Milcaster, and the
+detective listened with rapt attention.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; he said at the end. &ldquo;Yes&mdash;I don&rsquo;t think
+there&rsquo;s much doubt about that. Well, that clears up a lot, doesn&rsquo;t
+it?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo yawned.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, a whole slate full is wiped off there,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I
+haven&rsquo;t so much interest in Marbury, or Maitland now. My interest is all
+in Aylmore.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Rathbury nodded.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;The thing to find out is&mdash;who is
+Aylmore, or who was he, twenty years ago?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Your people haven&rsquo;t found anything out, then?&rdquo; asked Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nothing beyond the irreproachable history of Mr. Aylmore since he
+returned to this country, a very rich man, some ten years since,&rdquo;
+answered Rathbury, smiling. &ldquo;They&rsquo;ve no previous dates to go on.
+What are you going to do next, Spargo?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Seek out that Miss Baylis,&rdquo; replied Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You think you could get something there?&rdquo; asked Rathbury.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Look here!&rdquo; said Spargo. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t believe for a second
+Aylmore killed Marbury. I believe I shall get at the truth by following up what
+I call the Maitland trail. This Miss Baylis must know something&mdash;if
+she&rsquo;s alive. Well, now I&rsquo;m going to report at the office. Keep in
+touch with me, Rathbury.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He went on then to the <i>Watchman</i> office, and as he got out of his
+taxi-cab at its door, another cab came up and set down Mr. Aylmore&rsquo;s
+daughters.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap22"></a>CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO<br/>
+THE BLANK PAST</h2>
+
+<p>
+Jessie Aylmore came forward to meet Spargo with ready confidence; the elder
+girl hung back diffidently.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;May we speak to you?&rdquo; said Jessie. &ldquo;We have come on purpose
+to speak to you. Evelyn didn&rsquo;t want to come, but I made her come.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo shook hands silently with Evelyn Aylmore and motioned them both to
+follow him. He took them straight upstairs to his room and bestowed them in his
+easiest chairs before he addressed them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve only just got back to town,&rdquo; he said abruptly. &ldquo;I
+was sorry to hear the news about your father. That&rsquo;s what&rsquo;s brought
+you here, of course. But&mdash;I&rsquo;m afraid I can&rsquo;t do much.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I told you that we had no right to trouble Mr. Spargo, Jessie,&rdquo;
+said Evelyn Aylmore. &ldquo;What can he do to help us?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jessie shook her head impatiently.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The <i>Watchman&rsquo;s</i> about the most powerful paper in London,
+isn&rsquo;t it?&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;And isn&rsquo;t Mr. Spargo writing all
+these articles about the Marbury case? Mr. Spargo, you must help us!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo sat down at his desk and began turning over the letters and papers which
+had accumulated during his absence.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;To be absolutely frank with you,&rdquo; he said, presently, &ldquo;I
+don&rsquo;t see how anybody&rsquo;s going to help, so long as your father keeps
+up that mystery about the past.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That,&rdquo; said Evelyn, quietly, &ldquo;is exactly what Ronald says,
+Jessie. But we can&rsquo;t make our father speak, Mr. Spargo. That he is as
+innocent as we are of this terrible crime we are certain, and we don&rsquo;t
+know why he wouldn&rsquo;t answer the questions put to him at the inquest.
+And&mdash;we know no more than you know or anyone knows, and though I have
+begged my father to speak, he won&rsquo;t say a word. We saw his danger:
+Ronald&mdash;Mr. Breton&mdash;told us, and we implored him to tell everything
+he knew about Mr. Marbury. But so far he has simply laughed at the idea that he
+had anything to do with the murder, or could be arrested for it, and
+now&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And now he&rsquo;s locked up,&rdquo; said Spargo in his usual
+matter-of-fact fashion. &ldquo;Well, there are people who have to be saved from
+themselves, you know. Perhaps you&rsquo;ll have to save your father from the
+consequences of his own&mdash;shall we say obstinacy? Now, look here, between
+ourselves, how much do you know about your father&rsquo;s&mdash;past?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The two sisters looked at each other and then at Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nothing,&rdquo; said the elder.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Absolutely nothing!&rdquo; said the younger.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Answer a few plain questions,&rdquo; said Spargo. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m not
+going to print your replies, nor make use of them in any way: I&rsquo;m only
+asking the questions with a desire to help you. Have you any relations in
+England?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;None that we know of,&rdquo; replied Evelyn.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nobody you could go to for information about the past?&rdquo; asked
+Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No&mdash;nobody!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo drummed his fingers on his blotting-pad. He was thinking hard.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How old is your father?&rdquo; he asked suddenly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He was fifty-nine a few weeks ago,&rdquo; answered Evelyn.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And how old are you, and how old is your sister?&rdquo; demanded Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am twenty, and Jessie is nearly nineteen.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Where were you born?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Both of us at San Gregorio, which is in the San José province of
+Argentina, north of Monte Video.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Your father was in business there?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He was in business in the export trade, Mr. Spargo. There&rsquo;s no
+secret about that. He exported all sorts of things to England and to
+France&mdash;skins, hides, wools, dried salts, fruit. That&rsquo;s how he made
+his money.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You don&rsquo;t know how long he&rsquo;d been there when you were
+born?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Was he married when he went out there?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, he wasn&rsquo;t. We do know that. He&rsquo;s told us the
+circumstances of his marriage, because they were romantic. When he sailed from
+England to Buenos Ayres, he met on the steamer a young lady who, he said, was
+like himself, relationless and nearly friendless. She was going out to
+Argentina as a governess. She and my father fell in love with each other, and
+they were married in Buenos Ayres soon after the steamer arrived.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And your mother is dead?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;My mother died before we came to England. I was eight years old, and
+Jessie six, then.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And you came to England&mdash;how long after that?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Two years.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;So that you&rsquo;ve been in England ten years. And you know nothing
+whatever of your father&rsquo;s past beyond what you&rsquo;ve told me?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nothing&mdash;absolutely nothing.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Never heard him talk of&mdash;you see, according to your account, your
+father was a man of getting on to forty when he went out to Argentina. He must
+have had a career of some sort in this country. Have you never heard him speak
+of his boyhood? Did he never talk of old times, or that sort of thing?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I never remember hearing my father speak of any period antecedent to his
+marriage,&rdquo; replied Evelyn.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I once asked him a question about his childhood.&rdquo; said Jessie.
+&ldquo;He answered that his early days had not been very happy ones, and that
+he had done his best to forget them. So I never asked him anything
+again.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;So that it really comes to this,&rdquo; remarked Spargo. &ldquo;You know
+nothing whatever about your father, his family, his fortunes, his life, beyond
+what you yourselves have observed since you were able to observe? That&rsquo;s
+about it, isn&rsquo;t it?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I should say that that is exactly it,&rdquo; answered Evelyn.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Just so,&rdquo; said Spargo. &ldquo;And therefore, as I told your sister
+the other day, the public will say that your father has some dark secret behind
+him, and that Marbury had possession of it, and that your father killed him in
+order to silence him. That isn&rsquo;t my view. I not only believe your father
+to be absolutely innocent, but I believe that he knows no more than a child
+unborn of Marbury&rsquo;s murder, and I&rsquo;m doing my best to find out who
+that murderer was. By the by, since you&rsquo;ll see all about it in tomorrow
+morning&rsquo;s <i>Watchman</i>, I may as well tell you that I&rsquo;ve found
+out who Marbury really was. He&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At this moment Spargo&rsquo;s door was opened and in walked Ronald Breton. He
+shook his head at sight of the two sisters.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I thought I should find you here,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Jessie said she
+was coming to see you, Spargo. I don&rsquo;t know what good you can do&mdash;I
+don&rsquo;t see what good the most powerful newspaper in the world can do. My
+God!&mdash;everything&rsquo;s about as black as ever it can be. Mr.
+Aylmore&mdash;I&rsquo;ve just come away from him; his solicitor, Stratton, and
+I have been with him for an hour&mdash;is obstinate as ever&mdash;he will not
+tell more than he has told. Whatever good can you do, Spargo, when he
+won&rsquo;t speak about that knowledge of Marbury which he must have?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, well!&rdquo; said Spargo. &ldquo;Perhaps we can give him some
+information about Marbury. Mr. Aylmore has forgotten that it&rsquo;s not such a
+difficult thing to rake up the past as he seems to think it is. For example, as
+I was just telling these young ladies, I myself have discovered who Marbury
+really was.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Breton started.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You have? Without doubt?&rdquo; he exclaimed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Without reasonable doubt. Marbury was an ex-convict.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo watched the effect of this sudden announcement. The two girls showed no
+sign of astonishment or of unusual curiosity; they received the news with as
+much unconcern as if Spargo had told them that Marbury was a famous musician.
+But Ronald Breton started, and it seemed to Spargo that he saw a sense of
+suspicion dawn in his eyes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Marbury&mdash;an ex-convict!&rdquo; he exclaimed. &ldquo;You mean
+that?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Read your <i>Watchman</i> in the morning,&rdquo; said Spargo.
+&ldquo;You&rsquo;ll find the whole story there&mdash;I&rsquo;m going to write
+it tonight when you people have gone. It&rsquo;ll make good reading.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Evelyn and Jessie Aylmore took Spargo&rsquo;s hint and went away, Spargo seeing
+them to the door with another assurance of his belief in their father&rsquo;s
+innocence and his determination to hunt down the real criminal. Ronald Breton
+went down with them to the street and saw them into a cab, but in another
+minute he was back in Spargo&rsquo;s room as Spargo had expected. He shut the
+door carefully behind him and turned to Spargo with an eager face.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I say, Spargo, is that really so?&rdquo; he asked. &ldquo;About Marbury
+being an ex-convict?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s so, Breton. I&rsquo;ve no more doubt about it than I have
+that I see you. Marbury was in reality one John Maitland, a bank manager, of
+Market Milcaster, who got ten years&rsquo; penal servitude in 1891 for
+embezzlement.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;In 1891? Why&mdash;that&rsquo;s just about the time that Aylmore says he
+knew him!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Exactly. And&mdash;it just strikes me,&rdquo; said Spargo, sitting down
+at his desk and making a hurried note, &ldquo;it just strikes
+me&mdash;didn&rsquo;t Aylmore say he knew Marbury in London?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Certainly,&rdquo; replied Breton. &ldquo;In London.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Um!&rdquo; mused Spargo. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s queer, because Maitland had
+never been in London up to the time of his going to Dartmoor, whatever he may
+have done when he came out of Dartmoor, and, of course, Aylmore had gone to
+South America long before that. Look here, Breton,&rdquo; he continued, aloud,
+&ldquo;have you access to Aylmore? Will you, can you, see him before he&rsquo;s
+brought up at Bow Street tomorrow?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; answered Breton. &ldquo;I can see him with his
+solicitor.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then listen,&rdquo; said Spargo. &ldquo;Tomorrow morning you&rsquo;ll
+find the whole story of how I proved Marbury&rsquo;s identity with Maitland in
+the <i>Watchman</i>. Read it as early as you can; get an interview with Aylmore
+as early as you can; make him read it, every word, before he&rsquo;s brought
+up. Beg him if he values his own safety and his daughters&rsquo; peace of mind
+to throw away all that foolish reserve, and to tell all he knows about Maitland
+twenty years ago. He should have done that at first. Why, I was asking his
+daughters some questions before you came in&mdash;they know absolutely nothing
+of their father&rsquo;s history previous to the time when they began to
+understand things! Don&rsquo;t you see that Aylmore&rsquo;s career, previous to
+his return to England, is a blank past!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I know&mdash;I know!&rdquo; said Breton. &ldquo;Yes&mdash;although
+I&rsquo;ve gone there a great deal, I never heard Aylmore speak of anything
+earlier than his Argentine experiences. And yet, he must have been getting on
+when he went out there.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Thirty-seven or eight, at least,&rdquo; remarked Spargo. &ldquo;Well,
+Aylmore&rsquo;s more or less of a public man, and no public man can keep his
+life hidden nowadays. By the by, how did you get to know the Aylmores?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;My guardian, Mr. Elphick, and I met them in Switzerland,&rdquo; answered
+Breton. &ldquo;We kept up the acquaintance after our return.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mr. Elphick still interesting himself in the Marbury case?&rdquo; asked
+Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Very much so. And so is old Cardlestone, at the foot of whose stairs the
+thing came off. I dined with them last night and they talked of little
+else,&rdquo; said Breton.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And their theory&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, still the murder for the sake of robbery!&rdquo; replied Breton.
+&ldquo;Old Cardlestone is furious that such a thing could have happened at his
+very door. He says that there ought to be a thorough enquiry into every tenant
+of the Temple.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Longish business that,&rdquo; observed Spargo. &ldquo;Well, run away
+now, Breton&mdash;I must write.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Shall you be at Bow Street tomorrow morning?&rdquo; asked Breton as he
+moved to the door. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s to be at ten-thirty.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, I shan&rsquo;t!&rdquo; replied Spargo. &ldquo;It&rsquo;ll only be a
+remand, and I know already just as much as I should hear there. I&rsquo;ve got
+something much more important to do. But you&rsquo;ll remember what I asked of
+you&mdash;get Aylmore to read my story in the <i>Watchman</i>, and beg him to
+speak out and tell all he knows&mdash;all!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And when Breton had gone, Spargo again murmured those last words: &ldquo;All he
+knows&mdash;all!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap23"></a>CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE<br/>
+MISS BAYLIS</h2>
+
+<p>
+Next day, a little before noon, Spargo found himself in one of those
+pretentious yet dismal Bayswater squares, which are almost entirely given up to
+the trade, calling, or occupation of the lodging and boarding-house keeper.
+They are very pretentious, those squares, with their many-storied houses, their
+stuccoed frontages, and their pilastered and balconied doorways; innocent
+country folk, coming into them from the neighbouring station of Paddington,
+take them to be the residences of the dukes and earls who, of course, live
+nowhere else but in London. They are further encouraged in this belief by the
+fact that young male persons in evening dress are often seen at the doorways in
+more or less elegant attitudes. These, of course, are taken by the country folk
+to be young lords enjoying the air of Bayswater, but others, more knowing, are
+aware that they are Swiss or German waiters whose linen might be cleaner.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo gauged the character of the house at which he called as soon as the door
+was opened to him. There was the usual smell of eggs and bacon, of fish and
+chops; the usual mixed and ancient collection of overcoats, wraps, and sticks
+in the hall; the usual sort of parlourmaid to answer the bell. And presently,
+in answer to his enquiries, there was the usual type of landlady confronting
+him, a more than middle-aged person who desired to look younger, and made
+attempts in the way of false hair, teeth, and a little rouge, and who wore that
+somewhat air and smile which in its wearer&mdash;under these
+circumstances&mdash;always means that she is considering whether you will be
+able to cheat her or whether she will be able to see you.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You wish to see Miss Baylis?&rdquo; said this person, examining Spargo
+closely. &ldquo;Miss Baylis does not often see anybody.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I hope,&rdquo; said Spargo politely, &ldquo;that Miss Baylis is not an
+invalid?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, she&rsquo;s not an invalid,&rdquo; replied the landlady; &ldquo;but
+she&rsquo;s not as young as she was, and she&rsquo;s an objection to strangers.
+Is it anything I can tell her?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No,&rdquo; said Spargo. &ldquo;But you can, if you please, take her a
+message from me. Will you kindly give her my card, and tell her that I wish to
+ask her a question about John Maitland of Market Milcaster, and that I should
+be much obliged if she would give me a few minutes.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Perhaps you will sit down,&rdquo; said the landlady. She led Spargo into
+a room which opened out upon a garden; in it two or three old ladies, evidently
+inmates, were sitting. The landlady left Spargo to sit with them and to amuse
+himself by watching them knit or sew or read the papers, and he wondered if
+they always did these things every day, and if they would go on doing them
+until a day would come when they would do them no more, and he was beginning to
+feel very dreary when the door opened and a woman entered whom Spargo, after
+one sharp glance at her, decided to be a person who was undoubtedly out of the
+common. And as she slowly walked across the room towards him he let his first
+glance lengthen into a look of steady inspection.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The woman whom Spargo thus narrowly inspected was of very remarkable
+appearance. She was almost masculine; she stood nearly six feet in height; she
+was of a masculine gait and tread, and spare, muscular, and athletic. What at
+once struck Spargo about her face was the strange contrast between her dark
+eyes and her white hair; the hair, worn in abundant coils round a well-shaped
+head, was of the most snowy whiteness; the eyes of a real coal-blackness, as
+were also the eyebrows above them. The features were well-cut and of a striking
+firmness; the jaw square and determined. And Spargo&rsquo;s first thought on
+taking all this in was that Miss Baylis seemed to have been fitted by Nature to
+be a prison wardress, or the matron of a hospital, or the governess of an
+unruly girl, and he began to wonder if he would ever manage to extract anything
+out of those firmly-locked lips.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Miss Baylis, on her part, looked Spargo over as if she was half-minded to order
+him to instant execution. And Spargo was so impressed by her that he made a
+profound bow and found a difficulty in finding his tongue.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mr. Spargo?&rdquo; she said in a deep voice which seemed peculiarly
+suited to her. &ldquo;Of, I see, the <i>Watchman</i>? You wish to speak to
+me?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo again bowed in silence. She signed him to the window near which they
+were standing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Open the casement, if you please,&rdquo; she commanded him. &ldquo;We
+will walk in the garden. This is not private.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo obediently obeyed her orders; she swept through the opened window and he
+followed her. It was not until they had reached the bottom of the garden that
+she spoke again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I understand that you desire to ask me some question about John
+Maitland, of Market Milcaster?&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;Before you put it. I
+must ask you a question. Do you wish any reply I may give you for
+publication?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not without your permission,&rdquo; replied Spargo. &ldquo;I should not
+think of publishing anything you may tell me except with your express
+permission.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She looked at him gloomily, seemed to gather an impression of his good faith,
+and nodded her head.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;In that case,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;what do you want to ask?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have lately had reason for making certain enquiries about John
+Maitland,&rdquo; answered Spargo. &ldquo;I suppose you read the newspapers and
+possibly the <i>Watchman</i>, Miss Baylis?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But Miss Baylis shook her head.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I read no newspapers,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I have no interest in the
+affairs of the world. I have work which occupies all my time: I give my whole
+devotion to it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then you have not recently heard of what is known as the Marbury
+case&mdash;a case of a man who was found murdered?&rdquo; asked Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have not,&rdquo; she answered. &ldquo;I am not likely to hear such
+things.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo suddenly realized that the power of the Press is not quite as great nor
+as far-reaching as very young journalists hold it to be, and that there
+actually are, even in London, people who can live quite cheerfully without a
+newspaper. He concealed his astonishment and went on.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;I believe that the murdered man, known to
+the police as John Marbury, was, in reality, your brother-in-law, John
+Maitland. In fact, Miss Baylis, I&rsquo;m absolutely certain of it!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He made this declaration with some emphasis, and looked at his stern companion
+to see how she was impressed. But Miss Baylis showed no sign of being
+impressed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I can quite believe that, Mr. Spargo,&rdquo; she said coldly. &ldquo;It
+is no surprise to me that John Maitland should come to such an end. He was a
+thoroughly bad and unprincipled man, who brought the most terrible disgrace on
+those who were, unfortunately, connected with him. He was likely to die a bad
+man&rsquo;s death.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I may ask you a few questions about him?&rdquo; suggested Spargo in his
+most insinuating manner.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You may, so long as you do not drag my name into the papers,&rdquo; she
+replied. &ldquo;But pray, how do you know that I have the sad shame of being
+John Maitland&rsquo;s sister-in-law?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I found that out at Market Milcaster,&rdquo; said Spargo. &ldquo;The
+photographer told me&mdash;Cooper.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah!&rdquo; she exclaimed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The questions I want to ask are very simple,&rdquo; said Spargo.
+&ldquo;But your answers may materially help me. You remember Maitland going to
+prison, of course?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Miss Baylis laughed&mdash;a laugh of scorn.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Could I ever forget it?&rdquo; she exclaimed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Did you ever visit him in prison?&rdquo; asked Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Visit him in prison!&rdquo; she said indignantly. &ldquo;Visits in
+prison are to be paid to those who deserve them, who are repentant; not to
+scoundrels who are hardened in their sin!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;All right. Did you ever see him after he left prison?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I saw him, for he forced himself upon me&mdash;I could not help myself.
+He was in my presence before I was aware that he had even been released.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What did he come for?&rdquo; asked Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;To ask for his son&mdash;who had been in my charge,&rdquo; she replied.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s a thing I want to know about,&rdquo; said Spargo. &ldquo;Do
+you know what a certain lot of people in Market Milcaster say to this day, Miss
+Baylis?&mdash;they say that you were in at the game with Maitland; that you had
+a lot of the money placed in your charge; that when Maitland went to prison,
+you took the child away, first to Brighton, then abroad&mdash;disappeared with
+him&mdash;and that you made a home ready for Maitland when he came out.
+That&rsquo;s what&rsquo;s said by some people in Market Milcaster.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Miss Baylis&rsquo;s stern lips curled.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;People in Market Milcaster!&rdquo; she exclaimed. &ldquo;All the people
+I ever knew in Market Milcaster had about as many brains between them as that
+cat on the wall there. As for making a home for John Maitland, I would have
+seen him die in the gutter, of absolute want, before I would have given him a
+crust of dry bread!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You appear to have a terrible dislike of this man,&rdquo; observed
+Spargo, astonished at her vehemence.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I had&mdash;and I have,&rdquo; she answered. &ldquo;He tricked my sister
+into a marriage with him when he knew that she would rather have married an
+honest man who worshipped her; he treated her with quiet, infernal cruelty; he
+robbed her and me of the small fortunes our father left us.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah!&rdquo; said Spargo. &ldquo;Well, so you say Maitland came to you,
+when he came out of prison, to ask for his boy. Did he take the boy?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No&mdash;the boy was dead.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Dead, eh? Then I suppose Maitland did not stop long with you?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Miss Baylis laughed her scornful laugh.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I showed him the door!&rdquo; she said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, did he tell you that he was going to Australia?&rdquo; enquired
+Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I should not have listened to anything that he told me, Mr.
+Spargo,&rdquo; she answered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then, in short,&rdquo; said Spargo, &ldquo;you never heard of him
+again?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I never heard of him again,&rdquo; she declared passionately, &ldquo;and
+I only hope that what you tell me is true, and that Marbury really was
+Maitland!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap24"></a>CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR<br/>
+MOTHER GUTCH</h2>
+
+<p>
+Spargo, having exhausted the list of questions which he had thought out on his
+way to Bayswater, was about to take his leave of Miss Baylis, when a new idea
+suddenly occurred to him, and he turned back to that formidable lady.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve just thought of something else,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I told
+you that I&rsquo;m certain Marbury was Maitland, and that he came to a sad
+end&mdash;murdered.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And I&rsquo;ve told you,&rdquo; she replied scornfully, &ldquo;that in
+my opinion no end could be too bad for him.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Just so&mdash;I understand you,&rdquo; said Spargo. &ldquo;But I
+didn&rsquo;t tell you that he was not only murdered but robbed&mdash;robbed of
+probably a good deal. There&rsquo;s good reason to believe that he had
+securities, bank notes, loose diamonds, and other things on him to the value of
+a large amount. He&rsquo;d several thousand pounds when he left Coolumbidgee,
+in New South Wales, where he&rsquo;d lived quietly for some years.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Miss Baylis smiled sourly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What&rsquo;s all this to me?&rdquo; she asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Possibly nothing. But you see, that money, those securities, may be
+recovered. And as the boy you speak of is dead, there surely must be somebody
+who&rsquo;s entitled to the lot. It&rsquo;s worth having, Miss Baylis, and
+there&rsquo;s strong belief on the part of the police that it will turn
+up.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This was a bit of ingenious bluff on the part of Spargo; he watched its effect
+with keen eyes. But Miss Baylis was adamant, and she looked as scornful as
+ever.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I say again what&rsquo;s all that to me?&rdquo; she exclaimed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, but hadn&rsquo;t the dead boy any relatives on his father&rsquo;s
+side?&rdquo; asked Spargo. &ldquo;I know you&rsquo;re his aunt on the
+mother&rsquo;s side, and as you&rsquo;re indifferent perhaps, I can find some
+on the other side. It&rsquo;s very easy to find all these things out, you
+know.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Miss Baylis, who had begun to stalk back to the house in gloomy and majestic
+fashion, and had let Spargo see plainly that this part of the interview was
+distasteful to her, suddenly paused in her stride and glared at the young
+journalist.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Easy to find all these things out?&rdquo; she repeated.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo caught, or fancied he caught, a note of anxiety in her tone. He was
+quick to turn his fancy to practical purpose.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, easy enough!&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I could find out all about
+Maitland&rsquo;s family through that boy. Quite, quite easily!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Miss Baylis had stopped now, and stood glaring at him. &ldquo;How?&rdquo; she
+demanded.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll tell you,&rdquo; said Spargo with cheerful alacrity.
+&ldquo;It is, of course, the easiest thing in the world to trace all about his
+short life. I suppose I can find the register of his birth at Market Milcaster,
+and you, of course, will tell me where he died. By the by, when did he die,
+Miss Baylis?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But Miss Baylis was going on again to the house.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I shall tell you nothing more,&rdquo; she said angrily.
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve told you too much already, and I believe all you&rsquo;re
+here for is to get some news for your paper. But I will, at any rate tell you
+this&mdash;when Maitland went to prison his child would have been defenceless
+but for me; he&rsquo;d have had to go to the workhouse but for me; he
+hadn&rsquo;t a single relation in the world but me, on either father&rsquo;s or
+mother&rsquo;s side. And even at my age, old woman as I am, I&rsquo;d rather
+beg my bread in the street, I&rsquo;d rather starve and die, than touch a penny
+piece that had come from John Maitland! That&rsquo;s all.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then without further word, without offering to show Spargo the way out, she
+marched in at the open window and disappeared. And Spargo, knowing no other
+way, was about to follow her when he heard a sudden rustling sound in the
+shadow by which they had stood, and the next moment a queer, cracked, horrible
+voice, suggesting all sorts of things, said distinctly and yet in a whisper:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Young man!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo turned and stared at the privet hedge behind him. It was thick and
+bushy, and in its full summer green, but it seemed to him that he saw a
+nondescript shape behind. &ldquo;Who&rsquo;s there?&rdquo; he demanded.
+&ldquo;Somebody listening?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was a curious cackle of laughter from behind the hedge; then the cracked,
+husky voice spoke again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Young man, don&rsquo;t you move or look as if you were talking to
+anybody. Do you know where the &lsquo;King of Madagascar&rsquo; public-house is
+in this quarter of the town, young man?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No!&rdquo; answered Spargo. &ldquo;Certainly not!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, anybody&rsquo;ll tell you when you get outside, young man,&rdquo;
+continued the queer voice of the unseen person. &ldquo;Go there, and wait at
+the corner by the &lsquo;King of Madagascar,&rsquo; and I&rsquo;ll come there
+to you at the end of half an hour. Then I&rsquo;ll tell you something, young
+man&mdash;I&rsquo;ll tell you something. Now run away, young man, run away to
+the &lsquo;King of Madagascar&rsquo;&mdash;I&rsquo;m coming!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The voice ended in low, horrible cachinnation which made Spargo feel queer. But
+he was young enough to be in love with adventure, and he immediately turned on
+his heel without so much as a glance at the privet hedge, and went across the
+garden and through the house, and let himself out at the door. And at the next
+corner of the square he met a policeman and asked him if he knew where the
+&ldquo;King of Madagascar&rdquo; was.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;First to the right, second to the left,&rdquo; answered the policeman
+tersely. &ldquo;You can&rsquo;t miss it anywhere round there&mdash;it&rsquo;s a
+landmark.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And Spargo found the landmark&mdash;a great, square-built tavern&mdash;easily,
+and he waited at a corner of it wondering what he was going to see, and
+intensely curious about the owner of the queer voice, with all its suggestions
+of he knew not what. And suddenly there came up to him an old woman and leered
+at him in a fashion that made him suddenly realize how dreadful old age may be.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo had never seen such an old woman as this in his life. She was dressed
+respectably, better than respectably. Her gown was good; her bonnet was smart;
+her smaller fittings were good. But her face was evil; it showed unmistakable
+signs of a long devotion to the bottle; the old eyes leered and ogled, the old
+lips were wicked. Spargo felt a sense of disgust almost amounting to nausea,
+but he was going to hear what the old harridan had to say and he tried not to
+look what he felt.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well?&rdquo; he said, almost roughly. &ldquo;Well?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, young man, there you are,&rdquo; said his new acquaintance.
+&ldquo;Let us go inside, young man; there&rsquo;s a quiet little place where a
+lady can sit and take her drop of gin&mdash;I&rsquo;ll show you. And if
+you&rsquo;re good to me, I&rsquo;ll tell you something about that cat that you
+were talking to just now. But you&rsquo;ll give me a little matter to put in my
+pocket, young man? Old ladies like me have a right to buy little comforts, you
+know, little comforts.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo followed this extraordinary person into a small parlour within; the
+attendant who came in response to a ring showed no astonishment at her
+presence; he also seemed to know exactly what she required, which was a certain
+brand of gin, sweetened, and warm. And Spargo watched her curiously as with
+shaking hand she pushed up the veil which hid little of her wicked old face,
+and lifted the glass to her mouth with a zest which was not thirst but pure
+greed of liquor. Almost instantly he saw a new light steal into her eyes, and
+she laughed in a voice that grew clearer with every sound she made.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah, young man!&rdquo; she said with a confidential nudge of the elbow
+that made Spargo long to get up and fly. &ldquo;I wanted that! It&rsquo;s done
+me good. When I&rsquo;ve finished that, you&rsquo;ll pay for another for
+me&mdash;and perhaps another? They&rsquo;ll do me still more good. And
+you&rsquo;ll give me a little matter of money, won&rsquo;t you, young
+man?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not till I know what I&rsquo;m giving it for,&rdquo; replied Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You&rsquo;ll be giving it because I&rsquo;m going to tell you that if
+it&rsquo;s made worth my while I can tell you, or somebody that sent you, more
+about Jane Baylis than anybody in the world. I&rsquo;m not going to tell you
+that now, young man&mdash;I&rsquo;m sure you don&rsquo;t carry in your pocket
+what I shall want for my secret, not you, by the look of you! I&rsquo;m only
+going to show you that I have the secret. Eh?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Who are you?&rdquo; asked Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The woman leered and chuckled. &ldquo;What are you going to give me, young
+man?&rdquo; she asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo put his fingers in his pocket and pulled out two half-sovereigns.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Look here,&rdquo; he said, showing his companion the coins, &ldquo;if
+you can tell me anything of importance you shall have these. But no trifling,
+now. And no wasting of time. If you have anything to tell, out with it!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The woman stretched out a trembling, claw-like hand.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But let me hold one of those, young man!&rdquo; she implored. &ldquo;Let
+me hold one of the beautiful bits of gold. I shall tell you all the better if I
+hold one of them. Let me&mdash;there&rsquo;s a good young gentleman.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo gave her one of the coins, and resigned himself to his fate, whatever it
+might be.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You won&rsquo;t get the other unless you tell something,&rdquo; he said.
+&ldquo;Who are you, anyway?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The woman, who had begun mumbling and chuckling over the half-sovereign,
+grinned horribly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;At the boarding-house yonder, young man, they call me Mother
+Gutch,&rdquo; she answered; &ldquo;but my proper name is Mrs. Sabina Gutch, and
+once upon a time I was a good-looking young woman. And when my husband died I
+went to Jane Baylis as housekeeper, and when she retired from that and came to
+live in that boarding-house where we live now, she was forced to bring me with
+her and to keep me. Why had she to do that, young man?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Heaven knows!&rdquo; answered Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Because I&rsquo;ve got a hold on her, young man&mdash;I&rsquo;ve got a
+secret of hers,&rdquo; continued Mother Gutch. &ldquo;She&rsquo;d be scared to
+death if she knew I&rsquo;d been behind that hedge and had heard what she said
+to you, and she&rsquo;d be more than scared if she knew that you and I were
+here, talking. But she&rsquo;s grown hard and near with me, and she won&rsquo;t
+give me a penny to get a drop of anything with, and an old woman like me has a
+right to her little comforts, and if you&rsquo;ll buy the secret, young man,
+I&rsquo;ll split on her, there and then, when you pay the money.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Before I talk about buying any secret,&rdquo; said Spargo,
+&ldquo;you&rsquo;ll have to prove to me that you&rsquo;ve a secret to sell
+that&rsquo;s worth my buying.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And I will prove it!&rdquo; said Mother Gutch with sudden fierceness.
+&ldquo;Touch the bell, and let me have another glass, and then I&rsquo;ll tell
+you. Now,&rdquo; she went on, more quietly&mdash;Spargo noticed that the more
+she drank, the more rational she became, and that her nerves seemed to gain
+strength and her whole appearance to be improved&mdash;&ldquo;now, you came to
+her to find out about her brother-in-law, Maitland, that went to prison,
+didn&rsquo;t you?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well?&rdquo; demanded Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And about that boy of his?&rdquo; she continued.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You heard all that was said,&rdquo; answered Spargo. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m
+waiting to hear what you have to say.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But Mother Gutch was resolute in having her own way. She continued her
+questions:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And she told you that Maitland came and asked for the boy, and that she
+told him the boy was dead, didn&rsquo;t she?&rdquo; she went on.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well?&rdquo; said Spargo despairingly. &ldquo;She did. What then?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mother Gutch took an appreciative pull at her glass and smiled knowingly.
+&ldquo;What then?&rdquo; she chuckled. &ldquo;All lies, young man, the boy
+isn&rsquo;t dead&mdash;any more than I am. And my secret is&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well?&rdquo; demanded Spargo impatiently. &ldquo;What is it?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;This!&rdquo; answered Mother Gutch, digging her companion in the ribs,
+&ldquo;I know what she did with him!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap25"></a>CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE<br/>
+REVELATIONS</h2>
+
+<p>
+Spargo turned on his disreputable and dissolute companion with all his
+journalistic energies and instincts roused. He had not been sure, since
+entering the &ldquo;King of Madagascar,&rdquo; that he was going to hear
+anything material to the Middle Temple Murder; he had more than once feared
+that this old gin-drinking harridan was deceiving him, for the purpose of
+extracting drink and money from him. But now, at the mere prospect of getting
+important information from her, he forgot all about Mother Gutch&rsquo;s
+unfortunate propensities, evil eyes, and sodden face; he only saw in her
+somebody who could tell him something. He turned on her eagerly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You say that John Maitland&rsquo;s son didn&rsquo;t die!&rdquo; he
+exclaimed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The boy did not die,&rdquo; replied Mother Gutch.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And that you know where he is?&rdquo; asked Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mother Gutch shook her head.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t say that I know where he is, young man,&rdquo; she
+replied. &ldquo;I said I knew what she did with him.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What, then?&rdquo; demanded Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mother Gutch drew herself up in a vast assumption of dignity, and favoured
+Spargo with a look.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s the secret, young man,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m
+willing to sell that secret, but not for two half-sovereigns and two or three
+drops of cold gin. If Maitland left all that money you told Jane Baylis of,
+when I was listening to you from behind the hedge, my secret&rsquo;s worth
+something.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo suddenly remembered his bit of bluff to Miss Baylis. Here was an
+unexpected result of it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nobody but me can help you to trace Maitland&rsquo;s boy,&rdquo;
+continued Mother Gutch, &ldquo;and I shall expect to be paid accordingly.
+That&rsquo;s plain language, young man.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo considered the situation in silence for a minute or two. Could this
+wretched, bibulous old woman really be in possession of a secret which would
+lead to the solving of the mystery of the Middle Temple Murder? Well, it would
+be a fine thing for the <i>Watchman</i> if the clearing up of everything came
+through one of its men. And the <i>Watchman</i> was noted for being generous
+even to extravagance in laying out money on all sorts of objects: it had spent
+money like water on much less serious matters than this.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How much do you want for your secret?&rdquo; he suddenly asked, turning
+to his companion.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mother Gutch began to smooth out a pleat in her gown. It was really wonderful
+to Spargo to find how very sober and normal this old harridan had become; he
+did not understand that her nerves had been all a-quiver and on edge when he
+first met her, and that a resort to her favourite form of alcohol in liberal
+quantity had calmed and quickened them; secretly he was regarding her with
+astonishment as the most extraordinary old person he had ever met, and he was
+almost afraid of her as he waited for her decision. At last Mother Gutch spoke.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, young man,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;having considered matters, and
+having a right to look well to myself, I think that what I should prefer to
+have would be one of those annuities. A nice, comfortable annuity, paid
+weekly&mdash;none of your monthlies or quarterlies, but regular and punctual,
+every Saturday morning. Or Monday morning, as was convenient to the parties
+concerned&mdash;but punctual and regular. I know a good many ladies in my
+sphere of life as enjoys annuities, and it&rsquo;s a great comfort to have
+&rsquo;em paid weekly.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It occurred to Spargo that Mrs. Gutch would probably get rid of her weekly dole
+on the day it was paid, whether that day happened to be Monday or Saturday, but
+that, after all, was no concern of his, so he came back to first principles.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Even now you haven&rsquo;t said how much,&rdquo; he remarked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Three pound a week,&rdquo; replied Mother Gutch. &ldquo;And cheap,
+too!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo thought hard for two minutes. The secret might&mdash;might!&mdash;lead
+to something big. This wretched old woman would probably drink herself to death
+within a year or two. Anyhow, a few hundreds of pounds was nothing to the
+<i>Watchman</i>. He glanced at his watch. At that hour&mdash;for the next
+hour&mdash;the great man of the <i>Watchman</i> would be at the office. He
+jumped to his feet, suddenly resolved and alert.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Here, I&rsquo;ll take you to see my principals,&rdquo; he said.
+&ldquo;We&rsquo;ll run along in a taxi-cab.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;With all the pleasure in the world, young man,&rdquo; replied Mother
+Gutch; &ldquo;when you&rsquo;ve given me that other half-sovereign. As for
+principals, I&rsquo;d far rather talk business with masters than with
+men&mdash;though I mean no disrespect to you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo, feeling that he was in for it, handed over the second half-sovereign,
+and busied himself in ordering a taxi-cab. But when that came round he had to
+wait while Mrs. Gutch consumed a third glass of gin and purchased a flask of
+the same beverage to put in her pocket. At last he got her off, and in due
+course to the <i>Watchman</i> office, where the hall-porter and the messenger
+boys stared at her in amazement, well used as they were to seeing strange folk,
+and he got her to his own room, and locked her in, and then he sought the
+presence of the mighty.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+What Spargo said to his editor and to the great man who controlled the fortunes
+and workings of the <i>Watchman</i> he never knew. It was probably fortunate
+for him that they were both thoroughly conversant with the facts of the Middle
+Temple Murder, and saw that there might be an advantage in securing the
+revelations of which Spargo had got the conditional promise. At any rate, they
+accompanied Spargo to his room, intent on seeing, hearing and bargaining with
+the lady he had locked up there.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo&rsquo;s room smelt heavily of unsweetened gin, but Mother Gutch was
+soberer than ever. She insisted upon being introduced to proprietor and editor
+in due and proper form, and in discussing terms with them before going into any
+further particulars. The editor was all for temporizing with her until
+something could be done to find out what likelihood of truth there was in her,
+but the proprietor, after sizing her up in his own shrewd fashion, took his two
+companions out of the room.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We&rsquo;ll hear what the old woman has to say on her own terms,&rdquo;
+he said. &ldquo;She may have something to tell that is really of the greatest
+importance in this case: she certainly has something to tell. And, as Spargo
+says, she&rsquo;ll probably drink herself to death in about as short a time as
+possible. Come back&mdash;let&rsquo;s hear her story.&rdquo; So they returned
+to the gin-scented atmosphere, and a formal document was drawn out by which the
+proprietor of the <i>Watchman</i> bound himself to pay Mrs. Gutch the sum of
+three pounds a week for life (Mrs. Gutch insisting on the insertion of the
+words &ldquo;every Saturday morning, punctual and regular&rdquo;) and then Mrs.
+Gutch was invited to tell her tale. And Mrs. Gutch settled herself to do so,
+and Spargo prepared to take it down, word for word.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Which the story, as that young man called it, is not so long as a
+monkey&rsquo;s tail nor so short as a Manx cat&rsquo;s, gentlemen,&rdquo; said
+Mrs. Gutch; &ldquo;but full of meat as an egg. Now, you see, when that Maitland
+affair at Market Milcaster came off, I was housekeeper to Miss Jane Baylis at
+Brighton. She kept a boarding-house there, in Kemp Town, and close to the
+sea-front, and a very good thing she made out of it, and had saved a nice bit,
+and having, like her sister, Mrs. Maitland, had a little fortune left her by
+her father, as was at one time a publican here in London, she had a good lump
+of money. And all that money was in this here Maitland&rsquo;s hands, every
+penny. I very well remember the day when the news came about that affair of
+Maitland robbing the bank. Miss Baylis, she was like a mad thing when she saw
+it in the paper, and before she&rsquo;d seen it an hour she was off to Market
+Milcaster. I went up to the station with her, and she told me then before she
+got in the train that Maitland had all her fortune and her savings, and her
+sister&rsquo;s, his wife&rsquo;s, too, and that she feared all would be
+lost.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mrs. Maitland was then dead,&rdquo; observed Spargo without looking up
+from his writing-block.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;She was, young man, and a good thing, too,&rdquo; continued Mrs. Gutch.
+&ldquo;Well, away went Miss Baylis, and no more did I hear or see for nearly a
+week, and then back she comes, and brings a little boy with her&mdash;which was
+Maitland&rsquo;s. And she told me that night that she&rsquo;d lost every penny
+she had in the world, and that her sister&rsquo;s money, what ought to have
+been the child&rsquo;s, was gone, too, and she said her say about Maitland.
+However, she saw well to that child; nobody could have seen better. And very
+soon after, when Maitland was sent to prison for ten years, her and me talked
+about things. &lsquo;What&rsquo;s the use,&rsquo; says I to her, &lsquo;of your
+letting yourself get so fond of that child, and looking after it as you do, and
+educating it, and so on?&rsquo; I says. &lsquo;Why not?&rsquo; says she.
+&lsquo;&rsquo;Tisn&rsquo;t yours,&rsquo; I says, &lsquo;you haven&rsquo;t no
+right to it,&rsquo; I says. &lsquo;As soon as ever its father comes out,&rsquo;
+says I,&rsquo; he&rsquo;ll come and claim it, and you can&rsquo;t do nothing to
+stop him.&rsquo; Well, gentlemen, if you&rsquo;ll believe me, never did I see a
+woman look as she did when I says all that. And she up and swore that Maitland
+should never see or touch the child again&mdash;not under no circumstances
+whatever.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mrs. Gutch paused to take a little refreshment from her pocket-flask, with an
+apologetic remark as to the state of her heart. She resumed, presently,
+apparently refreshed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, gentlemen, that notion, about Maitland&rsquo;s taking the child
+away from her seemed to get on her mind, and she used to talk to me at times
+about it, always saying the same thing&mdash;that Maitland should never have
+him. And one day she told me she was going to London to see lawyers about it,
+and she went, and she came back, seeming more satisfied, and a day or two
+afterwards, there came a gentleman who looked like a lawyer, and he stopped a
+day or two, and he came again and again, until one day she came to me, and she
+says, &lsquo;You don&rsquo;t know who that gentleman is that&rsquo;s come so
+much lately?&rsquo; she says. &lsquo;Not I,&rsquo; I says, &lsquo;unless
+he&rsquo;s after you.&rsquo; &lsquo;After me!&rsquo; she says, tossing her
+head: &lsquo;That&rsquo;s the gentleman that ought to have married my poor
+sister if that scoundrel Maitland hadn&rsquo;t tricked her into throwing him
+over!&rsquo; &lsquo;You don&rsquo;t say so!&rsquo; I says. &lsquo;Then by
+rights he ought to have been the child&rsquo;s pa!&rsquo; &lsquo;He&rsquo;s
+going to be a father to the boy,&rsquo; she says. &lsquo;He&rsquo;s going to
+take him and educate him in the highest fashion, and make a gentleman of
+him,&rsquo; she says, &lsquo;for his mother&rsquo;s sake.&rsquo; &lsquo;Mercy
+on us!&rsquo; says I. &lsquo;What&rsquo;ll Maitland say when he comes for
+him?&rsquo; &lsquo;Maitland&rsquo;ll never come for him,&rsquo; she says,
+&lsquo;for I&rsquo;m going to leave here, and the boy&rsquo;ll be gone before
+then. This is all being done,&rsquo; she says, &lsquo;so that the
+child&rsquo;ll never know his father&rsquo;s shame&mdash;he&rsquo;ll never know
+who his father was.&rsquo; And true enough, the boy was taken away, but
+Maitland came before she&rsquo;d gone, and she told him the child was dead, and
+I never see a man so cut up. However, it wasn&rsquo;t no concern of mine. And
+so there&rsquo;s so much of the secret, gentlemen, and I would like to know if
+I ain&rsquo;t giving good value.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Very good,&rdquo; said the proprietor. &ldquo;Go on.&rdquo; But Spargo
+intervened.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Did you ever hear the name of the gentleman who took the boy
+away?&rdquo; he asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, I did,&rdquo; replied Mrs. Gutch. &ldquo;Of course I did. Which it
+was Elphick.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap26"></a>CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX<br/>
+STILL SILENT</h2>
+
+<p>
+Spargo dropped his pen on the desk before him with a sharp clatter that made
+Mrs. Gutch jump. A steady devotion to the bottle had made her nerves to be none
+of the strongest, and she looked at the startler of them with angry
+malevolence.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t do that again, young man!&rdquo; she exclaimed sharply.
+&ldquo;I can&rsquo;t a-bear to be jumped out of my skin, and it&rsquo;s bad
+manners. I observed that the gentleman&rsquo;s name was Elphick.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo contrived to get in a glance at his proprietor and his editor&mdash;a
+glance which came near to being a wink.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Just so&mdash;Elphick,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;A law gentleman I think
+you said, Mrs. Gutch?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I said,&rdquo; answered Mrs. Gutch, &ldquo;as how he looked like a
+lawyer gentleman. And since you&rsquo;re so particular, young man, though I
+wasn&rsquo;t addressing you but your principals, he was a lawyer gentleman. One
+of the sort that wears wigs and gowns&mdash;ain&rsquo;t I seen his picture in
+Jane Baylis&rsquo;s room at the boarding-house where you saw her this
+morning?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Elderly man?&rdquo; asked Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Elderly he will be now,&rdquo; replied the informant; &ldquo;but when he
+took the boy away he was a middle-aged man. About his age,&rdquo; she added,
+pointing to the editor in a fashion which made that worthy man wince and the
+proprietor desire to laugh unconsumedly; &ldquo;and not so very unlike him
+neither, being one as had no hair on his face.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah!&rdquo; said Spargo. &ldquo;And where did this Mr. Elphick take the
+boy, Mrs. Gutch?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But Mrs. Gutch shook her head.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ain&rsquo;t no idea,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;He took him. Then, as I
+told you, Maitland came, and Jane Baylis told him that the boy was dead. And
+after that she never even told me anything about the boy. She kept a tight
+tongue. Once or twice I asked her, and she says, &lsquo;Never you mind,&rsquo;
+she says; &lsquo;he&rsquo;s all right for life, if he lives to be as old as
+Methusalem.&rsquo; And she never said more, and I never said more. But,&rdquo;
+continued Mrs. Gutch, whose pocket-flask was empty, and who began to wipe tears
+away, &ldquo;she&rsquo;s treated me hard has Jane Baylis, never allowing me a
+little comfort such as a lady of my age should have, and when I hears the two
+of you a-talking this morning the other side of that privet hedge, thinks I,
+&lsquo;Now&rsquo;s the time to have my knife into you, my fine madam!&rsquo;
+And I hope I done it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo looked at the editor and the proprietor, nodding his head slightly. He
+meant them to understand that he had got all he wanted from Mother Gutch.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What are you going to do, Mrs. Gutch, when you leave here?&rdquo; he
+asked. &ldquo;You shall be driven straight back to Bayswater, if you
+like.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Which I shall be obliged for, young man,&rdquo; said Mrs. Gutch,
+&ldquo;and likewise for the first week of the annuity, and will call every
+Saturday for the same at eleven punctual, or can be posted to me on a Friday,
+whichever is agreeable to you gentlemen. And having my first week in my purse,
+and being driven to Bayswater, I shall take my boxes and go to a friend of mine
+where I shall be hearty welcome, shaking the dust of my feet off against Jane
+Baylis and where I&rsquo;ve been living with her.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, but, Mrs. Gutch,&rdquo; said Spargo, with some anxiety, &ldquo;if
+you go back there tonight, you&rsquo;ll be very careful not to tell Miss Baylis
+that you&rsquo;ve been here and told us all this?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mrs. Gutch rose, dignified and composed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Young man,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;you mean well, but you ain&rsquo;t
+used to dealing with ladies. I can keep my tongue as still as anybody when I
+like. I wouldn&rsquo;t tell Jane Baylis my affairs&mdash;my new affairs,
+gentlemen, thanks to you&mdash;not for two annuities, paid twice a week!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Take Mrs. Gutch downstairs, Spargo, and see her all right, and then come
+to my room,&rdquo; said the editor. &ldquo;And don&rsquo;t you forget, Mrs.
+Gutch&mdash;keep a quiet tongue in your head&mdash;no more talk&mdash;or
+there&rsquo;ll be no annuities on Saturday mornings.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+So Spargo took Mother Gutch to the cashier&rsquo;s department and paid her her
+first week&rsquo;s money, and he got her a taxi-cab, and paid for it, and saw
+her depart, and then he went to the editor&rsquo;s room, strangely thoughtful.
+The editor and the proprietor were talking, but they stopped when Spargo
+entered and looked at him eagerly. &ldquo;I think we&rsquo;ve done it,&rdquo;
+said Spargo quietly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What, precisely, have we found out?&rdquo; asked the editor.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A great deal more than I&rsquo;d anticipated,&rdquo; answered Spargo,
+&ldquo;and I don&rsquo;t know what fields it doesn&rsquo;t open out. If you
+look back, you&rsquo;ll remember that the only thing found on Marbury&rsquo;s
+body was a scrap of grey paper on which was a name and address&mdash;Ronald
+Breton, King&rsquo;s Bench Walk.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Breton is a young barrister. Also he writes a bit&mdash;I have accepted
+two or three articles of his for our literary page.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Further, he is engaged to Miss Aylmore, the eldest daughter of Aylmore,
+the Member of Parliament who has been charged at Bow Street today with the
+murder of Marbury.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I know. Well, what then, Spargo?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But the most important matter,&rdquo; continued Spargo, speaking very
+deliberately, &ldquo;is this&mdash;that is, taking that old woman&rsquo;s
+statement to be true, as I personally believe it is&mdash;that Breton, as he
+has told me himself (I have seen a good deal of him) was brought up by a
+guardian. That guardian is Mr. Septimus Elphick, the barrister.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The proprietor and the editor looked at each other. Their faces wore the
+expression of men thinking on the same lines and arriving at the same
+conclusion. And the proprietor suddenly turned on Spargo with a sharp
+interrogation: &ldquo;You think then&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo nodded.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I think that Mr. Septimus Elphick is the Elphick, and that Breton is the
+young Maitland of whom Mrs. Gutch has been talking,&rdquo; he answered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The editor got up, thrust his hands in his pockets, and began to pace the room.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If that&rsquo;s so,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;if that&rsquo;s so, the
+mystery deepens. What do you propose to do, Spargo?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I think,&rdquo; said Spargo, slowly, &ldquo;I think that without telling
+him anything of what we have learnt, I should like to see young Breton and get
+an introduction from him to Mr. Elphick. I can make a good excuse for wanting
+an interview with him. If you will leave it in my hands&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, yes!&rdquo; said the proprietor, waving a hand. &ldquo;Leave it
+entirely in Spargo&rsquo;s hands.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Keep me informed,&rdquo; said the editor. &ldquo;Do what you think. It
+strikes me you&rsquo;re on the track.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo left their presence, and going back to his own room, still faintly
+redolent of the personality of Mrs. Gutch, got hold of the reporter who had
+been present at Bow Street when Aylmore was brought up that morning. There was
+nothing new; the authorities had merely asked for another remand. So far as the
+reporter knew, Aylmore had said nothing fresh to anybody.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo went round to the Temple and up to Ronald Breton&rsquo;s chambers. He
+found the young barrister just preparing to leave, and looking unusually grave
+and thoughtful. At sight of Spargo he turned back from his outer door, beckoned
+the journalist to follow him, and led him into an inner room.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I say, Spargo!&rdquo; he said, as he motioned his visitor to take a
+chair. &ldquo;This is becoming something more than serious. You know what you
+told me to do yesterday as regards Aylmore?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;To get him to tell all?&mdash;Yes,&rdquo; said Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Breton shook his head.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Stratton&mdash;his solicitor, you know&mdash;and I saw him this morning
+before the police-court proceedings,&rdquo; he continued. &ldquo;I told him of
+my talk with you; I even went as far as to tell him that his daughters had been
+to the <i>Watchman</i> office. Stratton and I both begged him to take your
+advice and tell all, everything, no matter at what cost to his private
+feelings. We pointed out to him the serious nature of the evidence against him;
+how he had damaged himself by not telling the whole truth at once; how he had
+certainly done a great deal to excite suspicion against himself; how, as the
+evidence stands at present, any jury could scarcely do less than convict him.
+And it was all no good, Spargo!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He won&rsquo;t say anything?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He&rsquo;ll say no more. He was adamant. &lsquo;I told the entire truth
+in respect to my dealings with Marbury on the night he met his death at the
+inquest,&rsquo; he said, over and over again, &lsquo;and I shall say nothing
+further on any consideration. If the law likes to hang an innocent man on such
+evidence as that, let it!&rsquo; And he persisted in that until we left him.
+Spargo, I don&rsquo;t know what&rsquo;s to be done.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And nothing happened at the police-court?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nothing&mdash;another remand. Stratton and I saw Aylmore again before he
+was removed. He left us with a sort of sardonic remark&mdash;&lsquo;If you all
+want to prove me innocent,&rsquo; he said, &lsquo;find the guilty
+man.&rsquo;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, there was a tremendous lot of common sense in that,&rdquo; said
+Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, of course, but how, how, how is it going to be done?&rdquo;
+exclaimed Breton. &ldquo;Are you any nearer&mdash;is Rathbury any nearer? Is
+there the slightest clue that will fasten the guilt on anybody else?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo gave no answer to these questions. He remained silent a while,
+apparently thinking.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Was Rathbury in court?&rdquo; he suddenly asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He was,&rdquo; replied Breton. &ldquo;He was there with two or three
+other men who I suppose were detectives, and seemed to be greatly interested in
+Aylmore.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If I don&rsquo;t see Rathbury tonight I&rsquo;ll see him in the
+morning,&rdquo; said Spargo. He rose as if to go, but after lingering a moment,
+sat down again. &ldquo;Look here,&rdquo; he continued, &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t
+know how this thing stands in law, but would it be a very weak case against
+Aylmore if the prosecution couldn&rsquo;t show some motive for his killing
+Marbury?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Breton smiled.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There&rsquo;s no necessity to prove motive in murder,&rdquo; he said.
+&ldquo;But I&rsquo;ll tell you what, Spargo&mdash;if the prosecution can show
+that Aylmore had a motive for getting rid of Marbury, if they could prove that
+it was to Aylmore&rsquo;s advantage to silence him&mdash;why, then, I
+don&rsquo;t think he&rsquo;s a chance.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I see. But so far no motive, no reason for his killing Marbury has been
+shown.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I know of none.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo rose and moved to the door.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, I&rsquo;m off,&rdquo; he said. Then, as if he suddenly recollected
+something, he turned back. &ldquo;Oh, by the by,&rdquo; he said,
+&ldquo;isn&rsquo;t your guardian, Mr. Elphick, a big authority on
+philately?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;One of the biggest. Awful enthusiast.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Do you think he&rsquo;d tell me a bit about those Australian stamps
+which Marbury showed to Criedir, the dealer?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Certain, he would&mdash;delighted. Here&rdquo;&mdash;and Breton
+scribbled a few words on a card&mdash;&ldquo;there&rsquo;s his address and a
+word from me. I&rsquo;ll tell you when you can always find him in, five nights
+out of seven&mdash;at nine o&rsquo;clock, after he&rsquo;s dined. I&rsquo;d go
+with you tonight, but I must go to Aylmore&rsquo;s. The two girls are in
+terrible trouble.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Give them a message from me,&rdquo; said Spargo as they went out
+together. &ldquo;Tell them to keep up their hearts and their courage.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap27"></a>CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN<br/>
+MR. ELPHICK&rsquo;S CHAMBERS</h2>
+
+<p>
+Spargo went round again to the Temple that night at nine o&rsquo;clock, asking
+himself over and over again two questions&mdash;the first, how much does
+Elphick know? the second, how much shall I tell him?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The old house in the Temple to which he repaired and in which many a generation
+of old fogies had lived since the days of Queen Anne, was full of stairs and
+passages, and as Spargo had forgotten to get the exact number of the set of
+chambers he wanted, he was obliged to wander about in what was a deserted
+building. So wandering, he suddenly heard steps, firm, decisive steps coming up
+a staircase which he himself had just climbed. He looked over the banisters
+down into the hollow beneath. And there, marching up resolutely, was the figure
+of a tall, veiled woman, and Spargo suddenly realized, with a sharp quickening
+of his pulses, that for the second time that day he was beneath one roof with
+Miss Baylis.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo&rsquo;s mind acted quickly. Knowing what he now knew, from his
+extraordinary dealings with Mother Gutch, he had no doubt whatever that Miss
+Baylis had come to see Mr. Elphick&mdash;come, of course, to tell Mr. Elphick
+that he, Spargo, had visited her that morning, and that he was on the track of
+the Maitland secret history. He had never thought of it before, for he had been
+busily engaged since the departure of Mother Gutch; but, naturally, Miss Baylis
+and Mr. Elphick would keep in communication with each other. At any rate, here
+she was, and her destination was, surely, Elphick&rsquo;s chambers. And the
+question for him, Spargo, was&mdash;what to do?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+What Spargo did was to remain in absolute silence, motionless, tense, where he
+was on the stair, and to trust to the chance that the woman did not look up.
+But Miss Baylis neither looked up nor down: she reached a landing, turned along
+a corridor with decision, and marched forward. A moment later Spargo heard a
+sharp double knock on a door: a moment after that he heard a door heavily shut;
+he knew then that Miss Baylis had sought and gained admittance&mdash;somewhere.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+To find out precisely where that somewhere was drew Spargo down to the landing
+which Miss Baylis had just left. There was no one about&mdash;he had not, in
+fact, seen a soul since he entered the building. Accordingly he went along the
+corridor into which he had seen Miss Baylis turn. He knew that all the doors in
+that house were double ones, and that the outer oak in each was solid and
+substantial enough to be sound proof. Yet, as men will under such
+circumstances, he walked softly; he said to himself, smiling at the thought,
+that he would be sure to start if somebody suddenly opened a door on him. But
+no hand opened any door, and at last he came to the end of the corridor and
+found himself confronting a small board on which was painted in white letters
+on a black ground, Mr. Elphick&rsquo;s Chambers.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Having satisfied himself as to his exact whereabouts, Spargo drew back as
+quietly as he had come. There was a window half-way along the corridor from
+which, he had noticed as he came along, one could catch a glimpse of the
+Embankment and the Thames; to this he withdrew, and leaning on the sill looked
+out and considered matters. Should he go and&mdash;if he could gain
+admittance&mdash;beard these two conspirators? Should he wait until the woman
+came out and let her see that he was on the track? Should he hide again until
+she went, and then see Elphick alone?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the end Spargo did none of these things immediately. He let things slide for
+the moment. He lighted a cigarette and stared at the river and the brown sails,
+and the buildings across on the Surrey side. Ten minutes went by&mdash;twenty
+minutes&mdash;nothing happened. Then, as half-past nine struck from all the
+neighbouring clocks, Spargo flung away a second cigarette, marched straight
+down the corridor and knocked boldly at Mr. Elphick&rsquo;s door.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Greatly to Spargo&rsquo;s surprise, the door was opened before there was any
+necessity to knock again. And there, calmly confronting him, a benevolent, yet
+somewhat deprecating expression on his spectacled and placid face, stood Mr.
+Elphick, a smoking cap on his head, a tasseled smoking jacket over his dress
+shirt, and a short pipe in his hand.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo was taken aback: Mr. Elphick apparently was not. He held the door well
+open, and motioned the journalist to enter.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Come in, Mr. Spargo,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I was expecting you. Walk
+forward into my sitting-room.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo, much astonished at this reception, passed through an ante-room into a
+handsomely furnished apartment full of books and pictures. In spite of the fact
+that it was still very little past midsummer there was a cheery fire in the
+grate, and on a table set near a roomy arm-chair was set such creature comforts
+as a spirit-case, a syphon, a tumbler, and a novel&mdash;from which things
+Spargo argued that Mr. Elphick had been taking his ease since his dinner. But
+in another armchair on the opposite side of the hearth was the forbidding
+figure of Miss Baylis, blacker, gloomier, more mysterious than ever. She
+neither spoke nor moved when Spargo entered: she did not even look at him. And
+Spargo stood staring at her until Mr. Elphick, having closed his doors, touched
+him on the elbow, and motioned him courteously to a seat.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, I was expecting you, Mr. Spargo,&rdquo; he said, as he resumed his
+own chair. &ldquo;I have been expecting you at any time, ever since you took up
+your investigation of the Marbury affair, in some of the earlier stages of
+which you saw me, you will remember, at the mortuary. But since Miss Baylis
+told me, twenty minutes ago, that you had been to her this morning I felt sure
+that it would not be more than a few hours before you would come to me.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why, Mr. Elphick, should you suppose that I should come to you at
+all?&rdquo; asked Spargo, now in full possession of his wits.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Because I felt sure that you would leave no stone unturned, no corner
+unexplored,&rdquo; replied Mr. Elphick. &ldquo;The curiosity of the modern
+pressman is insatiable.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo stiffened.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have no curiosity, Mr. Elphick,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I am charged by
+my paper to investigate the circumstances of the death of the man who was found
+in Middle Temple Lane, and, if possible, to track his murderer,
+and&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Elphick laughed slightly and waved his hand.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;My good young gentleman!&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;You exaggerate your own
+importance. I don&rsquo;t approve of modern journalism nor of its methods. In
+your own case you have got hold of some absurd notion that the man John Marbury
+was in reality one John Maitland, once of Market Milcaster, and you have been
+trying to frighten Miss Baylis here into&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo suddenly rose from his chair. There was a certain temper in him which,
+when once roused, led him to straight hitting, and it was roused now. He looked
+the old barrister full in the face.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mr. Elphick,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;you are evidently unaware of all
+that I know. So I will tell you what I will do. I will go back to my office,
+and I will write down what I do know, and give the true and absolute proofs of
+what I know, and, if you will trouble yourself to read the <i>Watchman</i>
+tomorrow morning, then you, too, will know.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Dear me&mdash;dear me!&rdquo; said Mr. Elphick, banteringly. &ldquo;We
+are so used to ultra-sensational stories from the <i>Watchman</i>
+that&mdash;but I am a curious and inquisitive old man, my good young sir, so
+perhaps you will tell me in a word what it is you do know, eh?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo reflected for a second. Then he bent forward across the table and looked
+the old barrister straight in the face.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; he said quietly. &ldquo;I will tell you what I know beyond
+doubt. I know that the man murdered under the name of John Marbury was, without
+doubt, John Maitland, of Market Milcaster, and that Ronald Breton is his son,
+whom you took from that woman!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+If Spargo had desired a complete revenge for the cavalier fashion in which Mr.
+Elphick had treated it he could not have been afforded a more ample one than
+that offered to him by the old barrister&rsquo;s reception of this news. Mr.
+Elphick&rsquo;s face not only fell, but changed; his expression of almost
+sneering contempt was transformed to one clearly resembling abject terror; he
+dropped his pipe, fell back in his chair, recovered himself, gripped the
+chair&rsquo;s arms, and stared at Spargo as if the young man had suddenly
+announced to him that in another minute he must be led to instant execution.
+And Spargo, quick to see his advantage, followed it up.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That is what I know, Mr. Elphick, and if I choose, all the world shall
+know it tomorrow morning!&rdquo; he said firmly. &ldquo;Ronald Breton is the
+son of the murdered man, and Ronald Breton is engaged to be married to the
+daughter of the man charged with the murder. Do you hear that? It is not matter
+of suspicion, or of idea, or of conjecture, it is fact&mdash;fact!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Elphick slowly turned his face to Miss Baylis. He gasped out a few words.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You&mdash;did&mdash;not&mdash;tell&mdash;me&mdash;this!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then Spargo, turning to the woman, saw that she, too, was white to the lips and
+as frightened as the man.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&mdash;didn&rsquo;t know!&rdquo; she muttered. &ldquo;He didn&rsquo;t
+tell me. He only told me this morning what&mdash;what I&rsquo;ve told
+you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo picked up his hat.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Good-night, Mr. Elphick,&rdquo; he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But before he could reach the door the old barrister had leapt from his chair
+and seized him with trembling hands. Spargo turned and looked at him. He knew
+then that for some reason or other he had given Mr. Septimus Elphick a
+thoroughly bad fright.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well?&rdquo; he growled.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;My dear young gentleman!&rdquo; implored Mr. Elphick. &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t
+go! I&rsquo;ll&mdash;I&rsquo;ll do anything for you if you won&rsquo;t go away
+to print that. I&rsquo;ll&mdash;I&rsquo;ll give you a thousand pounds!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo shook him off.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s enough!&rdquo; he snarled. &ldquo;Now, I am off! What,
+you&rsquo;d try to bribe me?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Elphick wrung his hands.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t mean that&mdash;indeed I didn&rsquo;t!&rdquo; he almost
+wailed. &ldquo;I&mdash;I don&rsquo;t know what I meant. Stay, young gentleman,
+stay a little, and let us&mdash;let us talk. Let me have a word with
+you&mdash;as many words as you please. I implore you!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo made a fine pretence of hesitation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If I stay,&rdquo; he said, at last, &ldquo;it will only be on the strict
+condition that you answer&mdash;and answer truly&mdash;whatever questions I
+like to ask you. Otherwise&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He made another move to the door, and again Mr. Elphick laid beseeching hands
+on him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Stay!&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll answer anything you like!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap28"></a>CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT<br/>
+OF PROVED IDENTITY</h2>
+
+<p>
+Spargo sat down again in the chair which he had just left, and looked at the
+two people upon whom his startling announcement had produced such a curious
+effect. And he recognized as he looked at them that, while they were both
+frightened, they were frightened in different ways. Miss Baylis had already
+recovered her composure; she now sat sombre and stern as ever, returning
+Spargo&rsquo;s look with something of indifferent defiance; he thought he could
+see that in her mind a certain fear was battling with a certain amount of
+wonder that he had discovered the secret. It seemed to him that so far as she
+was concerned the secret had come to an end; it was as if she said in so many
+words that now the secret was out he might do his worst.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But upon Mr. Septimus Elphick the effect was very different. He was still
+trembling from excitement; he groaned as he sank into his chair and the hand
+with which he poured out a glass of spirits shook; the glass rattled against
+his teeth when he raised it to his lips. The half-contemptuous fashion of his
+reception of Spargo had now wholly disappeared; he was a man who had received a
+shock, and a bad one. And Spargo, watching him keenly, said to himself: This
+man knows a great deal more than, a great deal beyond, the mere fact that
+Marbury was Maitland, and that Ronald Breton is in reality Maitland&rsquo;s
+son; he knows something which he never wanted anybody to know, which he firmly
+believed it impossible anybody ever could know. It was as if he had buried
+something deep, deep down in the lowest depths, and was as astounded as he was
+frightened to find that it had been at last flung up to the broad light of day.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I shall wait,&rdquo; suddenly said Spargo, &ldquo;until you are
+composed, Mr. Elphick. I have no wish to distress you. But I see, of course,
+that the truths which I have told you are of a sort that cause you
+considerable&mdash;shall we say fear?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elphick took another stiff pull at his liquor. His hand had grown steadier, and
+the colour was coming back to his face.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If you will let me explain,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;If you will hear what
+was done for the boy&rsquo;s sake&mdash;eh?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That,&rdquo; answered Spargo, &ldquo;is precisely what I wish. I can
+tell you this&mdash;I am the last man in the world to wish harm of any sort to
+Mr. Breton.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Miss Baylis relieved her feelings with a scornful sniff. &ldquo;He says
+that!&rdquo; she exclaimed, addressing the ceiling. &ldquo;He says that,
+knowing that he means to tell the world in his rag of a paper that Ronald
+Breton, on whom every care has been lavished, is the son of a scoundrel, an
+ex-convict, a&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elphick lifted his hand.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Hush&mdash;hush!&rdquo; he said imploringly. &ldquo;Mr. Spargo means
+well, I am sure&mdash;I am convinced. If Mr. Spargo will hear
+me&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But before Spargo could reply, a loud insistent knocking came at the outer
+door. Elphick started nervously, but presently he moved across the room,
+walking as if he had received a blow, and opened the door. A boy&rsquo;s voice
+penetrated into the sitting-room.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If you please, sir, is Mr. Spargo, of the <i>Watchman</i>, here? He left
+this address in case he was wanted.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo recognized the voice as that of one of the office messenger boys, and
+jumping up, went to the door.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What is it, Rawlins?&rdquo; he asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Will you please come back to the office, sir, at once? There&rsquo;s Mr.
+Rathbury there and says he must see you instantly.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;All right,&rdquo; answered Spargo. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m coming just
+now.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He motioned the lad away, and turned to Elphick.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I shall have to go,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I may be kept. Now, Mr.
+Elphick, can I come to see you tomorrow morning?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, yes, tomorrow morning!&rdquo; replied Elphick eagerly.
+&ldquo;Tomorrow morning, certainly. At eleven&mdash;eleven o&rsquo;clock. That
+will do?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I shall be here at eleven,&rdquo; said Spargo. &ldquo;Eleven
+sharp.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He was moving away when Elphick caught him by the sleeve.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A word&mdash;just a word!&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;You&mdash;you have not
+told the&mdash;the boy&mdash;Ronald&mdash;of what you know? You
+haven&rsquo;t?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I haven&rsquo;t,&rdquo; replied Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elphick tightened his grip on Spargo&rsquo;s sleeve. He looked into his face
+beseechingly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Promise me&mdash;promise me, Mr. Spargo, that you won&rsquo;t tell him
+until you have seen me in the morning!&rdquo; he implored. &ldquo;I beg you to
+promise me this.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo hesitated, considering matters.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Very well&mdash;I promise,&rdquo; he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And you won&rsquo;t print it?&rdquo; continued Elphick, still clinging
+to him. &ldquo;Say you won&rsquo;t print it tonight?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I shall not print it tonight,&rdquo; answered Spargo.
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s certain.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elphick released his grip on the young man&rsquo;s arm.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Come&mdash;at eleven tomorrow morning,&rdquo; he said, and drew back and
+closed the door.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo ran quickly to the office and hurried up to his own room. And there,
+calmly seated in an easy-chair, smoking a cigar, and reading an evening
+newspaper, was Rathbury, unconcerned and outwardly as imperturbable as ever. He
+greeted Spargo with a careless nod and a smile.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;how&rsquo;s things?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo, half-breathless, dropped into his desk-chair.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You didn&rsquo;t come here to tell me that,&rdquo; he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Rathbury laughed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No,&rdquo; he said, throwing the newspaper aside, &ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t.
+I came to tell you my latest. You&rsquo;re at full liberty to stick it into
+your paper tonight: it may just as well be known.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well?&rdquo; said Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Rathbury took his cigar out of his lips and yawned.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Aylmore&rsquo;s identified,&rdquo; he said lazily.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo sat up, sharply.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Identified!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Identified, my son. Beyond doubt.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But as whom&mdash;as what?&rdquo; exclaimed Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Rathbury laughed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He&rsquo;s an old lag&mdash;an ex-convict. Served his time partly at
+Dartmoor. That, of course, is where he met Maitland or Marbury. D&rsquo;ye see?
+Clear as noontide now, Spargo.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo sat drumming his fingers on the desk before him. His eyes were fixed on
+a map of London that hung on the opposite wall; his ears heard the throbbing of
+the printing-machines far below. But what he really saw was the faces of the
+two girls; what he really heard was the voices of two girls …
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Clear as noontide&mdash;as noontide,&rdquo; repeated Rathbury with great
+cheerfulness.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo came back to the earth of plain and brutal fact.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What&rsquo;s clear as noontide?&rdquo; he asked sharply.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What? Why, the whole thing! Motive&mdash;everything,&rdquo; answered
+Rathbury. &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t you see, Maitland and Aylmore (his real name is
+Ainsworth, by the by) meet at Dartmoor, probably, or, rather, certainly, just
+before Aylmore&rsquo;s release. Aylmore goes abroad, makes money, in time comes
+back, starts new career, gets into Parliament, becomes big man. In time,
+Maitland, who, after his time, has also gone abroad, also comes back. The two
+meet. Maitland probably tries to blackmail Aylmore or threatens to let folk
+know that the flourishing Mr. Aylmore, M.P., is an ex-convict.
+Result&mdash;Aylmore lures him to the Temple and quiets him. Pooh!&mdash;the
+whole thing&rsquo;s clear as noontide, as I say. As&mdash;noontide!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo drummed his fingers again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How?&rdquo; he asked quietly. &ldquo;How came Aylmore to be
+identified?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;My work,&rdquo; said Rathbury proudly. &ldquo;My work, my son. You see,
+I thought a lot. And especially after we&rsquo;d found out that Marbury was
+Maitland.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You mean after I&rsquo;d found out,&rdquo; remarked Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Rathbury waved his cigar.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, well, it&rsquo;s all the same,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;You help me,
+and I help you, eh? Well, as I say, I thought a considerable lot. I
+thought&mdash;now, where did Maitland, or Marbury, know or meet Aylmore twenty
+or twenty-two years ago? Not in London, because we knew Maitland never was in
+London&mdash;at any rate, before his trial, and we haven&rsquo;t the least
+proof that he was in London after. And why won&rsquo;t Aylmore tell? Clearly
+because it must have been in some undesirable place. And then, all of a sudden,
+it flashed on me in a moment of&mdash;what do you writing fellows call those
+moments, Spargo?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Inspiration, I should think,&rdquo; said Spargo. &ldquo;Direct
+inspiration.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s it. In a moment of direct inspiration, it flashed on
+me&mdash;why, twenty years ago, Maitland was in Dartmoor&mdash;they must have
+met there! And so, we got some old warders who&rsquo;d been there at that time
+to come to town, and we gave &rsquo;em opportunities to see Aylmore and to
+study him. Of course, he&rsquo;s twenty years older, and he&rsquo;s grown a
+beard, but they began to recall him, and then one man remembered that if he was
+the man they thought he&rsquo;d a certain birth-mark. And&mdash;he has!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Does Aylmore know that he&rsquo;s been identified?&rdquo; asked Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Rathbury pitched his cigar into the fireplace and laughed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Know!&rdquo; he said scornfully. &ldquo;Know? He&rsquo;s admitted it.
+What was the use of standing out against proof like that. He admitted it
+tonight in my presence. Oh, he knows all right!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And what did he say?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Rathbury laughed contemptuously.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Say? Oh, not much. Pretty much what he said about this affair&mdash;that
+when he was convicted the time before he was an innocent man. He&rsquo;s
+certainly a good hand at playing the innocent game.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And of what was he convicted?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, of course, we know all about it&mdash;now. As soon as we found out
+who he really was, we had all the particulars turned up. Aylmore, or Ainsworth
+(Stephen Ainsworth his name really is) was a man who ran a sort of what they
+call a Mutual Benefit Society in a town right away up in the
+North&mdash;Cloudhampton&mdash;some thirty years ago. He was nominally
+secretary, but it was really his own affair. It was patronized by the working
+classes&mdash;Cloudhampton&rsquo;s a purely artisan population&mdash;and they
+stuck a lot of their brass, as they call it, in it. Then suddenly it came to
+smash, and there was nothing. He&mdash;Ainsworth, or Aylmore&mdash;pleaded that
+he was robbed and duped by another man, but the court didn&rsquo;t believe him,
+and he got seven years. Plain story you see, Spargo, when it all comes out,
+eh?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;All stories are quite plain&mdash;when they come out,&rdquo; observed
+Spargo. &ldquo;And he kept silence now, I suppose, because he didn&rsquo;t want
+his daughters to know about his past?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Just so,&rdquo; agreed Rathbury. &ldquo;And I don&rsquo;t know that I
+blame him. He thought, of course, that he&rsquo;d go scot-free over this
+Marbury affair. But he made his mistake in the initial stages, my boy&mdash;oh,
+yes!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo got up from his desk and walked around his room for a few minutes,
+Rathbury meanwhile finding and lighting another cigar. At last Spargo came back
+and clapped a hand on the detective&rsquo;s shoulder.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Look here, Rathbury!&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s very evident that
+you&rsquo;re now going on the lines that Aylmore did murder Marbury. Eh?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Rathbury looked up. His face showed astonishment.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;After evidence like that!&rdquo; he exclaimed. &ldquo;Why, of course.
+There&rsquo;s the motive, my son, the motive!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo laughed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Rathbury!&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Aylmore no more murdered Marbury than
+you did!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The detective got up and put on his hat.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh!&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Perhaps you know who did, then?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I shall know in a few days,&rdquo; answered Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Rathbury stared wonderingly at him. Then he suddenly walked to the door.
+&ldquo;Good-night!&rdquo; he said gruffly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Good-night, Rathbury,&rdquo; replied Spargo and sat down at his desk.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But that night Spargo wrote nothing for the <i>Watchman</i>. All he wrote was a
+short telegram addressed to Aylmore&rsquo;s daughters. There were only three
+words on it&mdash;<i>Have no fear.</i>
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap29"></a>CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE<br/>
+THE CLOSED DOORS</h2>
+
+<p>
+Alone of all the London morning newspapers, the <i>Watchman</i> appeared next
+day destitute of sensationalism in respect to the Middle Temple Murder. The
+other daily journals published more or less vivid accounts of the
+identification of Mr. Stephen Aylmore, M.P. for the Brookminster Division, as
+the <i>ci-devant</i> Stephen Ainsworth, ex-convict, once upon a time founder
+and secretary of the Hearth and Home Mutual Benefit Society, the headquarters
+of which had been at Cloudhampton, in Daleshire; the fall of which had involved
+thousands of honest working folk in terrible distress if not in absolute ruin.
+Most of them had raked up Ainsworth&rsquo;s past to considerable journalistic
+purpose: it had been an easy matter to turn up old files, to recount the fall
+of the Hearth and Home, to tell anew the story of the privations of the humble
+investors whose small hoards had gone in the crash; it had been easy, too, to
+set out again the history of Ainsworth&rsquo;s arrest, trial, and fate. There
+was plenty of romance in the story: it was that of a man who by his financial
+ability had built up a great industrial insurance society; had&mdash;as was
+alleged&mdash;converted the large sums entrusted to him to his own purposes;
+had been detected and punished; had disappeared, after his punishment, so
+effectually that no one knew where he had gone; had come back, comparatively a
+few years later, under another name, a very rich man, and had entered
+Parliament and been, in a modest way, a public character without any of those
+who knew him in his new career suspecting that he had once worn a dress
+liberally ornamented with the broad arrow. Fine copy, excellent copy: some of
+the morning newspapers made a couple of columns of it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But the <i>Watchman</i>, up to then easily ahead of all its contemporaries in
+keeping the public informed of all the latest news in connection with the
+Marbury affair, contented itself with a brief announcement. For after Rathbury
+had left him, Spargo had sought his proprietor and his editor, and had sat long
+in consultation with them, and the result of their talk had been that all the
+<i>Watchman</i> thought fit to tell its readers next morning was contained in a
+curt paragraph:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We understand that Mr. Stephen Aylmore, M.P., who is charged with the
+murder of John Marbury, or Maitland, in the Temple on June 21st last, was
+yesterday afternoon identified by certain officials as Stephen Ainsworth, who
+was sentenced to a term of penal servitude in connection with the Hearth and
+Home Mutual Benefit Society funds nearly thirty years ago.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Coming down to Fleet Street that morning, Spargo, strolling jauntily along the
+front of the Law Courts, encountered a fellow-journalist, a man on an
+opposition newspaper, who grinned at him in a fashion which indicated derision.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Left behind a bit, that rag of yours, this morning, Spargo, my
+boy!&rdquo; he remarked elegantly. &ldquo;Why, you&rsquo;ve missed one of the
+finest opportunities I ever heard of in connection with that Aylmore affair. A
+miserable paragraph!&mdash;why, I worked off a column and a half in ours! What
+were you doing last night, old man?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Sleeping,&rdquo; said Spargo and went by with a nod.
+&ldquo;Sleeping!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He left the other staring at him, and crossed the road to Middle Temple Lane.
+It was just on the stroke of eleven as he walked up the stairs to Mr.
+Elphick&rsquo;s chambers; precisely eleven as he knocked at the outer door. It
+is seldom that outer doors are closed in the Temple at that hour, but
+Elphick&rsquo;s door was closed fast enough. The night before it had been
+promptly opened, but there was no response to Spargo&rsquo;s first knock, nor
+to his second, nor to his third. And half-unconsciously he murmured aloud:
+&ldquo;Elphick&rsquo;s door is closed!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It never occurred to Spargo to knock again: instinct told him that
+Elphick&rsquo;s door was closed because Elphick was not there; closed because
+Elphick was not going to keep the appointment. He turned and walked slowly back
+along the corridor. And just as he reached the head of the stairs Ronald
+Breton, pale and anxious, came running up them, and at sight of Spargo paused,
+staring questioningly at him. As if with a mutual sympathy the two young men
+shook hands.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;m glad you didn&rsquo;t print more than those two or three lines
+in the <i>Watchman</i> this morning,&rdquo; said Breton. &ldquo;It
+was&mdash;considerate. As for the other papers!&mdash;Aylmore assured me last
+night, Spargo, that though he did serve that term at Dartmoor he was innocent
+enough! He was scapegoat for another man who disappeared.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then, as Spargo merely nodded, he added, awkwardly:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And I&rsquo;m obliged to you, too, old chap, for sending that wire to
+the two girls last night&mdash;it was good of you. They want all the comfort
+they can get, poor things! But&mdash;what are you doing here, Spargo?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo leant against the head of the stairs and folded his hands.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I came here,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;to keep an appointment with Mr.
+Elphick&mdash;an appointment which he made when I called on him, as you
+suggested, at nine o&rsquo;clock. The appointment&mdash;a most important
+one&mdash;was for eleven o&rsquo;clock.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Breton glanced at his watch.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Come on, then,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s well past that now, and
+my guardian&rsquo;s a very martinet in the matter of punctuality.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But Spargo did not move. Instead, he shook his head, regarding Breton with
+troubled eyes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;So am I,&rdquo; he answered. &ldquo;I was trained to it. Your guardian
+isn&rsquo;t there, Breton.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not there? If he made an appointment for eleven? Nonsense&mdash;I never
+knew him miss an appointment!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I knocked three times&mdash;three separate times,&rdquo; answered
+Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You should have knocked half a dozen times&mdash;he may have overslept
+himself. He sits up late&mdash;he and old Cardlestone often sit up half the
+night, talking stamps or playing piquet,&rdquo; said Breton. &ldquo;Come
+on&mdash;you&rsquo;ll see!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo shook his head again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He&rsquo;s not there, Breton,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s
+gone!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Breton stared at the journalist as if he had just announced that he had seen
+Mr. Septimus Elphick riding down Fleet Street on a dromedary. He seized
+Spargo&rsquo;s elbow.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Come on!&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I have a key to Mr. Elphick&rsquo;s
+door, so that I can go in and out as I like. I&rsquo;ll soon show you whether
+he&rsquo;s gone or not.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo followed the young barrister down the corridor.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;All the same,&rdquo; he said meditatively as Breton fitted a key to the
+latch, &ldquo;he&rsquo;s not there, Breton. He&rsquo;s&mdash;off!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Good heavens, man, I don&rsquo;t know what you&rsquo;re talking
+about!&rdquo; exclaimed Breton, opening the door and walking into the lobby.
+&ldquo;Off! Where on earth should he be off to, when he&rsquo;s made an
+appointment with you for eleven, and&mdash;Hullo!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He had opened the door of the room in which Spargo had met Elphick and Miss
+Baylis the night before, and was walking in when he pulled himself up on the
+threshold with a sharp exclamation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Good God!&rdquo; he cried. &ldquo;What&mdash;what&rsquo;s all
+this?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo quietly looked over Breton&rsquo;s shoulder. It needed but one quick
+glance to show him that much had happened in that quiet room since he had
+quitted it the night before. There stood the easy-chair in which he had left
+Elphick; there, close by it, but pushed aside, as if by a hurried hand, was the
+little table with its spirit case, its syphon, its glass, in which stale liquid
+still stood; there was the novel, turned face downwards; there, upon the novel,
+was Elphick&rsquo;s pipe. But the rest of the room was in dire confusion. The
+drawers of a bureau had been pulled open and never put back; papers of all
+descriptions, old legal-looking documents, old letters, littered the
+centre-table and the floor; in one corner of the room a black japanned box had
+been opened, its contents strewn about, and the lid left yawning. And in the
+grate, and all over the fender there were masses of burned and charred paper;
+it was only too evident that the occupant of the chambers, wherever he might
+have disappeared to, had spent some time before his disappearance in destroying
+a considerable heap of documents and papers, and in such haste that he had not
+troubled to put matters straight before he went.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Breton stared at this scene for a moment in utter consternation. Then he made
+one step towards an inner door, and Spargo followed him. Together they entered
+an inner room&mdash;a sleeping apartment. There was no one in it, but there
+were evidences that Elphick had just as hastily packed a bag as he had
+destroyed his papers. The clothes which Spargo had seen him wearing the
+previous evening were flung here, there, everywhere: the gorgeous
+smoking-jacket was tossed unceremoniously in one corner, a dress-shirt, in the
+bosom of which valuable studs still glistened, in another. One or two suitcases
+lay about, as if they had been examined and discarded in favour of something
+more portable; here, too, drawers, revealing stocks of linen and underclothing,
+had been torn open and left open; open, too, swung the door of a wardrobe,
+revealing a quantity of expensive clothing. And Spargo, looking around him,
+seemed to see all that had happened&mdash;the hasty, almost frantic search for
+and tearing up and burning of papers; the hurried change of clothing, of
+packing necessaries into a bag that could be carried, and then the flight the
+getting away, the&mdash;&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What on earth does all this mean?&rdquo; exclaimed Breton. &ldquo;What
+is it, Spargo?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I mean exactly what I told you,&rdquo; answered Spargo.
+&ldquo;He&rsquo;s off! Off!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Off! But why off? What&mdash;my guardian!&mdash;as quiet an old
+gentleman as there is in the Temple&mdash;off!&rdquo; cried Breton. &ldquo;For
+what reason, eh? It isn&rsquo;t&mdash;good God, Spargo, it isn&rsquo;t because
+of anything you said to him last night!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I should say it is precisely because of something that I said to him
+last night,&rdquo; replied Spargo. &ldquo;I was a fool ever to let him out of
+my sight.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Breton turned on his companion and gasped.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Out&mdash;of&mdash;your&mdash;sight!&rdquo; he exclaimed.
+&ldquo;Why&mdash;why&mdash;you don&rsquo;t mean to say that Mr. Elphick has
+anything to do with this Marbury affair? For God&rsquo;s sake,
+Spargo&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo laid a hand on the young barrister&rsquo;s shoulder.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;m afraid you&rsquo;ll have to hear a good deal, Breton,&rdquo;
+he said. &ldquo;I was going to talk to you today in any case. You
+see&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Before Spargo could say more a woman, bearing the implements which denote the
+charwoman&rsquo;s profession, entered the room and immediately cried out at
+what she saw. Breton turned on her almost savagely.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Here, you!&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Have you seen anything of Mr. Elphick
+this morning?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The charwoman rolled her eyes and lifted her hands.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Me, sir! Not a sign of him, sir. Which I never comes here much before
+half-past eleven, sir, Mr. Elphick being then gone out to his breakfast. I see
+him yesterday morning, sir, which he was then in his usual state of good
+health, sir, if any thing&rsquo;s the matter with him now. No, sir, I
+ain&rsquo;t seen nothing of him.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Breton let out another exclamation of impatience.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You&rsquo;d better leave all this,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Mr.
+Elphick&rsquo;s evidently gone away in a hurry, and you mustn&rsquo;t touch
+anything here until he comes back. I&rsquo;m going to lock up the chambers: if
+you&rsquo;ve a key of them give it to me.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The charwoman handed over a key, gave another astonished look at the rooms, and
+vanished, muttering, and Breton turned to Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What do you say?&rdquo; he demanded. &ldquo;I must hear&mdash;a good
+deal! Out with it, then, man, for Heaven&rsquo;s sake.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But Spargo shook his head.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not now, Breton,&rdquo; he answered. &ldquo;Presently, I tell you, for
+Miss Aylmore&rsquo;s sake, and your own, the first thing to do is to get on
+your guardian&rsquo;s track. We must&mdash;must, I say!&mdash;and at
+once.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Breton stood staring at Spargo for a moment as if he could not credit his own
+senses. Then he suddenly motioned Spargo out of the room.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Come on!&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I know who&rsquo;ll know where he is, if
+anybody does.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Who, then?&rdquo; asked Spargo, as they hurried out.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Cardlestone,&rdquo; answered Breton, grimly. &ldquo;Cardlestone!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap30"></a>CHAPTER THIRTY<br/>
+REVELATION</h2>
+
+<p>
+There was as much bright sunshine that morning in Middle Temple Lane as ever
+manages to get into it, and some of it was shining in the entry into which
+Spargo and Breton presently hurried. Full of haste as he was Breton paused at
+the foot of the stair. He looked down at the floor and at the wall at its side.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Wasn&rsquo;t it there?&rdquo; he said in a low voice, pointing at the
+place he looked at. &ldquo;Wasn&rsquo;t it there, Spargo, just there, that
+Marbury, or, rather, Maitland, was found?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It was just there,&rdquo; answered Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You saw him?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I saw him.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Soon&mdash;afterwards?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Immediately after he was found. You know all that, Breton. Why do you
+ask now?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Breton, who was still staring at the place on which he had fixed his eyes on
+walking into the entry, shook his head.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t know,&rdquo; he answered. &ldquo;I&mdash;but come
+on&mdash;let&rsquo;s see if old Cardlestone can tell us anything.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was another charwoman, armed with pails and buckets, outside
+Cardlestone&rsquo;s door, into which she was just fitting a key. It was evident
+to Spargo that she knew Breton, for she smiled at him as she opened the door.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think Mr. Cardlestone&rsquo;ll be in, sir,&rdquo; she
+said. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s generally gone out to breakfast at this time&mdash;him
+and Mr. Elphick goes together.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Just see,&rdquo; said Breton. &ldquo;I want to see him if he is
+in.&rdquo; The charwoman entered the chambers and immediately screamed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Quite so,&rdquo; remarked Spargo. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s what I expected to
+hear. Cardlestone, you see, Breton, is also&mdash;off!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Breton made no reply. He rushed after the charwoman, with Spargo in close
+attendance.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Good God&mdash;another!&rdquo; groaned Breton.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+If the confusion in Elphick&rsquo;s rooms had been bad, that in
+Cardlestone&rsquo;s chambers was worse. Here again all the features of the
+previous scene were repeated&mdash;drawers had been torn open, papers thrown
+about; the hearth was choked with light ashes; everything was at sixes and
+sevens. An open door leading into an inner room showed that Cardlestone, like
+Elphick, had hastily packed a bag; like Elphick had changed his clothes, and
+had thrown his discarded garments anywhere, into any corner. Spargo began to
+realize what had taken place&mdash;Elphick, having made his own preparations
+for flight, had come to Cardlestone, and had expedited him, and they had fled
+together. But&mdash;why?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The charwoman sat down in the nearest chair and began to moan and sob; Breton
+strode forward, across the heaps of papers and miscellaneous objects tossed
+aside in that hurried search and clearing up, into the inner room. And Spargo,
+looking about him, suddenly caught sight of something lying on the floor at
+which he made a sharp clutch. He had just secured it and hurried it into his
+pocket when Breton came back.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know what all this means, Spargo,&rdquo; he said, almost
+wearily. &ldquo;I suppose you do. Look here,&rdquo; he went on, turning to the
+charwoman, &ldquo;stop that row&mdash;that&rsquo;ll do no good, you know. I
+suppose Mr. Cardlestone&rsquo;s gone away in a hurry. You&rsquo;d
+better&mdash;what had she better do, Spargo?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Leave things exactly as they are, lock up the chambers, and as
+you&rsquo;re a friend of Mr. Cardlestone&rsquo;s give you the key,&rdquo;
+answered Spargo, with a significant glance. &ldquo;Do that, now, and
+let&rsquo;s go&mdash;I&rsquo;ve something to do.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Once outside, with the startled charwoman gone away, Spargo turned to Breton.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll tell you all I know, presently, Breton,&rdquo; he said.
+&ldquo;In the meantime, I want to find out if the lodge porter saw Mr. Elphick
+or Mr. Cardlestone leave. I must know where they&rsquo;ve gone&mdash;if I can
+only find out. I don&rsquo;t suppose they went on foot.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;All right,&rdquo; responded Breton, gloomily. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ll go and
+ask. But this is all beyond me. You don&rsquo;t mean to
+say&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Wait a while,&rdquo; answered Spargo. &ldquo;One thing at once,&rdquo;
+he continued, as they walked up Middle Temple Lane. &ldquo;This is the first
+thing. You ask the porter if he&rsquo;s seen anything of either of
+them&mdash;he knows you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The porter, duly interrogated, responded with alacrity.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Anything of Mr. Elphick this morning, Mr. Breton?&rdquo; he answered.
+&ldquo;Certainly, sir. I got a taxi for Mr. Elphick and Mr. Cardlestone early
+this morning&mdash;soon after seven. Mr. Elphick said they were going to Paris,
+and they&rsquo;d breakfast at Charing Cross before the train left.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Say when they&rsquo;d be back?&rdquo; asked Breton, with an assumption
+of entire carelessness.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, sir, Mr. Elphick didn&rsquo;t,&rdquo; answered the porter.
+&ldquo;But I should say they wouldn&rsquo;t be long because they&rsquo;d only
+got small suit-cases with them&mdash;such as they&rsquo;d put a day or
+two&rsquo;s things in, sir.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;All right,&rdquo; said Breton. He turned away towards Spargo who had
+already moved off. &ldquo;What next?&rdquo; he asked. &ldquo;Charing Cross, I
+suppose!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo smiled and shook his head.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No,&rdquo; he answered. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve no use for Charing Cross. They
+haven&rsquo;t gone to Paris. That was all a blind. For the present let&rsquo;s
+go back to your chambers. Then I&rsquo;ll talk to you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Once within Breton&rsquo;s inner room, with the door closed upon them, Spargo
+dropped into an easy-chair and looked at the young barrister with earnest
+attention.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Breton!&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I believe we&rsquo;re coming in sight of
+land. You want to save your prospective father-in-law, don&rsquo;t you?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Of course!&rdquo; growled Breton. &ldquo;That goes without saying.
+But&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But you may have to make some sacrifices in order to do it,&rdquo; said
+Spargo. &ldquo;You see&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Sacrifices!&rdquo; exclaimed Breton. &ldquo;What&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You may have to sacrifice some ideas&mdash;you may find that
+you&rsquo;ll not be able to think as well of some people in the future as you
+have thought of them in the past. For instance&mdash;Mr. Elphick.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Breton&rsquo;s face grew dark.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Speak plainly, Spargo!&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s best with
+me.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Very well,&rdquo; replied Spargo. &ldquo;Mr. Elphick, then, is in some
+way connected with this affair.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You mean the&mdash;murder?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I mean the murder. So is Cardlestone. Of that I&rsquo;m now dead
+certain. And that&rsquo;s why they&rsquo;re off. I startled Elphick last night.
+It&rsquo;s evident that he immediately communicated with Cardlestone, and that
+they made a rapid exit. Why?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why? That&rsquo;s what I&rsquo;m asking you! Why? Why? Why?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Because they&rsquo;re afraid of something coming out. And being afraid,
+their first instinct is to&mdash;run. They&rsquo;ve run at the first alarm.
+Foolish&mdash;but instinctive.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Breton, who had flung himself into the elbow-chair at his desk, jumped to his
+feet and thumped his blotting-pad.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Spargo!&rdquo; he exclaimed. &ldquo;Are you telling me that you accuse
+my guardian and his friend, Mr. Cardlestone, of being&mdash;murderers?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nothing of the sort. I am accusing Mr. Elphick and Mr. Cardlestone of
+knowing more about the murder than they care to tell or want to tell. I am also
+accusing them, and especially your guardian, of knowing all about Maitland,
+alias Marbury. I made him confess last night that he knew this dead man to be
+John Maitland.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You did!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I did. And now, Breton, since it&rsquo;s got to come out, we&rsquo;ll
+have the truth. Pull yourself together&mdash;get your nerves ready, for
+you&rsquo;ll have to stand a shock or two. But I know what I&rsquo;m talking
+about&mdash;I can prove every word I&rsquo;m going to say to you. And first let
+me ask you a few questions. Do you know anything about your parentage?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nothing&mdash;beyond what Mr. Elphick has told me.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And what was that?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That my parents were old friends of his, who died young, leaving me
+unprovided for, and that he took me up and looked after me.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And he&rsquo;s never given you any documentary evidence of any sort to
+prove the truth of that story?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Never! I never questioned his statement. Why should I?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You never remember anything of your childhood&mdash;I mean of any person
+who was particularly near you in your childhood?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I remember the people who brought me up from the time I was three years
+old. And I have just a faint, shadowy recollection of some woman, a tall, dark
+woman, I think, before that.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Miss Baylis,&rdquo; said Spargo to himself. &ldquo;All right,
+Breton,&rdquo; he went on aloud. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m going to tell you the truth.
+I&rsquo;ll tell it to you straight out and give you all the explanations
+afterwards. Your real name is not Breton at all. Your real name is Maitland,
+and you&rsquo;re the only child of the man who was found murdered at the foot
+of Cardlestone&rsquo;s staircase!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo had been wondering how Breton would take this, and he gazed at him with
+some anxiety as he got out the last words. What would he do?&mdash;what would
+he say?&mdash;what&mdash;&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Breton sat down quietly at his desk and looked Spargo hard between the eyes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Prove that to me, Spargo,&rdquo; he said, in hard, matter-of-fact tones.
+&ldquo;Prove it to me, every word. Every word, Spargo!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo nodded.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I will&mdash;every word,&rdquo; he answered. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s the right
+thing. Listen, then.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was a quarter to twelve, Spargo noticed, throwing a glance at the clock
+outside, as he began his story; it was past one when he brought it to an end.
+And all that time Breton listened with the keenest attention, only asking a
+question now and then; now and then making a brief note on a sheet of paper
+which he had drawn to him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s all,&rdquo; said Spargo at last.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It&rsquo;s plenty,&rdquo; observed Breton laconically.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He sat staring at his notes for a moment; then he looked up at Spargo.
+&ldquo;What do you really think?&rdquo; he asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;About&mdash;what?&rdquo; said Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;This flight of Elphick&rsquo;s and Cardlestone&rsquo;s.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I think, as I said, that they knew something which they think may be
+forced upon them. I never saw a man in a greater fright than that I saw Elphick
+in last night. And it&rsquo;s evident that Cardlestone shares in that fright,
+or they wouldn&rsquo;t have gone off in this way together.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Do you think they know anything of the actual murder?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo shook his head.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know. Probably. They know something. And&mdash;look
+here!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo put his hand in his breast pocket and drew something out which he handed
+to Breton, who gazed at it curiously.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What&rsquo;s this?&rdquo; he demanded. &ldquo;Stamps?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That, from the description of Criedir, the stamp-dealer, is a sheet of
+those rare Australian stamps which Maitland had on him&mdash;carried on him. I
+picked it up just now in Cardlestone&rsquo;s room, when you were looking into
+his bedroom.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But that, after all, proves nothing. Those mayn&rsquo;t be the identical
+stamps. And whether they are or not&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What are the probabilities?&rdquo; interrupted Spargo sharply. &ldquo;I
+believe that those are the stamps which Maitland&mdash;your father!&mdash;had
+on him, and I want to know how they came to be in Cardlestone&rsquo;s rooms.
+And I will know.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Breton handed the stamps back.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But the general thing, Spargo?&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;If they
+didn&rsquo;t murder&mdash;I can&rsquo;t realize the thing yet!&mdash;my
+father&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If they didn&rsquo;t murder your father, they know who did!&rdquo;
+exclaimed Spargo. &ldquo;Now, then, it&rsquo;s time for more action. Let
+Elphick and Cardlestone alone for the moment&mdash;they&rsquo;ll be tracked
+easily enough. I want to tackle something else for the moment. How do you get
+an authority from the Government to open a grave?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Order from the Home Secretary, which will have to be obtained by showing
+the very strongest reasons why it should be made.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Good! We&rsquo;ll give the reasons. I want to have a grave
+opened.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A grave opened! Whose grave?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The grave of the man Chamberlayne at Market Milcaster,&rdquo; replied
+Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Breton started.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;His? In Heaven&rsquo;s name, why?&rdquo; he demanded.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo laughed as he got up.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Because I believe it&rsquo;s empty,&rdquo; he answered. &ldquo;Because I
+believe that Chamberlayne is alive, and that his other name
+is&mdash;Cardlestone!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap31"></a>CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE<br/>
+THE PENITENT WINDOW-CLEANER</h2>
+
+<p>
+That afternoon Spargo had another of his momentous interviews with his
+proprietor and his editor. The first result was that all three drove to the
+offices of the legal gentleman who catered for the <i>Watchman</i> when it
+wanted any law, and that things were put in shape for an immediate application
+to the Home Office for permission to open the Chamberlayne grave at Market
+Milcaster; the second was that on the following morning there appeared in the
+<i>Watchman</i> a notice which set half the mouths of London a-watering. That
+notice; penned by Spargo, ran as follows:&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+&ldquo;ONE THOUSAND POUNDS REWARD.
+</p>
+
+<p class="letter">
+&ldquo;W<small>HEREAS</small>, on some date within the past twelve months,
+there was stolen, abstracted, or taken from the chambers in Fountain Court,
+Temple, occupied by Mr. Stephen Aylmore, M.P., under the name of Mr. Anderson,
+a walking-stick, or stout staff, of foreign make, and of curious workmanship,
+which stick was probably used in the murder of John Marbury, or Maitland, in
+Middle Temple Lane, on the night of June 21–22 last, and is now in the hands of
+the police:<br/>
+    &ldquo;This is to give notice that the Proprietor of the <i>Watchman</i>
+newspaper will pay the above-mentioned reward (O<small>NE</small>
+T<small>HOUSAND</small> P<small>OUNDS</small> S<small>TERLING</small>) at once
+and in cash to whosoever will prove that he or she stole, abstracted, or took
+away the said stick from the said chambers, and will further give full
+information as to his or her disposal of the same, and the Proprietor of the
+<i>Watchman</i> moreover engages to treat any revelation affecting the said
+stick in the most strictly private and confidential manner, and to abstain from
+using it in any way detrimental to the informant, who should call at the
+<i>Watchman</i> office, and ask for Mr. Frank Spargo at any time between eleven
+and one o&rsquo;clock midday, and seven and eleven o&rsquo;clock in the
+evening.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And you really expect to get some information through that?&rdquo; asked
+Breton, who came into Spargo&rsquo;s room about noon on the day on which the
+promising announcement came out. &ldquo;You really do?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Before today is out,&rdquo; said Spargo confidently. &ldquo;There is
+more magic in a thousand-pound reward than you fancy, Breton. I&rsquo;ll have
+the history of that stick before midnight.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How are you to tell that you won&rsquo;t be imposed upon?&rdquo;
+suggested Breton. &ldquo;Anybody can say that he or she stole the stick.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Whoever comes here with any tale of a stick will have to prove to me how
+he or she got the stick and what was done with the stick,&rdquo; said Spargo.
+&ldquo;I haven&rsquo;t the least doubt that that stick was stolen or taken away
+from Aylmore&rsquo;s rooms in Fountain Court, and that it got into the hands
+of&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, of whom?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s what I want to know in some fashion. I&rsquo;ve an idea,
+already. But I can afford to wait for definite information. I know one
+thing&mdash;when I get that information&mdash;as I shall&mdash;we shall be a
+long way on the road towards establishing Aylmore&rsquo;s innocence.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Breton made no remark upon this. He was looking at Spargo with a meditative
+expression.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Spargo,&rdquo; he said, suddenly, &ldquo;do you think you&rsquo;ll get
+that order for the opening of the grave at Market Milcaster?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I was talking to the solicitors over the &rsquo;phone just now,&rdquo;
+answered Spargo. &ldquo;They&rsquo;ve every confidence about it. In fact,
+it&rsquo;s possible it may be made this afternoon. In that case, the opening
+will be made early tomorrow morning.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Shall you go?&rdquo; asked Breton.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Certainly. And you can go with me, if you like. Better keep in touch
+with us all day in case we hear. You ought to be there&mdash;you&rsquo;re
+concerned.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I should like to go&mdash;I will go,&rdquo; said Breton. &ldquo;And if
+that grave proves to be&mdash;empty&mdash;I&rsquo;ll&mdash;I&rsquo;ll tell you
+something.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo looked up with sharp instinct.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You&rsquo;ll tell me something? Something? What?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Never mind&mdash;wait until we see if that coffin contains a dead body
+or lead and sawdust. If there&rsquo;s no body there&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At that moment one of the senior messenger boys came in and approached Spargo.
+His countenance, usually subdued to an official stolidity, showed signs of
+something very like excitement.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There&rsquo;s a man downstairs asking for you, Mr. Spargo,&rdquo; he
+said. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s been hanging about a bit, sir,&mdash;seems very shy
+about coming up. He won&rsquo;t say what he wants, and he won&rsquo;t fill up a
+form, sir. Says all he wants is a word or two with you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Bring him up at once!&rdquo; commanded Spargo. He turned to Breton when
+the boy had gone. &ldquo;There!&rdquo; he said, laughing. &ldquo;This is the
+man about the stick&mdash;you see if it isn&rsquo;t.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You&rsquo;re such a cock-sure chap, Spargo,&rdquo; said Breton.
+&ldquo;You&rsquo;re always going on a straight line.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Trying to, you mean,&rdquo; retorted Spargo. &ldquo;Well, stop here, and
+hear what this chap has to say: it&rsquo;ll no doubt be amusing.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The messenger boy, deeply conscious that he was ushering into Spargo&rsquo;s
+room an individual who might shortly carry away a thousand pounds of good
+<i>Watchman</i> money in his pocket, opened the door and introduced a shy and
+self-conscious young man, whose nervousness was painfully apparent to everybody
+and deeply felt by himself. He halted on the threshold, looking round the
+comfortably-furnished room, and at the two well-dressed young men which it
+framed as if he feared to enter on a scene of such grandeur.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Come in, come in!&rdquo; said Spargo, rising and pointing to an
+easy-chair at the side of his desk. &ldquo;Take a seat. You&rsquo;ve called
+about that reward, of course.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The man in the chair eyed the two of them cautiously, and not without
+suspicion. He cleared his throat with a palpable effort.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Of course,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s all on the strict private.
+Name of Edward Mollison, sir.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And where do you live, and what do you do?&rdquo; asked Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You might put it down Rowton House, Whitechapel,&rdquo; answered Edward
+Mollison. &ldquo;Leastways, that&rsquo;s where I generally hang out when I can
+afford it. And&mdash;window-cleaner. Leastways, I was window cleaning
+when&mdash;when&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;When you came in contact with the stick we&rsquo;ve been advertising
+about,&rdquo; suggested Spargo. &ldquo;Just so. Well, Mollison&mdash;what about
+the stick?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mollison looked round at the door, and then at the windows, and then at Breton.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There ain&rsquo;t no danger of me being got into trouble along of that
+stick?&rdquo; he asked. &ldquo;&rsquo;Cause if there is, I ain&rsquo;t a-going
+to say a word&mdash;no, not for no thousand pounds! Me never having been in no
+trouble of any sort, guv&rsquo;nor&mdash;though a poor man.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not the slightest danger in the world, Mollison,&rdquo; replied Spargo.
+&ldquo;Not the least. All you&rsquo;ve got to do is to tell the truth&mdash;and
+prove that it is the truth. So it was you who took that queer-looking stick out
+of Mr. Aylmore&rsquo;s rooms in Fountain Court, was it?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mollison appeared to find this direct question soothing to his feelings. He
+smiled weakly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It was cert&rsquo;nly me as took it, sir,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Not
+that I meant to pinch it&mdash;not me! And, as you might say, I didn&rsquo;t
+take it, when all&rsquo;s said and done. It was&mdash;put on me.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Put on you, was it?&rdquo; said Spargo. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s interesting.
+And how was it put on you?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mollison grinned again and rubbed his chin.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It was this here way,&rdquo; he answered. &ldquo;You see, I was working
+at that time&mdash;near on to nine months since, it is&mdash;for the Universal
+Daylight Window Cleaning Company, and I used to clean a many windows here and
+there in the Temple, and them windows at Mr. Aylmore&rsquo;s&mdash;only I knew
+them as Mr. Anderson&rsquo;s&mdash;among &rsquo;em. And I was there one
+morning, early it was, when the charwoman she says to me, &lsquo;I wish
+you&rsquo;d take these two or three hearthrugs,&rsquo; she says, &lsquo;and
+give &rsquo;em a good beating,&rsquo; she says. And me being always a ready one
+to oblige, &lsquo;All right!&rsquo; I says, and takes &rsquo;em.
+&lsquo;Here&rsquo;s something to wallop &rsquo;em with,&rsquo; she says, and
+pulls that there old stick out of a lot that was in a stand in a corner of the
+lobby. And that&rsquo;s how I came to handle it, sir.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I see,&rdquo; said Spargo. &ldquo;A good explanation. And when you had
+beaten the hearthrugs&mdash;what then?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mollison smiled his weak smile again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, sir, I looked at that there stick and I see it was something
+uncommon,&rdquo; he answered. &ldquo;And I thinks&mdash;&lsquo;Well, this Mr.
+Anderson, he&rsquo;s got a bundle of sticks and walking canes up
+there&mdash;he&rsquo;ll never miss this old thing,&rsquo; I thinks. And so I
+left it in a corner when I&rsquo;d done beating the rugs, and when I went away
+with my things I took it with me.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You took it with you?&rdquo; said Spargo. &ldquo;Just so. To keep as a
+curiosity, I suppose?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mollison&rsquo;s weak smile turned to one of cunning. He was obviously losing
+his nervousness; the sound of his own voice and the reception of his news was
+imparting confidence to him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not half!&rdquo; he answered. &ldquo;You see, guv&rsquo;nor, there was
+an old cove as I knew in the Temple there as is, or was, &rsquo;cause I
+ain&rsquo;t been there since, a collector of antikities, like, and I&rsquo;d
+sold him a queer old thing, time and again. And, of course, I had him in my eye
+when I took the stick away&mdash;see?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I see. And you took the stick to him?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I took it there and then,&rdquo; replied Mollison. &ldquo;Pitched him a
+tale, I did, about it having been brought from foreign parts by Uncle
+Simon&mdash;which I never had no Uncle Simon. Made out it was a rare
+curiosity&mdash;which it might ha&rsquo; been one, for all I know.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Exactly. And the old cove took a fancy to it, eh?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Bought it there and then,&rdquo; answered Mollison, with something very
+like a wink.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah! Bought it there and then. And how much did he give you for
+it?&rdquo; asked Spargo. &ldquo;Something handsome, I hope?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Couple o&rsquo; quid,&rdquo; replied Mollison. &ldquo;Me not wishing to
+part with a family heirloom for less.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Just so. And do you happen to be able to tell me the old cove&rsquo;s
+name and his address, Mollison?&rdquo; asked Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I do, sir. Which they&rsquo;ve painted on his entry&mdash;the fifth or
+sixth as you go down Middle Temple Lane,&rdquo; answered Mollison. &ldquo;Mr.
+Nicholas Cardlestone, first floor up the staircase.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo rose from his seat without as much as a look at Breton.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Come this way, Mollison,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ll go and see
+about your little reward. Excuse me, Breton.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Breton kicked his heels in solitude for half an hour. Then Spargo came back.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There&mdash;that&rsquo;s one matter settled, Breton,&rdquo; he said.
+&ldquo;Now for the next. The Home Secretary&rsquo;s made the order for the
+opening of the grave at Market Milcaster. I&rsquo;m going down there at once,
+and I suppose you&rsquo;re coming. And remember, if that grave&rsquo;s
+empty&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If that grave&rsquo;s empty,&rdquo; said Breton, &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll tell
+you&mdash;a good deal.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap32"></a>CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO<br/>
+THE CONTENTS OF THE COFFIN</h2>
+
+<p>
+There travelled down together to Market Milcaster late that afternoon, Spargo,
+Breton, the officials from the Home Office, entrusted with the order for the
+opening of the Chamberlayne grave, and a solicitor acting on behalf of the
+proprietor of the <i>Watchman</i>. It was late in the evening when they reached
+the little town, but Spargo, having looked in at the parlour of the
+&ldquo;Yellow Dragon&rdquo; and ascertained that Mr. Quarterpage had only just
+gone home, took Breton across the street to the old gentleman&rsquo;s house.
+Mr. Quarterpage himself came to the door, and recognized Spargo immediately.
+Nothing would satisfy him but that the two should go in; his family, he said,
+had just retired, but he himself was going to take a final nightcap and a
+cigar, and they must share it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;For a few minutes only then, Mr. Quarterpage,&rdquo; said Spargo as they
+followed the old man into his dining-room. &ldquo;We have to be up at daybreak.
+And&mdash;possibly&mdash;you, too, would like to be up just as early.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Quarterpage looked an enquiry over the top of a decanter which he was
+handling.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;At daybreak?&rdquo; he exclaimed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The fact is,&rdquo; said Spargo, &ldquo;that grave of
+Chamberlayne&rsquo;s is going to be opened at daybreak. We have managed to get
+an order from the Home Secretary for the exhumation of Chamberlayne&rsquo;s
+body: the officials in charge of it have come down in the same train with us;
+we&rsquo;re all staying across there at the &lsquo;Dragon.&rsquo; The officials
+have gone to make the proper arrangements with your authorities. It will be at
+daybreak, or as near it as can conveniently be managed. And I suppose, now that
+you know of it, you&rsquo;ll be there?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;God bless me!&rdquo; exclaimed Mr. Quarterpage. &ldquo;You&rsquo;ve
+really done that! Well, well, so we shall know the truth at last, after all
+these years. You&rsquo;re a very wonderful young man, Mr. Spargo, upon my word.
+And this other young gentleman?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo looked at Breton, who had already given him permission to speak.
+&ldquo;Mr. Quarterpage,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;this young gentleman is, without
+doubt, John Maitland&rsquo;s son. He&rsquo;s the young barrister, Mr. Ronald
+Breton, that I told you of, but there&rsquo;s no doubt about his parentage. And
+I&rsquo;m sure you&rsquo;ll shake hands with him and wish him well.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Quarterpage set down decanter and glass and hastened to give Breton his
+hand.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;My dear young sir!&rdquo; he exclaimed. &ldquo;That I will indeed! And
+as to wishing you well&mdash;ah, I never wished anything but well to your poor
+father. He was led away, sir, led away by Chamberlayne. God bless me, what a
+night of surprises! Why, Mr. Spargo, supposing that coffin is found
+empty&mdash;what then?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then,&rdquo; answered Spargo, &ldquo;then I think we shall be able to
+put our hands on the man who is supposed to be in it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You think my father was worked upon by this man Chamberlayne,
+sir?&rdquo; observed Breton a few minutes later when they had all sat down
+round Mr. Quarterpage&rsquo;s hospitable hearth. &ldquo;You think he was unduly
+influenced by him?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Quarterpage shook his head sadly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Chamberlayne, my dear young sir,&rdquo; he answered. &ldquo;Chamberlayne
+was a plausible and a clever fellow. Nobody knew anything about him until he
+came to this town, and yet before he had been here very long he had contrived
+to ingratiate himself with everybody&mdash;of course, to his own advantage. I
+firmly believe that he twisted your father round his little finger. As I told
+Mr. Spargo there when he was making his enquiries of me a short while back, it
+would never have been any surprise to me to hear&mdash;definitely, I mean,
+young gentlemen&mdash;that all this money that was in question went into
+Chamberlayne&rsquo;s pockets. Dear me&mdash;dear me!&mdash;and you really
+believe that Chamberlayne is actually alive, Mr. Spargo?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo pulled out his watch. &ldquo;We shall all know whether he was buried in
+that grave before another six hours are over, Mr. Quarterpage,&rdquo; he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He might well have spoken of four hours instead of six, for it was then nearly
+midnight, and before three o&rsquo;clock Spargo and Breton, with the other men
+who had accompanied them from London were out of the &ldquo;Yellow
+Dragon&rdquo; and on their way to the cemetery just outside the little town.
+Over the hills to the eastward the grey dawn was slowly breaking: the long
+stretch of marshland which lies between Market Milcaster and the sea was white
+with fog: on the cypresses and acacias of the cemetery hung veils and webs of
+gossamer: everything around them was quiet as the dead folk who lay beneath
+their feet. And the people actively concerned went quietly to work, and those
+who could do nothing but watch stood around in silence.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;In all my long life of over ninety years,&rdquo; whispered old
+Quarterpage, who had met them at the cemetery gates, looking fresh and brisk in
+spite of his shortened rest, &ldquo;I have never seen this done before. It
+seems a strange, strange thing to interfere with a dead man&rsquo;s last
+resting-place&mdash;a dreadful thing.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If there is a dead man there,&rdquo; said Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He himself was mainly curious about the details of this exhumation; he had no
+scruples, sentimental or otherwise, about the breaking in upon the dead. He
+watched all that was done. The men employed by the local authorities,
+instructed over-night, had fenced in the grave with canvas; the proceedings
+were accordingly conducted in strict privacy; a man was posted to keep away any
+very early passersby, who might be attracted by the unusual proceedings. At
+first there was nothing to do but wait, and Spargo occupied himself by
+reflecting that every spadeful of earth thrown out of that grave was bringing
+him nearer to the truth; he had an unconquerable intuition that the truth of at
+any rate one phase of the Marbury case was going to be revealed to them. If the
+coffin to which they were digging down contained a body, and that the body of
+the stockbroker, Chamberlayne, then a good deal of his, Spargo&rsquo;s, latest
+theory, would be dissolved to nothingness. But if that coffin contained no body
+at all, then&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;They&rsquo;re down to it!&rdquo; whispered Breton.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Presently they all went and looked down into the grave. The workmen had
+uncovered the coffin preparatory to lifting it to the surface; one of them was
+brushing the earth away from the name-plate. And in the now strong light they
+could all read the lettering on it.
+</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+JAMES CARTWRIGHT CHAMBERLAYNE<br/>
+Born 1852<br/>
+Died 1891
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo turned away as the men began to lift the coffin out of the grave.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We shall know now!&rdquo; he whispered to Breton. &ldquo;And
+yet&mdash;what is it we shall know if&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If what?&rdquo; said Breton. &ldquo;If&mdash;what?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But Spargo shook his head. This was one of the great moments he had lately been
+working for, and the issues were tremendous.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now for it!&rdquo; said the <i>Watchman&rsquo;s</i> solicitor in an
+undertone. &ldquo;Come, Mr. Spargo, now we shall see.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They all gathered round the coffin, set on low trestles at the graveside, as
+the workmen silently went to work on the screws. The screws were rusted in
+their sockets; they grated as the men slowly worked them out. It seemed to
+Spargo that each man grew slower and slower in his movements; he felt that he
+himself was getting fidgety. Then he heard a voice of authority.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Lift the lid off!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A man at the head of the coffin, a man at the foot suddenly and swiftly raised
+the lid: the men gathered round craned their necks with a quick movement.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sawdust!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The coffin was packed to the brim with sawdust, tightly pressed down. The
+surface lay smooth, undisturbed, levelled as some hand had levelled it long
+years before. They were not in the presence of death, but of deceit.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Somebody laughed faintly. The sound of the laughter broke the spell. The chief
+official present looked round him with a smile.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is evident that there were good grounds for suspicion,&rdquo; he
+remarked. &ldquo;Here is no dead body, gentlemen. See if anything lies beneath
+the sawdust,&rdquo; he added, turning to the workmen. &ldquo;Turn it
+out!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The workmen began to scoop out the sawdust with their hands; one of them,
+evidently desirous of making sure that no body was in the coffin, thrust down
+his fingers at various places along its length. He, too, laughed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The coffin&rsquo;s weighted with lead!&rdquo; he remarked.
+&ldquo;See!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And tearing the sawdust aside, he showed those around him that at three
+intervals bars of lead had been tightly wedged into the coffin where the head,
+the middle, and the feet of a corpse would have rested.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Done it cleverly,&rdquo; he remarked, looking round. &ldquo;You see how
+these weights have been adjusted. When a body&rsquo;s laid out in a coffin, you
+know, all the weight&rsquo;s in the end where the head and trunk rest. Here you
+see the heaviest bar of lead is in the middle; the lightest at the feet.
+Clever!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Clear out all the sawdust,&rdquo; said some one. &ldquo;Let&rsquo;s see
+if there&rsquo;s anything else.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was something else. At the bottom of the coffin two bundles of papers,
+tied up with pink tape. The legal gentlemen present immediately manifested
+great interest in these. So did Spargo, who, pulling Breton along with him,
+forced his way to where the officials from the Home Office and the solicitor
+sent by the <i>Watchman</i> were hastily examining their discoveries.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The first bundle of papers opened evidently related to transactions at Market
+Milcaster: Spargo caught glimpses of names that were familiar to him, Mr.
+Quarterpage&rsquo;s amongst them. He was not at all astonished to see these
+things. But he was something more than astonished when, on the second parcel
+being opened, a quantity of papers relating to Cloudhampton and the Hearth and
+Home Mutual Benefit Society were revealed. He gave a hasty glance at these and
+drew Breton aside.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It strikes me we&rsquo;ve found a good deal more than we ever bargained
+for!&rdquo; he exclaimed. &ldquo;Didn&rsquo;t Aylmore say that the real culprit
+at Cloudhampton was another man&mdash;his clerk or something of that
+sort?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He did,&rdquo; agreed Breton. &ldquo;He insists on it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then this fellow Chamberlayne must have been the man,&rdquo; said
+Spargo. &ldquo;He came to Market Milcaster from the north. What&rsquo;ll be
+done with those papers?&rdquo; he asked, turning to the officials.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We are going to seal them up at once, and take them to London,&rdquo;
+replied the principal person in authority. &ldquo;They will be quite safe, Mr.
+Spargo; have no fear. We don&rsquo;t know what they may reveal.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You don&rsquo;t, indeed!&rdquo; said Spargo. &ldquo;But I may as well
+tell you that I have a strong belief that they&rsquo;ll reveal a good deal that
+nobody dreams of, so take the greatest care of them.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then, without waiting for further talk with any one, Spargo hurried Breton out
+of the cemetery. At the gate, he seized him by the arm.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now, then, Breton!&rdquo; he commanded. &ldquo;Out with it!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;With what?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You promised to tell me something&mdash;a great deal, you said&mdash;if
+we found that coffin empty. It is empty. Come on&mdash;quick!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;All right. I believe I know where Elphick and Cardlestone can be found.
+That&rsquo;s all.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;All! It&rsquo;s enough. Where, then, in heaven&rsquo;s name?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Elphick has a queer little place where he and Cardlestone sometimes go
+fishing&mdash;right away up in one of the wildest parts of the Yorkshire moors.
+I expect they&rsquo;ve gone there. Nobody knows even their names
+there&mdash;they could go and lie quiet there for&mdash;ages.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Do you know the way to it?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I do&mdash;I&rsquo;ve been there.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo motioned him to hurry.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Come on, then,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re going there by the
+very first train out of this. I know the train, too&mdash;we&rsquo;ve just time
+to snatch a mouthful of breakfast and to send a wire to the <i>Watchman</i>,
+and then we&rsquo;ll be off. Yorkshire!&mdash;Gad, Breton, that&rsquo;s over
+three hundred miles away!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap33"></a>CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE<br/>
+FORESTALLED</h2>
+
+<p>
+Travelling all that long summer day, first from the south-west of England to
+the Midlands, then from the Midlands to the north, Spargo and Breton came late
+at night to Hawes&rsquo; Junction, on the border of Yorkshire and Westmoreland,
+and saw rising all around them in the half-darkness the mighty bulks of the
+great fells which rise amongst that wild and lonely stretch of land. At that
+hour of the night and amidst that weird silence, broken only by the murmur of
+some adjacent waterfall the scene was impressive and suggestive; it seemed to
+Spargo as if London were a million miles away, and the rush and bustle of human
+life a thing of another planet. Here and there in the valleys he saw a light,
+but such lights were few and far between; even as he looked some of them
+twinkled and went out. It was evident that he and Breton were presently to be
+alone with the night.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How far?&rdquo; he asked Breton as they walked away from the station.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We&rsquo;d better discuss matters,&rdquo; answered Breton. &ldquo;The
+place is in a narrow valley called Fossdale, some six or seven miles away
+across these fells, and as wild a walk as any lover of such things could wish
+for. It&rsquo;s half-past nine now, Spargo: I reckon it will take us a good two
+and a half hours, if not more, to do it. Now, the question is&mdash;Do we go
+straight there, or do we put up for the night? There&rsquo;s an inn here at
+this junction: there&rsquo;s the Moor Cock Inn a mile or so along the road
+which we must take before we turn off to the moorland and the fells. It&rsquo;s
+going to be a black night&mdash;look at those masses of black cloud gathering
+there!&mdash;and possibly a wet one, and we&rsquo;ve no waterproofs. But
+it&rsquo;s for you to say&mdash;I&rsquo;m game for whatever you like.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Do you know the way?&rdquo; asked Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve been the way. In the daytime I could go straight ahead. I
+remember all the landmarks. Even in the darkness I believe I can find my way.
+But it&rsquo;s rough walking.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We&rsquo;ll go straight there,&rdquo; said Spargo. &ldquo;Every
+minute&rsquo;s precious. But&mdash;can we get a mouthful of bread and cheese
+and a glass of ale first?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Good idea! We&rsquo;ll call in at the &lsquo;Moor Cock.&rsquo; Now then,
+while we&rsquo;re on this firm road, step it out lively.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The &ldquo;Moor Cock&rdquo; was almost deserted at that hour: there was
+scarcely a soul in it when the two travellers turned in to its dimly-lighted
+parlour. The landlord, bringing the desired refreshment, looked hard at Breton.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Come our way again then, sir?&rdquo; he remarked with a sudden grin of
+recognition.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah, you remember me?&rdquo; said Breton.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I call in mind when you came here with the two old gents last
+year,&rdquo; replied the landlord. &ldquo;I hear they&rsquo;re here
+again&mdash;Tom Summers was coming across that way this morning, and said
+he&rsquo;d seen &rsquo;em at the little cottage. Going to join &rsquo;em, I
+reckon, sir?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Breton kicked Spargo under the table.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, we&rsquo;re going to have a day or two with them,&rdquo; he
+answered. &ldquo;Just to get a breath of your moorland air.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, you&rsquo;ll have a roughish walk over there tonight,
+gentlemen,&rdquo; said the landlord. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s going to be a storm.
+And it&rsquo;s a stiffish way to make out at this time o&rsquo;night.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, we&rsquo;ll manage,&rdquo; said Breton, nonchalantly. &ldquo;I know
+the way, and we&rsquo;re not afraid of a wet skin.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The landlord laughed, and sitting down on his long settle folded his arms and
+scratched his elbows.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There was a gentleman&mdash;London gentleman by his tongue&mdash;came in
+here this afternoon, and asked the way to Fossdale,&rdquo; he observed.
+&ldquo;He&rsquo;ll be there long since&mdash;he&rsquo;d have daylight for his
+walk. Happen he&rsquo;s one of your party?&mdash;he asked where the old
+gentlemen&rsquo;s little cottage was.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Again Spargo felt his shin kicked and made no sign. &ldquo;One of their
+friends, perhaps,&rdquo; answered Breton. &ldquo;What was he like?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The landlord ruminated. He was not good at description and was conscious of the
+fact.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, a darkish, serious-faced gentleman,&rdquo; he said.
+&ldquo;Stranger hereabouts, at all events. Wore a grey suit&mdash;something
+like your friend&rsquo;s there. Yes&mdash;he took some bread and cheese with
+him when he heard what a long way it was.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Wise man,&rdquo; remarked Breton. He hastily finished his own bread and
+cheese, and drank off the rest of his pint of ale. &ldquo;Come on,&rdquo; he
+said, &ldquo;let&rsquo;s be stepping.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Outside, in the almost tangible darkness, Breton clutched Spargo&rsquo;s arm.
+&ldquo;Who&rsquo;s the man?&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Can you think,
+Spargo?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Can&rsquo;t,&rdquo; answered Spargo. &ldquo;I was trying to, while that
+chap was talking. But&mdash;it&rsquo;s somebody that&rsquo;s got in before us.
+Not Rathbury, anyhow&mdash;he&rsquo;s not serious-faced. Heavens, Breton,
+however are you going to find your way in this darkness?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You&rsquo;ll see presently. We follow the road a little. Then we turn up
+the fell side there. On the top, if the night clears a bit, we ought to see
+Great Shunnor Fell and Lovely Seat&mdash;they&rsquo;re both well over two
+thousand feet, and they stand up well. We want to make for a point clear
+between them. But I warn you, Spargo, it&rsquo;s stiff going!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Go ahead!&rdquo; said Spargo. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s the first time in my
+life I ever did anything of this sort, but we&rsquo;re going on if it takes us
+all night. I couldn&rsquo;t sleep in any bed now that I&rsquo;ve heard
+there&rsquo;s somebody ahead of us. Go first, old chap, and I&rsquo;ll
+follow.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Breton went steadily forward along the road. That was easy work, but when he
+turned off and began to thread his way up the fell-side by what was obviously
+no more than a sheep-track, Spargo&rsquo;s troubles began. It seemed to him
+that he was walking as in a nightmare; all that he saw was magnified and
+heightened; the darkening sky above; the faint outlines of the towering hills;
+the gaunt spectres of fir and pine; the figure of Breton forging stolidly and
+surely ahead. Now the ground was soft and spongy under his feet; now it was
+stony and rugged; more than once he caught an ankle in the wire-like heather
+and tripped, bruising his knees. And in the end he resigned himself to keeping
+his eye on Breton, outlined against the sky, and following doggedly in his
+footsteps.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Was there no other way than this?&rdquo; he asked after a long interval
+of silence. &ldquo;Do you mean to say those two&mdash;Elphick and
+Cardlestone&mdash;would take this way?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There is another way&mdash;down the valley, by Thwaite Bridge and
+Hardraw,&rdquo; answered Breton, &ldquo;but it&rsquo;s miles and miles round.
+This is a straight cut across country, and in daylight it&rsquo;s a delightful
+walk. But at night&mdash;Gad!&mdash;here&rsquo;s the rain, Spargo!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The rain came down as it does in that part of the world, with a suddenness that
+was as fierce as it was heavy. The whole of the grey night was blotted out;
+Spargo was only conscious that he stood in a vast solitude and was being
+gradually drowned. But Breton, whose sight was keener, and who had more
+knowledge of the situation dragged his companion into the shelter of a group of
+rocks. He laughed a little as they huddled closely together.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;This is a different sort of thing to pursuing detective work in Fleet
+Street, Spargo,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;You would come on, you know.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;m going on if we go through cataracts and floods,&rdquo;
+answered Spargo. &ldquo;I might have been induced to stop at the &lsquo;Moor
+Cock&rsquo; overnight if we hadn&rsquo;t heard of that chap in front. If
+he&rsquo;s after those two he&rsquo;s somebody who knows something. What I
+can&rsquo;t make out is&mdash;who he can be.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nor I,&rdquo; said Breton. &ldquo;I can&rsquo;t think of anybody who
+knows of this retreat. But&mdash;has it ever struck you, Spargo, that somebody
+beside yourself may have been investigating?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Possible,&rdquo; replied Spargo. &ldquo;One never knows. I only wish
+we&rsquo;d been a few hours earlier. For I wanted to have the first word with
+those two.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The rain ceased as suddenly as it had come. Just as suddenly the heavens
+cleared. And going forward to the top of the ridge which they were then
+crossing, Breton pointed an arm to something shining far away below them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You see that?&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s a sheet of water lying
+between us and Cotterdale. We leave that on our right hand, climb the fell
+beyond it, drop down into Cotterdale, cross two more ranges of fell, and come
+down into Fossdale under Lovely Seat. There&rsquo;s a good two hours and a half
+stiff pull yet, Spargo. Think you can stick it?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo set his teeth.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Go on!&rdquo; he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Up hill, down dale, now up to his ankles in peaty ground, now tearing his
+shins, now bruising his knees, Spargo, yearning for the London lights, the
+well-paved London streets, the convenient taxi-cab, even the humble omnibus,
+plodded forward after his guide. It seemed to him that they had walked for ages
+and had traversed a whole continent of mountains and valley when at last
+Breton, halting on the summit of a wind-swept ridge, laid one hand on his
+companion&rsquo;s shoulder and pointed downward with the other.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There!&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;There!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo looked ahead into the night. Far away, at what seemed to him to be a
+considerable distance, he saw the faint, very faint glimmer of a light&mdash;a
+mere spark of a light.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s the cottage,&rdquo; said Breton, &ldquo;Late as it is, you
+see, they&rsquo;re up. And here&rsquo;s the roughest bit of the journey.
+It&rsquo;ll take me all my time to find the track across this moor, Spargo, so
+step carefully after me&mdash;there are bogs and holes hereabouts.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Another hour had gone by ere the two came to the cottage. Sometimes the guiding
+light had vanished, blotted out by intervening rises in the ground; always,
+when they saw it again, they were slowly drawing nearer to it. And now when
+they were at last close to it, Spargo realized that he found himself in one of
+the loneliest places he had ever been capable of imagining&mdash;so lonely and
+desolate a spot he had certainly never seen. In the dim light he could see a
+narrow, crawling stream, making its way down over rocks and stones from the
+high ground of Great Shunnor Fell. Opposite to the place at which they stood,
+on the edge of the moorland, a horseshoe like formation of ground was backed by
+a ring of fir and pine; beneath this protecting fringe of trees stood a small
+building of grey stone which looked as if it had been originally built by some
+shepherd as a pen for the moorland sheep. It was of no more than one storey in
+height, but of some length; a considerable part of it was hidden by shrubs and
+brushwood. And from one uncurtained, blindless window the light of a lamp shone
+boldly into the fading darkness without.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Breton pulled up on the edge of the crawling stream.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We&rsquo;ve got to get across there, Spargo,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;But
+as we&rsquo;re already soaked to the knee it doesn&rsquo;t matter about getting
+another wetting. Have you any idea how long we&rsquo;ve been walking?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Hours&mdash;days&mdash;years!&rdquo; replied Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I should say quite four hours,&rdquo; said Breton. &ldquo;In that case,
+it&rsquo;s well past two o&rsquo;clock, and the light will be breaking in
+another hour or so. Now, once across this stream, what shall we do?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What have we come to do? Go to the cottage, of course!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Wait a bit. No need to startle them. By the fact they&rsquo;ve got a
+light, I take it that they&rsquo;re up. Look there!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As he spoke, a figure crossed the window passing between it and the light.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s not Elphick, nor yet Cardlestone,&rdquo; said Spargo.
+&ldquo;They&rsquo;re medium-heighted men. That&rsquo;s a tallish man.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then it&rsquo;s the man the landlord of the &lsquo;Moor Cock&rsquo; told
+us about,&rdquo; said Breton. &ldquo;Now, look here&mdash;I know every inch of
+this place. When we&rsquo;re across let me go up to the cottage, and I&rsquo;ll
+take an observation through that window and see who&rsquo;s inside. Come
+on.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He led Spargo across the stream at a place where a succession of boulders made
+a natural bridge, and bidding him keep quiet, went up the bank to the cottage.
+Spargo, watching him, saw him make his way past the shrubs and undergrowth
+until he came to a great bush which stood between the lighted window and the
+projecting porch of the cottage. He lingered in the shadow of this bush but for
+a short moment; then came swiftly and noiselessly back to his companion. His
+hand fell on Spargo&rsquo;s arm with a clutch of nervous excitement.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Spargo!&rdquo; he whispered. &ldquo;Who on earth do you think the other
+man is?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap34"></a>CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR<br/>
+THE WHIP HAND</h2>
+
+<p>
+Spargo, almost irritable from desire to get at close grips with the objects of
+his long journey, shook off Breton&rsquo;s hand with a growl of resentment.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And how on earth can I waste time guessing?&rdquo; he exclaimed.
+&ldquo;Who is he?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Breton laughed softly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Steady, Spargo, steady!&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s
+Myerst&mdash;the Safe Deposit man. Myerst!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo started as if something had bitten him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Myerst!&rdquo; he almost shouted. &ldquo;Myerst! Good Lord!&mdash;why
+did I never think of him? Myerst! Then&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know why you should have thought of him,&rdquo; said
+Breton. &ldquo;But&mdash;he&rsquo;s there.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo took a step towards the cottage: Breton pulled him back.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Wait!&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ve got to discuss this. I&rsquo;d
+better tell you what they&rsquo;re doing.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What are they doing, then?&rdquo; demanded Spargo impatiently.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well,&rdquo; answered Breton. &ldquo;They&rsquo;re going through a
+quantity of papers. The two old gentlemen look very ill and very miserable.
+Myerst is evidently laying down the law to them in some fashion or other.
+I&rsquo;ve formed a notion, Spargo.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What notion?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Myerst is in possession of whatever secret they have, and he&rsquo;s
+followed them down here to blackmail them. That&rsquo;s my notion.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo thought awhile, pacing up and down the river bank.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I daresay you&rsquo;re right,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Now, what&rsquo;s
+to be done?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Breton, too, considered matters.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I wish,&rdquo; he said at last, &ldquo;I wish we could get in there and
+overhear what&rsquo;s going on. But that&rsquo;s impossible&mdash;I know that
+cottage. The only thing we can do is this&mdash;we must catch Myerst unawares.
+He&rsquo;s here for no good. Look here!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And reaching round to his hip-pocket Breton drew out a Browning revolver and
+wagged it in his hand with a smile.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s a useful thing to have, Spargo,&rdquo; he remarked.
+&ldquo;I slipped it into my pocket the other day, wondering why on earth I did
+it. Now it&rsquo;ll come in handy. For anything we know Myerst may be
+armed.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well?&rdquo; said Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Come up to the cottage. If things turn out as I think they will, Myerst,
+when he&rsquo;s got what he wants, will be off. Now, you shall get where I did
+just now, behind that bush, and I&rsquo;ll station myself in the doorway. You
+can report to me, and when Myerst comes out I&rsquo;ll cover him. Come on,
+Spargo; it&rsquo;s beginning to get light already.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Breton cautiously led the way along the river bank, making use of such cover as
+the willows and alders afforded. Together, he and Spargo made their way to the
+front of the cottage. Arrived at the door, Breton posted himself in the porch,
+motioning to Spargo to creep in behind the bushes and to look through the
+window. And Spargo noiselessly followed his directions and slightly parting the
+branches which concealed him looked in through the uncurtained glass.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The interior into which he looked was rough and comfortless in the extreme.
+There were the bare accessories of a moorland cottage; rough chairs and tables,
+plastered walls, a fishing rod or two piled in a corner; some food set out on a
+side table. At the table in the middle of the floor the three men sat.
+Cardlestone&rsquo;s face was in the shadow; Myerst had his back to the window;
+old Elphick bending over the table was laboriously writing with shaking
+fingers. And Spargo twisted his head round to his companion.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Elphick,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;is writing a cheque. Myerst has another
+cheque in his hand. Be ready!&mdash;when he gets that second cheque I guess
+he&rsquo;ll be off.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Breton smiled grimly and nodded. A moment later Spargo whispered again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Look out, Breton! He&rsquo;s coming.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Breton drew back into the angle of the porch; Spargo quitted his protecting
+bush and took the other angle. The door opened. And they heard Myerst&rsquo;s
+voice, threatening, commanding in tone.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now, remember all I&rsquo;ve said! And don&rsquo;t you
+forget&mdash;I&rsquo;ve the whip hand of both of you&mdash;the whip
+hand!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then Myerst turned and stepped out into the grey light&mdash;to find himself
+confronted by an athletic young man who held the muzzle of an ugly revolver
+within two inches of the bridge of his nose and in a remarkably firm and steady
+grip. Another glance showed him the figure of a second business-like looking
+young man at his side, whose attitude showed a desire to grapple with him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Good-morning, Mr. Myerst,&rdquo; said Breton with cold and ironic
+politeness. &ldquo;We are glad to meet you so unexpectedly. And&mdash;I must
+trouble you to put up your hands. Quick!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myerst made one hurried movement of his right hand towards his hip, but a
+sudden growl from Breton made him shift it just as quickly above his head,
+whither the left followed it. Breton laughed softly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s wise, Mr. Myerst,&rdquo; he said, keeping his revolver
+steadily pointed at his prisoner&rsquo;s nose. &ldquo;Discretion will certainly
+be the better part of your valour on this occasion. Spargo&mdash;may I trouble
+you to see what Mr. Myerst carries in his pockets? Go through them carefully.
+Not for papers or documents&mdash;just now. We can leave that
+matter&mdash;we&rsquo;ve plenty of time. See if he&rsquo;s got a weapon of any
+sort on him, Spargo&mdash;that&rsquo;s the important thing.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Considering that Spargo had never gone through the experience of searching a
+man before, he made sharp and creditable work of seeing what the prisoner
+carried. And he forthwith drew out and exhibited a revolver, while Myerst,
+finding his tongue, cursed them both, heartily and with profusion.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Excellent!&rdquo; said Breton, laughing again. &ldquo;Sure he&rsquo;s
+got nothing else on him that&rsquo;s dangerous, Spargo? All right. Now, Mr.
+Myerst, right about face! Walk into the cottage, hands up, and remember there
+are two revolvers behind your back. March!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myerst obeyed this peremptory order with more curses. The three walked into the
+cottage. Breton kept his eye on his captive; Spargo gave a glance at the two
+old men. Cardlestone, white and shaking, was lying back in his chair; Elphick,
+scarcely less alarmed, had risen, and was coming forward with trembling limbs.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Wait a moment,&rdquo; said Breton, soothingly. &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t alarm
+yourself. We&rsquo;ll deal with Mr. Myerst here first. Now, Myerst, my man, sit
+down in that chair&mdash;it&rsquo;s the heaviest the place affords. Into it,
+now! Spargo, you see that coil of rope there. Tie Myerst up&mdash;hand and
+foot&mdash;to that chair. And tie him well. All the knots to be double, Spargo,
+and behind him.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myerst suddenly laughed. &ldquo;You damned young bully!&rdquo; he exclaimed.
+&ldquo;If you put a rope round me, you&rsquo;re only putting ropes round the
+necks of these two old villains. Mark that, my fine fellows!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We&rsquo;ll see about that later,&rdquo; answered Breton. He kept Myerst
+covered while Spargo made play with the rope. &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t be afraid of
+hurting him, Spargo,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Tie him well and strong. He
+won&rsquo;t shift that chair in a hurry.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo spliced his man to the chair in a fashion that would have done credit to
+a sailor. He left Myerst literally unable to move either hand or foot, and
+Myerst cursed him from crown to heel for his pains. &ldquo;That&rsquo;ll
+do,&rdquo; said Breton at last. He dropped his revolver into his pocket and
+turned to the two old men. Elphick averted his eyes and sank into a chair in
+the darkest corner of the room: old Cardlestone shook as with palsy and
+muttered words which the two young men could not catch. &ldquo;Guardian,&rdquo;
+continued Breton, &ldquo;don&rsquo;t be frightened! And don&rsquo;t you be
+frightened, either, Mr. Cardlestone. There&rsquo;s nothing to be afraid of,
+just yet, whatever there may be later on. It seems to me that Mr. Spargo and I
+came just in time. Now, guardian, what was this fellow after?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Old Elphick lifted his head and shook it; he was plainly on the verge of tears;
+as for Cardlestone, it was evident that his nerve was completely gone. And
+Breton pointed Spargo to an old corner cupboard.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Spargo,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;I&rsquo;m pretty sure you&rsquo;ll find
+whisky in there. Give them both a stiff dose: they&rsquo;ve broken up. Now,
+guardian,&rdquo; he continued, when Spargo had carried out this order,
+&ldquo;what was he after? Shall I suggest it? Was it&mdash;blackmail?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Cardlestone began to whimper; Elphick nodded his head. &ldquo;Yes, yes!&rdquo;
+he muttered. &ldquo;Blackmail! That was it&mdash;blackmail. He&mdash;he got
+money&mdash;papers&mdash;from us. They&rsquo;re on him.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Breton turned on the captive with a look of contempt.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I thought as much, Mr. Myerst,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Spargo,
+let&rsquo;s see what he has on him.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo began to search the prisoner&rsquo;s pockets. He laid out everything on
+the table as he found it. It was plain that Myerst had contemplated some sort
+of flight or a long, long journey. There was a quantity of loose gold; a number
+of bank-notes of the more easily negotiated denominations; various foreign
+securities, realizable in Paris. And there was an open cheque, signed by
+Cardlestone for ten thousand pounds, and another, with Elphick&rsquo;s name at
+the foot, also open, for half that amount. Breton examined all these matters as
+Spargo handed them out. He turned to old Elphick.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Guardian,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;why have you or Mr. Cardlestone given
+this man these cheques and securities? What hold has he on you?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Old Cardlestone began to whimper afresh; Elphick turned a troubled face on his
+ward.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He&mdash;he threatened to accuse us of the murder of Marbury!&rdquo; he
+faltered. &ldquo;We&mdash;we didn&rsquo;t see that we had a chance.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What does he know of the murder of Marbury and of you in connection with
+it?&rdquo; demanded Breton. &ldquo;Come&mdash;tell me the truth now.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He&rsquo;s been investigating&mdash;so he says,&rdquo; answered Elphick.
+&ldquo;He lives in that house in Middle Temple Lane, you know, in the top-floor
+rooms above Cardlestone&rsquo;s. And&mdash;and he says he&rsquo;s the fullest
+evidence against Cardlestone&mdash;and against me as an accessory after the
+fact.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And&mdash;it&rsquo;s a lie?&rdquo; asked Breton.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A lie!&rdquo; answered Elphick. &ldquo;Of course, it&rsquo;s a lie.
+But&mdash;he&rsquo;s so clever that&mdash;that&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That you don&rsquo;t know how you could prove it otherwise,&rdquo; said
+Breton. &ldquo;Ah! And so this fellow lives over Mr. Cardlestone there, does
+he? That may account for a good many things. Now we must have the police
+here.&rdquo; He sat down at the table and drew the writing materials to him.
+&ldquo;Look here, Spargo,&rdquo; he continued. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m going to write
+a note to the superintendent of police at Hawes&mdash;there&rsquo;s a farm half
+a mile from here where I can get a man to ride down to Hawes with the note.
+Now, if you want to send a wire to the <i>Watchman</i>, draft it out, and
+he&rsquo;ll take it with him.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elphick began to move in his corner.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Must the police come?&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Must&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The police must come,&rdquo; answered Breton firmly. &ldquo;Go ahead
+with your wire, Spargo, while I write this note.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Three quarters of an hour later, when Breton came back from the farm, he sat
+down at Elphick&rsquo;s side and laid his hand on the old man&rsquo;s.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now, guardian,&rdquo; he said, quietly, &ldquo;you&rsquo;ve got to tell
+us the truth.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap35"></a>CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE<br/>
+MYERST EXPLAINS</h2>
+
+<p>
+It had been apparent to Spargo, from the moment of his entering the cottage,
+that the two old men were suffering badly from shock and fright: Cardlestone
+still sat in his corner shivering and trembling; he looked incapable of
+explaining anything; Elphick was scarcely more fitted to speak. And when Breton
+issued his peremptory invitation to his guardian to tell the truth, Spargo
+intervened.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Far better leave him alone, Breton,&rdquo; he said in a low voice.
+&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t you see the old chap&rsquo;s done up? They&rsquo;re both
+done up. We don&rsquo;t know what they&rsquo;ve gone through with this fellow
+before we came, and it&rsquo;s certain they&rsquo;ve had no sleep. Leave it all
+till later&mdash;after all, we&rsquo;ve found them and we&rsquo;ve found
+him.&rdquo; He jerked his thumb over his shoulder in Myerst&rsquo;s direction,
+and Breton involuntarily followed the movement. He caught the prisoner&rsquo;s
+eye, and Myerst laughed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I daresay you two young men think yourselves very clever,&rdquo; he said
+sneeringly. &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t you, now?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We&rsquo;ve been clever enough to catch you, anyway,&rdquo; retorted
+Breton. &ldquo;And now we&rsquo;ve got you we&rsquo;ll keep you till the police
+can relieve us of you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh!&rdquo; said Myerst, with another sneering laugh. &ldquo;And on what
+charge do you propose to hand me over to the police? It strikes me you&rsquo;ll
+have some difficulty in formulating one, Mr. Breton.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well see about that later,&rdquo; said Breton. &ldquo;You&rsquo;ve
+extorted money by menaces from these gentlemen, at any rate.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Have I? How do you know they didn&rsquo;t entrust me with these cheques
+as their agent?&rdquo; exclaimed Myerst. &ldquo;Answer me that! Or, rather, let
+them answer if they dare. Here you, Cardlestone, you Elphick&mdash;didn&rsquo;t
+you give me these cheques as your agent? Speak up now, and quick!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo, watching the two old men, saw them both quiver at the sound of
+Myerst&rsquo;s voice; Cardlestone indeed, began to whimper softly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Look here, Breton,&rdquo; he said, whispering, &ldquo;this
+scoundrel&rsquo;s got some hold on these two old chaps&mdash;they&rsquo;re
+frightened to death of him. Leave them alone: it would be best for them if they
+could get some rest. Hold your tongue, you!&rdquo; he added aloud, turning to
+Myerst. &ldquo;When we want you to speak we&rsquo;ll tell you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But Myerst laughed again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;All very high and mighty, Mr. Spargo of the <i>Watchman</i>!&rdquo; he
+sneered. &ldquo;You&rsquo;re another of the cock-sure lot. And you&rsquo;re
+very clever, but not clever enough. Now, look here! Supposing&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo turned his back on him. He went over to old Cardlestone and felt his
+hands. And he turned to Breton with a look of concern.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I say!&rdquo; he exclaimed. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s more than
+frightened&mdash;he&rsquo;s ill! What&rsquo;s to be done?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I asked the police to bring a doctor along with them,&rdquo; answered
+Breton. &ldquo;In the meantime, let&rsquo;s put him to bed&mdash;there are beds
+in that inner room. We&rsquo;ll get him to bed and give him something hot to
+drink&mdash;that&rsquo;s all I can think of for the present.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Between them they managed to get Cardlestone to his bed, and Spargo, with a
+happy thought, boiled water on the rusty stove and put hot bottles to his feet.
+When that was done they persuaded Elphick to lie down in the inner room.
+Presently both old men fell asleep, and then Breton and Spargo suddenly
+realized that they themselves were hungry and wet and weary.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There ought to be food in the cupboard,&rdquo; said Breton, beginning to
+rummage. &ldquo;They&rsquo;ve generally had a good stock of tinned things. Here
+we are, Spargo&mdash;these are tongues and sardines. Make some hot coffee while
+I open one of these tins.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The prisoner watched the preparations for a rough and ready breakfast with eyes
+that eventually began to glisten.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I may remind you that I&rsquo;m hungry, too,&rdquo; he said as Spargo
+set the coffee on the table. &ldquo;And you&rsquo;ve no right to starve me,
+even if you&rsquo;ve the physical ability to keep me tied up. Give me something
+to eat, if you please.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You shan&rsquo;t starve,&rdquo; said Breton, carelessly. He cut an ample
+supply of bread and meat, filled a cup with coffee and placed cup and plate
+before Myerst. &ldquo;Untie his right arm, Spargo,&rdquo; he continued.
+&ldquo;I think we can give him that liberty. We&rsquo;ve got his revolver,
+anyhow.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For a while the three men ate and drank in silence. At last Myerst pushed his
+plate away. He looked scrutinizingly at his two captors. &ldquo;Look
+here!&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;You think you know a lot about all this affair,
+Spargo, but there&rsquo;s only one person who knows all about it. That&rsquo;s
+me!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We&rsquo;re taking that for granted,&rdquo; said Spargo. &ldquo;We
+guessed as much when we found you here. You&rsquo;ll have ample opportunity for
+explanation, you know, later on.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll explain now, if you care to hear,&rdquo; said Myerst with
+another of his cynical laughs. &ldquo;And if I do, I&rsquo;ll tell you the
+truth. I know you&rsquo;ve got an idea in your heads that isn&rsquo;t
+favourable to me, but you&rsquo;re utterly wrong, whatever you may think. Look
+here!&mdash;I&rsquo;ll make you a fair offer. There are some cigars in my case
+there&mdash;give me one, and mix me a drink of that whisky&mdash;a good
+&rsquo;un&mdash;and I&rsquo;ll tell you what I know about this matter. Come
+on!&mdash;anything&rsquo;s better than sitting here doing nothing.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The two young men looked at each other. Then Breton nodded. &ldquo;Let him talk
+if he likes,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re not bound to believe him. And
+we may hear something that&rsquo;s true. Give him his cigar and his
+drink.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myerst took a stiff pull at the contents of the tumbler which Spargo presently
+set before him. He laughed as he inhaled the first fumes of his cigar.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;As it happens, you&rsquo;ll hear nothing but the truth,&rdquo; he
+observed. &ldquo;Now that things are as they are, there&rsquo;s no reason why I
+shouldn&rsquo;t tell the truth. The fact is, I&rsquo;ve nothing to fear. You
+can&rsquo;t give me in charge, for it so happens that I&rsquo;ve got a power of
+attorney from these two old chaps inside there to act for them in regard to the
+money they entrusted me with. It&rsquo;s in an inside pocket of that
+letter-case, and if you look at it, Breton, you&rsquo;ll see it&rsquo;s in
+order. I&rsquo;m not even going to dare you to interfere with or destroy
+it&mdash;you&rsquo;re a barrister, and you&rsquo;ll respect the law. But
+that&rsquo;s a fact&mdash;and if anybody&rsquo;s got a case against anybody, I
+have against you two for assault and illegal detention. But I&rsquo;m not a
+vindictive man, and&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Breton took up Myerst&rsquo;s letter-case and examined its contents. And
+presently he turned to Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He&rsquo;s right!&rdquo; he whispered. &ldquo;This is quite in
+order.&rdquo; He turned to Myerst. &ldquo;All the same,&rdquo; he said,
+addressing him, &ldquo;we shan&rsquo;t release you, because we believe
+you&rsquo;re concerned in the murder of John Marbury. We&rsquo;re justified in
+holding you on that account.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;All right, my young friend,&rdquo; said Myerst. &ldquo;Have your own
+stupid way. But I said I&rsquo;d tell you the plain truth. Well, the plain
+truth is that I know no more of the absolute murder of your father than I know
+of what is going on in Timbuctoo at this moment! I do not know who killed John
+Maitland. That&rsquo;s a fact! It may have been the old man in there
+who&rsquo;s already at his own last gasp, or it mayn&rsquo;t. I tell you I
+don&rsquo;t know&mdash;though, like you, Spargo, I&rsquo;ve tried hard to find
+out. That&rsquo;s the truth&mdash;I do not know.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You expect us to believe that?&rdquo; exclaimed Breton incredulously.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Believe it or not, as you like&mdash;it&rsquo;s the truth,&rdquo;
+answered Myerst. &ldquo;Now, look here&mdash;I said nobody knew as much of this
+affair as I know, and that&rsquo;s true also. And here&rsquo;s the truth of
+what I know. The old man in that room, whom you know as Nicholas Cardlestone,
+is in reality Chamberlayne, the stockbroker, of Market Milcaster, whose name
+was so freely mentioned when your father was tried there. That&rsquo;s another
+fact!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How,&rdquo; asked Breton, sternly, &ldquo;can you prove it? How do you
+know it?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Because,&rdquo; replied Myerst, with a cunning grin, &ldquo;I helped to
+carry out his mock death and burial&mdash;I was a solicitor in those days, and
+my name was&mdash;something else. There were three of us at it:
+Chamberlayne&rsquo;s nephew; a doctor of no reputation; and myself. We carried
+it out very cleverly, and Chamberlayne gave us five thousand pounds apiece for
+our trouble. It was not the first time that I had helped him and been well paid
+for my help. The first time was in connection with the Cloudhampton Hearth and
+Home Mutual Benefit Society affair&mdash;Aylmore, or Ainsworth, was as innocent
+as a child in that!&mdash;Chamberlayne was the man at the back. But,
+unfortunately, Chamberlayne didn&rsquo;t profit&mdash;he lost all he got by it,
+pretty quick. That was why be transferred his abilities to Market
+Milcaster.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You can prove all this, I suppose?&rdquo; remarked Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Every word&mdash;every letter! But about the Market Milcaster affair:
+Your father, Breton, was right in what he said about Chamberlayne having all
+the money that was got from the bank. He had&mdash;and he engineered that mock
+death and funeral so that he could disappear, and he paid us who helped him
+generously, as I&rsquo;ve told you. The thing couldn&rsquo;t have been better
+done. When it was done, the nephew disappeared; the doctor disappeared;
+Chamberlayne disappeared. I had bad luck&mdash;to tell you the truth, I was
+struck off the rolls for a technical offence. So I changed my name and became
+Mr. Myerst, and eventually what I am now. And it was not until three years ago
+that I found Chamberlayne. I found him in this way: After I became secretary to
+the Safe Deposit Company, I took chambers in the Temple, above
+Cardlestone&rsquo;s. And I speedily found out who he was. Instead of going
+abroad, the old fox&mdash;though he was a comparatively young &rsquo;un,
+then!&mdash;had shaved off his beard, settled down in the Temple and given
+himself up to his two hobbies, collecting curiosities and stamps. There
+he&rsquo;d lived quietly all these years, and nobody had ever recognized or
+suspected him. Indeed, I don&rsquo;t see how they could; he lived such a quiet,
+secluded life, with his collections, his old port, and his little whims and
+fads. But&mdash;I knew him!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And you doubtless profited by your recognition,&rdquo; suggested Breton.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I certainly did. He was glad to pay me a nice sum every quarter to hold
+my tongue,&rdquo; replied Myerst, &ldquo;and I was glad to take it and,
+naturally, I gained a considerable knowledge of him. He had only one
+friend&mdash;Mr. Elphick, in there. Now, I&rsquo;ll tell you about him.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Only if you are going to speak respectfully of him,&rdquo; said Breton
+sternly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve no reason to do otherwise. Elphick is the man who ought to
+have married your mother. When things turned out as they did, Elphick took you
+and brought you up as he has done, so that you should never know of your
+father&rsquo;s disgrace. Elphick never knew until last night that Cardlestone
+is Chamberlayne. Even the biggest scoundrels have friends&mdash;Elphick&rsquo;s
+very fond of Cardlestone. He&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo turned sharply on Myerst.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You say Elphick didn&rsquo;t know until last night!&rdquo; he exclaimed.
+&ldquo;Why, then, this running away? What were they running from?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have no more notion than you have, Spargo,&rdquo; replied Myerst.
+&ldquo;I tell you one or other of them knows something that I don&rsquo;t.
+Elphick, I gather, took fright from you, and went to Cardlestone&mdash;then
+they both vanished. It may be that Cardlestone did kill Maitland&mdash;I
+don&rsquo;t know. But I&rsquo;ll tell you what I know about the actual
+murder&mdash;for I do know a good deal about it, though, as I say, I
+don&rsquo;t know who killed Maitland. Now, first, you know all that about
+Maitland&rsquo;s having papers and valuables and gold on him? Very
+well&mdash;I&rsquo;ve got all that. The whole lot is locked
+up&mdash;safely&mdash;and I&rsquo;m willing to hand it over to you, Breton,
+when we go back to town, and the necessary proof is given&mdash;as it will
+be&mdash;that you&rsquo;re Maitland&rsquo;s son.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myerst paused to see the effect of this announcement, and laughed when he saw
+the blank astonishment which stole over his hearers&rsquo; faces.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And still more,&rdquo; he continued, &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve got all the
+contents of that leather box which Maitland deposited with
+me&mdash;that&rsquo;s safely locked up, too, and at your disposal. I took
+possession of that the day after the murder. Then, for purposes of my own, I
+went to Scotland Yard, as Spargo there is aware. You see, I was playing a
+game&mdash;and it required some ingenuity.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A game!&rdquo; exclaimed Breton. &ldquo;Good heavens&mdash;what
+game?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I never knew until I had possession of all these things that Marbury was
+Maitland of Market Milcaster,&rdquo; answered Myerst. &ldquo;When I did know
+then I began to put things together and to pursue my own line, independent of
+everybody. I tell you I had all Maitland&rsquo;s papers and possessions, by
+that time&mdash;except one thing. That packet of Australian stamps. And&mdash;I
+found out that those stamps were in the hands of&mdash;Cardlestone!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap36"></a>CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX.<br/>
+THE FINAL TELEGRAM</h2>
+
+<p>
+Myerst paused, to take a pull at his glass, and to look at the two amazed
+listeners with a smile of conscious triumph.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;In the hands of Cardlestone,&rdquo; he repeated. &ldquo;Now, what did I
+argue from that? Why, of course, that Maitland had been to Cardlestone&rsquo;s
+rooms that night. Wasn&rsquo;t he found lying dead at the foot of
+Cardlestone&rsquo;s stairs? Aye&mdash;but who found him? Not the
+porter&mdash;not the police&mdash;not you, Master Spargo, with all your
+cleverness. The man who found Maitland lying dead there that night
+was&mdash;I!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the silence that followed, Spargo, who had been making notes of what Myerst
+said, suddenly dropped his pencil and thrusting his hands in his pockets sat
+bolt upright with a look which Breton, who was watching him seriously, could
+not make out. It was the look of a man whose ideas and conceptions are being
+rudely upset. And Myerst, too, saw it and he laughed, more sneeringly than
+ever.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s one for you, Spargo!&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;That surprises
+you&mdash;that makes you think. Now what do you think?&mdash;if one may
+ask.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I think,&rdquo; said Spargo, &ldquo;that you are either a consummate
+liar, or that this mystery is bigger than before.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I can lie when it&rsquo;s necessary,&rdquo; retorted Myerst. &ldquo;Just
+now it isn&rsquo;t necessary. I&rsquo;m telling you the plain truth:
+there&rsquo;s no reason why I shouldn&rsquo;t. As I&rsquo;ve said before,
+although you two young bullies have tied me up in this fashion, you can&rsquo;t
+do anything against me. I&rsquo;ve a power of attorney from those two old men
+in there, and that&rsquo;s enough to satisfy anybody as to my possession of
+their cheques and securities. I&rsquo;ve the whip hand of you, my sons, in all
+ways. And that&rsquo;s why I&rsquo;m telling you the truth&mdash;to amuse
+myself during this period of waiting. The plain truth, my sons!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;In pursuance of which,&rdquo; observed Breton, drily, &ldquo;I think you
+mentioned that you were the first person to find my father lying dead?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I was. That is&mdash;as far as I can gather. I&rsquo;ll tell you all
+about it. As I said, I live over Cardlestone. That night I came home very
+late&mdash;it was well past one o&rsquo;clock. There was nobody about&mdash;as
+a matter of fact, no one has residential chambers in that building but
+Cardlestone and myself. I found the body of a man lying in the entry. I struck
+a match and immediately recognized my visitor of the afternoon&mdash;John
+Marbury. Now, although I was so late in going home, I was as sober as a man can
+be, and I think pretty quickly at all times. I thought at double extra speed
+just then. And the first thing I did was to strip the body of every article it
+had on it&mdash;money, papers, everything. All these things are safely locked
+up&mdash;they&rsquo;ve never been tracked. Next day, using my facilities as
+secretary to the Safe Deposit Company, I secured the things in that box. Then I
+found out who the dead man really was. And then I deliberately set to work to
+throw dust in the eyes of the police and of the newspapers, and particularly in
+the eyes of young Master Spargo there. I had an object.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What?&rdquo; asked Breton.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What! Knowing all I did, I firmly believed that Marbury, or, rather,
+Maitland, had been murdered by either Cardlestone or Elphick. I put it to
+myself in this way, and my opinion was strengthened as you, Spargo, inserted
+news in your paper&mdash;Maitland, finding himself in the vicinity of
+Cardlestone after leaving Aylmore&rsquo;s rooms that night, turned into our
+building, perhaps just to see where Cardlestone lived. He met Cardlestone
+accidentally, or he perhaps met Cardlestone and Elphick together&mdash;they
+recognized each other. Maitland probably threatened to expose Cardlestone, or,
+rather, Chamberlayne&mdash;nobody, of course, could know what happened, but my
+theory was that Chamberlayne killed him. There, at any rate, was the fact that
+Maitland was found murdered at Chamberlayne&rsquo;s very threshold. And, in the
+course of a few days, I proved, to my own positive satisfaction, by getting
+access to Chamberlayne&rsquo;s rooms in his absence that Maitland had been
+there, had been in those rooms. For I found there, in Chamberlayne&rsquo;s
+desk, the rare Australian stamps of which Criedir told at the inquest. That was
+proof positive.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo looked at Breton. They knew what Myerst did not know&mdash;that the
+stamps of which he spoke were lying in Spargo&rsquo;s breast pocket, where they
+had lain since he had picked them up from the litter and confusion of
+Chamberlayne&rsquo;s floor.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why,&rdquo; asked Breton, after a pause, &ldquo;why did you never accuse
+Cardlestone, or Chamberlayne, of the murder?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I did! I have accused him a score of times&mdash;and Elphick,
+too,&rdquo; replied Myerst with emphasis. &ldquo;Not at first, mind you&mdash;I
+never let Chamberlayne know that I ever suspected him for some time. I had my
+own game to play. But at last&mdash;not so many days ago&mdash;I did. I accused
+them both. That&rsquo;s how I got the whip hand of them. They began to be
+afraid&mdash;by that time Elphick had got to know all about Cardlestone&rsquo;s
+past as Chamberlayne. And as I tell you, Elphick&rsquo;s fond of Cardlestone.
+It&rsquo;s queer, but he is. He&mdash;wants to shield him.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What did they say when you accused them?&rdquo; asked Breton.
+&ldquo;Let&rsquo;s keep to that point&mdash;never mind their feelings for one
+another.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Just so, but that feeling&rsquo;s a lot more to do with this mystery
+than you think, my young friend,&rdquo; said Myerst. &ldquo;What did they say,
+you ask? Why, they strenuously denied it, Cardlestone swore solemnly to me that
+he had no part or lot in the murder of Maitland. So did Elphick. But&mdash;they
+know something about the murder. If those two old men can&rsquo;t tell you
+definitely who actually struck John Maitland down, I&rsquo;m certain that they
+have a very clear idea in their minds as to who really did! They&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A sudden sharp cry from the inner room interrupted Myerst. Breton and Spargo
+started to their feet and made for the door. But before they could reach it
+Elphick came out, white and shaking.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He&rsquo;s gone!&rdquo; he exclaimed in quavering accents. &ldquo;My old
+friend&rsquo;s gone&mdash;he&rsquo;s dead! I was&mdash;asleep. I woke suddenly
+and looked at him. He&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo forced the old man into a chair and gave him some whisky; Breton passed
+quickly into the inner room; only to come back shaking his head.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He&rsquo;s dead,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;He evidently died in his
+sleep.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then his secret&rsquo;s gone with him,&rdquo; remarked Myerst, calmly.
+&ldquo;And now we shall never know if he did kill John Maitland or if he
+didn&rsquo;t. So that&rsquo;s done with!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Old Elphick suddenly sat up in his chair, pushing Spargo fiercely away from his
+side.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He didn&rsquo;t kill John Maitland!&rdquo; he cried angrily, attempting
+to shake his fist at Myerst. &ldquo;Whoever says he killed Maitland lies. He
+was as innocent as I am. You&rsquo;ve tortured and tormented him to his death
+with that charge, as you&rsquo;re torturing me&mdash;among you. I tell you
+he&rsquo;d nothing to do with John Maitland&rsquo;s death&mdash;nothing!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myerst laughed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Who had, then?&rdquo; he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Hold your tongue!&rdquo; commanded Breton, turning angrily on him. He
+sat down by Elphick&rsquo;s side and laid his hand soothingly on the old
+man&rsquo;s arm.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Guardian,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;why don&rsquo;t you tell what you know?
+Don&rsquo;t be afraid of that fellow there&mdash;he&rsquo;s safe enough. Tell
+Spargo and me what you know of the matter. Remember, nothing can hurt
+Cardlestone, or Chamberlayne, or whoever he is or was, now.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elphick sat for a moment shaking his head. He allowed Spargo to give him
+another drink; he lifted his head and looked at the two young men with
+something of an appeal.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;m badly shaken,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve suffered much
+lately&mdash;I&rsquo;ve learnt things that I didn&rsquo;t know. Perhaps I ought
+to have spoken before, but I was afraid for&mdash;for him. He was a good
+friend, Cardlestone, whatever else he may have been&mdash;a good friend.
+And&mdash;I don&rsquo;t know any more than what happened that night.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Tell us what happened that night,&rdquo; said Breton.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, that night I went round, as I often did, to play piquet with
+Cardlestone. That was about ten o&rsquo;clock. About eleven Jane Baylis came to
+Cardlestone&rsquo;s&mdash;she&rsquo;d been to my rooms to find me&mdash;wanted
+to see me particularly&mdash;and she&rsquo;d come on there, knowing where I
+should be. Cardlestone would make her have a glass of wine and a biscuit; she
+sat down and we all talked. Then, about, I should think, a quarter to twelve, a
+knock came at Cardlestone&rsquo;s door&mdash;his outer door was open, and of
+course anybody outside could see lights within. Cardlestone went to the door:
+we heard a man&rsquo;s voice enquire for him by name; then the voice added that
+Criedir, the stamp dealer, had advised him to call on Mr. Cardlestone to show
+him some rare Australian stamps, and that seeing a light under his door he had
+knocked. Cardlestone asked him in&mdash;he came in. That was the man we saw
+next day at the mortuary. Upon my honour, we didn&rsquo;t know him, either that
+night or next day!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What happened when he came in?&rdquo; asked Breton.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Cardlestone asked him to sit down: he offered and gave him a drink. The
+man said Criedir had given him Cardlestone&rsquo;s address, and that he&rsquo;d
+been with a friend at some rooms in Fountain Court, and as he was passing our
+building he&rsquo;d just looked to make sure where Cardlestone lived, and as
+he&rsquo;d noticed a light he&rsquo;d made bold to knock. He and Cardlestone
+began to examine the stamps. Jane Baylis said good-night, and she and I left
+Cardlestone and the man together.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No one had recognized him?&rdquo; said Breton.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No one! Remember, I only once or twice saw Maitland in all my life. The
+others certainly did not recognize him. At least, I never knew that they
+did&mdash;if they did.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Tell us,&rdquo; said Spargo, joining in for the first time, &ldquo;tell
+us what you and Miss Baylis did?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;At the foot of the stairs Jane Baylis suddenly said she&rsquo;d
+forgotten something in Cardlestone&rsquo;s lobby. As she was going out in to
+Fleet Street, and I was going down Middle Temple Lane to turn off to my own
+rooms we said good-night. She went back upstairs. And I went home. And upon my
+soul and honour that&rsquo;s all I know!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo suddenly leapt to his feet. He snatched at his cap&mdash;a sodden and
+bedraggled headgear which he had thrown down when they entered the cottage.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s enough!&rdquo; he almost shouted. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve got
+it&mdash;at last! Breton&mdash;where&rsquo;s the nearest telegraph office?
+Hawes? Straight down this valley? Then, here&rsquo;s for it! Look after things
+till I&rsquo;m back, or, when the police come, join me there. I shall catch the
+first train to town, anyhow, after wiring.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But&mdash;what are you after, Spargo?&rdquo; exclaimed Breton.
+&ldquo;Stop! What on earth&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But Spargo had closed the door and was running for all he was worth down the
+valley. Three quarters of an hour later he startled a quiet and peaceful
+telegraphist by darting, breathless and dirty, into a sleepy country post
+office, snatching a telegraph form and scribbling down a message in shaky
+handwriting:&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p class="letter">
+<i>Rathbury, New Scotland Yard, London.</i><br/>
+<i>Arrest Jane Baylis at once for murder of John Maitland.</i><br/>
+<i>Coming straight to town with full evidence.</i><br/>
+          <i>Frank Spargo</i>.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then Spargo dropped on the office bench, and while the wondering operator set
+the wires ticking, strove to get his breath, utterly spent in his mad race
+across the heather. And when it was got he set out again&mdash;to find the
+station.
+</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>
+Some days later, Spargo, having seen Stephen Aylmore walk out of the Bow Street
+dock, cleared of the charge against him, and in a fair way of being cleared of
+the affair of twenty years before, found himself in a very quiet corner of the
+Court holding the hand of Jessie Aylmore, who, he discovered, was saying things
+to him which he scarcely comprehended. There was nobody near them and the girl
+spoke freely and warmly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But you will come&mdash;you will come today&mdash;and be properly
+thanked,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;You will&mdash;won&rsquo;t you?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo allowed himself to retain possession of the hand. Also he took a
+straight look into Jessie Aylmore&rsquo;s eyes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t want thanks,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;It was all a lot of
+luck. And if I come&mdash;today&mdash;it will be to see&mdash;just you!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jessie Aylmore looked down at the two hands.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I think,&rdquo; she whispered, &ldquo;I think that is what I really
+meant!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+THE END
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10373 ***</div>
+</body>
+
+</html>
+
+
diff --git a/10373-h/images/cover.jpg b/10373-h/images/cover.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..baccebc
--- /dev/null
+++ b/10373-h/images/cover.jpg
diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6312041
--- /dev/null
+++ b/LICENSE.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,11 @@
+This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements,
+metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be
+in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES.
+
+Procedures for determining public domain status are described in
+the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org.
+
+No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in
+jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize
+this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright
+status under the laws that apply to them.
diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..94d3151
--- /dev/null
+++ b/README.md
@@ -0,0 +1,2 @@
+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #10373 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10373)
diff --git a/old/10373-0.txt b/old/10373-0.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..c9b8db1
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/10373-0.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,9697 @@
+The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Middle Temple Murder, by J.S. Fletcher
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
+most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
+whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
+of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
+www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you
+will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before
+using this eBook.
+
+Title: The Middle Temple Murder
+
+Author: J.S. Fletcher
+
+Release Date: December 3, 2003 [eBook #10373]
+[Most recently updated: July 21, 2021]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+Produced by: Juliet Sutherland, Linda Cantoni and PG Distributed Proofreaders
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MIDDLE TEMPLE MURDER ***
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+The Middle Temple Murder
+
+by J.S. Fletcher
+
+1919
+
+Contents
+
+ CHAPTER I. THE SCRAP OF GREY PAPER
+ CHAPTER II. HIS FIRST BRIEF
+ CHAPTER III. THE CLUE OF THE CAP
+ CHAPTER IV. THE ANGLO-ORIENT HOTEL
+ CHAPTER V. SPARGO WISHES TO SPECIALIZE
+ CHAPTER VI. WITNESS TO A MEETING
+ CHAPTER VII. MR. AYLMORE
+ CHAPTER VIII. THE MAN FROM THE SAFE DEPOSIT
+ CHAPTER IX. THE DEALER IN RARE STAMPS
+ CHAPTER X. THE LEATHER BOX
+ CHAPTER XI. MR. AYLMORE IS QUESTIONED
+ CHAPTER XII. THE NEW WITNESS
+ CHAPTER XIII. UNDER SUSPICION
+ CHAPTER XIV. THE SILVER TICKET
+ CHAPTER XV. MARKET MILCASTER
+ CHAPTER XVI. THE “YELLOW DRAGON”
+ CHAPTER XVII. MR. QUARTERPAGE HARKS BACK
+ CHAPTER XVIII. AN OLD NEWSPAPER
+ CHAPTER XIX. THE CHAMBERLAYNE STORY
+ CHAPTER XX. MAITLAND _alias_ MARBURY
+ CHAPTER XXI. ARRESTED
+ CHAPTER XXII. THE BLANK PAST
+ CHAPTER XXIII. MISS BAYLIS
+ CHAPTER XXIV. MOTHER GUTCH
+ CHAPTER XXV. REVELATIONS
+ CHAPTER XXVI. STILL SILENT
+ CHAPTER XXVII. MR. ELPHICK’S CHAMBERS
+ CHAPTER XXVIII. OF PROVED IDENTITY
+ CHAPTER XXIX. THE CLOSED DOORS
+ CHAPTER XXX. REVELATION
+ CHAPTER XXXI. THE PENITENT WINDOW-CLEANER
+ CHAPTER XXXII. THE CONTENTS OF THE COFFIN
+ CHAPTER XXXIII. FORESTALLED
+ CHAPTER XXXIV. THE WHIP HAND
+ CHAPTER XXXV. MYERST EXPLAINS
+ CHAPTER XXXVI. THE FINAL TELEGRAM
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER ONE
+THE SCRAP OF GREY PAPER
+
+
+As a rule, Spargo left the _Watchman_ office at two o’clock. The paper
+had then gone to press. There was nothing for him, recently promoted to
+a sub-editorship, to do after he had passed the column for which he was
+responsible; as a matter of fact he could have gone home before the
+machines began their clatter. But he generally hung about, trifling,
+until two o’clock came. On this occasion, the morning of the 22nd of
+June, 1912, he stopped longer than usual, chatting with Hacket, who had
+charge of the foreign news, and who began telling him about a telegram
+which had just come through from Durazzo. What Hacket had to tell was
+interesting: Spargo lingered to hear all about it, and to discuss it.
+Altogether it was well beyond half-past two when he went out of the
+office, unconsciously puffing away from him as he reached the threshold
+the last breath of the atmosphere in which he had spent his midnight.
+In Fleet Street the air was fresh, almost to sweetness, and the first
+grey of the coming dawn was breaking faintly around the high silence of
+St. Paul’s.
+
+Spargo lived in Bloomsbury, on the west side of Russell Square. Every
+night and every morning he walked to and from the _Watchman_ office by
+the same route—Southampton Row, Kingsway, the Strand, Fleet Street. He
+came to know several faces, especially amongst the police; he formed
+the habit of exchanging greetings with various officers whom he
+encountered at regular points as he went slowly homewards, smoking his
+pipe. And on this morning, as he drew near to Middle Temple Lane, he
+saw a policeman whom he knew, one Driscoll, standing at the entrance,
+looking about him. Further away another policeman appeared, sauntering.
+Driscoll raised an arm and signalled; then, turning, he saw Spargo. He
+moved a step or two towards him. Spargo saw news in his face.
+
+“What is it?” asked Spargo.
+
+Driscoll jerked a thumb over his shoulder, towards the partly open door
+of the lane. Within, Spargo saw a man hastily donning a waistcoat and
+jacket.
+
+“He says,” answered Driscoll, “him, there—the porter—that there’s a man
+lying in one of them entries down the lane, and he thinks he’s dead.
+Likewise, he thinks he’s murdered.”
+
+Spargo echoed the word.
+
+“But what makes him think that?” he asked, peeping with curiosity
+beyond Driscoll’s burly form. “Why?”
+
+“He says there’s blood about him,” answered Driscoll. He turned and
+glanced at the oncoming constable, and then turned again to Spargo.
+“You’re a newspaper man, sir?” he suggested.
+
+“I am,” replied Spargo.
+
+“You’d better walk down with us,” said Driscoll, with a grin. “There’ll
+be something to write pieces in the paper about. At least, there may
+be.” Spargo made no answer. He continued to look down the lane,
+wondering what secret it held, until the other policeman came up. At
+the same moment the porter, now fully clothed, came out.
+
+“Come on!” he said shortly. “I’ll show you.”
+
+Driscoll murmured a word or two to the newly-arrived constable, and
+then turned to the porter.
+
+“How came you to find him, then?” he asked
+
+The porter jerked his head at the door which they were leaving.
+
+“I heard that door slam,” he replied, irritably, as if the fact which
+he mentioned caused him offence. “I know I did! So I got up to look
+around. Then—well, I saw that!”
+
+He raised a hand, pointing down the lane. The three men followed his
+outstretched finger. And Spargo then saw a man’s foot, booted,
+grey-socked, protruding from an entry on the left hand.
+
+“Sticking out there, just as you see it now,” said the porter. “I ain’t
+touched it. And so—”
+
+He paused and made a grimace as if at the memory of some unpleasant
+thing. Driscoll nodded comprehendingly.
+
+“And so you went along and looked?” he suggested. “Just so—just to see
+who it belonged to, as it might be.”
+
+“Just to see—what there was to see,” agreed the porter. “Then I saw
+there was blood. And then—well, I made up the lane to tell one of you
+chaps.”
+
+“Best thing you could have done,” said Driscoll. “Well, now then—”
+
+The little procession came to a halt at the entry. The entry was a cold
+and formal thing of itself; not a nice place to lie dead in, having
+glazed white tiles for its walls and concrete for its flooring;
+something about its appearance in that grey morning air suggested to
+Spargo the idea of a mortuary. And that the man whose foot projected
+over the step was dead he had no doubt: the limpness of his pose
+certified to it.
+
+For a moment none of the four men moved or spoke. The two policemen
+unconsciously stuck their thumbs in their belts and made play with
+their fingers; the porter rubbed his chin thoughtfully—Spargo
+remembered afterwards the rasping sound of this action; he himself put
+his hands in his pockets and began to jingle his money and his keys.
+Each man had his own thoughts as he contemplated the piece of human
+wreckage which lay before him.
+
+“You’ll notice,” suddenly observed Driscoll, speaking in a hushed
+voice, “You’ll notice that he’s lying there in a queer way—same as
+if—as if he’d been put there. Sort of propped up against that wall, at
+first, and had slid down, like.”
+
+Spargo was taking in all the details with a professional eye. He saw at
+his feet the body of an elderly man; the face was turned away from him,
+crushed in against the glaze of the wall, but he judged the man to be
+elderly because of grey hair and whitening whisker; it was clothed in a
+good, well-made suit of grey check cloth—tweed—and the boots were good:
+so, too, was the linen cuff which projected from the sleeve that hung
+so limply. One leg was half doubled under the body; the other was
+stretched straight out across the threshold; the trunk was twisted to
+the wall. Over the white glaze of the tiles against which it and the
+shoulder towards which it had sunk were crushed there were gouts and
+stains of blood. And Driscoll, taking a hand out of his belt, pointed a
+finger at them.
+
+“Seems to me,” he said, slowly, “seems to me as how he’s been struck
+down from behind as he came out of here. That blood’s from his
+nose—gushed out as he fell. What do you say, Jim?” The other policeman
+coughed.
+
+“Better get the inspector here,” he said. “And the doctor and the
+ambulance. Dead—ain’t he?”
+
+Driscoll bent down and put a thumb on the hand which lay on the
+pavement.
+
+“As ever they make ’em,” he remarked laconically. “And stiff, too.
+Well, hurry up, Jim!”
+
+Spargo waited until the inspector arrived; waited until the
+hand-ambulance came. More policemen came with it; they moved the body
+for transference to the mortuary, and Spargo then saw the dead man’s
+face. He looked long and steadily at it while the police arranged the
+limbs, wondering all the time who it was that he gazed at, how he came
+to that end, what was the object of his murderer, and many other
+things. There was some professionalism in Spargo’s curiosity, but there
+was also a natural dislike that a fellow-being should have been so
+unceremoniously smitten out of the world.
+
+There was nothing very remarkable about the dead man’s face. It was
+that of a man of apparently sixty to sixty-five years of age; plain,
+even homely of feature, clean-shaven, except for a fringe of white
+whisker, trimmed, after an old-fashioned pattern, between the ear and
+the point of the jaw. The only remarkable thing about it was that it
+was much lined and seamed; the wrinkles were many and deep around the
+corners of the lips and the angles of the eyes; this man, you would
+have said to yourself, has led a hard life and weathered storm, mental
+as well as physical.
+
+Driscoll nudged Spargo with a turn of his elbow. He gave him a wink.
+“Better come down to the dead-house,” he muttered confidentially.
+
+“Why?” asked Spargo.
+
+“They’ll go through him,” whispered Driscoll. “Search him, d’ye see?
+Then you’ll get to know all about him, and so on. Help to write that
+piece in the paper, eh?”
+
+Spargo hesitated. He had had a stiff night’s work, and until his
+encounter with Driscoll he had cherished warm anticipation of the meal
+which would be laid out for him at his rooms, and of the bed into which
+he would subsequently tumble. Besides, a telephone message would send a
+man from the _Watchman_ to the mortuary. This sort of thing was not in
+his line now, now—
+
+“You’ll be for getting one o’ them big play-cards out with something
+about a mystery on it,” suggested Driscoll. “You never know what lies
+at the bottom o’ these affairs, no more you don’t.”
+
+That last observation decided Spargo; moreover, the old instinct for
+getting news began to assert itself.
+
+“All right,” he said. “I’ll go along with you.”
+
+And re-lighting his pipe he followed the little cortège through the
+streets, still deserted and quiet, and as he walked behind he reflected
+on the unobtrusive fashion in which murder could stalk about. Here was
+the work of murder, no doubt, and it was being quietly carried along a
+principal London thoroughfare, without fuss or noise, by officials to
+whom the dealing with it was all a matter of routine. Surely—
+
+“My opinion,” said a voice at Spargo’s elbow, “my opinion is that it
+was done elsewhere. Not there! He was put there. That’s what I say.”
+Spargo turned and saw that the porter was at his side. He, too, was
+accompanying the body.
+
+“Oh!” said Spargo. “You think—”
+
+“I think he was struck down elsewhere and carried there,” said the
+porter. “In somebody’s chambers, maybe. I’ve known of some queer games
+in our bit of London! Well!—he never came in at my lodge last
+night—I’ll stand to that. And who is he, I should like to know? From
+what I see of him, not the sort to be about our place.”
+
+“That’s what we shall hear presently,” said Spargo. “They’re going to
+search him.”
+
+But Spargo was presently made aware that the searchers had found
+nothing. The police-surgeon said that the dead man had, without doubt,
+been struck down from behind by a terrible blow which had fractured the
+skull and caused death almost instantaneously. In Driscoll’s opinion,
+the murder had been committed for the sake of plunder. For there was
+nothing whatever on the body. It was reasonable to suppose that a man
+who is well dressed would possess a watch and chain, and have money in
+his pockets, and possibly rings on his fingers. But there was nothing
+valuable to be found; in fact there was nothing at all to be found that
+could lead to identification—no letters, no papers, nothing. It was
+plain that whoever had struck the dead man down had subsequently
+stripped him of whatever was on him. The only clue to possible identity
+lay in the fact that a soft cap of grey cloth appeared to have been
+newly purchased at a fashionable shop in the West End.
+
+Spargo went home; there seemed to be nothing to stop for. He ate his
+food and he went to bed, only to do poor things in the way of sleeping.
+He was not the sort to be impressed by horrors, but he recognized at
+last that the morning’s event had destroyed his chance of rest; he
+accordingly rose, took a cold bath, drank a cup of coffee, and went
+out. He was not sure of any particular idea when he strolled away from
+Bloomsbury, but it did not surprise him when, half an hour later he
+found that he had walked down to the police station near which the
+unknown man’s body lay in the mortuary. And there he met Driscoll, just
+going off duty. Driscoll grinned at sight of him.
+
+“You’re in luck,” he said. “’Tisn’t five minutes since they found a bit
+of grey writing paper crumpled up in the poor man’s waistcoat pocket—it
+had slipped into a crack. Come in, and you’ll see it.”
+
+Spargo went into the inspector’s office. In another minute he found
+himself staring at the scrap of paper. There was nothing on it but an
+address, scrawled in pencil:—Ronald Breton, Barrister, King’s Bench
+Walk, Temple, London.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWO
+HIS FIRST BRIEF
+
+
+Spargo looked up at the inspector with a quick jerk of his head. “I
+know this man,” he said.
+
+The inspector showed new interest.
+
+“What, Mr. Breton?” he asked.
+
+“Yes. I’m on the _Watchman_, you know, sub-editor. I took an article
+from him the other day—article on ‘Ideal Sites for Campers-Out.’ He
+came to the office about it. So this was in the dead man’s pocket?”
+
+“Found in a hole in his pocket, I understand: I wasn’t present myself.
+It’s not much, but it may afford some clue to identity.”
+
+Spargo picked up the scrap of grey paper and looked closely at it. It
+seemed to him to be the sort of paper that is found in hotels and in
+clubs; it had been torn roughly from the sheet.
+
+“What,” he asked meditatively, “what will you do about getting this man
+identified?”
+
+The inspector shrugged his shoulders.
+
+“Oh, usual thing, I suppose. There’ll be publicity, you know. I suppose
+you’ll be doing a special account yourself, for your paper, eh? Then
+there’ll be the others. And we shall put out the usual notice. Somebody
+will come forward to identify—sure to. And—”
+
+A man came into the office—a stolid-faced, quiet-mannered, soberly
+attired person, who might have been a respectable tradesman out for a
+stroll, and who gave the inspector a sidelong nod as he approached his
+desk, at the same time extending his hand towards the scrap of paper
+which Spargo had just laid down.
+
+“I’ll go along to King’s Bench Walk and see Mr. Breton,” he observed,
+looking at his watch. “It’s just about ten—I daresay he’ll be there
+now.”
+
+“I’m going there, too,” remarked Spargo, but as if speaking to himself.
+“Yes, I’ll go there.”
+
+The newcomer glanced at Spargo, and then at the inspector. The
+inspector nodded at Spargo.
+
+“Journalist,” he said, “Mr. Spargo of the _Watchman_. Mr. Spargo was
+there when the body was found. And he knows Mr. Breton.” Then he nodded
+from Spargo to the stolid-faced person. “This is Detective-Sergeant
+Rathbury, from the Yard,” he said to Spargo. “He’s come to take charge
+of this case.”
+
+“Oh?” said Spargo blankly. “I see—what,” he went on, with sudden
+abruptness, “what shall you do about Breton?”
+
+“Get him to come and look at the body,” replied Rathbury. “He may know
+the man and he mayn’t. Anyway, his name and address are here, aren’t
+they?”
+
+“Come along,” said Spargo. “I’ll walk there with you.”
+
+Spargo remained in a species of brown study all the way along Tudor
+Street; his companion also maintained silence in a fashion which showed
+that he was by nature and custom a man of few words. It was not until
+the two were climbing the old balustrated staircase of the house in
+King’s Bench Walk in which Ronald Breton’s chambers were somewhere
+situate that Spargo spoke.
+
+“Do you think that old chap was killed for what he may have had on
+him?” he asked, suddenly turning on the detective.
+
+“I should like to know what he had on him before I answered that
+question, Mr. Spargo,” replied Rathbury, with a smile.
+
+“Yes,” said Spargo, dreamily. “I suppose so. He might have had—nothing
+on him, eh?”
+
+The detective laughed, and pointed to a board on which names were
+printed.
+
+“We don’t know anything yet, sir,” he observed, “except that Mr. Breton
+is on the fourth floor. By which I conclude that it isn’t long since he
+was eating his dinner.”
+
+“Oh, he’s young—he’s quite young,” said Spargo. “I should say he’s
+about four-and-twenty. I’ve met him only—”
+
+At that moment the unmistakable sounds of girlish laughter came down
+the staircase. Two girls seemed to be laughing—presently masculine
+laughter mingled with the lighter feminine.
+
+“Seems to be studying law in very pleasant fashion up here, anyway,”
+said Rathbury. “Mr. Breton’s chambers, too. And the door’s open.”
+
+The outer oak door of Ronald Breton’s chambers stood thrown wide; the
+inner one was well ajar; through the opening thus made Spargo and the
+detective obtained a full view of the interior of Mr. Ronald Breton’s
+rooms. There, against a background of law books, bundles of papers tied
+up with pink tape, and black-framed pictures of famous legal
+notabilities, they saw a pretty, vivacious-eyed girl, who, perched on a
+chair, wigged and gowned, and flourishing a mass of crisp paper, was
+haranguing an imaginary judge and jury, to the amusement of a young man
+who had his back to the door, and of another girl who leant
+confidentially against his shoulder.
+
+“I put it to you, gentlemen of the jury—I put it to you with
+confidence, feeling that you must be, must necessarily be, some,
+perhaps brothers, perhaps husbands, and fathers, can you, on your
+consciences do my client the great wrong, the irreparable injury,
+the—the—”
+
+“Think of some more adjectives!” exclaimed the young man. “Hot and
+strong ’uns—pile ’em up. That’s what they like—they—Hullo!”
+
+This exclamation arose from the fact that at this point of the
+proceedings the detective rapped at the inner door, and then put his
+head round its edge. Whereupon the young lady who was orating from the
+chair, jumped hastily down; the other young lady withdrew from the
+young man’s protecting arm; there was a feminine giggle and a feminine
+swishing of skirts, and a hasty bolt into an inner room, and Mr. Ronald
+Breton came forward, blushing a little, to greet the interrupter.
+
+“Come in, come in!” he exclaimed hastily. “I—”
+
+Then he paused, catching sight of Spargo, and held out his hand with a
+look of surprise.
+
+“Oh—Mr. Spargo?” he said. “How do you do?—we—I—we were just having a
+lark—I’m off to court in a few minutes. What can I do for you, Mr.
+Spargo?”
+
+He had backed to the inner door as he spoke, and he now closed it and
+turned again to the two men, looking from one to the other. The
+detective, on his part, was looking at the young barrister. He saw a
+tall, slimly-built youth, of handsome features and engaging presence,
+perfectly groomed, and immaculately garbed, and having upon him a
+general air of well-to-do-ness, and he formed the impression from these
+matters that Mr. Breton was one of those fortunate young men who may
+take up a profession but are certainly not dependent upon it. He turned
+and glanced at the journalist.
+
+“How do you do?” said Spargo slowly. “I—the fact is, I came here with
+Mr. Rathbury. He—wants to see you. Detective-Sergeant Rathbury—of New
+Scotland Yard.”
+
+Spargo pronounced this formal introduction as if he were repeating a
+lesson. But he was watching the young barrister’s face. And Breton
+turned to the detective with a look of surprise.
+
+“Oh!” he said. “You wish—”
+
+Rathbury had been fumbling in his pocket for the scrap of grey paper,
+which he had carefully bestowed in a much-worn memorandum-book. “I
+wished to ask a question, Mr. Breton,” he said. “This morning, about a
+quarter to three, a man—elderly man—was found dead in Middle Temple
+Lane, and there seems little doubt that he was murdered. Mr. Spargo
+here—he was present when the body was found.”
+
+“Soon after,” corrected Spargo. “A few minutes after.”
+
+“When this body was examined at the mortuary,” continued Rathbury, in
+his matter-of-fact, business-like tones, “nothing was found that could
+lead to identification. The man appears to have been robbed. There was
+nothing whatever on him—but this bit of torn paper, which was found in
+a hole in the lining of his waistcoat pocket. It’s got your name and
+address on it, Mr. Breton. See?”
+
+Ronald Breton took the scrap of paper and looked at it with knitted
+brows.
+
+“By Jove!” he muttered. “So it has; that’s queer. What’s he like, this
+man?”
+
+Rathbury glanced at a clock which stood on the mantelpiece.
+
+“Will you step round and take a look at him, Mr. Breton?” he said.
+“It’s close by.”
+
+“Well—I—the fact is, I’ve got a case on, in Mr. Justice Borrow’s
+court,” Breton answered, also glancing at his clock. “But it won’t be
+called until after eleven. Will—”
+
+“Plenty of time, sir,” said Rathbury; “it won’t take you ten minutes to
+go round and back again—a look will do. You don’t recognize this
+handwriting, I suppose?”
+
+Breton still held the scrap of paper in his fingers. He looked at it
+again, intently.
+
+“No!” he answered. “I don’t. I don’t know it at all—I can’t think, of
+course, who this man could be, to have my name and address. I thought
+he might have been some country solicitor, wanting my professional
+services, you know,” he went on, with a shy smile at Spargo; “but,
+three—three o’clock in the morning, eh?”
+
+“The doctor,” observed Rathbury, “the doctor thinks he had been dead
+about two and a half hours.”
+
+Breton turned to the inner door.
+
+“I’ll—I’ll just tell these ladies I’m going out for a quarter of an
+hour,” he said. “They’re going over to the court with me—I got my first
+brief yesterday,” he went on with a boyish laugh, glancing right and
+left at his visitors. “It’s nothing much—small case—but I promised my
+fiancée and her sister that they should be present, you know. A
+moment.”
+
+He disappeared into the next room and came back a moment later in all
+the glory of a new silk hat. Spargo, a young man who was never very
+particular about his dress, began to contrast his own attire with the
+butterfly appearance of this youngster; he had been quick to notice
+that the two girls who had whisked into the inner room had been
+similarly garbed in fine raiment, more characteristic of Mayfair than
+of Fleet Street. Already he felt a strange curiosity about Breton, and
+about the young ladies whom he heard talking behind the inner door.
+
+“Well, come on,” said Breton. “Let’s go straight there.”
+
+The mortuary to which Rathbury led the way was cold, drab, repellent to
+the general gay sense of the summer morning. Spargo shivered
+involuntarily as he entered it and took a first glance around. But the
+young barrister showed no sign of feeling or concern; he looked quickly
+about him and stepped alertly to the side of the dead man, from whose
+face the detective was turning back a cloth. He looked steadily and
+earnestly at the fixed features. Then he drew back, shaking his head.
+
+“No!” he said with decision. “Don’t know him—don’t know him from Adam.
+Never set eyes on him in my life, that I know of.”
+
+Rathbury replaced the cloth.
+
+“I didn’t suppose you would,” he remarked. “Well, I expect we must go
+on the usual lines. Somebody’ll identify him.”
+
+“You say he was murdered?” said Breton. “Is that—certain?”
+
+Rathbury jerked his thumb at the corpse.
+
+“The back of his skull is smashed in,” he said laconically. “The doctor
+says he must have been struck down from behind—and a fearful blow, too.
+I’m much obliged to you, Mr. Breton.”
+
+“Oh, all right!” said Breton. “Well, you know where to find me if you
+want me. I shall be curious about this. Good-bye—good-bye, Mr. Spargo.”
+
+The young barrister hurried away, and Rathbury turned to the
+journalist.
+
+“I didn’t expect anything from that,” he remarked. “However, it was a
+thing to be done. You are going to write about this for your paper?”
+
+Spargo nodded.
+
+“Well,” continued Rathbury, “I’ve sent a man to Fiskie’s, the hatter’s,
+where that cap came from, you know. We may get a bit of information
+from that quarter—it’s possible. If you like to meet me here at twelve
+o’clock I’ll tell you anything I’ve heard. Just now I’m going to get
+some breakfast.”
+
+“I’ll meet you here,” said Spargo, “at twelve o’clock.”
+
+He watched Rathbury go away round one corner; he himself suddenly set
+off round another. He went to the _Watchman_ office, wrote a few lines,
+which he enclosed in an envelope for the day-editor, and went out
+again. Somehow or other, his feet led him up Fleet Street, and before
+he quite realized what he was doing he found himself turning into the
+Law Courts.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THREE
+THE CLUE OF THE CAP
+
+
+Having no clear conception of what had led him to these scenes of
+litigation, Spargo went wandering aimlessly about in the great hall and
+the adjacent corridors until an official, who took him to be lost,
+asked him if there was any particular part of the building he wanted.
+For a moment Spargo stared at the man as if he did not comprehend his
+question. Then his mental powers reasserted themselves.
+
+“Isn’t Mr. Justice Borrow sitting in one of the courts this morning?”
+he suddenly asked.
+
+“Number seven,” replied the official. “What’s your case—when’s it
+down?”
+
+“I haven’t got a case,” said Spargo. “I’m a pressman—reporter, you
+know.”
+
+The official stuck out a finger.
+
+“Round the corner—first to your right—second on the left,” he said
+automatically. “You’ll find plenty of room—nothing much doing there
+this morning.”
+
+He turned away, and Spargo recommenced his apparently aimless
+perambulation of the dreary, depressing corridors.
+
+“Upon my honour!” he muttered. “Upon my honour, I really don’t know
+what I’ve come up here for. I’ve no business here.”
+
+Just then he turned a corner and came face to face with Ronald Breton.
+The young barrister was now in his wig and gown and carried a bundle of
+papers tied up with pink tape; he was escorting two young ladies, who
+were laughing and chattering as they tripped along at his side. And
+Spargo, glancing at them meditatively, instinctively told himself which
+of them it was that he and Rathbury had overheard as she made her
+burlesque speech: it was not the elder one, who walked by Ronald Breton
+with something of an air of proprietorship, but the younger, the girl
+with the laughing eyes and the vivacious smile, and it suddenly dawned
+upon him that somewhere, deep within him, there had been a notion, a
+hope of seeing this girl again—why, he could not then think.
+
+Spargo, thus coming face to face with these three, mechanically lifted
+his hat. Breton stopped, half inquisitive. His eyes seemed to ask a
+question.
+
+“Yes,” said Spargo. “I—the fact is, I remembered that you said you were
+coming up here, and I came after you. I want—when you’ve time—to have a
+talk, to ask you a few questions. About—this affair of the dead man,
+you know.”
+
+Breton nodded. He tapped Spargo on the arm.
+
+“Look here,” he said. “When this case of mine is over, I can give you
+as much time as you like. Can you wait a bit? Yes? Well, I say, do me a
+favour. I was taking these ladies round to the gallery—round there, and
+up the stairs—and I’m a bit pressed for time—I’ve a solicitor waiting
+for me. You take them—there’s a good fellow; then, when the case is
+over, bring them down here, and you and I will talk. Here—I’ll
+introduce you all—no ceremony. Miss Aylmore—Miss Jessie Aylmore. Mr.
+Spargo—of the _Watchman_. Now, I’m off!” Breton turned on the instant;
+his gown whisked round a corner, and Spargo found himself staring at
+two smiling girls. He saw then that both were pretty and attractive,
+and that one seemed to be the elder by some three or four years.
+
+“That is very cool of Ronald,” observed the elder young lady. “Perhaps
+his scheme doesn’t fit in with yours, Mr. Spargo? Pray don’t—”
+
+“Oh, it’s all right!” said Spargo, feeling himself uncommonly stupid.
+“I’ve nothing to do. But—where did Mr. Breton say you wished to be
+taken?”
+
+“Into the gallery of number seven court,” said the younger girl
+promptly. “Round this corner—I think I know the way.”
+
+Spargo, still marvelling at the rapidity with which affairs were moving
+that morning, bestirred himself to act as cicerone, and presently led
+the two young ladies to the very front of one of those public galleries
+from which idlers and specially-interested spectators may see and hear
+the proceedings which obtain in the badly-ventilated, ill-lighted tanks
+wherein justice is dispensed at the Law Courts. There was no one else
+in that gallery; the attendant in the corridor outside seemed to be
+vastly amazed that any one should wish to enter it, and he presently
+opened the door, beckoned to Spargo, and came half-way down the stairs
+to meet him.
+
+“Nothing much going on here this morning,” he whispered behind a raised
+hand. “But there’s a nice breach case in number five—get you three good
+seats there if you like.”
+
+Spargo declined this tempting offer, and went back to his charges. He
+had decided by that time that Miss Aylmore was about twenty-three, and
+her sister about eighteen; he also thought that young Breton was a
+lucky dog to be in possession of such a charming future wife and an
+equally charming sister-in-law. And he dropped into a seat at Miss
+Jessie Aylmore’s side, and looked around him as if he were much awed by
+his surroundings.
+
+“I suppose one can talk until the judge enters?” he whispered. “Is this
+really Mr. Breton’s first case?”
+
+“His very first—all on his own responsibility, any way,” replied
+Spargo’s companion, smiling. “And he’s very nervous—and so’s my sister.
+Aren’t you, now, Evelyn?”
+
+Evelyn Aylmore looked at Spargo, and smiled quietly.
+
+“I suppose one’s always nervous about first appearances,” she said.
+“However, I think Ronald’s got plenty of confidence, and, as he says,
+it’s not much of a case: it isn’t even a jury case. I’m afraid you’ll
+find it dull, Mr. Spargo—it’s only something about a promissory note.”
+
+“Oh, I’m all right, thank you,” replied Spargo, unconsciously falling
+back on a favourite formula. “I always like to hear lawyers—they manage
+to say such a lot about—about—”
+
+“About nothing,” said Jessie Aylmore. “But there—so do gentlemen who
+write for the papers, don’t they?”
+
+Spargo was about to admit that there was a good deal to be said on that
+point when Miss Aylmore suddenly drew her sister’s attention to a man
+who had just entered the well of the court.
+
+“Look, Jessie!” she observed. “There’s Mr. Elphick!”
+
+Spargo looked down at the person indicated: an elderly, large-faced,
+smooth-shaven man, a little inclined to stoutness, who, wigged and
+gowned, was slowly making his way to a corner seat just outside that
+charmed inner sanctum wherein only King’s Counsel are permitted to sit.
+He dropped into this in a fashion which showed that he was one of those
+men who loved personal comfort; he bestowed his plump person at the
+most convenient angle and fitting a monocle in his right eye, glanced
+around him. There were a few of his professional brethren in his
+vicinity; there were half a dozen solicitors and their clerks in
+conversation with one or other of them; there were court officials. But
+the gentleman of the monocle swept all these with an indifferent look
+and cast his eyes upward until he caught sight of the two girls.
+Thereupon he made a most gracious bow in their direction; his broad
+face beamed in a genial smile, and he waved a white hand.
+
+“Do you know Mr. Elphick, Mr. Spargo?” enquired the younger Miss
+Aylmore.
+
+“I rather think I’ve seen him, somewhere about the Temple,” answered
+Spargo. “In fact, I’m sure I have.”
+
+“His chambers are in Paper Buildings,” said Jessie. “Sometimes he gives
+tea-parties in them. He is Ronald’s guardian, and preceptor, and
+mentor, and all that, and I suppose he’s dropped into this court to
+hear how his pupil goes on.”
+
+“Here is Ronald,” whispered Miss Aylmore.
+
+“And here,” said her sister, “is his lordship, looking very cross. Now,
+Mr. Spargo, you’re in for it.”
+
+Spargo, to tell the truth, paid little attention to what went on
+beneath him. The case which young Breton presently opened was a
+commercial one, involving certain rights and properties in a promissory
+note; it seemed to the journalist that Breton dealt with it very well,
+showing himself master of the financial details, and speaking with
+readiness and assurance. He was much more interested in his companions,
+and especially in the younger one, and he was meditating on how he
+could improve his further acquaintance when he awoke to the fact that
+the defence, realizing that it stood no chance, had agreed to withdraw,
+and that Mr. Justice Borrow was already giving judgment in Ronald
+Breton’s favour.
+
+In another minute he was walking out of the gallery in rear of the two
+sisters.
+
+“Very good—very good, indeed,” he said, absent-mindedly. “I thought he
+put his facts very clearly and concisely.”
+
+Downstairs, in the corridor, Ronald Breton was talking to Mr. Elphick.
+He pointed a finger at Spargo as the latter came up with the girls:
+Spargo gathered that Breton was speaking of the murder and of his,
+Spargo’s, connection with it. And directly they approached, he spoke.
+
+“This is Mr. Spargo, sub-editor of the _Watchman_.” Breton said. “Mr.
+Elphick—Mr. Spargo. I was just telling Mr. Elphick, Spargo, that you
+saw this poor man soon after he was found.”
+
+Spargo, glancing at Mr. Elphick, saw that he was deeply interested. The
+elderly barrister took him—literally—by the button-hole.
+
+“My dear sir!” he said. “You—saw this poor fellow? Lying dead—in the
+third entry down Middle Temple Lane? The third entry, eh?”
+
+“Yes,” replied Spargo, simply. “I saw him. It was the third entry.”
+
+“Singular!” said Mr. Elphick, musingly. “I know a man who lives in that
+house. In fact, I visited him last night, and did not leave until
+nearly midnight. And this unfortunate man had Mr. Ronald Breton’s name
+and address in his pocket?”
+
+Spargo nodded. He looked at Breton, and pulled out his watch. Just then
+he had no idea of playing the part of informant to Mr. Elphick.
+
+“Yes, that’s so,” he answered shortly. Then, looking at Breton
+significantly, he added, “If you can give me those few minutes, now—?”
+
+“Yes—yes!” responded Ronald Breton, nodding. “I understand. Evelyn—I’ll
+leave you and Jessie to Mr. Elphick; I must go.”
+
+Mr. Elphick seized Spargo once more.
+
+“My dear sir!” he said, eagerly. “Do you—do you think I could possibly
+see—the body?”
+
+“It’s at the mortuary,” answered Spargo. “I don’t know what their
+regulations are.”
+
+Then he escaped with Breton. They had crossed Fleet Street and were in
+the quieter shades of the Temple before Spargo spoke.
+
+“About what I wanted to say to you,” he said at last. “It was—this.
+I—well, I’ve always wanted, as a journalist, to have a real big murder
+case. I think this is one. I want to go right into it—thoroughly, first
+and last. And—I think you can help me.”
+
+“How do you know that it is a murder case?” asked Breton quietly.
+
+“It’s a murder case,” answered Spargo, stolidly. “I feel it. Instinct,
+perhaps. I’m going to ferret out the truth. And it seems to me—”
+
+He paused and gave his companion a sharp glance.
+
+“It seems to me,” he presently continued, “that the clue lies in that
+scrap of paper. That paper and that man are connecting links between
+you and—somebody else.”
+
+“Possibly,” agreed Breton. “You want to find the somebody else?”
+
+“I want you to help me to find the somebody else,” answered Spargo. “I
+believe this is a big, very big affair: I want to do it. I don’t
+believe in police methods—much. By the by, I’m just going to meet
+Rathbury. He may have heard of something. Would you like to come?”
+
+Breton ran into his chambers in King’s Bench Walk, left his gown and
+wig, and walked round with Spargo to the police office. Rathbury came
+out as they were stepping in.
+
+“Oh!” he said. “Ah!—I’ve got what may be helpful, Mr. Spargo. I told
+you I’d sent a man to Fiskie’s, the hatter! Well, he’s just returned.
+The cap which the dead man was wearing was bought at Fiskie’s yesterday
+afternoon, and it was sent to Mr. Marbury, Room 20, at the Anglo-Orient
+Hotel.”
+
+“Where is that?” asked Spargo.
+
+“Waterloo district,” answered Rathbury. “A small house, I believe.
+Well, I’m going there. Are you coming?”
+
+“Yes,” replied Spargo. “Of course. And Mr. Breton wants to come, too.”
+
+“If I’m not in the way,” said Breton.
+
+Rathbury laughed.
+
+“Well, we may find out something about this scrap of paper,” he
+observed. And he waved a signal to the nearest taxi-cab driver.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER FOUR
+THE ANGLO-ORIENT HOTEL
+
+
+The house at which Spargo and his companions presently drew up was an
+old-fashioned place in the immediate vicinity of Waterloo Railway
+Station—a plain-fronted, four-square erection, essentially
+mid-Victorian in appearance, and suggestive, somehow, of the very early
+days of railway travelling. Anything more in contrast with the modern
+ideas of a hotel it would have been difficult to find in London, and
+Ronald Breton said so as he and the others crossed the pavement.
+
+“And yet a good many people used to favour this place on their way to
+and from Southampton in the old days,” remarked Rathbury. “And I
+daresay that old travellers, coming back from the East after a good
+many years’ absence, still rush in here. You see, it’s close to the
+station, and travellers have a knack of walking into the nearest place
+when they’ve a few thousand miles of steamboat and railway train behind
+them. Look there, now!” They had crossed the threshold as the detective
+spoke, and as they entered a square, heavily-furnished hall, he made a
+sidelong motion of his head towards a bar on the left, wherein stood or
+lounged a number of men who from their general appearance, their
+slouched hats, and their bronzed faces appeared to be Colonials, or at
+any rate to have spent a good part of their time beneath Oriental
+skies. There was a murmur of tongues that had a Colonial accent in it;
+an aroma of tobacco that suggested Sumatra and Trichinopoly, and
+Rathbury wagged his head sagely. “Lay you anything the dead man was a
+Colonial, Mr. Spargo,” he remarked. “Well, now, I suppose that’s the
+landlord and landlady.”
+
+There was an office facing them, at the rear of the hall, and a man and
+woman were regarding them from a box window which opened above a ledge
+on which lay a register book. They were middle-aged folk: the man, a
+fleshy, round-faced, somewhat pompous-looking individual, who might at
+some time have been a butler; the woman a tall, spare-figured,
+thin-featured, sharp-eyed person, who examined the newcomers with an
+enquiring gaze. Rathbury went up to them with easy confidence.
+
+“You the landlord of this house, sir?” he asked. “Mr. Walters? Just
+so—and Mrs. Walters, I presume?”
+
+The landlord made a stiff bow and looked sharply at his questioner.
+
+“What can I do for you, sir?” he enquired.
+
+“A little matter of business, Mr. Walters,” replied Rathbury, pulling
+out a card. “You’ll see there who I am—Detective-Sergeant Rathbury, of
+the Yard. This is Mr. Frank Spargo, a newspaper man; this is Mr. Ronald
+Breton, a barrister.”
+
+The landlady, hearing their names and description, pointed to a side
+door, and signed Rathbury and his companions to pass through. Obeying
+her pointed finger, they found themselves in a small private parlour.
+Walters closed the two doors which led into it and looked at his
+principal visitor.
+
+“What is it, Mr. Rathbury?” he enquired. “Anything wrong?”
+
+“We want a bit of information,” answered Rathbury, almost with
+indifference.
+
+“Did anybody of the name of Marbury put up here yesterday—elderly man,
+grey hair, fresh complexion?”
+
+Mrs. Walters started, glancing at her husband.
+
+“There!” she exclaimed. “I knew some enquiry would be made. Yes—a Mr.
+Marbury took a room here yesterday morning, just after the noon train
+got in from Southampton. Number 20 he took. But—he didn’t use it last
+night. He went out—very late—and he never came back.”
+
+Rathbury nodded. Answering a sign from the landlord, he took a chair
+and, sitting down, looked at Mrs. Walters.
+
+“What made you think some enquiry would be made, ma’am?” he asked. “Had
+you noticed anything?”
+
+Mrs. Walters seemed a little confused by this direct question. Her
+husband gave vent to a species of growl.
+
+“Nothing to notice,” he muttered. “Her way of speaking—that’s all.”
+
+“Well—why I said that was this,” said the landlady. “He happened to
+tell us, did Mr. Marbury, that he hadn’t been in London for over twenty
+years, and couldn’t remember anything about it, him, he said, never
+having known much about London at any time. And, of course, when he
+went out so late and never came back, why, naturally, I thought
+something had happened to him, and that there’d be enquiries made.”
+
+“Just so—just so!” said Rathbury. “So you would, ma’am—so you would.
+Well, something has happened to him. He’s dead. What’s more, there’s
+strong reason to think he was murdered.”
+
+Mr. and Mrs. Walters received this announcement with proper surprise
+and horror, and the landlord suggested a little refreshment to his
+visitors. Spargo and Breton declined, on the ground that they had work
+to do during the afternoon; Rathbury accepted it, evidently as a matter
+of course.
+
+“My respects,” he said, lifting his glass. “Well, now, perhaps you’ll
+just tell me what you know of this man? I may as well tell you, Mr. and
+Mrs. Walters, that he was found dead in Middle Temple Lane this
+morning, at a quarter to three; that there wasn’t anything on him but
+his clothes and a scrap of paper which bore this gentleman’s name and
+address; that this gentleman knows nothing whatever of him, and that I
+traced him here because he bought a cap at a West End hatter’s
+yesterday, and had it sent to your hotel.”
+
+“Yes,” said Mrs. Walters quickly, “that’s so. And he went out in that
+cap last night. Well—we don’t know much about him. As I said, he came
+in here about a quarter past twelve yesterday morning, and booked
+Number 20. He had a porter with him that brought a trunk and a
+bag—they’re in 20 now, of course. He told me that he had stayed at this
+house over twenty years ago, on his way to Australia—that, of course,
+was long before we took it. And he signed his name in the book as John
+Marbury.”
+
+“We’ll look at that, if you please,” said Rathbury.
+
+Walters fetched in the register and turned the leaf to the previous
+day’s entries. They all bent over the dead man’s writing.
+
+“‘John Marbury, Coolumbidgee, New South Wales,’” said Rathbury. “Ah—now
+I was wondering if that writing would be the same as that on the scrap
+of paper, Mr. Breton. But, you see, it isn’t—it’s quite different.”
+
+“Quite different,” said Breton. He, too, was regarding the handwriting
+with great interest. And Rathbury noticed his keen inspection of it,
+and asked another question.
+
+“Ever seen that writing before?” he suggested.
+
+“Never,” answered Breton. “And yet—there’s something very familiar
+about it.”
+
+“Then the probability is that you have seen it before,” remarked
+Rathbury. “Well—now we’ll hear a little more about Marbury’s doings
+here. Just tell me all you know, Mr. and Mrs. Walters.”
+
+“My wife knows most,” said Walters. “I scarcely saw the man—I don’t
+remember speaking with him.”
+
+“No,” said Mrs. Walters. “You didn’t—you weren’t much in his way.
+Well,” she continued, “I showed him up to his room. He talked a
+bit—said he’d just landed at Southampton from Melbourne.”
+
+“Did he mention his ship?” asked Rathbury. “But if he didn’t, it
+doesn’t matter, for we can find out.”
+
+“I believe the name’s on his things,” answered the landlady. “There are
+some labels of that sort. Well, he asked for a chop to be cooked for
+him at once, as he was going out. He had his chop, and he went out at
+exactly one o’clock, saying to me that he expected he’d get lost, as he
+didn’t know London well at any time, and shouldn’t know it at all now.
+He went outside there—I saw him—looked about him and walked off towards
+Blackfriars way. During the afternoon the cap you spoke of came for
+him—from Fiskie’s. So, of course, I judged he’d been Piccadilly way.
+But he himself never came in until ten o’clock. And then he brought a
+gentleman with him.”
+
+“Aye?” said Rathbury. “A gentleman, now? Did you see him?”
+
+“Just,” replied the landlady. “They went straight up to 20, and I just
+caught a mere glimpse of the gentleman as they turned up the stairs. A
+tall, well-built gentleman, with a grey beard, very well dressed as far
+as I could see, with a top hat and a white silk muffler round his
+throat, and carrying an umbrella.”
+
+“And they went to Marbury’s room?” said Rathbury. “What then?”
+
+“Well, then, Mr. Marbury rang for some whiskey and soda,” continued
+Mrs. Walters. “He was particular to have a decanter of whiskey: that,
+and a syphon of soda were taken up there. I heard nothing more until
+nearly midnight; then the hall-porter told me that the gentleman in 20
+had gone out, and had asked him if there was a night-porter—as, of
+course, there is. He went out at half-past eleven.”
+
+“And the other gentleman?” asked Rathbury.
+
+“The other gentleman,” answered the landlady, “went out with him. The
+hall-porter said they turned towards the station. And that was the last
+anybody in this house saw of Mr. Marbury. He certainly never came
+back.”
+
+“That,” observed Rathbury with a quiet smile, “that is quite certain,
+ma’am? Well—I suppose we’d better see this Number 20 room, and have a
+look at what he left there.”
+
+“Everything,” said Mrs. Walters, “is just as he left it. Nothing’s been
+touched.”
+
+It seemed to two of the visitors that there was little to touch. On the
+dressing-table lay a few ordinary articles of toilet—none of them of
+any quality or value: the dead man had evidently been satisfied with
+the plain necessities of life. An overcoat hung from a peg: Rathbury,
+without ceremony, went through its pockets; just as unceremoniously he
+proceeded to examine trunk and bag, and finding both unlocked, he laid
+out on the bed every article they contained and examined each
+separately and carefully. And he found nothing whereby he could gather
+any clue to the dead owner’s identity.
+
+“There you are!” he said, making an end of his task. “You see, it’s
+just the same with these things as with the clothes he had on him.
+There are no papers—there’s nothing to tell who he was, what he was
+after, where he’d come from—though that we may find out in other ways.
+But it’s not often that a man travels without some clue to his
+identity. Beyond the fact that some of this linen was, you see, bought
+in Melbourne, we know nothing of him. Yet he must have had papers and
+money on him. Did you see anything of his money, now, ma’am?” he asked,
+suddenly turning to Mrs. Walters. “Did he pull out his purse in your
+presence, now?”
+
+“Yes,” answered the landlady, with promptitude. “He came into the bar
+for a drink after he’d been up to his room. He pulled out a handful of
+gold when he paid for it—a whole handful. There must have been some
+thirty to forty sovereigns and half-sovereigns.”
+
+“And he hadn’t a penny piece on him—when found,” muttered Rathbury.
+
+“I noticed another thing, too,” remarked the landlady. “He was wearing
+a very fine gold watch and chain, and had a splendid ring on his left
+hand—little finger—gold, with a big diamond in it.”
+
+“Yes,” said the detective, thoughtfully, “I noticed that he’d worn a
+ring, and that it had been a bit tight for him. Well—now there’s only
+one thing to ask about. Did your chambermaid notice if he left any torn
+paper around—tore any letters up, or anything like that?”
+
+But the chambermaid, produced, had not noticed anything of the sort; on
+the contrary, the gentleman of Number 20 had left his room very tidy
+indeed. So Rathbury intimated that he had no more to ask, and nothing
+further to say, just then, and he bade the landlord and landlady of the
+Anglo-Orient Hotel good morning, and went away, followed by the two
+young men.
+
+“What next?” asked Spargo, as they gained the street.
+
+“The next thing,” answered Rathbury, “is to find the man with whom
+Marbury left this hotel last night.”
+
+“And how’s that to be done?” asked Spargo.
+
+“At present,” replied Rathbury, “I don’t know.”
+
+And with a careless nod, he walked off, apparently desirous of being
+alone.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER FIVE
+SPARGO WISHES TO SPECIALIZE
+
+
+The barrister and the journalist, left thus unceremoniously on a
+crowded pavement, looked at each other. Breton laughed.
+
+“We don’t seem to have gained much information,” he remarked. “I’m
+about as wise as ever.”
+
+“No—wiser,” said Spargo. “At any rate, I am. I know now that this dead
+man called himself John Marbury; that he came from Australia; that he
+only landed at Southampton yesterday morning, and that he was in the
+company last night of a man whom we have had described to us—a tall,
+grey-bearded, well-dressed man, presumably a gentleman.”
+
+Breton shrugged his shoulders.
+
+“I should say that description would fit a hundred thousand men in
+London,” he remarked.
+
+“Exactly—so it would,” answered Spargo. “But we know that it was one of
+the hundred thousand, or half-million, if you like. The thing is to
+find that one—the one.”
+
+“And you think you can do it?”
+
+“I think I’m going to have a big try at it.”
+
+Breton shrugged his shoulders again.
+
+“What?—by going up to every man who answers the description, and saying
+‘Sir, are you the man who accompanied John Marbury to the Anglo——”
+
+Spargo suddenly interrupted him.
+
+“Look here!” he said. “Didn’t you say that you knew a man who lives in
+that block in the entry of which Marbury was found?”
+
+“No, I didn’t,” answered Breton. “It was Mr. Elphick who said that. All
+the same, I do know that man—he’s Mr. Cardlestone, another barrister.
+He and Mr. Elphick are friends—they’re both enthusiastic
+philatelists—stamp collectors, you know—and I dare say Mr. Elphick was
+round there last night examining something new Cardlestone’s got hold
+of. Why?”
+
+“I’d like to go round there and make some enquiries,” replied Spargo.
+“If you’d be kind enough to——”
+
+“Oh, I’ll go with you!” responded Breton, with alacrity. “I’m just as
+keen about this business as you are, Spargo! I want to know who this
+man Marbury is, and how he came to have my name and address on him.
+Now, if I had been a well-known man in my profession, you know, why—”
+
+“Yes,” said Spargo, as they got into a cab, “yes, that would have
+explained a lot. It seems to me that we’ll get at the murderer through
+that scrap of paper a lot quicker than through Rathbury’s line. Yes,
+that’s what I think.”
+
+Breton looked at his companion with interest.
+
+“But—you don’t know what Rathbury’s line is,” he remarked.
+
+“Yes, I do,” said Spargo. “Rathbury’s gone off to discover who the man
+is with whom Marbury left the Anglo-Orient Hotel last night. That’s his
+line.”
+
+“And you want——?”
+
+“I want to find out the full significance of that bit of paper, and who
+wrote it,” answered Spargo. “I want to know why that old man was coming
+to you when he was murdered.”
+
+Breton started.
+
+“By Jove!” he exclaimed. “I—I never thought of that. You—you really
+think he was coming to me when he was struck down?”
+
+“Certain. Hadn’t he got an address in the Temple? Wasn’t he in the
+Temple? Of course, he was trying to find you.”
+
+“But—the late hour?”
+
+“No matter. How else can you explain his presence in the Temple? I
+think he was asking his way. That’s why I want to make some enquiries
+in this block.”
+
+It appeared to Spargo that a considerable number of people, chiefly of
+the office-boy variety, were desirous of making enquiries about the
+dead man. Being luncheon-hour, that bit of Middle Temple Lane where the
+body was found, was thick with the inquisitive and the
+sensation-seeker, for the news of the murder had spread, and though
+there was nothing to see but the bare stones on which the body had
+lain, there were more open mouths and staring eyes around the entry
+than Spargo had seen for many a day. And the nuisance had become so
+great that the occupants of the adjacent chambers had sent for a
+policeman to move the curious away, and when Spargo and his companion
+presented themselves at the entry this policeman was being lectured as
+to his duties by a little weazen-faced gentleman, in very snuffy and
+old-fashioned garments, and an ancient silk hat, who was obviously
+greatly exercised by the unwonted commotion.
+
+“Drive them all out into the street!” exclaimed this personage. “Drive
+them all away, constable—into Fleet Street or upon the
+Embankment—anywhere, so long as you rid this place of them. This is a
+disgrace, and an inconvenience, a nuisance, a——”
+
+“That’s old Cardlestone,” whispered Breton. “He’s always irascible, and
+I don’t suppose we’ll get anything out of him. Mr. Cardlestone,” he
+continued, making his way up to the old gentleman who was now
+retreating up the stone steps, brandishing an umbrella as ancient as
+himself. “I was just coming to see you, sir. This is Mr. Spargo, a
+journalist, who is much interested in this murder. He——”
+
+“I know nothing about the murder, my dear sir!” exclaimed Mr.
+Cardlestone. “And I never talk to journalists—a pack of busybodies,
+sir, saving your presence. I am not aware that any murder has been
+committed, and I object to my doorway being filled by a pack of office
+boys and street loungers. Murder indeed! I suppose the man fell down
+these steps and broke his neck—drunk, most likely.”
+
+He opened his outer door as he spoke, and Breton, with a reassuring
+smile and a nod at Spargo, followed him into his chambers on the first
+landing, motioning the journalist to keep at their heels.
+
+“Mr. Elphick tells me that he was with you until a late hour last
+evening, Mr. Cardlestone,” he said. “Of course, neither of you heard
+anything suspicious?”
+
+“What should we hear that was suspicious in the Temple, sir?” demanded
+Mr. Cardlestone, angrily. “I hope the Temple is free from that sort of
+thing, young Mr. Breton. Your respected guardian and myself had a quiet
+evening on our usual peaceful pursuits, and when he went away all was
+as quiet as the grave, sir. What may have gone on in the chambers above
+and around me I know not! Fortunately, our walls are thick,
+sir—substantial. I say, sir, the man probably fell down and broke his
+neck. What he was doing here, I do not presume to say.”
+
+“Well, it’s guess, you know, Mr. Cardlestone,” remarked Breton, again
+winking at Spargo. “But all that was found on this man was a scrap of
+paper on which my name and address were written. That’s practically all
+that was known of him, except that he’d just arrived from Australia.”
+
+Mr. Cardlestone suddenly turned on the young barrister with a sharp,
+acute glance.
+
+“Eh?” he exclaimed. “What’s this? You say this man had your name and
+address on him, young Breton!—yours? And that he came from—Australia?”
+
+“That’s so,” answered Breton. “That’s all that’s known.”
+
+Mr. Cardlestone put aside his umbrella, produced a bandanna
+handkerchief of strong colours, and blew his nose in a reflective
+fashion.
+
+“That’s a mysterious thing,” he observed. “Um—does Elphick know all
+that?”
+
+Breton looked at Spargo as if he was asking him for an explanation of
+Mr. Cardlestone’s altered manner. And Spargo took up the conversation.
+
+“No,” he said. “All that Mr. Elphick knows is that Mr. Ronald Breton’s
+name and address were on the scrap of paper found on the body. Mr.
+Elphick”—here Spargo paused and looked at Breton—“Mr. Elphick,” he
+presently continued, slowly transferring his glance to the old
+barrister, “spoke of going to view the body.”
+
+“Ah!” exclaimed Mr. Cardlestone, eagerly. “It can be seen? Then I’ll go
+and see it. Where is it?”
+
+Breton started.
+
+“But—my dear sir!” he said. “Why?”
+
+Mr. Cardlestone picked up his umbrella again.
+
+“I feel a proper curiosity about a mystery which occurs at my very
+door,” he said. “Also, I have known more than one man who went to
+Australia. This might—I say might, young gentlemen—might be a man I had
+once known. Show me where this body is.”
+
+Breton looked helplessly at Spargo: it was plain that he did not
+understand the turn that things were taking. But Spargo was quick to
+seize an opportunity. In another minute he was conducting Mr.
+Cardlestone through the ins and outs of the Temple towards Blackfriars.
+And as they turned into Tudor Street they encountered Mr. Elphick.
+
+“I am going to the mortuary,” he remarked. “So, I suppose, are you,
+Cardlestone? Has anything more been discovered, young man?”
+
+Spargo tried a chance shot—at what he did not know. “The man’s name was
+Marbury,” he said. “He was from Australia.”
+
+He was keeping a keen eye on Mr. Elphick, but he failed to see that Mr.
+Elphick showed any of the surprise which Mr. Cardlestone had exhibited.
+Rather, he seemed indifferent.
+
+“Oh?” he said—“Marbury? And from Australia. Well—I should like to see
+the body.”
+
+Spargo and Breton had to wait outside the mortuary while the two elder
+gentlemen went in. There was nothing to be learnt from either when they
+reappeared.
+
+“We don’t know the man,” said Mr. Elphick, calmly. “As Mr. Cardlestone,
+I understand, has said to you already—we have known men who went to
+Australia, and as this man was evidently wandering about the Temple, we
+thought it might have been one of them, come back. But—we don’t
+recognize him.”
+
+“Couldn’t recognize him,” said Mr. Cardlestone. “No!”
+
+They went away together arm in arm, and Breton looked at Spargo.
+
+“As if anybody on earth ever fancied they’d recognize him!” he said.
+“Well—what are you going to do now, Spargo? I must go.”
+
+Spargo, who had been digging his walking-stick into a crack in the
+pavement, came out of a fit of abstraction.
+
+“I?” he said. “Oh—I’m going to the office.” And he turned abruptly
+away, and walking straight off to the editorial rooms at the
+_Watchman_, made for one in which sat the official guardian of the
+editor. “Try to get me a few minutes with the chief,” he said.
+
+The private secretary looked up.
+
+“Really important?” he asked.
+
+“Big!” answered Spargo. “Fix it.”
+
+Once closeted with the great man, whose idiosyncrasies he knew pretty
+well by that time, Spargo lost no time.
+
+“You’ve heard about this murder in Middle Temple Lane?” he suggested.
+
+“The mere facts,” replied the editor, tersely.
+
+“I was there when the body was found,” continued Spargo, and gave a
+brief résumé of his doings. “I’m certain this is a most unusual
+affair,” he went on. “It’s as full of mystery as—as it could be. I want
+to give my attention to it. I want to specialize on it. I can make such
+a story of it as we haven’t had for some time—ages. Let me have it. And
+to start with, let me have two columns for tomorrow morning. I’ll make
+it—big!”
+
+The editor looked across his desk at Spargo’s eager face.
+
+“Your other work?” he said.
+
+“Well in hand,” replied Spargo. “I’m ahead a whole week—both articles
+and reviews. I can tackle both.”
+
+The editor put his finger tips together.
+
+“Have you got some idea about this, young man?” he asked.
+
+“I’ve got a great idea,” answered Spargo. He faced the great man
+squarely, and stared at him until he had brought a smile to the
+editorial face. “That’s why I want to do it,” he added. “And—it’s not
+mere boasting nor over-confidence—I know I shall do it better than
+anybody else.”
+
+The editor considered matters for a brief moment.
+
+“You mean to find out who killed this man?” he said at last.
+
+Spargo nodded his head—twice.
+
+“I’ll find that out,” he said doggedly.
+
+The editor picked up a pencil, and bent to his desk.
+
+“All right,” he said. “Go ahead. You shall have your two columns.”
+
+Spargo went quietly away to his own nook and corner. He got hold of a
+block of paper and began to write. He was going to show how to do
+things.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER SIX
+WITNESS TO A MEETING
+
+
+Ronald Breton walked into the _Watchman_ office and into Spargo’s room
+next morning holding a copy of the current issue in his hand. He waved
+it at Spargo with an enthusiasm which was almost boyish.
+
+“I say!” he exclaimed. “That’s the way to do it, Spargo! I congratulate
+you. Yes, that’s the way—certain!”
+
+Spargo, idly turning over a pile of exchanges, yawned.
+
+“What way?” he asked indifferently.
+
+“The way you’ve written this thing up,” said Breton. “It’s a hundred
+thousand times better than the usual cut-and-dried account of a murder.
+It’s—it’s like a—a romance!”
+
+“Merely a new method of giving news,” said Spargo. He picked up a copy
+of the _Watchman_, and glanced at his two columns, which had somehow
+managed to make themselves into three, viewing the displayed lettering,
+the photograph of the dead man, the line drawing of the entry in Middle
+Temple Lane, and the facsimile of the scrap of grey paper, with a
+critical eye. “Yes—merely a new method,” he continued. “The question
+is—will it achieve its object?”
+
+“What’s the object?” asked Breton.
+
+Spargo fished out a box of cigarettes from an untidy drawer, pushed it
+over to his visitor, helped himself, and tilting back his chair, put
+his feet on his desk.
+
+“The object?” he said, drily. “Oh, well, the object is the ultimate
+detection of the murderer.”
+
+“You’re after that?”
+
+“I’m after that—just that.”
+
+“And not—not simply out to make effective news?”
+
+“I’m out to find the murderer of John Marbury,” said Spargo
+deliberately slow in his speech. “And I’ll find him.”
+
+“Well, there doesn’t seem to be much in the way of clues, so far,”
+remarked Breton. “I see—nothing. Do you?”
+
+Spargo sent a spiral of scented smoke into the air.
+
+“I want to know an awful lot,” he said. “I’m hungering for news. I want
+to know who John Marbury is. I want to know what he did with himself
+between the time when he walked out of the Anglo-Orient Hotel, alive
+and well, and the time when he was found in Middle Temple Lane, with
+his skull beaten in and dead. I want to know where he got that scrap of
+paper. Above everything, Breton, I want to know what he’d got to do
+with you!”
+
+He gave the young barrister a keen look, and Breton nodded.
+
+“Yes,” he said. “I confess that’s a corker. But I think——”
+
+“Well?” said Spargo.
+
+“I think he may have been a man who had some legal business in hand, or
+in prospect, and had been recommended to—me,” said Breton.
+
+Spargo smiled—a little sardonically.
+
+“That’s good!” he said. “You had your very first brief—yesterday.
+Come—your fame isn’t blown abroad through all the heights yet, my
+friend! Besides—don’t intending clients approach—isn’t it strict
+etiquette for them to approach?—barristers through solicitors?”
+
+“Quite right—in both your remarks,” replied Breton, good-humouredly.
+“Of course, I’m not known a bit, but all the same I’ve known several
+cases where a barrister has been approached in the first instance and
+asked to recommend a solicitor. Somebody who wanted to do me a good
+turn may have given this man my address.”
+
+“Possible,” said Spargo. “But he wouldn’t have come to consult you at
+midnight. Breton!—the more I think of it, the more I’m certain there’s
+a tremendous mystery in this affair! That’s why I got the chief to let
+me write it up as I have done—here. I’m hoping that this
+photograph—though to be sure, it’s of a dead face—and this facsimile of
+the scrap of paper will lead to somebody coming forward who can——”
+
+Just then one of the uniformed youths who hang about the marble
+pillared vestibule of the _Watchman_ office came into the room with the
+unmistakable look and air of one who carries news of moment.
+
+“I dare lay a sovereign to a cent that I know what this is,” muttered
+Spargo in an aside. “Well?” he said to the boy. “What is it?”
+
+The messenger came up to the desk.
+
+“Mr. Spargo,” he said, “there’s a man downstairs who says that he wants
+to see somebody about that murder case that’s in the paper this
+morning, sir. Mr. Barrett said I was to come to you.”
+
+“Who is the man?” asked Spargo.
+
+“Won’t say, sir,” replied the boy. “I gave him a form to fill up, but
+he said he wouldn’t write anything—said all he wanted was to see the
+man who wrote the piece in the paper.”
+
+“Bring him here,” commanded Spargo. He turned to Breton when the boy
+had gone, and he smiled. “I knew we should have somebody here sooner or
+later,” he said. “That’s why I hurried over my breakfast and came down
+at ten o’clock. Now then, what will you bet on the chances of this
+chap’s information proving valuable?”
+
+“Nothing,” replied Breton. “He’s probably some crank or faddist who’s
+got some theory that he wants to ventilate.”
+
+The man who was presently ushered in by the messenger seemed from
+preliminary and outward appearance to justify Breton’s prognostication.
+He was obviously a countryman, a tall, loosely-built, middle-aged man,
+yellow of hair, blue of eye, who was wearing his Sunday-best array of
+pearl-grey trousers and black coat, and sported a necktie in which were
+several distinct colours. Oppressed with the splendour and grandeur of
+the _Watchman_ building, he had removed his hard billycock hat as he
+followed the boy, and he ducked his bared head at the two young men as
+he stepped on to the thick pile of the carpet which made luxurious
+footing in Spargo’s room. His blue eyes, opened to their widest, looked
+round him in astonishment at the sumptuousness of modern
+newspaper-office accommodation.
+
+“How do you do, sir?” said Spargo, pointing a finger to one of the
+easy-chairs for which the _Watchman_ office is famous. “I understand
+that you wish to see me?”
+
+The caller ducked his yellow head again, sat down on the edge of the
+chair, put his hat on the floor, picked it up again, and endeavoured to
+hang it on his knee, and looked at Spargo innocently and shyly.
+
+“What I want to see, sir,” he observed in a rustic accent, “is the
+gentleman as wrote that piece in your newspaper about this here murder
+in Middle Temple Lane.”
+
+“You see him,” said Spargo. “I am that man.”
+
+The caller smiled—generously.
+
+“Indeed, sir?” he said. “A very nice bit of reading, I’m sure. And what
+might your name be, now, sir? I can always talk free-er to a man when I
+know what his name is.”
+
+“So can I,” answered Spargo. “My name is Spargo—Frank Spargo. What’s
+yours?”
+
+“Name of Webster, sir—William Webster. I farm at One Ash Farm, at
+Gosberton, in Oakshire. Me and my wife,” continued Mr. Webster, again
+smiling and distributing his smile between both his hearers, “is at
+present in London on a holiday. And very pleasant we find it—weather
+and all.”
+
+“That’s right,” said Spargo. “And—you wanted to see me about this
+murder, Mr. Webster?”
+
+“I did, sir. Me, I believe, knowing, as I think, something that’ll do
+for you to put in your paper. You see, Mr. Spargo, it come about in
+this fashion—happen you’ll be for me to tell it in my own way.”
+
+“That,” answered Spargo, “is precisely what I desire.”
+
+“Well, to be sure, I couldn’t tell it in no other,” declared Mr.
+Webster. “You see, sir, I read your paper this morning while I was
+waiting for my breakfast—they take their breakfasts so late in them
+hotels—and when I’d read it, and looked at the pictures, I says to my
+wife ‘As soon as I’ve had my breakfast,’ I says, ‘I’m going to where
+they print this newspaper to tell ’em something.’ ‘Aye?’ she says,
+‘Why, what have you to tell, I should like to know?’ just like that,
+Mr. Spargo.”
+
+“Mrs. Webster,” said Spargo, “is a lady of businesslike principles. And
+what have you to tell?”
+
+Mr. Webster looked into the crown of his hat, looked out of it, and
+smiled knowingly.
+
+“Well, sir,” he continued, “Last night, my wife, she went out to a part
+they call Clapham, to take her tea and supper with an old friend of
+hers as lives there, and as they wanted to have a bit of woman-talk,
+like, I didn’t go. So thinks I to myself, I’ll go and see this here
+House of Commons. There was a neighbour of mine as had told me that all
+you’d got to do was to tell the policeman at the door that you wanted
+to see your own Member of Parliament. So when I got there I told ’em
+that I wanted to see our M.P., Mr. Stonewood—you’ll have heard tell of
+him, no doubt; he knows me very well—and they passed me, and I wrote
+out a ticket for him, and they told me to sit down while they found
+him. So I sat down in a grand sort of hall where there were a rare lot
+of people going and coming, and some fine pictures and images to look
+at, and for a time I looked at them, and then I began to take a bit of
+notice of the folk near at hand, waiting, you know, like myself. And as
+sure as I’m a christened man, sir, the gentleman whose picture you’ve
+got in your paper—him as was murdered—was sitting next to me! I knew
+that picture as soon as I saw it this morning.”
+
+Spargo, who had been making unmeaning scribbles on a block of paper,
+suddenly looked at his visitor.
+
+“What time was that?” he asked.
+
+“It was between a quarter and half-past nine, sir,” answered Mr.
+Webster. “It might ha’ been twenty past—it might ha’ been twenty-five
+past.”
+
+“Go on, if you please,” said Spargo.
+
+“Well, sir, me and this here dead gentleman talked a bit. About what a
+long time it took to get a member to attend to you, and such-like. I
+made mention of the fact that I hadn’t been in there before. ‘Neither
+have I!’ he says, ‘I came in out of curiosity,’ he says, and then he
+laughed, sir—queer-like. And it was just after that that what I’m going
+to tell you about happened.”
+
+“Tell,” commanded Spargo.
+
+“Well, sir, there was a gentleman came along, down this grand hall that
+we were sitting in—a tall, handsome gentleman, with a grey beard. He’d
+no hat on, and he was carrying a lot of paper and documents in his
+hand, so I thought he was happen one of the members. And all of a
+sudden this here man at my side, he jumps up with a sort of start and
+an exclamation, and——”
+
+Spargo lifted his hand. He looked keenly at his visitor.
+
+“Now, you’re absolutely sure about what you heard him exclaim?” he
+asked. “Quite sure about it? Because I see you are going to tell us
+what he did exclaim.”
+
+“I’ll tell you naught but what I’m certain of, sir,” replied Webster.
+“What he said as he jumped up was ‘Good God!’ he says, sharp-like—and
+then he said a name, and I didn’t right catch it, but it sounded like
+Danesworth, or Painesworth, or something of that sort—one of them
+there, or very like ’em, at any rate. And then he rushed up to this
+here gentleman, and laid his hand on his arm—sudden-like.”
+
+“And—the gentleman?” asked Spargo, quietly.
+
+“Well, he seemed taken aback, sir. He jumped. Then he stared at the
+man. Then they shook hands. And then, after they’d spoken a few words
+together-like, they walked off, talking. And, of course, I never saw no
+more of ’em. But when I saw your paper this morning, sir, and that
+picture in it, I said to myself ‘That’s the man I sat next to in that
+there hall at the House of Commons!’ Oh, there’s no doubt of it, sir!”
+
+“And supposing you saw a photograph of the tall gentleman with the grey
+beard?” suggested Spargo. “Could you recognize him from that?”
+
+“Make no doubt of it, sir,” answered Mr. Webster. “I observed him
+particular.”
+
+Spargo rose, and going over to a cabinet, took from it a thick volume,
+the leaves of which he turned over for several minutes.
+
+“Come here, if you please, Mr. Webster,” he said.
+
+The farmer went across the room.
+
+“There is a full set of photographs of members of the present House of
+Commons here,” said Spargo. “Now, pick out the one you saw. Take your
+time—and be sure.”
+
+He left his caller turning over the album and went back to Breton.
+
+“There!” he whispered. “Getting nearer—a bit nearer—eh?”
+
+“To what?” asked Breton. “I don’t see—”
+
+A sudden exclamation from the farmer interrupted Breton’s remark.
+
+“This is him, sir!” answered Mr. Webster. “That’s the gentleman—know
+him anywhere!”
+
+The two young men crossed the room. The farmer was pointing a stubby
+finger to a photograph, beneath which was written _Stephen Aylmore,
+Esq., M.P. for Brookminster_.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER SEVEN
+MR. AYLMORE
+
+
+Spargo, keenly observant and watchful, felt, rather than saw, Breton
+start; he himself preserved an imperturbable equanimity. He gave a mere
+glance at the photograph to which Mr. Webster was pointing.
+
+“Oh!” he said. “That he?”
+
+“That’s the gentleman, sir,” replied Webster. “Done to the life, that
+is. No difficulty in recognizing of that, Mr. Spargo.”
+
+“You’re absolutely sure?” demanded Spargo. “There are a lot of men in
+the House of Commons, you know, who wear beards, and many of the beards
+are grey.”
+
+But Webster wagged his head.
+
+“That’s him, sir!” he repeated. “I’m as sure of that as I am that my
+name’s William Webster. That’s the man I saw talking to him whose
+picture you’ve got in your paper. Can’t say no more, sir.”
+
+“Very good,” said Spargo. “I’m much obliged to you. I’ll see Mr.
+Aylmore. Leave me your address in London, Mr. Webster. How long do you
+remain in town?”
+
+“My address is the Beachcroft Hotel, Bloomsbury, sir, and I shall be
+there for another week,” answered the farmer. “Hope I’ve been of some
+use, Mr. Spargo. As I says to my wife——”
+
+Spargo cut his visitor short in polite fashion and bowed him out. He
+turned to Breton, who still stood staring at the album of portraits.
+
+“There!—what did I tell you?” he said. “Didn’t I say I should get some
+news? There it is.”
+
+Breton nodded his head. He seemed thoughtful.
+
+“Yes,” he agreed. “Yes, I say, Spargo!”
+
+“Well?”
+
+“Mr. Aylmore is my prospective father-in-law, you know.”
+
+“Quite aware of it. Didn’t you introduce me to his daughters—only
+yesterday?”
+
+“But—how did you know they were his daughters?”
+
+Spargo laughed as he sat down to his desk.
+
+“Instinct—intuition,” he answered. “However, never mind that, just now.
+Well—I’ve found something out. Marbury—if that is the dead man’s real
+name, and anyway, it’s all we know him by—was in the company of Mr.
+Aylmore that night. Good!”
+
+“What are you going to do about it?” asked Breton.
+
+“Do? See Mr. Aylmore, of course.”
+
+He was turning over the leaves of a telephone address-book; one hand
+had already picked up the mouthpiece of the instrument on his desk.
+
+“Look here,” said Breton. “I know where Mr. Aylmore is always to be
+found at twelve o’clock. At the A. and P.—the Atlantic and Pacific
+Club, you know, in St. James’s. If you like, I’ll go with you.”
+
+Spargo glanced at the clock and laid down the telephone.
+
+“All right,” he said. “Eleven o’clock, now. I’ve something to do. I’ll
+meet you outside the A. and P. at exactly noon.”
+
+“I’ll be there,” agreed Breton. He made for the door, and with his hand
+on it, turned. “What do you expect from—from what we’ve just heard?” he
+asked.
+
+Spargo shrugged his shoulders.
+
+“Wait—until we hear what Mr. Aylmore has to say,” he answered. “I
+suppose this man Marbury was some old acquaintance.”
+
+Breton closed the door and went away: left alone, Spargo began to
+mutter to himself.
+
+“Good God!” he says. “Dainsworth—Painsworth—something of that sort—one
+of the two. Excellent—that our farmer friend should have so much
+observation. Ah!—and why should Mr. Stephen Aylmore be recognized as
+Dainsworth or Painsworth or something of that sort. Now, who is Mr.
+Stephen Aylmore—beyond being what I know him to be?”
+
+Spargo’s fingers went instinctively to one of a number of books of
+reference which stood on his desk: they turned with practised swiftness
+to a page over which his eye ran just as swiftly. He read aloud:
+
+“AYLMORE, STEPHEN, M.P. for Brookminster since 1910. Residences: 23,
+St. Osythe Court, Kensington: Buena Vista, Great Marlow. Member
+Atlantic and Pacific and City Venturers’ Clubs. Interested in South
+American enterprise.”
+
+“Um!” muttered Spargo, putting the book away. “That’s not very
+illuminating. However, we’ve got one move finished. Now we’ll make
+another.”
+
+Going over to the album of photographs, Spargo deftly removed that of
+Mr. Aylmore, put it in an envelope and the envelope in his pocket and,
+leaving the office, hailed a taxi-cab, and ordered its driver to take
+him to the Anglo-Orient Hotel. This was the something-to-do of which he
+had spoken to Breton: Spargo wanted to do it alone.
+
+Mrs. Walters was in her low-windowed office when Spargo entered the
+hall; she recognized him at once and motioned him into her parlour.
+
+“I remember you,” said Mrs. Walters; “you came with the detective—Mr.
+Rathbury.”
+
+“Have you seen him, since?” asked Spargo.
+
+“Not since,” replied Mrs. Walters. “No—and I was wondering if he’d be
+coming round, because——” She paused there and looked at Spargo with
+particular enquiry—“You’re a friend of his, aren’t you?” she asked. “I
+suppose you know as much as he does—about this?”
+
+“He and I,” replied Spargo, with easy confidence, “are working this
+case together. You can tell me anything you’d tell him.”
+
+The landlady rummaged in her pocket and produced an old purse, from an
+inner compartment of which she brought out a small object wrapped in
+tissue paper.
+
+“Well,” she said, unwrapping the paper, “we found this in Number 20
+this morning—it was lying under the dressing-table. The girl that found
+it brought it to me, and I thought it was a bit of glass, but Walters,
+he says as how he shouldn’t be surprised if it’s a diamond. And since
+we found it, the waiter who took the whisky up to 20, after Mr. Marbury
+came in with the other gentleman, has told me that when he went into
+the room the two gentlemen were looking at a paper full of things like
+this. So there?”
+
+Spargo fingered the shining bit of stone.
+
+“That’s a diamond—right enough,” he said. “Put it away, Mrs. Walters—I
+shall see Rathbury presently, and I’ll tell him about it. Now, that
+other gentleman! You told us you saw him. Could you recognize him—I
+mean, a photograph of him? Is this the man?”
+
+Spargo knew from the expression of Mrs. Walters’ face that she had no
+more doubt than Webster had.
+
+“Oh, yes!” she said. “That’s the gentleman who came in with Mr.
+Marbury—I should have known him in a thousand. Anybody would recognize
+him from that—perhaps you’d let our hall-porter and the waiter I
+mentioned just now look at it?”
+
+“I’ll see them separately and see if they’ve ever seen a man who
+resembles this,” replied Spargo.
+
+The two men recognized the photograph at once, without any prompting,
+and Spargo, after a word or two with the landlady, rode off to the
+Atlantic and Pacific Club, and found Ronald Breton awaiting him on the
+steps. He made no reference to his recent doings, and together they
+went into the house and asked for Mr. Aylmore.
+
+Spargo looked with more than uncommon interest at the man who presently
+came to them in the visitors’ room. He was already familiar with Mr.
+Aylmore’s photograph, but he never remembered seeing him in real life;
+the Member for Brookminster was one of that rapidly diminishing body of
+legislators whose members are disposed to work quietly and
+unobtrusively, doing yeoman service on committees, obeying every behest
+of the party whips, without forcing themselves into the limelight or
+seizing every opportunity to air their opinions. Now that Spargo met
+him in the flesh he proved to be pretty much what the journalist had
+expected—a rather cold-mannered, self-contained man, who looked as if
+he had been brought up in a school of rigid repression, and taught not
+to waste words. He showed no more than the merest of languid interests
+in Spargo when Breton introduced him, and his face was quite
+expressionless when Spargo brought to an end his brief explanation
+—purposely shortened—of his object in calling upon him.
+
+“Yes,” he said indifferently. “Yes, it is quite true that I met Marbury
+and spent a little time with him on the evening your informant spoke
+of. I met him, as he told you, in the lobby of the House. I was much
+surprised to meet him. I had not seen him for—I really don’t know how
+many years.”
+
+He paused and looked at Spargo as if he was wondering what he ought or
+not to say to a newspaper man. Spargo remained silent, waiting. And
+presently Mr. Aylmore went on.
+
+“I read your account in the _Watchman_ this morning,” he said. “I was
+wondering, when you called just now, if I would communicate with you or
+with the police. The fact is—I suppose you want this for your paper,
+eh?” he continued after a sudden breaking off.
+
+“I shall not print anything that you wish me not to print,” answered
+Spargo. “If you care to give me any information——”
+
+“Oh, well!” said Mr. Aylmore. “I don’t mind. The fact is, I knew next
+to nothing. Marbury was a man with whom I had some—well, business
+relations, of a sort, a great many years ago. It must be twenty
+years—perhaps more—since I lost sight of him. When he came up to me in
+the lobby the other night, I had to make an effort of memory to recall
+him. He wished me, having once met me, to give him some advice, and as
+there was little doing in the House that night, and as he had once
+been—almost a friend—I walked to his hotel with him, chatting. He told
+me that he had only landed from Australia that morning, and what he
+wanted my advice about, principally, was—diamonds. Australian
+diamonds.”
+
+“I was unaware,” remarked Spargo, “that diamonds were ever found in
+Australia.”
+
+Mr. Aylmore smiled—a little cynically.
+
+“Perhaps so,” he said. “But diamonds have been found in Australia from
+time to time, ever since Australia was known to Europeans, and in the
+opinion of experts, they will eventually be found there in quantity.
+Anyhow, Marbury had got hold of some Australian diamonds, and he showed
+them to me at his hotel—a number of them. We examined them in his
+room.”
+
+“What did he do with them—afterwards?” asked Spargo.
+
+“He put them in his waistcoat pocket—in a very small wash-leather bag,
+from which he had taken them. There were, in all, sixteen or twenty
+stones—not more, and they were all small. I advised him to see some
+expert—I mentioned Streeter’s to him. Now, I can tell you how he got
+hold of Mr. Breton’s address.”
+
+The two young men pricked up their ears. Spargo unconsciously tightened
+his hold on the pencil with which he was making notes.
+
+“He got it from me,” continued Mr. Aylmore. “The handwriting on the
+scrap of paper is mine, hurriedly scrawled. He wanted legal advice. As
+I knew very little about lawyers, I told him that if he called on Mr.
+Breton, Mr. Breton would be able to tell him of a first-class, sharp
+solicitor. I wrote down Mr. Breton’s address for him, on a scrap of
+paper which he tore off a letter that he took from his pocket. By the
+by, I observe that when his body was found there was nothing on it in
+the shape of papers or money. I am quite sure that when I left him he
+had a lot of gold on him, those diamonds, and a breast-pocket full of
+letters.”
+
+“Where did you leave him, sir?” asked Spargo. “You left the hotel
+together, I believe?”
+
+“Yes. We strolled along when we left it. Having once met, we had much
+to talk of, and it was a fine night. We walked across Waterloo Bridge
+and very shortly afterwards he left me. And that is really all I know.
+My own impression——” He paused for a moment and Spargo waited silently.
+
+“My own impression—though I confess it may seem to have no very solid
+grounds—is that Marbury was decoyed to where he was found, and was
+robbed and murdered by some person who knew he had valuables on him.
+There is the fact that he was robbed, at any rate.”
+
+“I’ve had a notion,” said Breton, diffidently. “Mayn’t be worth much,
+but I’ve had it, all the same. Some fellow-passenger of Marbury’s may
+have tracked him all day—Middle Temple Lane’s pretty lonely at night,
+you know.”
+
+No one made any comment upon this suggestion, and on Spargo looking at
+Mr. Aylmore, the Member of Parliament rose and glanced at the door.
+
+“Well, that’s all I can tell you, Mr. Spargo,” he said. “You see, it’s
+not much, after all. Of course, there’ll be an inquest on Marbury, and
+I shall have to re-tell it. But you’re welcome to print what I’ve told
+you.”
+
+Spargo left Breton with his future father-in-law and went away towards
+New Scotland Yard. He and Rathbury had promised to share news—now he
+had some to communicate.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER EIGHT
+THE MAN FROM THE SAFE DEPOSIT
+
+
+Spargo found Rathbury sitting alone in a small, somewhat dismal
+apartment which was chiefly remarkable for the business-like paucity of
+its furnishings and its indefinable air of secrecy. There was a plain
+writing-table and a hard chair or two; a map of London, much
+discoloured, on the wall; a few faded photographs of eminent bands in
+the world of crime, and a similar number of well-thumbed books of
+reference. The detective himself, when Spargo was shown in to him, was
+seated at the table, chewing an unlighted cigar, and engaged in the
+apparently aimless task of drawing hieroglyphics on scraps of paper. He
+looked up as the journalist entered, and held out his hand.
+
+“Well, I congratulate you on what you stuck in the _Watchman_ this
+morning,” he said. “Made extra good reading, I thought. They did right
+to let you tackle that job. Going straight through with it now, I
+suppose, Mr. Spargo?”
+
+Spargo dropped into the chair nearest to Rathbury’s right hand. He
+lighted a cigarette, and having blown out a whiff of smoke, nodded his
+head in a fashion which indicated that the detective might consider his
+question answered in the affirmative.
+
+“Look here,” he said. “We settled yesterday, didn’t we, that you and I
+are to consider ourselves partners, as it were, in this job? That’s all
+right,” he continued, as Rathbury nodded very quietly. “Very well—have
+you made any further progress?”
+
+Rathbury put his thumbs in the armholes of his waistcoat and, leaning
+back in his chair, shook his head.
+
+“Frankly, I haven’t,” he replied. “Of course, there’s a lot being done
+in the usual official-routine way. We’ve men out making various
+enquiries. We’re enquiring about Marbury’s voyage to England. All that
+we know up to now is that he was certainly a passenger on a liner which
+landed at Southampton in accordance with what he told those people at
+the Anglo-Orient, that he left the ship in the usual way and was
+understood to take the train to town—as he did. That’s all. There’s
+nothing in that. We’ve cabled to Melbourne for any news of him from
+there. But I expect little from that.”
+
+“All right,” said Spargo. “And—what are you doing—you, yourself?
+Because, if we’re to share facts, I must know what my partner’s after.
+Just now, you seemed to be—drawing.”
+
+Rathbury laughed.
+
+“Well, to tell you the truth,” he said, “when I want to work things
+out, I come into this room—it’s quiet, as you see—and I scribble
+anything on paper while I think. I was figuring on my next step, and—”
+
+“Do you see it?” asked Spargo, quickly.
+
+“Well—I want to find the man who went with Marbury to that hotel,”
+replied Rathbury. “It seems to me—”
+
+Spargo wagged his finger at his fellow-contriver.
+
+“I’ve found him,” he said. “That’s what I wrote that article for—to
+find him. I knew it would find him. I’ve never had any training in your
+sort of work, but I knew that article would get him. And it has got
+him.”
+
+Rathbury accorded the journalist a look of admiration.
+
+“Good!” he said. “And—who is he?”
+
+“I’ll tell you the story,” answered Spargo, “and in a summary. This
+morning a man named Webster, a farmer, a visitor to London, came to me
+at the office, and said that being at the House of Commons last night
+he witnessed a meeting between Marbury and a man who was evidently a
+Member of Parliament, and saw them go away together. I showed him an
+album of photographs of the present members, and he immediately
+recognized the portrait of one of them as the man in question. I
+thereupon took the portrait to the Anglo-Orient Hotel—Mrs. Walters also
+at once recognized it as that of the man who came to the hotel with
+Marbury, stopped with him a while in his room, and left with him. The
+man is Mr. Stephen Aylmore, the member for Brookminster.”
+
+Rathbury expressed his feelings in a sharp whistle.
+
+“I know him!” he said. “Of course—I remember Mrs. Walters’s description
+now. But his is a familiar type—tall, grey-bearded, well-dressed.
+Um!—well, we’ll have to see Mr. Aylmore at once.”
+
+“I’ve seen him,” said Spargo. “Naturally! For you see, Mrs. Walters
+gave me a bit more evidence. This morning they found a loose diamond on
+the floor of Number 20, and after it was found the waiter who took the
+drinks up to Marbury and his guest that night remembered that when he
+entered the room the two gentlemen were looking at a paper full of
+similar objects. So then I went on to see Mr. Aylmore. You know young
+Breton, the barrister?—you met him with me, you remember?”
+
+“The young fellow whose name and address were found on Marbury,”
+replied Rathbury. “I remember.”
+
+“Breton is engaged to Aylmore’s daughter,” continued Spargo. “Breton
+took me to Aylmore’s club. And Aylmore gives a plain, straightforward
+account of the matter which he’s granted me leave to print. It clears
+up a lot of things. Aylmore knew Marbury over twenty years ago. He lost
+sight of him. They met accidentally in the lobby of the House on the
+evening preceding the murder. Marbury told him that he wanted his
+advice about those rare things, Australian diamonds. He went back with
+him to his hotel and spent a while with him; then they walked out
+together as far as Waterloo Bridge, where Aylmore left him and went
+home. Further, the scrap of grey paper is accounted for. Marbury wanted
+the address of a smart solicitor; Aylmore didn’t know of one but told
+Marbury that if he called on young Breton, he’d know, and would put him
+in the way to find one. Marbury wrote Breton’s address down. That’s
+Aylmore’s story. But it’s got an important addition. Aylmore says that
+when he left Marbury, Marbury had on him a quantity of those diamonds
+in a wash-leather bag, a lot of gold, and a breast-pocket full of
+letters and papers. Now—there was nothing on him when he was found dead
+in Middle Temple Lane.”
+
+Spargo stopped and lighted a fresh cigarette.
+
+“That’s all I know,” he said. “What do you make of it?”
+
+Rathbury leaned back in his chair in his apparently favourite attitude
+and stared hard at the dusty ceiling above him.
+
+“Don’t know,” he said. “It brings things up to a point, certainly.
+Aylmore and Marbury parted at Waterloo Bridge—very late. Waterloo
+Bridge is pretty well next door to the Temple. But—how did Marbury get
+into the Temple, unobserved? We’ve made every enquiry, and we can’t
+trace him in any way as regards that movement. There’s a clue for his
+going there in the scrap of paper bearing Breton’s address, but even a
+Colonial would know that no business was done in the Temple at
+midnight, eh?”
+
+“Well,” said Spargo, “I’ve thought of one or two things. He may have
+been one of those men who like to wander around at night. He may have
+seen—he would see—plenty of lights in the Temple at that hour; he may
+have slipped in unobserved—it’s possible, it’s quite possible. I once
+had a moonlight saunter in the Temple myself after midnight, and had no
+difficulty about walking in and out, either. But—if Marbury was
+murdered for the sake of what he had on him—how did he meet with his
+murderer or murderers in there? Criminals don’t hang about Middle
+Temple Lane.”
+
+The detective shook his head. He picked up his pencil and began making
+more hieroglyphics.
+
+“What’s your theory, Mr. Spargo?” he asked suddenly. “I suppose you’ve
+got one.”
+
+“Have you?” asked Spargo, bluntly.
+
+“Well,” returned Rathbury, hesitatingly, “I hadn’t, up to now. But
+now—now, after what you’ve told me, I think I can make one. It seems to
+me that after Marbury left Aylmore he probably mooned about by himself,
+that he was decoyed into the Temple, and was there murdered and robbed.
+There are a lot of queer ins and outs, nooks and corners in that old
+spot, Mr. Spargo, and the murderer, if he knew his ground well, could
+easily hide himself until he could get away in the morning. He might be
+a man who had access to chambers or offices—think how easy it would be
+for such a man, having once killed and robbed his victim, to lie hid
+for hours afterwards? For aught we know, the man who murdered Marbury
+may have been within twenty feet of you when you first saw his dead
+body that morning. Eh?”
+
+Before Spargo could reply to this suggestion an official entered the
+room and whispered a few words in the detective’s ear.
+
+“Show him in at once,” said Rathbury. He turned to Spargo as the man
+quitted the room and smiled significantly. “Here’s somebody wants to
+tell something about the Marbury case,” he remarked. “Let’s hope it’ll
+be news worth hearing.”
+
+Spargo smiled in his queer fashion.
+
+“It strikes me that you’ve only got to interest an inquisitive public
+in order to get news,” he said. “The principal thing is to investigate
+it when you’ve got it. Who’s this, now?”
+
+The official had returned with a dapper-looking gentleman in a
+frock-coat and silk hat, bearing upon him the unmistakable stamp of the
+city man, who inspected Rathbury with deliberation and Spargo with a
+glance, and being seated turned to the detective as undoubtedly the
+person he desired to converse with.
+
+“I understand that you are the officer in charge of the Marbury murder
+case,” he observed. “I believe I can give you some valuable information
+in respect to that. I read the account of the affair in the _Watchman_
+newspaper this morning, and saw the portrait of the murdered man there,
+and I was at first inclined to go to the _Watchman_ office with my
+information, but I finally decided to approach the police instead of
+the Press, regarding the police as being more—more responsible.”
+
+“Much obliged to you, sir,” said Rathbury, with a glance at Spargo.
+“Whom have I the pleasure of——”
+
+“My name,” replied the visitor, drawing out and laying down a card, “is
+Myerst—Mr. E.P. Myerst, Secretary of the London and Universal Safe
+Deposit Company. I may, I suppose, speak with confidence,” continued
+Mr. Myerst, with a side-glance at Spargo. “My information
+is—confidential.”
+
+Rathbury inclined his head and put his fingers together.
+
+“You may speak with every confidence, Mr. Myerst,” he answered. “If
+what you have to tell has any real bearing on the Marbury case, it will
+probably have to be repeated in public, you know, sir. But at present
+it will be treated as private.”
+
+“It has a very real bearing on the case, I should say,” replied Mr.
+Myerst. “Yes, I should decidedly say so. The fact is that on June 21st
+at about—to be precise—three o’clock in the afternoon, a stranger, who
+gave the name of John Marbury, and his present address as the
+Anglo-Orient Hotel, Waterloo, called at our establishment, and asked if
+he could rent a small safe. He explained to me that he desired to
+deposit in such a safe a small leather box—which, by the by, was of
+remarkably ancient appearance—that he had brought with him. I showed
+him a safe such as he wanted, informed him of the rent, and of the
+rules of the place, and he engaged the safe, paid the rent for one year
+in advance, and deposited his leather box—an affair of about a foot
+square—there and then. After that, having exchanged a remark or two
+about the altered conditions of London, which, I understood him to say,
+he had not seen for a great many years, he took his key and his
+departure. I think there can be no doubt about this being the Mr.
+Marbury who was found murdered.”
+
+“None at all, I should say, Mr. Myerst,” said Rathbury. “And I’m much
+obliged to you for coming here. Now you might tell me a little more,
+sir. Did Marbury tell you anything about the contents of the box?”
+
+“No. He merely remarked that he wished the greatest care to be taken of
+it,” replied the secretary.
+
+“Didn’t give you any hint as to what was in it?” asked Rathbury.
+
+“None. But he was very particular to assure himself that it could not
+be burnt, nor burgled, nor otherwise molested,” replied Mr. Myerst. “He
+appeared to be greatly relieved when he found that it was impossible
+for anyone but himself to take his property from his safe.”
+
+“Ah!” said Rathbury, winking at Spargo. “So he would, no doubt. And
+Marbury himself, sir, now? How did he strike you?”
+
+Mr. Myerst gravely considered this question.
+
+“Mr. Marbury struck me,” he answered at last, “as a man who had
+probably seen strange places. And before leaving he made, what I will
+term, a remarkable remark. About—in fact, about his leather box.”
+
+“His leather box?” said Rathbury. “And what was it, sir?”
+
+“This,” replied the secretary. “‘That box,’ he said, ‘is safe now. But
+it’s been safer. It’s been buried—and deep-down, too—for many and many
+a year!’”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER NINE
+THE DEALER IN RARE STAMPS
+
+
+“Buried—and deep-down, too—for many and many a year,” repeated Mr.
+Myerst, eyeing his companions with keen glances. “I consider that,
+gentlemen, a very remarkable remark—very remarkable!”
+
+Rathbury stuck his thumbs in the armholes of his waistcoat again and
+began swaying backwards and forwards in his chair. He looked at Spargo.
+And with his knowledge of men, he knew that all Spargo’s journalistic
+instincts had been aroused, and that he was keen as mustard to be off
+on a new scent.
+
+“Remarkable—remarkable, Mr. Myerst!” he assented. “What do you say, Mr.
+Spargo?”
+
+Spargo turned slowly, and for the first time since Myerst had entered
+made a careful inspection of him. The inspection lasted several
+seconds; then Spargo spoke.
+
+“And what did you say to that?” he asked quietly.
+
+Myerst looked from his questioner to Rathbury. And Rathbury thought it
+time to enlighten the caller.
+
+“I may as well tell you, Mr. Myerst,” he said smilingly, “that this is
+Mr. Spargo, of the _Watchman_. Mr. Spargo wrote the article about the
+Marbury case of which you spoke when you came in. Mr. Spargo, you’ll
+gather, is deeply interested in this matter—and he and I, in our
+different capacities, are working together. So—you understand?” Myerst
+regarded Spargo in a new light. And while he was so looking at him.
+Spargo repeated the question he had just put.
+
+“I said—What did you say to that?”
+
+Myerst hesitated.
+
+“Well—er—I don’t think I said anything,” he replied. “Nothing that one
+might call material, you know.”
+
+“Didn’t ask him what he meant?” suggested Spargo.
+
+“Oh, no—not at all,” replied Myerst.
+
+Spargo got up abruptly from his chair.
+
+“Then you missed one of the finest opportunities I ever heard of!” he
+said, half-sneeringly. “You might have heard such a story—”
+
+He paused, as if it were not worth while to continue, and turned to
+Rathbury, who was regarding him with amusement.
+
+“Look here, Rathbury,” he said. “Is it possible to get that box
+opened?”
+
+“It’ll have to be opened,” answered Rathbury, rising. “It’s got to be
+opened. It probably contains the clue we want. I’m going to ask Mr.
+Myerst here to go with me just now to take the first steps about having
+it opened. I shall have to get an order. We may get the matter through
+today, but at any rate we’ll have it done tomorrow morning.”
+
+“Can you arrange for me to be present when that comes off?” asked
+Spargo. “You can—certain? That’s all right, Rathbury. Now I’m off, and
+you’ll ring me up or come round if you hear anything, and I’ll do the
+same by you.”
+
+And without further word, Spargo went quickly away, and just as quickly
+returned to the _Watchman_ office. There the assistant who had been
+told off to wait upon his orders during this new crusade met him with a
+business card.
+
+“This gentleman came in to see you about an hour ago, Mr. Spargo,” he
+said. “He thinks he can tell you something about the Marbury affair,
+and he said that as he couldn’t wait, perhaps you’d step round to his
+place when you came in.”
+
+Spargo took the card and read:
+
+MR. JAMES CRIEDIR,
+DEALER IN PHILATELIC RARITIES,
+2,021, STRAND.
+
+
+Spargo put the card in his waistcoat pocket and went out again,
+wondering why Mr. James Criedir could not, would not, or did not call
+himself a dealer in rare postage stamps, and so use plain English. He
+went up Fleet Street and soon found the shop indicated on the card, and
+his first glance at its exterior showed that whatever business might
+have been done by Mr. Criedir in the past at that establishment there
+was to be none done there in the future by him, for there were
+newly-printed bills in the window announcing that the place was to let.
+And inside he found a short, portly, elderly man who was superintending
+the packing-up and removal of the last of his stock. He turned a
+bright, enquiring eye on the journalist.
+
+“Mr. Criedir?” said Spargo.
+
+“The same, sir,” answered the philatelist. “You are—?”
+
+“Mr. Spargo, of the _Watchman_. You called on me.”
+
+Mr. Criedir opened the door of a tiny apartment at the rear of the very
+little shop and motioned his caller to enter. He followed him in and
+carefully closed the door.
+
+“Glad to see you, Mr. Spargo,” he said genially. “Take a seat, sir—I’m
+all in confusion here—giving up business, you see. Yes, I called on
+you. I think, having read the _Watchman_ account of that Marbury
+affair, and having seen the murdered man’s photograph in your columns,
+that I can give you a bit of information.”
+
+“Material?” asked Spargo, tersely.
+
+Mr. Criedir cocked one of his bright eyes at his visitor. He coughed
+drily.
+
+“That’s for you to decide—when you’ve heard it,” he said. “I should
+say, considering everything, that it was material. Well, it’s this—I
+kept open until yesterday—everything as usual, you know—stock in the
+window and so on—so that anybody who was passing would naturally have
+thought that the business was going on, though as a matter of fact, I’m
+retiring—retired,” added Mr. Criedir with a laugh, “last night. Now—but
+won’t you take down what I’ve got to tell you?”
+
+“I am taking it down,” answered Spargo. “Every word. In my head.”
+
+Mr. Criedir laughed and rubbed his hands.
+
+“Oh!” he said. “Ah, well, in my young days journalists used to pull out
+pencil and notebook at the first opportunity. But you modern young
+men—”
+
+“Just so,” agreed Spargo. “This information, now?”
+
+“Well,” said Mr. Criedir, “we’ll go on then. Yesterday afternoon the
+man described as Marbury came into my shop. He—”
+
+“What time—exact time?” asked Spargo.
+
+“Two—to the very minute by St. Clement Danes clock,” answered Mr.
+Criedir. “I’d swear twenty affidavits on that point. He was precisely
+as you’ve described him—dress, everything—I tell you I knew his photo
+as soon as I saw it. He was carrying a little box—”
+
+“What sort of box?” said Spargo.
+
+“A queer, old-fashioned, much-worn leather box—a very miniature trunk,
+in fact,” replied Mr. Criedir. “About a foot square; the sort of thing
+you never see nowadays. It was very much worn; it attracted me for that
+very reason. He set it on the counter and looked at me. ‘You’re a
+dealer in stamps—rare stamps?’ he said. ‘I am,’ I replied. ‘I’ve
+something here I’d like to show you,’ he said, unlocking the box.
+‘It’s—’”
+
+“Stop a bit,” said Spargo. “Where did he take the key from with which
+he unlocked the box?”
+
+“It was one of several which he carried on a split ring, and he took
+the bunch out of his left-hand trousers pocket,” replied Mr. Criedir.
+“Oh, I keep my eyes open, young gentleman! Well—he opened his box. It
+seemed to me to be full of papers—at any rate there were a lot of
+legal-looking documents on the top, tied up with red tape. To show you
+how I notice things I saw that the papers were stained with age, and
+that the red tape was faded to a mere washed-out pink.”
+
+“Good—good!” murmured Spargo. “Excellent! Proceed, sir.”
+
+“He put his hand under the topmost papers and drew out an envelope,”
+continued Mr. Criedir. “From the envelope he produced an exceedingly
+rare, exceedingly valuable set of Colonial stamps—the very-first ever
+issued. ‘I’ve just come from Australia,’ he said. ‘I promised a young
+friend of mine out there to sell these stamps for him in London, and as
+I was passing this way I caught sight of your shop. Will you buy ’em,
+and how much will you give for ’em?’”
+
+“Prompt,” muttered Spargo.
+
+“He seemed to me the sort of man who doesn’t waste words,” agreed Mr.
+Criedir. “Well, there was no doubt about the stamps, nor about their
+great value. But I had to explain to him that I was retiring from
+business that very day, and did not wish to enter into even a single
+deal, and that, therefore, I couldn’t do anything. ‘No matter,’ he
+says, ‘I daresay there are lots of men in your line of trade—perhaps
+you can recommend me to a good firm?’ ‘I could recommend you to a dozen
+extra-good firms,’ I answered. ‘But I can do better for you. I’ll give
+you the name and address of a private buyer who, I haven’t the least
+doubt, will be very glad to buy that set from you and will give you a
+big price.’ ‘Write it down,’ he says, ‘and thank you for your trouble.’
+So I gave him a bit of advice as to the price he ought to get, and I
+wrote the name and address of the man I referred to on the back of one
+of my cards.”
+
+“Whose name and address?” asked Spargo.
+
+“Mr. Nicholas Cardlestone, 2, Pilcox Buildings, Middle Temple Lane,”
+replied Mr. Criedir. “Mr. Cardlestone is one of the most enthusiastic
+and accomplished philatelists in Europe. And I knew he didn’t possess
+that set of stamps.”
+
+“I know Mr. Cardlestone,” remarked Spargo. “It was at the foot of his
+stairs that Marbury was found murdered.”
+
+“Just so,” said Mr. Criedir. “Which makes me think that he was going to
+see Mr. Cardlestone when he was set upon, murdered, and robbed.”
+
+Spargo looked fixedly at the retired stamp-dealer.
+
+“What, going to see an elderly gentleman in his rooms in the Temple, to
+offer to sell him philatelic rarities at—past midnight?” he said. “I
+think—not much!”
+
+“All right,” replied Mr. Criedir. “You think and argue on modern
+lines—which are, of course, highly superior. But—how do you account for
+my having given Marbury Mr. Cardlestone’s address and for his having
+been found dead—murdered—at the foot of Cardlestone’s stairs a few
+hours later?”
+
+“I don’t account for it,” said Spargo. “I’m trying to.”
+
+Mr. Criedir made no comment on this. He looked his visitor up and down
+for a moment; gathered some idea of his capabilities, and suddenly
+offered him a cigarette. Spargo accepted it with a laconic word of
+thanks, and smoked half-way through it before he spoke again.
+
+“Yes,” he said. “I’m trying to account. And I shall account. And I’m
+much obliged to you, Mr. Criedir, for what you’ve told me. Now, then,
+may I ask you a question or two?”
+
+“A thousand!” responded Mr. Criedir with great geniality.
+
+“Very well. Did Marbury say he’d call on Cardlestone?”
+
+“He did. Said he’d call as soon as he could—that day.”
+
+“Have you told Cardlestone what you’ve just told me?”
+
+“I have. But not until an hour ago—on my way back from your office, in
+fact. I met him in Fleet Street and told him.”
+
+“Had he received a call from Marbury?”
+
+“No! Never heard of or seen the man. At least, never heard of him until
+he heard of the murder. He told me he and his friend, Mr. Elphick,
+another philatelist, went to see the body, wondering if they could
+recognize it as any man they’d ever known, but they couldn’t.”
+
+“I know they did,” said Spargo. “I saw ’em at the mortuary. Um!
+Well—one more question. When Marbury left you, did he put those stamps
+in his box again, as before?”
+
+“No,” replied Mr. Criedir. “He put them in his right-hand breast
+pocket, and he locked up his old box, and went off swinging it in his
+left hand.”
+
+Spargo went away down Fleet Street, seeing nobody. He muttered to
+himself, and he was still muttering when he got into his room at the
+office. And what he muttered was the same thing, repeated over and over
+again:
+
+“Six hours—six hours—six hours! Those six hours!”
+
+Next morning the _Watchman_ came out with four leaded columns of
+up-to-date news about the Marbury Case, and right across the top of the
+four ran a heavy double line of great capitals, black and staring:—WHO
+SAW JOHN MARBURY BETWEEN 3.15 P.M. AND 9.15 P.M. ON THE DAY PRECEDING
+HIS MURDER?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TEN
+THE LEATHER BOX
+
+
+Whether Spargo was sanguine enough to expect that his staring headline
+would bring him information of the sort he wanted was a secret which he
+kept to himself. That a good many thousands of human beings must have
+set eyes on John Marbury between the hours which Spargo set forth in
+that headline was certain; the problem was—What particular owner or
+owners of a pair or of many pairs of those eyes would remember him? Why
+should they remember him? Walters and his wife had reason to remember
+him; Criedir had reason to remember him; so had Myerst; so had William
+Webster. But between a quarter past three, when he left the London and
+Universal Safe Deposit, and a quarter past nine, when he sat down by
+Webster’s side in the lobby of the House of Commons, nobody seemed to
+have any recollection of him except Mr. Fiskie, the hatter, and he only
+remembered him faintly, and because Marbury had bought a fashionable
+cloth cap at his shop. At any rate, by noon of that day, nobody had
+come forward with any recollection of him. He must have gone West from
+seeing Myerst, because he bought his cap at Fiskie’s; he must
+eventually have gone South-West, because he turned up at Westminster.
+But where else did he go? What did he do? To whom did he speak? No
+answer came to these questions.
+
+“That shows,” observed young Mr. Ronald Breton, lazing an hour away in
+Spargo’s room at the _Watchman_ at that particular hour which is
+neither noon nor afternoon, wherein even busy men do nothing, “that
+shows how a chap can go about London as if he were merely an ant that
+had strayed into another ant-heap than his own. Nobody notices.”
+
+“You’d better go and read up a little elementary entomology, Breton,”
+said Spargo. “I don’t know much about it myself, but I’ve a pretty good
+idea that when an ant walks into the highways and byways of a colony to
+which he doesn’t belong he doesn’t survive his intrusion by many
+seconds.”
+
+“Well, you know what I mean,” said Breton. “London’s an ant-heap, isn’t
+it? One human ant more or less doesn’t count. This man Marbury must
+have gone about a pretty tidy lot during those six hours. He’d ride on
+a ’bus—almost certain. He’d get into a taxi-cab—I think that’s much
+more certain, because it would be a novelty to him. He’d want some
+tea—anyway, he’d be sure to want a drink, and he’d turn in somewhere to
+get one or the other. He’d buy things in shops—these Colonials always
+do. He’d go somewhere to get his dinner. He’d—but what’s the use of
+enumeration in this case?”
+
+“A mere piling up of platitudes,” answered Spargo.
+
+“What I mean is,” continued Breton, “that piles of people must have
+seen him, and yet it’s now hours and hours since your paper came out
+this morning, and nobody’s come forward to tell anything. And when you
+come to think of it, why should they? Who’d remember an ordinary man in
+a grey tweed suit?”
+
+“‘An ordinary man in a grey tweed suit,’” repeated Spargo. “Good line.
+You haven’t any copyright in it, remember. It would make a good
+cross-heading.”
+
+Breton laughed. “You’re a queer chap, Spargo,” he said. “Seriously, do
+you think you’re getting any nearer anything?”
+
+“I’m getting nearer something with everything that’s done,” Spargo
+answered. “You can’t start on a business like this without evolving
+something out of it, you know.”
+
+“Well,” said Breton, “to me there’s not so much mystery in it. Mr.
+Aylmore’s explained the reason why my address was found on the body;
+Criedir, the stamp-man, has explained—”
+
+Spargo suddenly looked up.
+
+“What?” he said sharply.
+
+“Why, the reason of Marbury’s being found where he was found,” replied
+Breton. “Of course, I see it all! Marbury was mooning around Fleet
+Street; he slipped into Middle Temple Lane, late as it was, just to see
+where old Cardlestone hangs out, and he was set upon and done for. The
+thing’s plain to me. The only thing now is to find who did it.”
+
+“Yes, that’s it,” agreed Spargo. “That’s it.” He turned over the leaves
+of the diary which lay on his desk. “By the by,” he said, looking up
+with some interest, “the adjourned inquest is at eleven o’clock
+tomorrow morning. Are you going?”
+
+“I shall certainly go,” answered Breton. “What’s more, I’m going to
+take Miss Aylmore and her sister. As the gruesome details were over at
+the first sitting, and as there’ll be nothing but this new evidence
+tomorrow, and as they’ve never been in a coroner’s court——”
+
+“Mr. Aylmore’ll be the principal witness tomorrow,” interrupted Spargo.
+“I suppose he’ll be able to tell a lot more than he told—me.”
+
+Breton shrugged his shoulders.
+
+“I don’t see that there’s much more to tell,” he said. “But,” he added,
+with a sly laugh, “I suppose you want some more good copy, eh?”
+
+Spargo glanced at his watch, rose, and picked up his hat. “I’ll tell
+you what I want,” he said. “I want to know who John Marbury was. That
+would make good copy. Who he was—twenty—twenty-five—forty years ago.
+Eh?”
+
+“And you think Mr. Aylmore can tell?” asked Breton.
+
+“Mr. Aylmore,” answered Spargo as they walked towards the door, “is the
+only person I have met so far who has admitted that he knew John
+Marbury in the—past. But he didn’t tell me—much. Perhaps he’ll tell the
+coroner and his jury—more. Now, I’m off Breton—I’ve an appointment.”
+
+And leaving Breton to find his own way out, Spargo hurried away, jumped
+into a taxi-cab and speeded to the London and Universal Safe Deposit.
+At the corner of its building he found Rathbury awaiting him.
+
+“Well?” said Spargo, as he sprang out: “How is it?”
+
+“It’s all right,” answered Rathbury. “You can be present: I got the
+necessary permission. As there are no relations known, there’ll only be
+one or two officials and you, and the Safe Deposit people, and myself.
+Come on—it’s about time.”
+
+“It sounds,” observed Spargo, “like an exhumation.”
+
+Rathbury laughed. “Well, we’re certainly going to dig up a dead man’s
+secrets,” he said. “At least, we may be going to do so. In my opinion,
+Mr. Spargo, we’ll find some clue in this leather box.”
+
+Spargo made no answer. They entered the office, to be shown into a room
+where were already assembled Mr. Myerst, a gentleman who turned out to
+be the chairman of the company, and the officials of whom Rathbury had
+spoken. And in another moment Spargo heard the chairman explaining that
+the company possessed duplicate keys to all safes, and that the proper
+authorization having been received from the proper authorities, those
+present would now proceed to the safe recently tenanted by the late Mr.
+John Marbury, and take from it the property which he himself had
+deposited there, a small leather box, which they would afterwards bring
+to that room and cause to be opened in each other’s presence.
+
+It seemed to Spargo that there was an unending unlocking of bolts and
+bars before he and his fellow-processionists came to the safe so
+recently rented by the late Mr. John Marbury, now undoubtedly deceased.
+And at first sight of it, he saw that it was so small an affair that it
+seemed ludicrous to imagine that it could contain anything of any
+importance. In fact, it looked to be no more than a plain wooden
+locker, one amongst many in a small strong room: it reminded Spargo
+irresistibly of the locker in which, in his school days, he had kept
+his personal belongings and the jam tarts, sausage rolls, and hardbake
+smuggled in from the tuck-shop. Marbury’s name had been newly painted
+upon it; the paint was scarcely dry. But when the wooden door—the front
+door, as it were, of this temple of mystery, had been solemnly opened
+by the chairman, a formidable door of steel was revealed, and
+expectation still leapt in the bosoms of the beholders.
+
+“The duplicate key, Mr. Myerst, if you please,” commanded the chairman,
+“the duplicate key!”
+
+Myerst, who was fully as solemn as his principal, produced a
+curious-looking key: the chairman lifted his hand as if he were about
+to christen a battleship: the steel door swung slowly back. And there,
+in a two-foot square cavity, lay the leather box.
+
+It struck Spargo as they filed back to the secretary’s room that the
+procession became more funereal-like than ever. First walked the
+chairman, abreast with the high official, who had brought the necessary
+authorization from the all-powerful quarter; then came Myerst carrying
+the box: followed two other gentlemen, both legal lights, charged with
+watching official and police interests; Rathbury and Spargo brought up
+the rear. He whispered something of his notions to the detective;
+Rathbury nodded a comprehensive understanding.
+
+“Let’s hope we’re going to see—something!” he said.
+
+In the secretary’s room a man waited who touched his forelock
+respectfully as the heads of the procession entered. Myerst set the box
+on the table: the man made a musical jingle of keys: the other members
+of the procession gathered round.
+
+“As we naturally possess no key to this box,” announced the chairman in
+grave tones, “it becomes our duty to employ professional assistance in
+opening it. Jobson!”
+
+He waved a hand, and the man of the keys stepped forward with alacrity.
+He examined the lock of the box with a knowing eye; it was easy to see
+that he was anxious to fall upon it. While he considered matters,
+Spargo looked at the box. It was pretty much what it had been described
+to him as being; a small, square box of old cow-hide, very strongly
+made, much worn and tarnished, fitted with a handle projecting from the
+lid, and having the appearance of having been hidden away somewhere for
+many a long day.
+
+There was a click, a spring: Jobson stepped back.
+
+“That’s it, if you please, sir,” he said.
+
+The chairman motioned to the high official.
+
+“If you would be good enough to open the box, sir,” he said. “Our duty
+is now concluded.”
+
+As the high official laid his hand on the lid the other men gathered
+round with craning necks and expectant eyes. The lid was lifted:
+somebody sighed deeply. And Spargo pushed his own head and eyes nearer.
+
+The box was empty!
+
+Empty, as anything that can be empty is empty! thought Spargo: there
+was literally nothing in it. They were all staring into the interior of
+a plain, time-worn little receptacle, lined out with old-fashioned
+chintz stuff, such as our Mid-Victorian fore-fathers were familiar
+with, and containing—nothing.
+
+“God bless my soul!” exclaimed the chairman. “This is—dear me!—why,
+there is nothing in the box!”
+
+“That,” remarked the high official, drily, “appears to be obvious.”
+
+The chairman looked at the secretary.
+
+“I understood the box was valuable, Mr. Myerst,” he said, with the
+half-injured air of a man who considers himself to have been robbed of
+an exceptionally fine treat. “Valuable!”
+
+Myerst coughed.
+
+“I can only repeat what I have already said, Sir Benjamin,” he
+answered. “The—er late Mr. Marbury spoke of the deposit as being of
+great value to him; he never permitted it out of his hand until he
+placed it in the safe. He appeared to regard it as of the greatest
+value.”
+
+“But we understand from the evidence of Mr. Criedir, given to the
+_Watchman_ newspaper, that it was full of papers and—and other
+articles,” said the chairman. “Criedir saw papers in it about an hour
+before it was brought here.”
+
+Myerst spread out his hands.
+
+“I can only repeat what I have said, Sir Benjamin,” he answered. “I
+know nothing more.”
+
+“But why should a man deposit an empty box?” began the chairman. “I—”
+
+The high official interposed.
+
+“That the box is empty is certain,” he observed. “Did you ever handle
+it yourself, Mr. Myerst?”
+
+Myerst smiled in a superior fashion.
+
+“I have already observed, sir, that from the time the deceased entered
+this room until the moment he placed the box in the safe which he
+rented, the box was never out of his hands,” he replied.
+
+Then there was silence. At last the high official turned to the
+chairman.
+
+“Very well,” he said. “We’ve made the enquiry. Rathbury, take the box
+away with you and lock it up at the Yard.”
+
+So Spargo went out with Rathbury and the box; and saw excellent, if
+mystifying, material for the article which had already become the daily
+feature of his paper.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER ELEVEN
+MR. AYLMORE IS QUESTIONED
+
+
+It seemed to Spargo as he sat listening to the proceedings at the
+adjourned inquest next day that the whole story of what was now
+world-famous as the Middle Temple Murder Case was being reiterated
+before him for the thousandth time. There was not a detail of the story
+with which he had not become familiar to fulness. The first proceeding
+before the coroner had been of a merely formal nature; these were
+thorough and exhaustive; the representative of the Crown and twelve
+good men and true of the City of London were there to hear and to find
+out and to arrive at a conclusion as to how the man known as John
+Marbury came by his death. And although he knew all about it, Spargo
+found himself tabulating the evidence in a professional manner, and
+noting how each successive witness contributed, as it were, a chapter
+to the story. The story itself ran quite easily, naturally,
+consecutively—you could make it in sections. And Spargo, sitting merely
+to listen, made them:
+
+1. The Temple porter and Constable Driscoll proved the finding of the
+body.
+
+2. The police surgeon testified as to the cause of death—the man had
+been struck down from behind by a blow, a terrible blow—from some heavy
+instrument, and had died immediately.
+
+3. The police and the mortuary officials proved that when the body was
+examined nothing was found in the clothing but the now famous scrap of
+grey paper.
+
+4. Rathbury proved that by means of the dead man’s new fashionable
+cloth cap, bought at Fiskie’s well-known shop in the West-End, he
+traced Marbury to the Anglo-Orient Hotel in the Waterloo District.
+
+5. Mr. and Mrs. Walters gave evidence of the arrival of Marbury at the
+Anglo-Orient Hotel, and of his doings while he was in and about there.
+
+6. The purser of the ss. _Wambarino_ proved that Marbury sailed from
+Melbourne to Southampton on that ship, excited no remark, behaved
+himself like any other well-regulated passenger, and left the
+_Wambarino_ at Southampton early in the morning of what was to be the
+last day of his life in just the ordinary manner.
+
+7. Mr. Criedir gave evidence of his rencontre with Marbury in the
+matter of the stamps.
+
+8. Mr. Myerst told of Marbury’s visit to the Safe Deposit, and further
+proved that the box which he placed there proved, on official
+examination, to be empty.
+
+9. William Webster re-told the story of his encounter with Marbury in
+one of the vestibules of the House of Commons, and of his witnessing
+the meeting between him and the gentleman whom he (Webster) now knew to
+be Mr. Aylmore, a Member of Parliament.
+
+All this led up to the appearance of Mr. Aylmore, M.P., in the
+witness-box. And Spargo knew and felt that it was that appearance for
+which the crowded court was waiting. Thanks to his own vivid and
+realistic specials in the _Watchman_, everybody there had already
+become well and thoroughly acquainted with the mass of evidence
+represented by the nine witnesses who had been in the box before Mr.
+Aylmore entered it. They were familiar, too, with the facts which Mr.
+Aylmore had permitted Spargo to print after the interview at the club,
+which Ronald Breton arranged. Why, then, the extraordinary interest
+which the Member of Parliament’s appearance aroused? For everybody was
+extraordinarily interested; from the Coroner downwards to the last man
+who had managed to squeeze himself into the last available inch of the
+public gallery, all who were there wanted to hear and see the man who
+met Marbury under such dramatic circumstances, and who went to his
+hotel with him, hobnobbed with him, gave him advice, walked out of the
+hotel with him for a stroll from which Marbury never returned. Spargo
+knew well why the interest was so keen—everybody knew that Aylmore was
+the only man who could tell the court anything really pertinent about
+Marbury; who he was, what he was after; what his life had been.
+
+He looked round the court as the Member of Parliament entered the
+witness-box—a tall, handsome, perfectly-groomed man, whose beard was
+only slightly tinged with grey, whose figure was as erect as a
+well-drilled soldier’s, who carried about him an air of conscious
+power. Aylmore’s two daughters sat at a little distance away, opposite
+Spargo, with Ronald Breton in attendance upon them; Spargo had
+encountered their glance as they entered the court, and they had given
+him a friendly nod and smile. He had watched them from time to time; it
+was plain to him that they regarded the whole affair as a novel sort of
+entertainment; they might have been idlers in some Eastern bazaar,
+listening to the unfolding of many tales from the professional
+tale-tellers. Now, as their father entered the box, Spargo looked at
+them again; he saw nothing more than a little heightening of colour in
+their cheeks, a little brightening of their eyes.
+
+“All that they feel,” he thought, “is a bit of extra excitement at the
+idea that their father is mixed up in this delightful mystery. Um!
+Well—now how much is he mixed up?”
+
+And he turned to the witness-box and from that moment never took his
+eyes off the man who now stood in it. For Spargo had ideas about the
+witness which he was anxious to develop.
+
+The folk who expected something immediately sensational in Mr.
+Aylmore’s evidence were disappointed. Aylmore, having been sworn, and
+asked a question or two by the Coroner, requested permission to tell,
+in his own way, what he knew of the dead man and of this sad affair;
+and having received that permission, he went on in a calm,
+unimpassioned manner to repeat precisely what he had told Spargo. It
+sounded a very plain, ordinary story. He had known Marbury many years
+ago. He had lost sight of him for—oh, quite twenty years. He had met
+him accidentally in one of the vestibules of the House of Commons on
+the evening preceding the murder. Marbury had asked his advice. Having
+no particular duty, and willing to do an old acquaintance a good turn,
+he had gone back to the Anglo-Orient Hotel with Marbury, had remained
+awhile with him in his room, examining his Australian diamonds, and had
+afterwards gone out with him. He had given him the advice he wanted;
+they had strolled across Waterloo Bridge; shortly afterwards they had
+parted. That was all he knew.
+
+The court, the public, Spargo, everybody there, knew all this already.
+It had been in print, under a big headline, in the _Watchman_. Aylmore
+had now told it again; having told it, he seemed to consider that his
+next step was to leave the box and the court, and after a perfunctory
+question or two from the Coroner and the foreman of the jury he made a
+motion as if to step down. But Spargo, who had been aware since the
+beginning of the enquiry of the presence of a certain eminent counsel
+who represented the Treasury, cocked his eye in that gentleman’s
+direction, and was not surprised to see him rise in his well-known,
+apparently indifferent fashion, fix his monocle in his right eye, and
+glance at the tall figure in the witness-box.
+
+“The fun is going to begin,” muttered Spargo.
+
+The Treasury representative looked from Aylmore to the Coroner and made
+a jerky bow; from the Coroner to Aylmore and straightened himself. He
+looked like a man who is going to ask indifferent questions about the
+state of the weather, or how Smith’s wife was last time you heard of
+her, or if stocks are likely to rise or fall. But Spargo had heard this
+man before, and he knew many signs of his in voice and manner and
+glance.
+
+“I want to ask you a few questions, Mr. Aylmore, about your
+acquaintanceship with the dead man. It was an acquaintanceship of some
+time ago?” began the suave, seemingly careless voice.
+
+“A considerable time ago,” answered Aylmore.
+
+“How long—roughly speaking?”
+
+“I should say from twenty to twenty-two or three years.”
+
+“Never saw him during that time until you met accidentally in the way
+you have described to us?”
+
+“Never.”
+
+“Ever heard from him?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Ever heard of him?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“But when you met, you knew each other at once?”
+
+“Well—almost at once.”
+
+“Almost at once. Then, I take it, you were very well known to each
+other twenty or twenty-two years ago?”
+
+“We were—yes, well known to each other.”
+
+“Close friends?”
+
+“I said we were acquaintances.”
+
+“Acquaintances. What was his name when you knew him at that time?”
+
+“His name? It was—Marbury.”
+
+“Marbury—the same name. Where did you know him?”
+
+“I—oh, here in London.”
+
+“What was he?”
+
+“Do you mean—what was his occupation?”
+
+“What was his occupation?”
+
+“I believe he was concerned in financial matters.”
+
+“Concerned in financial matters. Had you dealings with him?”
+
+“Well, yes—on occasions.”
+
+“What was his business address in London?”
+
+“I can’t remember that.”
+
+“What was his private address?”
+
+“That I never knew.”
+
+“Where did you transact your business with him?”
+
+“Well, we met, now and then.”
+
+“Where? What place, office, resort?”
+
+“I can’t remember particular places. Sometimes—in the City.”
+
+“In the City. Where in the City? Mansion House, or Lombard Street, or
+St. Paul’s Churchyard, or the Old Bailey, or where?”
+
+“I have recollections of meeting him outside the Stock Exchange.”
+
+“Oh! Was he a member of that institution?”
+
+“Not that I know of.”
+
+“Were you?”
+
+“Certainly not!”
+
+“What were the dealings that you had with him?”
+
+“Financial dealings—small ones.”
+
+“How long did your acquaintanceship with him last—what period did it
+extend over?”
+
+“I should say about six months to nine months.”
+
+“No more?”
+
+“Certainly no more.”
+
+“It was quite a slight acquaintanceship, then?”
+
+“Oh, quite!”
+
+“And yet, after losing sight of this merely slight acquaintance for
+over twenty years, you, on meeting him, take great interest in him?”
+
+“Well, I was willing to do him a good turn, I was interested in what he
+told me the other evening.”
+
+“I see. Now you will not object to my asking you a personal question or
+two. You are a public man, and the facts about the lives of public men
+are more or less public property. You are represented in this work of
+popular reference as coming to this country in 1902, from Argentina,
+where you made a considerable fortune. You have told us, however, that
+you were in London, acquainted with Marbury, about the years, say 1890
+to 1892. Did you then leave England soon after knowing Marbury?”
+
+“I did. I left England in 1891 or 1892—I am not sure which.”
+
+“We are wanting to be very sure about this matter, Mr. Aylmore. We want
+to solve the important question—who is, who was John Marbury, and how
+did he come by his death? You seem to be the only available person who
+knows anything about him. What was your business before you left
+England?”
+
+“I was interested in financial affairs.”
+
+“Like Marbury. Where did you carry on your business?”
+
+“In London, of course.”
+
+“At what address?”
+
+For some moments Aylmore had been growing more and more restive. His
+brow had flushed; his moustache had begun to twitch. And now he squared
+his shoulders and faced his questioner defiantly.
+
+“I resent these questions about my private affairs!” he snapped out.
+
+“Possibly. But I must put them. I repeat my last question.”
+
+“And I refuse to answer it.”
+
+“Then I ask you another. Where did you live in London at the time you
+are telling us of, when you knew John Marbury?”
+
+“I refuse to answer that question also!”
+
+The Treasury Counsel sat down and looked at the Coroner.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWELVE
+THE NEW WITNESS
+
+
+The voice of the Coroner, bland, suave, deprecating, broke the silence.
+He was addressing the witness.
+
+“I am sure, Mr. Aylmore,” he said, “there is no wish to trouble you
+with unnecessary questions. But we are here to get at the truth of this
+matter of John Marbury’s death, and as you are the only witness we have
+had who knew him personally—”
+
+Aylmore turned impatiently to the Coroner.
+
+“I have every wish to respect your authority, sir!” he exclaimed. “And
+I have told you all that I know of Marbury and of what happened when I
+met him the other evening. But I resent being questioned on my private
+affairs of twenty years ago—I very much resent it! Any question that is
+really pertinent I will answer, but I will not answer questions that
+seem to me wholly foreign to the scope of this enquiry.”
+
+The Treasury Counsel rose again. His manner had become of the quietest,
+and Spargo again became keenly attentive.
+
+“Perhaps I can put a question or two to Mr. Aylmore which will not
+yield him offence,” he remarked drily. He turned once more to the
+witness, regarding him as if with interest. “Can you tell us of any
+person now living who knew Marbury in London at the time under
+discussion—twenty to twenty-two or three years ago?” he asked.
+
+Aylmore shook his head angrily.
+
+“No, I can’t,” he replied.
+
+“And yet you and he must have had several business acquaintances at
+that time who knew you both!”
+
+“Possibly—at that time. But when I returned to England my business and
+my life lay in different directions to those of that time. I don’t know
+of anybody who knew Marbury then—anybody.”
+
+The Counsel turned to a clerk who sat behind him, whispered to him;
+Spargo saw the clerk make a sidelong motion of his head towards the
+door of the court. The Counsel looked again at the witness.
+
+“One more question. You told the court a little time since that you
+parted with Marbury on the evening preceding his death at the end of
+Waterloo Bridge—at, I think you said, a quarter to twelve.”
+
+“About that time.”
+
+“And at that place?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“That is all I want to ask you, Mr. Aylmore—just now,” said the
+Counsel. He turned to the Coroner. “I am going to ask you, sir, at this
+point to call a witness who has volunteered certain evidence to the
+police authorities this morning. That evidence is of a very important
+nature, and I think that this is the stage at which it ought to be
+given to you and the jury. If you would be pleased to direct that David
+Lyell be called—”
+
+Spargo turned instinctively to the door, having seen the clerk who had
+sat behind the Treasury Counsel make his way there. There came into
+view, ushered by the clerk, a smart-looking, alert, self-confident
+young man, evidently a Scotsman, who, on the name of David Lyell being
+called, stepped jauntily and readily into the place which the member of
+Parliament just vacated. He took the oath—Scotch fashion—with the same
+readiness and turned easily to the Treasury Counsel. And Spargo,
+glancing quickly round, saw that the court was breathless with
+anticipation, and that its anticipation was that the new witness was
+going to tell something which related to the evidence just given by
+Aylmore.
+
+“Your name is David Lyell?”
+
+“That is my name, sir.”
+
+“And you reside at 23, Cumbrae Side, Kilmarnock, Scotland?”
+
+“I do.”
+
+“What are you, Mr. Lyell?”
+
+“Traveller, sir, for the firm of Messrs. Stevenson, Robertson & Soutar,
+distillers, of Kilmarnock.”
+
+“Your duties take you, I think, over to Paris occasionally?”
+
+“They do—once every six weeks I go to Paris.”
+
+“On the evening of June 21st last were you in London on your way to
+Paris?”
+
+“I was.”
+
+“I believe you stayed at De Keyser’s Hotel, at the Blackfriars end of
+the Embankment?”
+
+“I did—it’s handy for the continental trains.”
+
+“About half-past eleven, or a little later, that evening, did you go
+along the Embankment, on the Temple Gardens side, for a walk?”
+
+“I did, sir. I’m a bad sleeper, and it’s a habit of mine to take a walk
+of half an hour or so last thing before I go to bed.”
+
+“How far did you walk?”
+
+“As far as Waterloo Bridge.”
+
+“Always on the Temple side?”
+
+“Just so, sir—straight along on that side.”
+
+“Very good. When you got close to Waterloo Bridge, did you meet anybody
+you knew?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Mr. Aylmore, the Member of Parliament.”
+
+Spargo could not avoid a glance at the two sisters. The elder’s head
+was averted; the younger was staring at the witness steadily. And
+Breton was nervously tapping his fingers on the crown of his shining
+silk hat.
+
+“Mr. Aylmore, the Member of Parliament,” repeated the Counsel’s suave,
+clear tones. “Oh! And how did you come to recognize Mr. Aylmore, Member
+of Parliament?”
+
+“Well, sir, in this way. At home, I’m the secretary of our Liberal Ward
+Club, and last year we had a demonstration, and it fell to me to
+arrange with the principal speakers. I got Mr. Aylmore to come and
+speak, and naturally I met him several times, in London and in
+Scotland.”
+
+“So that you knew him quite well?”
+
+“Oh yes, sir.”
+
+“Do you see him now, Mr. Lyell?”
+
+Lyell smiled and half turned in the box.
+
+“Why, of course!” he answered. “There is Mr. Aylmore.”
+
+“There is Mr. Aylmore. Very good. Now we go on. You met Mr. Aylmore
+close to Waterloo Bridge? How close?”
+
+“Well, sir, to be exact, Mr. Aylmore came down the steps from the
+bridge on to the Embankment.”
+
+“Alone?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Who was with him?”
+
+“A man, sir.”
+
+“Did you know the man?”
+
+“No. But seeing who he was with. I took a good look at him. I haven’t
+forgotten his face.”
+
+“You haven’t forgotten his face. Mr. Lyell—has anything recalled that
+face to you within this last day or two?”
+
+“Yes, sir, indeed!”
+
+“What?”
+
+“The picture of the man they say was murdered—John Marbury.”
+
+“You’re sure of that?”
+
+“I’m as certain, sir, as that my name’s what it is.”
+
+“It is your belief that Mr. Aylmore, when you met him, was accompanied
+by the man who, according to the photographs, was John Marbury?”
+
+“It is, sir!”
+
+“Very well. Now, having seen Mr. Aylmore and his companion, what did
+you do?”
+
+“Oh, I just turned and walked after them.”
+
+“You walked after them? They were going eastward, then?”
+
+“They were walking by the way I’d come.”
+
+“You followed them eastward?”
+
+“I did—I was going back to the hotel, you see.”
+
+“What were they doing?”
+
+“Talking uncommonly earnestly, sir.”
+
+“How far did you follow them?”
+
+“I followed them until they came to the Embankment lodge of Middle
+Temple Lane, sir.”
+
+“And then?”
+
+“Why, sir, they turned in there, and I went straight on to De Keyser’s,
+and to my bed.”
+
+There was a deeper silence in court at that moment than at any other
+period of the long day, and it grew still deeper when the quiet, keen
+voice put the next question.
+
+“You swear on your oath that you saw Mr. Aylmore take his companion
+into the Temple by the Embankment entrance of Middle Temple Lane on the
+occasion in question?”
+
+“I do! I could swear no other, sir.”
+
+“Can you tell us, as near as possible, what time that would be?”
+
+“Yes. It was, to a minute or so, about five minutes past twelve.”
+
+The Treasury Counsel nodded to the Coroner, and the Coroner, after a
+whispered conference with the foreman of the jury, looked at the
+witness.
+
+“You have only just given this information to the police, I
+understand?” he said.
+
+“Yes, sir. I have been in Paris, and in Amiens, and I only returned by
+this morning’s boat. As soon as I had read all the news in the
+papers—the English papers—and seen the dead man’s photographs I
+determined to tell the police what I knew, and I went to New Scotland
+Yard as soon as I got to London this morning.”
+
+Nobody else wanted to ask Mr. David Lyell any questions, and he stepped
+down. And Mr. Aylmore suddenly came forward again, seeking the
+Coroner’s attention.
+
+“May I be allowed to make an explanation, sir?” he began. “I—”
+
+But the Treasury Counsel was on his feet, this time stern and
+implacable. “I would point out, sir, that you have had Mr. Aylmore in
+the box, and that he was not then at all ready to give explanations, or
+even to answer questions,” he said. “And before you allow him to make
+any explanation now, I ask you to hear another witness whom I wish to
+interpose at this stage. That witness is——”
+
+Mr. Aylmore turned almost angrily to the Coroner.
+
+“After the evidence of the last witness, I think I have a right to be
+heard at once!” he said with emphasis. “As matters stand at present, it
+looks as if I had trifled, sir, with you and the jury, whereas if I am
+allowed to make an explanation—”
+
+“I must respectfully ask that before Mr. Aylmore is allowed to make any
+explanation, the witness I have referred to is heard,” said the
+Treasury Counsel sternly. “There are weighty reasons.”
+
+“I am afraid you must wait a little, Mr. Aylmore, if you wish to give
+an explanation,” said the Coroner. He turned to the Counsel. “Who is
+this other witness?” he asked.
+
+Aylmore stepped back. And Spargo noticed that the younger of his two
+daughters was staring at him with an anxious expression. There was no
+distrust of her father in her face; she was anxious. She, too, slowly
+turned to the next witness. This man was the porter of the Embankment
+lodge of Middle Temple Lane. The Treasury Counsel put a straight
+question to him at once.
+
+“You see that gentleman,” he said, pointing to Aylmore. “Do you know
+him as an inmate of the Temple?”
+
+The man stared at Aylmore, evidently confused.
+
+“Why, certainly, sir!” he answered. “Quite well, sir.”
+
+“Very good. And now—what name do you know him by?”
+
+The man grew evidently more bewildered.
+
+“Name, sir. Why, Mr. Anderson, sir!” he replied. “Mr. Anderson!”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THIRTEEN
+UNDER SUSPICION
+
+
+A distinct, uncontrollable murmur of surprise ran round the packed
+court as this man in the witness-box gave this answer. It signified
+many things—that there were people present who had expected some such
+dramatic development; that there were others present who had not; that
+the answer itself was only a prelude to further developments. And
+Spargo, looking narrowly about him, saw that the answer had aroused
+different feelings in Aylmore’s two daughters. The elder one had
+dropped her face until it was quite hidden; the younger was sitting
+bolt upright, staring at her father in utter and genuine bewilderment.
+And for the first time, Aylmore made no response to her.
+
+But the course of things was going steadily forward. There was no
+stopping the Treasury Counsel now; he was going to get at some truth in
+his own merciless fashion. He had exchanged one glance with the
+Coroner, had whispered a word to the solicitor who sat close by him,
+and now he turned again to the witness.
+
+“So you know that gentleman—make sure now—as Mr. Anderson, an inmate of
+the Temple?”
+
+“Yes, sir.”
+
+“You don’t know him by any other name?”
+
+“No, sir, I don’t.”
+
+“How long have you known him by that name?”
+
+“I should say two or three years, sir.”
+
+“See him go in and out regularly?”
+
+“No, sir—not regularly.”
+
+“How often, then?”
+
+“Now and then, sir—perhaps once a week.”
+
+“Tell us what you know of Mr. Anderson’s goings-in-and-out.”
+
+“Well, sir, I might see him two nights running; then I mightn’t see him
+again for perhaps a week or two. Irregular, as you might say, sir.”
+
+“You say ‘nights.’ Do I understand that you never see Mr. Anderson
+except at night?”
+
+“Yes, sir. I’ve never seen him except at night. Always about the same
+time, sir.”
+
+“What time?”
+
+“Just about midnight, sir.”
+
+“Very well. Do you remember the midnight of June 21st-22nd?”
+
+“I do, sir.”
+
+“Did you see Mr. Anderson enter then?”
+
+“Yes, sir, just after twelve.”
+
+“Was he alone?”
+
+“No, sir; there was another gentleman with him.”
+
+“Remember anything about that other gentleman?”
+
+“Nothing, sir, except that I noticed as they walked through, that the
+other gentleman had grey clothes on.”
+
+“Had grey clothes on. You didn’t see his face?”
+
+“Not to remember it, sir. I don’t remember anything but what I’ve told
+you, sir.”
+
+“That is that the other gentleman wore a grey suit. Where did Mr.
+Anderson and this gentleman in the grey suit go when they’d passed
+through?”
+
+“Straight up the Lane, sir.”
+
+“Do you know where Mr. Anderson’s rooms in the Temple are?”
+
+“Not exactly, sir, but I understood in Fountain Court.”
+
+“Now, on that night in question, did Mr. Anderson leave again by your
+lodge?”
+
+“No, sir.”
+
+“You heard of the discovery of the body of a dead man in Middle Temple
+Lane next morning?”
+
+“I did, sir.”
+
+“Did you connect that man with the gentleman in the grey suit?”
+
+“No, sir, I didn’t. It never occurred to me. A lot of the gentlemen who
+live in the Temple bring friends in late of nights; I never gave the
+matter any particular thought.”
+
+“Never mentioned it to anybody until now, when you were sent for to
+come here?”
+
+“No, sir, never, to anybody.”
+
+“And you have never known the gentleman standing there as anybody but
+Mr. Anderson?”
+
+“No, sir, never heard any other name but Anderson.”
+
+The Coroner glanced at the Counsel.
+
+“I think this may be a convenient opportunity for Mr. Aylmore to give
+the explanation he offered a few minutes ago,” he said. “Do you suggest
+anything?”
+
+“I suggest, sir, that if Mr. Aylmore desires to give any explanation he
+should return to the witness-box and submit himself to examination
+again on his oath,” replied the Counsel. “The matter is in your hands.”
+
+The Coroner turned to Aylmore.
+
+“Do you object to that?” he asked.
+
+Aylmore stepped boldly forward and into the box.
+
+“I object to nothing,” he said in clear tones, “except to being asked
+to reply to questions about matters of the past which have not and
+cannot have anything to do with this case. Ask me what questions you
+like, arising out of the evidence of the last two witnesses, and I will
+answer them so far as I see myself justified in doing so. Ask me
+questions about matters of twenty years ago, and I shall answer them or
+not as I see fit. And I may as well say that I will take all the
+consequences of my silence or my speech.”
+
+The Treasury Counsel rose again.
+
+“Very well, Mr. Aylmore,” he said. “I will put certain questions to
+you. You heard the evidence of David Lyell?”
+
+“I did.”
+
+“Was that quite true as regards yourself?”
+
+“Quite true—absolutely true.”
+
+“And you heard that of the last witness. Was that also true!”
+
+“Equally true.”
+
+“Then you admit that the evidence you gave this morning, before these
+witnesses came on the scene, was not true?”
+
+“No, I do not! Most emphatically I do not. It was true.”
+
+“True? You told me, on oath, that you parted from John Marbury on
+Waterloo Bridge!”
+
+“Pardon me, I said nothing of the sort. I said that from the
+Anglo-Orient Hotel we strolled across Waterloo Bridge, and that shortly
+afterwards we parted—I did not say where we parted. I see there is a
+shorthand writer here who is taking everything down—ask him if that is
+not exactly what I said?”
+
+A reference to the stenographer proved Aylmore to be right, and the
+Treasury Counsel showed plain annoyance.
+
+“Well, at any rate, you so phrased your answer that nine persons out of
+ten would have understood that you parted from Marbury in the open
+streets after crossing Waterloo Bridge,” he said. “Now—?”
+
+Aylmore smiled.
+
+“I am not responsible for the understanding of nine people out of ten
+any more than I am for your understanding,” he said, with a sneer. “I
+said what I now repeat—Marbury and I walked across Waterloo Bridge, and
+shortly afterwards we parted. I told you the truth.”
+
+“Indeed! Perhaps you will continue to tell us the truth. Since you have
+admitted that the evidence of the last two witnesses is absolutely
+correct, perhaps you will tell us exactly where you and Marbury did
+part?”
+
+“I will—willingly. We parted at the door of my chambers in Fountain
+Court.”
+
+“Then—to reiterate—it was you who took Marbury into the Temple that
+night?”
+
+“It was certainly I who took Marbury into the Temple that night.”
+
+There was another murmur amongst the crowded benches. Here at any rate
+was fact—solid, substantial fact. And Spargo began to see a possible
+course of events which he had not anticipated.
+
+“That is a candid admission, Mr. Aylmore. I suppose you see a certain
+danger to yourself in making it.”
+
+“I need not say whether I do or I do not. I have made it.”
+
+“Very good. Why did you not make it before?”
+
+“For my own reasons. I told you as much as I considered necessary for
+the purpose of this enquiry. I have virtually altered nothing now. I
+asked to be allowed to make a statement, to give an explanation, as
+soon as Mr. Lyell had left this box: I was not allowed to do so. I am
+willing to make it now.”
+
+“Make it then.”
+
+“It is simply this,” said Aylmore, turning to the Coroner. “I have
+found it convenient, during the past three years, to rent a simple set
+of chambers in the Temple, where I could occasionally—very
+occasionally, as a rule—go late at night. I also found it convenient,
+for my own reasons—with which, I think, no one has anything to do—to
+rent those chambers under the name of Mr. Anderson. It was to my
+chambers that Marbury accompanied me for a few moments on the midnight
+with which we are dealing. He was not in them more than five minutes at
+the very outside: I parted from him at my outer door, and I understood
+that he would leave the Temple by the way we had entered and would
+drive or walk straight back to his hotel. That is the whole truth. I
+wish to add that I ought perhaps to have told all this at first. I had
+reasons for not doing so. I told what I considered necessary, that I
+parted from Marbury, leaving him well and alive, soon after midnight.”
+
+“What reasons were or are they which prevented you from telling all
+this at first?” asked the Treasury Counsel.
+
+“Reasons which are private to me.”
+
+“Will you tell them to the court?”
+
+“No!”
+
+“Then will you tell us why Marbury went with you to the chambers in
+Fountain Court which you tenant under the name of Anderson?”
+
+“Yes. To fetch a document which I had in my keeping, and had kept for
+him for twenty years or more.”
+
+“A document of importance?”
+
+“Of very great importance.”
+
+“He would have it on him when he was—as we believe he was—murdered and
+robbed?”
+
+“He had it on him when he left me.”
+
+“Will you tell us what it was?”
+
+“Certainly not!”
+
+“In fact, you won’t tell us any more than you choose to tell?”
+
+“I have told you all I can tell of the events of that night.”
+
+“Then I am going to ask you a very pertinent question. Is it not a fact
+that you know a great deal more about John Marbury than you have told
+this court?”
+
+“That I shall not answer.”
+
+“Is it not a fact that you could, if you would, tell this court more
+about John Marbury and your acquaintanceship with him twenty years
+ago?”
+
+“I also decline to answer that.”
+
+The Treasury Counsel made a little movement of his shoulders and turned
+to the Coroner.
+
+“I should suggest, sir, that you adjourn this enquiry,” he said
+quietly.
+
+“For a week,” assented the Coroner, turning to the jury.
+
+The crowd surged out of the court, chattering, murmuring, exclaiming—
+spectators, witnesses, jurymen, reporters, legal folk, police folk, all
+mixed up together. And Spargo, elbowing his own way out, and busily
+reckoning up the value of the new complexions put on everything by the
+day’s work, suddenly felt a hand laid on his arm. Turning he found
+himself gazing at Jessie Aylmore.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER FOURTEEN
+THE SILVER TICKET
+
+
+With a sudden instinct of protection, Spargo quickly drew the girl
+aside from the struggling crowd, and within a moment had led her into a
+quiet by-street. He looked down at her as she stood recovering her
+breath.
+
+“Yes?” he said quietly.
+
+Jessie Aylmore looked up at him, smiling faintly.
+
+“I want to speak to you,” she said. “I must speak to you.”
+
+“Yes,” said Spargo. “But—the others? Your sister?—Breton?”
+
+“I left them on purpose to speak to you,” she answered. “They knew I
+did. I am well accustomed to looking after myself.”
+
+Spargo moved down the by-street, motioning his companion to move with
+him.
+
+“Tea,” he said, “is what you want. I know a queer, old-fashioned place
+close by here where you can get the best China tea in London. Come and
+have some.”
+
+Jessie Aylmore smiled and followed her guide obediently. And Spargo
+said nothing, marching stolidly along with his thumbs in his waistcoat
+pockets, his fingers playing soundless tunes outside, until he had
+installed himself and his companion in a quiet nook in the old
+tea-house he had told her of, and had given an order for tea and hot
+tea-cakes to a waitress who evidently knew him. Then he turned to her.
+
+“You want,” he said, “to talk to me about your father.”
+
+“Yes,” she answered. “I do.”
+
+“Why?” asked Spargo.
+
+The girl gave him a searching look.
+
+“Ronald Breton says you’re the man who’s written all those special
+articles in the _Watchman_ about the Marbury case,” she answered. “Are
+you?”
+
+“I am,” said Spargo.
+
+“Then you’re a man of great influence,” she went on. “You can stir the
+public mind. Mr. Spargo—what are you going to write about my father and
+today’s proceedings?”
+
+Spargo signed to her to pour out the tea which had just arrived. He
+seized, without ceremony, upon a piece of the hot buttered tea-cake,
+and bit a great lump out of it.
+
+“Frankly,” he mumbled, speaking with his mouth full, “frankly, I don’t
+know. I don’t know—yet. But I’ll tell you this—it’s best to be candid—I
+shouldn’t allow myself to be prejudiced or biassed in making up my
+conclusions by anything that you may say to me. Understand?”
+
+Jessie Aylmore took a sudden liking to Spargo because of the
+unconventionality and brusqueness of his manners.
+
+“I’m not wanting to prejudice or bias you,” she said. “All I want is
+that you should be very sure before you say—anything.”
+
+“I’ll be sure,” said Spargo. “Don’t bother. Is the tea all right?”
+
+“Beautiful!” she answered, with a smile that made Spargo look at her
+again. “Delightful! Mr. Spargo, tell me!—what did you think about—about
+what has just happened?”
+
+Spargo, regardless of the fact that his fingers were liberally
+ornamented with butter, lifted a hand and rubbed his always untidy
+hair. Then he ate more tea-cake and gulped more tea.
+
+“Look here!” he said suddenly. “I’m no great hand at talking. I can
+write pretty decently when I’ve a good story to tell, but I don’t talk
+an awful lot, because I never can express what I mean unless I’ve got a
+pen in my hand. Frankly, I find it hard to tell you what I think. When
+I write my article this evening, I’ll get all these things marshalled
+in proper form, and I shall write clearly about ’em. But I’ll tell you
+one thing I do think—I wish your father had made a clean breast of
+things to me at first, when he gave me that interview, or had told
+everything when he first went into that box.”
+
+“Why?” she asked.
+
+“Because he’s now set up an atmosphere of doubt and suspicion around
+himself. People’ll think—Heaven knows what they’ll think! They already
+know that he knows more about Marbury than he’ll tell, that—”
+
+“But does he?” she interrupted quickly. “Do you think he does?”
+
+“Yes!” replied Spargo, with emphasis. “I do. A lot more! If he had only
+been explicit at first—however, he wasn’t. Now it’s done. As things
+stand—look here, does it strike you that your father is in a very
+serious position?”
+
+“Serious?” she exclaimed.
+
+“Dangerous! Here’s the fact—he’s admitted that he took Marbury to his
+rooms in the Temple that midnight. Well, next morning Marbury’s found
+robbed and murdered in an entry, not fifty yards off!”
+
+“Does anybody suppose that my father would murder him for the sake of
+robbing him of whatever he had on him?” she laughed scornfully. “My
+father is a very wealthy man, Mr. Spargo.”
+
+“May be,” answered Spargo. “But millionaires have been known to murder
+men who held secrets.”
+
+“Secrets!” she exclaimed.
+
+“Have some more tea,” said Spargo, nodding at the teapot. “Look
+here—this way it is. The theory that people—some people—will build up
+(I won’t say that it hasn’t suggested itself to me) is this:—There’s
+some mystery about the relationship, acquaintanceship, connection, call
+it what you like, of your father and Marbury twenty odd years ago. Must
+be. There’s some mystery about your father’s life, twenty odd years
+ago. Must be—or else he’d have answered those questions. Very well.
+‘Ha, ha!’ says the general public. ‘Now we have it!’ ‘Marbury,’ says
+the general public, ‘was a man who had a hold on Aylmore. He turned up.
+Aylmore trapped him into the Temple, killed him to preserve his own
+secret, and robbed him of all he had on him as a blind.’ Eh?”
+
+“You think—people will say that?” she exclaimed.
+
+“Cock-sure! They’re saying it. Heard half a dozen of ’em say it, in
+more or less elegant fashion as I came out of that court. Of course,
+they’ll say it. Why, what else could they say?”
+
+For a moment Jessie Aylmore sat looking silently into her tea-cup. Then
+she turned her eyes on Spargo, who immediately manifested a new
+interest in what remained of the tea-cakes.
+
+“Is that what you’re going to say in your article tonight?” she asked,
+quietly.
+
+“No!” replied Spargo, promptly. “It isn’t. I’m going to sit on the
+fence tonight. Besides, the case is _sub judice_. All I’m going to do
+is to tell, in my way, what took place at the inquest.”
+
+The girl impulsively put her hand across the table and laid it on
+Spargo’s big fist.
+
+“Is it what you think?” she asked in a low voice.
+
+“Honour bright, no!” exclaimed Spargo. “It isn’t—it isn’t! I don’t
+think it. I think there’s a most extraordinary mystery at the bottom of
+Marbury’s death, and I think your father knows an enormous lot about
+Marbury that he won’t tell, but I’m certain sure that he neither killed
+Marbury nor knows anything whatever about his death. And as I’m out to
+clear this mystery up, and mean to do it, nothing’ll make me more glad
+than to clear your father. I say, do have some more tea-cake? We’ll
+have fresh ones—and fresh tea.”
+
+“No, thank you,” she said smiling. “And thank you for what you’ve just
+said. I’m going now, Mr. Spargo. You’ve done me good.”
+
+“Oh, rot!” exclaimed Spargo. “Nothing—nothing! I’ve just told you what
+I’m thinking. You must go?…”
+
+He saw her into a taxi-cab presently, and when she had gone stood
+vacantly staring after the cab until a hand clapped him smartly on the
+shoulder. Turning, he found Rathbury grinning at him.
+
+“All right, Mr. Spargo, I saw you!” he said. “Well, it’s a pleasant
+change to squire young ladies after being all day in that court. Look
+here, are you going to start your writing just now?”
+
+“I’m not going to start my writing as you call it, until after I’ve
+dined at seven o’clock and given myself time to digest my modest
+dinner,” answered Spargo. “What is it?”
+
+“Come back with me and have another look at that blessed leather box,”
+said Rathbury. “I’ve got it in my room, and I’d like to examine it for
+myself. Come on!”
+
+“The thing’s empty,” said Spargo.
+
+“There might be a false bottom in it,” remarked Rathbury. “One never
+knows. Here, jump into this!”
+
+He pushed Spargo into a passing taxi-cab, and following, bade the
+driver go straight to the Yard. Arrived there, he locked Spargo and
+himself into the drab-visaged room in which the journalist had seen him
+before.
+
+“What d’ye think of today’s doings, Spargo?” he asked, as he proceeded
+to unlock a cupboard.
+
+“I think,” said Spargo, “that some of you fellows must have had your
+ears set to tingling.”
+
+“That’s so,” assented Rathbury. “Of course, the next thing’ll be to
+find out all about the Mr. Aylmore of twenty years since. When a man
+won’t tell you where he lived twenty years ago, what he was exactly
+doing, what his precise relationship with another man was—why, then,
+you’ve just got to find out, eh? Oh, some of our fellows are at work on
+the life history of Stephen Aylmore, Esq., M.P., already—you bet! Well,
+now, Spargo, here’s the famous box.”
+
+The detective brought the old leather case out of the cupboard in which
+he had been searching, and placed it on his desk. Spargo threw back the
+lid and looked inside, measuring the inner capacity against the
+exterior lines.
+
+“No false bottom in that, Rathbury,” he said. “There’s just the outer
+leather case, and the inner lining, of this old bed-hanging stuff, and
+that’s all. There’s no room for any false bottom or anything of that
+sort, d’you see?”
+
+Rathbury also sized up the box’s capacity.
+
+“Looks like it,” he said disappointedly. “Well, what about the lid,
+then? I remember there was an old box like this in my grandmother’s
+farmhouse, where I was reared—there was a pocket in the lid. Let’s see
+if there’s anything of the sort here?”
+
+He threw the lid back and began to poke about the lining of it with the
+tips of his fingers, and presently he turned to his companion with a
+sharp exclamation.
+
+“By George, Spargo!” he said. “I don’t know about any pocket, but
+there’s something under this lining. Feels like—here, you feel.
+There—and there.”
+
+Spargo put a finger on the places indicated.
+
+“Yes, that’s so,” he agreed. “Feels like two cards—a large and a small
+one. And the small one’s harder than the other. Better cut that lining
+out, Rathbury.”
+
+“That,” remarked Rathbury, producing a pen-knife, “is just what I’m
+going to do. We’ll cut along this seam.”
+
+He ripped the lining carefully open along the upper part of the lining
+of the lid, and looking into the pocket thus made, drew out two objects
+which he dropped on his blotting pad.
+
+“A child’s photograph,” he said, glancing at one of them. “But what on
+earth is that?”
+
+The object to which he pointed was a small, oblong piece of thin,
+much-worn silver, about the size of a railway ticket. On one side of it
+was what seemed to be a heraldic device or coat-of-arms, almost
+obliterated by rubbing; on the other, similarly worn down by friction,
+was the figure of a horse.
+
+“That’s a curious object,” remarked Spargo, picking it up. “I never saw
+anything like that before. What can it be?”
+
+“Don’t know—I never saw anything of the sort either,” said Rathbury.
+“Some old token, I should say. Now this photo. Ah—you see, the
+photographer’s name and address have been torn away or broken
+off—there’s nothing left but just two letters of what’s apparently been
+the name of the town—see. Er—that’s all there is. Portrait of a baby,
+eh?”
+
+Spargo gave, what might have been called in anybody else but him, a
+casual glance at the baby’s portrait. He picked up the silver ticket
+again and turned it over and over.
+
+“Look here, Rathbury,” he said. “Let me take this silver thing. I know
+where I can find out what it is. At least, I think I do.”
+
+“All right,” agreed the detective, “but take the greatest care of it,
+and don’t tell a soul that we found it in this box, you know. No
+connection with the Marbury case, Spargo, remember.”
+
+“Oh, all right,” said Spargo. “Trust me.”
+
+He put the silver ticket in his pocket, and went back to the office,
+wondering about this singular find. And when he had written his article
+that evening, and seen a proof of it, Spargo went into Fleet Street
+intent on seeking peculiar information.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER FIFTEEN
+MARKET MILCASTER
+
+
+The haunt of well-informed men which Spargo had in view when he turned
+out of the _Watchman_ office lay well hidden from ordinary sight and
+knowledge in one of those Fleet Street courts the like of which is not
+elsewhere in the world. Only certain folk knew of it. It was, of
+course, a club; otherwise it would not have been what it was. It is the
+simplest thing in life, in England, at any rate, to form a club of
+congenial spirits. You get so many of your choice friends and
+acquaintances to gather round you; you register yourselves under a name
+of your own choosing; you take a house and furnish it according to your
+means and your taste: you comply with the very easy letter of the law,
+and there you are. Keep within that easy letter, and you can do what
+you please on your own premises. It is much more agreeable to have a
+small paradise of your own of this description than to lounge about
+Fleet Street bars.
+
+The particular club to which Spargo bent his steps was called the
+Octoneumenoi. Who evolved this extraordinary combination of Latin and
+Greek was a dark mystery: there it was, however, on a tiny brass plate
+you once reached the portals. The portals were gained by devious ways.
+You turned out of Fleet Street by an alley so narrow that it seemed as
+if you might suddenly find yourself squeezed between the ancient walls.
+Then you suddenly dived down another alley and found yourself in a
+small court, with high walls around you and a smell of printer’s ink in
+your nose and a whirring of printing presses in your ears. You made
+another dive into a dark entry, much encumbered by bales of paper,
+crates of printing material, jars of printing ink; after falling over a
+few of these you struck an ancient flight of stairs and went up past
+various landings, always travelling in a state of gloom and fear. After
+a lot of twisting and turning you came to the very top of the house and
+found it heavily curtained off. You lifted a curtain and found yourself
+in a small entresol, somewhat artistically painted—the whole and sole
+work of an artistic member who came one day with a formidable array of
+lumber and paint-pots and worked his will on the ancient wood. Then you
+saw the brass plate and its fearful name, and beneath it the formal
+legal notice that this club was duly registered and so on, and if you
+were a member you went in, and if you weren’t a member you tinkled an
+electric bell and asked to see a member—if you knew one.
+
+Spargo was not a member, but he knew many members, and he tinkled the
+bell, and asked the boy who answered it for Mr. Starkey. Mr. Starkey, a
+young gentleman with the biceps of a prize-fighter and a head of curly
+hair that would have done credit to Antinous, came forth in due course
+and shook Spargo by the hand until his teeth rattled.
+
+“Had we known you were coming,” said Mr. Starkey, “we’d have had a
+brass band on the stairs.”
+
+“I want to come in,” remarked Spargo.
+
+“Sure!” said Mr. Starkey. “That’s what you’ve come for.”
+
+“Well, stand out of the way, then, and let’s get in,” said Spargo.
+“Look here,” he continued when they had penetrated into a small
+vestibule, “doesn’t old Crowfoot turn in here about this time every
+night?”
+
+“Every night as true as the clock, my son Spargo, Crowfoot puts his
+nose in at precisely eleven, having by that time finished that daily
+column wherein he informs a section of the populace as to the prospects
+of their spotting a winner tomorrow,” answered Mr. Starkey. “It’s five
+minutes to his hour now. Come in and drink till he comes. Want him?”
+
+“A word with him,” answered Spargo. “A mere word—or two.”
+
+He followed Starkey into a room which was so filled with smoke and
+sound that for a moment it was impossible to either see or hear. But
+the smoke was gradually making itself into a canopy, and beneath the
+canopy Spargo made out various groups of men of all ages, sitting
+around small tables, smoking and drinking, and all talking as if the
+great object of their lives was to get as many words as possible out of
+their mouths in the shortest possible time. In the further corner was a
+small bar; Starkey pulled Spargo up to it.
+
+“Name it, my son,” commanded Starkey. “Try the Octoneumenoi very extra
+special. Two of ’em, Dick. Come to beg to be a member, Spargo?”
+
+“I’ll think about being a member of this ante-room of the infernal
+regions when you start a ventilating fan and provide members with a
+route-map of the way from Fleet Street,” answered Spargo, taking his
+glass. “Phew!—what an atmosphere!”
+
+“We’re considering a ventilating fan,” said Starkey. “I’m on the house
+committee now, and I brought that very matter up at our last meeting.
+But Templeson, of the _Bulletin_—you know Templeson—he says what we
+want is a wine-cooler to stand under that sideboard—says no club is
+proper without a wine-cooler, and that he knows a chap—second-hand
+dealer, don’t you know—what has a beauty to dispose of in old Sheffield
+plate. Now, if you were on our house committee, Spargo, old man, would
+you go in for the wine-cooler or the ventilating fan? You see—”
+
+“There is Crowfoot,” said Spargo. “Shout him over here, Starkey, before
+anybody else collars him.”
+
+Through the door by which Spargo had entered a few minutes previously
+came a man who stood for a moment blinking at the smoke and the lights.
+He was a tall, elderly man with a figure and bearing of a soldier; a
+big, sweeping moustache stood well out against a square-cut jaw and
+beneath a prominent nose; a pair of keen blue eyes looked out from
+beneath a tousled mass of crinkled hair. He wore neither hat nor cap;
+his attire was a carelessly put on Norfolk suit of brown tweed; he
+looked half-unkempt, half-groomed. But knotted at the collar of his
+flannel shirt were the colours of one of the most famous and exclusive
+cricket clubs in the world, and everybody knew that in his day their
+wearer had been a mighty figure in the public eye.
+
+“Hi, Crowfoot!” shouted Starkey above the din and babel. “Crowfoot,
+Crowfoot! Come over here, there’s a chap dying to see you!”
+
+“Yes, that’s the way to get him, isn’t it?” said Spargo. “Here, I’ll
+get him myself.”
+
+He went across the room and accosted the old sporting journalist.
+
+“I want a quiet word with you,” he said. “This place is like a
+pandemonium.”
+
+Crowfoot led the way into a side alcove and ordered a drink.
+
+“Always is, this time,” he said, yawning. “But it’s companionable. What
+is it, Spargo?”
+
+Spargo took a pull at the glass which he had carried with him. “I
+should say,” he said, “that you know as much about sporting matters as
+any man writing about ’em?”
+
+“Well, I think you might say it with truth,” answered Crowfoot.
+
+“And old sporting matters?” said Spargo.
+
+“Yes, and old sporting matters,” replied the other with a sudden flash
+of the eye. “Not that they greatly interest the modern generation, you
+know.”
+
+“Well, there’s something that’s interesting me greatly just now,
+anyway,” said Spargo. “And I believe it’s got to do with old sporting
+affairs. And I came to you for information about it, believing you to
+be the only man I know of that could tell anything.”
+
+“Yes—what is it?” asked Crowfoot.
+
+Spargo drew out an envelope, and took from it the carefully-wrapped-up
+silver ticket. He took off the wrappings and laid the ticket on
+Crowfoot’s outstretched palm.
+
+“Can you tell me what that is?” he asked.
+
+Another sudden flash came into the old sportsman’s eyes—he eagerly
+turned the silver ticket over.
+
+“God bless my soul!” he exclaimed. “Where did you get this?”
+
+“Never mind, just now,” replied Spargo. “You know what it is?”
+
+“Certainly I know what it is! But—Gad! I’ve not seen one of these
+things for Lord knows how many years. It makes me feel something like a
+young ’un again!” said Crowfoot. “Quite a young ’un!”
+
+“But what is it?” asked Spargo.
+
+Crowfoot turned the ticket over, showing the side on which the heraldic
+device was almost worn away.
+
+“It’s one of the original silver stand tickets of the old racecourse at
+Market Milcaster,” answered Crowfoot. “That’s what it is. One of the
+old original silver stand tickets. There are the arms of Market
+Milcaster, you see, nearly worn away by much rubbing. There, on the
+obverse, is the figure of a running horse. Oh, yes, that’s what it is!
+Bless me!—most interesting.”
+
+“Where’s Market Milcaster?” enquired Spargo. “Don’t know it.”
+
+“Market Milcaster,” replied Crowfoot, still turning the silver ticket
+over and over, “is what the topographers call a decayed town in
+Elmshire. It has steadily decayed since the river that led to it got
+gradually silted up. There used to be a famous race-meeting there in
+June every year. It’s nearly forty years since that meeting fell
+through. I went to it often when I was a lad—often!”
+
+“And you say that’s a ticket for the stand?” asked Spargo.
+
+“This is one of fifty silver tickets, or passes, or whatever you like
+to call ’em, which were given by the race committee to fifty burgesses
+of the town,” answered Crowfoot. “It was, I remember, considered a
+great privilege to possess a silver ticket. It admitted its
+possessor—for life, mind you!—to the stand, the paddocks, the ring,
+anywhere. It also gave him a place at the annual race-dinner. Where on
+earth did you get this, Spargo?”
+
+Spargo took the ticket and carefully re-wrapped it, this time putting
+it in his purse.
+
+“I’m awfully obliged to you, Crowfoot,” he said, “The fact is, I can’t
+tell you where I got it just now, but I’ll promise you that I will tell
+you, and all about it, too, as soon as my tongue’s free to do so.”
+
+“Some mystery, eh?” suggested Crowfoot.
+
+“Considerable,” answered Spargo. “Don’t mention to anyone that I showed
+it to you. You shall know everything eventually.”
+
+“Oh, all right, my boy, all right!” said Crowfoot. “Odd how things turn
+up, isn’t it? Now, I’ll wager anything that there aren’t half a dozen
+of these old things outside Market Milcaster itself. As I said, there
+were only fifty, and they were all in possession of burgesses. They
+were so much thought of that they were taken great care of. I’ve been
+in Market Milcaster myself since the races were given up, and I’ve seen
+these tickets carefully framed and hung over mantelpieces—oh, yes!”
+
+Spargo caught at a notion.
+
+“How do you get to Market Milcaster?” he asked.
+
+“Paddington,” replied Crowfoot. “It’s a goodish way.”
+
+“I wonder,” said Spargo, “if there’s any old sporting man there who
+could remember—things. Anything about this ticket, for instance?”
+
+“Old sporting man!” exclaimed Crowfoot. “Egad!—but no, he must be
+dead—anyhow, if he isn’t dead, he must be a veritable patriarch. Old
+Ben Quarterpage, he was an auctioneer in the town, and a rare
+sportsman.”
+
+“I may go down there,” said Spargo. “I’ll see if he’s alive.”
+
+“Then, if you do go down,” suggested Crowfoot, “go to the old ‘Yellow
+Dragon’ in the High Street, a fine old place. Quarterpage’s place of
+business and his private house were exactly opposite the ‘Dragon.’ But
+I’m afraid you’ll find him dead—it’s five and twenty years since I was
+in Market Milcaster, and he was an old bird then. Let’s see, now. If
+Old Ben Quarterpage is alive, Spargo, he’ll be ninety years of age!”
+
+“Well, I’ve known men of ninety who were spry enough, even in my bit of
+experience,” said Spargo. “I know one—now—my own grandfather. Well, the
+best of thanks, Crowfoot, and I’ll tell you all about it some day.”
+
+“Have another drink?” suggested Crowfoot.
+
+But Spargo excused himself. He was going back to the office, he said;
+he still had something to do. And he got himself away from the
+Octoneumenoi, in spite of Starkey, who wished to start a general debate
+on the wisest way of expending the club’s ready money balance, and went
+back to the _Watchman_, and there he sought the presence of the editor,
+and in spite of the fact that it was the busiest hour of the night, saw
+him and remained closeted with him for the extraordinary space of ten
+minutes. And after that Spargo went home and fell into bed.
+
+But next morning, bright and early, he was on the departure platform at
+Paddington, suit-case in hand, and ticket in pocket for Market
+Milcaster, and in the course of that afternoon he found himself in an
+old-fashioned bedroom looking out on Market Milcaster High Street. And
+there, right opposite him, he saw an ancient house, old brick,
+ivy-covered, with an office at its side, over the door of which was the
+name, _Benjamin Quarterpage_.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER SIXTEEN
+THE “YELLOW DRAGON”
+
+
+Spargo, changing his clothes, washing away the dust of his journey, in
+that old-fashioned lavender-scented bedroom, busied his mind in further
+speculations on his plan of campaign in Market Milcaster. He had no
+particularly clear plan. The one thing he was certain of was that in
+the old leather box which the man whom he knew as John Marbury had
+deposited with the London and Universal Safe Deposit Company, he and
+Rathbury had discovered one of the old silver tickets of Market
+Milcaster racecourse, and that he, Spargo, had come to Market
+Milcaster, with the full approval of his editor, in an endeavour to
+trace it. How was he going to set about this difficult task?
+
+“The first thing,” said Spargo to himself as he tied a new tie, “is to
+have a look round. That’ll be no long job.”
+
+For he had already seen as he approached the town, and as he drove from
+the station to the “Yellow Dragon” Hotel, that Market Milcaster was a
+very small place. It chiefly consisted of one long, wide
+thoroughfare—the High Street—with smaller streets leading from it on
+either side. In the High Street seemed to be everything that the town
+could show—the ancient parish church, the town hall, the market cross,
+the principal houses and shops, the bridge, beneath which ran the river
+whereon ships had once come up to the town before its mouth, four miles
+away, became impassably silted up. It was a bright, clean, little town,
+but there were few signs of trade in it, and Spargo had been quick to
+notice that in the “Yellow Dragon,” a big, rambling old hostelry,
+reminiscent of the old coaching days, there seemed to be little doing.
+He had eaten a bit of lunch in the coffee-room immediately on his
+arrival; the coffee-room was big enough to accommodate a hundred and
+fifty people, but beyond himself, an old gentleman and his daughter,
+evidently tourists, two young men talking golf, a man who looked like
+an artist, and an unmistakable honeymooning couple, there was no one in
+it. There was little traffic in the wide street beneath Spargo’s
+windows; little passage of people to and fro on the sidewalks; here a
+countryman drove a lazy cow as lazily along; there a farmer in his
+light cart sat idly chatting with an aproned tradesman, who had come
+out of his shop to talk to him. Over everything lay the quiet of the
+sunlight of the summer afternoon, and through the open windows stole a
+faint, sweet scent of the new-mown hay lying in the meadows outside the
+old houses.
+
+“A veritable Sleepy Hollow,” mused Spargo. “Let’s go down and see if
+there’s anybody to talk to. Great Scott!—to think that I was in the
+poisonous atmosphere of the Octoneumenoi only sixteen hours ago!”
+
+Spargo, after losing himself in various corridors and passages, finally
+landed in the wide, stone-paved hall of the old hotel, and with a sure
+instinct turned into the bar-parlour which he had noticed when he
+entered the place. This was a roomy, comfortable, bow-windowed
+apartment, looking out upon the High Street, and was furnished and
+ornamented with the usual appurtenances of country-town hotels. There
+were old chairs and tables and sideboards and cupboards, which had
+certainly been made a century before, and seemed likely to endure for a
+century or two longer; there were old prints of the road and the chase,
+and an old oil-painting or two of red-faced gentlemen in pink coats;
+there were foxes’ masks on the wall, and a monster pike in a glass case
+on a side-table; there were ancient candlesticks on the mantelpiece and
+an antique snuff-box set between them. Also there was a small,
+old-fashioned bar in a corner of the room, and a new-fashioned young
+woman seated behind it, who was yawning over a piece of fancy
+needlework, and looked at Spargo when he entered as Andromeda may have
+looked at Perseus when he made arrival at her rock. And Spargo,
+treating himself to a suitable drink and choosing a cigar to accompany
+it, noted the look, and dropped into the nearest chair.
+
+“This,” he remarked, eyeing the damsel with enquiry, “appears to me to
+be a very quiet place.”
+
+“Quiet!” exclaimed the lady. “Quiet?”
+
+“That,” continued Spargo, “is precisely what I observed. Quiet. I see
+that you agree with me. You expressed your agreement with two shades of
+emphasis, the surprised and the scornful. We may conclude, thus far,
+that the place is undoubtedly quiet.”
+
+The damsel looked at Spargo as if she considered him in the light of a
+new specimen, and picking up her needlework she quitted the bar and
+coming out into the room took a chair near his own.
+
+“It makes you thankful to see a funeral go by here,” she remarked.
+“It’s about all that one ever does see.”
+
+“Are there many?” asked Spargo. “Do the inhabitants die much of
+inanition?”
+
+The damsel gave Spargo another critical inspection.
+
+“Oh, you’re joking!” she said. “It’s well you can. Nothing ever happens
+here. This place is a back number.”
+
+“Even the back numbers make pleasant reading at times,” murmured
+Spargo. “And the backwaters of life are refreshing. Nothing doing in
+this town, then?” he added in a louder voice.
+
+“Nothing!” replied his companion. “It’s fast asleep. I came here from
+Birmingham, and I didn’t know what I was coming to. In Birmingham you
+see as many people in ten minutes as you see here in ten months.”
+
+“Ah!” said Spargo. “What you are suffering from is dulness. You must
+have an antidote.”
+
+“Dulness!” exclaimed the damsel. “That’s the right word for Market
+Milcaster. There’s just a few regular old customers drop in here of a
+morning, between eleven and one. A stray caller looks in—perhaps during
+the afternoon. Then, at night, a lot of old fogies sit round that end
+of the room and talk about old times. Old times, indeed!—what they want
+in Market Milcaster is new times.”
+
+Spargo pricked up his ears.
+
+“Well, but it’s rather interesting to hear old fogies talk about old
+times,” he said. “I love it!”
+
+“Then you can get as much of it as ever you want here,” remarked the
+barmaid. “Look in tonight any time after eight o’clock, and if you
+don’t know more about the history of Market Milcaster by ten than you
+did when you sat down, you must be deaf. There are some old gentlemen
+drop in here every night, regular as clockwork, who seem to feel that
+they couldn’t go to bed unless they’ve told each other stories about
+old days which I should think they’ve heard a thousand times already!”
+
+“Very old men?” asked Spargo.
+
+“Methuselahs,” replied the lady. “There’s old Mr. Quarterpage, across
+the way there, the auctioneer, though he doesn’t do any business
+now—they say he’s ninety, though I’m sure you wouldn’t take him for
+more than seventy. And there’s Mr. Lummis, further down the street—he’s
+eighty-one. And Mr. Skene, and Mr. Kaye—they’re regular patriarchs.
+I’ve sat here and listened to them till I believe I could write a
+history of Market Milcaster since the year One.”
+
+“I can conceive of that as a pleasant and profitable occupation,” said
+Spargo.
+
+He chatted a while longer in a fashion calculated to cheer the
+barmaid’s spirits, after which he went out and strolled around the town
+until seven o’clock, the “Dragon’s” hour for dinner. There were no more
+people in the big coffee-room than there had been at lunch and Spargo
+was glad, when his solitary meal was over, to escape to the
+bar-parlour, where he took his coffee in a corner near to that sacred
+part in which the old townsmen had been reported to him to sit.
+
+“And mind you don’t sit in one of their chairs,” said the barmaid,
+warningly. “They all have their own special chairs and their special
+pipes there on that rack, and I suppose the ceiling would fall in if
+anybody touched pipe or chair. But you’re all right there, and you’ll
+hear all they’ve got to say.”
+
+To Spargo, who had never seen anything of the sort before, and who,
+twenty-four hours previously, would have believed the thing impossible,
+the proceedings of that evening in the bar-parlour of the “Yellow
+Dragon” at Market Milcaster were like a sudden transference to the
+eighteenth century. Precisely as the clock struck eight and a bell
+began to toll somewhere in the recesses of the High Street, an old
+gentleman walked in, and the barmaid, catching Spargo’s eye, gave him a
+glance which showed that the play was about to begin.
+
+“Good evening, Mr. Kaye,” said the barmaid. “You’re first tonight.”
+
+“Evening,” said Mr. Kaye and took a seat, scowled around him, and
+became silent. He was a tall, lank old gentleman, clad in rusty black
+clothes, with a pointed collar sticking up on both sides of his fringe
+of grey whisker and a voluminous black neckcloth folded several times
+round his neck, and by the expression of his countenance was inclined
+to look on life severely. “Nobody been in yet?” asked Mr. Kaye. “No,
+but here’s Mr. Lummis and Mr. Skene,” replied the barmaid.
+
+Two more old gentlemen entered the bar-parlour. Of these, one was a
+little, dapper-figured man, clad in clothes of an eminently sporting
+cut, and of very loud pattern; he sported a bright blue necktie, a
+flower in his lapel, and a tall white hat, which he wore at a rakish
+angle. The other was a big, portly, bearded man with a Falstaffian
+swagger and a rakish eye, who chaffed the barmaid as he entered, and
+gave her a good-humoured chuck under the chin as he passed her. These
+two also sank into chairs which seemed to have been specially designed
+to meet them, and the stout man slapped the arms of his as familiarly
+as he had greeted the barmaid. He looked at his two cronies.
+
+“Well?” he said, “Here’s three of us. And there’s a symposium.”
+
+“Wait a bit, wait a bit,” said the dapper little man. “Grandpa’ll be
+here in a minute. We’ll start fair.”
+
+The barmaid glanced out of the window.
+
+“There’s Mr. Quarterpage coming across the street now,” she announced.
+“Shall I put the things on the table?”
+
+“Aye, put them on, my dear, put them on!” commanded the fat man. “Have
+all in readiness.”
+
+The barmaid thereupon placed a round table before the sacred chairs,
+set out upon it a fine old punch-bowl and the various ingredients for
+making punch, a box of cigars, and an old leaden tobacco-box, and she
+had just completed this interesting prelude to the evening’s discourse
+when the door opened again and in walked one of the most remarkable old
+men Spargo had ever seen. And by this time, knowing that this was the
+venerable Mr. Benjamin Quarterpage, of whom Crowfoot had told him, he
+took good stock of the newcomer as he took his place amongst his
+friends, who on their part received him with ebullitions of delight
+which were positively boyish.
+
+Mr. Quarterpage was a youthful buck of ninety—a middle-sized,
+sturdily-built man, straight as a dart, still active of limb,
+clear-eyed, and strong of voice. His clean-shaven old countenance was
+ruddy as a sun-warmed pippin; his hair was still only silvered; his
+hand was steady as a rock. His clothes of buff-coloured whipcord were
+smart and jaunty, his neckerchief as gay as if he had been going to a
+fair. It seemed to Spargo that Mr. Quarterpage had a pretty long lease
+of life before him even at his age.
+
+Spargo, in his corner, sat fascinated while the old gentlemen began
+their symposium. Another, making five, came in and joined them—the five
+had the end of the bar-parlour to themselves. Mr. Quarterpage made the
+punch with all due solemnity and ceremony; when it was ladled out each
+man lighted his pipe or took a cigar, and the tongues began to wag.
+Other folk came and went; the old gentlemen were oblivious of anything
+but their own talk. Now and then a young gentleman of the town dropped
+in to take his modest half-pint of bitter beer and to dally in the
+presence of the barmaid; such looked with awe at the patriarchs: as for
+the patriarchs themselves they were lost in the past.
+
+Spargo began to understand what the damsel behind the bar meant when
+she said that she believed she could write a history of Market
+Milcaster since the year One. After discussing the weather, the local
+events of the day, and various personal matters, the old fellows got to
+reminiscences of the past, telling tale after tale, recalling incident
+upon incident of long years before. At last they turned to memories of
+racing days at Market Milcaster. And at that Spargo determined on a
+bold stroke. Now was the time to get some information. Taking the
+silver ticket from his purse, he laid it, the heraldic device
+uppermost, on the palm of his hand, and approaching the group with a
+polite bow, said quietly:
+
+“Gentlemen, can any of you tell me anything about that?”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
+MR. QUARTERPAGE HARKS BACK
+
+
+If Spargo had upset the old gentlemen’s bowl of punch—the second of the
+evening—or had dropped an infernal machine in their midst, he could
+scarcely have produced a more startling effect than that wrought upon
+them by his sudden production of the silver ticket. Their babble of
+conversation died out; one of them dropped his pipe; another took his
+cigar out of his mouth as if he had suddenly discovered that he was
+sucking a stick of poison; all lifted astonished faces to the
+interrupter, staring from him to the shining object exhibited in his
+outstretched palm, from it back to him. And at last Mr. Quarterpage, to
+whom Spargo had more particularly addressed himself, spoke, pointing
+with great _empressement_ to the ticket.
+
+“Young gentleman!” he said, in accents that seemed to Spargo to tremble
+a little, “young gentleman, where did you get that?”
+
+“You know what it is, then?” asked Spargo, willing to dally a little
+with the matter. “You recognize it?”
+
+“Know it! Recognize it!” exclaimed Mr. Quarterpage. “Yes, and so does
+every gentleman present. And it is just because I see you are a
+stranger to this town that I ask you where you got it. Not, I think,
+young gentleman, in this town.”
+
+“No,” replied Spargo. “Certainly not in this town. How should I get it
+in this town if I’m a stranger?”
+
+“Quite true, quite true!” murmured Mr. Quarterpage. “I cannot conceive
+how any person in the town who is in possession of one of those—what
+shall we call them—heirlooms?—yes, heirlooms of antiquity, could
+possibly be base enough to part with it. Therefore, I ask again—Where
+did you get that, young gentleman?”
+
+“Before I tell you that,” answered Spargo, who, in answer to a silent
+sign from the fat man had drawn a chair amongst them, “perhaps you will
+tell me exactly what this is? I see it to be a bit of old, polished,
+much worn silver, having on the obverse the arms or heraldic bearings
+of somebody or something; on the reverse the figure of a running horse.
+But—what is it?”
+
+The five old men all glanced at each other and made simultaneous
+grunts. Then Mr. Quarterpage spoke.
+
+“It is one of the original fifty burgess tickets of Market Milcaster,
+young sir, which gave its holder special and greatly valued privileges
+in respect to attendance at our once famous race-meeting, now
+unfortunately a thing of the past,” he added. “Fifty—aye, forty!—years
+ago, to be in possession of one of those tickets was—was—”
+
+“A grand thing!” said one of the old gentlemen.
+
+“Mr. Lummis is right,” said Mr. Quarterpage. “It was a grand thing—a
+very grand thing. Those tickets, sir, were treasured—are treasured. And
+yet you, a stranger, show us one! You got it, sir—”
+
+Spargo saw that it was now necessary to cut matters short.
+
+“I found this ticket—under mysterious circumstances—in London,” he
+answered. “I want to trace it. I want to know who its original owner
+was. That is why I have come to Market Milcaster.”
+
+Mr. Quarterpage slowly looked round the circle of faces.
+
+“Wonderful!” he said. “Wonderful! He found this ticket—one of our
+famous fifty—in London, and under mysterious circumstances. He wants to
+trace it—he wants to know to whom it belonged! That is why he has come
+to Market Milcaster. Most extraordinary! Gentlemen, I appeal to you if
+this is not the most extraordinary event that has happened in Market
+Milcaster for—I don’t know how many years?”
+
+There was a general murmur of assent, and Spargo found everybody
+looking at him as if he had just announced that he had come to buy the
+whole town.
+
+“But—why?” he asked, showing great surprise. “Why?”
+
+“Why?” exclaimed Mr. Quarterpage. “Why? He asks—why? Because, young
+gentleman, it is the greatest surprise to me, and to these friends of
+mine, too, every man jack of ’em, to hear that any one of our fifty
+tickets ever passed out of the possession of any of the fifty families
+to whom they belonged! And unless I am vastly, greatly, most
+unexplainably mistaken, young sir, you are not a member of any Market
+Milcaster family.”
+
+“No, I’m not,” admitted Spargo. And he was going to add that until the
+previous evening he had never even heard of Market Milcaster, but he
+wisely refrained. “No, I’m certainly not,” he added.
+
+Mr. Quarterpage waved his long pipe.
+
+“I believe,” he said, “I believe that if the evening were not drawing
+to a close—it is already within a few minutes of our departure, young
+gentleman—I believe, I say, that if I had time, I could, from memory,
+give the names of the fifty families who held those tickets when the
+race-meeting came to an end. I believe I could!”
+
+“I’m sure you could!” asserted the little man in the loud suit. “Never
+was such a memory as yours, never!”
+
+“Especially for anything relating to the old racing matters,” said the
+fat man. “Mr. Quarterpage is a walking encyclopaedia.”
+
+“My memory is good,” said Mr. Quarterpage. “It’s the greatest blessing
+I have in my declining years. Yes, I am sure I could do that, with a
+little thought. And what’s more, nearly every one of those fifty
+families is still in the town, or if not in the town, close by it, or
+if not close by it, I know where they are. Therefore, I cannot make out
+how this young gentleman—from London, did you say, sir?”
+
+“From London,” answered Spargo.
+
+“This young gentleman from London comes to be in possession of one of
+our tickets,” continued Mr. Quarterpage. “It is—wonderful! But I tell
+you what, young gentleman from London, if you will do me the honour to
+breakfast with me in the morning, sir, I will show you my racing books
+and papers and we will speedily discover who the original holder of
+that ticket was. My name, sir, is Quarterpage—Benjamin Quarterpage—and
+I reside at the ivy-covered house exactly opposite this inn, and my
+breakfast hour is nine o’clock sharp, and I shall bid you heartily
+welcome!”
+
+Spargo made his best bow.
+
+“Sir,” he said, “I am greatly obliged by your kind invitation, and I
+shall consider it an honour to wait upon you to the moment.”
+
+Accordingly, at five minutes to nine next morning, Spargo found himself
+in an old-fashioned parlour, looking out upon a delightful garden, gay
+with summer flowers, and being introduced by Mr. Quarterpage, Senior,
+to Mr. Quarterpage, Junior—a pleasant gentleman of sixty, always
+referred to by his father as something quite juvenile—and to Miss
+Quarterpage, a young-old lady of something a little less elderly than
+her brother, and to a breakfast table bounteously spread with all the
+choice fare of the season. Mr. Quarterpage, Senior, was as fresh and
+rosy as a cherub; it was a revelation to Spargo to encounter so old a
+man who was still in possession of such life and spirits, and of such a
+vigorous and healthy appetite.
+
+Naturally, the talk over the breakfast table ran on Spargo’s possession
+of the old silver ticket, upon which subject it was evident Mr.
+Quarterpage was still exercising his intellect. And Spargo, who had
+judged it well to enlighten his host as to who he was, and had
+exhibited a letter with which the editor of the _Watchman_ had
+furnished him, told how in the exercise of his journalistic duties he
+had discovered the ticket in the lining of an old box. But he made no
+mention of the Marbury matter, being anxious to see first whither Mr.
+Quarterpage’s revelations would lead him.
+
+“You have no idea, Mr. Spargo,” said the old gentleman, when, breakfast
+over, he and Spargo were closeted together in a little library in which
+were abundant evidences of the host’s taste in sporting matters; “you
+have no idea of the value which was attached to the possession of one
+of those silver tickets. There is mine, as you see, securely framed and
+just as securely fastened to the wall. Those fifty silver tickets, my
+dear sir, were made when our old race-meeting was initiated, in the
+year 1781. They were made in the town by a local silversmith, whose
+great-great-grandson still carries on the business. The fifty were
+distributed amongst the fifty leading burgesses of the town to be kept
+in their families for ever—nobody ever anticipated in those days that
+our race-meeting would ever be discontinued. The ticket carried great
+privileges. It made its holder, and all members of his family, male and
+female, free of the stands, rings, and paddocks. It gave the holder
+himself and his eldest son, if of age, the right to a seat at our grand
+race banquet—at which, I may tell you, Mr. Spargo, Royalty itself has
+been present in the good old days. Consequently, as you see, to be the
+holder of a silver ticket was to be somebody.”
+
+“And when the race-meeting fell through?” asked Spargo. “What then?”
+
+“Then, of course, the families who held the tickets looked upon them as
+heirlooms, to be taken great care of,” replied Mr. Quarterpage. “They
+were dealt with as I dealt with mine—framed on velvet, and hung up—or
+locked away: I am sure that anybody who had one took the greatest care
+of it. Now, I said last night, over there at the ‘Dragon,’ that I could
+repeat the names of all the families who held these tickets. So I can.
+But here”—the old gentleman drew out a drawer and produced from it a
+parchment-bound book which he handled with great reverence—“here is a
+little volume of my own handwriting—memoranda relating to Market
+Milcaster Races—in which is a list of the original holders, together
+with another list showing who held the tickets when the races were
+given up. I make bold to say, Mr. Spargo, that by going through the
+second list, I could trace every ticket—except the one you have in your
+purse.”
+
+“Every one?” said Spargo, in some surprise.
+
+“Every one! For as I told you,” continued Mr. Quarterpage, “the
+families are either in the town (we’re a conservative people here in
+Market Milcaster and we don’t move far afield) or they’re just outside
+the town, or they’re not far away. I can’t conceive how the ticket you
+have—and it’s genuine enough—could ever get out of possession of one of
+these families, and—”
+
+“Perhaps,” suggested Spargo, “it never has been out of possession. I
+told you it was found in the lining of a box—that box belonged to a
+dead man.”
+
+“A dead man!” exclaimed Mr. Quarterpage. “A dead man! Who could—ah!
+Perhaps—perhaps I have an idea. Yes!—an idea. I remember something now
+that I had never thought of.”
+
+The old gentleman unfastened the clasp of his parchment-bound book, and
+turned over its pages until he came to one whereon was a list of names.
+He pointed this out to Spargo.
+
+“There is the list of holders of the silver tickets at the time the
+race-meetings came to an end,” he said. “If you were acquainted with
+this town you would know that those are the names of our best-known
+inhabitants—all, of course, burgesses. There’s mine, you
+see—Quarterpage. There’s Lummis, there’s Kaye, there’s Skene, there’s
+Templeby—the gentlemen you saw last night. All good old town names.
+They all are—on this list. I know every family mentioned. The holders
+of that time are many of them dead; but their successors have the
+tickets. Yes—and now that I think of it, there’s only one man who held
+a ticket when this list was made about whom I don’t know anything—at
+least, anything recent. The ticket, Mr. Spargo, which you’ve found must
+have been his. But I thought—I thought somebody else had it!”
+
+“And this man, sir? Who was he?” asked Spargo, intuitively conscious
+that he was coming to news. “Is his name there?”
+
+The old man ran the tip of his finger down the list of names.
+
+“There it is!” he said. “John Maitland.”
+
+Spargo bent over the fine writing.
+
+“Yes, John Maitland,” he observed. “And who was John Maitland?”
+
+Mr. Quarterpage shook his head. He turned to another of the many
+drawers in an ancient bureau, and began to search amongst a mass of old
+newspapers, carefully sorted into small bundles and tied up.
+
+“If you had lived in Market Milcaster one-and-twenty years ago, Mr.
+Spargo,” he said, “you would have known who John Maitland was. For some
+time, sir, he was the best-known man in the place—aye, and in this
+corner of the world. But—aye, here it is—the newspaper of October 5th,
+1891. Now, Mr. Spargo, you’ll find in this old newspaper who John
+Maitland was, and all about him. Now, I’ll tell you what to do. I’ve
+just got to go into my office for an hour to talk the day’s business
+over with my son—you take this newspaper out into the garden there with
+one of these cigars, and read what’ll you find in it, and when you’ve
+read that we’ll have some more talk.”
+
+Spargo carried the old newspaper into the sunlit garden.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
+AN OLD NEWSPAPER
+
+
+As soon as Spargo unfolded the paper he saw what he wanted on the
+middle page, headed in two lines of big capitals. He lighted a cigar
+and settled down to read.
+
+“MARKET MILCASTER QUARTER SESSIONS
+“TRIAL OF JOHN MAITLAND
+
+
+“The Quarter Sessions for the Borough of Market Milcaster were held on
+Wednesday last, October 3rd, 1891, in the Town Hall, before the
+Recorder, Henry John Campernowne, Esq., K.C., who was accompanied on
+the bench by the Worshipful the Mayor of Market Milcaster (Alderman
+Pettiford), the Vicar of Market Milcaster (the Rev. P.B. Clabberton,
+M.A., R.D.), Alderman Banks, J.P., Alderman Peters, J.P., Sir Gervais
+Racton, J.P., Colonel Fludgate, J.P., Captain Murrill, J.P., and other
+magistrates and gentlemen. There was a crowded attendance of the public
+in anticipation of the trial of John Maitland, ex-manager of the Market
+Milcaster Bank, and the reserved portions of the Court were filled with
+the _élite_ of the town and neighbourhood, including a considerable
+number of ladies who manifested the greatest interest in the
+proceedings.
+
+“The Recorder, in charging the Grand Jury, said he regretted that the
+very pleasant and gratifying experience which had been his upon the
+occasion of his last two official visits to Market Milcaster—he
+referred to the fact that on both those occasions his friend the
+Worshipful Mayor had been able to present him with a pair of white
+gloves—was not to be repeated on the present occasion. It would be
+their sad and regrettable lot to have before them a fellow-townsman
+whose family had for generations occupied a foremost position in the
+life of the borough. That fellow-townsman was charged with one of the
+most serious offences known to a commercial nation like ours: the
+offence of embezzling the moneys of the bank of which he had for many
+years been the trusted manager, and with which he had been connected
+all his life since his school days. He understood that the prisoner who
+would shortly be put before the court on his trial was about to plead
+guilty, and there would accordingly be no need for him to direct the
+gentlemen of the Grand Jury on this matter—what he had to say
+respecting the gravity and even enormity of the offence he would
+reserve. The Recorder then addressed himself to the Grand Jury on the
+merits of two minor cases, which came before the court at a later
+period of the morning, after which they retired, and having formally
+returned a true bill against the prisoner, and a petty jury, chosen
+from well-known burgesses of the town having been duly sworn.
+
+“JOHN MAITLAND, aged 42, bank manager, of the Bank House, High Street,
+Market Milcaster, was formally charged with embezzling, on April 23rd,
+1891, the sum of £4,875 10_s_. 6_d_., the moneys of his employers, the
+Market Milcaster Banking Company Ltd., and converting the same to his
+own use. The prisoner, who appeared to feel his position most acutely,
+and who looked very pale and much worn, was represented by Mr. Charles
+Doolittle, the well-known barrister of Kingshaven; Mr. Stephens, K.C.,
+appeared on behalf of the prosecution.
+
+“Maitland, upon being charged, pleaded guilty.
+
+“Mr. Stephens, K.C., addressing the Recorder, said that without any
+desire to unduly press upon the prisoner, who, he ventured to think,
+had taken a very wise course in pleading guilty to that particular
+count in the indictment with which he stood charged, he felt bound, in
+the interests of justice, to set forth to the Court some particulars of
+the defalcations which had arisen through the prisoner’s much lamented
+dishonesty. He proposed to offer a clear and succinct account of the
+matter. The prisoner, John Maitland, was the last of an old Market
+Milcaster family—he was, in fact, he believed, with the exception of
+his own infant son, the very last of the race. His father had been
+manager of the bank before him. Maitland himself had entered the
+service of the bank at the age of eighteen, when he left the local
+Grammar School; he succeeded his father as manager at the age of
+thirty-two; he had therefore occupied this highest position of trust
+for ten years. His directors had the fullest confidence in him; they
+relied on his honesty and his honour; they gave him discretionary
+powers such as no bank-manager, probably, ever enjoyed or held before.
+In fact, he was so trusted that he was, to all intents and purposes,
+the Market Milcaster Banking Company; in other words he was allowed
+full control over everything, and given full licence to do what he
+liked. Whether the directors were wise in extending such liberty to
+even the most trusted servant, it was not for him (Mr. Stephens) to
+say; it was some consolation, under the circumstances, to know that the
+loss would fall upon the directors, inasmuch as they themselves held
+nearly the whole of the shares. But he had to speak of the loss—of the
+serious defalcations which Maitland had committed. The prisoner had
+wisely pleaded guilty to the first count of the indictment. But there
+were no less than seventeen counts in the indictment. He had pleaded
+guilty to embezzling a sum of £4,875 odd. But the total amount of the
+defalcations, comprised in the seventeen counts, was no less—it seemed
+a most amazing sum!—than £221,573 8_s_. 6_d_.! There was the fact—the
+banking company had been robbed of over two hundred thousand pounds by
+the prisoner in the dock before a mere accident, the most trifling
+chance, had revealed to the astounded directors that he was robbing
+them at all. And the most serious feature of the whole case was that
+not one penny of this money had been, or ever could be, recovered. He
+believed that the prisoner’s learned counsel was about to urge upon the
+Court that the prisoner himself had been tricked and deceived by
+another man, unfortunately not before the Court—a man, he understood,
+also well known in Market Milcaster, who was now dead, and therefore
+could not be called, but whether he was so tricked or deceived was no
+excuse for his clever and wholesale robbing of his employers. He had
+thought it necessary to put these facts—which would not be
+denied—before the Court, in order that it might be known how heavy the
+defalcations really had been, and that they should be considered in
+dealing with the prisoner.
+
+“The Recorder asked if there was no possibility of recovering any part
+of the vast sum concerned.
+
+“Mr. Stephens replied that they were informed that there was not the
+remotest chance—the money, it was said by prisoner and those acting on
+his behalf, had utterly vanished with the death of the man to whom he
+had just made reference.
+
+“Mr. Doolittle, on behalf of the prisoner, craved to address a few
+words to the Court in mitigation of sentence. He thanked Mr. Stephens
+for the considerate and eminently dispassionate manner in which he had
+outlined the main facts of the case. He had no desire to minimize the
+prisoner’s guilt. But, on prisoner’s behalf, he desired to tell the
+true story as to how these things came to be. Until as recently as
+three years previously the prisoner had never made the slightest
+deviation from the straight path of integrity. Unfortunately for him,
+and, he believed, for some others in Market Milcaster, there came to
+the town three years before the present proceedings, a man named
+Chamberlayne, who commenced business in the High Street as a
+stock-and-share broker. A man of good address and the most plausible
+manners, Chamberlayne attracted a good many people—amongst them his
+unfortunate client. It was matter of common knowledge that Chamberlayne
+had induced numerous persons in Market Milcaster to enter into
+financial transactions with him; it was matter of common repute that
+those transactions had not always turned out well for Chamberlayne’s
+clients. Unhappily for himself, Maitland had great faith in
+Chamberlayne. He had begun to have transactions with him in a large
+way; they had gone on and on in a large way until he was involved to
+vast amounts. Believing thoroughly in Chamberlayne and his methods, he
+had entrusted him with very large sums of money.
+
+“The Recorder interrupted Mr. Doolittle at this point to ask if he was
+to understand that Mr. Doolittle was referring to the prisoner’s own
+money.
+
+“Mr. Doolittle replied that he was afraid the large sums he referred to
+were the property of the bank. But the prisoner had such belief in
+Chamberlayne that he firmly anticipated that all would be well, and
+that these sums would be repaid, and that a vast profit would result
+from their use.
+
+“The Recorder remarked that he supposed the prisoner intended to put
+the profit into his own pockets.
+
+“Mr. Doolittle said at any rate the prisoner assured him that of the
+two hundred and twenty thousand pounds which was in question,
+Chamberlayne had had the immediate handling of at least two hundred
+thousand, and he, the prisoner, had not the ghost of a notion as to
+what Chamberlayne had done with it. Unfortunately for everybody, for
+the bank, for some other people, and especially for his unhappy client,
+Chamberlayne died, very suddenly, just as these proceedings were
+instituted, and so far it had been absolutely impossible to trace
+anything of the moneys concerned. He had died under mysterious
+circumstances, and there was just as much mystery about his affairs.
+
+“The Recorder observed that he was still waiting to hear what Mr.
+Doolittle had to urge in mitigation of any sentence he, the Recorder,
+might think fit to pass.
+
+“Mr. Doolittle said that he would trouble the Court with as few remarks
+as possible. All that he could urge on behalf of the unfortunate man in
+the dock was that until three years ago he had borne a most exemplary
+character, and had never committed a dishonest action. It had been his
+misfortune, his folly, to allow a plausible man to persuade him to
+these acts of dishonesty. That man had been called to another account,
+and the prisoner was left to bear the consequences of his association
+with him. It seemed as if Chamberlayne had made away with the money for
+his own purposes, and it might be that it would yet be recovered. He
+would only ask the Court to remember the prisoner’s antecedents and his
+previous good conduct, and to bear in mind that whatever his near
+future might be he was, in a commercial sense, ruined for life.
+
+“The Recorder, in passing sentence, said that he had not heard a single
+word of valid excuse for Maitland’s conduct. Such dishonesty must be
+punished in the most severe fashion, and the prisoner must go to penal
+servitude for ten years.
+
+“Maitland, who heard the sentence unmoved, was removed from the town
+later in the day to the county jail at Saxchester.”
+
+Spargo read all this swiftly; then went over it again, noting certain
+points in it. At last he folded up the newspaper and turned to the
+house—to see old Quarterpage beckoning to him from the library window.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER NINETEEN
+THE CHAMBERLAYNE STORY
+
+
+“I perceive, sir,” said Mr. Quarterpage, as Spargo entered the library,
+“that you have read the account of the Maitland trial.”
+
+“Twice,” replied Spargo.
+
+“And you have come to the conclusion that—but what conclusion have you
+come to?” asked Mr. Quarterpage.
+
+“That the silver ticket in my purse was Maitland’s property,” said
+Spargo, who was not going to give all his conclusions at once.
+
+“Just so,” agreed the old gentleman. “I think so—I can’t think anything
+else. But I was under the impression that I could have accounted for
+that ticket, just as I am sure I can account for the other forty-nine.”
+
+“Yes—and how?” asked Spargo.
+
+Mr. Quarterpage turned to a corner cupboard and in silence produced a
+decanter and two curiously-shaped old wine-glasses. He carefully
+polished the glasses with a cloth which he took from a drawer, and set
+glasses and decanter on a table in the window, motioning Spargo to take
+a chair in proximity thereto. He himself pulled up his own elbow-chair.
+
+“We’ll take a glass of my old brown sherry,” he said. “Though I say it
+as shouldn’t, as the saying goes, I don’t think you could find better
+brown sherry than that from Land’s End to Berwick-upon-Tweed, Mr.
+Spargo—no, nor further north either, where they used to have good taste
+in liquor in my young days! Well, here’s your good health, sir, and
+I’ll tell you about Maitland.”
+
+“I’m curious,” said Spargo. “And about more than Maitland. I want to
+know about a lot of things arising out of that newspaper report. I want
+to know something about the man referred to so much—the stockbroker,
+Chamberlayne.”
+
+“Just so,” observed Mr. Quarterpage, smiling. “I thought that would
+touch your sense of the inquisitive. But Maitland first. Now, when
+Maitland went to prison, he left behind him a child, a boy, just then
+about two years old. The child’s mother was dead. Her sister, a Miss
+Baylis, appeared on the scene—Maitland had married his wife from a
+distance—and took possession of the child and of Maitland’s personal
+effects. He had been made bankrupt while he was awaiting his trial, and
+all his household goods were sold. But this Miss Baylis took some small
+personal things, and I always believed that she took the silver ticket.
+And she may have done, for anything I know to the contrary. Anyway, she
+took the child away, and there was an end of the Maitland family in
+Market Milcaster. Maitland, of course, was in due procedure of things
+removed to Dartmoor, and there he served his term. There were people
+who were very anxious to get hold of him when he came out—the bank
+people, for they believed that he knew more about the disposition of
+that money than he’d ever told, and they wanted to induce him to tell
+what they hoped he knew—between ourselves, Mr. Spargo, they were going
+to make it worth his while to tell.”
+
+Spargo tapped the newspaper, which he had retained while the old
+gentleman talked.
+
+“Then they didn’t believe what his counsel said—that Chamberlayne got
+all the money?” he asked.
+
+Mr. Quarterpage laughed.
+
+“No—nor anybody else!” he answered. “There was a strong idea in the
+town—you’ll see why afterwards—that it was all a put-up job, and that
+Maitland cheerfully underwent his punishment knowing that there was a
+nice fortune waiting for him when he came out. And as I say, the bank
+people meant to get hold of him. But though they sent a special agent
+to meet him on his release, they never did get hold of him. Some
+mistake arose—when Maitland was released, he got clear away. Nobody’s
+ever heard a word of him from that day to this. Unless Miss Baylis
+has.”
+
+“Where does this Miss Baylis live?” asked Spargo.
+
+“Well, I don’t know,” replied Mr. Quarterpage. “She did live in
+Brighton when she took the child away, and her address was known, and I
+have it somewhere. But when the bank people sought her out after
+Maitland’s release, she, too, had clean disappeared, and all efforts to
+trace her failed. In fact, according to the folks who lived near her in
+Brighton, she’d completely disappeared, with the child, five years
+before. So there wasn’t a clue to Maitland. He served his time—made a
+model prisoner—they did find that much out!—earned the maximum
+remission, was released, and vanished. And for that very reason there’s
+a theory about him in this very town to this very day!”
+
+“What?” asked Spargo.
+
+“This. That he’s now living comfortably, luxuriously abroad on what he
+got from the bank,” replied Mr. Quarterpage. “They say that the
+sister-in-law was in at the game; that when she disappeared with the
+child, she went abroad somewhere and made a home ready for Maitland,
+and that he went off to them as soon as he came out. Do you see?”
+
+“I suppose that was possible,” said Spargo.
+
+“Quite possible, sir. But now,” continued the old gentleman,
+replenishing the glasses, “now we come on to the Chamberlayne story.
+It’s a good deal more to do with the Maitland story than appears at
+first sight, I’ll tell it to you and you can form your own conclusions.
+Chamberlayne was a man who came to Market Milcaster—I don’t know from
+where—in 1886—five years before the Maitland smash-up. He was then
+about Maitland’s age—a man of thirty-seven or eight. He came as clerk
+to old Mr. Vallas, the rope and twine manufacturer: Vallas’s place is
+still there, at the bottom of the High Street, near the river, though
+old Vallas is dead. He was a smart, cute, pushing chap, this
+Chamberlayne; he made himself indispensable to old Vallas, and old
+Vallas paid him a rare good salary. He settled down in the town, and he
+married a town girl, one of the Corkindales, the saddlers, when he’d
+been here three years. Unfortunately she died in childbirth within a
+year of their marriage. It was very soon after that that Chamberlayne
+threw up his post at Vallas’s, and started business as a
+stock-and-share broker. He’d been a saving man; he’d got a nice bit of
+money with his wife; he always let it be known that he had money of his
+own, and he started in a good way. He was a man of the most plausible
+manners: he’d have coaxed butter out of a dog’s throat if he’d wanted
+to. The moneyed men of the town believed in him—I believed in him
+myself, Mr. Spargo—I’d many a transaction with him, and I never lost
+aught by him—on the contrary, he did very well for me. He did well for
+most of his clients—there were, of course, ups and downs, but on the
+whole he satisfied his clients uncommonly well. But, naturally, nobody
+ever knew what was going on between him and Maitland.”
+
+“I gather from this report,” said Spargo, “that everything came out
+suddenly—unexpectedly?”
+
+“That was so, sir,” replied Mr. Quarterpage. “Sudden? Unexpected? Aye,
+as a crack of thunder on a fine winter’s day. Nobody had the ghost of a
+notion that anything was wrong. John Maitland was much respected in the
+town; much thought of by everybody; well known to everybody. I can
+assure you, Mr. Spargo, that it was no pleasant thing to have to sit on
+that grand jury as I did—I was its foreman, sir,—and hear a man
+sentenced that you’d regarded as a bosom friend. But there it was!”
+
+“How was the thing discovered?” asked Spargo, anxious to get at facts.
+
+“In this way,” replied Mr. Quarterpage. “The Market Milcaster Bank is
+in reality almost entirely the property of two old families in the
+town, the Gutchbys and the Hostables. Owing to the death of his father,
+a young Hostable, fresh from college, came into the business. He was a
+shrewd, keen young fellow; he got some suspicion, somehow, about
+Maitland, and he insisted on the other partners consenting to a special
+investigation, and on their making it suddenly. And Maitland was caught
+before he had a chance. But we’re talking about Chamberlayne.”
+
+“Yes, about Chamberlayne,” agreed Spargo.
+
+“Well, now, Maitland was arrested one evening,” continued Mr.
+Quarterpage. “Of course, the news of his arrest ran through the town
+like wild-fire. Everybody was astonished; he was at that time—aye, and
+had been for years—a churchwarden at the Parish Church, and I don’t
+think there could have been more surprise if we’d heard that the Vicar
+had been arrested for bigamy. In a little town like this, news is all
+over the place in a few minutes. Of course, Chamberlayne would hear
+that news like everybody else. But it was remembered, and often
+remarked upon afterwards, that from the moment of Maitland’s arrest
+nobody in Market Milcaster ever had speech with Chamberlayne again.
+After his wife’s death he’d taken to spending an hour or so of an
+evening across there at the ‘Dragon,’ where you saw me and my friends
+last night, but on that night he didn’t go to the ‘Dragon.’ And next
+morning he caught the eight o’clock train to London. He happened to
+remark to the stationmaster as he got into the train that he expected
+to be back late that night, and that he should have a tiring day of it.
+But Chamberlayne didn’t come back that night, Mr. Spargo. He didn’t
+come back to Market Milcaster for four days, and when he did come back
+it was in a coffin!”
+
+“Dead?” exclaimed Spargo. “That was sudden!”
+
+“Very sudden,” agreed Mr. Quarterpage. “Yes, sir, he came back in his
+coffin, did Chamberlayne. On the very evening on which he’d spoken of
+being back, there came a telegram here to say that he’d died very
+suddenly at the Cosmopolitan Hotel. That telegram came to his
+brother-in-law, Corkindale, the saddler—you’ll find him down the
+street, opposite the Town Hall. It was sent to Corkindale by a nephew
+of Chamberlayne’s, another Chamberlayne, Stephen, who lived in London,
+and was understood to be on the Stock Exchange there. I saw that
+telegram, Mr. Spargo, and it was a long one. It said that Chamberlayne
+had had a sudden seizure, and though a doctor had been got to him he’d
+died shortly afterwards. Now, as Chamberlayne had his nephew and
+friends in London, his brother-in-law, Tom Corkindale, didn’t feel that
+there was any necessity for him to go up to town, so he just sent off a
+wire to Stephen Chamberlayne asking if there was aught he could do. And
+next morning came another wire from Stephen saying that no inquest
+would be necessary, as the doctor had been present and able to certify
+the cause of death, and would Corkindale make all arrangements for the
+funeral two days later. You see, Chamberlayne had bought a vault in our
+cemetery when he buried his wife, so naturally they wished to bury him
+in it, with her.”
+
+Spargo nodded. He was beginning to imagine all sorts of things and
+theories; he was taking everything in.
+
+“Well,” continued Mr. Quarterpage, “on the second day after that, they
+brought Chamberlayne’s body down. Three of ’em came with it—Stephen
+Chamberlayne, the doctor who’d been called in, and a solicitor.
+Everything was done according to proper form and usage. As Chamberlayne
+had been well known in the town, a good number of townsfolk met the
+body at the station and followed it to the cemetery. Of course, many of
+us who had been clients of Chamberlayne’s were anxious to know how he
+had come to such a sudden end. According to Stephen Chamberlayne’s
+account, our Chamberlayne had wired to him and to his solicitor to meet
+him at the Cosmopolitan to do some business. They were awaiting him
+there when he arrived, and they had lunch together. After that, they
+got to their business in a private room. Towards the end of the
+afternoon, Chamberlayne was taken suddenly ill, and though they got a
+doctor to him at once, he died before evening. The doctor said he’d a
+diseased heart. Anyhow, he was able to certify the cause of his death,
+so there was no inquest and they buried him, as I have told you.”
+
+The old gentleman paused and, taking a sip at his sherry, smiled at
+some reminiscence which occurred to him.
+
+“Well,” he said, presently going on, “of course, on that came all the
+Maitland revelations, and Maitland vowed and declared that Chamberlayne
+had not only had nearly all the money, but that he was absolutely
+certain that most of it was in his hands in hard cash. But
+Chamberlayne, Mr. Spargo, had left practically nothing. All that could
+be traced was about three or four thousand pounds. He’d left everything
+to his nephew, Stephen. There wasn’t a trace, a clue to the vast sums
+with which Maitland had entrusted him. And then people began to talk,
+and they said what some of them say to this very day!”
+
+“What’s that?” asked Spargo.
+
+Mr. Quarterpage leaned forward and tapped his guest on the arm.
+
+“That Chamberlayne never did die, and that that coffin was weighted
+with lead!” he answered.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY
+MAITLAND _ALIAS_ MARBURY
+
+
+This remarkable declaration awoke such a new conception of matters in
+Spargo’s mind, aroused such infinitely new possibilities in his
+imagination, that for a full moment he sat silently staring at his
+informant, who chuckled with quiet enjoyment at his visitor’s surprise.
+
+“Do you mean to tell me,” said Spargo at last, “that there are people
+in this town who still believe that the coffin in your cemetery which
+is said to contain Chamberlayne’s body contains—lead?”
+
+“Lots of ’em, my dear sir!” replied Mr. Quarterpage. “Lots of ’em! Go
+out in the street and ask the first six men you meet, and I’ll go bail
+that four out of the six believe it.”
+
+“Then why, in the sacred name of common sense did no one ever take
+steps to make certain?” asked Spargo. “Why didn’t they get an order for
+exhumation?”
+
+“Because it was nobody’s particular business to do so,” answered Mr.
+Quarterpage. “You don’t know country-town life, my dear sir. In towns
+like Market Milcaster folks talk and gossip a great deal, but they’re
+always slow to do anything. It’s a case of who’ll start first—of
+initiative. And if they see it’s going to cost anything—then they’ll
+have nothing to do with it.”
+
+“But—the bank people?” suggested Spargo.
+
+Mr. Quarterpage shook his head.
+
+“They’re amongst the lot who believe that Chamberlayne did die,” he
+said. “They’re very old-fashioned, conservative-minded people, the
+Gutchbys and the Hostables, and they accepted the version of the
+nephew, and the doctor, and the solicitor. But now I’ll tell you
+something about those three. There was a man here in the town, a
+gentleman of your own profession, who came to edit that paper you’ve
+got on your knee. He got interested in this Chamberlayne case, and he
+began to make enquiries with the idea of getting hold of some good—what
+do you call it?”
+
+“I suppose he’d call it ‘copy,’” said Spargo.
+
+“‘Copy’—that was his term,” agreed Mr. Quarterpage. “Well, he took the
+trouble to go to London to ask some quiet questions of the nephew,
+Stephen. That was just twelve months after Chamberlayne had been
+buried. But he found that Stephen Chamberlayne had left England—months
+before. Gone, they said, to one of the colonies, but they didn’t know
+which. And the solicitor had also gone. And the doctor—couldn’t be
+traced, no, sir, not even through the Medical Register. What do you
+think of all that, Mr. Spargo?”
+
+“I think,” answered Spargo, “that Market Milcaster folk are
+considerably slow. I should have had that death and burial enquired
+into. The whole thing looks to me like a conspiracy.”
+
+“Well, sir, it was, as I say, nobody’s business,” said Mr. Quarterpage.
+“The newspaper gentleman tried to stir up interest in it, but it was no
+good, and very soon afterwards he left. And there it is.”
+
+“Mr. Quarterpage,” said Spargo, “what’s your own honest opinion?”
+
+The old gentleman smiled.
+
+“Ah!” he said. “I’ve often wondered, Mr. Spargo, if I really have an
+opinion on that point. I think that what I probably feel about the
+whole affair is that there was a good deal of mystery attaching to it.
+But we seem, sir, to have gone a long way from the question of that old
+silver ticket which you’ve got in your purse. Now——”
+
+“No!” said Spargo, interrupting his host with an accompanying wag of
+his forefinger. “No! I think we’re coming nearer to it. Now you’ve
+given me a great deal of your time, Mr. Quarterpage, and told me a lot,
+and, first of all, before I tell you a lot, I’m going to show you
+something.”
+
+And Spargo took out of his pocket-book a carefully-mounted photograph
+of John Marbury—the original of the process-picture which he had had
+made for the _Watchman_. He handed it over.
+
+“Do you recognize that photograph as that of anybody you know?” he
+asked. “Look at it well and closely.”
+
+Mr. Quarterpage put on a special pair of spectacles and studied the
+photograph from several points of view.
+
+“No, sir,” he said at last with a shake of the head. “I don’t recognize
+it at all.”
+
+“Can’t see in it any resemblance to any man you’ve ever known?” asked
+Spargo.
+
+“No, sir, none!” replied Mr. Quarterpage. “None whatever.”
+
+“Very well,” said Spargo, laying the photograph on the table between
+them. “Now, then, I want you to tell me what John Maitland was like
+when you knew him. Also, I want you to describe Chamberlayne as he was
+when he died, or was supposed to die. You remember them, of course,
+quite well?”
+
+Mr. Quarterpage got up and moved to the door.
+
+“I can do better than that,” he said. “I can show you photographs of
+both men as they were just before Maitland’s trial. I have a photograph
+of a small group of Market Milcaster notabilities which was taken at a
+municipal garden-party; Maitland and Chamberlayne are both in it. It’s
+been put away in a cabinet in my drawing-room for many a long year, and
+I’ve no doubt it’s as fresh as when it was taken.”
+
+He left the room and presently returned with a large mounted photograph
+which he laid on the table before his visitor.
+
+“There you are, sir,” he said. “Quite fresh, you see—it must be getting
+on to twenty years since that was taken out of the drawer that it’s
+been kept in. Now, that’s Maitland. And that’s Chamberlayne.”
+
+Spargo found himself looking at a group of men who stood against an
+ivy-covered wall in the stiff attitudes in which photographers arrange
+masses of sitters. He fixed his attention on the two figures indicated
+by Mr. Quarterpage, and saw two medium-heighted, rather sturdily-built
+men about whom there was nothing very specially noticeable.
+
+“Um!” he said, musingly. “Both bearded.”
+
+“Yes, they both wore beards—full beards,” assented Mr. Quarterpage.
+“And you see, they weren’t so much alike. But Maitland was a much
+darker man than Chamberlayne, and he had brown eyes, while
+Chamberlayne’s were rather a bright blue.”
+
+“The removal of a beard makes a great difference,” remarked Spargo. He
+looked at the photograph of Maitland in the group, comparing it with
+that of Marbury which he had taken from his pocket. “And twenty years
+makes a difference, too,” he added musingly.
+
+“To some people twenty years makes a vast difference, sir,” said the
+old gentleman. “To others it makes none—I haven’t changed much, they
+tell me, during the past twenty years. But I’ve known men change—age,
+almost beyond recognition!—in five years. It depends, sir, on what they
+go through.”
+
+Spargo suddenly laid aside the photographs, put his hands in his
+pockets, and looked steadfastly at Mr. Quarterpage.
+
+“Look here!” he said. “I’m going to tell you what I’m after, Mr.
+Quarterpage. I’m sure you’ve heard all about what’s known as the Middle
+Temple Murder—the Marbury case?”
+
+“Yes, I’ve read of it,” replied Mr. Quarterpage.
+
+“Have you read the accounts of it in my paper, the _Watchman_?” asked
+Spargo.
+
+Mr. Quarterpage shook his head.
+
+“I’ve only read one newspaper, sir, since I was a young man,” he
+replied. “I take the _Times_, sir—we always took it, aye, even in the
+days when newspapers were taxed.”
+
+“Very good,” said Spargo. “But perhaps I can tell you a little more
+than you’ve read, for I’ve been working up that case ever since the
+body of the man known as John Marbury was found. Now, if you’ll just
+give me your attention, I’ll tell you the whole story from that moment
+until—now.”
+
+And Spargo, briefly, succinctly, re-told the story of the Marbury case
+from the first instant of his own connection with it until the
+discovery of the silver ticket, and Mr. Quarterpage listened in rapt
+attention, nodding his head from time to time as the younger man made
+his points.
+
+“And now, Mr. Quarterpage,” concluded Spargo, “this is the point I’ve
+come to. I believe that the man who came to the Anglo-Orient Hotel as
+John Marbury and who was undoubtedly murdered in Middle Temple Lane
+that night, was John Maitland—I haven’t a doubt about it after learning
+what you tell me about the silver ticket. I’ve found out a great deal
+that’s valuable here, and I think I’m getting nearer to a solution of
+the mystery. That is, of course, to find out who murdered John
+Maitland, or Marbury. What you have told me about the Chamberlayne
+affair has led me to think this—there may have been people, or a
+person, in London, who was anxious to get Marbury, as we’ll call him,
+out of the way, and who somehow encountered him that night—anxious to
+silence him, I mean, because of the Chamberlayne affair. And I
+wondered, as there is so much mystery about him, and as he won’t give
+any account of himself, if this man Aylmore was really Chamberlayne.
+Yes, I wondered that! But Aylmore’s a tall, finely-built man, quite six
+feet in height, and his beard, though it’s now getting grizzled, has
+been very dark, and Chamberlayne, you say, was a medium-sized, fair
+man, with blue eyes.”
+
+“That’s so, sir,” assented Mr. Quarterpage. “Yes, a middling-sized man,
+and fair—very fair. Deary me, Mr. Spargo!—this is a revelation. And you
+really think, sir, that John Maitland and John Marbury are one and the
+same person?”
+
+“I’m sure of it, now,” said Spargo. “I see it in this way. Maitland, on
+his release, went out to Australia, and there he stopped. At last he
+comes back, evidently well-to-do. He’s murdered the very day of his
+arrival. Aylmore is the only man who knows anything of him—Aylmore
+won’t tell all he knows; that’s flat. But Aylmore’s admitted that he
+knew him at some vague date, say from twenty-one to twenty-two or three
+years ago. Now, where did Aylmore know him? He says in London. That’s a
+vague term. He won’t say where—he won’t say anything definite—he won’t
+even say what he, Aylmore, himself was in those days. Do you recollect
+anything of anybody like Aylmore coming here to see Maitland, Mr.
+Quarterpage?”
+
+“I don’t,” answered Mr. Quarterpage. “Maitland was a very quiet,
+retiring fellow, sir: he was about the quietest man in the town. I
+never remember that he had visitors; certainly I’ve no recollection of
+such a friend of his as this Aylmore, from your description of him,
+would be at that time.”
+
+“Did Maitland go up to London much in those days?” asked Spargo.
+
+Mr. Quarterpage laughed.
+
+“Well, now, to show you what a good memory I have,” he said, “I’ll tell
+you of something that occurred across there at the ‘Dragon’ only a few
+months before the Maitland affair came out. There were some of us in
+there one evening, and, for a rare thing, Maitland came in with
+Chamberlayne. Chamberlayne happened to remark that he was going up to
+town next day—he was always to and fro—and we got talking about London.
+And Maitland said in course of conversation, that he believed he was
+about the only man of his age in England—and, of course, he meant of
+his class and means—who’d never even seen London! And I don’t think he
+ever went there between that time and his trial: in fact, I’m sure he
+didn’t, for if he had, I should have heard of it.”
+
+“Well, that’s queer,” remarked Spargo. “It’s very queer. For I’m
+certain Maitland and Marbury are one and the same person. My theory
+about that old leather box is that Maitland had that carefully planted
+before his arrest; that he dug it up when he came put of Dartmoor; that
+he took it off to Australia with him; that he brought it back with him;
+and that, of course, the silver ticket and the photograph had been in
+it all these years. Now——”
+
+At that moment the door of the library was opened, and a parlourmaid
+looked in at her master.
+
+“There’s the boots from the ‘Dragon’ at the front door, sir,” she said.
+“He’s brought two telegrams across from there for Mr. Spargo, thinking
+he might like to have them at once.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
+ARRESTED
+
+
+Spargo hurried out to the hall, took the two telegrams from the boots
+of the “Dragon,” and, tearing open the envelopes, read the messages
+hastily. He went back to Mr. Quarterpage.
+
+“Here’s important news,” he said as he closed the library door and
+resumed his seat. “I’ll read these telegrams to you, sir, and then we
+can discuss them in the light of what we’ve been talking about this
+morning. The first is from our office. I told you we sent over to
+Australia for a full report about Marbury at the place he said he
+hailed from—Coolumbidgee. That report’s just reached the _Watchman_,
+and they’ve wired it on to me. It’s from the chief of police at
+Coolumbidgee to the editor of the _Watchman_, London:—
+
+“John Marbury came to Coolumbidgee in the winter of 1898-9. He was
+unaccompanied. He appeared to be in possession of fairly considerable
+means and bought a share in a small sheep-farm from its proprietor,
+Andrew Robertson, who is still here, and who says that Marbury never
+told him anything about himself except that he had emigrated for health
+reasons and was a widower. He mentioned that he had had a son who was
+dead, and was now without relations. He lived a very quiet, steady life
+on the sheep-farm, never leaving it for many years. About six months
+ago, however, he paid a visit to Melbourne, and on returning told
+Robertson that he had decided to return to England in consequence of
+some news he had received, and must therefore sell his share in the
+farm. Robertson bought it from him for three thousand pounds, and
+Marbury shortly afterwards left for Melbourne. From what we could
+gather, Robertson thinks Marbury was probably in command of five or six
+thousand when he left Coolumbidgee. He told Robertson that he had met a
+man in Melbourne who had given him news that surprised him, but did not
+say what news. He had in his possession when he left Robertson exactly
+the luggage he brought with him when he came—a stout portmanteau and a
+small, square leather box. There are no effects of his left behind at
+Coolumbidgee.”
+
+
+“That’s all,” said Spargo, laying the first of the telegrams on the
+table. “And it seems to me to signify a good deal. But now here’s more
+startling news. This is from Rathbury, the Scotland Yard detective that
+I told you of, Mr. Quarterpage—he promised, you know, to keep me posted
+in what went on in my absence. Here’s what he says:
+
+“Fresh evidence tending to incriminate Aylmore has come to hand.
+Authorities have decided to arrest him on suspicion. You’d better hurry
+back if you want material for to-morrow’s paper.”
+
+
+Spargo threw that telegram down, too, waited while the old gentleman
+glanced at both of them with evident curiosity, and then jumped up.
+
+“Well, I shall have to go, Mr. Quarterpage,” he said. “I looked the
+trains out this morning so as to be in readiness. I can catch the 1.20
+to Paddington—that’ll get me in before half-past four. I’ve an hour
+yet. Now, there’s another man I want to see in Market Milcaster. That’s
+the photographer—or a photographer. You remember I told you of the
+photograph found with the silver ticket? Well, I’m calculating that
+that photograph was taken here, and I want to see the man who took
+it—if he’s alive and I can find him.”
+
+Mr. Quarterpage rose and put on his hat.
+
+“There’s only one photographer in this town, sir,” he said, “and he’s
+been here for a good many years—Cooper. I’ll take you to him—it’s only
+a few doors away.”
+
+Spargo wasted no time in letting the photographer know what he wanted.
+He put a direct question to Mr. Cooper—an elderly man.
+
+“Do you remember taking a photograph of the child of John Maitland, the
+bank manager, some twenty or twenty-one years ago?” he asked, after Mr.
+Quarterpage had introduced him as a gentleman from London who wanted to
+ask a few questions.
+
+“Quite well, sir,” replied Mr. Cooper. “As well as if it had been
+yesterday.”
+
+“Do you still happen to have a copy of it?” asked Spargo.
+
+But Mr. Cooper had already turned to a row of file albums. He took down
+one labelled 1891, and began to search its pages. In a minute or two he
+laid it on his table before his callers.
+
+“There you are, sir,” he said. “That’s the child!”
+
+Spargo gave one glance at the photograph and turned to Mr. Quarterpage.
+“Just as I thought,” he said. “That’s the same photograph we found in
+the leather box with the silver ticket. I’m obliged to you, Mr. Cooper.
+Now, there’s just one more question I want to ask. Did you ever supply
+any further copies of this photograph to anybody after the Maitland
+affair?—that is; after the family had left the town?”
+
+“Yes,” replied the photographer. “I supplied half a dozen copies to
+Miss Baylis, the child’s aunt, who, as a matter of fact, brought him
+here to be photographed. And I can give you her address, too,” he
+continued, beginning to turn over another old file. “I have it
+somewhere.”
+
+Mr. Quarterpage nudged Spargo.
+
+“That’s something I couldn’t have done!” he remarked. “As I told you,
+she’d disappeared from Brighton when enquiries were made after
+Maitland’s release.”
+
+“Here you are,” said Mr. Cooper. “I sent six copies of that photograph
+to Miss Baylis in April, 1895. Her address was then 6, Chichester
+Square, Bayswater, W.”
+
+Spargo rapidly wrote this address down, thanked the photographer for
+his courtesy, and went out with Mr. Quarterpage. In the street he
+turned to the old gentleman with a smile.
+
+“Well, I don’t think there’s much doubt about that!” he exclaimed.
+“Maitland and Marbury are the same man, Mr. Quarterpage. I’m as certain
+of that as that I see your Town Hall there.”
+
+“And what will you do next, sir?” enquired Mr. Quarterpage.
+
+“Thank you—as I do—for all your kindness and assistance, and get off to
+town by this 1.20,” replied Spargo. “And I shan’t fail to let you know
+how things go on.”
+
+“One moment,” said the old gentleman, as Spargo was hurrying away, “do
+you think this Mr. Aylmore really murdered Maitland?”
+
+“No!” answered Spargo with emphasis. “I don’t! And I think we’ve got a
+good deal to do before we find out who did.”
+
+Spargo purposely let the Marbury case drop out of his mind during his
+journey to town. He ate a hearty lunch in the train and talked with his
+neighbours; it was a relief to let his mind and attention turn to
+something else than the theme which had occupied it unceasingly for so
+many days. But at Reading the newspaper boys were shouting the news of
+the arrest of a Member of Parliament, and Spargo, glancing out of the
+window, caught sight of a newspaper placard:
+
+THE MARBURY MURDER CASE
+ARREST OF MR. AYLMORE
+
+
+He snatched a paper from a boy as the train moved out and, unfolding
+it, found a mere announcement in the space reserved for stop-press
+news:
+
+“Mr. Stephen Aylmore, M.P., was arrested at two o’clock this afternoon,
+on his way to the House of Commons, on a charge of being concerned in
+the murder of John Marbury in Middle Temple Lane on the night of June
+21st last. It is understood he will be brought up at Bow Street at ten
+o’clock tomorrow morning.”
+
+
+Spargo hurried to New Scotland Yard as soon as he reached Paddington.
+He met Rathbury coming away from his room. At sight of him, the
+detective turned back.
+
+“Well, so there you are!” he said. “I suppose you’ve heard the news?”
+
+Spargo nodded as he dropped into a chair.
+
+“What led to it?” he asked abruptly. “There must have been something.”
+
+“There was something,” he replied. “The thing—stick, bludgeon, whatever
+you like to call it, some foreign article—with which Marbury was struck
+down was found last night.”
+
+“Well?” asked Spargo.
+
+“It was proved to be Aylmore’s property,” answered Rathbury. “It was a
+South American curio that he had in his rooms in Fountain Court.”
+
+“Where was it found?” asked Spargo.
+
+Rathbury laughed.
+
+“He was a clumsy fellow who did it, whether he was Aylmore or whoever
+he was!” he replied. “Do you know, it had been dropped into a
+sewer-trap in Middle Temple Lane—actually! Perhaps the murderer thought
+it would be washed out into the Thames and float away. But, of course,
+it was bound to come to light. A sewer man found it yesterday evening,
+and it was quickly recognized by the woman who cleans up for Aylmore as
+having been in his rooms ever since she knew them.”
+
+“What does Aylmore say about it?” asked Spargo. “I suppose he’s said
+something?”
+
+“Says that the bludgeon is certainly his, and that he brought it from
+South America with him,” announced Rathbury; “but that he doesn’t
+remember seeing it in his rooms for some time, and thinks that it was
+stolen from them.”
+
+“Um!” said Spargo, musingly. “But—how do you know that was the thing
+that Marbury was struck down with?”
+
+Rathbury smiled grimly.
+
+“There’s some of his hair on it—mixed with blood,” he answered. “No
+doubt about that. Well—anything come of your jaunt westward?”
+
+“Yes,” replied Spargo. “Lots!”
+
+“Good?” asked Rathbury.
+
+“Extra good. I’ve found out who Marbury really was.”
+
+“No! Really?”
+
+“No doubt, to my mind. I’m certain of it.”
+
+Rathbury sat down at his desk, watching Spargo with rapt attention.
+
+“And who was he?” he asked.
+
+“John Maitland, once of Market Milcaster,” replied Spargo. “Ex-bank
+manager. Also ex-convict.”
+
+“Ex-convict!”
+
+“Ex-convict. He was sentenced, at Market Milcaster Quarter Sessions, in
+autumn, 1891, to ten years’ penal servitude, for embezzling the bank’s
+money, to the tune of over two hundred thousand pounds. Served his term
+at Dartmoor. Went to Australia as soon, or soon after, he came out.
+That’s who Marbury was—Maitland. Dead—certain!”
+
+Rathbury still stared at his caller.
+
+“Go on!” he said. “Tell all about it, Spargo. Let’s hear every detail.
+I’ll tell you all I know after. But what I know’s nothing to that.”
+
+Spargo told him the whole story of his adventures at Market Milcaster,
+and the detective listened with rapt attention.
+
+“Yes,” he said at the end. “Yes—I don’t think there’s much doubt about
+that. Well, that clears up a lot, doesn’t it?”
+
+Spargo yawned.
+
+“Yes, a whole slate full is wiped off there,” he said. “I haven’t so
+much interest in Marbury, or Maitland now. My interest is all in
+Aylmore.”
+
+Rathbury nodded.
+
+“Yes,” he said. “The thing to find out is—who is Aylmore, or who was
+he, twenty years ago?”
+
+“Your people haven’t found anything out, then?” asked Spargo.
+
+“Nothing beyond the irreproachable history of Mr. Aylmore since he
+returned to this country, a very rich man, some ten years since,”
+answered Rathbury, smiling. “They’ve no previous dates to go on. What
+are you going to do next, Spargo?”
+
+“Seek out that Miss Baylis,” replied Spargo.
+
+“You think you could get something there?” asked Rathbury.
+
+“Look here!” said Spargo. “I don’t believe for a second Aylmore killed
+Marbury. I believe I shall get at the truth by following up what I call
+the Maitland trail. This Miss Baylis must know something—if she’s
+alive. Well, now I’m going to report at the office. Keep in touch with
+me, Rathbury.”
+
+He went on then to the _Watchman_ office, and as he got out of his
+taxi-cab at its door, another cab came up and set down Mr. Aylmore’s
+daughters.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
+THE BLANK PAST
+
+
+Jessie Aylmore came forward to meet Spargo with ready confidence; the
+elder girl hung back diffidently.
+
+“May we speak to you?” said Jessie. “We have come on purpose to speak
+to you. Evelyn didn’t want to come, but I made her come.”
+
+Spargo shook hands silently with Evelyn Aylmore and motioned them both
+to follow him. He took them straight upstairs to his room and bestowed
+them in his easiest chairs before he addressed them.
+
+“I’ve only just got back to town,” he said abruptly. “I was sorry to
+hear the news about your father. That’s what’s brought you here, of
+course. But—I’m afraid I can’t do much.”
+
+“I told you that we had no right to trouble Mr. Spargo, Jessie,” said
+Evelyn Aylmore. “What can he do to help us?”
+
+Jessie shook her head impatiently.
+
+“The _Watchman’s_ about the most powerful paper in London, isn’t it?”
+she said. “And isn’t Mr. Spargo writing all these articles about the
+Marbury case? Mr. Spargo, you must help us!”
+
+Spargo sat down at his desk and began turning over the letters and
+papers which had accumulated during his absence.
+
+“To be absolutely frank with you,” he said, presently, “I don’t see how
+anybody’s going to help, so long as your father keeps up that mystery
+about the past.”
+
+“That,” said Evelyn, quietly, “is exactly what Ronald says, Jessie. But
+we can’t make our father speak, Mr. Spargo. That he is as innocent as
+we are of this terrible crime we are certain, and we don’t know why he
+wouldn’t answer the questions put to him at the inquest. And—we know no
+more than you know or anyone knows, and though I have begged my father
+to speak, he won’t say a word. We saw his danger: Ronald—Mr.
+Breton—told us, and we implored him to tell everything he knew about
+Mr. Marbury. But so far he has simply laughed at the idea that he had
+anything to do with the murder, or could be arrested for it, and now——”
+
+“And now he’s locked up,” said Spargo in his usual matter-of-fact
+fashion. “Well, there are people who have to be saved from themselves,
+you know. Perhaps you’ll have to save your father from the consequences
+of his own—shall we say obstinacy? Now, look here, between ourselves,
+how much do you know about your father’s—past?”
+
+The two sisters looked at each other and then at Spargo.
+
+“Nothing,” said the elder.
+
+“Absolutely nothing!” said the younger.
+
+“Answer a few plain questions,” said Spargo. “I’m not going to print
+your replies, nor make use of them in any way: I’m only asking the
+questions with a desire to help you. Have you any relations in
+England?”
+
+“None that we know of,” replied Evelyn.
+
+“Nobody you could go to for information about the past?” asked Spargo.
+
+“No—nobody!”
+
+Spargo drummed his fingers on his blotting-pad. He was thinking hard.
+
+“How old is your father?” he asked suddenly.
+
+“He was fifty-nine a few weeks ago,” answered Evelyn.
+
+“And how old are you, and how old is your sister?” demanded Spargo.
+
+“I am twenty, and Jessie is nearly nineteen.”
+
+“Where were you born?”
+
+“Both of us at San Gregorio, which is in the San José province of
+Argentina, north of Monte Video.”
+
+“Your father was in business there?”
+
+“He was in business in the export trade, Mr. Spargo. There’s no secret
+about that. He exported all sorts of things to England and to
+France—skins, hides, wools, dried salts, fruit. That’s how he made his
+money.”
+
+“You don’t know how long he’d been there when you were born?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Was he married when he went out there?”
+
+“No, he wasn’t. We do know that. He’s told us the circumstances of his
+marriage, because they were romantic. When he sailed from England to
+Buenos Ayres, he met on the steamer a young lady who, he said, was like
+himself, relationless and nearly friendless. She was going out to
+Argentina as a governess. She and my father fell in love with each
+other, and they were married in Buenos Ayres soon after the steamer
+arrived.”
+
+“And your mother is dead?”
+
+“My mother died before we came to England. I was eight years old, and
+Jessie six, then.”
+
+“And you came to England—how long after that?”
+
+“Two years.”
+
+“So that you’ve been in England ten years. And you know nothing
+whatever of your father’s past beyond what you’ve told me?”
+
+“Nothing—absolutely nothing.”
+
+“Never heard him talk of—you see, according to your account, your
+father was a man of getting on to forty when he went out to Argentina.
+He must have had a career of some sort in this country. Have you never
+heard him speak of his boyhood? Did he never talk of old times, or that
+sort of thing?”
+
+“I never remember hearing my father speak of any period antecedent to
+his marriage,” replied Evelyn.
+
+“I once asked him a question about his childhood.” said Jessie. “He
+answered that his early days had not been very happy ones, and that he
+had done his best to forget them. So I never asked him anything again.”
+
+“So that it really comes to this,” remarked Spargo. “You know nothing
+whatever about your father, his family, his fortunes, his life, beyond
+what you yourselves have observed since you were able to observe?
+That’s about it, isn’t it?”
+
+“I should say that that is exactly it,” answered Evelyn.
+
+“Just so,” said Spargo. “And therefore, as I told your sister the other
+day, the public will say that your father has some dark secret behind
+him, and that Marbury had possession of it, and that your father killed
+him in order to silence him. That isn’t my view. I not only believe
+your father to be absolutely innocent, but I believe that he knows no
+more than a child unborn of Marbury’s murder, and I’m doing my best to
+find out who that murderer was. By the by, since you’ll see all about
+it in tomorrow morning’s _Watchman_, I may as well tell you that I’ve
+found out who Marbury really was. He——”
+
+At this moment Spargo’s door was opened and in walked Ronald Breton. He
+shook his head at sight of the two sisters.
+
+“I thought I should find you here,” he said. “Jessie said she was
+coming to see you, Spargo. I don’t know what good you can do—I don’t
+see what good the most powerful newspaper in the world can do. My
+God!—everything’s about as black as ever it can be. Mr. Aylmore—I’ve
+just come away from him; his solicitor, Stratton, and I have been with
+him for an hour—is obstinate as ever—he will not tell more than he has
+told. Whatever good can you do, Spargo, when he won’t speak about that
+knowledge of Marbury which he must have?”
+
+“Oh, well!” said Spargo. “Perhaps we can give him some information
+about Marbury. Mr. Aylmore has forgotten that it’s not such a difficult
+thing to rake up the past as he seems to think it is. For example, as I
+was just telling these young ladies, I myself have discovered who
+Marbury really was.”
+
+Breton started.
+
+“You have? Without doubt?” he exclaimed.
+
+“Without reasonable doubt. Marbury was an ex-convict.”
+
+Spargo watched the effect of this sudden announcement. The two girls
+showed no sign of astonishment or of unusual curiosity; they received
+the news with as much unconcern as if Spargo had told them that Marbury
+was a famous musician. But Ronald Breton started, and it seemed to
+Spargo that he saw a sense of suspicion dawn in his eyes.
+
+“Marbury—an ex-convict!” he exclaimed. “You mean that?”
+
+“Read your _Watchman_ in the morning,” said Spargo. “You’ll find the
+whole story there—I’m going to write it tonight when you people have
+gone. It’ll make good reading.”
+
+Evelyn and Jessie Aylmore took Spargo’s hint and went away, Spargo
+seeing them to the door with another assurance of his belief in their
+father’s innocence and his determination to hunt down the real
+criminal. Ronald Breton went down with them to the street and saw them
+into a cab, but in another minute he was back in Spargo’s room as
+Spargo had expected. He shut the door carefully behind him and turned
+to Spargo with an eager face.
+
+“I say, Spargo, is that really so?” he asked. “About Marbury being an
+ex-convict?”
+
+“That’s so, Breton. I’ve no more doubt about it than I have that I see
+you. Marbury was in reality one John Maitland, a bank manager, of
+Market Milcaster, who got ten years’ penal servitude in 1891 for
+embezzlement.”
+
+“In 1891? Why—that’s just about the time that Aylmore says he knew
+him!”
+
+“Exactly. And—it just strikes me,” said Spargo, sitting down at his
+desk and making a hurried note, “it just strikes me—didn’t Aylmore say
+he knew Marbury in London?”
+
+“Certainly,” replied Breton. “In London.”
+
+“Um!” mused Spargo. “That’s queer, because Maitland had never been in
+London up to the time of his going to Dartmoor, whatever he may have
+done when he came out of Dartmoor, and, of course, Aylmore had gone to
+South America long before that. Look here, Breton,” he continued,
+aloud, “have you access to Aylmore? Will you, can you, see him before
+he’s brought up at Bow Street tomorrow?”
+
+“Yes,” answered Breton. “I can see him with his solicitor.”
+
+“Then listen,” said Spargo. “Tomorrow morning you’ll find the whole
+story of how I proved Marbury’s identity with Maitland in the
+_Watchman_. Read it as early as you can; get an interview with Aylmore
+as early as you can; make him read it, every word, before he’s brought
+up. Beg him if he values his own safety and his daughters’ peace of
+mind to throw away all that foolish reserve, and to tell all he knows
+about Maitland twenty years ago. He should have done that at first.
+Why, I was asking his daughters some questions before you came in—they
+know absolutely nothing of their father’s history previous to the time
+when they began to understand things! Don’t you see that Aylmore’s
+career, previous to his return to England, is a blank past!”
+
+“I know—I know!” said Breton. “Yes—although I’ve gone there a great
+deal, I never heard Aylmore speak of anything earlier than his
+Argentine experiences. And yet, he must have been getting on when he
+went out there.”
+
+“Thirty-seven or eight, at least,” remarked Spargo. “Well, Aylmore’s
+more or less of a public man, and no public man can keep his life
+hidden nowadays. By the by, how did you get to know the Aylmores?”
+
+“My guardian, Mr. Elphick, and I met them in Switzerland,” answered
+Breton. “We kept up the acquaintance after our return.”
+
+“Mr. Elphick still interesting himself in the Marbury case?” asked
+Spargo.
+
+“Very much so. And so is old Cardlestone, at the foot of whose stairs
+the thing came off. I dined with them last night and they talked of
+little else,” said Breton.
+
+“And their theory—”
+
+“Oh, still the murder for the sake of robbery!” replied Breton. “Old
+Cardlestone is furious that such a thing could have happened at his
+very door. He says that there ought to be a thorough enquiry into every
+tenant of the Temple.”
+
+“Longish business that,” observed Spargo. “Well, run away now, Breton—I
+must write.”
+
+“Shall you be at Bow Street tomorrow morning?” asked Breton as he moved
+to the door. “It’s to be at ten-thirty.”
+
+“No, I shan’t!” replied Spargo. “It’ll only be a remand, and I know
+already just as much as I should hear there. I’ve got something much
+more important to do. But you’ll remember what I asked of you—get
+Aylmore to read my story in the _Watchman_, and beg him to speak out
+and tell all he knows—all!”
+
+And when Breton had gone, Spargo again murmured those last words: “All
+he knows—all!”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
+MISS BAYLIS
+
+
+Next day, a little before noon, Spargo found himself in one of those
+pretentious yet dismal Bayswater squares, which are almost entirely
+given up to the trade, calling, or occupation of the lodging and
+boarding-house keeper. They are very pretentious, those squares, with
+their many-storied houses, their stuccoed frontages, and their
+pilastered and balconied doorways; innocent country folk, coming into
+them from the neighbouring station of Paddington, take them to be the
+residences of the dukes and earls who, of course, live nowhere else but
+in London. They are further encouraged in this belief by the fact that
+young male persons in evening dress are often seen at the doorways in
+more or less elegant attitudes. These, of course, are taken by the
+country folk to be young lords enjoying the air of Bayswater, but
+others, more knowing, are aware that they are Swiss or German waiters
+whose linen might be cleaner.
+
+Spargo gauged the character of the house at which he called as soon as
+the door was opened to him. There was the usual smell of eggs and
+bacon, of fish and chops; the usual mixed and ancient collection of
+overcoats, wraps, and sticks in the hall; the usual sort of parlourmaid
+to answer the bell. And presently, in answer to his enquiries, there
+was the usual type of landlady confronting him, a more than middle-aged
+person who desired to look younger, and made attempts in the way of
+false hair, teeth, and a little rouge, and who wore that somewhat air
+and smile which in its wearer—under these circumstances—always means
+that she is considering whether you will be able to cheat her or
+whether she will be able to see you.
+
+“You wish to see Miss Baylis?” said this person, examining Spargo
+closely. “Miss Baylis does not often see anybody.”
+
+“I hope,” said Spargo politely, “that Miss Baylis is not an invalid?”
+
+“No, she’s not an invalid,” replied the landlady; “but she’s not as
+young as she was, and she’s an objection to strangers. Is it anything I
+can tell her?”
+
+“No,” said Spargo. “But you can, if you please, take her a message from
+me. Will you kindly give her my card, and tell her that I wish to ask
+her a question about John Maitland of Market Milcaster, and that I
+should be much obliged if she would give me a few minutes.”
+
+“Perhaps you will sit down,” said the landlady. She led Spargo into a
+room which opened out upon a garden; in it two or three old ladies,
+evidently inmates, were sitting. The landlady left Spargo to sit with
+them and to amuse himself by watching them knit or sew or read the
+papers, and he wondered if they always did these things every day, and
+if they would go on doing them until a day would come when they would
+do them no more, and he was beginning to feel very dreary when the door
+opened and a woman entered whom Spargo, after one sharp glance at her,
+decided to be a person who was undoubtedly out of the common. And as
+she slowly walked across the room towards him he let his first glance
+lengthen into a look of steady inspection.
+
+The woman whom Spargo thus narrowly inspected was of very remarkable
+appearance. She was almost masculine; she stood nearly six feet in
+height; she was of a masculine gait and tread, and spare, muscular, and
+athletic. What at once struck Spargo about her face was the strange
+contrast between her dark eyes and her white hair; the hair, worn in
+abundant coils round a well-shaped head, was of the most snowy
+whiteness; the eyes of a real coal-blackness, as were also the eyebrows
+above them. The features were well-cut and of a striking firmness; the
+jaw square and determined. And Spargo’s first thought on taking all
+this in was that Miss Baylis seemed to have been fitted by Nature to be
+a prison wardress, or the matron of a hospital, or the governess of an
+unruly girl, and he began to wonder if he would ever manage to extract
+anything out of those firmly-locked lips.
+
+Miss Baylis, on her part, looked Spargo over as if she was half-minded
+to order him to instant execution. And Spargo was so impressed by her
+that he made a profound bow and found a difficulty in finding his
+tongue.
+
+“Mr. Spargo?” she said in a deep voice which seemed peculiarly suited
+to her. “Of, I see, the _Watchman_? You wish to speak to me?”
+
+Spargo again bowed in silence. She signed him to the window near which
+they were standing.
+
+“Open the casement, if you please,” she commanded him. “We will walk in
+the garden. This is not private.”
+
+Spargo obediently obeyed her orders; she swept through the opened
+window and he followed her. It was not until they had reached the
+bottom of the garden that she spoke again.
+
+“I understand that you desire to ask me some question about John
+Maitland, of Market Milcaster?” she said. “Before you put it. I must
+ask you a question. Do you wish any reply I may give you for
+publication?”
+
+“Not without your permission,” replied Spargo. “I should not think of
+publishing anything you may tell me except with your express
+permission.”
+
+She looked at him gloomily, seemed to gather an impression of his good
+faith, and nodded her head.
+
+“In that case,” she said, “what do you want to ask?”
+
+“I have lately had reason for making certain enquiries about John
+Maitland,” answered Spargo. “I suppose you read the newspapers and
+possibly the _Watchman_, Miss Baylis?”
+
+But Miss Baylis shook her head.
+
+“I read no newspapers,” she said. “I have no interest in the affairs of
+the world. I have work which occupies all my time: I give my whole
+devotion to it.”
+
+“Then you have not recently heard of what is known as the Marbury
+case—a case of a man who was found murdered?” asked Spargo.
+
+“I have not,” she answered. “I am not likely to hear such things.”
+
+Spargo suddenly realized that the power of the Press is not quite as
+great nor as far-reaching as very young journalists hold it to be, and
+that there actually are, even in London, people who can live quite
+cheerfully without a newspaper. He concealed his astonishment and went
+on.
+
+“Well,” he said, “I believe that the murdered man, known to the police
+as John Marbury, was, in reality, your brother-in-law, John Maitland.
+In fact, Miss Baylis, I’m absolutely certain of it!”
+
+He made this declaration with some emphasis, and looked at his stern
+companion to see how she was impressed. But Miss Baylis showed no sign
+of being impressed.
+
+“I can quite believe that, Mr. Spargo,” she said coldly. “It is no
+surprise to me that John Maitland should come to such an end. He was a
+thoroughly bad and unprincipled man, who brought the most terrible
+disgrace on those who were, unfortunately, connected with him. He was
+likely to die a bad man’s death.”
+
+“I may ask you a few questions about him?” suggested Spargo in his most
+insinuating manner.
+
+“You may, so long as you do not drag my name into the papers,” she
+replied. “But pray, how do you know that I have the sad shame of being
+John Maitland’s sister-in-law?”
+
+“I found that out at Market Milcaster,” said Spargo. “The photographer
+told me—Cooper.”
+
+“Ah!” she exclaimed.
+
+“The questions I want to ask are very simple,” said Spargo. “But your
+answers may materially help me. You remember Maitland going to prison,
+of course?”
+
+Miss Baylis laughed—a laugh of scorn.
+
+“Could I ever forget it?” she exclaimed.
+
+“Did you ever visit him in prison?” asked Spargo.
+
+“Visit him in prison!” she said indignantly. “Visits in prison are to
+be paid to those who deserve them, who are repentant; not to scoundrels
+who are hardened in their sin!”
+
+“All right. Did you ever see him after he left prison?”
+
+“I saw him, for he forced himself upon me—I could not help myself. He
+was in my presence before I was aware that he had even been released.”
+
+“What did he come for?” asked Spargo.
+
+“To ask for his son—who had been in my charge,” she replied.
+
+“That’s a thing I want to know about,” said Spargo. “Do you know what a
+certain lot of people in Market Milcaster say to this day, Miss
+Baylis?—they say that you were in at the game with Maitland; that you
+had a lot of the money placed in your charge; that when Maitland went
+to prison, you took the child away, first to Brighton, then
+abroad—disappeared with him—and that you made a home ready for Maitland
+when he came out. That’s what’s said by some people in Market
+Milcaster.”
+
+Miss Baylis’s stern lips curled.
+
+“People in Market Milcaster!” she exclaimed. “All the people I ever
+knew in Market Milcaster had about as many brains between them as that
+cat on the wall there. As for making a home for John Maitland, I would
+have seen him die in the gutter, of absolute want, before I would have
+given him a crust of dry bread!”
+
+“You appear to have a terrible dislike of this man,” observed Spargo,
+astonished at her vehemence.
+
+“I had—and I have,” she answered. “He tricked my sister into a marriage
+with him when he knew that she would rather have married an honest man
+who worshipped her; he treated her with quiet, infernal cruelty; he
+robbed her and me of the small fortunes our father left us.”
+
+“Ah!” said Spargo. “Well, so you say Maitland came to you, when he came
+out of prison, to ask for his boy. Did he take the boy?”
+
+“No—the boy was dead.”
+
+“Dead, eh? Then I suppose Maitland did not stop long with you?”
+
+Miss Baylis laughed her scornful laugh.
+
+“I showed him the door!” she said.
+
+“Well, did he tell you that he was going to Australia?” enquired
+Spargo.
+
+“I should not have listened to anything that he told me, Mr. Spargo,”
+she answered.
+
+“Then, in short,” said Spargo, “you never heard of him again?”
+
+“I never heard of him again,” she declared passionately, “and I only
+hope that what you tell me is true, and that Marbury really was
+Maitland!”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
+MOTHER GUTCH
+
+
+Spargo, having exhausted the list of questions which he had thought out
+on his way to Bayswater, was about to take his leave of Miss Baylis,
+when a new idea suddenly occurred to him, and he turned back to that
+formidable lady.
+
+“I’ve just thought of something else,” he said. “I told you that I’m
+certain Marbury was Maitland, and that he came to a sad end—murdered.”
+
+“And I’ve told you,” she replied scornfully, “that in my opinion no end
+could be too bad for him.”
+
+“Just so—I understand you,” said Spargo. “But I didn’t tell you that he
+was not only murdered but robbed—robbed of probably a good deal.
+There’s good reason to believe that he had securities, bank notes,
+loose diamonds, and other things on him to the value of a large amount.
+He’d several thousand pounds when he left Coolumbidgee, in New South
+Wales, where he’d lived quietly for some years.”
+
+Miss Baylis smiled sourly.
+
+“What’s all this to me?” she asked.
+
+“Possibly nothing. But you see, that money, those securities, may be
+recovered. And as the boy you speak of is dead, there surely must be
+somebody who’s entitled to the lot. It’s worth having, Miss Baylis, and
+there’s strong belief on the part of the police that it will turn up.”
+
+This was a bit of ingenious bluff on the part of Spargo; he watched its
+effect with keen eyes. But Miss Baylis was adamant, and she looked as
+scornful as ever.
+
+“I say again what’s all that to me?” she exclaimed.
+
+“Well, but hadn’t the dead boy any relatives on his father’s side?”
+asked Spargo. “I know you’re his aunt on the mother’s side, and as
+you’re indifferent perhaps, I can find some on the other side. It’s
+very easy to find all these things out, you know.”
+
+Miss Baylis, who had begun to stalk back to the house in gloomy and
+majestic fashion, and had let Spargo see plainly that this part of the
+interview was distasteful to her, suddenly paused in her stride and
+glared at the young journalist.
+
+“Easy to find all these things out?” she repeated.
+
+Spargo caught, or fancied he caught, a note of anxiety in her tone. He
+was quick to turn his fancy to practical purpose.
+
+“Oh, easy enough!” he said. “I could find out all about Maitland’s
+family through that boy. Quite, quite easily!”
+
+Miss Baylis had stopped now, and stood glaring at him. “How?” she
+demanded.
+
+“I’ll tell you,” said Spargo with cheerful alacrity. “It is, of course,
+the easiest thing in the world to trace all about his short life. I
+suppose I can find the register of his birth at Market Milcaster, and
+you, of course, will tell me where he died. By the by, when did he die,
+Miss Baylis?”
+
+But Miss Baylis was going on again to the house.
+
+“I shall tell you nothing more,” she said angrily. “I’ve told you too
+much already, and I believe all you’re here for is to get some news for
+your paper. But I will, at any rate tell you this—when Maitland went to
+prison his child would have been defenceless but for me; he’d have had
+to go to the workhouse but for me; he hadn’t a single relation in the
+world but me, on either father’s or mother’s side. And even at my age,
+old woman as I am, I’d rather beg my bread in the street, I’d rather
+starve and die, than touch a penny piece that had come from John
+Maitland! That’s all.”
+
+Then without further word, without offering to show Spargo the way out,
+she marched in at the open window and disappeared. And Spargo, knowing
+no other way, was about to follow her when he heard a sudden rustling
+sound in the shadow by which they had stood, and the next moment a
+queer, cracked, horrible voice, suggesting all sorts of things, said
+distinctly and yet in a whisper:
+
+“Young man!”
+
+Spargo turned and stared at the privet hedge behind him. It was thick
+and bushy, and in its full summer green, but it seemed to him that he
+saw a nondescript shape behind. “Who’s there?” he demanded. “Somebody
+listening?”
+
+There was a curious cackle of laughter from behind the hedge; then the
+cracked, husky voice spoke again.
+
+“Young man, don’t you move or look as if you were talking to anybody.
+Do you know where the ‘King of Madagascar’ public-house is in this
+quarter of the town, young man?”
+
+“No!” answered Spargo. “Certainly not!”
+
+“Well, anybody’ll tell you when you get outside, young man,” continued
+the queer voice of the unseen person. “Go there, and wait at the corner
+by the ‘King of Madagascar,’ and I’ll come there to you at the end of
+half an hour. Then I’ll tell you something, young man—I’ll tell you
+something. Now run away, young man, run away to the ‘King of
+Madagascar’—I’m coming!”
+
+The voice ended in low, horrible cachinnation which made Spargo feel
+queer. But he was young enough to be in love with adventure, and he
+immediately turned on his heel without so much as a glance at the
+privet hedge, and went across the garden and through the house, and let
+himself out at the door. And at the next corner of the square he met a
+policeman and asked him if he knew where the “King of Madagascar” was.
+
+“First to the right, second to the left,” answered the policeman
+tersely. “You can’t miss it anywhere round there—it’s a landmark.”
+
+And Spargo found the landmark—a great, square-built tavern—easily, and
+he waited at a corner of it wondering what he was going to see, and
+intensely curious about the owner of the queer voice, with all its
+suggestions of he knew not what. And suddenly there came up to him an
+old woman and leered at him in a fashion that made him suddenly realize
+how dreadful old age may be.
+
+Spargo had never seen such an old woman as this in his life. She was
+dressed respectably, better than respectably. Her gown was good; her
+bonnet was smart; her smaller fittings were good. But her face was
+evil; it showed unmistakable signs of a long devotion to the bottle;
+the old eyes leered and ogled, the old lips were wicked. Spargo felt a
+sense of disgust almost amounting to nausea, but he was going to hear
+what the old harridan had to say and he tried not to look what he felt.
+
+“Well?” he said, almost roughly. “Well?”
+
+“Well, young man, there you are,” said his new acquaintance. “Let us go
+inside, young man; there’s a quiet little place where a lady can sit
+and take her drop of gin—I’ll show you. And if you’re good to me, I’ll
+tell you something about that cat that you were talking to just now.
+But you’ll give me a little matter to put in my pocket, young man? Old
+ladies like me have a right to buy little comforts, you know, little
+comforts.”
+
+Spargo followed this extraordinary person into a small parlour within;
+the attendant who came in response to a ring showed no astonishment at
+her presence; he also seemed to know exactly what she required, which
+was a certain brand of gin, sweetened, and warm. And Spargo watched her
+curiously as with shaking hand she pushed up the veil which hid little
+of her wicked old face, and lifted the glass to her mouth with a zest
+which was not thirst but pure greed of liquor. Almost instantly he saw
+a new light steal into her eyes, and she laughed in a voice that grew
+clearer with every sound she made.
+
+“Ah, young man!” she said with a confidential nudge of the elbow that
+made Spargo long to get up and fly. “I wanted that! It’s done me good.
+When I’ve finished that, you’ll pay for another for me—and perhaps
+another? They’ll do me still more good. And you’ll give me a little
+matter of money, won’t you, young man?”
+
+“Not till I know what I’m giving it for,” replied Spargo.
+
+“You’ll be giving it because I’m going to tell you that if it’s made
+worth my while I can tell you, or somebody that sent you, more about
+Jane Baylis than anybody in the world. I’m not going to tell you that
+now, young man—I’m sure you don’t carry in your pocket what I shall
+want for my secret, not you, by the look of you! I’m only going to show
+you that I have the secret. Eh?”
+
+“Who are you?” asked Spargo.
+
+The woman leered and chuckled. “What are you going to give me, young
+man?” she asked.
+
+Spargo put his fingers in his pocket and pulled out two
+half-sovereigns.
+
+“Look here,” he said, showing his companion the coins, “if you can tell
+me anything of importance you shall have these. But no trifling, now.
+And no wasting of time. If you have anything to tell, out with it!”
+
+The woman stretched out a trembling, claw-like hand.
+
+“But let me hold one of those, young man!” she implored. “Let me hold
+one of the beautiful bits of gold. I shall tell you all the better if I
+hold one of them. Let me—there’s a good young gentleman.”
+
+Spargo gave her one of the coins, and resigned himself to his fate,
+whatever it might be.
+
+“You won’t get the other unless you tell something,” he said. “Who are
+you, anyway?”
+
+The woman, who had begun mumbling and chuckling over the
+half-sovereign, grinned horribly.
+
+“At the boarding-house yonder, young man, they call me Mother Gutch,”
+she answered; “but my proper name is Mrs. Sabina Gutch, and once upon a
+time I was a good-looking young woman. And when my husband died I went
+to Jane Baylis as housekeeper, and when she retired from that and came
+to live in that boarding-house where we live now, she was forced to
+bring me with her and to keep me. Why had she to do that, young man?”
+
+“Heaven knows!” answered Spargo.
+
+“Because I’ve got a hold on her, young man—I’ve got a secret of hers,”
+continued Mother Gutch. “She’d be scared to death if she knew I’d been
+behind that hedge and had heard what she said to you, and she’d be more
+than scared if she knew that you and I were here, talking. But she’s
+grown hard and near with me, and she won’t give me a penny to get a
+drop of anything with, and an old woman like me has a right to her
+little comforts, and if you’ll buy the secret, young man, I’ll split on
+her, there and then, when you pay the money.”
+
+“Before I talk about buying any secret,” said Spargo, “you’ll have to
+prove to me that you’ve a secret to sell that’s worth my buying.”
+
+“And I will prove it!” said Mother Gutch with sudden fierceness. “Touch
+the bell, and let me have another glass, and then I’ll tell you. Now,”
+she went on, more quietly—Spargo noticed that the more she drank, the
+more rational she became, and that her nerves seemed to gain strength
+and her whole appearance to be improved—“now, you came to her to find
+out about her brother-in-law, Maitland, that went to prison, didn’t
+you?”
+
+“Well?” demanded Spargo.
+
+“And about that boy of his?” she continued.
+
+“You heard all that was said,” answered Spargo. “I’m waiting to hear
+what you have to say.”
+
+But Mother Gutch was resolute in having her own way. She continued her
+questions:
+
+“And she told you that Maitland came and asked for the boy, and that
+she told him the boy was dead, didn’t she?” she went on.
+
+“Well?” said Spargo despairingly. “She did. What then?”
+
+Mother Gutch took an appreciative pull at her glass and smiled
+knowingly. “What then?” she chuckled. “All lies, young man, the boy
+isn’t dead—any more than I am. And my secret is—”
+
+“Well?” demanded Spargo impatiently. “What is it?”
+
+“This!” answered Mother Gutch, digging her companion in the ribs, “I
+know what she did with him!”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
+REVELATIONS
+
+
+Spargo turned on his disreputable and dissolute companion with all his
+journalistic energies and instincts roused. He had not been sure, since
+entering the “King of Madagascar,” that he was going to hear anything
+material to the Middle Temple Murder; he had more than once feared that
+this old gin-drinking harridan was deceiving him, for the purpose of
+extracting drink and money from him. But now, at the mere prospect of
+getting important information from her, he forgot all about Mother
+Gutch’s unfortunate propensities, evil eyes, and sodden face; he only
+saw in her somebody who could tell him something. He turned on her
+eagerly.
+
+“You say that John Maitland’s son didn’t die!” he exclaimed.
+
+“The boy did not die,” replied Mother Gutch.
+
+“And that you know where he is?” asked Spargo.
+
+Mother Gutch shook her head.
+
+“I didn’t say that I know where he is, young man,” she replied. “I said
+I knew what she did with him.”
+
+“What, then?” demanded Spargo.
+
+Mother Gutch drew herself up in a vast assumption of dignity, and
+favoured Spargo with a look.
+
+“That’s the secret, young man,” she said. “I’m willing to sell that
+secret, but not for two half-sovereigns and two or three drops of cold
+gin. If Maitland left all that money you told Jane Baylis of, when I
+was listening to you from behind the hedge, my secret’s worth
+something.”
+
+Spargo suddenly remembered his bit of bluff to Miss Baylis. Here was an
+unexpected result of it.
+
+“Nobody but me can help you to trace Maitland’s boy,” continued Mother
+Gutch, “and I shall expect to be paid accordingly. That’s plain
+language, young man.”
+
+Spargo considered the situation in silence for a minute or two. Could
+this wretched, bibulous old woman really be in possession of a secret
+which would lead to the solving of the mystery of the Middle Temple
+Murder? Well, it would be a fine thing for the _Watchman_ if the
+clearing up of everything came through one of its men. And the
+_Watchman_ was noted for being generous even to extravagance in laying
+out money on all sorts of objects: it had spent money like water on
+much less serious matters than this.
+
+“How much do you want for your secret?” he suddenly asked, turning to
+his companion.
+
+Mother Gutch began to smooth out a pleat in her gown. It was really
+wonderful to Spargo to find how very sober and normal this old harridan
+had become; he did not understand that her nerves had been all a-quiver
+and on edge when he first met her, and that a resort to her favourite
+form of alcohol in liberal quantity had calmed and quickened them;
+secretly he was regarding her with astonishment as the most
+extraordinary old person he had ever met, and he was almost afraid of
+her as he waited for her decision. At last Mother Gutch spoke.
+
+“Well, young man,” she said, “having considered matters, and having a
+right to look well to myself, I think that what I should prefer to have
+would be one of those annuities. A nice, comfortable annuity, paid
+weekly—none of your monthlies or quarterlies, but regular and punctual,
+every Saturday morning. Or Monday morning, as was convenient to the
+parties concerned—but punctual and regular. I know a good many ladies
+in my sphere of life as enjoys annuities, and it’s a great comfort to
+have ’em paid weekly.”
+
+It occurred to Spargo that Mrs. Gutch would probably get rid of her
+weekly dole on the day it was paid, whether that day happened to be
+Monday or Saturday, but that, after all, was no concern of his, so he
+came back to first principles.
+
+“Even now you haven’t said how much,” he remarked.
+
+“Three pound a week,” replied Mother Gutch. “And cheap, too!”
+
+Spargo thought hard for two minutes. The secret might—might!—lead to
+something big. This wretched old woman would probably drink herself to
+death within a year or two. Anyhow, a few hundreds of pounds was
+nothing to the _Watchman_. He glanced at his watch. At that hour—for
+the next hour—the great man of the _Watchman_ would be at the office.
+He jumped to his feet, suddenly resolved and alert.
+
+“Here, I’ll take you to see my principals,” he said. “We’ll run along
+in a taxi-cab.”
+
+“With all the pleasure in the world, young man,” replied Mother Gutch;
+“when you’ve given me that other half-sovereign. As for principals, I’d
+far rather talk business with masters than with men—though I mean no
+disrespect to you.”
+
+Spargo, feeling that he was in for it, handed over the second
+half-sovereign, and busied himself in ordering a taxi-cab. But when
+that came round he had to wait while Mrs. Gutch consumed a third glass
+of gin and purchased a flask of the same beverage to put in her pocket.
+At last he got her off, and in due course to the _Watchman_ office,
+where the hall-porter and the messenger boys stared at her in
+amazement, well used as they were to seeing strange folk, and he got
+her to his own room, and locked her in, and then he sought the presence
+of the mighty.
+
+What Spargo said to his editor and to the great man who controlled the
+fortunes and workings of the _Watchman_ he never knew. It was probably
+fortunate for him that they were both thoroughly conversant with the
+facts of the Middle Temple Murder, and saw that there might be an
+advantage in securing the revelations of which Spargo had got the
+conditional promise. At any rate, they accompanied Spargo to his room,
+intent on seeing, hearing and bargaining with the lady he had locked up
+there.
+
+Spargo’s room smelt heavily of unsweetened gin, but Mother Gutch was
+soberer than ever. She insisted upon being introduced to proprietor and
+editor in due and proper form, and in discussing terms with them before
+going into any further particulars. The editor was all for temporizing
+with her until something could be done to find out what likelihood of
+truth there was in her, but the proprietor, after sizing her up in his
+own shrewd fashion, took his two companions out of the room.
+
+“We’ll hear what the old woman has to say on her own terms,” he said.
+“She may have something to tell that is really of the greatest
+importance in this case: she certainly has something to tell. And, as
+Spargo says, she’ll probably drink herself to death in about as short a
+time as possible. Come back—let’s hear her story.” So they returned to
+the gin-scented atmosphere, and a formal document was drawn out by
+which the proprietor of the _Watchman_ bound himself to pay Mrs. Gutch
+the sum of three pounds a week for life (Mrs. Gutch insisting on the
+insertion of the words “every Saturday morning, punctual and regular”)
+and then Mrs. Gutch was invited to tell her tale. And Mrs. Gutch
+settled herself to do so, and Spargo prepared to take it down, word for
+word.
+
+“Which the story, as that young man called it, is not so long as a
+monkey’s tail nor so short as a Manx cat’s, gentlemen,” said Mrs.
+Gutch; “but full of meat as an egg. Now, you see, when that Maitland
+affair at Market Milcaster came off, I was housekeeper to Miss Jane
+Baylis at Brighton. She kept a boarding-house there, in Kemp Town, and
+close to the sea-front, and a very good thing she made out of it, and
+had saved a nice bit, and having, like her sister, Mrs. Maitland, had a
+little fortune left her by her father, as was at one time a publican
+here in London, she had a good lump of money. And all that money was in
+this here Maitland’s hands, every penny. I very well remember the day
+when the news came about that affair of Maitland robbing the bank. Miss
+Baylis, she was like a mad thing when she saw it in the paper, and
+before she’d seen it an hour she was off to Market Milcaster. I went up
+to the station with her, and she told me then before she got in the
+train that Maitland had all her fortune and her savings, and her
+sister’s, his wife’s, too, and that she feared all would be lost.”
+
+“Mrs. Maitland was then dead,” observed Spargo without looking up from
+his writing-block.
+
+“She was, young man, and a good thing, too,” continued Mrs. Gutch.
+“Well, away went Miss Baylis, and no more did I hear or see for nearly
+a week, and then back she comes, and brings a little boy with her—which
+was Maitland’s. And she told me that night that she’d lost every penny
+she had in the world, and that her sister’s money, what ought to have
+been the child’s, was gone, too, and she said her say about Maitland.
+However, she saw well to that child; nobody could have seen better. And
+very soon after, when Maitland was sent to prison for ten years, her
+and me talked about things. ‘What’s the use,’ says I to her, ‘of your
+letting yourself get so fond of that child, and looking after it as you
+do, and educating it, and so on?’ I says. ‘Why not?’ says she. ‘’Tisn’t
+yours,’ I says, ‘you haven’t no right to it,’ I says. ‘As soon as ever
+its father comes out,’ says I,’ he’ll come and claim it, and you can’t
+do nothing to stop him.’ Well, gentlemen, if you’ll believe me, never
+did I see a woman look as she did when I says all that. And she up and
+swore that Maitland should never see or touch the child again—not under
+no circumstances whatever.”
+
+Mrs. Gutch paused to take a little refreshment from her pocket-flask,
+with an apologetic remark as to the state of her heart. She resumed,
+presently, apparently refreshed.
+
+“Well, gentlemen, that notion, about Maitland’s taking the child away
+from her seemed to get on her mind, and she used to talk to me at times
+about it, always saying the same thing—that Maitland should never have
+him. And one day she told me she was going to London to see lawyers
+about it, and she went, and she came back, seeming more satisfied, and
+a day or two afterwards, there came a gentleman who looked like a
+lawyer, and he stopped a day or two, and he came again and again, until
+one day she came to me, and she says, ‘You don’t know who that
+gentleman is that’s come so much lately?’ she says. ‘Not I,’ I says,
+‘unless he’s after you.’ ‘After me!’ she says, tossing her head:
+‘That’s the gentleman that ought to have married my poor sister if that
+scoundrel Maitland hadn’t tricked her into throwing him over!’ ‘You
+don’t say so!’ I says. ‘Then by rights he ought to have been the
+child’s pa!’ ‘He’s going to be a father to the boy,’ she says. ‘He’s
+going to take him and educate him in the highest fashion, and make a
+gentleman of him,’ she says, ‘for his mother’s sake.’ ‘Mercy on us!’
+says I. ‘What’ll Maitland say when he comes for him?’ ‘Maitland’ll
+never come for him,’ she says, ‘for I’m going to leave here, and the
+boy’ll be gone before then. This is all being done,’ she says, ‘so that
+the child’ll never know his father’s shame—he’ll never know who his
+father was.’ And true enough, the boy was taken away, but Maitland came
+before she’d gone, and she told him the child was dead, and I never see
+a man so cut up. However, it wasn’t no concern of mine. And so there’s
+so much of the secret, gentlemen, and I would like to know if I ain’t
+giving good value.”
+
+“Very good,” said the proprietor. “Go on.” But Spargo intervened.
+
+“Did you ever hear the name of the gentleman who took the boy away?” he
+asked.
+
+“Yes, I did,” replied Mrs. Gutch. “Of course I did. Which it was
+Elphick.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
+STILL SILENT
+
+
+Spargo dropped his pen on the desk before him with a sharp clatter that
+made Mrs. Gutch jump. A steady devotion to the bottle had made her
+nerves to be none of the strongest, and she looked at the startler of
+them with angry malevolence.
+
+“Don’t do that again, young man!” she exclaimed sharply. “I can’t
+a-bear to be jumped out of my skin, and it’s bad manners. I observed
+that the gentleman’s name was Elphick.”
+
+Spargo contrived to get in a glance at his proprietor and his editor—a
+glance which came near to being a wink.
+
+“Just so—Elphick,” he said. “A law gentleman I think you said, Mrs.
+Gutch?”
+
+“I said,” answered Mrs. Gutch, “as how he looked like a lawyer
+gentleman. And since you’re so particular, young man, though I wasn’t
+addressing you but your principals, he was a lawyer gentleman. One of
+the sort that wears wigs and gowns—ain’t I seen his picture in Jane
+Baylis’s room at the boarding-house where you saw her this morning?”
+
+“Elderly man?” asked Spargo.
+
+“Elderly he will be now,” replied the informant; “but when he took the
+boy away he was a middle-aged man. About his age,” she added, pointing
+to the editor in a fashion which made that worthy man wince and the
+proprietor desire to laugh unconsumedly; “and not so very unlike him
+neither, being one as had no hair on his face.”
+
+“Ah!” said Spargo. “And where did this Mr. Elphick take the boy, Mrs.
+Gutch?”
+
+But Mrs. Gutch shook her head.
+
+“Ain’t no idea,” she said. “He took him. Then, as I told you, Maitland
+came, and Jane Baylis told him that the boy was dead. And after that
+she never even told me anything about the boy. She kept a tight tongue.
+Once or twice I asked her, and she says, ‘Never you mind,’ she says;
+‘he’s all right for life, if he lives to be as old as Methusalem.’ And
+she never said more, and I never said more. But,” continued Mrs. Gutch,
+whose pocket-flask was empty, and who began to wipe tears away, “she’s
+treated me hard has Jane Baylis, never allowing me a little comfort
+such as a lady of my age should have, and when I hears the two of you
+a-talking this morning the other side of that privet hedge, thinks I,
+‘Now’s the time to have my knife into you, my fine madam!’ And I hope I
+done it.”
+
+Spargo looked at the editor and the proprietor, nodding his head
+slightly. He meant them to understand that he had got all he wanted
+from Mother Gutch.
+
+“What are you going to do, Mrs. Gutch, when you leave here?” he asked.
+“You shall be driven straight back to Bayswater, if you like.”
+
+“Which I shall be obliged for, young man,” said Mrs. Gutch, “and
+likewise for the first week of the annuity, and will call every
+Saturday for the same at eleven punctual, or can be posted to me on a
+Friday, whichever is agreeable to you gentlemen. And having my first
+week in my purse, and being driven to Bayswater, I shall take my boxes
+and go to a friend of mine where I shall be hearty welcome, shaking the
+dust of my feet off against Jane Baylis and where I’ve been living with
+her.”
+
+“Yes, but, Mrs. Gutch,” said Spargo, with some anxiety, “if you go back
+there tonight, you’ll be very careful not to tell Miss Baylis that
+you’ve been here and told us all this?”
+
+Mrs. Gutch rose, dignified and composed.
+
+“Young man,” she said, “you mean well, but you ain’t used to dealing
+with ladies. I can keep my tongue as still as anybody when I like. I
+wouldn’t tell Jane Baylis my affairs—my new affairs, gentlemen, thanks
+to you—not for two annuities, paid twice a week!”
+
+“Take Mrs. Gutch downstairs, Spargo, and see her all right, and then
+come to my room,” said the editor. “And don’t you forget, Mrs.
+Gutch—keep a quiet tongue in your head—no more talk—or there’ll be no
+annuities on Saturday mornings.”
+
+So Spargo took Mother Gutch to the cashier’s department and paid her
+her first week’s money, and he got her a taxi-cab, and paid for it, and
+saw her depart, and then he went to the editor’s room, strangely
+thoughtful. The editor and the proprietor were talking, but they
+stopped when Spargo entered and looked at him eagerly. “I think we’ve
+done it,” said Spargo quietly.
+
+“What, precisely, have we found out?” asked the editor.
+
+“A great deal more than I’d anticipated,” answered Spargo, “and I don’t
+know what fields it doesn’t open out. If you look back, you’ll remember
+that the only thing found on Marbury’s body was a scrap of grey paper
+on which was a name and address—Ronald Breton, King’s Bench Walk.”
+
+“Well?”
+
+“Breton is a young barrister. Also he writes a bit—I have accepted two
+or three articles of his for our literary page.”
+
+“Well?”
+
+“Further, he is engaged to Miss Aylmore, the eldest daughter of
+Aylmore, the Member of Parliament who has been charged at Bow Street
+today with the murder of Marbury.”
+
+“I know. Well, what then, Spargo?”
+
+“But the most important matter,” continued Spargo, speaking very
+deliberately, “is this—that is, taking that old woman’s statement to be
+true, as I personally believe it is—that Breton, as he has told me
+himself (I have seen a good deal of him) was brought up by a guardian.
+That guardian is Mr. Septimus Elphick, the barrister.”
+
+The proprietor and the editor looked at each other. Their faces wore
+the expression of men thinking on the same lines and arriving at the
+same conclusion. And the proprietor suddenly turned on Spargo with a
+sharp interrogation: “You think then——”
+
+Spargo nodded.
+
+“I think that Mr. Septimus Elphick is the Elphick, and that Breton is
+the young Maitland of whom Mrs. Gutch has been talking,” he answered.
+
+The editor got up, thrust his hands in his pockets, and began to pace
+the room.
+
+“If that’s so,” he said, “if that’s so, the mystery deepens. What do
+you propose to do, Spargo?”
+
+“I think,” said Spargo, slowly, “I think that without telling him
+anything of what we have learnt, I should like to see young Breton and
+get an introduction from him to Mr. Elphick. I can make a good excuse
+for wanting an interview with him. If you will leave it in my hands—”
+
+“Yes, yes!” said the proprietor, waving a hand. “Leave it entirely in
+Spargo’s hands.”
+
+“Keep me informed,” said the editor. “Do what you think. It strikes me
+you’re on the track.”
+
+Spargo left their presence, and going back to his own room, still
+faintly redolent of the personality of Mrs. Gutch, got hold of the
+reporter who had been present at Bow Street when Aylmore was brought up
+that morning. There was nothing new; the authorities had merely asked
+for another remand. So far as the reporter knew, Aylmore had said
+nothing fresh to anybody.
+
+Spargo went round to the Temple and up to Ronald Breton’s chambers. He
+found the young barrister just preparing to leave, and looking
+unusually grave and thoughtful. At sight of Spargo he turned back from
+his outer door, beckoned the journalist to follow him, and led him into
+an inner room.
+
+“I say, Spargo!” he said, as he motioned his visitor to take a chair.
+“This is becoming something more than serious. You know what you told
+me to do yesterday as regards Aylmore?”
+
+“To get him to tell all?—Yes,” said Spargo.
+
+Breton shook his head.
+
+“Stratton—his solicitor, you know—and I saw him this morning before the
+police-court proceedings,” he continued. “I told him of my talk with
+you; I even went as far as to tell him that his daughters had been to
+the _Watchman_ office. Stratton and I both begged him to take your
+advice and tell all, everything, no matter at what cost to his private
+feelings. We pointed out to him the serious nature of the evidence
+against him; how he had damaged himself by not telling the whole truth
+at once; how he had certainly done a great deal to excite suspicion
+against himself; how, as the evidence stands at present, any jury could
+scarcely do less than convict him. And it was all no good, Spargo!”
+
+“He won’t say anything?”
+
+“He’ll say no more. He was adamant. ‘I told the entire truth in respect
+to my dealings with Marbury on the night he met his death at the
+inquest,’ he said, over and over again, ‘and I shall say nothing
+further on any consideration. If the law likes to hang an innocent man
+on such evidence as that, let it!’ And he persisted in that until we
+left him. Spargo, I don’t know what’s to be done.”
+
+“And nothing happened at the police-court?”
+
+“Nothing—another remand. Stratton and I saw Aylmore again before he was
+removed. He left us with a sort of sardonic remark—‘If you all want to
+prove me innocent,’ he said, ‘find the guilty man.’”
+
+“Well, there was a tremendous lot of common sense in that,” said
+Spargo.
+
+“Yes, of course, but how, how, how is it going to be done?” exclaimed
+Breton. “Are you any nearer—is Rathbury any nearer? Is there the
+slightest clue that will fasten the guilt on anybody else?”
+
+Spargo gave no answer to these questions. He remained silent a while,
+apparently thinking.
+
+“Was Rathbury in court?” he suddenly asked.
+
+“He was,” replied Breton. “He was there with two or three other men who
+I suppose were detectives, and seemed to be greatly interested in
+Aylmore.”
+
+“If I don’t see Rathbury tonight I’ll see him in the morning,” said
+Spargo. He rose as if to go, but after lingering a moment, sat down
+again. “Look here,” he continued, “I don’t know how this thing stands
+in law, but would it be a very weak case against Aylmore if the
+prosecution couldn’t show some motive for his killing Marbury?”
+
+Breton smiled.
+
+“There’s no necessity to prove motive in murder,” he said. “But I’ll
+tell you what, Spargo—if the prosecution can show that Aylmore had a
+motive for getting rid of Marbury, if they could prove that it was to
+Aylmore’s advantage to silence him—why, then, I don’t think he’s a
+chance.”
+
+“I see. But so far no motive, no reason for his killing Marbury has
+been shown.”
+
+“I know of none.”
+
+Spargo rose and moved to the door.
+
+“Well, I’m off,” he said. Then, as if he suddenly recollected
+something, he turned back. “Oh, by the by,” he said, “isn’t your
+guardian, Mr. Elphick, a big authority on philately?”
+
+“One of the biggest. Awful enthusiast.”
+
+“Do you think he’d tell me a bit about those Australian stamps which
+Marbury showed to Criedir, the dealer?”
+
+“Certain, he would—delighted. Here”—and Breton scribbled a few words on
+a card—“there’s his address and a word from me. I’ll tell you when you
+can always find him in, five nights out of seven—at nine o’clock, after
+he’s dined. I’d go with you tonight, but I must go to Aylmore’s. The
+two girls are in terrible trouble.”
+
+“Give them a message from me,” said Spargo as they went out together.
+“Tell them to keep up their hearts and their courage.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
+MR. ELPHICK’S CHAMBERS
+
+
+Spargo went round again to the Temple that night at nine o’clock,
+asking himself over and over again two questions—the first, how much
+does Elphick know? the second, how much shall I tell him?
+
+The old house in the Temple to which he repaired and in which many a
+generation of old fogies had lived since the days of Queen Anne, was
+full of stairs and passages, and as Spargo had forgotten to get the
+exact number of the set of chambers he wanted, he was obliged to wander
+about in what was a deserted building. So wandering, he suddenly heard
+steps, firm, decisive steps coming up a staircase which he himself had
+just climbed. He looked over the banisters down into the hollow
+beneath. And there, marching up resolutely, was the figure of a tall,
+veiled woman, and Spargo suddenly realized, with a sharp quickening of
+his pulses, that for the second time that day he was beneath one roof
+with Miss Baylis.
+
+Spargo’s mind acted quickly. Knowing what he now knew, from his
+extraordinary dealings with Mother Gutch, he had no doubt whatever that
+Miss Baylis had come to see Mr. Elphick—come, of course, to tell Mr.
+Elphick that he, Spargo, had visited her that morning, and that he was
+on the track of the Maitland secret history. He had never thought of it
+before, for he had been busily engaged since the departure of Mother
+Gutch; but, naturally, Miss Baylis and Mr. Elphick would keep in
+communication with each other. At any rate, here she was, and her
+destination was, surely, Elphick’s chambers. And the question for him,
+Spargo, was—what to do?
+
+What Spargo did was to remain in absolute silence, motionless, tense,
+where he was on the stair, and to trust to the chance that the woman
+did not look up. But Miss Baylis neither looked up nor down: she
+reached a landing, turned along a corridor with decision, and marched
+forward. A moment later Spargo heard a sharp double knock on a door: a
+moment after that he heard a door heavily shut; he knew then that Miss
+Baylis had sought and gained admittance—somewhere.
+
+To find out precisely where that somewhere was drew Spargo down to the
+landing which Miss Baylis had just left. There was no one about—he had
+not, in fact, seen a soul since he entered the building. Accordingly he
+went along the corridor into which he had seen Miss Baylis turn. He
+knew that all the doors in that house were double ones, and that the
+outer oak in each was solid and substantial enough to be sound proof.
+Yet, as men will under such circumstances, he walked softly; he said to
+himself, smiling at the thought, that he would be sure to start if
+somebody suddenly opened a door on him. But no hand opened any door,
+and at last he came to the end of the corridor and found himself
+confronting a small board on which was painted in white letters on a
+black ground, Mr. Elphick’s Chambers.
+
+Having satisfied himself as to his exact whereabouts, Spargo drew back
+as quietly as he had come. There was a window half-way along the
+corridor from which, he had noticed as he came along, one could catch a
+glimpse of the Embankment and the Thames; to this he withdrew, and
+leaning on the sill looked out and considered matters. Should he go
+and—if he could gain admittance—beard these two conspirators? Should he
+wait until the woman came out and let her see that he was on the track?
+Should he hide again until she went, and then see Elphick alone?
+
+In the end Spargo did none of these things immediately. He let things
+slide for the moment. He lighted a cigarette and stared at the river
+and the brown sails, and the buildings across on the Surrey side. Ten
+minutes went by—twenty minutes—nothing happened. Then, as half-past
+nine struck from all the neighbouring clocks, Spargo flung away a
+second cigarette, marched straight down the corridor and knocked boldly
+at Mr. Elphick’s door.
+
+Greatly to Spargo’s surprise, the door was opened before there was any
+necessity to knock again. And there, calmly confronting him, a
+benevolent, yet somewhat deprecating expression on his spectacled and
+placid face, stood Mr. Elphick, a smoking cap on his head, a tasseled
+smoking jacket over his dress shirt, and a short pipe in his hand.
+
+Spargo was taken aback: Mr. Elphick apparently was not. He held the
+door well open, and motioned the journalist to enter.
+
+“Come in, Mr. Spargo,” he said. “I was expecting you. Walk forward into
+my sitting-room.”
+
+Spargo, much astonished at this reception, passed through an ante-room
+into a handsomely furnished apartment full of books and pictures. In
+spite of the fact that it was still very little past midsummer there
+was a cheery fire in the grate, and on a table set near a roomy
+arm-chair was set such creature comforts as a spirit-case, a syphon, a
+tumbler, and a novel—from which things Spargo argued that Mr. Elphick
+had been taking his ease since his dinner. But in another armchair on
+the opposite side of the hearth was the forbidding figure of Miss
+Baylis, blacker, gloomier, more mysterious than ever. She neither spoke
+nor moved when Spargo entered: she did not even look at him. And Spargo
+stood staring at her until Mr. Elphick, having closed his doors,
+touched him on the elbow, and motioned him courteously to a seat.
+
+“Yes, I was expecting you, Mr. Spargo,” he said, as he resumed his own
+chair. “I have been expecting you at any time, ever since you took up
+your investigation of the Marbury affair, in some of the earlier stages
+of which you saw me, you will remember, at the mortuary. But since Miss
+Baylis told me, twenty minutes ago, that you had been to her this
+morning I felt sure that it would not be more than a few hours before
+you would come to me.”
+
+“Why, Mr. Elphick, should you suppose that I should come to you at
+all?” asked Spargo, now in full possession of his wits.
+
+“Because I felt sure that you would leave no stone unturned, no corner
+unexplored,” replied Mr. Elphick. “The curiosity of the modern pressman
+is insatiable.”
+
+Spargo stiffened.
+
+“I have no curiosity, Mr. Elphick,” he said. “I am charged by my paper
+to investigate the circumstances of the death of the man who was found
+in Middle Temple Lane, and, if possible, to track his murderer, and——”
+
+Mr. Elphick laughed slightly and waved his hand.
+
+“My good young gentleman!” he said. “You exaggerate your own
+importance. I don’t approve of modern journalism nor of its methods. In
+your own case you have got hold of some absurd notion that the man John
+Marbury was in reality one John Maitland, once of Market Milcaster, and
+you have been trying to frighten Miss Baylis here into——”
+
+Spargo suddenly rose from his chair. There was a certain temper in him
+which, when once roused, led him to straight hitting, and it was roused
+now. He looked the old barrister full in the face.
+
+“Mr. Elphick,” he said, “you are evidently unaware of all that I know.
+So I will tell you what I will do. I will go back to my office, and I
+will write down what I do know, and give the true and absolute proofs
+of what I know, and, if you will trouble yourself to read the
+_Watchman_ tomorrow morning, then you, too, will know.”
+
+“Dear me—dear me!” said Mr. Elphick, banteringly. “We are so used to
+ultra-sensational stories from the _Watchman_ that—but I am a curious
+and inquisitive old man, my good young sir, so perhaps you will tell me
+in a word what it is you do know, eh?”
+
+Spargo reflected for a second. Then he bent forward across the table
+and looked the old barrister straight in the face.
+
+“Yes,” he said quietly. “I will tell you what I know beyond doubt. I
+know that the man murdered under the name of John Marbury was, without
+doubt, John Maitland, of Market Milcaster, and that Ronald Breton is
+his son, whom you took from that woman!”
+
+If Spargo had desired a complete revenge for the cavalier fashion in
+which Mr. Elphick had treated it he could not have been afforded a more
+ample one than that offered to him by the old barrister’s reception of
+this news. Mr. Elphick’s face not only fell, but changed; his
+expression of almost sneering contempt was transformed to one clearly
+resembling abject terror; he dropped his pipe, fell back in his chair,
+recovered himself, gripped the chair’s arms, and stared at Spargo as if
+the young man had suddenly announced to him that in another minute he
+must be led to instant execution. And Spargo, quick to see his
+advantage, followed it up.
+
+“That is what I know, Mr. Elphick, and if I choose, all the world shall
+know it tomorrow morning!” he said firmly. “Ronald Breton is the son of
+the murdered man, and Ronald Breton is engaged to be married to the
+daughter of the man charged with the murder. Do you hear that? It is
+not matter of suspicion, or of idea, or of conjecture, it is
+fact—fact!”
+
+Mr. Elphick slowly turned his face to Miss Baylis. He gasped out a few
+words.
+
+“You—did—not—tell—me—this!”
+
+Then Spargo, turning to the woman, saw that she, too, was white to the
+lips and as frightened as the man.
+
+“I—didn’t know!” she muttered. “He didn’t tell me. He only told me this
+morning what—what I’ve told you.”
+
+Spargo picked up his hat.
+
+“Good-night, Mr. Elphick,” he said.
+
+But before he could reach the door the old barrister had leapt from his
+chair and seized him with trembling hands. Spargo turned and looked at
+him. He knew then that for some reason or other he had given Mr.
+Septimus Elphick a thoroughly bad fright.
+
+“Well?” he growled.
+
+“My dear young gentleman!” implored Mr. Elphick. “Don’t go! I’ll—I’ll
+do anything for you if you won’t go away to print that. I’ll—I’ll give
+you a thousand pounds!”
+
+Spargo shook him off.
+
+“That’s enough!” he snarled. “Now, I am off! What, you’d try to bribe
+me?”
+
+Mr. Elphick wrung his hands.
+
+“I didn’t mean that—indeed I didn’t!” he almost wailed. “I—I don’t know
+what I meant. Stay, young gentleman, stay a little, and let us—let us
+talk. Let me have a word with you—as many words as you please. I
+implore you!”
+
+Spargo made a fine pretence of hesitation.
+
+“If I stay,” he said, at last, “it will only be on the strict condition
+that you answer—and answer truly—whatever questions I like to ask you.
+Otherwise——”
+
+He made another move to the door, and again Mr. Elphick laid beseeching
+hands on him.
+
+“Stay!” he said. “I’ll answer anything you like!”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
+OF PROVED IDENTITY
+
+
+Spargo sat down again in the chair which he had just left, and looked
+at the two people upon whom his startling announcement had produced
+such a curious effect. And he recognized as he looked at them that,
+while they were both frightened, they were frightened in different
+ways. Miss Baylis had already recovered her composure; she now sat
+sombre and stern as ever, returning Spargo’s look with something of
+indifferent defiance; he thought he could see that in her mind a
+certain fear was battling with a certain amount of wonder that he had
+discovered the secret. It seemed to him that so far as she was
+concerned the secret had come to an end; it was as if she said in so
+many words that now the secret was out he might do his worst.
+
+But upon Mr. Septimus Elphick the effect was very different. He was
+still trembling from excitement; he groaned as he sank into his chair
+and the hand with which he poured out a glass of spirits shook; the
+glass rattled against his teeth when he raised it to his lips. The
+half-contemptuous fashion of his reception of Spargo had now wholly
+disappeared; he was a man who had received a shock, and a bad one. And
+Spargo, watching him keenly, said to himself: This man knows a great
+deal more than, a great deal beyond, the mere fact that Marbury was
+Maitland, and that Ronald Breton is in reality Maitland’s son; he knows
+something which he never wanted anybody to know, which he firmly
+believed it impossible anybody ever could know. It was as if he had
+buried something deep, deep down in the lowest depths, and was as
+astounded as he was frightened to find that it had been at last flung
+up to the broad light of day.
+
+“I shall wait,” suddenly said Spargo, “until you are composed, Mr.
+Elphick. I have no wish to distress you. But I see, of course, that the
+truths which I have told you are of a sort that cause you
+considerable—shall we say fear?”
+
+Elphick took another stiff pull at his liquor. His hand had grown
+steadier, and the colour was coming back to his face.
+
+“If you will let me explain,” he said. “If you will hear what was done
+for the boy’s sake—eh?”
+
+“That,” answered Spargo, “is precisely what I wish. I can tell you
+this—I am the last man in the world to wish harm of any sort to Mr.
+Breton.”
+
+Miss Baylis relieved her feelings with a scornful sniff. “He says
+that!” she exclaimed, addressing the ceiling. “He says that, knowing
+that he means to tell the world in his rag of a paper that Ronald
+Breton, on whom every care has been lavished, is the son of a
+scoundrel, an ex-convict, a——”
+
+Elphick lifted his hand.
+
+“Hush—hush!” he said imploringly. “Mr. Spargo means well, I am sure—I
+am convinced. If Mr. Spargo will hear me——”
+
+But before Spargo could reply, a loud insistent knocking came at the
+outer door. Elphick started nervously, but presently he moved across
+the room, walking as if he had received a blow, and opened the door. A
+boy’s voice penetrated into the sitting-room.
+
+“If you please, sir, is Mr. Spargo, of the _Watchman_, here? He left
+this address in case he was wanted.”
+
+Spargo recognized the voice as that of one of the office messenger
+boys, and jumping up, went to the door.
+
+“What is it, Rawlins?” he asked.
+
+“Will you please come back to the office, sir, at once? There’s Mr.
+Rathbury there and says he must see you instantly.”
+
+“All right,” answered Spargo. “I’m coming just now.”
+
+He motioned the lad away, and turned to Elphick.
+
+“I shall have to go,” he said. “I may be kept. Now, Mr. Elphick, can I
+come to see you tomorrow morning?”
+
+“Yes, yes, tomorrow morning!” replied Elphick eagerly. “Tomorrow
+morning, certainly. At eleven—eleven o’clock. That will do?”
+
+“I shall be here at eleven,” said Spargo. “Eleven sharp.”
+
+He was moving away when Elphick caught him by the sleeve.
+
+“A word—just a word!” he said. “You—you have not told the—the
+boy—Ronald—of what you know? You haven’t?”
+
+“I haven’t,” replied Spargo.
+
+Elphick tightened his grip on Spargo’s sleeve. He looked into his face
+beseechingly.
+
+“Promise me—promise me, Mr. Spargo, that you won’t tell him until you
+have seen me in the morning!” he implored. “I beg you to promise me
+this.”
+
+Spargo hesitated, considering matters.
+
+“Very well—I promise,” he said.
+
+“And you won’t print it?” continued Elphick, still clinging to him.
+“Say you won’t print it tonight?”
+
+“I shall not print it tonight,” answered Spargo. “That’s certain.”
+
+Elphick released his grip on the young man’s arm.
+
+“Come—at eleven tomorrow morning,” he said, and drew back and closed
+the door.
+
+Spargo ran quickly to the office and hurried up to his own room. And
+there, calmly seated in an easy-chair, smoking a cigar, and reading an
+evening newspaper, was Rathbury, unconcerned and outwardly as
+imperturbable as ever. He greeted Spargo with a careless nod and a
+smile.
+
+“Well,” he said, “how’s things?”
+
+Spargo, half-breathless, dropped into his desk-chair.
+
+“You didn’t come here to tell me that,” he said.
+
+Rathbury laughed.
+
+“No,” he said, throwing the newspaper aside, “I didn’t. I came to tell
+you my latest. You’re at full liberty to stick it into your paper
+tonight: it may just as well be known.”
+
+“Well?” said Spargo.
+
+Rathbury took his cigar out of his lips and yawned.
+
+“Aylmore’s identified,” he said lazily.
+
+Spargo sat up, sharply.
+
+“Identified!”
+
+“Identified, my son. Beyond doubt.”
+
+“But as whom—as what?” exclaimed Spargo.
+
+Rathbury laughed.
+
+“He’s an old lag—an ex-convict. Served his time partly at Dartmoor.
+That, of course, is where he met Maitland or Marbury. D’ye see? Clear
+as noontide now, Spargo.”
+
+Spargo sat drumming his fingers on the desk before him. His eyes were
+fixed on a map of London that hung on the opposite wall; his ears heard
+the throbbing of the printing-machines far below. But what he really
+saw was the faces of the two girls; what he really heard was the voices
+of two girls …
+
+“Clear as noontide—as noontide,” repeated Rathbury with great
+cheerfulness.
+
+Spargo came back to the earth of plain and brutal fact.
+
+“What’s clear as noontide?” he asked sharply.
+
+“What? Why, the whole thing! Motive—everything,” answered Rathbury.
+“Don’t you see, Maitland and Aylmore (his real name is Ainsworth, by
+the by) meet at Dartmoor, probably, or, rather, certainly, just before
+Aylmore’s release. Aylmore goes abroad, makes money, in time comes
+back, starts new career, gets into Parliament, becomes big man. In
+time, Maitland, who, after his time, has also gone abroad, also comes
+back. The two meet. Maitland probably tries to blackmail Aylmore or
+threatens to let folk know that the flourishing Mr. Aylmore, M.P., is
+an ex-convict. Result—Aylmore lures him to the Temple and quiets him.
+Pooh!—the whole thing’s clear as noontide, as I say. As—noontide!”
+
+Spargo drummed his fingers again.
+
+“How?” he asked quietly. “How came Aylmore to be identified?”
+
+“My work,” said Rathbury proudly. “My work, my son. You see, I thought
+a lot. And especially after we’d found out that Marbury was Maitland.”
+
+“You mean after I’d found out,” remarked Spargo.
+
+Rathbury waved his cigar.
+
+“Well, well, it’s all the same,” he said. “You help me, and I help you,
+eh? Well, as I say, I thought a considerable lot. I thought—now, where
+did Maitland, or Marbury, know or meet Aylmore twenty or twenty-two
+years ago? Not in London, because we knew Maitland never was in
+London—at any rate, before his trial, and we haven’t the least proof
+that he was in London after. And why won’t Aylmore tell? Clearly
+because it must have been in some undesirable place. And then, all of a
+sudden, it flashed on me in a moment of—what do you writing fellows
+call those moments, Spargo?”
+
+“Inspiration, I should think,” said Spargo. “Direct inspiration.”
+
+“That’s it. In a moment of direct inspiration, it flashed on me—why,
+twenty years ago, Maitland was in Dartmoor—they must have met there!
+And so, we got some old warders who’d been there at that time to come
+to town, and we gave ’em opportunities to see Aylmore and to study him.
+Of course, he’s twenty years older, and he’s grown a beard, but they
+began to recall him, and then one man remembered that if he was the man
+they thought he’d a certain birth-mark. And—he has!”
+
+“Does Aylmore know that he’s been identified?” asked Spargo.
+
+Rathbury pitched his cigar into the fireplace and laughed.
+
+“Know!” he said scornfully. “Know? He’s admitted it. What was the use
+of standing out against proof like that. He admitted it tonight in my
+presence. Oh, he knows all right!”
+
+“And what did he say?”
+
+Rathbury laughed contemptuously.
+
+“Say? Oh, not much. Pretty much what he said about this affair—that
+when he was convicted the time before he was an innocent man. He’s
+certainly a good hand at playing the innocent game.”
+
+“And of what was he convicted?”
+
+“Oh, of course, we know all about it—now. As soon as we found out who
+he really was, we had all the particulars turned up. Aylmore, or
+Ainsworth (Stephen Ainsworth his name really is) was a man who ran a
+sort of what they call a Mutual Benefit Society in a town right away up
+in the North—Cloudhampton—some thirty years ago. He was nominally
+secretary, but it was really his own affair. It was patronized by the
+working classes—Cloudhampton’s a purely artisan population—and they
+stuck a lot of their brass, as they call it, in it. Then suddenly it
+came to smash, and there was nothing. He—Ainsworth, or Aylmore—pleaded
+that he was robbed and duped by another man, but the court didn’t
+believe him, and he got seven years. Plain story you see, Spargo, when
+it all comes out, eh?”
+
+“All stories are quite plain—when they come out,” observed Spargo. “And
+he kept silence now, I suppose, because he didn’t want his daughters to
+know about his past?”
+
+“Just so,” agreed Rathbury. “And I don’t know that I blame him. He
+thought, of course, that he’d go scot-free over this Marbury affair.
+But he made his mistake in the initial stages, my boy—oh, yes!”
+
+Spargo got up from his desk and walked around his room for a few
+minutes, Rathbury meanwhile finding and lighting another cigar. At last
+Spargo came back and clapped a hand on the detective’s shoulder.
+
+“Look here, Rathbury!” he said. “It’s very evident that you’re now
+going on the lines that Aylmore did murder Marbury. Eh?”
+
+Rathbury looked up. His face showed astonishment.
+
+“After evidence like that!” he exclaimed. “Why, of course. There’s the
+motive, my son, the motive!”
+
+Spargo laughed.
+
+“Rathbury!” he said. “Aylmore no more murdered Marbury than you did!”
+
+The detective got up and put on his hat.
+
+“Oh!” he said. “Perhaps you know who did, then?”
+
+“I shall know in a few days,” answered Spargo.
+
+Rathbury stared wonderingly at him. Then he suddenly walked to the
+door. “Good-night!” he said gruffly.
+
+“Good-night, Rathbury,” replied Spargo and sat down at his desk.
+
+But that night Spargo wrote nothing for the _Watchman_. All he wrote
+was a short telegram addressed to Aylmore’s daughters. There were only
+three words on it—_Have no fear._
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
+THE CLOSED DOORS
+
+
+Alone of all the London morning newspapers, the _Watchman_ appeared
+next day destitute of sensationalism in respect to the Middle Temple
+Murder. The other daily journals published more or less vivid accounts
+of the identification of Mr. Stephen Aylmore, M.P. for the Brookminster
+Division, as the _ci-devant_ Stephen Ainsworth, ex-convict, once upon a
+time founder and secretary of the Hearth and Home Mutual Benefit
+Society, the headquarters of which had been at Cloudhampton, in
+Daleshire; the fall of which had involved thousands of honest working
+folk in terrible distress if not in absolute ruin. Most of them had
+raked up Ainsworth’s past to considerable journalistic purpose: it had
+been an easy matter to turn up old files, to recount the fall of the
+Hearth and Home, to tell anew the story of the privations of the humble
+investors whose small hoards had gone in the crash; it had been easy,
+too, to set out again the history of Ainsworth’s arrest, trial, and
+fate. There was plenty of romance in the story: it was that of a man
+who by his financial ability had built up a great industrial insurance
+society; had—as was alleged—converted the large sums entrusted to him
+to his own purposes; had been detected and punished; had disappeared,
+after his punishment, so effectually that no one knew where he had
+gone; had come back, comparatively a few years later, under another
+name, a very rich man, and had entered Parliament and been, in a modest
+way, a public character without any of those who knew him in his new
+career suspecting that he had once worn a dress liberally ornamented
+with the broad arrow. Fine copy, excellent copy: some of the morning
+newspapers made a couple of columns of it.
+
+But the _Watchman_, up to then easily ahead of all its contemporaries
+in keeping the public informed of all the latest news in connection
+with the Marbury affair, contented itself with a brief announcement.
+For after Rathbury had left him, Spargo had sought his proprietor and
+his editor, and had sat long in consultation with them, and the result
+of their talk had been that all the _Watchman_ thought fit to tell its
+readers next morning was contained in a curt paragraph:
+
+“We understand that Mr. Stephen Aylmore, M.P., who is charged with the
+murder of John Marbury, or Maitland, in the Temple on June 21st last,
+was yesterday afternoon identified by certain officials as Stephen
+Ainsworth, who was sentenced to a term of penal servitude in connection
+with the Hearth and Home Mutual Benefit Society funds nearly thirty
+years ago.”
+
+Coming down to Fleet Street that morning, Spargo, strolling jauntily
+along the front of the Law Courts, encountered a fellow-journalist, a
+man on an opposition newspaper, who grinned at him in a fashion which
+indicated derision.
+
+“Left behind a bit, that rag of yours, this morning, Spargo, my boy!”
+he remarked elegantly. “Why, you’ve missed one of the finest
+opportunities I ever heard of in connection with that Aylmore affair. A
+miserable paragraph!—why, I worked off a column and a half in ours!
+What were you doing last night, old man?”
+
+“Sleeping,” said Spargo and went by with a nod. “Sleeping!”
+
+He left the other staring at him, and crossed the road to Middle Temple
+Lane. It was just on the stroke of eleven as he walked up the stairs to
+Mr. Elphick’s chambers; precisely eleven as he knocked at the outer
+door. It is seldom that outer doors are closed in the Temple at that
+hour, but Elphick’s door was closed fast enough. The night before it
+had been promptly opened, but there was no response to Spargo’s first
+knock, nor to his second, nor to his third. And half-unconsciously he
+murmured aloud: “Elphick’s door is closed!”
+
+It never occurred to Spargo to knock again: instinct told him that
+Elphick’s door was closed because Elphick was not there; closed because
+Elphick was not going to keep the appointment. He turned and walked
+slowly back along the corridor. And just as he reached the head of the
+stairs Ronald Breton, pale and anxious, came running up them, and at
+sight of Spargo paused, staring questioningly at him. As if with a
+mutual sympathy the two young men shook hands.
+
+“I’m glad you didn’t print more than those two or three lines in the
+_Watchman_ this morning,” said Breton. “It was—considerate. As for the
+other papers!—Aylmore assured me last night, Spargo, that though he did
+serve that term at Dartmoor he was innocent enough! He was scapegoat
+for another man who disappeared.”
+
+Then, as Spargo merely nodded, he added, awkwardly:
+
+“And I’m obliged to you, too, old chap, for sending that wire to the
+two girls last night—it was good of you. They want all the comfort they
+can get, poor things! But—what are you doing here, Spargo?”
+
+Spargo leant against the head of the stairs and folded his hands.
+
+“I came here,” he said, “to keep an appointment with Mr. Elphick—an
+appointment which he made when I called on him, as you suggested, at
+nine o’clock. The appointment—a most important one—was for eleven
+o’clock.”
+
+Breton glanced at his watch.
+
+“Come on, then,” he said. “It’s well past that now, and my guardian’s a
+very martinet in the matter of punctuality.”
+
+But Spargo did not move. Instead, he shook his head, regarding Breton
+with troubled eyes.
+
+“So am I,” he answered. “I was trained to it. Your guardian isn’t
+there, Breton.”
+
+“Not there? If he made an appointment for eleven? Nonsense—I never knew
+him miss an appointment!”
+
+“I knocked three times—three separate times,” answered Spargo.
+
+“You should have knocked half a dozen times—he may have overslept
+himself. He sits up late—he and old Cardlestone often sit up half the
+night, talking stamps or playing piquet,” said Breton. “Come on—you’ll
+see!”
+
+Spargo shook his head again.
+
+“He’s not there, Breton,” he said. “He’s gone!”
+
+Breton stared at the journalist as if he had just announced that he had
+seen Mr. Septimus Elphick riding down Fleet Street on a dromedary. He
+seized Spargo’s elbow.
+
+“Come on!” he said. “I have a key to Mr. Elphick’s door, so that I can
+go in and out as I like. I’ll soon show you whether he’s gone or not.”
+
+Spargo followed the young barrister down the corridor.
+
+“All the same,” he said meditatively as Breton fitted a key to the
+latch, “he’s not there, Breton. He’s—off!”
+
+“Good heavens, man, I don’t know what you’re talking about!” exclaimed
+Breton, opening the door and walking into the lobby. “Off! Where on
+earth should he be off to, when he’s made an appointment with you for
+eleven, and—Hullo!”
+
+He had opened the door of the room in which Spargo had met Elphick and
+Miss Baylis the night before, and was walking in when he pulled himself
+up on the threshold with a sharp exclamation.
+
+“Good God!” he cried. “What—what’s all this?”
+
+Spargo quietly looked over Breton’s shoulder. It needed but one quick
+glance to show him that much had happened in that quiet room since he
+had quitted it the night before. There stood the easy-chair in which he
+had left Elphick; there, close by it, but pushed aside, as if by a
+hurried hand, was the little table with its spirit case, its syphon,
+its glass, in which stale liquid still stood; there was the novel,
+turned face downwards; there, upon the novel, was Elphick’s pipe. But
+the rest of the room was in dire confusion. The drawers of a bureau had
+been pulled open and never put back; papers of all descriptions, old
+legal-looking documents, old letters, littered the centre-table and the
+floor; in one corner of the room a black japanned box had been opened,
+its contents strewn about, and the lid left yawning. And in the grate,
+and all over the fender there were masses of burned and charred paper;
+it was only too evident that the occupant of the chambers, wherever he
+might have disappeared to, had spent some time before his disappearance
+in destroying a considerable heap of documents and papers, and in such
+haste that he had not troubled to put matters straight before he went.
+
+Breton stared at this scene for a moment in utter consternation. Then
+he made one step towards an inner door, and Spargo followed him.
+Together they entered an inner room—a sleeping apartment. There was no
+one in it, but there were evidences that Elphick had just as hastily
+packed a bag as he had destroyed his papers. The clothes which Spargo
+had seen him wearing the previous evening were flung here, there,
+everywhere: the gorgeous smoking-jacket was tossed unceremoniously in
+one corner, a dress-shirt, in the bosom of which valuable studs still
+glistened, in another. One or two suitcases lay about, as if they had
+been examined and discarded in favour of something more portable; here,
+too, drawers, revealing stocks of linen and underclothing, had been
+torn open and left open; open, too, swung the door of a wardrobe,
+revealing a quantity of expensive clothing. And Spargo, looking around
+him, seemed to see all that had happened—the hasty, almost frantic
+search for and tearing up and burning of papers; the hurried change of
+clothing, of packing necessaries into a bag that could be carried, and
+then the flight the getting away, the——
+
+“What on earth does all this mean?” exclaimed Breton. “What is it,
+Spargo?”
+
+“I mean exactly what I told you,” answered Spargo. “He’s off! Off!”
+
+“Off! But why off? What—my guardian!—as quiet an old gentleman as there
+is in the Temple—off!” cried Breton. “For what reason, eh? It
+isn’t—good God, Spargo, it isn’t because of anything you said to him
+last night!”
+
+“I should say it is precisely because of something that I said to him
+last night,” replied Spargo. “I was a fool ever to let him out of my
+sight.”
+
+Breton turned on his companion and gasped.
+
+“Out—of—your—sight!” he exclaimed. “Why—why—you don’t mean to say that
+Mr. Elphick has anything to do with this Marbury affair? For God’s
+sake, Spargo——”
+
+Spargo laid a hand on the young barrister’s shoulder.
+
+“I’m afraid you’ll have to hear a good deal, Breton,” he said. “I was
+going to talk to you today in any case. You see——”
+
+Before Spargo could say more a woman, bearing the implements which
+denote the charwoman’s profession, entered the room and immediately
+cried out at what she saw. Breton turned on her almost savagely.
+
+“Here, you!” he said. “Have you seen anything of Mr. Elphick this
+morning?”
+
+The charwoman rolled her eyes and lifted her hands.
+
+“Me, sir! Not a sign of him, sir. Which I never comes here much before
+half-past eleven, sir, Mr. Elphick being then gone out to his
+breakfast. I see him yesterday morning, sir, which he was then in his
+usual state of good health, sir, if any thing’s the matter with him
+now. No, sir, I ain’t seen nothing of him.”
+
+Breton let out another exclamation of impatience.
+
+“You’d better leave all this,” he said. “Mr. Elphick’s evidently gone
+away in a hurry, and you mustn’t touch anything here until he comes
+back. I’m going to lock up the chambers: if you’ve a key of them give
+it to me.”
+
+The charwoman handed over a key, gave another astonished look at the
+rooms, and vanished, muttering, and Breton turned to Spargo.
+
+“What do you say?” he demanded. “I must hear—a good deal! Out with it,
+then, man, for Heaven’s sake.”
+
+But Spargo shook his head.
+
+“Not now, Breton,” he answered. “Presently, I tell you, for Miss
+Aylmore’s sake, and your own, the first thing to do is to get on your
+guardian’s track. We must—must, I say!—and at once.”
+
+Breton stood staring at Spargo for a moment as if he could not credit
+his own senses. Then he suddenly motioned Spargo out of the room.
+
+“Come on!” he said. “I know who’ll know where he is, if anybody does.”
+
+“Who, then?” asked Spargo, as they hurried out.
+
+“Cardlestone,” answered Breton, grimly. “Cardlestone!”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THIRTY
+REVELATION
+
+
+There was as much bright sunshine that morning in Middle Temple Lane as
+ever manages to get into it, and some of it was shining in the entry
+into which Spargo and Breton presently hurried. Full of haste as he was
+Breton paused at the foot of the stair. He looked down at the floor and
+at the wall at its side.
+
+“Wasn’t it there?” he said in a low voice, pointing at the place he
+looked at. “Wasn’t it there, Spargo, just there, that Marbury, or,
+rather, Maitland, was found?”
+
+“It was just there,” answered Spargo.
+
+“You saw him?”
+
+“I saw him.”
+
+“Soon—afterwards?”
+
+“Immediately after he was found. You know all that, Breton. Why do you
+ask now?”
+
+Breton, who was still staring at the place on which he had fixed his
+eyes on walking into the entry, shook his head.
+
+“Don’t know,” he answered. “I—but come on—let’s see if old Cardlestone
+can tell us anything.”
+
+There was another charwoman, armed with pails and buckets, outside
+Cardlestone’s door, into which she was just fitting a key. It was
+evident to Spargo that she knew Breton, for she smiled at him as she
+opened the door.
+
+“I don’t think Mr. Cardlestone’ll be in, sir,” she said. “He’s
+generally gone out to breakfast at this time—him and Mr. Elphick goes
+together.”
+
+“Just see,” said Breton. “I want to see him if he is in.” The charwoman
+entered the chambers and immediately screamed.
+
+“Quite so,” remarked Spargo. “That’s what I expected to hear.
+Cardlestone, you see, Breton, is also—off!”
+
+Breton made no reply. He rushed after the charwoman, with Spargo in
+close attendance.
+
+“Good God—another!” groaned Breton.
+
+If the confusion in Elphick’s rooms had been bad, that in Cardlestone’s
+chambers was worse. Here again all the features of the previous scene
+were repeated—drawers had been torn open, papers thrown about; the
+hearth was choked with light ashes; everything was at sixes and sevens.
+An open door leading into an inner room showed that Cardlestone, like
+Elphick, had hastily packed a bag; like Elphick had changed his
+clothes, and had thrown his discarded garments anywhere, into any
+corner. Spargo began to realize what had taken place—Elphick, having
+made his own preparations for flight, had come to Cardlestone, and had
+expedited him, and they had fled together. But—why?
+
+The charwoman sat down in the nearest chair and began to moan and sob;
+Breton strode forward, across the heaps of papers and miscellaneous
+objects tossed aside in that hurried search and clearing up, into the
+inner room. And Spargo, looking about him, suddenly caught sight of
+something lying on the floor at which he made a sharp clutch. He had
+just secured it and hurried it into his pocket when Breton came back.
+
+“I don’t know what all this means, Spargo,” he said, almost wearily. “I
+suppose you do. Look here,” he went on, turning to the charwoman, “stop
+that row—that’ll do no good, you know. I suppose Mr. Cardlestone’s gone
+away in a hurry. You’d better—what had she better do, Spargo?”
+
+“Leave things exactly as they are, lock up the chambers, and as you’re
+a friend of Mr. Cardlestone’s give you the key,” answered Spargo, with
+a significant glance. “Do that, now, and let’s go—I’ve something to
+do.”
+
+Once outside, with the startled charwoman gone away, Spargo turned to
+Breton.
+
+“I’ll tell you all I know, presently, Breton,” he said. “In the
+meantime, I want to find out if the lodge porter saw Mr. Elphick or Mr.
+Cardlestone leave. I must know where they’ve gone—if I can only find
+out. I don’t suppose they went on foot.”
+
+“All right,” responded Breton, gloomily. “We’ll go and ask. But this is
+all beyond me. You don’t mean to say——”
+
+“Wait a while,” answered Spargo. “One thing at once,” he continued, as
+they walked up Middle Temple Lane. “This is the first thing. You ask
+the porter if he’s seen anything of either of them—he knows you.”
+
+The porter, duly interrogated, responded with alacrity.
+
+“Anything of Mr. Elphick this morning, Mr. Breton?” he answered.
+“Certainly, sir. I got a taxi for Mr. Elphick and Mr. Cardlestone early
+this morning—soon after seven. Mr. Elphick said they were going to
+Paris, and they’d breakfast at Charing Cross before the train left.”
+
+“Say when they’d be back?” asked Breton, with an assumption of entire
+carelessness.
+
+“No, sir, Mr. Elphick didn’t,” answered the porter. “But I should say
+they wouldn’t be long because they’d only got small suit-cases with
+them—such as they’d put a day or two’s things in, sir.”
+
+“All right,” said Breton. He turned away towards Spargo who had already
+moved off. “What next?” he asked. “Charing Cross, I suppose!”
+
+Spargo smiled and shook his head.
+
+“No,” he answered. “I’ve no use for Charing Cross. They haven’t gone to
+Paris. That was all a blind. For the present let’s go back to your
+chambers. Then I’ll talk to you.”
+
+Once within Breton’s inner room, with the door closed upon them, Spargo
+dropped into an easy-chair and looked at the young barrister with
+earnest attention.
+
+“Breton!” he said. “I believe we’re coming in sight of land. You want
+to save your prospective father-in-law, don’t you?”
+
+“Of course!” growled Breton. “That goes without saying. But——”
+
+“But you may have to make some sacrifices in order to do it,” said
+Spargo. “You see——”
+
+“Sacrifices!” exclaimed Breton. “What——”
+
+“You may have to sacrifice some ideas—you may find that you’ll not be
+able to think as well of some people in the future as you have thought
+of them in the past. For instance—Mr. Elphick.”
+
+Breton’s face grew dark.
+
+“Speak plainly, Spargo!” he said. “It’s best with me.”
+
+“Very well,” replied Spargo. “Mr. Elphick, then, is in some way
+connected with this affair.”
+
+“You mean the—murder?”
+
+“I mean the murder. So is Cardlestone. Of that I’m now dead certain.
+And that’s why they’re off. I startled Elphick last night. It’s evident
+that he immediately communicated with Cardlestone, and that they made a
+rapid exit. Why?”
+
+“Why? That’s what I’m asking you! Why? Why? Why?”
+
+“Because they’re afraid of something coming out. And being afraid,
+their first instinct is to—run. They’ve run at the first alarm.
+Foolish—but instinctive.”
+
+Breton, who had flung himself into the elbow-chair at his desk, jumped
+to his feet and thumped his blotting-pad.
+
+“Spargo!” he exclaimed. “Are you telling me that you accuse my guardian
+and his friend, Mr. Cardlestone, of being—murderers?”
+
+“Nothing of the sort. I am accusing Mr. Elphick and Mr. Cardlestone of
+knowing more about the murder than they care to tell or want to tell. I
+am also accusing them, and especially your guardian, of knowing all
+about Maitland, alias Marbury. I made him confess last night that he
+knew this dead man to be John Maitland.”
+
+“You did!”
+
+“I did. And now, Breton, since it’s got to come out, we’ll have the
+truth. Pull yourself together—get your nerves ready, for you’ll have to
+stand a shock or two. But I know what I’m talking about—I can prove
+every word I’m going to say to you. And first let me ask you a few
+questions. Do you know anything about your parentage?”
+
+“Nothing—beyond what Mr. Elphick has told me.”
+
+“And what was that?”
+
+“That my parents were old friends of his, who died young, leaving me
+unprovided for, and that he took me up and looked after me.”
+
+“And he’s never given you any documentary evidence of any sort to prove
+the truth of that story?”
+
+“Never! I never questioned his statement. Why should I?”
+
+“You never remember anything of your childhood—I mean of any person who
+was particularly near you in your childhood?”
+
+“I remember the people who brought me up from the time I was three
+years old. And I have just a faint, shadowy recollection of some woman,
+a tall, dark woman, I think, before that.”
+
+“Miss Baylis,” said Spargo to himself. “All right, Breton,” he went on
+aloud. “I’m going to tell you the truth. I’ll tell it to you straight
+out and give you all the explanations afterwards. Your real name is not
+Breton at all. Your real name is Maitland, and you’re the only child of
+the man who was found murdered at the foot of Cardlestone’s staircase!”
+
+Spargo had been wondering how Breton would take this, and he gazed at
+him with some anxiety as he got out the last words. What would he
+do?—what would he say?—what——
+
+Breton sat down quietly at his desk and looked Spargo hard between the
+eyes.
+
+“Prove that to me, Spargo,” he said, in hard, matter-of-fact tones.
+“Prove it to me, every word. Every word, Spargo!”
+
+Spargo nodded.
+
+“I will—every word,” he answered. “It’s the right thing. Listen, then.”
+
+It was a quarter to twelve, Spargo noticed, throwing a glance at the
+clock outside, as he began his story; it was past one when he brought
+it to an end. And all that time Breton listened with the keenest
+attention, only asking a question now and then; now and then making a
+brief note on a sheet of paper which he had drawn to him.
+
+“That’s all,” said Spargo at last.
+
+“It’s plenty,” observed Breton laconically.
+
+He sat staring at his notes for a moment; then he looked up at Spargo.
+“What do you really think?” he asked.
+
+“About—what?” said Spargo.
+
+“This flight of Elphick’s and Cardlestone’s.”
+
+“I think, as I said, that they knew something which they think may be
+forced upon them. I never saw a man in a greater fright than that I saw
+Elphick in last night. And it’s evident that Cardlestone shares in that
+fright, or they wouldn’t have gone off in this way together.”
+
+“Do you think they know anything of the actual murder?”
+
+Spargo shook his head.
+
+“I don’t know. Probably. They know something. And—look here!”
+
+Spargo put his hand in his breast pocket and drew something out which
+he handed to Breton, who gazed at it curiously.
+
+“What’s this?” he demanded. “Stamps?”
+
+“That, from the description of Criedir, the stamp-dealer, is a sheet of
+those rare Australian stamps which Maitland had on him—carried on him.
+I picked it up just now in Cardlestone’s room, when you were looking
+into his bedroom.”
+
+“But that, after all, proves nothing. Those mayn’t be the identical
+stamps. And whether they are or not——”
+
+“What are the probabilities?” interrupted Spargo sharply. “I believe
+that those are the stamps which Maitland—your father!—had on him, and I
+want to know how they came to be in Cardlestone’s rooms. And I will
+know.”
+
+Breton handed the stamps back.
+
+“But the general thing, Spargo?” he said. “If they didn’t murder—I
+can’t realize the thing yet!—my father——”
+
+“If they didn’t murder your father, they know who did!” exclaimed
+Spargo. “Now, then, it’s time for more action. Let Elphick and
+Cardlestone alone for the moment—they’ll be tracked easily enough. I
+want to tackle something else for the moment. How do you get an
+authority from the Government to open a grave?”
+
+“Order from the Home Secretary, which will have to be obtained by
+showing the very strongest reasons why it should be made.”
+
+“Good! We’ll give the reasons. I want to have a grave opened.”
+
+“A grave opened! Whose grave?”
+
+“The grave of the man Chamberlayne at Market Milcaster,” replied
+Spargo.
+
+Breton started.
+
+“His? In Heaven’s name, why?” he demanded.
+
+Spargo laughed as he got up.
+
+“Because I believe it’s empty,” he answered. “Because I believe that
+Chamberlayne is alive, and that his other name is—Cardlestone!”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
+THE PENITENT WINDOW-CLEANER
+
+
+That afternoon Spargo had another of his momentous interviews with his
+proprietor and his editor. The first result was that all three drove to
+the offices of the legal gentleman who catered for the _Watchman_ when
+it wanted any law, and that things were put in shape for an immediate
+application to the Home Office for permission to open the Chamberlayne
+grave at Market Milcaster; the second was that on the following morning
+there appeared in the _Watchman_ a notice which set half the mouths of
+London a-watering. That notice; penned by Spargo, ran as follows:—
+
+“ONE THOUSAND POUNDS REWARD.
+
+
+“WHEREAS, on some date within the past twelve months, there was stolen,
+abstracted, or taken from the chambers in Fountain Court, Temple,
+occupied by Mr. Stephen Aylmore, M.P., under the name of Mr. Anderson,
+a walking-stick, or stout staff, of foreign make, and of curious
+workmanship, which stick was probably used in the murder of John
+Marbury, or Maitland, in Middle Temple Lane, on the night of June 21–22
+last, and is now in the hands of the police:
+    “This is to give notice that the Proprietor of the _Watchman_
+    newspaper will pay the above-mentioned reward (ONE THOUSAND POUNDS
+    STERLING) at once and in cash to whosoever will prove that he or
+    she stole, abstracted, or took away the said stick from the said
+    chambers, and will further give full information as to his or her
+    disposal of the same, and the Proprietor of the _Watchman_ moreover
+    engages to treat any revelation affecting the said stick in the
+    most strictly private and confidential manner, and to abstain from
+    using it in any way detrimental to the informant, who should call
+    at the _Watchman_ office, and ask for Mr. Frank Spargo at any time
+    between eleven and one o’clock midday, and seven and eleven o’clock
+    in the evening.”
+
+
+“And you really expect to get some information through that?” asked
+Breton, who came into Spargo’s room about noon on the day on which the
+promising announcement came out. “You really do?”
+
+“Before today is out,” said Spargo confidently. “There is more magic in
+a thousand-pound reward than you fancy, Breton. I’ll have the history
+of that stick before midnight.”
+
+“How are you to tell that you won’t be imposed upon?” suggested Breton.
+“Anybody can say that he or she stole the stick.”
+
+“Whoever comes here with any tale of a stick will have to prove to me
+how he or she got the stick and what was done with the stick,” said
+Spargo. “I haven’t the least doubt that that stick was stolen or taken
+away from Aylmore’s rooms in Fountain Court, and that it got into the
+hands of—”
+
+“Yes, of whom?”
+
+“That’s what I want to know in some fashion. I’ve an idea, already. But
+I can afford to wait for definite information. I know one thing—when I
+get that information—as I shall—we shall be a long way on the road
+towards establishing Aylmore’s innocence.”
+
+Breton made no remark upon this. He was looking at Spargo with a
+meditative expression.
+
+“Spargo,” he said, suddenly, “do you think you’ll get that order for
+the opening of the grave at Market Milcaster?”
+
+“I was talking to the solicitors over the ’phone just now,” answered
+Spargo. “They’ve every confidence about it. In fact, it’s possible it
+may be made this afternoon. In that case, the opening will be made
+early tomorrow morning.”
+
+“Shall you go?” asked Breton.
+
+“Certainly. And you can go with me, if you like. Better keep in touch
+with us all day in case we hear. You ought to be there—you’re
+concerned.”
+
+“I should like to go—I will go,” said Breton. “And if that grave proves
+to be—empty—I’ll—I’ll tell you something.”
+
+Spargo looked up with sharp instinct.
+
+“You’ll tell me something? Something? What?”
+
+“Never mind—wait until we see if that coffin contains a dead body or
+lead and sawdust. If there’s no body there——”
+
+At that moment one of the senior messenger boys came in and approached
+Spargo. His countenance, usually subdued to an official stolidity,
+showed signs of something very like excitement.
+
+“There’s a man downstairs asking for you, Mr. Spargo,” he said. “He’s
+been hanging about a bit, sir,—seems very shy about coming up. He won’t
+say what he wants, and he won’t fill up a form, sir. Says all he wants
+is a word or two with you.”
+
+“Bring him up at once!” commanded Spargo. He turned to Breton when the
+boy had gone. “There!” he said, laughing. “This is the man about the
+stick—you see if it isn’t.”
+
+“You’re such a cock-sure chap, Spargo,” said Breton. “You’re always
+going on a straight line.”
+
+“Trying to, you mean,” retorted Spargo. “Well, stop here, and hear what
+this chap has to say: it’ll no doubt be amusing.”
+
+The messenger boy, deeply conscious that he was ushering into Spargo’s
+room an individual who might shortly carry away a thousand pounds of
+good _Watchman_ money in his pocket, opened the door and introduced a
+shy and self-conscious young man, whose nervousness was painfully
+apparent to everybody and deeply felt by himself. He halted on the
+threshold, looking round the comfortably-furnished room, and at the two
+well-dressed young men which it framed as if he feared to enter on a
+scene of such grandeur.
+
+“Come in, come in!” said Spargo, rising and pointing to an easy-chair
+at the side of his desk. “Take a seat. You’ve called about that reward,
+of course.”
+
+The man in the chair eyed the two of them cautiously, and not without
+suspicion. He cleared his throat with a palpable effort.
+
+“Of course,” he said. “It’s all on the strict private. Name of Edward
+Mollison, sir.”
+
+“And where do you live, and what do you do?” asked Spargo.
+
+“You might put it down Rowton House, Whitechapel,” answered Edward
+Mollison. “Leastways, that’s where I generally hang out when I can
+afford it. And—window-cleaner. Leastways, I was window cleaning
+when—when——”
+
+“When you came in contact with the stick we’ve been advertising about,”
+suggested Spargo. “Just so. Well, Mollison—what about the stick?”
+
+Mollison looked round at the door, and then at the windows, and then at
+Breton.
+
+“There ain’t no danger of me being got into trouble along of that
+stick?” he asked. “’Cause if there is, I ain’t a-going to say a
+word—no, not for no thousand pounds! Me never having been in no trouble
+of any sort, guv’nor—though a poor man.”
+
+“Not the slightest danger in the world, Mollison,” replied Spargo. “Not
+the least. All you’ve got to do is to tell the truth—and prove that it
+is the truth. So it was you who took that queer-looking stick out of
+Mr. Aylmore’s rooms in Fountain Court, was it?”
+
+Mollison appeared to find this direct question soothing to his
+feelings. He smiled weakly.
+
+“It was cert’nly me as took it, sir,” he said. “Not that I meant to
+pinch it—not me! And, as you might say, I didn’t take it, when all’s
+said and done. It was—put on me.”
+
+“Put on you, was it?” said Spargo. “That’s interesting. And how was it
+put on you?”
+
+Mollison grinned again and rubbed his chin.
+
+“It was this here way,” he answered. “You see, I was working at that
+time—near on to nine months since, it is—for the Universal Daylight
+Window Cleaning Company, and I used to clean a many windows here and
+there in the Temple, and them windows at Mr. Aylmore’s—only I knew them
+as Mr. Anderson’s—among ’em. And I was there one morning, early it was,
+when the charwoman she says to me, ‘I wish you’d take these two or
+three hearthrugs,’ she says, ‘and give ’em a good beating,’ she says.
+And me being always a ready one to oblige, ‘All right!’ I says, and
+takes ’em. ‘Here’s something to wallop ’em with,’ she says, and pulls
+that there old stick out of a lot that was in a stand in a corner of
+the lobby. And that’s how I came to handle it, sir.”
+
+“I see,” said Spargo. “A good explanation. And when you had beaten the
+hearthrugs—what then?”
+
+Mollison smiled his weak smile again.
+
+“Well, sir, I looked at that there stick and I see it was something
+uncommon,” he answered. “And I thinks—‘Well, this Mr. Anderson, he’s
+got a bundle of sticks and walking canes up there—he’ll never miss this
+old thing,’ I thinks. And so I left it in a corner when I’d done
+beating the rugs, and when I went away with my things I took it with
+me.”
+
+“You took it with you?” said Spargo. “Just so. To keep as a curiosity,
+I suppose?”
+
+Mollison’s weak smile turned to one of cunning. He was obviously losing
+his nervousness; the sound of his own voice and the reception of his
+news was imparting confidence to him.
+
+“Not half!” he answered. “You see, guv’nor, there was an old cove as I
+knew in the Temple there as is, or was, ’cause I ain’t been there
+since, a collector of antikities, like, and I’d sold him a queer old
+thing, time and again. And, of course, I had him in my eye when I took
+the stick away—see?”
+
+“I see. And you took the stick to him?”
+
+“I took it there and then,” replied Mollison. “Pitched him a tale, I
+did, about it having been brought from foreign parts by Uncle
+Simon—which I never had no Uncle Simon. Made out it was a rare
+curiosity—which it might ha’ been one, for all I know.”
+
+“Exactly. And the old cove took a fancy to it, eh?”
+
+“Bought it there and then,” answered Mollison, with something very like
+a wink.
+
+“Ah! Bought it there and then. And how much did he give you for it?”
+asked Spargo. “Something handsome, I hope?”
+
+“Couple o’ quid,” replied Mollison. “Me not wishing to part with a
+family heirloom for less.”
+
+“Just so. And do you happen to be able to tell me the old cove’s name
+and his address, Mollison?” asked Spargo.
+
+“I do, sir. Which they’ve painted on his entry—the fifth or sixth as
+you go down Middle Temple Lane,” answered Mollison. “Mr. Nicholas
+Cardlestone, first floor up the staircase.”
+
+Spargo rose from his seat without as much as a look at Breton.
+
+“Come this way, Mollison,” he said. “We’ll go and see about your little
+reward. Excuse me, Breton.”
+
+Breton kicked his heels in solitude for half an hour. Then Spargo came
+back.
+
+“There—that’s one matter settled, Breton,” he said. “Now for the next.
+The Home Secretary’s made the order for the opening of the grave at
+Market Milcaster. I’m going down there at once, and I suppose you’re
+coming. And remember, if that grave’s empty——”
+
+“If that grave’s empty,” said Breton, “I’ll tell you—a good deal.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
+THE CONTENTS OF THE COFFIN
+
+
+There travelled down together to Market Milcaster late that afternoon,
+Spargo, Breton, the officials from the Home Office, entrusted with the
+order for the opening of the Chamberlayne grave, and a solicitor acting
+on behalf of the proprietor of the _Watchman_. It was late in the
+evening when they reached the little town, but Spargo, having looked in
+at the parlour of the “Yellow Dragon” and ascertained that Mr.
+Quarterpage had only just gone home, took Breton across the street to
+the old gentleman’s house. Mr. Quarterpage himself came to the door,
+and recognized Spargo immediately. Nothing would satisfy him but that
+the two should go in; his family, he said, had just retired, but he
+himself was going to take a final nightcap and a cigar, and they must
+share it.
+
+“For a few minutes only then, Mr. Quarterpage,” said Spargo as they
+followed the old man into his dining-room. “We have to be up at
+daybreak. And—possibly—you, too, would like to be up just as early.”
+
+Mr. Quarterpage looked an enquiry over the top of a decanter which he
+was handling.
+
+“At daybreak?” he exclaimed.
+
+“The fact is,” said Spargo, “that grave of Chamberlayne’s is going to
+be opened at daybreak. We have managed to get an order from the Home
+Secretary for the exhumation of Chamberlayne’s body: the officials in
+charge of it have come down in the same train with us; we’re all
+staying across there at the ‘Dragon.’ The officials have gone to make
+the proper arrangements with your authorities. It will be at daybreak,
+or as near it as can conveniently be managed. And I suppose, now that
+you know of it, you’ll be there?”
+
+“God bless me!” exclaimed Mr. Quarterpage. “You’ve really done that!
+Well, well, so we shall know the truth at last, after all these years.
+You’re a very wonderful young man, Mr. Spargo, upon my word. And this
+other young gentleman?”
+
+Spargo looked at Breton, who had already given him permission to speak.
+“Mr. Quarterpage,” he said, “this young gentleman is, without doubt,
+John Maitland’s son. He’s the young barrister, Mr. Ronald Breton, that
+I told you of, but there’s no doubt about his parentage. And I’m sure
+you’ll shake hands with him and wish him well.”
+
+Mr. Quarterpage set down decanter and glass and hastened to give Breton
+his hand.
+
+“My dear young sir!” he exclaimed. “That I will indeed! And as to
+wishing you well—ah, I never wished anything but well to your poor
+father. He was led away, sir, led away by Chamberlayne. God bless me,
+what a night of surprises! Why, Mr. Spargo, supposing that coffin is
+found empty—what then?”
+
+“Then,” answered Spargo, “then I think we shall be able to put our
+hands on the man who is supposed to be in it.”
+
+“You think my father was worked upon by this man Chamberlayne, sir?”
+observed Breton a few minutes later when they had all sat down round
+Mr. Quarterpage’s hospitable hearth. “You think he was unduly
+influenced by him?”
+
+Mr. Quarterpage shook his head sadly.
+
+“Chamberlayne, my dear young sir,” he answered. “Chamberlayne was a
+plausible and a clever fellow. Nobody knew anything about him until he
+came to this town, and yet before he had been here very long he had
+contrived to ingratiate himself with everybody—of course, to his own
+advantage. I firmly believe that he twisted your father round his
+little finger. As I told Mr. Spargo there when he was making his
+enquiries of me a short while back, it would never have been any
+surprise to me to hear—definitely, I mean, young gentlemen—that all
+this money that was in question went into Chamberlayne’s pockets. Dear
+me—dear me!—and you really believe that Chamberlayne is actually alive,
+Mr. Spargo?”
+
+Spargo pulled out his watch. “We shall all know whether he was buried
+in that grave before another six hours are over, Mr. Quarterpage,” he
+said.
+
+He might well have spoken of four hours instead of six, for it was then
+nearly midnight, and before three o’clock Spargo and Breton, with the
+other men who had accompanied them from London were out of the “Yellow
+Dragon” and on their way to the cemetery just outside the little town.
+Over the hills to the eastward the grey dawn was slowly breaking: the
+long stretch of marshland which lies between Market Milcaster and the
+sea was white with fog: on the cypresses and acacias of the cemetery
+hung veils and webs of gossamer: everything around them was quiet as
+the dead folk who lay beneath their feet. And the people actively
+concerned went quietly to work, and those who could do nothing but
+watch stood around in silence.
+
+“In all my long life of over ninety years,” whispered old Quarterpage,
+who had met them at the cemetery gates, looking fresh and brisk in
+spite of his shortened rest, “I have never seen this done before. It
+seems a strange, strange thing to interfere with a dead man’s last
+resting-place—a dreadful thing.”
+
+“If there is a dead man there,” said Spargo.
+
+He himself was mainly curious about the details of this exhumation; he
+had no scruples, sentimental or otherwise, about the breaking in upon
+the dead. He watched all that was done. The men employed by the local
+authorities, instructed over-night, had fenced in the grave with
+canvas; the proceedings were accordingly conducted in strict privacy; a
+man was posted to keep away any very early passersby, who might be
+attracted by the unusual proceedings. At first there was nothing to do
+but wait, and Spargo occupied himself by reflecting that every spadeful
+of earth thrown out of that grave was bringing him nearer to the truth;
+he had an unconquerable intuition that the truth of at any rate one
+phase of the Marbury case was going to be revealed to them. If the
+coffin to which they were digging down contained a body, and that the
+body of the stockbroker, Chamberlayne, then a good deal of his,
+Spargo’s, latest theory, would be dissolved to nothingness. But if that
+coffin contained no body at all, then—”
+
+“They’re down to it!” whispered Breton.
+
+Presently they all went and looked down into the grave. The workmen had
+uncovered the coffin preparatory to lifting it to the surface; one of
+them was brushing the earth away from the name-plate. And in the now
+strong light they could all read the lettering on it.
+
+JAMES CARTWRIGHT CHAMBERLAYNE
+Born 1852
+Died 1891
+
+
+Spargo turned away as the men began to lift the coffin out of the
+grave.
+
+“We shall know now!” he whispered to Breton. “And yet—what is it we
+shall know if——”
+
+“If what?” said Breton. “If—what?”
+
+But Spargo shook his head. This was one of the great moments he had
+lately been working for, and the issues were tremendous.
+
+“Now for it!” said the _Watchman’s_ solicitor in an undertone. “Come,
+Mr. Spargo, now we shall see.”
+
+They all gathered round the coffin, set on low trestles at the
+graveside, as the workmen silently went to work on the screws. The
+screws were rusted in their sockets; they grated as the men slowly
+worked them out. It seemed to Spargo that each man grew slower and
+slower in his movements; he felt that he himself was getting fidgety.
+Then he heard a voice of authority.
+
+“Lift the lid off!”
+
+A man at the head of the coffin, a man at the foot suddenly and swiftly
+raised the lid: the men gathered round craned their necks with a quick
+movement.
+
+Sawdust!
+
+The coffin was packed to the brim with sawdust, tightly pressed down.
+The surface lay smooth, undisturbed, levelled as some hand had levelled
+it long years before. They were not in the presence of death, but of
+deceit.
+
+Somebody laughed faintly. The sound of the laughter broke the spell.
+The chief official present looked round him with a smile.
+
+“It is evident that there were good grounds for suspicion,” he
+remarked. “Here is no dead body, gentlemen. See if anything lies
+beneath the sawdust,” he added, turning to the workmen. “Turn it out!”
+
+The workmen began to scoop out the sawdust with their hands; one of
+them, evidently desirous of making sure that no body was in the coffin,
+thrust down his fingers at various places along its length. He, too,
+laughed.
+
+“The coffin’s weighted with lead!” he remarked. “See!”
+
+And tearing the sawdust aside, he showed those around him that at three
+intervals bars of lead had been tightly wedged into the coffin where
+the head, the middle, and the feet of a corpse would have rested.
+
+“Done it cleverly,” he remarked, looking round. “You see how these
+weights have been adjusted. When a body’s laid out in a coffin, you
+know, all the weight’s in the end where the head and trunk rest. Here
+you see the heaviest bar of lead is in the middle; the lightest at the
+feet. Clever!”
+
+“Clear out all the sawdust,” said some one. “Let’s see if there’s
+anything else.”
+
+There was something else. At the bottom of the coffin two bundles of
+papers, tied up with pink tape. The legal gentlemen present immediately
+manifested great interest in these. So did Spargo, who, pulling Breton
+along with him, forced his way to where the officials from the Home
+Office and the solicitor sent by the _Watchman_ were hastily examining
+their discoveries.
+
+The first bundle of papers opened evidently related to transactions at
+Market Milcaster: Spargo caught glimpses of names that were familiar to
+him, Mr. Quarterpage’s amongst them. He was not at all astonished to
+see these things. But he was something more than astonished when, on
+the second parcel being opened, a quantity of papers relating to
+Cloudhampton and the Hearth and Home Mutual Benefit Society were
+revealed. He gave a hasty glance at these and drew Breton aside.
+
+“It strikes me we’ve found a good deal more than we ever bargained
+for!” he exclaimed. “Didn’t Aylmore say that the real culprit at
+Cloudhampton was another man—his clerk or something of that sort?”
+
+“He did,” agreed Breton. “He insists on it.”
+
+“Then this fellow Chamberlayne must have been the man,” said Spargo.
+“He came to Market Milcaster from the north. What’ll be done with those
+papers?” he asked, turning to the officials.
+
+“We are going to seal them up at once, and take them to London,”
+replied the principal person in authority. “They will be quite safe,
+Mr. Spargo; have no fear. We don’t know what they may reveal.”
+
+“You don’t, indeed!” said Spargo. “But I may as well tell you that I
+have a strong belief that they’ll reveal a good deal that nobody dreams
+of, so take the greatest care of them.”
+
+Then, without waiting for further talk with any one, Spargo hurried
+Breton out of the cemetery. At the gate, he seized him by the arm.
+
+“Now, then, Breton!” he commanded. “Out with it!”
+
+“With what?”
+
+“You promised to tell me something—a great deal, you said—if we found
+that coffin empty. It is empty. Come on—quick!”
+
+“All right. I believe I know where Elphick and Cardlestone can be
+found. That’s all.”
+
+“All! It’s enough. Where, then, in heaven’s name?”
+
+“Elphick has a queer little place where he and Cardlestone sometimes go
+fishing—right away up in one of the wildest parts of the Yorkshire
+moors. I expect they’ve gone there. Nobody knows even their names
+there—they could go and lie quiet there for—ages.”
+
+“Do you know the way to it?”
+
+“I do—I’ve been there.”
+
+Spargo motioned him to hurry.
+
+“Come on, then,” he said. “We’re going there by the very first train
+out of this. I know the train, too—we’ve just time to snatch a mouthful
+of breakfast and to send a wire to the _Watchman_, and then we’ll be
+off. Yorkshire!—Gad, Breton, that’s over three hundred miles away!”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
+FORESTALLED
+
+
+Travelling all that long summer day, first from the south-west of
+England to the Midlands, then from the Midlands to the north, Spargo
+and Breton came late at night to Hawes’ Junction, on the border of
+Yorkshire and Westmoreland, and saw rising all around them in the
+half-darkness the mighty bulks of the great fells which rise amongst
+that wild and lonely stretch of land. At that hour of the night and
+amidst that weird silence, broken only by the murmur of some adjacent
+waterfall the scene was impressive and suggestive; it seemed to Spargo
+as if London were a million miles away, and the rush and bustle of
+human life a thing of another planet. Here and there in the valleys he
+saw a light, but such lights were few and far between; even as he
+looked some of them twinkled and went out. It was evident that he and
+Breton were presently to be alone with the night.
+
+“How far?” he asked Breton as they walked away from the station.
+
+“We’d better discuss matters,” answered Breton. “The place is in a
+narrow valley called Fossdale, some six or seven miles away across
+these fells, and as wild a walk as any lover of such things could wish
+for. It’s half-past nine now, Spargo: I reckon it will take us a good
+two and a half hours, if not more, to do it. Now, the question is—Do we
+go straight there, or do we put up for the night? There’s an inn here
+at this junction: there’s the Moor Cock Inn a mile or so along the road
+which we must take before we turn off to the moorland and the fells.
+It’s going to be a black night—look at those masses of black cloud
+gathering there!—and possibly a wet one, and we’ve no waterproofs. But
+it’s for you to say—I’m game for whatever you like.”
+
+“Do you know the way?” asked Spargo.
+
+“I’ve been the way. In the daytime I could go straight ahead. I
+remember all the landmarks. Even in the darkness I believe I can find
+my way. But it’s rough walking.”
+
+“We’ll go straight there,” said Spargo. “Every minute’s precious.
+But—can we get a mouthful of bread and cheese and a glass of ale
+first?”
+
+“Good idea! We’ll call in at the ‘Moor Cock.’ Now then, while we’re on
+this firm road, step it out lively.”
+
+The “Moor Cock” was almost deserted at that hour: there was scarcely a
+soul in it when the two travellers turned in to its dimly-lighted
+parlour. The landlord, bringing the desired refreshment, looked hard at
+Breton.
+
+“Come our way again then, sir?” he remarked with a sudden grin of
+recognition.
+
+“Ah, you remember me?” said Breton.
+
+“I call in mind when you came here with the two old gents last year,”
+replied the landlord. “I hear they’re here again—Tom Summers was coming
+across that way this morning, and said he’d seen ’em at the little
+cottage. Going to join ’em, I reckon, sir?”
+
+Breton kicked Spargo under the table.
+
+“Yes, we’re going to have a day or two with them,” he answered. “Just
+to get a breath of your moorland air.”
+
+“Well, you’ll have a roughish walk over there tonight, gentlemen,” said
+the landlord. “There’s going to be a storm. And it’s a stiffish way to
+make out at this time o’night.”
+
+“Oh, we’ll manage,” said Breton, nonchalantly. “I know the way, and
+we’re not afraid of a wet skin.”
+
+The landlord laughed, and sitting down on his long settle folded his
+arms and scratched his elbows.
+
+“There was a gentleman—London gentleman by his tongue—came in here this
+afternoon, and asked the way to Fossdale,” he observed. “He’ll be there
+long since—he’d have daylight for his walk. Happen he’s one of your
+party?—he asked where the old gentlemen’s little cottage was.”
+
+Again Spargo felt his shin kicked and made no sign. “One of their
+friends, perhaps,” answered Breton. “What was he like?”
+
+The landlord ruminated. He was not good at description and was
+conscious of the fact.
+
+“Well, a darkish, serious-faced gentleman,” he said. “Stranger
+hereabouts, at all events. Wore a grey suit—something like your
+friend’s there. Yes—he took some bread and cheese with him when he
+heard what a long way it was.”
+
+“Wise man,” remarked Breton. He hastily finished his own bread and
+cheese, and drank off the rest of his pint of ale. “Come on,” he said,
+“let’s be stepping.”
+
+Outside, in the almost tangible darkness, Breton clutched Spargo’s arm.
+“Who’s the man?” he said. “Can you think, Spargo?”
+
+“Can’t,” answered Spargo. “I was trying to, while that chap was
+talking. But—it’s somebody that’s got in before us. Not Rathbury,
+anyhow—he’s not serious-faced. Heavens, Breton, however are you going
+to find your way in this darkness?”
+
+“You’ll see presently. We follow the road a little. Then we turn up the
+fell side there. On the top, if the night clears a bit, we ought to see
+Great Shunnor Fell and Lovely Seat—they’re both well over two thousand
+feet, and they stand up well. We want to make for a point clear between
+them. But I warn you, Spargo, it’s stiff going!”
+
+“Go ahead!” said Spargo. “It’s the first time in my life I ever did
+anything of this sort, but we’re going on if it takes us all night. I
+couldn’t sleep in any bed now that I’ve heard there’s somebody ahead of
+us. Go first, old chap, and I’ll follow.”
+
+Breton went steadily forward along the road. That was easy work, but
+when he turned off and began to thread his way up the fell-side by what
+was obviously no more than a sheep-track, Spargo’s troubles began. It
+seemed to him that he was walking as in a nightmare; all that he saw
+was magnified and heightened; the darkening sky above; the faint
+outlines of the towering hills; the gaunt spectres of fir and pine; the
+figure of Breton forging stolidly and surely ahead. Now the ground was
+soft and spongy under his feet; now it was stony and rugged; more than
+once he caught an ankle in the wire-like heather and tripped, bruising
+his knees. And in the end he resigned himself to keeping his eye on
+Breton, outlined against the sky, and following doggedly in his
+footsteps.
+
+“Was there no other way than this?” he asked after a long interval of
+silence. “Do you mean to say those two—Elphick and Cardlestone—would
+take this way?”
+
+“There is another way—down the valley, by Thwaite Bridge and Hardraw,”
+answered Breton, “but it’s miles and miles round. This is a straight
+cut across country, and in daylight it’s a delightful walk. But at
+night—Gad!—here’s the rain, Spargo!”
+
+The rain came down as it does in that part of the world, with a
+suddenness that was as fierce as it was heavy. The whole of the grey
+night was blotted out; Spargo was only conscious that he stood in a
+vast solitude and was being gradually drowned. But Breton, whose sight
+was keener, and who had more knowledge of the situation dragged his
+companion into the shelter of a group of rocks. He laughed a little as
+they huddled closely together.
+
+“This is a different sort of thing to pursuing detective work in Fleet
+Street, Spargo,” he said. “You would come on, you know.”
+
+“I’m going on if we go through cataracts and floods,” answered Spargo.
+“I might have been induced to stop at the ‘Moor Cock’ overnight if we
+hadn’t heard of that chap in front. If he’s after those two he’s
+somebody who knows something. What I can’t make out is—who he can be.”
+
+“Nor I,” said Breton. “I can’t think of anybody who knows of this
+retreat. But—has it ever struck you, Spargo, that somebody beside
+yourself may have been investigating?”
+
+“Possible,” replied Spargo. “One never knows. I only wish we’d been a
+few hours earlier. For I wanted to have the first word with those two.”
+
+The rain ceased as suddenly as it had come. Just as suddenly the
+heavens cleared. And going forward to the top of the ridge which they
+were then crossing, Breton pointed an arm to something shining far away
+below them.
+
+“You see that?” he said. “That’s a sheet of water lying between us and
+Cotterdale. We leave that on our right hand, climb the fell beyond it,
+drop down into Cotterdale, cross two more ranges of fell, and come down
+into Fossdale under Lovely Seat. There’s a good two hours and a half
+stiff pull yet, Spargo. Think you can stick it?”
+
+Spargo set his teeth.
+
+“Go on!” he said.
+
+Up hill, down dale, now up to his ankles in peaty ground, now tearing
+his shins, now bruising his knees, Spargo, yearning for the London
+lights, the well-paved London streets, the convenient taxi-cab, even
+the humble omnibus, plodded forward after his guide. It seemed to him
+that they had walked for ages and had traversed a whole continent of
+mountains and valley when at last Breton, halting on the summit of a
+wind-swept ridge, laid one hand on his companion’s shoulder and pointed
+downward with the other.
+
+“There!” he said. “There!”
+
+Spargo looked ahead into the night. Far away, at what seemed to him to
+be a considerable distance, he saw the faint, very faint glimmer of a
+light—a mere spark of a light.
+
+“That’s the cottage,” said Breton, “Late as it is, you see, they’re up.
+And here’s the roughest bit of the journey. It’ll take me all my time
+to find the track across this moor, Spargo, so step carefully after
+me—there are bogs and holes hereabouts.”
+
+Another hour had gone by ere the two came to the cottage. Sometimes the
+guiding light had vanished, blotted out by intervening rises in the
+ground; always, when they saw it again, they were slowly drawing nearer
+to it. And now when they were at last close to it, Spargo realized that
+he found himself in one of the loneliest places he had ever been
+capable of imagining—so lonely and desolate a spot he had certainly
+never seen. In the dim light he could see a narrow, crawling stream,
+making its way down over rocks and stones from the high ground of Great
+Shunnor Fell. Opposite to the place at which they stood, on the edge of
+the moorland, a horseshoe like formation of ground was backed by a ring
+of fir and pine; beneath this protecting fringe of trees stood a small
+building of grey stone which looked as if it had been originally built
+by some shepherd as a pen for the moorland sheep. It was of no more
+than one storey in height, but of some length; a considerable part of
+it was hidden by shrubs and brushwood. And from one uncurtained,
+blindless window the light of a lamp shone boldly into the fading
+darkness without.
+
+Breton pulled up on the edge of the crawling stream.
+
+“We’ve got to get across there, Spargo,” he said. “But as we’re already
+soaked to the knee it doesn’t matter about getting another wetting.
+Have you any idea how long we’ve been walking?”
+
+“Hours—days—years!” replied Spargo.
+
+“I should say quite four hours,” said Breton. “In that case, it’s well
+past two o’clock, and the light will be breaking in another hour or so.
+Now, once across this stream, what shall we do?”
+
+“What have we come to do? Go to the cottage, of course!”
+
+“Wait a bit. No need to startle them. By the fact they’ve got a light,
+I take it that they’re up. Look there!”
+
+As he spoke, a figure crossed the window passing between it and the
+light.
+
+“That’s not Elphick, nor yet Cardlestone,” said Spargo. “They’re
+medium-heighted men. That’s a tallish man.”
+
+“Then it’s the man the landlord of the ‘Moor Cock’ told us about,” said
+Breton. “Now, look here—I know every inch of this place. When we’re
+across let me go up to the cottage, and I’ll take an observation
+through that window and see who’s inside. Come on.”
+
+He led Spargo across the stream at a place where a succession of
+boulders made a natural bridge, and bidding him keep quiet, went up the
+bank to the cottage. Spargo, watching him, saw him make his way past
+the shrubs and undergrowth until he came to a great bush which stood
+between the lighted window and the projecting porch of the cottage. He
+lingered in the shadow of this bush but for a short moment; then came
+swiftly and noiselessly back to his companion. His hand fell on
+Spargo’s arm with a clutch of nervous excitement.
+
+“Spargo!” he whispered. “Who on earth do you think the other man is?”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
+THE WHIP HAND
+
+
+Spargo, almost irritable from desire to get at close grips with the
+objects of his long journey, shook off Breton’s hand with a growl of
+resentment.
+
+“And how on earth can I waste time guessing?” he exclaimed. “Who is
+he?”
+
+Breton laughed softly.
+
+“Steady, Spargo, steady!” he said. “It’s Myerst—the Safe Deposit man.
+Myerst!”
+
+Spargo started as if something had bitten him.
+
+“Myerst!” he almost shouted. “Myerst! Good Lord!—why did I never think
+of him? Myerst! Then——”
+
+“I don’t know why you should have thought of him,” said Breton.
+“But—he’s there.”
+
+Spargo took a step towards the cottage: Breton pulled him back.
+
+“Wait!” he said. “We’ve got to discuss this. I’d better tell you what
+they’re doing.”
+
+“What are they doing, then?” demanded Spargo impatiently.
+
+“Well,” answered Breton. “They’re going through a quantity of papers.
+The two old gentlemen look very ill and very miserable. Myerst is
+evidently laying down the law to them in some fashion or other. I’ve
+formed a notion, Spargo.”
+
+“What notion?”
+
+“Myerst is in possession of whatever secret they have, and he’s
+followed them down here to blackmail them. That’s my notion.”
+
+Spargo thought awhile, pacing up and down the river bank.
+
+“I daresay you’re right,” he said. “Now, what’s to be done?”
+
+Breton, too, considered matters.
+
+“I wish,” he said at last, “I wish we could get in there and overhear
+what’s going on. But that’s impossible—I know that cottage. The only
+thing we can do is this—we must catch Myerst unawares. He’s here for no
+good. Look here!”
+
+And reaching round to his hip-pocket Breton drew out a Browning
+revolver and wagged it in his hand with a smile.
+
+“That’s a useful thing to have, Spargo,” he remarked. “I slipped it
+into my pocket the other day, wondering why on earth I did it. Now
+it’ll come in handy. For anything we know Myerst may be armed.”
+
+“Well?” said Spargo.
+
+“Come up to the cottage. If things turn out as I think they will,
+Myerst, when he’s got what he wants, will be off. Now, you shall get
+where I did just now, behind that bush, and I’ll station myself in the
+doorway. You can report to me, and when Myerst comes out I’ll cover
+him. Come on, Spargo; it’s beginning to get light already.”
+
+Breton cautiously led the way along the river bank, making use of such
+cover as the willows and alders afforded. Together, he and Spargo made
+their way to the front of the cottage. Arrived at the door, Breton
+posted himself in the porch, motioning to Spargo to creep in behind the
+bushes and to look through the window. And Spargo noiselessly followed
+his directions and slightly parting the branches which concealed him
+looked in through the uncurtained glass.
+
+The interior into which he looked was rough and comfortless in the
+extreme. There were the bare accessories of a moorland cottage; rough
+chairs and tables, plastered walls, a fishing rod or two piled in a
+corner; some food set out on a side table. At the table in the middle
+of the floor the three men sat. Cardlestone’s face was in the shadow;
+Myerst had his back to the window; old Elphick bending over the table
+was laboriously writing with shaking fingers. And Spargo twisted his
+head round to his companion.
+
+“Elphick,” he said, “is writing a cheque. Myerst has another cheque in
+his hand. Be ready!—when he gets that second cheque I guess he’ll be
+off.”
+
+Breton smiled grimly and nodded. A moment later Spargo whispered again.
+
+“Look out, Breton! He’s coming.”
+
+Breton drew back into the angle of the porch; Spargo quitted his
+protecting bush and took the other angle. The door opened. And they
+heard Myerst’s voice, threatening, commanding in tone.
+
+“Now, remember all I’ve said! And don’t you forget—I’ve the whip hand
+of both of you—the whip hand!”
+
+Then Myerst turned and stepped out into the grey light—to find himself
+confronted by an athletic young man who held the muzzle of an ugly
+revolver within two inches of the bridge of his nose and in a
+remarkably firm and steady grip. Another glance showed him the figure
+of a second business-like looking young man at his side, whose attitude
+showed a desire to grapple with him.
+
+“Good-morning, Mr. Myerst,” said Breton with cold and ironic
+politeness. “We are glad to meet you so unexpectedly. And—I must
+trouble you to put up your hands. Quick!”
+
+Myerst made one hurried movement of his right hand towards his hip, but
+a sudden growl from Breton made him shift it just as quickly above his
+head, whither the left followed it. Breton laughed softly.
+
+“That’s wise, Mr. Myerst,” he said, keeping his revolver steadily
+pointed at his prisoner’s nose. “Discretion will certainly be the
+better part of your valour on this occasion. Spargo—may I trouble you
+to see what Mr. Myerst carries in his pockets? Go through them
+carefully. Not for papers or documents—just now. We can leave that
+matter—we’ve plenty of time. See if he’s got a weapon of any sort on
+him, Spargo—that’s the important thing.”
+
+Considering that Spargo had never gone through the experience of
+searching a man before, he made sharp and creditable work of seeing
+what the prisoner carried. And he forthwith drew out and exhibited a
+revolver, while Myerst, finding his tongue, cursed them both, heartily
+and with profusion.
+
+“Excellent!” said Breton, laughing again. “Sure he’s got nothing else
+on him that’s dangerous, Spargo? All right. Now, Mr. Myerst, right
+about face! Walk into the cottage, hands up, and remember there are two
+revolvers behind your back. March!”
+
+Myerst obeyed this peremptory order with more curses. The three walked
+into the cottage. Breton kept his eye on his captive; Spargo gave a
+glance at the two old men. Cardlestone, white and shaking, was lying
+back in his chair; Elphick, scarcely less alarmed, had risen, and was
+coming forward with trembling limbs.
+
+“Wait a moment,” said Breton, soothingly. “Don’t alarm yourself. We’ll
+deal with Mr. Myerst here first. Now, Myerst, my man, sit down in that
+chair—it’s the heaviest the place affords. Into it, now! Spargo, you
+see that coil of rope there. Tie Myerst up—hand and foot—to that chair.
+And tie him well. All the knots to be double, Spargo, and behind him.”
+
+Myerst suddenly laughed. “You damned young bully!” he exclaimed. “If
+you put a rope round me, you’re only putting ropes round the necks of
+these two old villains. Mark that, my fine fellows!”
+
+“We’ll see about that later,” answered Breton. He kept Myerst covered
+while Spargo made play with the rope. “Don’t be afraid of hurting him,
+Spargo,” he said. “Tie him well and strong. He won’t shift that chair
+in a hurry.”
+
+Spargo spliced his man to the chair in a fashion that would have done
+credit to a sailor. He left Myerst literally unable to move either hand
+or foot, and Myerst cursed him from crown to heel for his pains.
+“That’ll do,” said Breton at last. He dropped his revolver into his
+pocket and turned to the two old men. Elphick averted his eyes and sank
+into a chair in the darkest corner of the room: old Cardlestone shook
+as with palsy and muttered words which the two young men could not
+catch. “Guardian,” continued Breton, “don’t be frightened! And don’t
+you be frightened, either, Mr. Cardlestone. There’s nothing to be
+afraid of, just yet, whatever there may be later on. It seems to me
+that Mr. Spargo and I came just in time. Now, guardian, what was this
+fellow after?”
+
+Old Elphick lifted his head and shook it; he was plainly on the verge
+of tears; as for Cardlestone, it was evident that his nerve was
+completely gone. And Breton pointed Spargo to an old corner cupboard.
+
+“Spargo,” he said, “I’m pretty sure you’ll find whisky in there. Give
+them both a stiff dose: they’ve broken up. Now, guardian,” he
+continued, when Spargo had carried out this order, “what was he after?
+Shall I suggest it? Was it—blackmail?”
+
+Cardlestone began to whimper; Elphick nodded his head. “Yes, yes!” he
+muttered. “Blackmail! That was it—blackmail. He—he got
+money—papers—from us. They’re on him.”
+
+Breton turned on the captive with a look of contempt.
+
+“I thought as much, Mr. Myerst,” he said. “Spargo, let’s see what he
+has on him.”
+
+Spargo began to search the prisoner’s pockets. He laid out everything
+on the table as he found it. It was plain that Myerst had contemplated
+some sort of flight or a long, long journey. There was a quantity of
+loose gold; a number of bank-notes of the more easily negotiated
+denominations; various foreign securities, realizable in Paris. And
+there was an open cheque, signed by Cardlestone for ten thousand
+pounds, and another, with Elphick’s name at the foot, also open, for
+half that amount. Breton examined all these matters as Spargo handed
+them out. He turned to old Elphick.
+
+“Guardian,” he said, “why have you or Mr. Cardlestone given this man
+these cheques and securities? What hold has he on you?”
+
+Old Cardlestone began to whimper afresh; Elphick turned a troubled face
+on his ward.
+
+“He—he threatened to accuse us of the murder of Marbury!” he faltered.
+“We—we didn’t see that we had a chance.”
+
+“What does he know of the murder of Marbury and of you in connection
+with it?” demanded Breton. “Come—tell me the truth now.”
+
+“He’s been investigating—so he says,” answered Elphick. “He lives in
+that house in Middle Temple Lane, you know, in the top-floor rooms
+above Cardlestone’s. And—and he says he’s the fullest evidence against
+Cardlestone—and against me as an accessory after the fact.”
+
+“And—it’s a lie?” asked Breton.
+
+“A lie!” answered Elphick. “Of course, it’s a lie. But—he’s so clever
+that—that——”
+
+“That you don’t know how you could prove it otherwise,” said Breton.
+“Ah! And so this fellow lives over Mr. Cardlestone there, does he? That
+may account for a good many things. Now we must have the police here.”
+He sat down at the table and drew the writing materials to him. “Look
+here, Spargo,” he continued. “I’m going to write a note to the
+superintendent of police at Hawes—there’s a farm half a mile from here
+where I can get a man to ride down to Hawes with the note. Now, if you
+want to send a wire to the _Watchman_, draft it out, and he’ll take it
+with him.”
+
+Elphick began to move in his corner.
+
+“Must the police come?” he said. “Must——”
+
+“The police must come,” answered Breton firmly. “Go ahead with your
+wire, Spargo, while I write this note.”
+
+Three quarters of an hour later, when Breton came back from the farm,
+he sat down at Elphick’s side and laid his hand on the old man’s.
+
+“Now, guardian,” he said, quietly, “you’ve got to tell us the truth.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
+MYERST EXPLAINS
+
+
+It had been apparent to Spargo, from the moment of his entering the
+cottage, that the two old men were suffering badly from shock and
+fright: Cardlestone still sat in his corner shivering and trembling; he
+looked incapable of explaining anything; Elphick was scarcely more
+fitted to speak. And when Breton issued his peremptory invitation to
+his guardian to tell the truth, Spargo intervened.
+
+“Far better leave him alone, Breton,” he said in a low voice. “Don’t
+you see the old chap’s done up? They’re both done up. We don’t know
+what they’ve gone through with this fellow before we came, and it’s
+certain they’ve had no sleep. Leave it all till later—after all, we’ve
+found them and we’ve found him.” He jerked his thumb over his shoulder
+in Myerst’s direction, and Breton involuntarily followed the movement.
+He caught the prisoner’s eye, and Myerst laughed.
+
+“I daresay you two young men think yourselves very clever,” he said
+sneeringly. “Don’t you, now?”
+
+“We’ve been clever enough to catch you, anyway,” retorted Breton. “And
+now we’ve got you we’ll keep you till the police can relieve us of
+you.”
+
+“Oh!” said Myerst, with another sneering laugh. “And on what charge do
+you propose to hand me over to the police? It strikes me you’ll have
+some difficulty in formulating one, Mr. Breton.”
+
+“Well see about that later,” said Breton. “You’ve extorted money by
+menaces from these gentlemen, at any rate.”
+
+“Have I? How do you know they didn’t entrust me with these cheques as
+their agent?” exclaimed Myerst. “Answer me that! Or, rather, let them
+answer if they dare. Here you, Cardlestone, you Elphick—didn’t you give
+me these cheques as your agent? Speak up now, and quick!”
+
+Spargo, watching the two old men, saw them both quiver at the sound of
+Myerst’s voice; Cardlestone indeed, began to whimper softly.
+
+“Look here, Breton,” he said, whispering, “this scoundrel’s got some
+hold on these two old chaps—they’re frightened to death of him. Leave
+them alone: it would be best for them if they could get some rest. Hold
+your tongue, you!” he added aloud, turning to Myerst. “When we want you
+to speak we’ll tell you.”
+
+But Myerst laughed again.
+
+“All very high and mighty, Mr. Spargo of the _Watchman_!” he sneered.
+“You’re another of the cock-sure lot. And you’re very clever, but not
+clever enough. Now, look here! Supposing—”
+
+Spargo turned his back on him. He went over to old Cardlestone and felt
+his hands. And he turned to Breton with a look of concern.
+
+“I say!” he exclaimed. “He’s more than frightened—he’s ill! What’s to
+be done?”
+
+“I asked the police to bring a doctor along with them,” answered
+Breton. “In the meantime, let’s put him to bed—there are beds in that
+inner room. We’ll get him to bed and give him something hot to
+drink—that’s all I can think of for the present.”
+
+Between them they managed to get Cardlestone to his bed, and Spargo,
+with a happy thought, boiled water on the rusty stove and put hot
+bottles to his feet. When that was done they persuaded Elphick to lie
+down in the inner room. Presently both old men fell asleep, and then
+Breton and Spargo suddenly realized that they themselves were hungry
+and wet and weary.
+
+“There ought to be food in the cupboard,” said Breton, beginning to
+rummage. “They’ve generally had a good stock of tinned things. Here we
+are, Spargo—these are tongues and sardines. Make some hot coffee while
+I open one of these tins.”
+
+The prisoner watched the preparations for a rough and ready breakfast
+with eyes that eventually began to glisten.
+
+“I may remind you that I’m hungry, too,” he said as Spargo set the
+coffee on the table. “And you’ve no right to starve me, even if you’ve
+the physical ability to keep me tied up. Give me something to eat, if
+you please.”
+
+“You shan’t starve,” said Breton, carelessly. He cut an ample supply of
+bread and meat, filled a cup with coffee and placed cup and plate
+before Myerst. “Untie his right arm, Spargo,” he continued. “I think we
+can give him that liberty. We’ve got his revolver, anyhow.”
+
+For a while the three men ate and drank in silence. At last Myerst
+pushed his plate away. He looked scrutinizingly at his two captors.
+“Look here!” he said. “You think you know a lot about all this affair,
+Spargo, but there’s only one person who knows all about it. That’s me!”
+
+“We’re taking that for granted,” said Spargo. “We guessed as much when
+we found you here. You’ll have ample opportunity for explanation, you
+know, later on.”
+
+“I’ll explain now, if you care to hear,” said Myerst with another of
+his cynical laughs. “And if I do, I’ll tell you the truth. I know
+you’ve got an idea in your heads that isn’t favourable to me, but
+you’re utterly wrong, whatever you may think. Look here!—I’ll make you
+a fair offer. There are some cigars in my case there—give me one, and
+mix me a drink of that whisky—a good ’un—and I’ll tell you what I know
+about this matter. Come on!—anything’s better than sitting here doing
+nothing.”
+
+The two young men looked at each other. Then Breton nodded. “Let him
+talk if he likes,” he said. “We’re not bound to believe him. And we may
+hear something that’s true. Give him his cigar and his drink.”
+
+Myerst took a stiff pull at the contents of the tumbler which Spargo
+presently set before him. He laughed as he inhaled the first fumes of
+his cigar.
+
+“As it happens, you’ll hear nothing but the truth,” he observed. “Now
+that things are as they are, there’s no reason why I shouldn’t tell the
+truth. The fact is, I’ve nothing to fear. You can’t give me in charge,
+for it so happens that I’ve got a power of attorney from these two old
+chaps inside there to act for them in regard to the money they
+entrusted me with. It’s in an inside pocket of that letter-case, and if
+you look at it, Breton, you’ll see it’s in order. I’m not even going to
+dare you to interfere with or destroy it—you’re a barrister, and you’ll
+respect the law. But that’s a fact—and if anybody’s got a case against
+anybody, I have against you two for assault and illegal detention. But
+I’m not a vindictive man, and——”
+
+Breton took up Myerst’s letter-case and examined its contents. And
+presently he turned to Spargo.
+
+“He’s right!” he whispered. “This is quite in order.” He turned to
+Myerst. “All the same,” he said, addressing him, “we shan’t release
+you, because we believe you’re concerned in the murder of John Marbury.
+We’re justified in holding you on that account.”
+
+“All right, my young friend,” said Myerst. “Have your own stupid way.
+But I said I’d tell you the plain truth. Well, the plain truth is that
+I know no more of the absolute murder of your father than I know of
+what is going on in Timbuctoo at this moment! I do not know who killed
+John Maitland. That’s a fact! It may have been the old man in there
+who’s already at his own last gasp, or it mayn’t. I tell you I don’t
+know—though, like you, Spargo, I’ve tried hard to find out. That’s the
+truth—I do not know.”
+
+“You expect us to believe that?” exclaimed Breton incredulously.
+
+“Believe it or not, as you like—it’s the truth,” answered Myerst. “Now,
+look here—I said nobody knew as much of this affair as I know, and
+that’s true also. And here’s the truth of what I know. The old man in
+that room, whom you know as Nicholas Cardlestone, is in reality
+Chamberlayne, the stockbroker, of Market Milcaster, whose name was so
+freely mentioned when your father was tried there. That’s another
+fact!”
+
+“How,” asked Breton, sternly, “can you prove it? How do you know it?”
+
+“Because,” replied Myerst, with a cunning grin, “I helped to carry out
+his mock death and burial—I was a solicitor in those days, and my name
+was—something else. There were three of us at it: Chamberlayne’s
+nephew; a doctor of no reputation; and myself. We carried it out very
+cleverly, and Chamberlayne gave us five thousand pounds apiece for our
+trouble. It was not the first time that I had helped him and been well
+paid for my help. The first time was in connection with the
+Cloudhampton Hearth and Home Mutual Benefit Society affair—Aylmore, or
+Ainsworth, was as innocent as a child in that!—Chamberlayne was the man
+at the back. But, unfortunately, Chamberlayne didn’t profit—he lost all
+he got by it, pretty quick. That was why be transferred his abilities
+to Market Milcaster.”
+
+“You can prove all this, I suppose?” remarked Spargo.
+
+“Every word—every letter! But about the Market Milcaster affair: Your
+father, Breton, was right in what he said about Chamberlayne having all
+the money that was got from the bank. He had—and he engineered that
+mock death and funeral so that he could disappear, and he paid us who
+helped him generously, as I’ve told you. The thing couldn’t have been
+better done. When it was done, the nephew disappeared; the doctor
+disappeared; Chamberlayne disappeared. I had bad luck—to tell you the
+truth, I was struck off the rolls for a technical offence. So I changed
+my name and became Mr. Myerst, and eventually what I am now. And it was
+not until three years ago that I found Chamberlayne. I found him in
+this way: After I became secretary to the Safe Deposit Company, I took
+chambers in the Temple, above Cardlestone’s. And I speedily found out
+who he was. Instead of going abroad, the old fox—though he was a
+comparatively young ’un, then!—had shaved off his beard, settled down
+in the Temple and given himself up to his two hobbies, collecting
+curiosities and stamps. There he’d lived quietly all these years, and
+nobody had ever recognized or suspected him. Indeed, I don’t see how
+they could; he lived such a quiet, secluded life, with his collections,
+his old port, and his little whims and fads. But—I knew him!”
+
+“And you doubtless profited by your recognition,” suggested Breton.
+
+“I certainly did. He was glad to pay me a nice sum every quarter to
+hold my tongue,” replied Myerst, “and I was glad to take it and,
+naturally, I gained a considerable knowledge of him. He had only one
+friend—Mr. Elphick, in there. Now, I’ll tell you about him.”
+
+“Only if you are going to speak respectfully of him,” said Breton
+sternly.
+
+“I’ve no reason to do otherwise. Elphick is the man who ought to have
+married your mother. When things turned out as they did, Elphick took
+you and brought you up as he has done, so that you should never know of
+your father’s disgrace. Elphick never knew until last night that
+Cardlestone is Chamberlayne. Even the biggest scoundrels have
+friends—Elphick’s very fond of Cardlestone. He——”
+
+Spargo turned sharply on Myerst.
+
+“You say Elphick didn’t know until last night!” he exclaimed. “Why,
+then, this running away? What were they running from?”
+
+“I have no more notion than you have, Spargo,” replied Myerst. “I tell
+you one or other of them knows something that I don’t. Elphick, I
+gather, took fright from you, and went to Cardlestone—then they both
+vanished. It may be that Cardlestone did kill Maitland—I don’t know.
+But I’ll tell you what I know about the actual murder—for I do know a
+good deal about it, though, as I say, I don’t know who killed Maitland.
+Now, first, you know all that about Maitland’s having papers and
+valuables and gold on him? Very well—I’ve got all that. The whole lot
+is locked up—safely—and I’m willing to hand it over to you, Breton,
+when we go back to town, and the necessary proof is given—as it will
+be—that you’re Maitland’s son.”
+
+Myerst paused to see the effect of this announcement, and laughed when
+he saw the blank astonishment which stole over his hearers’ faces.
+
+“And still more,” he continued, “I’ve got all the contents of that
+leather box which Maitland deposited with me—that’s safely locked up,
+too, and at your disposal. I took possession of that the day after the
+murder. Then, for purposes of my own, I went to Scotland Yard, as
+Spargo there is aware. You see, I was playing a game—and it required
+some ingenuity.”
+
+“A game!” exclaimed Breton. “Good heavens—what game?”
+
+“I never knew until I had possession of all these things that Marbury
+was Maitland of Market Milcaster,” answered Myerst. “When I did know
+then I began to put things together and to pursue my own line,
+independent of everybody. I tell you I had all Maitland’s papers and
+possessions, by that time—except one thing. That packet of Australian
+stamps. And—I found out that those stamps were in the hands
+of—Cardlestone!”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX.
+THE FINAL TELEGRAM
+
+
+Myerst paused, to take a pull at his glass, and to look at the two
+amazed listeners with a smile of conscious triumph.
+
+“In the hands of Cardlestone,” he repeated. “Now, what did I argue from
+that? Why, of course, that Maitland had been to Cardlestone’s rooms
+that night. Wasn’t he found lying dead at the foot of Cardlestone’s
+stairs? Aye—but who found him? Not the porter—not the police—not you,
+Master Spargo, with all your cleverness. The man who found Maitland
+lying dead there that night was—I!”
+
+In the silence that followed, Spargo, who had been making notes of what
+Myerst said, suddenly dropped his pencil and thrusting his hands in his
+pockets sat bolt upright with a look which Breton, who was watching him
+seriously, could not make out. It was the look of a man whose ideas and
+conceptions are being rudely upset. And Myerst, too, saw it and he
+laughed, more sneeringly than ever.
+
+“That’s one for you, Spargo!” he said. “That surprises you—that makes
+you think. Now what do you think?—if one may ask.”
+
+“I think,” said Spargo, “that you are either a consummate liar, or that
+this mystery is bigger than before.”
+
+“I can lie when it’s necessary,” retorted Myerst. “Just now it isn’t
+necessary. I’m telling you the plain truth: there’s no reason why I
+shouldn’t. As I’ve said before, although you two young bullies have
+tied me up in this fashion, you can’t do anything against me. I’ve a
+power of attorney from those two old men in there, and that’s enough to
+satisfy anybody as to my possession of their cheques and securities.
+I’ve the whip hand of you, my sons, in all ways. And that’s why I’m
+telling you the truth—to amuse myself during this period of waiting.
+The plain truth, my sons!”
+
+“In pursuance of which,” observed Breton, drily, “I think you mentioned
+that you were the first person to find my father lying dead?”
+
+“I was. That is—as far as I can gather. I’ll tell you all about it. As
+I said, I live over Cardlestone. That night I came home very late—it
+was well past one o’clock. There was nobody about—as a matter of fact,
+no one has residential chambers in that building but Cardlestone and
+myself. I found the body of a man lying in the entry. I struck a match
+and immediately recognized my visitor of the afternoon—John Marbury.
+Now, although I was so late in going home, I was as sober as a man can
+be, and I think pretty quickly at all times. I thought at double extra
+speed just then. And the first thing I did was to strip the body of
+every article it had on it—money, papers, everything. All these things
+are safely locked up—they’ve never been tracked. Next day, using my
+facilities as secretary to the Safe Deposit Company, I secured the
+things in that box. Then I found out who the dead man really was. And
+then I deliberately set to work to throw dust in the eyes of the police
+and of the newspapers, and particularly in the eyes of young Master
+Spargo there. I had an object.”
+
+“What?” asked Breton.
+
+“What! Knowing all I did, I firmly believed that Marbury, or, rather,
+Maitland, had been murdered by either Cardlestone or Elphick. I put it
+to myself in this way, and my opinion was strengthened as you, Spargo,
+inserted news in your paper—Maitland, finding himself in the vicinity
+of Cardlestone after leaving Aylmore’s rooms that night, turned into
+our building, perhaps just to see where Cardlestone lived. He met
+Cardlestone accidentally, or he perhaps met Cardlestone and Elphick
+together—they recognized each other. Maitland probably threatened to
+expose Cardlestone, or, rather, Chamberlayne—nobody, of course, could
+know what happened, but my theory was that Chamberlayne killed him.
+There, at any rate, was the fact that Maitland was found murdered at
+Chamberlayne’s very threshold. And, in the course of a few days, I
+proved, to my own positive satisfaction, by getting access to
+Chamberlayne’s rooms in his absence that Maitland had been there, had
+been in those rooms. For I found there, in Chamberlayne’s desk, the
+rare Australian stamps of which Criedir told at the inquest. That was
+proof positive.”
+
+Spargo looked at Breton. They knew what Myerst did not know—that the
+stamps of which he spoke were lying in Spargo’s breast pocket, where
+they had lain since he had picked them up from the litter and confusion
+of Chamberlayne’s floor.
+
+“Why,” asked Breton, after a pause, “why did you never accuse
+Cardlestone, or Chamberlayne, of the murder?”
+
+“I did! I have accused him a score of times—and Elphick, too,” replied
+Myerst with emphasis. “Not at first, mind you—I never let Chamberlayne
+know that I ever suspected him for some time. I had my own game to
+play. But at last—not so many days ago—I did. I accused them both.
+That’s how I got the whip hand of them. They began to be afraid—by that
+time Elphick had got to know all about Cardlestone’s past as
+Chamberlayne. And as I tell you, Elphick’s fond of Cardlestone. It’s
+queer, but he is. He—wants to shield him.”
+
+“What did they say when you accused them?” asked Breton. “Let’s keep to
+that point—never mind their feelings for one another.”
+
+“Just so, but that feeling’s a lot more to do with this mystery than
+you think, my young friend,” said Myerst. “What did they say, you ask?
+Why, they strenuously denied it, Cardlestone swore solemnly to me that
+he had no part or lot in the murder of Maitland. So did Elphick.
+But—they know something about the murder. If those two old men can’t
+tell you definitely who actually struck John Maitland down, I’m certain
+that they have a very clear idea in their minds as to who really did!
+They—”
+
+A sudden sharp cry from the inner room interrupted Myerst. Breton and
+Spargo started to their feet and made for the door. But before they
+could reach it Elphick came out, white and shaking.
+
+“He’s gone!” he exclaimed in quavering accents. “My old friend’s
+gone—he’s dead! I was—asleep. I woke suddenly and looked at him. He——”
+
+Spargo forced the old man into a chair and gave him some whisky; Breton
+passed quickly into the inner room; only to come back shaking his head.
+
+“He’s dead,” he said. “He evidently died in his sleep.”
+
+“Then his secret’s gone with him,” remarked Myerst, calmly. “And now we
+shall never know if he did kill John Maitland or if he didn’t. So
+that’s done with!”
+
+Old Elphick suddenly sat up in his chair, pushing Spargo fiercely away
+from his side.
+
+“He didn’t kill John Maitland!” he cried angrily, attempting to shake
+his fist at Myerst. “Whoever says he killed Maitland lies. He was as
+innocent as I am. You’ve tortured and tormented him to his death with
+that charge, as you’re torturing me—among you. I tell you he’d nothing
+to do with John Maitland’s death—nothing!”
+
+Myerst laughed.
+
+“Who had, then?” he said.
+
+“Hold your tongue!” commanded Breton, turning angrily on him. He sat
+down by Elphick’s side and laid his hand soothingly on the old man’s
+arm.
+
+“Guardian,” he said, “why don’t you tell what you know? Don’t be afraid
+of that fellow there—he’s safe enough. Tell Spargo and me what you know
+of the matter. Remember, nothing can hurt Cardlestone, or Chamberlayne,
+or whoever he is or was, now.”
+
+Elphick sat for a moment shaking his head. He allowed Spargo to give
+him another drink; he lifted his head and looked at the two young men
+with something of an appeal.
+
+“I’m badly shaken,” he said. “I’ve suffered much lately—I’ve learnt
+things that I didn’t know. Perhaps I ought to have spoken before, but I
+was afraid for—for him. He was a good friend, Cardlestone, whatever
+else he may have been—a good friend. And—I don’t know any more than
+what happened that night.”
+
+“Tell us what happened that night,” said Breton.
+
+“Well, that night I went round, as I often did, to play piquet with
+Cardlestone. That was about ten o’clock. About eleven Jane Baylis came
+to Cardlestone’s—she’d been to my rooms to find me—wanted to see me
+particularly—and she’d come on there, knowing where I should be.
+Cardlestone would make her have a glass of wine and a biscuit; she sat
+down and we all talked. Then, about, I should think, a quarter to
+twelve, a knock came at Cardlestone’s door—his outer door was open, and
+of course anybody outside could see lights within. Cardlestone went to
+the door: we heard a man’s voice enquire for him by name; then the
+voice added that Criedir, the stamp dealer, had advised him to call on
+Mr. Cardlestone to show him some rare Australian stamps, and that
+seeing a light under his door he had knocked. Cardlestone asked him
+in—he came in. That was the man we saw next day at the mortuary. Upon
+my honour, we didn’t know him, either that night or next day!”
+
+“What happened when he came in?” asked Breton.
+
+“Cardlestone asked him to sit down: he offered and gave him a drink.
+The man said Criedir had given him Cardlestone’s address, and that he’d
+been with a friend at some rooms in Fountain Court, and as he was
+passing our building he’d just looked to make sure where Cardlestone
+lived, and as he’d noticed a light he’d made bold to knock. He and
+Cardlestone began to examine the stamps. Jane Baylis said good-night,
+and she and I left Cardlestone and the man together.”
+
+“No one had recognized him?” said Breton.
+
+“No one! Remember, I only once or twice saw Maitland in all my life.
+The others certainly did not recognize him. At least, I never knew that
+they did—if they did.”
+
+“Tell us,” said Spargo, joining in for the first time, “tell us what
+you and Miss Baylis did?”
+
+“At the foot of the stairs Jane Baylis suddenly said she’d forgotten
+something in Cardlestone’s lobby. As she was going out in to Fleet
+Street, and I was going down Middle Temple Lane to turn off to my own
+rooms we said good-night. She went back upstairs. And I went home. And
+upon my soul and honour that’s all I know!”
+
+Spargo suddenly leapt to his feet. He snatched at his cap—a sodden and
+bedraggled headgear which he had thrown down when they entered the
+cottage.
+
+“That’s enough!” he almost shouted. “I’ve got it—at last!
+Breton—where’s the nearest telegraph office? Hawes? Straight down this
+valley? Then, here’s for it! Look after things till I’m back, or, when
+the police come, join me there. I shall catch the first train to town,
+anyhow, after wiring.”
+
+“But—what are you after, Spargo?” exclaimed Breton. “Stop! What on
+earth——”
+
+But Spargo had closed the door and was running for all he was worth
+down the valley. Three quarters of an hour later he startled a quiet
+and peaceful telegraphist by darting, breathless and dirty, into a
+sleepy country post office, snatching a telegraph form and scribbling
+down a message in shaky handwriting:—
+
+_Rathbury, New Scotland Yard, London._
+_Arrest Jane Baylis at once for murder of John Maitland._
+_Coming straight to town with full evidence._
+          _Frank Spargo_.
+
+
+Then Spargo dropped on the office bench, and while the wondering
+operator set the wires ticking, strove to get his breath, utterly spent
+in his mad race across the heather. And when it was got he set out
+again—to find the station.
+
+
+Some days later, Spargo, having seen Stephen Aylmore walk out of the
+Bow Street dock, cleared of the charge against him, and in a fair way
+of being cleared of the affair of twenty years before, found himself in
+a very quiet corner of the Court holding the hand of Jessie Aylmore,
+who, he discovered, was saying things to him which he scarcely
+comprehended. There was nobody near them and the girl spoke freely and
+warmly.
+
+“But you will come—you will come today—and be properly thanked,” she
+said. “You will—won’t you?”
+
+Spargo allowed himself to retain possession of the hand. Also he took a
+straight look into Jessie Aylmore’s eyes.
+
+“I don’t want thanks,” he said. “It was all a lot of luck. And if I
+come—today—it will be to see—just you!”
+
+Jessie Aylmore looked down at the two hands.
+
+“I think,” she whispered, “I think that is what I really meant!”
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MIDDLE TEMPLE MURDER ***
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will
+be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright
+law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works,
+so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the
+United States without permission and without paying copyright
+royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part
+of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm
+concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark,
+and may not be used if you charge for an eBook, except by following
+the terms of the trademark license, including paying royalties for use
+of the Project Gutenberg trademark. If you do not charge anything for
+copies of this eBook, complying with the trademark license is very
+easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose such as creation
+of derivative works, reports, performances and research. Project
+Gutenberg eBooks may be modified and printed and given away--you may
+do practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks not protected
+by U.S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject to the trademark
+license, especially commercial redistribution.
+
+START: FULL LICENSE
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full
+Project Gutenberg-tm License available with this file or online at
+www.gutenberg.org/license.
+
+Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+
+1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or
+destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your
+possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a
+Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound
+by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the
+person or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph
+1.E.8.
+
+1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See
+paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this
+agreement and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the
+Foundation" or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection
+of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual
+works in the collection are in the public domain in the United
+States. If an individual work is unprotected by copyright law in the
+United States and you are located in the United States, we do not
+claim a right to prevent you from copying, distributing, performing,
+displaying or creating derivative works based on the work as long as
+all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Of course, we hope
+that you will support the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting
+free access to electronic works by freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm
+works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for keeping the
+Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with the work. You can easily
+comply with the terms of this agreement by keeping this work in the
+same format with its attached full Project Gutenberg-tm License when
+you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are
+in a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States,
+check the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this
+agreement before downloading, copying, displaying, performing,
+distributing or creating derivative works based on this work or any
+other Project Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no
+representations concerning the copyright status of any work in any
+country other than the United States.
+
+1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other
+immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear
+prominently whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work
+on which the phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed,
+performed, viewed, copied or distributed:
+
+  This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
+  most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no
+  restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it
+  under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this
+  eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the
+  United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where
+  you are located before using this eBook.
+
+1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is
+derived from texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (does not
+contain a notice indicating that it is posted with permission of the
+copyright holder), the work can be copied and distributed to anyone in
+the United States without paying any fees or charges. If you are
+redistributing or providing access to a work with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the work, you must comply
+either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 or
+obtain permission for the use of the work and the Project Gutenberg-tm
+trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any
+additional terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms
+will be linked to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works
+posted with the permission of the copyright holder found at the
+beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including
+any word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access
+to or distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format
+other than "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official
+version posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm website
+(www.gutenberg.org), you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense
+to the user, provide a copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means
+of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original "Plain
+Vanilla ASCII" or other form. Any alternate format must include the
+full Project Gutenberg-tm License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+provided that:
+
+* You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+  the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+  you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed
+  to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he has
+  agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the Project
+  Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments must be paid
+  within 60 days following each date on which you prepare (or are
+  legally required to prepare) your periodic tax returns. Royalty
+  payments should be clearly marked as such and sent to the Project
+  Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the address specified in
+  Section 4, "Information about donations to the Project Gutenberg
+  Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+* You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+  you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+  does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+  License. You must require such a user to return or destroy all
+  copies of the works possessed in a physical medium and discontinue
+  all use of and all access to other copies of Project Gutenberg-tm
+  works.
+
+* You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of
+  any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+  electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of
+  receipt of the work.
+
+* You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+  distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work or group of works on different terms than
+are set forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing
+from the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the manager of
+the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the Foundation as set
+forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+works not protected by U.S. copyright law in creating the Project
+Gutenberg-tm collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may
+contain "Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate
+or corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other
+intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or
+other medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that damage or
+cannot be read by your equipment.
+
+1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium
+with your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you
+with the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in
+lieu of a refund. If you received the work electronically, the person
+or entity providing it to you may choose to give you a second
+opportunity to receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If
+the second copy is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing
+without further opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO
+OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT
+LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of
+damages. If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement
+violates the law of the state applicable to this agreement, the
+agreement shall be interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or
+limitation permitted by the applicable state law. The invalidity or
+unenforceability of any provision of this agreement shall not void the
+remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in
+accordance with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the
+production, promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works, harmless from all liability, costs and expenses,
+including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of
+the following which you do or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this
+or any Project Gutenberg-tm work, (b) alteration, modification, or
+additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any
+Defect you cause.
+
+Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of
+computers including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It
+exists because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations
+from people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future
+generations. To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation and how your efforts and donations can help, see
+Sections 3 and 4 and the Foundation information page at
+www.gutenberg.org
+
+Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non-profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent permitted by
+U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's business office is located at 809 North 1500 West,
+Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email contact links and up
+to date contact information can be found at the Foundation's website
+and official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact
+
+Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without
+widespread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine-readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To SEND
+DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any particular
+state visit www.gutenberg.org/donate
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. To
+donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate
+
+Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm concept of a library of electronic works that could be
+freely shared with anyone. For forty years, he produced and
+distributed Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of
+volunteer support.
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as not protected by copyright in
+the U.S. unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not
+necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper
+edition.
+
+Most people start at our website which has the main PG search
+facility: www.gutenberg.org
+
+This website includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
+
+
diff --git a/old/10373-0.zip b/old/10373-0.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..12ad4bc
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/10373-0.zip
diff --git a/old/10373-h.zip b/old/10373-h.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..49acbfa
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/10373-h.zip
diff --git a/old/10373-h/10373-h.htm b/old/10373-h/10373-h.htm
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..3aac298
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/10373-h/10373-h.htm
@@ -0,0 +1,14267 @@
+<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
+"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
+<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en">
+<head>
+<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=utf-8" />
+<meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" />
+<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Middle Temple Murder, by J.S. Fletcher</title>
+<link rel="coverpage" href="images/cover.jpg" />
+<style type="text/css">
+
+body { margin-left: 20%;
+       margin-right: 20%;
+       text-align: justify; }
+
+h1, h2, h3, h4, h5 {text-align: center; font-style: normal; font-weight:
+normal; line-height: 1.5; margin-top: .5em; margin-bottom: .5em;}
+
+h1 {font-size: 300%;
+    margin-top: 0.6em;
+    margin-bottom: 0.6em;
+    letter-spacing: 0.12em;
+    word-spacing: 0.2em;
+    text-indent: 0em;}
+h2 {font-size: 150%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 1em;}
+h3 {font-size: 130%; margin-top: 1em;}
+h4 {font-size: 120%;}
+h5 {font-size: 110%;}
+
+.no-break {page-break-before: avoid;} /* for epubs */
+
+div.chapter {page-break-before: always; margin-top: 4em;}
+
+hr {width: 80%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 2em;}
+
+p {text-indent: 1em;
+   margin-top: 0.25em;
+   margin-bottom: 0.25em; }
+
+p.letter {text-indent: 0%;
+          margin-left: 10%;
+          margin-right: 10%;
+          margin-top: 1em;
+          margin-bottom: 1em; }
+
+p.noindent {text-indent: 0% }
+
+p.center  {text-align: center;
+           text-indent: 0em;
+           margin-top: 1em;
+           margin-bottom: 1em; }
+
+div.fig { display:block;
+          margin:0 auto;
+          text-align:center;
+          margin-top: 1em;
+          margin-bottom: 1em;}
+
+a:link {color:blue; text-decoration:none}
+a:visited {color:blue; text-decoration:none}
+a:hover {color:red}
+
+</style>
+
+</head>
+
+<body>
+
+<div style='text-align:center; font-size:1.2em; font-weight:bold'>The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Middle Temple Murder, by J.S. Fletcher</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
+most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
+whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
+of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
+at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you
+are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the
+country where you are located before using this eBook.
+</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: The Middle Temple Murder</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: J.S. Fletcher</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: December 3, 2003 [eBook #10373]<br />
+[Most recently updated: July 21, 2021]</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Character set encoding: UTF-8</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Produced by: Juliet Sutherland, Linda Cantoni and PG Distributed Proofreaders</div>
+<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MIDDLE TEMPLE MURDER ***</div>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:55%;">
+<img src="images/cover.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="[Illustration]" />
+</div>
+
+<h1>The Middle Temple Murder</h1>
+
+<h2 class="no-break">by J.S. Fletcher</h2>
+
+<h4>1919</h4>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2>Contents</h2>
+
+<table summary="" style="">
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap01">CHAPTER I. THE SCRAP OF GREY PAPER</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap02">CHAPTER II. HIS FIRST BRIEF</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap03">CHAPTER III. THE CLUE OF THE CAP</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap04">CHAPTER IV. THE ANGLO-ORIENT HOTEL</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap05">CHAPTER V. SPARGO WISHES TO SPECIALIZE</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap06">CHAPTER VI. WITNESS TO A MEETING</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap07">CHAPTER VII. MR. AYLMORE</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap08">CHAPTER VIII. THE MAN FROM THE SAFE DEPOSIT</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap09">CHAPTER IX. THE DEALER IN RARE STAMPS</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap10">CHAPTER X. THE LEATHER BOX</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap11">CHAPTER XI. MR. AYLMORE IS QUESTIONED</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap12">CHAPTER XII. THE NEW WITNESS</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap13">CHAPTER XIII. UNDER SUSPICION</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap14">CHAPTER XIV. THE SILVER TICKET</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap15">CHAPTER XV. MARKET MILCASTER</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap16">CHAPTER XVI. THE &ldquo;YELLOW DRAGON&rdquo;</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap17">CHAPTER XVII. MR. QUARTERPAGE HARKS BACK</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap18">CHAPTER XVIII. AN OLD NEWSPAPER</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap19">CHAPTER XIX. THE CHAMBERLAYNE STORY</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap20">CHAPTER XX. MAITLAND <i>alias</i> MARBURY</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap21">CHAPTER XXI. ARRESTED</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap22">CHAPTER XXII. THE BLANK PAST</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap23">CHAPTER XXIII. MISS BAYLIS</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap24">CHAPTER XXIV. MOTHER GUTCH</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap25">CHAPTER XXV. REVELATIONS</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap26">CHAPTER XXVI. STILL SILENT</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap27">CHAPTER XXVII. MR. ELPHICK&rsquo;S CHAMBERS</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap28">CHAPTER XXVIII. OF PROVED IDENTITY</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap29">CHAPTER XXIX. THE CLOSED DOORS</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap30">CHAPTER XXX. REVELATION</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap31">CHAPTER XXXI. THE PENITENT WINDOW-CLEANER</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap32">CHAPTER XXXII. THE CONTENTS OF THE COFFIN</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap33">CHAPTER XXXIII. FORESTALLED</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap34">CHAPTER XXXIV. THE WHIP HAND</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap35">CHAPTER XXXV. MYERST EXPLAINS</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap36">CHAPTER XXXVI. THE FINAL TELEGRAM</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+
+</table>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap01"></a>CHAPTER ONE<br/>
+THE SCRAP OF GREY PAPER</h2>
+
+<p>
+As a rule, Spargo left the <i>Watchman</i> office at two o&rsquo;clock. The
+paper had then gone to press. There was nothing for him, recently promoted to a
+sub-editorship, to do after he had passed the column for which he was
+responsible; as a matter of fact he could have gone home before the machines
+began their clatter. But he generally hung about, trifling, until two
+o&rsquo;clock came. On this occasion, the morning of the 22nd of June, 1912, he
+stopped longer than usual, chatting with Hacket, who had charge of the foreign
+news, and who began telling him about a telegram which had just come through
+from Durazzo. What Hacket had to tell was interesting: Spargo lingered to hear
+all about it, and to discuss it. Altogether it was well beyond half-past two
+when he went out of the office, unconsciously puffing away from him as he
+reached the threshold the last breath of the atmosphere in which he had spent
+his midnight. In Fleet Street the air was fresh, almost to sweetness, and the
+first grey of the coming dawn was breaking faintly around the high silence of
+St. Paul&rsquo;s.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo lived in Bloomsbury, on the west side of Russell Square. Every night and
+every morning he walked to and from the <i>Watchman</i> office by the same
+route&mdash;Southampton Row, Kingsway, the Strand, Fleet Street. He came to
+know several faces, especially amongst the police; he formed the habit of
+exchanging greetings with various officers whom he encountered at regular
+points as he went slowly homewards, smoking his pipe. And on this morning, as
+he drew near to Middle Temple Lane, he saw a policeman whom he knew, one
+Driscoll, standing at the entrance, looking about him. Further away another
+policeman appeared, sauntering. Driscoll raised an arm and signalled; then,
+turning, he saw Spargo. He moved a step or two towards him. Spargo saw news in
+his face.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What is it?&rdquo; asked Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Driscoll jerked a thumb over his shoulder, towards the partly open door of the
+lane. Within, Spargo saw a man hastily donning a waistcoat and jacket.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He says,&rdquo; answered Driscoll, &ldquo;him, there&mdash;the
+porter&mdash;that there&rsquo;s a man lying in one of them entries down the
+lane, and he thinks he&rsquo;s dead. Likewise, he thinks he&rsquo;s
+murdered.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo echoed the word.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But what makes him think that?&rdquo; he asked, peeping with curiosity
+beyond Driscoll&rsquo;s burly form. &ldquo;Why?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He says there&rsquo;s blood about him,&rdquo; answered Driscoll. He
+turned and glanced at the oncoming constable, and then turned again to Spargo.
+&ldquo;You&rsquo;re a newspaper man, sir?&rdquo; he suggested.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am,&rdquo; replied Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You&rsquo;d better walk down with us,&rdquo; said Driscoll, with a grin.
+&ldquo;There&rsquo;ll be something to write pieces in the paper about. At
+least, there may be.&rdquo; Spargo made no answer. He continued to look down
+the lane, wondering what secret it held, until the other policeman came up. At
+the same moment the porter, now fully clothed, came out.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Come on!&rdquo; he said shortly. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll show you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Driscoll murmured a word or two to the newly-arrived constable, and then turned
+to the porter.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How came you to find him, then?&rdquo; he asked
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The porter jerked his head at the door which they were leaving.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I heard that door slam,&rdquo; he replied, irritably, as if the fact
+which he mentioned caused him offence. &ldquo;I know I did! So I got up to look
+around. Then&mdash;well, I saw that!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He raised a hand, pointing down the lane. The three men followed his
+outstretched finger. And Spargo then saw a man&rsquo;s foot, booted,
+grey-socked, protruding from an entry on the left hand.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Sticking out there, just as you see it now,&rdquo; said the porter.
+&ldquo;I ain&rsquo;t touched it. And so&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He paused and made a grimace as if at the memory of some unpleasant thing.
+Driscoll nodded comprehendingly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And so you went along and looked?&rdquo; he suggested. &ldquo;Just
+so&mdash;just to see who it belonged to, as it might be.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Just to see&mdash;what there was to see,&rdquo; agreed the porter.
+&ldquo;Then I saw there was blood. And then&mdash;well, I made up the lane to
+tell one of you chaps.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Best thing you could have done,&rdquo; said Driscoll. &ldquo;Well, now
+then&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The little procession came to a halt at the entry. The entry was a cold and
+formal thing of itself; not a nice place to lie dead in, having glazed white
+tiles for its walls and concrete for its flooring; something about its
+appearance in that grey morning air suggested to Spargo the idea of a mortuary.
+And that the man whose foot projected over the step was dead he had no doubt:
+the limpness of his pose certified to it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For a moment none of the four men moved or spoke. The two policemen
+unconsciously stuck their thumbs in their belts and made play with their
+fingers; the porter rubbed his chin thoughtfully&mdash;Spargo remembered
+afterwards the rasping sound of this action; he himself put his hands in his
+pockets and began to jingle his money and his keys. Each man had his own
+thoughts as he contemplated the piece of human wreckage which lay before him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You&rsquo;ll notice,&rdquo; suddenly observed Driscoll, speaking in a
+hushed voice, &ldquo;You&rsquo;ll notice that he&rsquo;s lying there in a queer
+way&mdash;same as if&mdash;as if he&rsquo;d been put there. Sort of propped up
+against that wall, at first, and had slid down, like.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo was taking in all the details with a professional eye. He saw at his
+feet the body of an elderly man; the face was turned away from him, crushed in
+against the glaze of the wall, but he judged the man to be elderly because of
+grey hair and whitening whisker; it was clothed in a good, well-made suit of
+grey check cloth&mdash;tweed&mdash;and the boots were good: so, too, was the
+linen cuff which projected from the sleeve that hung so limply. One leg was
+half doubled under the body; the other was stretched straight out across the
+threshold; the trunk was twisted to the wall. Over the white glaze of the tiles
+against which it and the shoulder towards which it had sunk were crushed there
+were gouts and stains of blood. And Driscoll, taking a hand out of his belt,
+pointed a finger at them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Seems to me,&rdquo; he said, slowly, &ldquo;seems to me as how
+he&rsquo;s been struck down from behind as he came out of here. That
+blood&rsquo;s from his nose&mdash;gushed out as he fell. What do you say,
+Jim?&rdquo; The other policeman coughed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Better get the inspector here,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;And the doctor and
+the ambulance. Dead&mdash;ain&rsquo;t he?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Driscoll bent down and put a thumb on the hand which lay on the pavement.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;As ever they make &rsquo;em,&rdquo; he remarked laconically. &ldquo;And
+stiff, too. Well, hurry up, Jim!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo waited until the inspector arrived; waited until the hand-ambulance
+came. More policemen came with it; they moved the body for transference to the
+mortuary, and Spargo then saw the dead man&rsquo;s face. He looked long and
+steadily at it while the police arranged the limbs, wondering all the time who
+it was that he gazed at, how he came to that end, what was the object of his
+murderer, and many other things. There was some professionalism in
+Spargo&rsquo;s curiosity, but there was also a natural dislike that a
+fellow-being should have been so unceremoniously smitten out of the world.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was nothing very remarkable about the dead man&rsquo;s face. It was that
+of a man of apparently sixty to sixty-five years of age; plain, even homely of
+feature, clean-shaven, except for a fringe of white whisker, trimmed, after an
+old-fashioned pattern, between the ear and the point of the jaw. The only
+remarkable thing about it was that it was much lined and seamed; the wrinkles
+were many and deep around the corners of the lips and the angles of the eyes;
+this man, you would have said to yourself, has led a hard life and weathered
+storm, mental as well as physical.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Driscoll nudged Spargo with a turn of his elbow. He gave him a wink.
+&ldquo;Better come down to the dead-house,&rdquo; he muttered confidentially.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why?&rdquo; asked Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;They&rsquo;ll go through him,&rdquo; whispered Driscoll. &ldquo;Search
+him, d&rsquo;ye see? Then you&rsquo;ll get to know all about him, and so on.
+Help to write that piece in the paper, eh?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo hesitated. He had had a stiff night&rsquo;s work, and until his
+encounter with Driscoll he had cherished warm anticipation of the meal which
+would be laid out for him at his rooms, and of the bed into which he would
+subsequently tumble. Besides, a telephone message would send a man from the
+<i>Watchman</i> to the mortuary. This sort of thing was not in his line now,
+now&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You&rsquo;ll be for getting one o&rsquo; them big play-cards out with
+something about a mystery on it,&rdquo; suggested Driscoll. &ldquo;You never
+know what lies at the bottom o&rsquo; these affairs, no more you
+don&rsquo;t.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+That last observation decided Spargo; moreover, the old instinct for getting
+news began to assert itself.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;All right,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll go along with you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And re-lighting his pipe he followed the little cortège through the streets,
+still deserted and quiet, and as he walked behind he reflected on the
+unobtrusive fashion in which murder could stalk about. Here was the work of
+murder, no doubt, and it was being quietly carried along a principal London
+thoroughfare, without fuss or noise, by officials to whom the dealing with it
+was all a matter of routine. Surely&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;My opinion,&rdquo; said a voice at Spargo&rsquo;s elbow, &ldquo;my
+opinion is that it was done elsewhere. Not there! He was put there.
+That&rsquo;s what I say.&rdquo; Spargo turned and saw that the porter was at
+his side. He, too, was accompanying the body.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh!&rdquo; said Spargo. &ldquo;You think&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I think he was struck down elsewhere and carried there,&rdquo; said the
+porter. &ldquo;In somebody&rsquo;s chambers, maybe. I&rsquo;ve known of some
+queer games in our bit of London! Well!&mdash;he never came in at my lodge last
+night&mdash;I&rsquo;ll stand to that. And who is he, I should like to know?
+From what I see of him, not the sort to be about our place.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s what we shall hear presently,&rdquo; said Spargo.
+&ldquo;They&rsquo;re going to search him.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But Spargo was presently made aware that the searchers had found nothing. The
+police-surgeon said that the dead man had, without doubt, been struck down from
+behind by a terrible blow which had fractured the skull and caused death almost
+instantaneously. In Driscoll&rsquo;s opinion, the murder had been committed for
+the sake of plunder. For there was nothing whatever on the body. It was
+reasonable to suppose that a man who is well dressed would possess a watch and
+chain, and have money in his pockets, and possibly rings on his fingers. But
+there was nothing valuable to be found; in fact there was nothing at all to be
+found that could lead to identification&mdash;no letters, no papers, nothing.
+It was plain that whoever had struck the dead man down had subsequently
+stripped him of whatever was on him. The only clue to possible identity lay in
+the fact that a soft cap of grey cloth appeared to have been newly purchased at
+a fashionable shop in the West End.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo went home; there seemed to be nothing to stop for. He ate his food and
+he went to bed, only to do poor things in the way of sleeping. He was not the
+sort to be impressed by horrors, but he recognized at last that the
+morning&rsquo;s event had destroyed his chance of rest; he accordingly rose,
+took a cold bath, drank a cup of coffee, and went out. He was not sure of any
+particular idea when he strolled away from Bloomsbury, but it did not surprise
+him when, half an hour later he found that he had walked down to the police
+station near which the unknown man&rsquo;s body lay in the mortuary. And there
+he met Driscoll, just going off duty. Driscoll grinned at sight of him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You&rsquo;re in luck,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;&rsquo;Tisn&rsquo;t five
+minutes since they found a bit of grey writing paper crumpled up in the poor
+man&rsquo;s waistcoat pocket&mdash;it had slipped into a crack. Come in, and
+you&rsquo;ll see it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo went into the inspector&rsquo;s office. In another minute he found
+himself staring at the scrap of paper. There was nothing on it but an address,
+scrawled in pencil:&mdash;Ronald Breton, Barrister, King&rsquo;s Bench Walk,
+Temple, London.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap02"></a>CHAPTER TWO<br/>
+HIS FIRST BRIEF</h2>
+
+<p>
+Spargo looked up at the inspector with a quick jerk of his head. &ldquo;I know
+this man,&rdquo; he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The inspector showed new interest.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What, Mr. Breton?&rdquo; he asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes. I&rsquo;m on the <i>Watchman</i>, you know, sub-editor. I took an
+article from him the other day&mdash;article on &lsquo;Ideal Sites for
+Campers-Out.&rsquo; He came to the office about it. So this was in the dead
+man&rsquo;s pocket?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Found in a hole in his pocket, I understand: I wasn&rsquo;t present
+myself. It&rsquo;s not much, but it may afford some clue to identity.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo picked up the scrap of grey paper and looked closely at it. It seemed to
+him to be the sort of paper that is found in hotels and in clubs; it had been
+torn roughly from the sheet.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What,&rdquo; he asked meditatively, &ldquo;what will you do about
+getting this man identified?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The inspector shrugged his shoulders.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, usual thing, I suppose. There&rsquo;ll be publicity, you know. I
+suppose you&rsquo;ll be doing a special account yourself, for your paper, eh?
+Then there&rsquo;ll be the others. And we shall put out the usual notice.
+Somebody will come forward to identify&mdash;sure to. And&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A man came into the office&mdash;a stolid-faced, quiet-mannered, soberly
+attired person, who might have been a respectable tradesman out for a stroll,
+and who gave the inspector a sidelong nod as he approached his desk, at the
+same time extending his hand towards the scrap of paper which Spargo had just
+laid down.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll go along to King&rsquo;s Bench Walk and see Mr.
+Breton,&rdquo; he observed, looking at his watch. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s just about
+ten&mdash;I daresay he&rsquo;ll be there now.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;m going there, too,&rdquo; remarked Spargo, but as if speaking
+to himself. &ldquo;Yes, I&rsquo;ll go there.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The newcomer glanced at Spargo, and then at the inspector. The inspector nodded
+at Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Journalist,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;Mr. Spargo of the <i>Watchman</i>.
+Mr. Spargo was there when the body was found. And he knows Mr. Breton.&rdquo;
+Then he nodded from Spargo to the stolid-faced person. &ldquo;This is
+Detective-Sergeant Rathbury, from the Yard,&rdquo; he said to Spargo.
+&ldquo;He&rsquo;s come to take charge of this case.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh?&rdquo; said Spargo blankly. &ldquo;I see&mdash;what,&rdquo; he went
+on, with sudden abruptness, &ldquo;what shall you do about Breton?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Get him to come and look at the body,&rdquo; replied Rathbury. &ldquo;He
+may know the man and he mayn&rsquo;t. Anyway, his name and address are here,
+aren&rsquo;t they?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Come along,&rdquo; said Spargo. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll walk there with
+you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo remained in a species of brown study all the way along Tudor Street; his
+companion also maintained silence in a fashion which showed that he was by
+nature and custom a man of few words. It was not until the two were climbing
+the old balustrated staircase of the house in King&rsquo;s Bench Walk in which
+Ronald Breton&rsquo;s chambers were somewhere situate that Spargo spoke.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Do you think that old chap was killed for what he may have had on
+him?&rdquo; he asked, suddenly turning on the detective.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I should like to know what he had on him before I answered that
+question, Mr. Spargo,&rdquo; replied Rathbury, with a smile.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; said Spargo, dreamily. &ldquo;I suppose so. He might have
+had&mdash;nothing on him, eh?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The detective laughed, and pointed to a board on which names were printed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We don&rsquo;t know anything yet, sir,&rdquo; he observed, &ldquo;except
+that Mr. Breton is on the fourth floor. By which I conclude that it isn&rsquo;t
+long since he was eating his dinner.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, he&rsquo;s young&mdash;he&rsquo;s quite young,&rdquo; said Spargo.
+&ldquo;I should say he&rsquo;s about four-and-twenty. I&rsquo;ve met him
+only&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At that moment the unmistakable sounds of girlish laughter came down the
+staircase. Two girls seemed to be laughing&mdash;presently masculine laughter
+mingled with the lighter feminine.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Seems to be studying law in very pleasant fashion up here,
+anyway,&rdquo; said Rathbury. &ldquo;Mr. Breton&rsquo;s chambers, too. And the
+door&rsquo;s open.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The outer oak door of Ronald Breton&rsquo;s chambers stood thrown wide; the
+inner one was well ajar; through the opening thus made Spargo and the detective
+obtained a full view of the interior of Mr. Ronald Breton&rsquo;s rooms. There,
+against a background of law books, bundles of papers tied up with pink tape,
+and black-framed pictures of famous legal notabilities, they saw a pretty,
+vivacious-eyed girl, who, perched on a chair, wigged and gowned, and
+flourishing a mass of crisp paper, was haranguing an imaginary judge and jury,
+to the amusement of a young man who had his back to the door, and of another
+girl who leant confidentially against his shoulder.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I put it to you, gentlemen of the jury&mdash;I put it to you with
+confidence, feeling that you must be, must necessarily be, some, perhaps
+brothers, perhaps husbands, and fathers, can you, on your consciences do my
+client the great wrong, the irreparable injury, the&mdash;the&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Think of some more adjectives!&rdquo; exclaimed the young man.
+&ldquo;Hot and strong &rsquo;uns&mdash;pile &rsquo;em up. That&rsquo;s what
+they like&mdash;they&mdash;Hullo!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This exclamation arose from the fact that at this point of the proceedings the
+detective rapped at the inner door, and then put his head round its edge.
+Whereupon the young lady who was orating from the chair, jumped hastily down;
+the other young lady withdrew from the young man&rsquo;s protecting arm; there
+was a feminine giggle and a feminine swishing of skirts, and a hasty bolt into
+an inner room, and Mr. Ronald Breton came forward, blushing a little, to greet
+the interrupter.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Come in, come in!&rdquo; he exclaimed hastily. &ldquo;I&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then he paused, catching sight of Spargo, and held out his hand with a look of
+surprise.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh&mdash;Mr. Spargo?&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;How do you
+do?&mdash;we&mdash;I&mdash;we were just having a lark&mdash;I&rsquo;m off to
+court in a few minutes. What can I do for you, Mr. Spargo?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He had backed to the inner door as he spoke, and he now closed it and turned
+again to the two men, looking from one to the other. The detective, on his
+part, was looking at the young barrister. He saw a tall, slimly-built youth, of
+handsome features and engaging presence, perfectly groomed, and immaculately
+garbed, and having upon him a general air of well-to-do-ness, and he formed the
+impression from these matters that Mr. Breton was one of those fortunate young
+men who may take up a profession but are certainly not dependent upon it. He
+turned and glanced at the journalist.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How do you do?&rdquo; said Spargo slowly. &ldquo;I&mdash;the fact is, I
+came here with Mr. Rathbury. He&mdash;wants to see you. Detective-Sergeant
+Rathbury&mdash;of New Scotland Yard.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo pronounced this formal introduction as if he were repeating a lesson.
+But he was watching the young barrister&rsquo;s face. And Breton turned to the
+detective with a look of surprise.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh!&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;You wish&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Rathbury had been fumbling in his pocket for the scrap of grey paper, which he
+had carefully bestowed in a much-worn memorandum-book. &ldquo;I wished to ask a
+question, Mr. Breton,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;This morning, about a quarter to
+three, a man&mdash;elderly man&mdash;was found dead in Middle Temple Lane, and
+there seems little doubt that he was murdered. Mr. Spargo here&mdash;he was
+present when the body was found.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Soon after,&rdquo; corrected Spargo. &ldquo;A few minutes after.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;When this body was examined at the mortuary,&rdquo; continued Rathbury,
+in his matter-of-fact, business-like tones, &ldquo;nothing was found that could
+lead to identification. The man appears to have been robbed. There was nothing
+whatever on him&mdash;but this bit of torn paper, which was found in a hole in
+the lining of his waistcoat pocket. It&rsquo;s got your name and address on it,
+Mr. Breton. See?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ronald Breton took the scrap of paper and looked at it with knitted brows.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;By Jove!&rdquo; he muttered. &ldquo;So it has; that&rsquo;s queer.
+What&rsquo;s he like, this man?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Rathbury glanced at a clock which stood on the mantelpiece.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Will you step round and take a look at him, Mr. Breton?&rdquo; he said.
+&ldquo;It&rsquo;s close by.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well&mdash;I&mdash;the fact is, I&rsquo;ve got a case on, in Mr. Justice
+Borrow&rsquo;s court,&rdquo; Breton answered, also glancing at his clock.
+&ldquo;But it won&rsquo;t be called until after eleven. Will&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Plenty of time, sir,&rdquo; said Rathbury; &ldquo;it won&rsquo;t take
+you ten minutes to go round and back again&mdash;a look will do. You
+don&rsquo;t recognize this handwriting, I suppose?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Breton still held the scrap of paper in his fingers. He looked at it again,
+intently.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No!&rdquo; he answered. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t. I don&rsquo;t know it at
+all&mdash;I can&rsquo;t think, of course, who this man could be, to have my
+name and address. I thought he might have been some country solicitor, wanting
+my professional services, you know,&rdquo; he went on, with a shy smile at
+Spargo; &ldquo;but, three&mdash;three o&rsquo;clock in the morning, eh?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The doctor,&rdquo; observed Rathbury, &ldquo;the doctor thinks he had
+been dead about two and a half hours.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Breton turned to the inner door.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll&mdash;I&rsquo;ll just tell these ladies I&rsquo;m going out
+for a quarter of an hour,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;They&rsquo;re going over to
+the court with me&mdash;I got my first brief yesterday,&rdquo; he went on with
+a boyish laugh, glancing right and left at his visitors. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s
+nothing much&mdash;small case&mdash;but I promised my fiancée and her sister
+that they should be present, you know. A moment.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He disappeared into the next room and came back a moment later in all the glory
+of a new silk hat. Spargo, a young man who was never very particular about his
+dress, began to contrast his own attire with the butterfly appearance of this
+youngster; he had been quick to notice that the two girls who had whisked into
+the inner room had been similarly garbed in fine raiment, more characteristic
+of Mayfair than of Fleet Street. Already he felt a strange curiosity about
+Breton, and about the young ladies whom he heard talking behind the inner door.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, come on,&rdquo; said Breton. &ldquo;Let&rsquo;s go straight
+there.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The mortuary to which Rathbury led the way was cold, drab, repellent to the
+general gay sense of the summer morning. Spargo shivered involuntarily as he
+entered it and took a first glance around. But the young barrister showed no
+sign of feeling or concern; he looked quickly about him and stepped alertly to
+the side of the dead man, from whose face the detective was turning back a
+cloth. He looked steadily and earnestly at the fixed features. Then he drew
+back, shaking his head.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No!&rdquo; he said with decision. &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t know
+him&mdash;don&rsquo;t know him from Adam. Never set eyes on him in my life,
+that I know of.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Rathbury replaced the cloth.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t suppose you would,&rdquo; he remarked. &ldquo;Well, I
+expect we must go on the usual lines. Somebody&rsquo;ll identify him.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You say he was murdered?&rdquo; said Breton. &ldquo;Is
+that&mdash;certain?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Rathbury jerked his thumb at the corpse.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The back of his skull is smashed in,&rdquo; he said laconically.
+&ldquo;The doctor says he must have been struck down from behind&mdash;and a
+fearful blow, too. I&rsquo;m much obliged to you, Mr. Breton.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, all right!&rdquo; said Breton. &ldquo;Well, you know where to find
+me if you want me. I shall be curious about this. Good-bye&mdash;good-bye, Mr.
+Spargo.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The young barrister hurried away, and Rathbury turned to the journalist.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t expect anything from that,&rdquo; he remarked.
+&ldquo;However, it was a thing to be done. You are going to write about this
+for your paper?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo nodded.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well,&rdquo; continued Rathbury, &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve sent a man to
+Fiskie&rsquo;s, the hatter&rsquo;s, where that cap came from, you know. We may
+get a bit of information from that quarter&mdash;it&rsquo;s possible. If you
+like to meet me here at twelve o&rsquo;clock I&rsquo;ll tell you anything
+I&rsquo;ve heard. Just now I&rsquo;m going to get some breakfast.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll meet you here,&rdquo; said Spargo, &ldquo;at twelve
+o&rsquo;clock.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He watched Rathbury go away round one corner; he himself suddenly set off round
+another. He went to the <i>Watchman</i> office, wrote a few lines, which he
+enclosed in an envelope for the day-editor, and went out again. Somehow or
+other, his feet led him up Fleet Street, and before he quite realized what he
+was doing he found himself turning into the Law Courts.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap03"></a>CHAPTER THREE<br/>
+THE CLUE OF THE CAP</h2>
+
+<p>
+Having no clear conception of what had led him to these scenes of litigation,
+Spargo went wandering aimlessly about in the great hall and the adjacent
+corridors until an official, who took him to be lost, asked him if there was
+any particular part of the building he wanted. For a moment Spargo stared at
+the man as if he did not comprehend his question. Then his mental powers
+reasserted themselves.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Isn&rsquo;t Mr. Justice Borrow sitting in one of the courts this
+morning?&rdquo; he suddenly asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Number seven,&rdquo; replied the official. &ldquo;What&rsquo;s your
+case&mdash;when&rsquo;s it down?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I haven&rsquo;t got a case,&rdquo; said Spargo. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m a
+pressman&mdash;reporter, you know.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The official stuck out a finger.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Round the corner&mdash;first to your right&mdash;second on the
+left,&rdquo; he said automatically. &ldquo;You&rsquo;ll find plenty of
+room&mdash;nothing much doing there this morning.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He turned away, and Spargo recommenced his apparently aimless perambulation of
+the dreary, depressing corridors.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Upon my honour!&rdquo; he muttered. &ldquo;Upon my honour, I really
+don&rsquo;t know what I&rsquo;ve come up here for. I&rsquo;ve no business
+here.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Just then he turned a corner and came face to face with Ronald Breton. The
+young barrister was now in his wig and gown and carried a bundle of papers tied
+up with pink tape; he was escorting two young ladies, who were laughing and
+chattering as they tripped along at his side. And Spargo, glancing at them
+meditatively, instinctively told himself which of them it was that he and
+Rathbury had overheard as she made her burlesque speech: it was not the elder
+one, who walked by Ronald Breton with something of an air of proprietorship,
+but the younger, the girl with the laughing eyes and the vivacious smile, and
+it suddenly dawned upon him that somewhere, deep within him, there had been a
+notion, a hope of seeing this girl again&mdash;why, he could not then think.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo, thus coming face to face with these three, mechanically lifted his hat.
+Breton stopped, half inquisitive. His eyes seemed to ask a question.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; said Spargo. &ldquo;I&mdash;the fact is, I remembered that
+you said you were coming up here, and I came after you. I want&mdash;when
+you&rsquo;ve time&mdash;to have a talk, to ask you a few questions.
+About&mdash;this affair of the dead man, you know.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Breton nodded. He tapped Spargo on the arm.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Look here,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;When this case of mine is over, I can
+give you as much time as you like. Can you wait a bit? Yes? Well, I say, do me
+a favour. I was taking these ladies round to the gallery&mdash;round there, and
+up the stairs&mdash;and I&rsquo;m a bit pressed for time&mdash;I&rsquo;ve a
+solicitor waiting for me. You take them&mdash;there&rsquo;s a good fellow;
+then, when the case is over, bring them down here, and you and I will talk.
+Here&mdash;I&rsquo;ll introduce you all&mdash;no ceremony. Miss
+Aylmore&mdash;Miss Jessie Aylmore. Mr. Spargo&mdash;of the <i>Watchman</i>.
+Now, I&rsquo;m off!&rdquo; Breton turned on the instant; his gown whisked round
+a corner, and Spargo found himself staring at two smiling girls. He saw then
+that both were pretty and attractive, and that one seemed to be the elder by
+some three or four years.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That is very cool of Ronald,&rdquo; observed the elder young lady.
+&ldquo;Perhaps his scheme doesn&rsquo;t fit in with yours, Mr. Spargo? Pray
+don&rsquo;t&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, it&rsquo;s all right!&rdquo; said Spargo, feeling himself uncommonly
+stupid. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve nothing to do. But&mdash;where did Mr. Breton say you
+wished to be taken?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Into the gallery of number seven court,&rdquo; said the younger girl
+promptly. &ldquo;Round this corner&mdash;I think I know the way.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo, still marvelling at the rapidity with which affairs were moving that
+morning, bestirred himself to act as cicerone, and presently led the two young
+ladies to the very front of one of those public galleries from which idlers and
+specially-interested spectators may see and hear the proceedings which obtain
+in the badly-ventilated, ill-lighted tanks wherein justice is dispensed at the
+Law Courts. There was no one else in that gallery; the attendant in the
+corridor outside seemed to be vastly amazed that any one should wish to enter
+it, and he presently opened the door, beckoned to Spargo, and came half-way
+down the stairs to meet him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nothing much going on here this morning,&rdquo; he whispered behind a
+raised hand. &ldquo;But there&rsquo;s a nice breach case in number
+five&mdash;get you three good seats there if you like.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo declined this tempting offer, and went back to his charges. He had
+decided by that time that Miss Aylmore was about twenty-three, and her sister
+about eighteen; he also thought that young Breton was a lucky dog to be in
+possession of such a charming future wife and an equally charming
+sister-in-law. And he dropped into a seat at Miss Jessie Aylmore&rsquo;s side,
+and looked around him as if he were much awed by his surroundings.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I suppose one can talk until the judge enters?&rdquo; he whispered.
+&ldquo;Is this really Mr. Breton&rsquo;s first case?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;His very first&mdash;all on his own responsibility, any way,&rdquo;
+replied Spargo&rsquo;s companion, smiling. &ldquo;And he&rsquo;s very
+nervous&mdash;and so&rsquo;s my sister. Aren&rsquo;t you, now, Evelyn?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Evelyn Aylmore looked at Spargo, and smiled quietly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I suppose one&rsquo;s always nervous about first appearances,&rdquo; she
+said. &ldquo;However, I think Ronald&rsquo;s got plenty of confidence, and, as
+he says, it&rsquo;s not much of a case: it isn&rsquo;t even a jury case.
+I&rsquo;m afraid you&rsquo;ll find it dull, Mr. Spargo&mdash;it&rsquo;s only
+something about a promissory note.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, I&rsquo;m all right, thank you,&rdquo; replied Spargo, unconsciously
+falling back on a favourite formula. &ldquo;I always like to hear
+lawyers&mdash;they manage to say such a lot about&mdash;about&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;About nothing,&rdquo; said Jessie Aylmore. &ldquo;But there&mdash;so do
+gentlemen who write for the papers, don&rsquo;t they?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo was about to admit that there was a good deal to be said on that point
+when Miss Aylmore suddenly drew her sister&rsquo;s attention to a man who had
+just entered the well of the court.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Look, Jessie!&rdquo; she observed. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s Mr.
+Elphick!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo looked down at the person indicated: an elderly, large-faced,
+smooth-shaven man, a little inclined to stoutness, who, wigged and gowned, was
+slowly making his way to a corner seat just outside that charmed inner sanctum
+wherein only King&rsquo;s Counsel are permitted to sit. He dropped into this in
+a fashion which showed that he was one of those men who loved personal comfort;
+he bestowed his plump person at the most convenient angle and fitting a monocle
+in his right eye, glanced around him. There were a few of his professional
+brethren in his vicinity; there were half a dozen solicitors and their clerks
+in conversation with one or other of them; there were court officials. But the
+gentleman of the monocle swept all these with an indifferent look and cast his
+eyes upward until he caught sight of the two girls. Thereupon he made a most
+gracious bow in their direction; his broad face beamed in a genial smile, and
+he waved a white hand.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Do you know Mr. Elphick, Mr. Spargo?&rdquo; enquired the younger Miss
+Aylmore.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I rather think I&rsquo;ve seen him, somewhere about the Temple,&rdquo;
+answered Spargo. &ldquo;In fact, I&rsquo;m sure I have.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;His chambers are in Paper Buildings,&rdquo; said Jessie.
+&ldquo;Sometimes he gives tea-parties in them. He is Ronald&rsquo;s guardian,
+and preceptor, and mentor, and all that, and I suppose he&rsquo;s dropped into
+this court to hear how his pupil goes on.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Here is Ronald,&rdquo; whispered Miss Aylmore.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And here,&rdquo; said her sister, &ldquo;is his lordship, looking very
+cross. Now, Mr. Spargo, you&rsquo;re in for it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo, to tell the truth, paid little attention to what went on beneath him.
+The case which young Breton presently opened was a commercial one, involving
+certain rights and properties in a promissory note; it seemed to the journalist
+that Breton dealt with it very well, showing himself master of the financial
+details, and speaking with readiness and assurance. He was much more interested
+in his companions, and especially in the younger one, and he was meditating on
+how he could improve his further acquaintance when he awoke to the fact that
+the defence, realizing that it stood no chance, had agreed to withdraw, and
+that Mr. Justice Borrow was already giving judgment in Ronald Breton&rsquo;s
+favour.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In another minute he was walking out of the gallery in rear of the two sisters.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Very good&mdash;very good, indeed,&rdquo; he said, absent-mindedly.
+&ldquo;I thought he put his facts very clearly and concisely.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Downstairs, in the corridor, Ronald Breton was talking to Mr. Elphick. He
+pointed a finger at Spargo as the latter came up with the girls: Spargo
+gathered that Breton was speaking of the murder and of his, Spargo&rsquo;s,
+connection with it. And directly they approached, he spoke.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;This is Mr. Spargo, sub-editor of the <i>Watchman</i>.&rdquo; Breton
+said. &ldquo;Mr. Elphick&mdash;Mr. Spargo. I was just telling Mr. Elphick,
+Spargo, that you saw this poor man soon after he was found.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo, glancing at Mr. Elphick, saw that he was deeply interested. The elderly
+barrister took him&mdash;literally&mdash;by the button-hole.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;My dear sir!&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;You&mdash;saw this poor fellow?
+Lying dead&mdash;in the third entry down Middle Temple Lane? The third entry,
+eh?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; replied Spargo, simply. &ldquo;I saw him. It was the third
+entry.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Singular!&rdquo; said Mr. Elphick, musingly. &ldquo;I know a man who
+lives in that house. In fact, I visited him last night, and did not leave until
+nearly midnight. And this unfortunate man had Mr. Ronald Breton&rsquo;s name
+and address in his pocket?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo nodded. He looked at Breton, and pulled out his watch. Just then he had
+no idea of playing the part of informant to Mr. Elphick.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, that&rsquo;s so,&rdquo; he answered shortly. Then, looking at
+Breton significantly, he added, &ldquo;If you can give me those few minutes,
+now&mdash;?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes&mdash;yes!&rdquo; responded Ronald Breton, nodding. &ldquo;I
+understand. Evelyn&mdash;I&rsquo;ll leave you and Jessie to Mr. Elphick; I must
+go.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Elphick seized Spargo once more.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;My dear sir!&rdquo; he said, eagerly. &ldquo;Do you&mdash;do you think I
+could possibly see&mdash;the body?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It&rsquo;s at the mortuary,&rdquo; answered Spargo. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t
+know what their regulations are.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then he escaped with Breton. They had crossed Fleet Street and were in the
+quieter shades of the Temple before Spargo spoke.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;About what I wanted to say to you,&rdquo; he said at last. &ldquo;It
+was&mdash;this. I&mdash;well, I&rsquo;ve always wanted, as a journalist, to
+have a real big murder case. I think this is one. I want to go right into
+it&mdash;thoroughly, first and last. And&mdash;I think you can help me.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How do you know that it is a murder case?&rdquo; asked Breton quietly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It&rsquo;s a murder case,&rdquo; answered Spargo, stolidly. &ldquo;I
+feel it. Instinct, perhaps. I&rsquo;m going to ferret out the truth. And it
+seems to me&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He paused and gave his companion a sharp glance.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It seems to me,&rdquo; he presently continued, &ldquo;that the clue lies
+in that scrap of paper. That paper and that man are connecting links between
+you and&mdash;somebody else.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Possibly,&rdquo; agreed Breton. &ldquo;You want to find the somebody
+else?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I want you to help me to find the somebody else,&rdquo; answered Spargo.
+&ldquo;I believe this is a big, very big affair: I want to do it. I don&rsquo;t
+believe in police methods&mdash;much. By the by, I&rsquo;m just going to meet
+Rathbury. He may have heard of something. Would you like to come?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Breton ran into his chambers in King&rsquo;s Bench Walk, left his gown and wig,
+and walked round with Spargo to the police office. Rathbury came out as they
+were stepping in.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh!&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Ah!&mdash;I&rsquo;ve got what may be helpful,
+Mr. Spargo. I told you I&rsquo;d sent a man to Fiskie&rsquo;s, the hatter!
+Well, he&rsquo;s just returned. The cap which the dead man was wearing was
+bought at Fiskie&rsquo;s yesterday afternoon, and it was sent to Mr. Marbury,
+Room 20, at the Anglo-Orient Hotel.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Where is that?&rdquo; asked Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Waterloo district,&rdquo; answered Rathbury. &ldquo;A small house, I
+believe. Well, I&rsquo;m going there. Are you coming?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; replied Spargo. &ldquo;Of course. And Mr. Breton wants to
+come, too.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If I&rsquo;m not in the way,&rdquo; said Breton.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Rathbury laughed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, we may find out something about this scrap of paper,&rdquo; he
+observed. And he waved a signal to the nearest taxi-cab driver.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap04"></a>CHAPTER FOUR<br/>
+THE ANGLO-ORIENT HOTEL</h2>
+
+<p>
+The house at which Spargo and his companions presently drew up was an
+old-fashioned place in the immediate vicinity of Waterloo Railway
+Station&mdash;a plain-fronted, four-square erection, essentially mid-Victorian
+in appearance, and suggestive, somehow, of the very early days of railway
+travelling. Anything more in contrast with the modern ideas of a hotel it would
+have been difficult to find in London, and Ronald Breton said so as he and the
+others crossed the pavement.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And yet a good many people used to favour this place on their way to and
+from Southampton in the old days,&rdquo; remarked Rathbury. &ldquo;And I
+daresay that old travellers, coming back from the East after a good many
+years&rsquo; absence, still rush in here. You see, it&rsquo;s close to the
+station, and travellers have a knack of walking into the nearest place when
+they&rsquo;ve a few thousand miles of steamboat and railway train behind them.
+Look there, now!&rdquo; They had crossed the threshold as the detective spoke,
+and as they entered a square, heavily-furnished hall, he made a sidelong motion
+of his head towards a bar on the left, wherein stood or lounged a number of men
+who from their general appearance, their slouched hats, and their bronzed faces
+appeared to be Colonials, or at any rate to have spent a good part of their
+time beneath Oriental skies. There was a murmur of tongues that had a Colonial
+accent in it; an aroma of tobacco that suggested Sumatra and Trichinopoly, and
+Rathbury wagged his head sagely. &ldquo;Lay you anything the dead man was a
+Colonial, Mr. Spargo,&rdquo; he remarked. &ldquo;Well, now, I suppose
+that&rsquo;s the landlord and landlady.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was an office facing them, at the rear of the hall, and a man and woman
+were regarding them from a box window which opened above a ledge on which lay a
+register book. They were middle-aged folk: the man, a fleshy, round-faced,
+somewhat pompous-looking individual, who might at some time have been a butler;
+the woman a tall, spare-figured, thin-featured, sharp-eyed person, who examined
+the newcomers with an enquiring gaze. Rathbury went up to them with easy
+confidence.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You the landlord of this house, sir?&rdquo; he asked. &ldquo;Mr.
+Walters? Just so&mdash;and Mrs. Walters, I presume?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The landlord made a stiff bow and looked sharply at his questioner.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What can I do for you, sir?&rdquo; he enquired.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A little matter of business, Mr. Walters,&rdquo; replied Rathbury,
+pulling out a card. &ldquo;You&rsquo;ll see there who I
+am&mdash;Detective-Sergeant Rathbury, of the Yard. This is Mr. Frank Spargo, a
+newspaper man; this is Mr. Ronald Breton, a barrister.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The landlady, hearing their names and description, pointed to a side door, and
+signed Rathbury and his companions to pass through. Obeying her pointed finger,
+they found themselves in a small private parlour. Walters closed the two doors
+which led into it and looked at his principal visitor.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What is it, Mr. Rathbury?&rdquo; he enquired. &ldquo;Anything
+wrong?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We want a bit of information,&rdquo; answered Rathbury, almost with
+indifference.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Did anybody of the name of Marbury put up here yesterday&mdash;elderly
+man, grey hair, fresh complexion?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mrs. Walters started, glancing at her husband.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There!&rdquo; she exclaimed. &ldquo;I knew some enquiry would be made.
+Yes&mdash;a Mr. Marbury took a room here yesterday morning, just after the noon
+train got in from Southampton. Number 20 he took. But&mdash;he didn&rsquo;t use
+it last night. He went out&mdash;very late&mdash;and he never came back.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Rathbury nodded. Answering a sign from the landlord, he took a chair and,
+sitting down, looked at Mrs. Walters.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What made you think some enquiry would be made, ma&rsquo;am?&rdquo; he
+asked. &ldquo;Had you noticed anything?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mrs. Walters seemed a little confused by this direct question. Her husband gave
+vent to a species of growl.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nothing to notice,&rdquo; he muttered. &ldquo;Her way of
+speaking&mdash;that&rsquo;s all.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well&mdash;why I said that was this,&rdquo; said the landlady. &ldquo;He
+happened to tell us, did Mr. Marbury, that he hadn&rsquo;t been in London for
+over twenty years, and couldn&rsquo;t remember anything about it, him, he said,
+never having known much about London at any time. And, of course, when he went
+out so late and never came back, why, naturally, I thought something had
+happened to him, and that there&rsquo;d be enquiries made.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Just so&mdash;just so!&rdquo; said Rathbury. &ldquo;So you would,
+ma&rsquo;am&mdash;so you would. Well, something has happened to him. He&rsquo;s
+dead. What&rsquo;s more, there&rsquo;s strong reason to think he was
+murdered.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. and Mrs. Walters received this announcement with proper surprise and
+horror, and the landlord suggested a little refreshment to his visitors. Spargo
+and Breton declined, on the ground that they had work to do during the
+afternoon; Rathbury accepted it, evidently as a matter of course.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;My respects,&rdquo; he said, lifting his glass. &ldquo;Well, now,
+perhaps you&rsquo;ll just tell me what you know of this man? I may as well tell
+you, Mr. and Mrs. Walters, that he was found dead in Middle Temple Lane this
+morning, at a quarter to three; that there wasn&rsquo;t anything on him but his
+clothes and a scrap of paper which bore this gentleman&rsquo;s name and
+address; that this gentleman knows nothing whatever of him, and that I traced
+him here because he bought a cap at a West End hatter&rsquo;s yesterday, and
+had it sent to your hotel.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; said Mrs. Walters quickly, &ldquo;that&rsquo;s so. And he
+went out in that cap last night. Well&mdash;we don&rsquo;t know much about him.
+As I said, he came in here about a quarter past twelve yesterday morning, and
+booked Number 20. He had a porter with him that brought a trunk and a
+bag&mdash;they&rsquo;re in 20 now, of course. He told me that he had stayed at
+this house over twenty years ago, on his way to Australia&mdash;that, of
+course, was long before we took it. And he signed his name in the book as John
+Marbury.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We&rsquo;ll look at that, if you please,&rdquo; said Rathbury.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Walters fetched in the register and turned the leaf to the previous day&rsquo;s
+entries. They all bent over the dead man&rsquo;s writing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;John Marbury, Coolumbidgee, New South Wales,&rsquo;&rdquo; said
+Rathbury. &ldquo;Ah&mdash;now I was wondering if that writing would be the same
+as that on the scrap of paper, Mr. Breton. But, you see, it
+isn&rsquo;t&mdash;it&rsquo;s quite different.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Quite different,&rdquo; said Breton. He, too, was regarding the
+handwriting with great interest. And Rathbury noticed his keen inspection of
+it, and asked another question.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ever seen that writing before?&rdquo; he suggested.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Never,&rdquo; answered Breton. &ldquo;And yet&mdash;there&rsquo;s
+something very familiar about it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then the probability is that you have seen it before,&rdquo; remarked
+Rathbury. &ldquo;Well&mdash;now we&rsquo;ll hear a little more about
+Marbury&rsquo;s doings here. Just tell me all you know, Mr. and Mrs.
+Walters.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;My wife knows most,&rdquo; said Walters. &ldquo;I scarcely saw the
+man&mdash;I don&rsquo;t remember speaking with him.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No,&rdquo; said Mrs. Walters. &ldquo;You didn&rsquo;t&mdash;you
+weren&rsquo;t much in his way. Well,&rdquo; she continued, &ldquo;I showed him
+up to his room. He talked a bit&mdash;said he&rsquo;d just landed at
+Southampton from Melbourne.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Did he mention his ship?&rdquo; asked Rathbury. &ldquo;But if he
+didn&rsquo;t, it doesn&rsquo;t matter, for we can find out.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I believe the name&rsquo;s on his things,&rdquo; answered the landlady.
+&ldquo;There are some labels of that sort. Well, he asked for a chop to be
+cooked for him at once, as he was going out. He had his chop, and he went out
+at exactly one o&rsquo;clock, saying to me that he expected he&rsquo;d get
+lost, as he didn&rsquo;t know London well at any time, and shouldn&rsquo;t know
+it at all now. He went outside there&mdash;I saw him&mdash;looked about him and
+walked off towards Blackfriars way. During the afternoon the cap you spoke of
+came for him&mdash;from Fiskie&rsquo;s. So, of course, I judged he&rsquo;d been
+Piccadilly way. But he himself never came in until ten o&rsquo;clock. And then
+he brought a gentleman with him.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Aye?&rdquo; said Rathbury. &ldquo;A gentleman, now? Did you see
+him?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Just,&rdquo; replied the landlady. &ldquo;They went straight up to 20,
+and I just caught a mere glimpse of the gentleman as they turned up the stairs.
+A tall, well-built gentleman, with a grey beard, very well dressed as far as I
+could see, with a top hat and a white silk muffler round his throat, and
+carrying an umbrella.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And they went to Marbury&rsquo;s room?&rdquo; said Rathbury. &ldquo;What
+then?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, then, Mr. Marbury rang for some whiskey and soda,&rdquo; continued
+Mrs. Walters. &ldquo;He was particular to have a decanter of whiskey: that, and
+a syphon of soda were taken up there. I heard nothing more until nearly
+midnight; then the hall-porter told me that the gentleman in 20 had gone out,
+and had asked him if there was a night-porter&mdash;as, of course, there is. He
+went out at half-past eleven.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And the other gentleman?&rdquo; asked Rathbury.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The other gentleman,&rdquo; answered the landlady, &ldquo;went out with
+him. The hall-porter said they turned towards the station. And that was the
+last anybody in this house saw of Mr. Marbury. He certainly never came
+back.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That,&rdquo; observed Rathbury with a quiet smile, &ldquo;that is quite
+certain, ma&rsquo;am? Well&mdash;I suppose we&rsquo;d better see this Number 20
+room, and have a look at what he left there.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Everything,&rdquo; said Mrs. Walters, &ldquo;is just as he left it.
+Nothing&rsquo;s been touched.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It seemed to two of the visitors that there was little to touch. On the
+dressing-table lay a few ordinary articles of toilet&mdash;none of them of any
+quality or value: the dead man had evidently been satisfied with the plain
+necessities of life. An overcoat hung from a peg: Rathbury, without ceremony,
+went through its pockets; just as unceremoniously he proceeded to examine trunk
+and bag, and finding both unlocked, he laid out on the bed every article they
+contained and examined each separately and carefully. And he found nothing
+whereby he could gather any clue to the dead owner&rsquo;s identity.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There you are!&rdquo; he said, making an end of his task. &ldquo;You
+see, it&rsquo;s just the same with these things as with the clothes he had on
+him. There are no papers&mdash;there&rsquo;s nothing to tell who he was, what
+he was after, where he&rsquo;d come from&mdash;though that we may find out in
+other ways. But it&rsquo;s not often that a man travels without some clue to
+his identity. Beyond the fact that some of this linen was, you see, bought in
+Melbourne, we know nothing of him. Yet he must have had papers and money on
+him. Did you see anything of his money, now, ma&rsquo;am?&rdquo; he asked,
+suddenly turning to Mrs. Walters. &ldquo;Did he pull out his purse in your
+presence, now?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; answered the landlady, with promptitude. &ldquo;He came into
+the bar for a drink after he&rsquo;d been up to his room. He pulled out a
+handful of gold when he paid for it&mdash;a whole handful. There must have been
+some thirty to forty sovereigns and half-sovereigns.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And he hadn&rsquo;t a penny piece on him&mdash;when found,&rdquo;
+muttered Rathbury.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I noticed another thing, too,&rdquo; remarked the landlady. &ldquo;He
+was wearing a very fine gold watch and chain, and had a splendid ring on his
+left hand&mdash;little finger&mdash;gold, with a big diamond in it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; said the detective, thoughtfully, &ldquo;I noticed that
+he&rsquo;d worn a ring, and that it had been a bit tight for him.
+Well&mdash;now there&rsquo;s only one thing to ask about. Did your chambermaid
+notice if he left any torn paper around&mdash;tore any letters up, or anything
+like that?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But the chambermaid, produced, had not noticed anything of the sort; on the
+contrary, the gentleman of Number 20 had left his room very tidy indeed. So
+Rathbury intimated that he had no more to ask, and nothing further to say, just
+then, and he bade the landlord and landlady of the Anglo-Orient Hotel good
+morning, and went away, followed by the two young men.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What next?&rdquo; asked Spargo, as they gained the street.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The next thing,&rdquo; answered Rathbury, &ldquo;is to find the man with
+whom Marbury left this hotel last night.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And how&rsquo;s that to be done?&rdquo; asked Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;At present,&rdquo; replied Rathbury, &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And with a careless nod, he walked off, apparently desirous of being alone.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap05"></a>CHAPTER FIVE<br/>
+SPARGO WISHES TO SPECIALIZE</h2>
+
+<p>
+The barrister and the journalist, left thus unceremoniously on a crowded
+pavement, looked at each other. Breton laughed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We don&rsquo;t seem to have gained much information,&rdquo; he remarked.
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;m about as wise as ever.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No&mdash;wiser,&rdquo; said Spargo. &ldquo;At any rate, I am. I know now
+that this dead man called himself John Marbury; that he came from Australia;
+that he only landed at Southampton yesterday morning, and that he was in the
+company last night of a man whom we have had described to us&mdash;a tall,
+grey-bearded, well-dressed man, presumably a gentleman.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Breton shrugged his shoulders.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I should say that description would fit a hundred thousand men in
+London,&rdquo; he remarked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Exactly&mdash;so it would,&rdquo; answered Spargo. &ldquo;But we know
+that it was one of the hundred thousand, or half-million, if you like. The
+thing is to find that one&mdash;the one.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And you think you can do it?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I think I&rsquo;m going to have a big try at it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Breton shrugged his shoulders again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What?&mdash;by going up to every man who answers the description, and
+saying &lsquo;Sir, are you the man who accompanied John Marbury to the
+Anglo&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo suddenly interrupted him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Look here!&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Didn&rsquo;t you say that you knew a
+man who lives in that block in the entry of which Marbury was found?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, I didn&rsquo;t,&rdquo; answered Breton. &ldquo;It was Mr. Elphick
+who said that. All the same, I do know that man&mdash;he&rsquo;s Mr.
+Cardlestone, another barrister. He and Mr. Elphick are
+friends&mdash;they&rsquo;re both enthusiastic philatelists&mdash;stamp
+collectors, you know&mdash;and I dare say Mr. Elphick was round there last
+night examining something new Cardlestone&rsquo;s got hold of. Why?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;d like to go round there and make some enquiries,&rdquo; replied
+Spargo. &ldquo;If you&rsquo;d be kind enough to&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, I&rsquo;ll go with you!&rdquo; responded Breton, with alacrity.
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;m just as keen about this business as you are, Spargo! I want to
+know who this man Marbury is, and how he came to have my name and address on
+him. Now, if I had been a well-known man in my profession, you know,
+why&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; said Spargo, as they got into a cab, &ldquo;yes, that would
+have explained a lot. It seems to me that we&rsquo;ll get at the murderer
+through that scrap of paper a lot quicker than through Rathbury&rsquo;s line.
+Yes, that&rsquo;s what I think.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Breton looked at his companion with interest.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But&mdash;you don&rsquo;t know what Rathbury&rsquo;s line is,&rdquo; he
+remarked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, I do,&rdquo; said Spargo. &ldquo;Rathbury&rsquo;s gone off to
+discover who the man is with whom Marbury left the Anglo-Orient Hotel last
+night. That&rsquo;s his line.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And you want&mdash;&mdash;?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I want to find out the full significance of that bit of paper, and who
+wrote it,&rdquo; answered Spargo. &ldquo;I want to know why that old man was
+coming to you when he was murdered.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Breton started.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;By Jove!&rdquo; he exclaimed. &ldquo;I&mdash;I never thought of that.
+You&mdash;you really think he was coming to me when he was struck down?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Certain. Hadn&rsquo;t he got an address in the Temple? Wasn&rsquo;t he
+in the Temple? Of course, he was trying to find you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But&mdash;the late hour?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No matter. How else can you explain his presence in the Temple? I think
+he was asking his way. That&rsquo;s why I want to make some enquiries in this
+block.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It appeared to Spargo that a considerable number of people, chiefly of the
+office-boy variety, were desirous of making enquiries about the dead man. Being
+luncheon-hour, that bit of Middle Temple Lane where the body was found, was
+thick with the inquisitive and the sensation-seeker, for the news of the murder
+had spread, and though there was nothing to see but the bare stones on which
+the body had lain, there were more open mouths and staring eyes around the
+entry than Spargo had seen for many a day. And the nuisance had become so great
+that the occupants of the adjacent chambers had sent for a policeman to move
+the curious away, and when Spargo and his companion presented themselves at the
+entry this policeman was being lectured as to his duties by a little
+weazen-faced gentleman, in very snuffy and old-fashioned garments, and an
+ancient silk hat, who was obviously greatly exercised by the unwonted
+commotion.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Drive them all out into the street!&rdquo; exclaimed this personage.
+&ldquo;Drive them all away, constable&mdash;into Fleet Street or upon the
+Embankment&mdash;anywhere, so long as you rid this place of them. This is a
+disgrace, and an inconvenience, a nuisance, a&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s old Cardlestone,&rdquo; whispered Breton. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s
+always irascible, and I don&rsquo;t suppose we&rsquo;ll get anything out of
+him. Mr. Cardlestone,&rdquo; he continued, making his way up to the old
+gentleman who was now retreating up the stone steps, brandishing an umbrella as
+ancient as himself. &ldquo;I was just coming to see you, sir. This is Mr.
+Spargo, a journalist, who is much interested in this murder.
+He&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I know nothing about the murder, my dear sir!&rdquo; exclaimed Mr.
+Cardlestone. &ldquo;And I never talk to journalists&mdash;a pack of busybodies,
+sir, saving your presence. I am not aware that any murder has been committed,
+and I object to my doorway being filled by a pack of office boys and street
+loungers. Murder indeed! I suppose the man fell down these steps and broke his
+neck&mdash;drunk, most likely.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He opened his outer door as he spoke, and Breton, with a reassuring smile and a
+nod at Spargo, followed him into his chambers on the first landing, motioning
+the journalist to keep at their heels.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mr. Elphick tells me that he was with you until a late hour last
+evening, Mr. Cardlestone,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Of course, neither of you
+heard anything suspicious?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What should we hear that was suspicious in the Temple, sir?&rdquo;
+demanded Mr. Cardlestone, angrily. &ldquo;I hope the Temple is free from that
+sort of thing, young Mr. Breton. Your respected guardian and myself had a quiet
+evening on our usual peaceful pursuits, and when he went away all was as quiet
+as the grave, sir. What may have gone on in the chambers above and around me I
+know not! Fortunately, our walls are thick, sir&mdash;substantial. I say, sir,
+the man probably fell down and broke his neck. What he was doing here, I do not
+presume to say.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, it&rsquo;s guess, you know, Mr. Cardlestone,&rdquo; remarked
+Breton, again winking at Spargo. &ldquo;But all that was found on this man was
+a scrap of paper on which my name and address were written. That&rsquo;s
+practically all that was known of him, except that he&rsquo;d just arrived from
+Australia.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Cardlestone suddenly turned on the young barrister with a sharp, acute
+glance.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Eh?&rdquo; he exclaimed. &ldquo;What&rsquo;s this? You say this man had
+your name and address on him, young Breton!&mdash;yours? And that he came
+from&mdash;Australia?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s so,&rdquo; answered Breton. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s all
+that&rsquo;s known.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Cardlestone put aside his umbrella, produced a bandanna handkerchief of
+strong colours, and blew his nose in a reflective fashion.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s a mysterious thing,&rdquo; he observed.
+&ldquo;Um&mdash;does Elphick know all that?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Breton looked at Spargo as if he was asking him for an explanation of Mr.
+Cardlestone&rsquo;s altered manner. And Spargo took up the conversation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;All that Mr. Elphick knows is that Mr. Ronald
+Breton&rsquo;s name and address were on the scrap of paper found on the body.
+Mr. Elphick&rdquo;&mdash;here Spargo paused and looked at
+Breton&mdash;&ldquo;Mr. Elphick,&rdquo; he presently continued, slowly
+transferring his glance to the old barrister, &ldquo;spoke of going to view the
+body.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah!&rdquo; exclaimed Mr. Cardlestone, eagerly. &ldquo;It can be seen?
+Then I&rsquo;ll go and see it. Where is it?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Breton started.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But&mdash;my dear sir!&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Why?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Cardlestone picked up his umbrella again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I feel a proper curiosity about a mystery which occurs at my very
+door,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Also, I have known more than one man who went to
+Australia. This might&mdash;I say might, young gentlemen&mdash;might be a man I
+had once known. Show me where this body is.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Breton looked helplessly at Spargo: it was plain that he did not understand the
+turn that things were taking. But Spargo was quick to seize an opportunity. In
+another minute he was conducting Mr. Cardlestone through the ins and outs of
+the Temple towards Blackfriars. And as they turned into Tudor Street they
+encountered Mr. Elphick.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am going to the mortuary,&rdquo; he remarked. &ldquo;So, I suppose,
+are you, Cardlestone? Has anything more been discovered, young man?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo tried a chance shot&mdash;at what he did not know. &ldquo;The
+man&rsquo;s name was Marbury,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;He was from
+Australia.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He was keeping a keen eye on Mr. Elphick, but he failed to see that Mr. Elphick
+showed any of the surprise which Mr. Cardlestone had exhibited. Rather, he
+seemed indifferent.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh?&rdquo; he said&mdash;&ldquo;Marbury? And from Australia.
+Well&mdash;I should like to see the body.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo and Breton had to wait outside the mortuary while the two elder
+gentlemen went in. There was nothing to be learnt from either when they
+reappeared.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We don&rsquo;t know the man,&rdquo; said Mr. Elphick, calmly. &ldquo;As
+Mr. Cardlestone, I understand, has said to you already&mdash;we have known men
+who went to Australia, and as this man was evidently wandering about the
+Temple, we thought it might have been one of them, come back. But&mdash;we
+don&rsquo;t recognize him.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Couldn&rsquo;t recognize him,&rdquo; said Mr. Cardlestone.
+&ldquo;No!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They went away together arm in arm, and Breton looked at Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;As if anybody on earth ever fancied they&rsquo;d recognize him!&rdquo;
+he said. &ldquo;Well&mdash;what are you going to do now, Spargo? I must
+go.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo, who had been digging his walking-stick into a crack in the pavement,
+came out of a fit of abstraction.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I?&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Oh&mdash;I&rsquo;m going to the office.&rdquo;
+And he turned abruptly away, and walking straight off to the editorial rooms at
+the <i>Watchman</i>, made for one in which sat the official guardian of the
+editor. &ldquo;Try to get me a few minutes with the chief,&rdquo; he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The private secretary looked up.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Really important?&rdquo; he asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Big!&rdquo; answered Spargo. &ldquo;Fix it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Once closeted with the great man, whose idiosyncrasies he knew pretty well by
+that time, Spargo lost no time.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You&rsquo;ve heard about this murder in Middle Temple Lane?&rdquo; he
+suggested.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The mere facts,&rdquo; replied the editor, tersely.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I was there when the body was found,&rdquo; continued Spargo, and gave a
+brief résumé of his doings. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m certain this is a most unusual
+affair,&rdquo; he went on. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s as full of mystery as&mdash;as it
+could be. I want to give my attention to it. I want to specialize on it. I can
+make such a story of it as we haven&rsquo;t had for some time&mdash;ages. Let
+me have it. And to start with, let me have two columns for tomorrow morning.
+I&rsquo;ll make it&mdash;big!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The editor looked across his desk at Spargo&rsquo;s eager face.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Your other work?&rdquo; he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well in hand,&rdquo; replied Spargo. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m ahead a whole
+week&mdash;both articles and reviews. I can tackle both.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The editor put his finger tips together.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Have you got some idea about this, young man?&rdquo; he asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve got a great idea,&rdquo; answered Spargo. He faced the great
+man squarely, and stared at him until he had brought a smile to the editorial
+face. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s why I want to do it,&rdquo; he added.
+&ldquo;And&mdash;it&rsquo;s not mere boasting nor over-confidence&mdash;I know
+I shall do it better than anybody else.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The editor considered matters for a brief moment.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You mean to find out who killed this man?&rdquo; he said at last.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo nodded his head&mdash;twice.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll find that out,&rdquo; he said doggedly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The editor picked up a pencil, and bent to his desk.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;All right,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Go ahead. You shall have your two
+columns.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo went quietly away to his own nook and corner. He got hold of a block of
+paper and began to write. He was going to show how to do things.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap06"></a>CHAPTER SIX<br/>
+WITNESS TO A MEETING</h2>
+
+<p>
+Ronald Breton walked into the <i>Watchman</i> office and into Spargo&rsquo;s
+room next morning holding a copy of the current issue in his hand. He waved it
+at Spargo with an enthusiasm which was almost boyish.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I say!&rdquo; he exclaimed. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s the way to do it,
+Spargo! I congratulate you. Yes, that&rsquo;s the way&mdash;certain!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo, idly turning over a pile of exchanges, yawned.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What way?&rdquo; he asked indifferently.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The way you&rsquo;ve written this thing up,&rdquo; said Breton.
+&ldquo;It&rsquo;s a hundred thousand times better than the usual cut-and-dried
+account of a murder. It&rsquo;s&mdash;it&rsquo;s like a&mdash;a romance!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Merely a new method of giving news,&rdquo; said Spargo. He picked up a
+copy of the <i>Watchman</i>, and glanced at his two columns, which had somehow
+managed to make themselves into three, viewing the displayed lettering, the
+photograph of the dead man, the line drawing of the entry in Middle Temple
+Lane, and the facsimile of the scrap of grey paper, with a critical eye.
+&ldquo;Yes&mdash;merely a new method,&rdquo; he continued. &ldquo;The question
+is&mdash;will it achieve its object?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What&rsquo;s the object?&rdquo; asked Breton.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo fished out a box of cigarettes from an untidy drawer, pushed it over to
+his visitor, helped himself, and tilting back his chair, put his feet on his
+desk.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The object?&rdquo; he said, drily. &ldquo;Oh, well, the object is the
+ultimate detection of the murderer.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You&rsquo;re after that?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;m after that&mdash;just that.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And not&mdash;not simply out to make effective news?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;m out to find the murderer of John Marbury,&rdquo; said Spargo
+deliberately slow in his speech. &ldquo;And I&rsquo;ll find him.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, there doesn&rsquo;t seem to be much in the way of clues, so
+far,&rdquo; remarked Breton. &ldquo;I see&mdash;nothing. Do you?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo sent a spiral of scented smoke into the air.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I want to know an awful lot,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m hungering
+for news. I want to know who John Marbury is. I want to know what he did with
+himself between the time when he walked out of the Anglo-Orient Hotel, alive
+and well, and the time when he was found in Middle Temple Lane, with his skull
+beaten in and dead. I want to know where he got that scrap of paper. Above
+everything, Breton, I want to know what he&rsquo;d got to do with you!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He gave the young barrister a keen look, and Breton nodded.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I confess that&rsquo;s a corker. But I
+think&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well?&rdquo; said Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I think he may have been a man who had some legal business in hand, or
+in prospect, and had been recommended to&mdash;me,&rdquo; said Breton.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo smiled&mdash;a little sardonically.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s good!&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;You had your very first
+brief&mdash;yesterday. Come&mdash;your fame isn&rsquo;t blown abroad through
+all the heights yet, my friend! Besides&mdash;don&rsquo;t intending clients
+approach&mdash;isn&rsquo;t it strict etiquette for them to
+approach?&mdash;barristers through solicitors?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Quite right&mdash;in both your remarks,&rdquo; replied Breton,
+good-humouredly. &ldquo;Of course, I&rsquo;m not known a bit, but all the same
+I&rsquo;ve known several cases where a barrister has been approached in the
+first instance and asked to recommend a solicitor. Somebody who wanted to do me
+a good turn may have given this man my address.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Possible,&rdquo; said Spargo. &ldquo;But he wouldn&rsquo;t have come to
+consult you at midnight. Breton!&mdash;the more I think of it, the more
+I&rsquo;m certain there&rsquo;s a tremendous mystery in this affair!
+That&rsquo;s why I got the chief to let me write it up as I have
+done&mdash;here. I&rsquo;m hoping that this photograph&mdash;though to be sure,
+it&rsquo;s of a dead face&mdash;and this facsimile of the scrap of paper will
+lead to somebody coming forward who can&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Just then one of the uniformed youths who hang about the marble pillared
+vestibule of the <i>Watchman</i> office came into the room with the
+unmistakable look and air of one who carries news of moment.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I dare lay a sovereign to a cent that I know what this is,&rdquo;
+muttered Spargo in an aside. &ldquo;Well?&rdquo; he said to the boy.
+&ldquo;What is it?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The messenger came up to the desk.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mr. Spargo,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;there&rsquo;s a man downstairs who
+says that he wants to see somebody about that murder case that&rsquo;s in the
+paper this morning, sir. Mr. Barrett said I was to come to you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Who is the man?&rdquo; asked Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Won&rsquo;t say, sir,&rdquo; replied the boy. &ldquo;I gave him a form
+to fill up, but he said he wouldn&rsquo;t write anything&mdash;said all he
+wanted was to see the man who wrote the piece in the paper.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Bring him here,&rdquo; commanded Spargo. He turned to Breton when the
+boy had gone, and he smiled. &ldquo;I knew we should have somebody here sooner
+or later,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s why I hurried over my breakfast
+and came down at ten o&rsquo;clock. Now then, what will you bet on the chances
+of this chap&rsquo;s information proving valuable?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nothing,&rdquo; replied Breton. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s probably some crank or
+faddist who&rsquo;s got some theory that he wants to ventilate.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The man who was presently ushered in by the messenger seemed from preliminary
+and outward appearance to justify Breton&rsquo;s prognostication. He was
+obviously a countryman, a tall, loosely-built, middle-aged man, yellow of hair,
+blue of eye, who was wearing his Sunday-best array of pearl-grey trousers and
+black coat, and sported a necktie in which were several distinct colours.
+Oppressed with the splendour and grandeur of the <i>Watchman</i> building, he
+had removed his hard billycock hat as he followed the boy, and he ducked his
+bared head at the two young men as he stepped on to the thick pile of the
+carpet which made luxurious footing in Spargo&rsquo;s room. His blue eyes,
+opened to their widest, looked round him in astonishment at the sumptuousness
+of modern newspaper-office accommodation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How do you do, sir?&rdquo; said Spargo, pointing a finger to one of the
+easy-chairs for which the <i>Watchman</i> office is famous. &ldquo;I understand
+that you wish to see me?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The caller ducked his yellow head again, sat down on the edge of the chair, put
+his hat on the floor, picked it up again, and endeavoured to hang it on his
+knee, and looked at Spargo innocently and shyly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What I want to see, sir,&rdquo; he observed in a rustic accent,
+&ldquo;is the gentleman as wrote that piece in your newspaper about this here
+murder in Middle Temple Lane.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You see him,&rdquo; said Spargo. &ldquo;I am that man.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The caller smiled&mdash;generously.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Indeed, sir?&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;A very nice bit of reading,
+I&rsquo;m sure. And what might your name be, now, sir? I can always talk
+free-er to a man when I know what his name is.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;So can I,&rdquo; answered Spargo. &ldquo;My name is Spargo&mdash;Frank
+Spargo. What&rsquo;s yours?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Name of Webster, sir&mdash;William Webster. I farm at One Ash Farm, at
+Gosberton, in Oakshire. Me and my wife,&rdquo; continued Mr. Webster, again
+smiling and distributing his smile between both his hearers, &ldquo;is at
+present in London on a holiday. And very pleasant we find it&mdash;weather and
+all.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s right,&rdquo; said Spargo. &ldquo;And&mdash;you wanted to
+see me about this murder, Mr. Webster?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I did, sir. Me, I believe, knowing, as I think, something that&rsquo;ll
+do for you to put in your paper. You see, Mr. Spargo, it come about in this
+fashion&mdash;happen you&rsquo;ll be for me to tell it in my own way.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That,&rdquo; answered Spargo, &ldquo;is precisely what I desire.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, to be sure, I couldn&rsquo;t tell it in no other,&rdquo; declared
+Mr. Webster. &ldquo;You see, sir, I read your paper this morning while I was
+waiting for my breakfast&mdash;they take their breakfasts so late in them
+hotels&mdash;and when I&rsquo;d read it, and looked at the pictures, I says to
+my wife &lsquo;As soon as I&rsquo;ve had my breakfast,&rsquo; I says,
+&lsquo;I&rsquo;m going to where they print this newspaper to tell &rsquo;em
+something.&rsquo; &lsquo;Aye?&rsquo; she says, &lsquo;Why, what have you to
+tell, I should like to know?&rsquo; just like that, Mr. Spargo.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mrs. Webster,&rdquo; said Spargo, &ldquo;is a lady of businesslike
+principles. And what have you to tell?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Webster looked into the crown of his hat, looked out of it, and smiled
+knowingly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, sir,&rdquo; he continued, &ldquo;Last night, my wife, she went out
+to a part they call Clapham, to take her tea and supper with an old friend of
+hers as lives there, and as they wanted to have a bit of woman-talk, like, I
+didn&rsquo;t go. So thinks I to myself, I&rsquo;ll go and see this here House
+of Commons. There was a neighbour of mine as had told me that all you&rsquo;d
+got to do was to tell the policeman at the door that you wanted to see your own
+Member of Parliament. So when I got there I told &rsquo;em that I wanted to see
+our M.P., Mr. Stonewood&mdash;you&rsquo;ll have heard tell of him, no doubt; he
+knows me very well&mdash;and they passed me, and I wrote out a ticket for him,
+and they told me to sit down while they found him. So I sat down in a grand
+sort of hall where there were a rare lot of people going and coming, and some
+fine pictures and images to look at, and for a time I looked at them, and then
+I began to take a bit of notice of the folk near at hand, waiting, you know,
+like myself. And as sure as I&rsquo;m a christened man, sir, the gentleman
+whose picture you&rsquo;ve got in your paper&mdash;him as was
+murdered&mdash;was sitting next to me! I knew that picture as soon as I saw it
+this morning.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo, who had been making unmeaning scribbles on a block of paper, suddenly
+looked at his visitor.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What time was that?&rdquo; he asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It was between a quarter and half-past nine, sir,&rdquo; answered Mr.
+Webster. &ldquo;It might ha&rsquo; been twenty past&mdash;it might ha&rsquo;
+been twenty-five past.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Go on, if you please,&rdquo; said Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, sir, me and this here dead gentleman talked a bit. About what a
+long time it took to get a member to attend to you, and such-like. I made
+mention of the fact that I hadn&rsquo;t been in there before. &lsquo;Neither
+have I!&rsquo; he says, &lsquo;I came in out of curiosity,&rsquo; he says, and
+then he laughed, sir&mdash;queer-like. And it was just after that that what
+I&rsquo;m going to tell you about happened.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Tell,&rdquo; commanded Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, sir, there was a gentleman came along, down this grand hall that
+we were sitting in&mdash;a tall, handsome gentleman, with a grey beard.
+He&rsquo;d no hat on, and he was carrying a lot of paper and documents in his
+hand, so I thought he was happen one of the members. And all of a sudden this
+here man at my side, he jumps up with a sort of start and an exclamation,
+and&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo lifted his hand. He looked keenly at his visitor.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now, you&rsquo;re absolutely sure about what you heard him
+exclaim?&rdquo; he asked. &ldquo;Quite sure about it? Because I see you are
+going to tell us what he did exclaim.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll tell you naught but what I&rsquo;m certain of, sir,&rdquo;
+replied Webster. &ldquo;What he said as he jumped up was &lsquo;Good
+God!&rsquo; he says, sharp-like&mdash;and then he said a name, and I
+didn&rsquo;t right catch it, but it sounded like Danesworth, or Painesworth, or
+something of that sort&mdash;one of them there, or very like &rsquo;em, at any
+rate. And then he rushed up to this here gentleman, and laid his hand on his
+arm&mdash;sudden-like.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And&mdash;the gentleman?&rdquo; asked Spargo, quietly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, he seemed taken aback, sir. He jumped. Then he stared at the man.
+Then they shook hands. And then, after they&rsquo;d spoken a few words
+together-like, they walked off, talking. And, of course, I never saw no more of
+&rsquo;em. But when I saw your paper this morning, sir, and that picture in it,
+I said to myself &lsquo;That&rsquo;s the man I sat next to in that there hall
+at the House of Commons!&rsquo; Oh, there&rsquo;s no doubt of it, sir!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And supposing you saw a photograph of the tall gentleman with the grey
+beard?&rdquo; suggested Spargo. &ldquo;Could you recognize him from
+that?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Make no doubt of it, sir,&rdquo; answered Mr. Webster. &ldquo;I observed
+him particular.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo rose, and going over to a cabinet, took from it a thick volume, the
+leaves of which he turned over for several minutes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Come here, if you please, Mr. Webster,&rdquo; he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The farmer went across the room.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There is a full set of photographs of members of the present House of
+Commons here,&rdquo; said Spargo. &ldquo;Now, pick out the one you saw. Take
+your time&mdash;and be sure.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He left his caller turning over the album and went back to Breton.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There!&rdquo; he whispered. &ldquo;Getting nearer&mdash;a bit
+nearer&mdash;eh?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;To what?&rdquo; asked Breton. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t see&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A sudden exclamation from the farmer interrupted Breton&rsquo;s remark.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;This is him, sir!&rdquo; answered Mr. Webster. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s the
+gentleman&mdash;know him anywhere!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The two young men crossed the room. The farmer was pointing a stubby finger to
+a photograph, beneath which was written <i>Stephen Aylmore, Esq., M.P. for
+Brookminster</i>.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap07"></a>CHAPTER SEVEN<br/>
+MR. AYLMORE</h2>
+
+<p>
+Spargo, keenly observant and watchful, felt, rather than saw, Breton start; he
+himself preserved an imperturbable equanimity. He gave a mere glance at the
+photograph to which Mr. Webster was pointing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh!&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;That he?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s the gentleman, sir,&rdquo; replied Webster. &ldquo;Done to
+the life, that is. No difficulty in recognizing of that, Mr. Spargo.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You&rsquo;re absolutely sure?&rdquo; demanded Spargo. &ldquo;There are a
+lot of men in the House of Commons, you know, who wear beards, and many of the
+beards are grey.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But Webster wagged his head.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s him, sir!&rdquo; he repeated. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m as sure of
+that as I am that my name&rsquo;s William Webster. That&rsquo;s the man I saw
+talking to him whose picture you&rsquo;ve got in your paper. Can&rsquo;t say no
+more, sir.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Very good,&rdquo; said Spargo. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m much obliged to you.
+I&rsquo;ll see Mr. Aylmore. Leave me your address in London, Mr. Webster. How
+long do you remain in town?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;My address is the Beachcroft Hotel, Bloomsbury, sir, and I shall be
+there for another week,&rdquo; answered the farmer. &ldquo;Hope I&rsquo;ve been
+of some use, Mr. Spargo. As I says to my wife&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo cut his visitor short in polite fashion and bowed him out. He turned to
+Breton, who still stood staring at the album of portraits.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There!&mdash;what did I tell you?&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Didn&rsquo;t I
+say I should get some news? There it is.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Breton nodded his head. He seemed thoughtful.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; he agreed. &ldquo;Yes, I say, Spargo!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mr. Aylmore is my prospective father-in-law, you know.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Quite aware of it. Didn&rsquo;t you introduce me to his
+daughters&mdash;only yesterday?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But&mdash;how did you know they were his daughters?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo laughed as he sat down to his desk.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Instinct&mdash;intuition,&rdquo; he answered. &ldquo;However, never mind
+that, just now. Well&mdash;I&rsquo;ve found something out. Marbury&mdash;if
+that is the dead man&rsquo;s real name, and anyway, it&rsquo;s all we know him
+by&mdash;was in the company of Mr. Aylmore that night. Good!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What are you going to do about it?&rdquo; asked Breton.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Do? See Mr. Aylmore, of course.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He was turning over the leaves of a telephone address-book; one hand had
+already picked up the mouthpiece of the instrument on his desk.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Look here,&rdquo; said Breton. &ldquo;I know where Mr. Aylmore is always
+to be found at twelve o&rsquo;clock. At the A. and P.&mdash;the Atlantic and
+Pacific Club, you know, in St. James&rsquo;s. If you like, I&rsquo;ll go with
+you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo glanced at the clock and laid down the telephone.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;All right,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Eleven o&rsquo;clock, now. I&rsquo;ve
+something to do. I&rsquo;ll meet you outside the A. and P. at exactly
+noon.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll be there,&rdquo; agreed Breton. He made for the door, and
+with his hand on it, turned. &ldquo;What do you expect from&mdash;from what
+we&rsquo;ve just heard?&rdquo; he asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo shrugged his shoulders.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Wait&mdash;until we hear what Mr. Aylmore has to say,&rdquo; he
+answered. &ldquo;I suppose this man Marbury was some old acquaintance.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Breton closed the door and went away: left alone, Spargo began to mutter to
+himself.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Good God!&rdquo; he says.
+&ldquo;Dainsworth&mdash;Painsworth&mdash;something of that sort&mdash;one of
+the two. Excellent&mdash;that our farmer friend should have so much
+observation. Ah!&mdash;and why should Mr. Stephen Aylmore be recognized as
+Dainsworth or Painsworth or something of that sort. Now, who is Mr. Stephen
+Aylmore&mdash;beyond being what I know him to be?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo&rsquo;s fingers went instinctively to one of a number of books of
+reference which stood on his desk: they turned with practised swiftness to a
+page over which his eye ran just as swiftly. He read aloud:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;AYLMORE, STEPHEN, M.P. for Brookminster since 1910. Residences: 23, St.
+Osythe Court, Kensington: Buena Vista, Great Marlow. Member Atlantic and
+Pacific and City Venturers&rsquo; Clubs. Interested in South American
+enterprise.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Um!&rdquo; muttered Spargo, putting the book away. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s
+not very illuminating. However, we&rsquo;ve got one move finished. Now
+we&rsquo;ll make another.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Going over to the album of photographs, Spargo deftly removed that of Mr.
+Aylmore, put it in an envelope and the envelope in his pocket and, leaving the
+office, hailed a taxi-cab, and ordered its driver to take him to the
+Anglo-Orient Hotel. This was the something-to-do of which he had spoken to
+Breton: Spargo wanted to do it alone.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mrs. Walters was in her low-windowed office when Spargo entered the hall; she
+recognized him at once and motioned him into her parlour.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I remember you,&rdquo; said Mrs. Walters; &ldquo;you came with the
+detective&mdash;Mr. Rathbury.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Have you seen him, since?&rdquo; asked Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not since,&rdquo; replied Mrs. Walters. &ldquo;No&mdash;and I was
+wondering if he&rsquo;d be coming round, because&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo; She
+paused there and looked at Spargo with particular
+enquiry&mdash;&ldquo;You&rsquo;re a friend of his, aren&rsquo;t you?&rdquo; she
+asked. &ldquo;I suppose you know as much as he does&mdash;about this?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He and I,&rdquo; replied Spargo, with easy confidence, &ldquo;are
+working this case together. You can tell me anything you&rsquo;d tell
+him.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The landlady rummaged in her pocket and produced an old purse, from an inner
+compartment of which she brought out a small object wrapped in tissue paper.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well,&rdquo; she said, unwrapping the paper, &ldquo;we found this in
+Number 20 this morning&mdash;it was lying under the dressing-table. The girl
+that found it brought it to me, and I thought it was a bit of glass, but
+Walters, he says as how he shouldn&rsquo;t be surprised if it&rsquo;s a
+diamond. And since we found it, the waiter who took the whisky up to 20, after
+Mr. Marbury came in with the other gentleman, has told me that when he went
+into the room the two gentlemen were looking at a paper full of things like
+this. So there?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo fingered the shining bit of stone.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s a diamond&mdash;right enough,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Put it
+away, Mrs. Walters&mdash;I shall see Rathbury presently, and I&rsquo;ll tell
+him about it. Now, that other gentleman! You told us you saw him. Could you
+recognize him&mdash;I mean, a photograph of him? Is this the man?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo knew from the expression of Mrs. Walters&rsquo; face that she had no
+more doubt than Webster had.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, yes!&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s the gentleman who came in
+with Mr. Marbury&mdash;I should have known him in a thousand. Anybody would
+recognize him from that&mdash;perhaps you&rsquo;d let our hall-porter and the
+waiter I mentioned just now look at it?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll see them separately and see if they&rsquo;ve ever seen a man
+who resembles this,&rdquo; replied Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The two men recognized the photograph at once, without any prompting, and
+Spargo, after a word or two with the landlady, rode off to the Atlantic and
+Pacific Club, and found Ronald Breton awaiting him on the steps. He made no
+reference to his recent doings, and together they went into the house and asked
+for Mr. Aylmore.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo looked with more than uncommon interest at the man who presently came to
+them in the visitors&rsquo; room. He was already familiar with Mr.
+Aylmore&rsquo;s photograph, but he never remembered seeing him in real life;
+the Member for Brookminster was one of that rapidly diminishing body of
+legislators whose members are disposed to work quietly and unobtrusively, doing
+yeoman service on committees, obeying every behest of the party whips, without
+forcing themselves into the limelight or seizing every opportunity to air their
+opinions. Now that Spargo met him in the flesh he proved to be pretty much what
+the journalist had expected&mdash;a rather cold-mannered, self-contained man,
+who looked as if he had been brought up in a school of rigid repression, and
+taught not to waste words. He showed no more than the merest of languid
+interests in Spargo when Breton introduced him, and his face was quite
+expressionless when Spargo brought to an end his brief explanation
+&mdash;purposely shortened&mdash;of his object in calling upon him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; he said indifferently. &ldquo;Yes, it is quite true that I
+met Marbury and spent a little time with him on the evening your informant
+spoke of. I met him, as he told you, in the lobby of the House. I was much
+surprised to meet him. I had not seen him for&mdash;I really don&rsquo;t know
+how many years.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He paused and looked at Spargo as if he was wondering what he ought or not to
+say to a newspaper man. Spargo remained silent, waiting. And presently Mr.
+Aylmore went on.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I read your account in the <i>Watchman</i> this morning,&rdquo; he said.
+&ldquo;I was wondering, when you called just now, if I would communicate with
+you or with the police. The fact is&mdash;I suppose you want this for your
+paper, eh?&rdquo; he continued after a sudden breaking off.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I shall not print anything that you wish me not to print,&rdquo;
+answered Spargo. &ldquo;If you care to give me any
+information&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, well!&rdquo; said Mr. Aylmore. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t mind. The fact
+is, I knew next to nothing. Marbury was a man with whom I had some&mdash;well,
+business relations, of a sort, a great many years ago. It must be twenty
+years&mdash;perhaps more&mdash;since I lost sight of him. When he came up to me
+in the lobby the other night, I had to make an effort of memory to recall him.
+He wished me, having once met me, to give him some advice, and as there was
+little doing in the House that night, and as he had once been&mdash;almost a
+friend&mdash;I walked to his hotel with him, chatting. He told me that he had
+only landed from Australia that morning, and what he wanted my advice about,
+principally, was&mdash;diamonds. Australian diamonds.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I was unaware,&rdquo; remarked Spargo, &ldquo;that diamonds were ever
+found in Australia.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Aylmore smiled&mdash;a little cynically.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Perhaps so,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;But diamonds have been found in
+Australia from time to time, ever since Australia was known to Europeans, and
+in the opinion of experts, they will eventually be found there in quantity.
+Anyhow, Marbury had got hold of some Australian diamonds, and he showed them to
+me at his hotel&mdash;a number of them. We examined them in his room.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What did he do with them&mdash;afterwards?&rdquo; asked Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He put them in his waistcoat pocket&mdash;in a very small wash-leather
+bag, from which he had taken them. There were, in all, sixteen or twenty
+stones&mdash;not more, and they were all small. I advised him to see some
+expert&mdash;I mentioned Streeter&rsquo;s to him. Now, I can tell you how he
+got hold of Mr. Breton&rsquo;s address.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The two young men pricked up their ears. Spargo unconsciously tightened his
+hold on the pencil with which he was making notes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He got it from me,&rdquo; continued Mr. Aylmore. &ldquo;The handwriting
+on the scrap of paper is mine, hurriedly scrawled. He wanted legal advice. As I
+knew very little about lawyers, I told him that if he called on Mr. Breton, Mr.
+Breton would be able to tell him of a first-class, sharp solicitor. I wrote
+down Mr. Breton&rsquo;s address for him, on a scrap of paper which he tore off
+a letter that he took from his pocket. By the by, I observe that when his body
+was found there was nothing on it in the shape of papers or money. I am quite
+sure that when I left him he had a lot of gold on him, those diamonds, and a
+breast-pocket full of letters.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Where did you leave him, sir?&rdquo; asked Spargo. &ldquo;You left the
+hotel together, I believe?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes. We strolled along when we left it. Having once met, we had much to
+talk of, and it was a fine night. We walked across Waterloo Bridge and very
+shortly afterwards he left me. And that is really all I know. My own
+impression&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo; He paused for a moment and Spargo waited
+silently.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;My own impression&mdash;though I confess it may seem to have no very
+solid grounds&mdash;is that Marbury was decoyed to where he was found, and was
+robbed and murdered by some person who knew he had valuables on him. There is
+the fact that he was robbed, at any rate.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve had a notion,&rdquo; said Breton, diffidently.
+&ldquo;Mayn&rsquo;t be worth much, but I&rsquo;ve had it, all the same. Some
+fellow-passenger of Marbury&rsquo;s may have tracked him all day&mdash;Middle
+Temple Lane&rsquo;s pretty lonely at night, you know.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+No one made any comment upon this suggestion, and on Spargo looking at Mr.
+Aylmore, the Member of Parliament rose and glanced at the door.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, that&rsquo;s all I can tell you, Mr. Spargo,&rdquo; he said.
+&ldquo;You see, it&rsquo;s not much, after all. Of course, there&rsquo;ll be an
+inquest on Marbury, and I shall have to re-tell it. But you&rsquo;re welcome to
+print what I&rsquo;ve told you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo left Breton with his future father-in-law and went away towards New
+Scotland Yard. He and Rathbury had promised to share news&mdash;now he had some
+to communicate.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap08"></a>CHAPTER EIGHT<br/>
+THE MAN FROM THE SAFE DEPOSIT</h2>
+
+<p>
+Spargo found Rathbury sitting alone in a small, somewhat dismal apartment which
+was chiefly remarkable for the business-like paucity of its furnishings and its
+indefinable air of secrecy. There was a plain writing-table and a hard chair or
+two; a map of London, much discoloured, on the wall; a few faded photographs of
+eminent bands in the world of crime, and a similar number of well-thumbed books
+of reference. The detective himself, when Spargo was shown in to him, was
+seated at the table, chewing an unlighted cigar, and engaged in the apparently
+aimless task of drawing hieroglyphics on scraps of paper. He looked up as the
+journalist entered, and held out his hand.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, I congratulate you on what you stuck in the <i>Watchman</i> this
+morning,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Made extra good reading, I thought. They did
+right to let you tackle that job. Going straight through with it now, I
+suppose, Mr. Spargo?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo dropped into the chair nearest to Rathbury&rsquo;s right hand. He
+lighted a cigarette, and having blown out a whiff of smoke, nodded his head in
+a fashion which indicated that the detective might consider his question
+answered in the affirmative.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Look here,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;We settled yesterday, didn&rsquo;t we,
+that you and I are to consider ourselves partners, as it were, in this job?
+That&rsquo;s all right,&rdquo; he continued, as Rathbury nodded very quietly.
+&ldquo;Very well&mdash;have you made any further progress?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Rathbury put his thumbs in the armholes of his waistcoat and, leaning back in
+his chair, shook his head.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Frankly, I haven&rsquo;t,&rdquo; he replied. &ldquo;Of course,
+there&rsquo;s a lot being done in the usual official-routine way. We&rsquo;ve
+men out making various enquiries. We&rsquo;re enquiring about Marbury&rsquo;s
+voyage to England. All that we know up to now is that he was certainly a
+passenger on a liner which landed at Southampton in accordance with what he
+told those people at the Anglo-Orient, that he left the ship in the usual way
+and was understood to take the train to town&mdash;as he did. That&rsquo;s all.
+There&rsquo;s nothing in that. We&rsquo;ve cabled to Melbourne for any news of
+him from there. But I expect little from that.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;All right,&rdquo; said Spargo. &ldquo;And&mdash;what are you
+doing&mdash;you, yourself? Because, if we&rsquo;re to share facts, I must know
+what my partner&rsquo;s after. Just now, you seemed to be&mdash;drawing.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Rathbury laughed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, to tell you the truth,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;when I want to work
+things out, I come into this room&mdash;it&rsquo;s quiet, as you see&mdash;and
+I scribble anything on paper while I think. I was figuring on my next step,
+and&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Do you see it?&rdquo; asked Spargo, quickly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well&mdash;I want to find the man who went with Marbury to that
+hotel,&rdquo; replied Rathbury. &ldquo;It seems to me&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo wagged his finger at his fellow-contriver.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve found him,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s what I wrote
+that article for&mdash;to find him. I knew it would find him. I&rsquo;ve never
+had any training in your sort of work, but I knew that article would get him.
+And it has got him.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Rathbury accorded the journalist a look of admiration.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Good!&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;And&mdash;who is he?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll tell you the story,&rdquo; answered Spargo, &ldquo;and in a
+summary. This morning a man named Webster, a farmer, a visitor to London, came
+to me at the office, and said that being at the House of Commons last night he
+witnessed a meeting between Marbury and a man who was evidently a Member of
+Parliament, and saw them go away together. I showed him an album of photographs
+of the present members, and he immediately recognized the portrait of one of
+them as the man in question. I thereupon took the portrait to the Anglo-Orient
+Hotel&mdash;Mrs. Walters also at once recognized it as that of the man who came
+to the hotel with Marbury, stopped with him a while in his room, and left with
+him. The man is Mr. Stephen Aylmore, the member for Brookminster.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Rathbury expressed his feelings in a sharp whistle.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I know him!&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Of course&mdash;I remember Mrs.
+Walters&rsquo;s description now. But his is a familiar type&mdash;tall,
+grey-bearded, well-dressed. Um!&mdash;well, we&rsquo;ll have to see Mr. Aylmore
+at once.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve seen him,&rdquo; said Spargo. &ldquo;Naturally! For you see,
+Mrs. Walters gave me a bit more evidence. This morning they found a loose
+diamond on the floor of Number 20, and after it was found the waiter who took
+the drinks up to Marbury and his guest that night remembered that when he
+entered the room the two gentlemen were looking at a paper full of similar
+objects. So then I went on to see Mr. Aylmore. You know young Breton, the
+barrister?&mdash;you met him with me, you remember?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The young fellow whose name and address were found on Marbury,&rdquo;
+replied Rathbury. &ldquo;I remember.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Breton is engaged to Aylmore&rsquo;s daughter,&rdquo; continued Spargo.
+&ldquo;Breton took me to Aylmore&rsquo;s club. And Aylmore gives a plain,
+straightforward account of the matter which he&rsquo;s granted me leave to
+print. It clears up a lot of things. Aylmore knew Marbury over twenty years
+ago. He lost sight of him. They met accidentally in the lobby of the House on
+the evening preceding the murder. Marbury told him that he wanted his advice
+about those rare things, Australian diamonds. He went back with him to his
+hotel and spent a while with him; then they walked out together as far as
+Waterloo Bridge, where Aylmore left him and went home. Further, the scrap of
+grey paper is accounted for. Marbury wanted the address of a smart solicitor;
+Aylmore didn&rsquo;t know of one but told Marbury that if he called on young
+Breton, he&rsquo;d know, and would put him in the way to find one. Marbury
+wrote Breton&rsquo;s address down. That&rsquo;s Aylmore&rsquo;s story. But
+it&rsquo;s got an important addition. Aylmore says that when he left Marbury,
+Marbury had on him a quantity of those diamonds in a wash-leather bag, a lot of
+gold, and a breast-pocket full of letters and papers. Now&mdash;there was
+nothing on him when he was found dead in Middle Temple Lane.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo stopped and lighted a fresh cigarette.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s all I know,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;What do you make of
+it?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Rathbury leaned back in his chair in his apparently favourite attitude and
+stared hard at the dusty ceiling above him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t know,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;It brings things up to a point,
+certainly. Aylmore and Marbury parted at Waterloo Bridge&mdash;very late.
+Waterloo Bridge is pretty well next door to the Temple. But&mdash;how did
+Marbury get into the Temple, unobserved? We&rsquo;ve made every enquiry, and we
+can&rsquo;t trace him in any way as regards that movement. There&rsquo;s a clue
+for his going there in the scrap of paper bearing Breton&rsquo;s address, but
+even a Colonial would know that no business was done in the Temple at midnight,
+eh?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well,&rdquo; said Spargo, &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve thought of one or two
+things. He may have been one of those men who like to wander around at night.
+He may have seen&mdash;he would see&mdash;plenty of lights in the Temple at
+that hour; he may have slipped in unobserved&mdash;it&rsquo;s possible,
+it&rsquo;s quite possible. I once had a moonlight saunter in the Temple myself
+after midnight, and had no difficulty about walking in and out, either.
+But&mdash;if Marbury was murdered for the sake of what he had on him&mdash;how
+did he meet with his murderer or murderers in there? Criminals don&rsquo;t hang
+about Middle Temple Lane.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The detective shook his head. He picked up his pencil and began making more
+hieroglyphics.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What&rsquo;s your theory, Mr. Spargo?&rdquo; he asked suddenly. &ldquo;I
+suppose you&rsquo;ve got one.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Have you?&rdquo; asked Spargo, bluntly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well,&rdquo; returned Rathbury, hesitatingly, &ldquo;I hadn&rsquo;t, up
+to now. But now&mdash;now, after what you&rsquo;ve told me, I think I can make
+one. It seems to me that after Marbury left Aylmore he probably mooned about by
+himself, that he was decoyed into the Temple, and was there murdered and
+robbed. There are a lot of queer ins and outs, nooks and corners in that old
+spot, Mr. Spargo, and the murderer, if he knew his ground well, could easily
+hide himself until he could get away in the morning. He might be a man who had
+access to chambers or offices&mdash;think how easy it would be for such a man,
+having once killed and robbed his victim, to lie hid for hours afterwards? For
+aught we know, the man who murdered Marbury may have been within twenty feet of
+you when you first saw his dead body that morning. Eh?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Before Spargo could reply to this suggestion an official entered the room and
+whispered a few words in the detective&rsquo;s ear.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Show him in at once,&rdquo; said Rathbury. He turned to Spargo as the
+man quitted the room and smiled significantly. &ldquo;Here&rsquo;s somebody
+wants to tell something about the Marbury case,&rdquo; he remarked.
+&ldquo;Let&rsquo;s hope it&rsquo;ll be news worth hearing.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo smiled in his queer fashion.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It strikes me that you&rsquo;ve only got to interest an inquisitive
+public in order to get news,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;The principal thing is to
+investigate it when you&rsquo;ve got it. Who&rsquo;s this, now?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The official had returned with a dapper-looking gentleman in a frock-coat and
+silk hat, bearing upon him the unmistakable stamp of the city man, who
+inspected Rathbury with deliberation and Spargo with a glance, and being seated
+turned to the detective as undoubtedly the person he desired to converse with.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I understand that you are the officer in charge of the Marbury murder
+case,&rdquo; he observed. &ldquo;I believe I can give you some valuable
+information in respect to that. I read the account of the affair in the
+<i>Watchman</i> newspaper this morning, and saw the portrait of the murdered
+man there, and I was at first inclined to go to the <i>Watchman</i> office with
+my information, but I finally decided to approach the police instead of the
+Press, regarding the police as being more&mdash;more responsible.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Much obliged to you, sir,&rdquo; said Rathbury, with a glance at Spargo.
+&ldquo;Whom have I the pleasure of&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;My name,&rdquo; replied the visitor, drawing out and laying down a card,
+&ldquo;is Myerst&mdash;Mr. E.P. Myerst, Secretary of the London and Universal
+Safe Deposit Company. I may, I suppose, speak with confidence,&rdquo; continued
+Mr. Myerst, with a side-glance at Spargo. &ldquo;My information
+is&mdash;confidential.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Rathbury inclined his head and put his fingers together.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You may speak with every confidence, Mr. Myerst,&rdquo; he answered.
+&ldquo;If what you have to tell has any real bearing on the Marbury case, it
+will probably have to be repeated in public, you know, sir. But at present it
+will be treated as private.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It has a very real bearing on the case, I should say,&rdquo; replied Mr.
+Myerst. &ldquo;Yes, I should decidedly say so. The fact is that on June 21st at
+about&mdash;to be precise&mdash;three o&rsquo;clock in the afternoon, a
+stranger, who gave the name of John Marbury, and his present address as the
+Anglo-Orient Hotel, Waterloo, called at our establishment, and asked if he
+could rent a small safe. He explained to me that he desired to deposit in such
+a safe a small leather box&mdash;which, by the by, was of remarkably ancient
+appearance&mdash;that he had brought with him. I showed him a safe such as he
+wanted, informed him of the rent, and of the rules of the place, and he engaged
+the safe, paid the rent for one year in advance, and deposited his leather
+box&mdash;an affair of about a foot square&mdash;there and then. After that,
+having exchanged a remark or two about the altered conditions of London, which,
+I understood him to say, he had not seen for a great many years, he took his
+key and his departure. I think there can be no doubt about this being the Mr.
+Marbury who was found murdered.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;None at all, I should say, Mr. Myerst,&rdquo; said Rathbury. &ldquo;And
+I&rsquo;m much obliged to you for coming here. Now you might tell me a little
+more, sir. Did Marbury tell you anything about the contents of the box?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No. He merely remarked that he wished the greatest care to be taken of
+it,&rdquo; replied the secretary.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Didn&rsquo;t give you any hint as to what was in it?&rdquo; asked
+Rathbury.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;None. But he was very particular to assure himself that it could not be
+burnt, nor burgled, nor otherwise molested,&rdquo; replied Mr. Myerst.
+&ldquo;He appeared to be greatly relieved when he found that it was impossible
+for anyone but himself to take his property from his safe.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah!&rdquo; said Rathbury, winking at Spargo. &ldquo;So he would, no
+doubt. And Marbury himself, sir, now? How did he strike you?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Myerst gravely considered this question.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mr. Marbury struck me,&rdquo; he answered at last, &ldquo;as a man who
+had probably seen strange places. And before leaving he made, what I will term,
+a remarkable remark. About&mdash;in fact, about his leather box.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;His leather box?&rdquo; said Rathbury. &ldquo;And what was it,
+sir?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;This,&rdquo; replied the secretary. &ldquo;&lsquo;That box,&rsquo; he
+said, &lsquo;is safe now. But it&rsquo;s been safer. It&rsquo;s been
+buried&mdash;and deep-down, too&mdash;for many and many a year!&rsquo;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap09"></a>CHAPTER NINE<br/>
+THE DEALER IN RARE STAMPS</h2>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Buried&mdash;and deep-down, too&mdash;for many and many a year,&rdquo;
+repeated Mr. Myerst, eyeing his companions with keen glances. &ldquo;I consider
+that, gentlemen, a very remarkable remark&mdash;very remarkable!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Rathbury stuck his thumbs in the armholes of his waistcoat again and began
+swaying backwards and forwards in his chair. He looked at Spargo. And with his
+knowledge of men, he knew that all Spargo&rsquo;s journalistic instincts had
+been aroused, and that he was keen as mustard to be off on a new scent.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Remarkable&mdash;remarkable, Mr. Myerst!&rdquo; he assented. &ldquo;What
+do you say, Mr. Spargo?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo turned slowly, and for the first time since Myerst had entered made a
+careful inspection of him. The inspection lasted several seconds; then Spargo
+spoke.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And what did you say to that?&rdquo; he asked quietly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myerst looked from his questioner to Rathbury. And Rathbury thought it time to
+enlighten the caller.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I may as well tell you, Mr. Myerst,&rdquo; he said smilingly,
+&ldquo;that this is Mr. Spargo, of the <i>Watchman</i>. Mr. Spargo wrote the
+article about the Marbury case of which you spoke when you came in. Mr. Spargo,
+you&rsquo;ll gather, is deeply interested in this matter&mdash;and he and I, in
+our different capacities, are working together. So&mdash;you understand?&rdquo;
+Myerst regarded Spargo in a new light. And while he was so looking at him.
+Spargo repeated the question he had just put.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I said&mdash;What did you say to that?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myerst hesitated.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well&mdash;er&mdash;I don&rsquo;t think I said anything,&rdquo; he
+replied. &ldquo;Nothing that one might call material, you know.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Didn&rsquo;t ask him what he meant?&rdquo; suggested Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, no&mdash;not at all,&rdquo; replied Myerst.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo got up abruptly from his chair.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then you missed one of the finest opportunities I ever heard of!&rdquo;
+he said, half-sneeringly. &ldquo;You might have heard such a
+story&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He paused, as if it were not worth while to continue, and turned to Rathbury,
+who was regarding him with amusement.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Look here, Rathbury,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Is it possible to get that
+box opened?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It&rsquo;ll have to be opened,&rdquo; answered Rathbury, rising.
+&ldquo;It&rsquo;s got to be opened. It probably contains the clue we want.
+I&rsquo;m going to ask Mr. Myerst here to go with me just now to take the first
+steps about having it opened. I shall have to get an order. We may get the
+matter through today, but at any rate we&rsquo;ll have it done tomorrow
+morning.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Can you arrange for me to be present when that comes off?&rdquo; asked
+Spargo. &ldquo;You can&mdash;certain? That&rsquo;s all right, Rathbury. Now
+I&rsquo;m off, and you&rsquo;ll ring me up or come round if you hear anything,
+and I&rsquo;ll do the same by you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And without further word, Spargo went quickly away, and just as quickly
+returned to the <i>Watchman</i> office. There the assistant who had been told
+off to wait upon his orders during this new crusade met him with a business
+card.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;This gentleman came in to see you about an hour ago, Mr. Spargo,&rdquo;
+he said. &ldquo;He thinks he can tell you something about the Marbury affair,
+and he said that as he couldn&rsquo;t wait, perhaps you&rsquo;d step round to
+his place when you came in.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo took the card and read:
+</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+MR. JAMES CRIEDIR,<br/>
+DEALER IN PHILATELIC RARITIES,<br/>
+2,021, STRAND.
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+Spargo put the card in his waistcoat pocket and went out again, wondering why
+Mr. James Criedir could not, would not, or did not call himself a dealer in
+rare postage stamps, and so use plain English. He went up Fleet Street and soon
+found the shop indicated on the card, and his first glance at its exterior
+showed that whatever business might have been done by Mr. Criedir in the past
+at that establishment there was to be none done there in the future by him, for
+there were newly-printed bills in the window announcing that the place was to
+let. And inside he found a short, portly, elderly man who was superintending
+the packing-up and removal of the last of his stock. He turned a bright,
+enquiring eye on the journalist.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mr. Criedir?&rdquo; said Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The same, sir,&rdquo; answered the philatelist. &ldquo;You
+are&mdash;?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mr. Spargo, of the <i>Watchman</i>. You called on me.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Criedir opened the door of a tiny apartment at the rear of the very little
+shop and motioned his caller to enter. He followed him in and carefully closed
+the door.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Glad to see you, Mr. Spargo,&rdquo; he said genially. &ldquo;Take a
+seat, sir&mdash;I&rsquo;m all in confusion here&mdash;giving up business, you
+see. Yes, I called on you. I think, having read the <i>Watchman</i> account of
+that Marbury affair, and having seen the murdered man&rsquo;s photograph in
+your columns, that I can give you a bit of information.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Material?&rdquo; asked Spargo, tersely.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Criedir cocked one of his bright eyes at his visitor. He coughed drily.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s for you to decide&mdash;when you&rsquo;ve heard it,&rdquo;
+he said. &ldquo;I should say, considering everything, that it was material.
+Well, it&rsquo;s this&mdash;I kept open until yesterday&mdash;everything as
+usual, you know&mdash;stock in the window and so on&mdash;so that anybody who
+was passing would naturally have thought that the business was going on, though
+as a matter of fact, I&rsquo;m retiring&mdash;retired,&rdquo; added Mr. Criedir
+with a laugh, &ldquo;last night. Now&mdash;but won&rsquo;t you take down what
+I&rsquo;ve got to tell you?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am taking it down,&rdquo; answered Spargo. &ldquo;Every word. In my
+head.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Criedir laughed and rubbed his hands.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh!&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Ah, well, in my young days journalists used
+to pull out pencil and notebook at the first opportunity. But you modern young
+men&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Just so,&rdquo; agreed Spargo. &ldquo;This information, now?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well,&rdquo; said Mr. Criedir, &ldquo;we&rsquo;ll go on then. Yesterday
+afternoon the man described as Marbury came into my shop. He&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What time&mdash;exact time?&rdquo; asked Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Two&mdash;to the very minute by St. Clement Danes clock,&rdquo; answered
+Mr. Criedir. &ldquo;I&rsquo;d swear twenty affidavits on that point. He was
+precisely as you&rsquo;ve described him&mdash;dress, everything&mdash;I tell
+you I knew his photo as soon as I saw it. He was carrying a little
+box&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What sort of box?&rdquo; said Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A queer, old-fashioned, much-worn leather box&mdash;a very miniature
+trunk, in fact,&rdquo; replied Mr. Criedir. &ldquo;About a foot square; the
+sort of thing you never see nowadays. It was very much worn; it attracted me
+for that very reason. He set it on the counter and looked at me.
+&lsquo;You&rsquo;re a dealer in stamps&mdash;rare stamps?&rsquo; he said.
+&lsquo;I am,&rsquo; I replied. &lsquo;I&rsquo;ve something here I&rsquo;d like
+to show you,&rsquo; he said, unlocking the box.
+&lsquo;It&rsquo;s&mdash;&rsquo;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Stop a bit,&rdquo; said Spargo. &ldquo;Where did he take the key from
+with which he unlocked the box?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It was one of several which he carried on a split ring, and he took the
+bunch out of his left-hand trousers pocket,&rdquo; replied Mr. Criedir.
+&ldquo;Oh, I keep my eyes open, young gentleman! Well&mdash;he opened his box.
+It seemed to me to be full of papers&mdash;at any rate there were a lot of
+legal-looking documents on the top, tied up with red tape. To show you how I
+notice things I saw that the papers were stained with age, and that the red
+tape was faded to a mere washed-out pink.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Good&mdash;good!&rdquo; murmured Spargo. &ldquo;Excellent! Proceed,
+sir.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He put his hand under the topmost papers and drew out an
+envelope,&rdquo; continued Mr. Criedir. &ldquo;From the envelope he produced an
+exceedingly rare, exceedingly valuable set of Colonial stamps&mdash;the
+very-first ever issued. &lsquo;I&rsquo;ve just come from Australia,&rsquo; he
+said. &lsquo;I promised a young friend of mine out there to sell these stamps
+for him in London, and as I was passing this way I caught sight of your shop.
+Will you buy &rsquo;em, and how much will you give for &rsquo;em?&rsquo;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Prompt,&rdquo; muttered Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He seemed to me the sort of man who doesn&rsquo;t waste words,&rdquo;
+agreed Mr. Criedir. &ldquo;Well, there was no doubt about the stamps, nor about
+their great value. But I had to explain to him that I was retiring from
+business that very day, and did not wish to enter into even a single deal, and
+that, therefore, I couldn&rsquo;t do anything. &lsquo;No matter,&rsquo; he
+says, &lsquo;I daresay there are lots of men in your line of
+trade&mdash;perhaps you can recommend me to a good firm?&rsquo; &lsquo;I could
+recommend you to a dozen extra-good firms,&rsquo; I answered. &lsquo;But I can
+do better for you. I&rsquo;ll give you the name and address of a private buyer
+who, I haven&rsquo;t the least doubt, will be very glad to buy that set from
+you and will give you a big price.&rsquo; &lsquo;Write it down,&rsquo; he says,
+&lsquo;and thank you for your trouble.&rsquo; So I gave him a bit of advice as
+to the price he ought to get, and I wrote the name and address of the man I
+referred to on the back of one of my cards.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Whose name and address?&rdquo; asked Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mr. Nicholas Cardlestone, 2, Pilcox Buildings, Middle Temple
+Lane,&rdquo; replied Mr. Criedir. &ldquo;Mr. Cardlestone is one of the most
+enthusiastic and accomplished philatelists in Europe. And I knew he
+didn&rsquo;t possess that set of stamps.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I know Mr. Cardlestone,&rdquo; remarked Spargo. &ldquo;It was at the
+foot of his stairs that Marbury was found murdered.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Just so,&rdquo; said Mr. Criedir. &ldquo;Which makes me think that he
+was going to see Mr. Cardlestone when he was set upon, murdered, and
+robbed.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo looked fixedly at the retired stamp-dealer.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What, going to see an elderly gentleman in his rooms in the Temple, to
+offer to sell him philatelic rarities at&mdash;past midnight?&rdquo; he said.
+&ldquo;I think&mdash;not much!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;All right,&rdquo; replied Mr. Criedir. &ldquo;You think and argue on
+modern lines&mdash;which are, of course, highly superior. But&mdash;how do you
+account for my having given Marbury Mr. Cardlestone&rsquo;s address and for his
+having been found dead&mdash;murdered&mdash;at the foot of Cardlestone&rsquo;s
+stairs a few hours later?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t account for it,&rdquo; said Spargo. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m
+trying to.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Criedir made no comment on this. He looked his visitor up and down for a
+moment; gathered some idea of his capabilities, and suddenly offered him a
+cigarette. Spargo accepted it with a laconic word of thanks, and smoked
+half-way through it before he spoke again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m trying to account. And I shall
+account. And I&rsquo;m much obliged to you, Mr. Criedir, for what you&rsquo;ve
+told me. Now, then, may I ask you a question or two?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A thousand!&rdquo; responded Mr. Criedir with great geniality.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Very well. Did Marbury say he&rsquo;d call on Cardlestone?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He did. Said he&rsquo;d call as soon as he could&mdash;that day.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Have you told Cardlestone what you&rsquo;ve just told me?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have. But not until an hour ago&mdash;on my way back from your office,
+in fact. I met him in Fleet Street and told him.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Had he received a call from Marbury?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No! Never heard of or seen the man. At least, never heard of him until
+he heard of the murder. He told me he and his friend, Mr. Elphick, another
+philatelist, went to see the body, wondering if they could recognize it as any
+man they&rsquo;d ever known, but they couldn&rsquo;t.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I know they did,&rdquo; said Spargo. &ldquo;I saw &rsquo;em at the
+mortuary. Um! Well&mdash;one more question. When Marbury left you, did he put
+those stamps in his box again, as before?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No,&rdquo; replied Mr. Criedir. &ldquo;He put them in his right-hand
+breast pocket, and he locked up his old box, and went off swinging it in his
+left hand.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo went away down Fleet Street, seeing nobody. He muttered to himself, and
+he was still muttering when he got into his room at the office. And what he
+muttered was the same thing, repeated over and over again:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Six hours&mdash;six hours&mdash;six hours! Those six hours!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Next morning the <i>Watchman</i> came out with four leaded columns of
+up-to-date news about the Marbury Case, and right across the top of the four
+ran a heavy double line of great capitals, black and staring:&mdash;WHO SAW
+JOHN MARBURY BETWEEN 3.15 P.M. AND 9.15 P.M. ON THE DAY PRECEDING HIS MURDER?
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap10"></a>CHAPTER TEN<br/>
+THE LEATHER BOX</h2>
+
+<p>
+Whether Spargo was sanguine enough to expect that his staring headline would
+bring him information of the sort he wanted was a secret which he kept to
+himself. That a good many thousands of human beings must have set eyes on John
+Marbury between the hours which Spargo set forth in that headline was certain;
+the problem was&mdash;What particular owner or owners of a pair or of many
+pairs of those eyes would remember him? Why should they remember him? Walters
+and his wife had reason to remember him; Criedir had reason to remember him; so
+had Myerst; so had William Webster. But between a quarter past three, when he
+left the London and Universal Safe Deposit, and a quarter past nine, when he
+sat down by Webster&rsquo;s side in the lobby of the House of Commons, nobody
+seemed to have any recollection of him except Mr. Fiskie, the hatter, and he
+only remembered him faintly, and because Marbury had bought a fashionable cloth
+cap at his shop. At any rate, by noon of that day, nobody had come forward with
+any recollection of him. He must have gone West from seeing Myerst, because he
+bought his cap at Fiskie&rsquo;s; he must eventually have gone South-West,
+because he turned up at Westminster. But where else did he go? What did he do?
+To whom did he speak? No answer came to these questions.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That shows,&rdquo; observed young Mr. Ronald Breton, lazing an hour away
+in Spargo&rsquo;s room at the <i>Watchman</i> at that particular hour which is
+neither noon nor afternoon, wherein even busy men do nothing, &ldquo;that shows
+how a chap can go about London as if he were merely an ant that had strayed
+into another ant-heap than his own. Nobody notices.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You&rsquo;d better go and read up a little elementary entomology,
+Breton,&rdquo; said Spargo. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know much about it myself, but
+I&rsquo;ve a pretty good idea that when an ant walks into the highways and
+byways of a colony to which he doesn&rsquo;t belong he doesn&rsquo;t survive
+his intrusion by many seconds.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, you know what I mean,&rdquo; said Breton. &ldquo;London&rsquo;s an
+ant-heap, isn&rsquo;t it? One human ant more or less doesn&rsquo;t count. This
+man Marbury must have gone about a pretty tidy lot during those six hours.
+He&rsquo;d ride on a &rsquo;bus&mdash;almost certain. He&rsquo;d get into a
+taxi-cab&mdash;I think that&rsquo;s much more certain, because it would be a
+novelty to him. He&rsquo;d want some tea&mdash;anyway, he&rsquo;d be sure to
+want a drink, and he&rsquo;d turn in somewhere to get one or the other.
+He&rsquo;d buy things in shops&mdash;these Colonials always do. He&rsquo;d go
+somewhere to get his dinner. He&rsquo;d&mdash;but what&rsquo;s the use of
+enumeration in this case?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A mere piling up of platitudes,&rdquo; answered Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What I mean is,&rdquo; continued Breton, &ldquo;that piles of people
+must have seen him, and yet it&rsquo;s now hours and hours since your paper
+came out this morning, and nobody&rsquo;s come forward to tell anything. And
+when you come to think of it, why should they? Who&rsquo;d remember an ordinary
+man in a grey tweed suit?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;An ordinary man in a grey tweed suit,&rsquo;&rdquo; repeated
+Spargo. &ldquo;Good line. You haven&rsquo;t any copyright in it, remember. It
+would make a good cross-heading.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Breton laughed. &ldquo;You&rsquo;re a queer chap, Spargo,&rdquo; he said.
+&ldquo;Seriously, do you think you&rsquo;re getting any nearer anything?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;m getting nearer something with everything that&rsquo;s
+done,&rdquo; Spargo answered. &ldquo;You can&rsquo;t start on a business like
+this without evolving something out of it, you know.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well,&rdquo; said Breton, &ldquo;to me there&rsquo;s not so much mystery
+in it. Mr. Aylmore&rsquo;s explained the reason why my address was found on the
+body; Criedir, the stamp-man, has explained&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo suddenly looked up.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What?&rdquo; he said sharply.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why, the reason of Marbury&rsquo;s being found where he was
+found,&rdquo; replied Breton. &ldquo;Of course, I see it all! Marbury was
+mooning around Fleet Street; he slipped into Middle Temple Lane, late as it
+was, just to see where old Cardlestone hangs out, and he was set upon and done
+for. The thing&rsquo;s plain to me. The only thing now is to find who did
+it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, that&rsquo;s it,&rdquo; agreed Spargo. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s
+it.&rdquo; He turned over the leaves of the diary which lay on his desk.
+&ldquo;By the by,&rdquo; he said, looking up with some interest, &ldquo;the
+adjourned inquest is at eleven o&rsquo;clock tomorrow morning. Are you
+going?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I shall certainly go,&rdquo; answered Breton. &ldquo;What&rsquo;s more,
+I&rsquo;m going to take Miss Aylmore and her sister. As the gruesome details
+were over at the first sitting, and as there&rsquo;ll be nothing but this new
+evidence tomorrow, and as they&rsquo;ve never been in a coroner&rsquo;s
+court&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mr. Aylmore&rsquo;ll be the principal witness tomorrow,&rdquo;
+interrupted Spargo. &ldquo;I suppose he&rsquo;ll be able to tell a lot more
+than he told&mdash;me.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Breton shrugged his shoulders.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t see that there&rsquo;s much more to tell,&rdquo; he said.
+&ldquo;But,&rdquo; he added, with a sly laugh, &ldquo;I suppose you want some
+more good copy, eh?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo glanced at his watch, rose, and picked up his hat. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll
+tell you what I want,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I want to know who John Marbury
+was. That would make good copy. Who he
+was&mdash;twenty&mdash;twenty-five&mdash;forty years ago. Eh?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And you think Mr. Aylmore can tell?&rdquo; asked Breton.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mr. Aylmore,&rdquo; answered Spargo as they walked towards the door,
+&ldquo;is the only person I have met so far who has admitted that he knew John
+Marbury in the&mdash;past. But he didn&rsquo;t tell me&mdash;much. Perhaps
+he&rsquo;ll tell the coroner and his jury&mdash;more. Now, I&rsquo;m off
+Breton&mdash;I&rsquo;ve an appointment.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And leaving Breton to find his own way out, Spargo hurried away, jumped into a
+taxi-cab and speeded to the London and Universal Safe Deposit. At the corner of
+its building he found Rathbury awaiting him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well?&rdquo; said Spargo, as he sprang out: &ldquo;How is it?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It&rsquo;s all right,&rdquo; answered Rathbury. &ldquo;You can be
+present: I got the necessary permission. As there are no relations known,
+there&rsquo;ll only be one or two officials and you, and the Safe Deposit
+people, and myself. Come on&mdash;it&rsquo;s about time.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It sounds,&rdquo; observed Spargo, &ldquo;like an exhumation.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Rathbury laughed. &ldquo;Well, we&rsquo;re certainly going to dig up a dead
+man&rsquo;s secrets,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;At least, we may be going to do so.
+In my opinion, Mr. Spargo, we&rsquo;ll find some clue in this leather
+box.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo made no answer. They entered the office, to be shown into a room where
+were already assembled Mr. Myerst, a gentleman who turned out to be the
+chairman of the company, and the officials of whom Rathbury had spoken. And in
+another moment Spargo heard the chairman explaining that the company possessed
+duplicate keys to all safes, and that the proper authorization having been
+received from the proper authorities, those present would now proceed to the
+safe recently tenanted by the late Mr. John Marbury, and take from it the
+property which he himself had deposited there, a small leather box, which they
+would afterwards bring to that room and cause to be opened in each
+other&rsquo;s presence.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It seemed to Spargo that there was an unending unlocking of bolts and bars
+before he and his fellow-processionists came to the safe so recently rented by
+the late Mr. John Marbury, now undoubtedly deceased. And at first sight of it,
+he saw that it was so small an affair that it seemed ludicrous to imagine that
+it could contain anything of any importance. In fact, it looked to be no more
+than a plain wooden locker, one amongst many in a small strong room: it
+reminded Spargo irresistibly of the locker in which, in his school days, he had
+kept his personal belongings and the jam tarts, sausage rolls, and hardbake
+smuggled in from the tuck-shop. Marbury&rsquo;s name had been newly painted
+upon it; the paint was scarcely dry. But when the wooden door&mdash;the front
+door, as it were, of this temple of mystery, had been solemnly opened by the
+chairman, a formidable door of steel was revealed, and expectation still leapt
+in the bosoms of the beholders.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The duplicate key, Mr. Myerst, if you please,&rdquo; commanded the
+chairman, &ldquo;the duplicate key!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myerst, who was fully as solemn as his principal, produced a curious-looking
+key: the chairman lifted his hand as if he were about to christen a battleship:
+the steel door swung slowly back. And there, in a two-foot square cavity, lay
+the leather box.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It struck Spargo as they filed back to the secretary&rsquo;s room that the
+procession became more funereal-like than ever. First walked the chairman,
+abreast with the high official, who had brought the necessary authorization
+from the all-powerful quarter; then came Myerst carrying the box: followed two
+other gentlemen, both legal lights, charged with watching official and police
+interests; Rathbury and Spargo brought up the rear. He whispered something of
+his notions to the detective; Rathbury nodded a comprehensive understanding.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Let&rsquo;s hope we&rsquo;re going to see&mdash;something!&rdquo; he
+said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the secretary&rsquo;s room a man waited who touched his forelock
+respectfully as the heads of the procession entered. Myerst set the box on the
+table: the man made a musical jingle of keys: the other members of the
+procession gathered round.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;As we naturally possess no key to this box,&rdquo; announced the
+chairman in grave tones, &ldquo;it becomes our duty to employ professional
+assistance in opening it. Jobson!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He waved a hand, and the man of the keys stepped forward with alacrity. He
+examined the lock of the box with a knowing eye; it was easy to see that he was
+anxious to fall upon it. While he considered matters, Spargo looked at the box.
+It was pretty much what it had been described to him as being; a small, square
+box of old cow-hide, very strongly made, much worn and tarnished, fitted with a
+handle projecting from the lid, and having the appearance of having been hidden
+away somewhere for many a long day.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was a click, a spring: Jobson stepped back.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s it, if you please, sir,&rdquo; he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The chairman motioned to the high official.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If you would be good enough to open the box, sir,&rdquo; he said.
+&ldquo;Our duty is now concluded.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As the high official laid his hand on the lid the other men gathered round with
+craning necks and expectant eyes. The lid was lifted: somebody sighed deeply.
+And Spargo pushed his own head and eyes nearer.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The box was empty!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Empty, as anything that can be empty is empty! thought Spargo: there was
+literally nothing in it. They were all staring into the interior of a plain,
+time-worn little receptacle, lined out with old-fashioned chintz stuff, such as
+our Mid-Victorian fore-fathers were familiar with, and
+containing&mdash;nothing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;God bless my soul!&rdquo; exclaimed the chairman. &ldquo;This
+is&mdash;dear me!&mdash;why, there is nothing in the box!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That,&rdquo; remarked the high official, drily, &ldquo;appears to be
+obvious.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The chairman looked at the secretary.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I understood the box was valuable, Mr. Myerst,&rdquo; he said, with the
+half-injured air of a man who considers himself to have been robbed of an
+exceptionally fine treat. &ldquo;Valuable!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myerst coughed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I can only repeat what I have already said, Sir Benjamin,&rdquo; he
+answered. &ldquo;The&mdash;er late Mr. Marbury spoke of the deposit as being of
+great value to him; he never permitted it out of his hand until he placed it in
+the safe. He appeared to regard it as of the greatest value.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But we understand from the evidence of Mr. Criedir, given to the
+<i>Watchman</i> newspaper, that it was full of papers and&mdash;and other
+articles,&rdquo; said the chairman. &ldquo;Criedir saw papers in it about an
+hour before it was brought here.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myerst spread out his hands.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I can only repeat what I have said, Sir Benjamin,&rdquo; he answered.
+&ldquo;I know nothing more.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But why should a man deposit an empty box?&rdquo; began the chairman.
+&ldquo;I&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The high official interposed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That the box is empty is certain,&rdquo; he observed. &ldquo;Did you
+ever handle it yourself, Mr. Myerst?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myerst smiled in a superior fashion.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have already observed, sir, that from the time the deceased entered
+this room until the moment he placed the box in the safe which he rented, the
+box was never out of his hands,&rdquo; he replied.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then there was silence. At last the high official turned to the chairman.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Very well,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ve made the enquiry.
+Rathbury, take the box away with you and lock it up at the Yard.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+So Spargo went out with Rathbury and the box; and saw excellent, if mystifying,
+material for the article which had already become the daily feature of his
+paper.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap11"></a>CHAPTER ELEVEN<br/>
+MR. AYLMORE IS QUESTIONED</h2>
+
+<p>
+It seemed to Spargo as he sat listening to the proceedings at the adjourned
+inquest next day that the whole story of what was now world-famous as the
+Middle Temple Murder Case was being reiterated before him for the thousandth
+time. There was not a detail of the story with which he had not become familiar
+to fulness. The first proceeding before the coroner had been of a merely formal
+nature; these were thorough and exhaustive; the representative of the Crown and
+twelve good men and true of the City of London were there to hear and to find
+out and to arrive at a conclusion as to how the man known as John Marbury came
+by his death. And although he knew all about it, Spargo found himself
+tabulating the evidence in a professional manner, and noting how each
+successive witness contributed, as it were, a chapter to the story. The story
+itself ran quite easily, naturally, consecutively&mdash;you could make it in
+sections. And Spargo, sitting merely to listen, made them:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+1. The Temple porter and Constable Driscoll proved the finding of the body.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+2. The police surgeon testified as to the cause of death&mdash;the man had been
+struck down from behind by a blow, a terrible blow&mdash;from some heavy
+instrument, and had died immediately.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+3. The police and the mortuary officials proved that when the body was examined
+nothing was found in the clothing but the now famous scrap of grey paper.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+4. Rathbury proved that by means of the dead man&rsquo;s new fashionable cloth
+cap, bought at Fiskie&rsquo;s well-known shop in the West-End, he traced
+Marbury to the Anglo-Orient Hotel in the Waterloo District.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+5. Mr. and Mrs. Walters gave evidence of the arrival of Marbury at the
+Anglo-Orient Hotel, and of his doings while he was in and about there.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+6. The purser of the ss. <i>Wambarino</i> proved that Marbury sailed from
+Melbourne to Southampton on that ship, excited no remark, behaved himself like
+any other well-regulated passenger, and left the <i>Wambarino</i> at
+Southampton early in the morning of what was to be the last day of his life in
+just the ordinary manner.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+7. Mr. Criedir gave evidence of his rencontre with Marbury in the matter of the
+stamps.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+8. Mr. Myerst told of Marbury&rsquo;s visit to the Safe Deposit, and further
+proved that the box which he placed there proved, on official examination, to
+be empty.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+9. William Webster re-told the story of his encounter with Marbury in one of
+the vestibules of the House of Commons, and of his witnessing the meeting
+between him and the gentleman whom he (Webster) now knew to be Mr. Aylmore, a
+Member of Parliament.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+All this led up to the appearance of Mr. Aylmore, M.P., in the witness-box. And
+Spargo knew and felt that it was that appearance for which the crowded court
+was waiting. Thanks to his own vivid and realistic specials in the
+<i>Watchman</i>, everybody there had already become well and thoroughly
+acquainted with the mass of evidence represented by the nine witnesses who had
+been in the box before Mr. Aylmore entered it. They were familiar, too, with
+the facts which Mr. Aylmore had permitted Spargo to print after the interview
+at the club, which Ronald Breton arranged. Why, then, the extraordinary
+interest which the Member of Parliament&rsquo;s appearance aroused? For
+everybody was extraordinarily interested; from the Coroner downwards to the
+last man who had managed to squeeze himself into the last available inch of the
+public gallery, all who were there wanted to hear and see the man who met
+Marbury under such dramatic circumstances, and who went to his hotel with him,
+hobnobbed with him, gave him advice, walked out of the hotel with him for a
+stroll from which Marbury never returned. Spargo knew well why the interest was
+so keen&mdash;everybody knew that Aylmore was the only man who could tell the
+court anything really pertinent about Marbury; who he was, what he was after;
+what his life had been.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He looked round the court as the Member of Parliament entered the
+witness-box&mdash;a tall, handsome, perfectly-groomed man, whose beard was only
+slightly tinged with grey, whose figure was as erect as a well-drilled
+soldier&rsquo;s, who carried about him an air of conscious power.
+Aylmore&rsquo;s two daughters sat at a little distance away, opposite Spargo,
+with Ronald Breton in attendance upon them; Spargo had encountered their glance
+as they entered the court, and they had given him a friendly nod and smile. He
+had watched them from time to time; it was plain to him that they regarded the
+whole affair as a novel sort of entertainment; they might have been idlers in
+some Eastern bazaar, listening to the unfolding of many tales from the
+professional tale-tellers. Now, as their father entered the box, Spargo looked
+at them again; he saw nothing more than a little heightening of colour in their
+cheeks, a little brightening of their eyes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;All that they feel,&rdquo; he thought, &ldquo;is a bit of extra
+excitement at the idea that their father is mixed up in this delightful
+mystery. Um! Well&mdash;now how much is he mixed up?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And he turned to the witness-box and from that moment never took his eyes off
+the man who now stood in it. For Spargo had ideas about the witness which he
+was anxious to develop.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The folk who expected something immediately sensational in Mr. Aylmore&rsquo;s
+evidence were disappointed. Aylmore, having been sworn, and asked a question or
+two by the Coroner, requested permission to tell, in his own way, what he knew
+of the dead man and of this sad affair; and having received that permission, he
+went on in a calm, unimpassioned manner to repeat precisely what he had told
+Spargo. It sounded a very plain, ordinary story. He had known Marbury many
+years ago. He had lost sight of him for&mdash;oh, quite twenty years. He had
+met him accidentally in one of the vestibules of the House of Commons on the
+evening preceding the murder. Marbury had asked his advice. Having no
+particular duty, and willing to do an old acquaintance a good turn, he had gone
+back to the Anglo-Orient Hotel with Marbury, had remained awhile with him in
+his room, examining his Australian diamonds, and had afterwards gone out with
+him. He had given him the advice he wanted; they had strolled across Waterloo
+Bridge; shortly afterwards they had parted. That was all he knew.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The court, the public, Spargo, everybody there, knew all this already. It had
+been in print, under a big headline, in the <i>Watchman</i>. Aylmore had now
+told it again; having told it, he seemed to consider that his next step was to
+leave the box and the court, and after a perfunctory question or two from the
+Coroner and the foreman of the jury he made a motion as if to step down. But
+Spargo, who had been aware since the beginning of the enquiry of the presence
+of a certain eminent counsel who represented the Treasury, cocked his eye in
+that gentleman&rsquo;s direction, and was not surprised to see him rise in his
+well-known, apparently indifferent fashion, fix his monocle in his right eye,
+and glance at the tall figure in the witness-box.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The fun is going to begin,&rdquo; muttered Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Treasury representative looked from Aylmore to the Coroner and made a jerky
+bow; from the Coroner to Aylmore and straightened himself. He looked like a man
+who is going to ask indifferent questions about the state of the weather, or
+how Smith&rsquo;s wife was last time you heard of her, or if stocks are likely
+to rise or fall. But Spargo had heard this man before, and he knew many signs
+of his in voice and manner and glance.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I want to ask you a few questions, Mr. Aylmore, about your
+acquaintanceship with the dead man. It was an acquaintanceship of some time
+ago?&rdquo; began the suave, seemingly careless voice.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A considerable time ago,&rdquo; answered Aylmore.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How long&mdash;roughly speaking?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I should say from twenty to twenty-two or three years.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Never saw him during that time until you met accidentally in the way you
+have described to us?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Never.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ever heard from him?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ever heard of him?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But when you met, you knew each other at once?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well&mdash;almost at once.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Almost at once. Then, I take it, you were very well known to each other
+twenty or twenty-two years ago?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We were&mdash;yes, well known to each other.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Close friends?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I said we were acquaintances.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Acquaintances. What was his name when you knew him at that time?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;His name? It was&mdash;Marbury.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Marbury&mdash;the same name. Where did you know him?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&mdash;oh, here in London.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What was he?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Do you mean&mdash;what was his occupation?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What was his occupation?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I believe he was concerned in financial matters.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Concerned in financial matters. Had you dealings with him?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, yes&mdash;on occasions.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What was his business address in London?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I can&rsquo;t remember that.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What was his private address?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That I never knew.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Where did you transact your business with him?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, we met, now and then.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Where? What place, office, resort?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I can&rsquo;t remember particular places. Sometimes&mdash;in the
+City.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;In the City. Where in the City? Mansion House, or Lombard Street, or St.
+Paul&rsquo;s Churchyard, or the Old Bailey, or where?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have recollections of meeting him outside the Stock Exchange.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh! Was he a member of that institution?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not that I know of.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Were you?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Certainly not!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What were the dealings that you had with him?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Financial dealings&mdash;small ones.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How long did your acquaintanceship with him last&mdash;what period did
+it extend over?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I should say about six months to nine months.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No more?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Certainly no more.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It was quite a slight acquaintanceship, then?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, quite!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And yet, after losing sight of this merely slight acquaintance for over
+twenty years, you, on meeting him, take great interest in him?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, I was willing to do him a good turn, I was interested in what he
+told me the other evening.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I see. Now you will not object to my asking you a personal question or
+two. You are a public man, and the facts about the lives of public men are more
+or less public property. You are represented in this work of popular reference
+as coming to this country in 1902, from Argentina, where you made a
+considerable fortune. You have told us, however, that you were in London,
+acquainted with Marbury, about the years, say 1890 to 1892. Did you then leave
+England soon after knowing Marbury?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I did. I left England in 1891 or 1892&mdash;I am not sure which.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We are wanting to be very sure about this matter, Mr. Aylmore. We want
+to solve the important question&mdash;who is, who was John Marbury, and how did
+he come by his death? You seem to be the only available person who knows
+anything about him. What was your business before you left England?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I was interested in financial affairs.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Like Marbury. Where did you carry on your business?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;In London, of course.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;At what address?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For some moments Aylmore had been growing more and more restive. His brow had
+flushed; his moustache had begun to twitch. And now he squared his shoulders
+and faced his questioner defiantly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I resent these questions about my private affairs!&rdquo; he snapped
+out.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Possibly. But I must put them. I repeat my last question.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And I refuse to answer it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then I ask you another. Where did you live in London at the time you are
+telling us of, when you knew John Marbury?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I refuse to answer that question also!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Treasury Counsel sat down and looked at the Coroner.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap12"></a>CHAPTER TWELVE<br/>
+THE NEW WITNESS</h2>
+
+<p>
+The voice of the Coroner, bland, suave, deprecating, broke the silence. He was
+addressing the witness.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am sure, Mr. Aylmore,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;there is no wish to
+trouble you with unnecessary questions. But we are here to get at the truth of
+this matter of John Marbury&rsquo;s death, and as you are the only witness we
+have had who knew him personally&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Aylmore turned impatiently to the Coroner.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have every wish to respect your authority, sir!&rdquo; he exclaimed.
+&ldquo;And I have told you all that I know of Marbury and of what happened when
+I met him the other evening. But I resent being questioned on my private
+affairs of twenty years ago&mdash;I very much resent it! Any question that is
+really pertinent I will answer, but I will not answer questions that seem to me
+wholly foreign to the scope of this enquiry.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Treasury Counsel rose again. His manner had become of the quietest, and
+Spargo again became keenly attentive.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Perhaps I can put a question or two to Mr. Aylmore which will not yield
+him offence,&rdquo; he remarked drily. He turned once more to the witness,
+regarding him as if with interest. &ldquo;Can you tell us of any person now
+living who knew Marbury in London at the time under discussion&mdash;twenty to
+twenty-two or three years ago?&rdquo; he asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Aylmore shook his head angrily.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, I can&rsquo;t,&rdquo; he replied.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And yet you and he must have had several business acquaintances at that
+time who knew you both!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Possibly&mdash;at that time. But when I returned to England my business
+and my life lay in different directions to those of that time. I don&rsquo;t
+know of anybody who knew Marbury then&mdash;anybody.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Counsel turned to a clerk who sat behind him, whispered to him; Spargo saw
+the clerk make a sidelong motion of his head towards the door of the court. The
+Counsel looked again at the witness.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;One more question. You told the court a little time since that you
+parted with Marbury on the evening preceding his death at the end of Waterloo
+Bridge&mdash;at, I think you said, a quarter to twelve.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;About that time.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And at that place?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That is all I want to ask you, Mr. Aylmore&mdash;just now,&rdquo; said
+the Counsel. He turned to the Coroner. &ldquo;I am going to ask you, sir, at
+this point to call a witness who has volunteered certain evidence to the police
+authorities this morning. That evidence is of a very important nature, and I
+think that this is the stage at which it ought to be given to you and the jury.
+If you would be pleased to direct that David Lyell be called&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo turned instinctively to the door, having seen the clerk who had sat
+behind the Treasury Counsel make his way there. There came into view, ushered
+by the clerk, a smart-looking, alert, self-confident young man, evidently a
+Scotsman, who, on the name of David Lyell being called, stepped jauntily and
+readily into the place which the member of Parliament just vacated. He took the
+oath&mdash;Scotch fashion&mdash;with the same readiness and turned easily to
+the Treasury Counsel. And Spargo, glancing quickly round, saw that the court
+was breathless with anticipation, and that its anticipation was that the new
+witness was going to tell something which related to the evidence just given by
+Aylmore.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Your name is David Lyell?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That is my name, sir.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And you reside at 23, Cumbrae Side, Kilmarnock, Scotland?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I do.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What are you, Mr. Lyell?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Traveller, sir, for the firm of Messrs. Stevenson, Robertson &amp;
+Soutar, distillers, of Kilmarnock.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Your duties take you, I think, over to Paris occasionally?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;They do&mdash;once every six weeks I go to Paris.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;On the evening of June 21st last were you in London on your way to
+Paris?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I was.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I believe you stayed at De Keyser&rsquo;s Hotel, at the Blackfriars end
+of the Embankment?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I did&mdash;it&rsquo;s handy for the continental trains.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;About half-past eleven, or a little later, that evening, did you go
+along the Embankment, on the Temple Gardens side, for a walk?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I did, sir. I&rsquo;m a bad sleeper, and it&rsquo;s a habit of mine to
+take a walk of half an hour or so last thing before I go to bed.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How far did you walk?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;As far as Waterloo Bridge.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Always on the Temple side?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Just so, sir&mdash;straight along on that side.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Very good. When you got close to Waterloo Bridge, did you meet anybody
+you knew?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mr. Aylmore, the Member of Parliament.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo could not avoid a glance at the two sisters. The elder&rsquo;s head was
+averted; the younger was staring at the witness steadily. And Breton was
+nervously tapping his fingers on the crown of his shining silk hat.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mr. Aylmore, the Member of Parliament,&rdquo; repeated the
+Counsel&rsquo;s suave, clear tones. &ldquo;Oh! And how did you come to
+recognize Mr. Aylmore, Member of Parliament?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, sir, in this way. At home, I&rsquo;m the secretary of our Liberal
+Ward Club, and last year we had a demonstration, and it fell to me to arrange
+with the principal speakers. I got Mr. Aylmore to come and speak, and naturally
+I met him several times, in London and in Scotland.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;So that you knew him quite well?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh yes, sir.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Do you see him now, Mr. Lyell?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Lyell smiled and half turned in the box.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why, of course!&rdquo; he answered. &ldquo;There is Mr. Aylmore.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There is Mr. Aylmore. Very good. Now we go on. You met Mr. Aylmore close
+to Waterloo Bridge? How close?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, sir, to be exact, Mr. Aylmore came down the steps from the bridge
+on to the Embankment.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Alone?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Who was with him?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A man, sir.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Did you know the man?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No. But seeing who he was with. I took a good look at him. I
+haven&rsquo;t forgotten his face.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You haven&rsquo;t forgotten his face. Mr. Lyell&mdash;has anything
+recalled that face to you within this last day or two?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, sir, indeed!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The picture of the man they say was murdered&mdash;John Marbury.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You&rsquo;re sure of that?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;m as certain, sir, as that my name&rsquo;s what it is.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is your belief that Mr. Aylmore, when you met him, was accompanied by
+the man who, according to the photographs, was John Marbury?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is, sir!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Very well. Now, having seen Mr. Aylmore and his companion, what did you
+do?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, I just turned and walked after them.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You walked after them? They were going eastward, then?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;They were walking by the way I&rsquo;d come.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You followed them eastward?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I did&mdash;I was going back to the hotel, you see.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What were they doing?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Talking uncommonly earnestly, sir.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How far did you follow them?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I followed them until they came to the Embankment lodge of Middle Temple
+Lane, sir.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And then?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why, sir, they turned in there, and I went straight on to De
+Keyser&rsquo;s, and to my bed.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was a deeper silence in court at that moment than at any other period of
+the long day, and it grew still deeper when the quiet, keen voice put the next
+question.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You swear on your oath that you saw Mr. Aylmore take his companion into
+the Temple by the Embankment entrance of Middle Temple Lane on the occasion in
+question?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I do! I could swear no other, sir.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Can you tell us, as near as possible, what time that would be?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes. It was, to a minute or so, about five minutes past twelve.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Treasury Counsel nodded to the Coroner, and the Coroner, after a whispered
+conference with the foreman of the jury, looked at the witness.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You have only just given this information to the police, I
+understand?&rdquo; he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, sir. I have been in Paris, and in Amiens, and I only returned by
+this morning&rsquo;s boat. As soon as I had read all the news in the
+papers&mdash;the English papers&mdash;and seen the dead man&rsquo;s photographs
+I determined to tell the police what I knew, and I went to New Scotland Yard as
+soon as I got to London this morning.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Nobody else wanted to ask Mr. David Lyell any questions, and he stepped down.
+And Mr. Aylmore suddenly came forward again, seeking the Coroner&rsquo;s
+attention.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;May I be allowed to make an explanation, sir?&rdquo; he began.
+&ldquo;I&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But the Treasury Counsel was on his feet, this time stern and implacable.
+&ldquo;I would point out, sir, that you have had Mr. Aylmore in the box, and
+that he was not then at all ready to give explanations, or even to answer
+questions,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;And before you allow him to make any
+explanation now, I ask you to hear another witness whom I wish to interpose at
+this stage. That witness is&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Aylmore turned almost angrily to the Coroner.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;After the evidence of the last witness, I think I have a right to be
+heard at once!&rdquo; he said with emphasis. &ldquo;As matters stand at
+present, it looks as if I had trifled, sir, with you and the jury, whereas if I
+am allowed to make an explanation&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I must respectfully ask that before Mr. Aylmore is allowed to make any
+explanation, the witness I have referred to is heard,&rdquo; said the Treasury
+Counsel sternly. &ldquo;There are weighty reasons.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am afraid you must wait a little, Mr. Aylmore, if you wish to give an
+explanation,&rdquo; said the Coroner. He turned to the Counsel. &ldquo;Who is
+this other witness?&rdquo; he asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Aylmore stepped back. And Spargo noticed that the younger of his two daughters
+was staring at him with an anxious expression. There was no distrust of her
+father in her face; she was anxious. She, too, slowly turned to the next
+witness. This man was the porter of the Embankment lodge of Middle Temple Lane.
+The Treasury Counsel put a straight question to him at once.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You see that gentleman,&rdquo; he said, pointing to Aylmore. &ldquo;Do
+you know him as an inmate of the Temple?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The man stared at Aylmore, evidently confused.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why, certainly, sir!&rdquo; he answered. &ldquo;Quite well, sir.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Very good. And now&mdash;what name do you know him by?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The man grew evidently more bewildered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Name, sir. Why, Mr. Anderson, sir!&rdquo; he replied. &ldquo;Mr.
+Anderson!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap13"></a>CHAPTER THIRTEEN<br/>
+UNDER SUSPICION</h2>
+
+<p>
+A distinct, uncontrollable murmur of surprise ran round the packed court as
+this man in the witness-box gave this answer. It signified many
+things&mdash;that there were people present who had expected some such dramatic
+development; that there were others present who had not; that the answer itself
+was only a prelude to further developments. And Spargo, looking narrowly about
+him, saw that the answer had aroused different feelings in Aylmore&rsquo;s two
+daughters. The elder one had dropped her face until it was quite hidden; the
+younger was sitting bolt upright, staring at her father in utter and genuine
+bewilderment. And for the first time, Aylmore made no response to her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But the course of things was going steadily forward. There was no stopping the
+Treasury Counsel now; he was going to get at some truth in his own merciless
+fashion. He had exchanged one glance with the Coroner, had whispered a word to
+the solicitor who sat close by him, and now he turned again to the witness.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;So you know that gentleman&mdash;make sure now&mdash;as Mr. Anderson, an
+inmate of the Temple?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, sir.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You don&rsquo;t know him by any other name?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, sir, I don&rsquo;t.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How long have you known him by that name?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I should say two or three years, sir.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;See him go in and out regularly?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, sir&mdash;not regularly.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How often, then?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now and then, sir&mdash;perhaps once a week.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Tell us what you know of Mr. Anderson&rsquo;s goings-in-and-out.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, sir, I might see him two nights running; then I mightn&rsquo;t see
+him again for perhaps a week or two. Irregular, as you might say, sir.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You say &lsquo;nights.&rsquo; Do I understand that you never see Mr.
+Anderson except at night?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, sir. I&rsquo;ve never seen him except at night. Always about the
+same time, sir.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What time?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Just about midnight, sir.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Very well. Do you remember the midnight of June 21st-22nd?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I do, sir.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Did you see Mr. Anderson enter then?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, sir, just after twelve.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Was he alone?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, sir; there was another gentleman with him.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Remember anything about that other gentleman?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nothing, sir, except that I noticed as they walked through, that the
+other gentleman had grey clothes on.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Had grey clothes on. You didn&rsquo;t see his face?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not to remember it, sir. I don&rsquo;t remember anything but what
+I&rsquo;ve told you, sir.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That is that the other gentleman wore a grey suit. Where did Mr.
+Anderson and this gentleman in the grey suit go when they&rsquo;d passed
+through?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Straight up the Lane, sir.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Do you know where Mr. Anderson&rsquo;s rooms in the Temple are?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not exactly, sir, but I understood in Fountain Court.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now, on that night in question, did Mr. Anderson leave again by your
+lodge?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, sir.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You heard of the discovery of the body of a dead man in Middle Temple
+Lane next morning?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I did, sir.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Did you connect that man with the gentleman in the grey suit?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, sir, I didn&rsquo;t. It never occurred to me. A lot of the gentlemen
+who live in the Temple bring friends in late of nights; I never gave the matter
+any particular thought.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Never mentioned it to anybody until now, when you were sent for to come
+here?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, sir, never, to anybody.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And you have never known the gentleman standing there as anybody but Mr.
+Anderson?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, sir, never heard any other name but Anderson.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Coroner glanced at the Counsel.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I think this may be a convenient opportunity for Mr. Aylmore to give the
+explanation he offered a few minutes ago,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Do you suggest
+anything?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I suggest, sir, that if Mr. Aylmore desires to give any explanation he
+should return to the witness-box and submit himself to examination again on his
+oath,&rdquo; replied the Counsel. &ldquo;The matter is in your hands.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Coroner turned to Aylmore.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Do you object to that?&rdquo; he asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Aylmore stepped boldly forward and into the box.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I object to nothing,&rdquo; he said in clear tones, &ldquo;except to
+being asked to reply to questions about matters of the past which have not and
+cannot have anything to do with this case. Ask me what questions you like,
+arising out of the evidence of the last two witnesses, and I will answer them
+so far as I see myself justified in doing so. Ask me questions about matters of
+twenty years ago, and I shall answer them or not as I see fit. And I may as
+well say that I will take all the consequences of my silence or my
+speech.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Treasury Counsel rose again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Very well, Mr. Aylmore,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I will put certain
+questions to you. You heard the evidence of David Lyell?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I did.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Was that quite true as regards yourself?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Quite true&mdash;absolutely true.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And you heard that of the last witness. Was that also true!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Equally true.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then you admit that the evidence you gave this morning, before these
+witnesses came on the scene, was not true?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, I do not! Most emphatically I do not. It was true.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;True? You told me, on oath, that you parted from John Marbury on
+Waterloo Bridge!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Pardon me, I said nothing of the sort. I said that from the Anglo-Orient
+Hotel we strolled across Waterloo Bridge, and that shortly afterwards we
+parted&mdash;I did not say where we parted. I see there is a shorthand writer
+here who is taking everything down&mdash;ask him if that is not exactly what I
+said?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A reference to the stenographer proved Aylmore to be right, and the Treasury
+Counsel showed plain annoyance.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, at any rate, you so phrased your answer that nine persons out of
+ten would have understood that you parted from Marbury in the open streets
+after crossing Waterloo Bridge,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Now&mdash;?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Aylmore smiled.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am not responsible for the understanding of nine people out of ten any
+more than I am for your understanding,&rdquo; he said, with a sneer. &ldquo;I
+said what I now repeat&mdash;Marbury and I walked across Waterloo Bridge, and
+shortly afterwards we parted. I told you the truth.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Indeed! Perhaps you will continue to tell us the truth. Since you have
+admitted that the evidence of the last two witnesses is absolutely correct,
+perhaps you will tell us exactly where you and Marbury did part?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I will&mdash;willingly. We parted at the door of my chambers in Fountain
+Court.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then&mdash;to reiterate&mdash;it was you who took Marbury into the
+Temple that night?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It was certainly I who took Marbury into the Temple that night.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was another murmur amongst the crowded benches. Here at any rate was
+fact&mdash;solid, substantial fact. And Spargo began to see a possible course
+of events which he had not anticipated.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That is a candid admission, Mr. Aylmore. I suppose you see a certain
+danger to yourself in making it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I need not say whether I do or I do not. I have made it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Very good. Why did you not make it before?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;For my own reasons. I told you as much as I considered necessary for the
+purpose of this enquiry. I have virtually altered nothing now. I asked to be
+allowed to make a statement, to give an explanation, as soon as Mr. Lyell had
+left this box: I was not allowed to do so. I am willing to make it now.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Make it then.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is simply this,&rdquo; said Aylmore, turning to the Coroner. &ldquo;I
+have found it convenient, during the past three years, to rent a simple set of
+chambers in the Temple, where I could occasionally&mdash;very occasionally, as
+a rule&mdash;go late at night. I also found it convenient, for my own
+reasons&mdash;with which, I think, no one has anything to do&mdash;to rent
+those chambers under the name of Mr. Anderson. It was to my chambers that
+Marbury accompanied me for a few moments on the midnight with which we are
+dealing. He was not in them more than five minutes at the very outside: I
+parted from him at my outer door, and I understood that he would leave the
+Temple by the way we had entered and would drive or walk straight back to his
+hotel. That is the whole truth. I wish to add that I ought perhaps to have told
+all this at first. I had reasons for not doing so. I told what I considered
+necessary, that I parted from Marbury, leaving him well and alive, soon after
+midnight.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What reasons were or are they which prevented you from telling all this
+at first?&rdquo; asked the Treasury Counsel.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Reasons which are private to me.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Will you tell them to the court?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then will you tell us why Marbury went with you to the chambers in
+Fountain Court which you tenant under the name of Anderson?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes. To fetch a document which I had in my keeping, and had kept for him
+for twenty years or more.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A document of importance?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Of very great importance.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He would have it on him when he was&mdash;as we believe he
+was&mdash;murdered and robbed?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He had it on him when he left me.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Will you tell us what it was?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Certainly not!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;In fact, you won&rsquo;t tell us any more than you choose to
+tell?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have told you all I can tell of the events of that night.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then I am going to ask you a very pertinent question. Is it not a fact
+that you know a great deal more about John Marbury than you have told this
+court?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That I shall not answer.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Is it not a fact that you could, if you would, tell this court more
+about John Marbury and your acquaintanceship with him twenty years ago?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I also decline to answer that.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Treasury Counsel made a little movement of his shoulders and turned to the
+Coroner.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I should suggest, sir, that you adjourn this enquiry,&rdquo; he said
+quietly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;For a week,&rdquo; assented the Coroner, turning to the jury.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The crowd surged out of the court, chattering, murmuring, exclaiming&mdash;
+spectators, witnesses, jurymen, reporters, legal folk, police folk, all mixed
+up together. And Spargo, elbowing his own way out, and busily reckoning up the
+value of the new complexions put on everything by the day&rsquo;s work,
+suddenly felt a hand laid on his arm. Turning he found himself gazing at Jessie
+Aylmore.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap14"></a>CHAPTER FOURTEEN<br/>
+THE SILVER TICKET</h2>
+
+<p>
+With a sudden instinct of protection, Spargo quickly drew the girl aside from
+the struggling crowd, and within a moment had led her into a quiet by-street.
+He looked down at her as she stood recovering her breath.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes?&rdquo; he said quietly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jessie Aylmore looked up at him, smiling faintly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I want to speak to you,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I must speak to
+you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; said Spargo. &ldquo;But&mdash;the others? Your
+sister?&mdash;Breton?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I left them on purpose to speak to you,&rdquo; she answered. &ldquo;They
+knew I did. I am well accustomed to looking after myself.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo moved down the by-street, motioning his companion to move with him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Tea,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;is what you want. I know a queer,
+old-fashioned place close by here where you can get the best China tea in
+London. Come and have some.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jessie Aylmore smiled and followed her guide obediently. And Spargo said
+nothing, marching stolidly along with his thumbs in his waistcoat pockets, his
+fingers playing soundless tunes outside, until he had installed himself and his
+companion in a quiet nook in the old tea-house he had told her of, and had
+given an order for tea and hot tea-cakes to a waitress who evidently knew him.
+Then he turned to her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You want,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;to talk to me about your father.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; she answered. &ldquo;I do.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why?&rdquo; asked Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The girl gave him a searching look.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ronald Breton says you&rsquo;re the man who&rsquo;s written all those
+special articles in the <i>Watchman</i> about the Marbury case,&rdquo; she
+answered. &ldquo;Are you?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am,&rdquo; said Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then you&rsquo;re a man of great influence,&rdquo; she went on.
+&ldquo;You can stir the public mind. Mr. Spargo&mdash;what are you going to
+write about my father and today&rsquo;s proceedings?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo signed to her to pour out the tea which had just arrived. He seized,
+without ceremony, upon a piece of the hot buttered tea-cake, and bit a great
+lump out of it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Frankly,&rdquo; he mumbled, speaking with his mouth full,
+&ldquo;frankly, I don&rsquo;t know. I don&rsquo;t know&mdash;yet. But
+I&rsquo;ll tell you this&mdash;it&rsquo;s best to be candid&mdash;I
+shouldn&rsquo;t allow myself to be prejudiced or biassed in making up my
+conclusions by anything that you may say to me. Understand?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jessie Aylmore took a sudden liking to Spargo because of the unconventionality
+and brusqueness of his manners.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;m not wanting to prejudice or bias you,&rdquo; she said.
+&ldquo;All I want is that you should be very sure before you
+say&mdash;anything.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll be sure,&rdquo; said Spargo. &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t bother. Is
+the tea all right?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Beautiful!&rdquo; she answered, with a smile that made Spargo look at
+her again. &ldquo;Delightful! Mr. Spargo, tell me!&mdash;what did you think
+about&mdash;about what has just happened?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo, regardless of the fact that his fingers were liberally ornamented with
+butter, lifted a hand and rubbed his always untidy hair. Then he ate more
+tea-cake and gulped more tea.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Look here!&rdquo; he said suddenly. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m no great hand at
+talking. I can write pretty decently when I&rsquo;ve a good story to tell, but
+I don&rsquo;t talk an awful lot, because I never can express what I mean unless
+I&rsquo;ve got a pen in my hand. Frankly, I find it hard to tell you what I
+think. When I write my article this evening, I&rsquo;ll get all these things
+marshalled in proper form, and I shall write clearly about &rsquo;em. But
+I&rsquo;ll tell you one thing I do think&mdash;I wish your father had made a
+clean breast of things to me at first, when he gave me that interview, or had
+told everything when he first went into that box.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why?&rdquo; she asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Because he&rsquo;s now set up an atmosphere of doubt and suspicion
+around himself. People&rsquo;ll think&mdash;Heaven knows what they&rsquo;ll
+think! They already know that he knows more about Marbury than he&rsquo;ll
+tell, that&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But does he?&rdquo; she interrupted quickly. &ldquo;Do you think he
+does?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes!&rdquo; replied Spargo, with emphasis. &ldquo;I do. A lot more! If
+he had only been explicit at first&mdash;however, he wasn&rsquo;t. Now
+it&rsquo;s done. As things stand&mdash;look here, does it strike you that your
+father is in a very serious position?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Serious?&rdquo; she exclaimed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Dangerous! Here&rsquo;s the fact&mdash;he&rsquo;s admitted that he took
+Marbury to his rooms in the Temple that midnight. Well, next morning
+Marbury&rsquo;s found robbed and murdered in an entry, not fifty yards
+off!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Does anybody suppose that my father would murder him for the sake of
+robbing him of whatever he had on him?&rdquo; she laughed scornfully. &ldquo;My
+father is a very wealthy man, Mr. Spargo.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;May be,&rdquo; answered Spargo. &ldquo;But millionaires have been known
+to murder men who held secrets.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Secrets!&rdquo; she exclaimed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Have some more tea,&rdquo; said Spargo, nodding at the teapot.
+&ldquo;Look here&mdash;this way it is. The theory that people&mdash;some
+people&mdash;will build up (I won&rsquo;t say that it hasn&rsquo;t suggested
+itself to me) is this:&mdash;There&rsquo;s some mystery about the relationship,
+acquaintanceship, connection, call it what you like, of your father and Marbury
+twenty odd years ago. Must be. There&rsquo;s some mystery about your
+father&rsquo;s life, twenty odd years ago. Must be&mdash;or else he&rsquo;d
+have answered those questions. Very well. &lsquo;Ha, ha!&rsquo; says the
+general public. &lsquo;Now we have it!&rsquo; &lsquo;Marbury,&rsquo; says the
+general public, &lsquo;was a man who had a hold on Aylmore. He turned up.
+Aylmore trapped him into the Temple, killed him to preserve his own secret, and
+robbed him of all he had on him as a blind.&rsquo; Eh?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You think&mdash;people will say that?&rdquo; she exclaimed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Cock-sure! They&rsquo;re saying it. Heard half a dozen of &rsquo;em say
+it, in more or less elegant fashion as I came out of that court. Of course,
+they&rsquo;ll say it. Why, what else could they say?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For a moment Jessie Aylmore sat looking silently into her tea-cup. Then she
+turned her eyes on Spargo, who immediately manifested a new interest in what
+remained of the tea-cakes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Is that what you&rsquo;re going to say in your article tonight?&rdquo;
+she asked, quietly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No!&rdquo; replied Spargo, promptly. &ldquo;It isn&rsquo;t. I&rsquo;m
+going to sit on the fence tonight. Besides, the case is <i>sub judice</i>. All
+I&rsquo;m going to do is to tell, in my way, what took place at the
+inquest.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The girl impulsively put her hand across the table and laid it on
+Spargo&rsquo;s big fist.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Is it what you think?&rdquo; she asked in a low voice.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Honour bright, no!&rdquo; exclaimed Spargo. &ldquo;It
+isn&rsquo;t&mdash;it isn&rsquo;t! I don&rsquo;t think it. I think there&rsquo;s
+a most extraordinary mystery at the bottom of Marbury&rsquo;s death, and I
+think your father knows an enormous lot about Marbury that he won&rsquo;t tell,
+but I&rsquo;m certain sure that he neither killed Marbury nor knows anything
+whatever about his death. And as I&rsquo;m out to clear this mystery up, and
+mean to do it, nothing&rsquo;ll make me more glad than to clear your father. I
+say, do have some more tea-cake? We&rsquo;ll have fresh ones&mdash;and fresh
+tea.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, thank you,&rdquo; she said smiling. &ldquo;And thank you for what
+you&rsquo;ve just said. I&rsquo;m going now, Mr. Spargo. You&rsquo;ve done me
+good.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, rot!&rdquo; exclaimed Spargo. &ldquo;Nothing&mdash;nothing!
+I&rsquo;ve just told you what I&rsquo;m thinking. You must go?…&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He saw her into a taxi-cab presently, and when she had gone stood vacantly
+staring after the cab until a hand clapped him smartly on the shoulder.
+Turning, he found Rathbury grinning at him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;All right, Mr. Spargo, I saw you!&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Well,
+it&rsquo;s a pleasant change to squire young ladies after being all day in that
+court. Look here, are you going to start your writing just now?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;m not going to start my writing as you call it, until after
+I&rsquo;ve dined at seven o&rsquo;clock and given myself time to digest my
+modest dinner,&rdquo; answered Spargo. &ldquo;What is it?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Come back with me and have another look at that blessed leather
+box,&rdquo; said Rathbury. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve got it in my room, and I&rsquo;d
+like to examine it for myself. Come on!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The thing&rsquo;s empty,&rdquo; said Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There might be a false bottom in it,&rdquo; remarked Rathbury.
+&ldquo;One never knows. Here, jump into this!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He pushed Spargo into a passing taxi-cab, and following, bade the driver go
+straight to the Yard. Arrived there, he locked Spargo and himself into the
+drab-visaged room in which the journalist had seen him before.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What d&rsquo;ye think of today&rsquo;s doings, Spargo?&rdquo; he asked,
+as he proceeded to unlock a cupboard.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I think,&rdquo; said Spargo, &ldquo;that some of you fellows must have
+had your ears set to tingling.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s so,&rdquo; assented Rathbury. &ldquo;Of course, the next
+thing&rsquo;ll be to find out all about the Mr. Aylmore of twenty years since.
+When a man won&rsquo;t tell you where he lived twenty years ago, what he was
+exactly doing, what his precise relationship with another man was&mdash;why,
+then, you&rsquo;ve just got to find out, eh? Oh, some of our fellows are at
+work on the life history of Stephen Aylmore, Esq., M.P., already&mdash;you bet!
+Well, now, Spargo, here&rsquo;s the famous box.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The detective brought the old leather case out of the cupboard in which he had
+been searching, and placed it on his desk. Spargo threw back the lid and looked
+inside, measuring the inner capacity against the exterior lines.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No false bottom in that, Rathbury,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s
+just the outer leather case, and the inner lining, of this old bed-hanging
+stuff, and that&rsquo;s all. There&rsquo;s no room for any false bottom or
+anything of that sort, d&rsquo;you see?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Rathbury also sized up the box&rsquo;s capacity.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Looks like it,&rdquo; he said disappointedly. &ldquo;Well, what about
+the lid, then? I remember there was an old box like this in my
+grandmother&rsquo;s farmhouse, where I was reared&mdash;there was a pocket in
+the lid. Let&rsquo;s see if there&rsquo;s anything of the sort here?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He threw the lid back and began to poke about the lining of it with the tips of
+his fingers, and presently he turned to his companion with a sharp exclamation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;By George, Spargo!&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know about any
+pocket, but there&rsquo;s something under this lining. Feels like&mdash;here,
+you feel. There&mdash;and there.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo put a finger on the places indicated.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, that&rsquo;s so,&rdquo; he agreed. &ldquo;Feels like two
+cards&mdash;a large and a small one. And the small one&rsquo;s harder than the
+other. Better cut that lining out, Rathbury.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That,&rdquo; remarked Rathbury, producing a pen-knife, &ldquo;is just
+what I&rsquo;m going to do. We&rsquo;ll cut along this seam.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He ripped the lining carefully open along the upper part of the lining of the
+lid, and looking into the pocket thus made, drew out two objects which he
+dropped on his blotting pad.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A child&rsquo;s photograph,&rdquo; he said, glancing at one of them.
+&ldquo;But what on earth is that?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The object to which he pointed was a small, oblong piece of thin, much-worn
+silver, about the size of a railway ticket. On one side of it was what seemed
+to be a heraldic device or coat-of-arms, almost obliterated by rubbing; on the
+other, similarly worn down by friction, was the figure of a horse.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s a curious object,&rdquo; remarked Spargo, picking it up.
+&ldquo;I never saw anything like that before. What can it be?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t know&mdash;I never saw anything of the sort either,&rdquo;
+said Rathbury. &ldquo;Some old token, I should say. Now this photo.
+Ah&mdash;you see, the photographer&rsquo;s name and address have been torn away
+or broken off&mdash;there&rsquo;s nothing left but just two letters of
+what&rsquo;s apparently been the name of the town&mdash;see.
+Er&mdash;that&rsquo;s all there is. Portrait of a baby, eh?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo gave, what might have been called in anybody else but him, a casual
+glance at the baby&rsquo;s portrait. He picked up the silver ticket again and
+turned it over and over.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Look here, Rathbury,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Let me take this silver
+thing. I know where I can find out what it is. At least, I think I do.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;All right,&rdquo; agreed the detective, &ldquo;but take the greatest
+care of it, and don&rsquo;t tell a soul that we found it in this box, you know.
+No connection with the Marbury case, Spargo, remember.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, all right,&rdquo; said Spargo. &ldquo;Trust me.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He put the silver ticket in his pocket, and went back to the office, wondering
+about this singular find. And when he had written his article that evening, and
+seen a proof of it, Spargo went into Fleet Street intent on seeking peculiar
+information.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap15"></a>CHAPTER FIFTEEN<br/>
+MARKET MILCASTER</h2>
+
+<p>
+The haunt of well-informed men which Spargo had in view when he turned out of
+the <i>Watchman</i> office lay well hidden from ordinary sight and knowledge in
+one of those Fleet Street courts the like of which is not elsewhere in the
+world. Only certain folk knew of it. It was, of course, a club; otherwise it
+would not have been what it was. It is the simplest thing in life, in England,
+at any rate, to form a club of congenial spirits. You get so many of your
+choice friends and acquaintances to gather round you; you register yourselves
+under a name of your own choosing; you take a house and furnish it according to
+your means and your taste: you comply with the very easy letter of the law, and
+there you are. Keep within that easy letter, and you can do what you please on
+your own premises. It is much more agreeable to have a small paradise of your
+own of this description than to lounge about Fleet Street bars.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The particular club to which Spargo bent his steps was called the Octoneumenoi.
+Who evolved this extraordinary combination of Latin and Greek was a dark
+mystery: there it was, however, on a tiny brass plate you once reached the
+portals. The portals were gained by devious ways. You turned out of Fleet
+Street by an alley so narrow that it seemed as if you might suddenly find
+yourself squeezed between the ancient walls. Then you suddenly dived down
+another alley and found yourself in a small court, with high walls around you
+and a smell of printer&rsquo;s ink in your nose and a whirring of printing
+presses in your ears. You made another dive into a dark entry, much encumbered
+by bales of paper, crates of printing material, jars of printing ink; after
+falling over a few of these you struck an ancient flight of stairs and went up
+past various landings, always travelling in a state of gloom and fear. After a
+lot of twisting and turning you came to the very top of the house and found it
+heavily curtained off. You lifted a curtain and found yourself in a small
+entresol, somewhat artistically painted&mdash;the whole and sole work of an
+artistic member who came one day with a formidable array of lumber and
+paint-pots and worked his will on the ancient wood. Then you saw the brass
+plate and its fearful name, and beneath it the formal legal notice that this
+club was duly registered and so on, and if you were a member you went in, and
+if you weren&rsquo;t a member you tinkled an electric bell and asked to see a
+member&mdash;if you knew one.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo was not a member, but he knew many members, and he tinkled the bell, and
+asked the boy who answered it for Mr. Starkey. Mr. Starkey, a young gentleman
+with the biceps of a prize-fighter and a head of curly hair that would have
+done credit to Antinous, came forth in due course and shook Spargo by the hand
+until his teeth rattled.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Had we known you were coming,&rdquo; said Mr. Starkey, &ldquo;we&rsquo;d
+have had a brass band on the stairs.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I want to come in,&rdquo; remarked Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Sure!&rdquo; said Mr. Starkey. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s what you&rsquo;ve
+come for.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, stand out of the way, then, and let&rsquo;s get in,&rdquo; said
+Spargo. &ldquo;Look here,&rdquo; he continued when they had penetrated into a
+small vestibule, &ldquo;doesn&rsquo;t old Crowfoot turn in here about this time
+every night?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Every night as true as the clock, my son Spargo, Crowfoot puts his nose
+in at precisely eleven, having by that time finished that daily column wherein
+he informs a section of the populace as to the prospects of their spotting a
+winner tomorrow,&rdquo; answered Mr. Starkey. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s five minutes to
+his hour now. Come in and drink till he comes. Want him?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A word with him,&rdquo; answered Spargo. &ldquo;A mere word&mdash;or
+two.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He followed Starkey into a room which was so filled with smoke and sound that
+for a moment it was impossible to either see or hear. But the smoke was
+gradually making itself into a canopy, and beneath the canopy Spargo made out
+various groups of men of all ages, sitting around small tables, smoking and
+drinking, and all talking as if the great object of their lives was to get as
+many words as possible out of their mouths in the shortest possible time. In
+the further corner was a small bar; Starkey pulled Spargo up to it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Name it, my son,&rdquo; commanded Starkey. &ldquo;Try the Octoneumenoi
+very extra special. Two of &rsquo;em, Dick. Come to beg to be a member,
+Spargo?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll think about being a member of this ante-room of the infernal
+regions when you start a ventilating fan and provide members with a route-map
+of the way from Fleet Street,&rdquo; answered Spargo, taking his glass.
+&ldquo;Phew!&mdash;what an atmosphere!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We&rsquo;re considering a ventilating fan,&rdquo; said Starkey.
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;m on the house committee now, and I brought that very matter up
+at our last meeting. But Templeson, of the <i>Bulletin</i>&mdash;you know
+Templeson&mdash;he says what we want is a wine-cooler to stand under that
+sideboard&mdash;says no club is proper without a wine-cooler, and that he knows
+a chap&mdash;second-hand dealer, don&rsquo;t you know&mdash;what has a beauty
+to dispose of in old Sheffield plate. Now, if you were on our house committee,
+Spargo, old man, would you go in for the wine-cooler or the ventilating fan?
+You see&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There is Crowfoot,&rdquo; said Spargo. &ldquo;Shout him over here,
+Starkey, before anybody else collars him.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Through the door by which Spargo had entered a few minutes previously came a
+man who stood for a moment blinking at the smoke and the lights. He was a tall,
+elderly man with a figure and bearing of a soldier; a big, sweeping moustache
+stood well out against a square-cut jaw and beneath a prominent nose; a pair of
+keen blue eyes looked out from beneath a tousled mass of crinkled hair. He wore
+neither hat nor cap; his attire was a carelessly put on Norfolk suit of brown
+tweed; he looked half-unkempt, half-groomed. But knotted at the collar of his
+flannel shirt were the colours of one of the most famous and exclusive cricket
+clubs in the world, and everybody knew that in his day their wearer had been a
+mighty figure in the public eye.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Hi, Crowfoot!&rdquo; shouted Starkey above the din and babel.
+&ldquo;Crowfoot, Crowfoot! Come over here, there&rsquo;s a chap dying to see
+you!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, that&rsquo;s the way to get him, isn&rsquo;t it?&rdquo; said
+Spargo. &ldquo;Here, I&rsquo;ll get him myself.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He went across the room and accosted the old sporting journalist.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I want a quiet word with you,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;This place is like
+a pandemonium.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Crowfoot led the way into a side alcove and ordered a drink.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Always is, this time,&rdquo; he said, yawning. &ldquo;But it&rsquo;s
+companionable. What is it, Spargo?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo took a pull at the glass which he had carried with him. &ldquo;I should
+say,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;that you know as much about sporting matters as any
+man writing about &rsquo;em?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, I think you might say it with truth,&rdquo; answered Crowfoot.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And old sporting matters?&rdquo; said Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, and old sporting matters,&rdquo; replied the other with a sudden
+flash of the eye. &ldquo;Not that they greatly interest the modern generation,
+you know.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, there&rsquo;s something that&rsquo;s interesting me greatly just
+now, anyway,&rdquo; said Spargo. &ldquo;And I believe it&rsquo;s got to do with
+old sporting affairs. And I came to you for information about it, believing you
+to be the only man I know of that could tell anything.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes&mdash;what is it?&rdquo; asked Crowfoot.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo drew out an envelope, and took from it the carefully-wrapped-up silver
+ticket. He took off the wrappings and laid the ticket on Crowfoot&rsquo;s
+outstretched palm.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Can you tell me what that is?&rdquo; he asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Another sudden flash came into the old sportsman&rsquo;s eyes&mdash;he eagerly
+turned the silver ticket over.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;God bless my soul!&rdquo; he exclaimed. &ldquo;Where did you get
+this?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Never mind, just now,&rdquo; replied Spargo. &ldquo;You know what it
+is?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Certainly I know what it is! But&mdash;Gad! I&rsquo;ve not seen one of
+these things for Lord knows how many years. It makes me feel something like a
+young &rsquo;un again!&rdquo; said Crowfoot. &ldquo;Quite a young
+&rsquo;un!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But what is it?&rdquo; asked Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Crowfoot turned the ticket over, showing the side on which the heraldic device
+was almost worn away.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It&rsquo;s one of the original silver stand tickets of the old
+racecourse at Market Milcaster,&rdquo; answered Crowfoot. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s
+what it is. One of the old original silver stand tickets. There are the arms of
+Market Milcaster, you see, nearly worn away by much rubbing. There, on the
+obverse, is the figure of a running horse. Oh, yes, that&rsquo;s what it is!
+Bless me!&mdash;most interesting.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Where&rsquo;s Market Milcaster?&rdquo; enquired Spargo.
+&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t know it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Market Milcaster,&rdquo; replied Crowfoot, still turning the silver
+ticket over and over, &ldquo;is what the topographers call a decayed town in
+Elmshire. It has steadily decayed since the river that led to it got gradually
+silted up. There used to be a famous race-meeting there in June every year.
+It&rsquo;s nearly forty years since that meeting fell through. I went to it
+often when I was a lad&mdash;often!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And you say that&rsquo;s a ticket for the stand?&rdquo; asked Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;This is one of fifty silver tickets, or passes, or whatever you like to
+call &rsquo;em, which were given by the race committee to fifty burgesses of
+the town,&rdquo; answered Crowfoot. &ldquo;It was, I remember, considered a
+great privilege to possess a silver ticket. It admitted its possessor&mdash;for
+life, mind you!&mdash;to the stand, the paddocks, the ring, anywhere. It also
+gave him a place at the annual race-dinner. Where on earth did you get this,
+Spargo?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo took the ticket and carefully re-wrapped it, this time putting it in his
+purse.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;m awfully obliged to you, Crowfoot,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;The
+fact is, I can&rsquo;t tell you where I got it just now, but I&rsquo;ll promise
+you that I will tell you, and all about it, too, as soon as my tongue&rsquo;s
+free to do so.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Some mystery, eh?&rdquo; suggested Crowfoot.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Considerable,&rdquo; answered Spargo. &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t mention to
+anyone that I showed it to you. You shall know everything eventually.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, all right, my boy, all right!&rdquo; said Crowfoot. &ldquo;Odd how
+things turn up, isn&rsquo;t it? Now, I&rsquo;ll wager anything that there
+aren&rsquo;t half a dozen of these old things outside Market Milcaster itself.
+As I said, there were only fifty, and they were all in possession of burgesses.
+They were so much thought of that they were taken great care of. I&rsquo;ve
+been in Market Milcaster myself since the races were given up, and I&rsquo;ve
+seen these tickets carefully framed and hung over mantelpieces&mdash;oh,
+yes!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo caught at a notion.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How do you get to Market Milcaster?&rdquo; he asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Paddington,&rdquo; replied Crowfoot. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a goodish
+way.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I wonder,&rdquo; said Spargo, &ldquo;if there&rsquo;s any old sporting
+man there who could remember&mdash;things. Anything about this ticket, for
+instance?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Old sporting man!&rdquo; exclaimed Crowfoot. &ldquo;Egad!&mdash;but no,
+he must be dead&mdash;anyhow, if he isn&rsquo;t dead, he must be a veritable
+patriarch. Old Ben Quarterpage, he was an auctioneer in the town, and a rare
+sportsman.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I may go down there,&rdquo; said Spargo. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll see if
+he&rsquo;s alive.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then, if you do go down,&rdquo; suggested Crowfoot, &ldquo;go to the old
+&lsquo;Yellow Dragon&rsquo; in the High Street, a fine old place.
+Quarterpage&rsquo;s place of business and his private house were exactly
+opposite the &lsquo;Dragon.&rsquo; But I&rsquo;m afraid you&rsquo;ll find him
+dead&mdash;it&rsquo;s five and twenty years since I was in Market Milcaster,
+and he was an old bird then. Let&rsquo;s see, now. If Old Ben Quarterpage is
+alive, Spargo, he&rsquo;ll be ninety years of age!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, I&rsquo;ve known men of ninety who were spry enough, even in my
+bit of experience,&rdquo; said Spargo. &ldquo;I know one&mdash;now&mdash;my own
+grandfather. Well, the best of thanks, Crowfoot, and I&rsquo;ll tell you all
+about it some day.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Have another drink?&rdquo; suggested Crowfoot.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But Spargo excused himself. He was going back to the office, he said; he still
+had something to do. And he got himself away from the Octoneumenoi, in spite of
+Starkey, who wished to start a general debate on the wisest way of expending
+the club&rsquo;s ready money balance, and went back to the <i>Watchman</i>, and
+there he sought the presence of the editor, and in spite of the fact that it
+was the busiest hour of the night, saw him and remained closeted with him for
+the extraordinary space of ten minutes. And after that Spargo went home and
+fell into bed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But next morning, bright and early, he was on the departure platform at
+Paddington, suit-case in hand, and ticket in pocket for Market Milcaster, and
+in the course of that afternoon he found himself in an old-fashioned bedroom
+looking out on Market Milcaster High Street. And there, right opposite him, he
+saw an ancient house, old brick, ivy-covered, with an office at its side, over
+the door of which was the name, <i>Benjamin Quarterpage</i>.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap16"></a>CHAPTER SIXTEEN<br/>
+THE &ldquo;YELLOW DRAGON&rdquo;</h2>
+
+<p>
+Spargo, changing his clothes, washing away the dust of his journey, in that
+old-fashioned lavender-scented bedroom, busied his mind in further speculations
+on his plan of campaign in Market Milcaster. He had no particularly clear plan.
+The one thing he was certain of was that in the old leather box which the man
+whom he knew as John Marbury had deposited with the London and Universal Safe
+Deposit Company, he and Rathbury had discovered one of the old silver tickets
+of Market Milcaster racecourse, and that he, Spargo, had come to Market
+Milcaster, with the full approval of his editor, in an endeavour to trace it.
+How was he going to set about this difficult task?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The first thing,&rdquo; said Spargo to himself as he tied a new tie,
+&ldquo;is to have a look round. That&rsquo;ll be no long job.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For he had already seen as he approached the town, and as he drove from the
+station to the &ldquo;Yellow Dragon&rdquo; Hotel, that Market Milcaster was a
+very small place. It chiefly consisted of one long, wide thoroughfare&mdash;the
+High Street&mdash;with smaller streets leading from it on either side. In the
+High Street seemed to be everything that the town could show&mdash;the ancient
+parish church, the town hall, the market cross, the principal houses and shops,
+the bridge, beneath which ran the river whereon ships had once come up to the
+town before its mouth, four miles away, became impassably silted up. It was a
+bright, clean, little town, but there were few signs of trade in it, and Spargo
+had been quick to notice that in the &ldquo;Yellow Dragon,&rdquo; a big,
+rambling old hostelry, reminiscent of the old coaching days, there seemed to be
+little doing. He had eaten a bit of lunch in the coffee-room immediately on his
+arrival; the coffee-room was big enough to accommodate a hundred and fifty
+people, but beyond himself, an old gentleman and his daughter, evidently
+tourists, two young men talking golf, a man who looked like an artist, and an
+unmistakable honeymooning couple, there was no one in it. There was little
+traffic in the wide street beneath Spargo&rsquo;s windows; little passage of
+people to and fro on the sidewalks; here a countryman drove a lazy cow as
+lazily along; there a farmer in his light cart sat idly chatting with an
+aproned tradesman, who had come out of his shop to talk to him. Over everything
+lay the quiet of the sunlight of the summer afternoon, and through the open
+windows stole a faint, sweet scent of the new-mown hay lying in the meadows
+outside the old houses.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A veritable Sleepy Hollow,&rdquo; mused Spargo. &ldquo;Let&rsquo;s go
+down and see if there&rsquo;s anybody to talk to. Great Scott!&mdash;to think
+that I was in the poisonous atmosphere of the Octoneumenoi only sixteen hours
+ago!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo, after losing himself in various corridors and passages, finally landed
+in the wide, stone-paved hall of the old hotel, and with a sure instinct turned
+into the bar-parlour which he had noticed when he entered the place. This was a
+roomy, comfortable, bow-windowed apartment, looking out upon the High Street,
+and was furnished and ornamented with the usual appurtenances of country-town
+hotels. There were old chairs and tables and sideboards and cupboards, which
+had certainly been made a century before, and seemed likely to endure for a
+century or two longer; there were old prints of the road and the chase, and an
+old oil-painting or two of red-faced gentlemen in pink coats; there were
+foxes&rsquo; masks on the wall, and a monster pike in a glass case on a
+side-table; there were ancient candlesticks on the mantelpiece and an antique
+snuff-box set between them. Also there was a small, old-fashioned bar in a
+corner of the room, and a new-fashioned young woman seated behind it, who was
+yawning over a piece of fancy needlework, and looked at Spargo when he entered
+as Andromeda may have looked at Perseus when he made arrival at her rock. And
+Spargo, treating himself to a suitable drink and choosing a cigar to accompany
+it, noted the look, and dropped into the nearest chair.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;This,&rdquo; he remarked, eyeing the damsel with enquiry, &ldquo;appears
+to me to be a very quiet place.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Quiet!&rdquo; exclaimed the lady. &ldquo;Quiet?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That,&rdquo; continued Spargo, &ldquo;is precisely what I observed.
+Quiet. I see that you agree with me. You expressed your agreement with two
+shades of emphasis, the surprised and the scornful. We may conclude, thus far,
+that the place is undoubtedly quiet.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The damsel looked at Spargo as if she considered him in the light of a new
+specimen, and picking up her needlework she quitted the bar and coming out into
+the room took a chair near his own.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It makes you thankful to see a funeral go by here,&rdquo; she remarked.
+&ldquo;It&rsquo;s about all that one ever does see.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Are there many?&rdquo; asked Spargo. &ldquo;Do the inhabitants die much
+of inanition?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The damsel gave Spargo another critical inspection.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, you&rsquo;re joking!&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s well you
+can. Nothing ever happens here. This place is a back number.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Even the back numbers make pleasant reading at times,&rdquo; murmured
+Spargo. &ldquo;And the backwaters of life are refreshing. Nothing doing in this
+town, then?&rdquo; he added in a louder voice.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nothing!&rdquo; replied his companion. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s fast asleep. I
+came here from Birmingham, and I didn&rsquo;t know what I was coming to. In
+Birmingham you see as many people in ten minutes as you see here in ten
+months.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah!&rdquo; said Spargo. &ldquo;What you are suffering from is dulness.
+You must have an antidote.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Dulness!&rdquo; exclaimed the damsel. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s the right word
+for Market Milcaster. There&rsquo;s just a few regular old customers drop in
+here of a morning, between eleven and one. A stray caller looks
+in&mdash;perhaps during the afternoon. Then, at night, a lot of old fogies sit
+round that end of the room and talk about old times. Old times,
+indeed!&mdash;what they want in Market Milcaster is new times.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo pricked up his ears.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, but it&rsquo;s rather interesting to hear old fogies talk about
+old times,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I love it!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then you can get as much of it as ever you want here,&rdquo; remarked
+the barmaid. &ldquo;Look in tonight any time after eight o&rsquo;clock, and if
+you don&rsquo;t know more about the history of Market Milcaster by ten than you
+did when you sat down, you must be deaf. There are some old gentlemen drop in
+here every night, regular as clockwork, who seem to feel that they
+couldn&rsquo;t go to bed unless they&rsquo;ve told each other stories about old
+days which I should think they&rsquo;ve heard a thousand times already!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Very old men?&rdquo; asked Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Methuselahs,&rdquo; replied the lady. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s old Mr.
+Quarterpage, across the way there, the auctioneer, though he doesn&rsquo;t do
+any business now&mdash;they say he&rsquo;s ninety, though I&rsquo;m sure you
+wouldn&rsquo;t take him for more than seventy. And there&rsquo;s Mr. Lummis,
+further down the street&mdash;he&rsquo;s eighty-one. And Mr. Skene, and Mr.
+Kaye&mdash;they&rsquo;re regular patriarchs. I&rsquo;ve sat here and listened
+to them till I believe I could write a history of Market Milcaster since the
+year One.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I can conceive of that as a pleasant and profitable occupation,&rdquo;
+said Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He chatted a while longer in a fashion calculated to cheer the barmaid&rsquo;s
+spirits, after which he went out and strolled around the town until seven
+o&rsquo;clock, the &ldquo;Dragon&rsquo;s&rdquo; hour for dinner. There were no
+more people in the big coffee-room than there had been at lunch and Spargo was
+glad, when his solitary meal was over, to escape to the bar-parlour, where he
+took his coffee in a corner near to that sacred part in which the old townsmen
+had been reported to him to sit.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And mind you don&rsquo;t sit in one of their chairs,&rdquo; said the
+barmaid, warningly. &ldquo;They all have their own special chairs and their
+special pipes there on that rack, and I suppose the ceiling would fall in if
+anybody touched pipe or chair. But you&rsquo;re all right there, and
+you&rsquo;ll hear all they&rsquo;ve got to say.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+To Spargo, who had never seen anything of the sort before, and who, twenty-four
+hours previously, would have believed the thing impossible, the proceedings of
+that evening in the bar-parlour of the &ldquo;Yellow Dragon&rdquo; at Market
+Milcaster were like a sudden transference to the eighteenth century. Precisely
+as the clock struck eight and a bell began to toll somewhere in the recesses of
+the High Street, an old gentleman walked in, and the barmaid, catching
+Spargo&rsquo;s eye, gave him a glance which showed that the play was about to
+begin.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Good evening, Mr. Kaye,&rdquo; said the barmaid. &ldquo;You&rsquo;re
+first tonight.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Evening,&rdquo; said Mr. Kaye and took a seat, scowled around him, and
+became silent. He was a tall, lank old gentleman, clad in rusty black clothes,
+with a pointed collar sticking up on both sides of his fringe of grey whisker
+and a voluminous black neckcloth folded several times round his neck, and by
+the expression of his countenance was inclined to look on life severely.
+&ldquo;Nobody been in yet?&rdquo; asked Mr. Kaye. &ldquo;No, but here&rsquo;s
+Mr. Lummis and Mr. Skene,&rdquo; replied the barmaid.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Two more old gentlemen entered the bar-parlour. Of these, one was a little,
+dapper-figured man, clad in clothes of an eminently sporting cut, and of very
+loud pattern; he sported a bright blue necktie, a flower in his lapel, and a
+tall white hat, which he wore at a rakish angle. The other was a big, portly,
+bearded man with a Falstaffian swagger and a rakish eye, who chaffed the
+barmaid as he entered, and gave her a good-humoured chuck under the chin as he
+passed her. These two also sank into chairs which seemed to have been specially
+designed to meet them, and the stout man slapped the arms of his as familiarly
+as he had greeted the barmaid. He looked at his two cronies.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well?&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;Here&rsquo;s three of us. And there&rsquo;s
+a symposium.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Wait a bit, wait a bit,&rdquo; said the dapper little man.
+&ldquo;Grandpa&rsquo;ll be here in a minute. We&rsquo;ll start fair.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The barmaid glanced out of the window.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There&rsquo;s Mr. Quarterpage coming across the street now,&rdquo; she
+announced. &ldquo;Shall I put the things on the table?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Aye, put them on, my dear, put them on!&rdquo; commanded the fat man.
+&ldquo;Have all in readiness.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The barmaid thereupon placed a round table before the sacred chairs, set out
+upon it a fine old punch-bowl and the various ingredients for making punch, a
+box of cigars, and an old leaden tobacco-box, and she had just completed this
+interesting prelude to the evening&rsquo;s discourse when the door opened again
+and in walked one of the most remarkable old men Spargo had ever seen. And by
+this time, knowing that this was the venerable Mr. Benjamin Quarterpage, of
+whom Crowfoot had told him, he took good stock of the newcomer as he took his
+place amongst his friends, who on their part received him with ebullitions of
+delight which were positively boyish.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Quarterpage was a youthful buck of ninety&mdash;a middle-sized,
+sturdily-built man, straight as a dart, still active of limb, clear-eyed, and
+strong of voice. His clean-shaven old countenance was ruddy as a sun-warmed
+pippin; his hair was still only silvered; his hand was steady as a rock. His
+clothes of buff-coloured whipcord were smart and jaunty, his neckerchief as gay
+as if he had been going to a fair. It seemed to Spargo that Mr. Quarterpage had
+a pretty long lease of life before him even at his age.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo, in his corner, sat fascinated while the old gentlemen began their
+symposium. Another, making five, came in and joined them&mdash;the five had the
+end of the bar-parlour to themselves. Mr. Quarterpage made the punch with all
+due solemnity and ceremony; when it was ladled out each man lighted his pipe or
+took a cigar, and the tongues began to wag. Other folk came and went; the old
+gentlemen were oblivious of anything but their own talk. Now and then a young
+gentleman of the town dropped in to take his modest half-pint of bitter beer
+and to dally in the presence of the barmaid; such looked with awe at the
+patriarchs: as for the patriarchs themselves they were lost in the past.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo began to understand what the damsel behind the bar meant when she said
+that she believed she could write a history of Market Milcaster since the year
+One. After discussing the weather, the local events of the day, and various
+personal matters, the old fellows got to reminiscences of the past, telling
+tale after tale, recalling incident upon incident of long years before. At last
+they turned to memories of racing days at Market Milcaster. And at that Spargo
+determined on a bold stroke. Now was the time to get some information. Taking
+the silver ticket from his purse, he laid it, the heraldic device uppermost, on
+the palm of his hand, and approaching the group with a polite bow, said
+quietly:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Gentlemen, can any of you tell me anything about that?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap17"></a>CHAPTER SEVENTEEN<br/>
+MR. QUARTERPAGE HARKS BACK</h2>
+
+<p>
+If Spargo had upset the old gentlemen&rsquo;s bowl of punch&mdash;the second of
+the evening&mdash;or had dropped an infernal machine in their midst, he could
+scarcely have produced a more startling effect than that wrought upon them by
+his sudden production of the silver ticket. Their babble of conversation died
+out; one of them dropped his pipe; another took his cigar out of his mouth as
+if he had suddenly discovered that he was sucking a stick of poison; all lifted
+astonished faces to the interrupter, staring from him to the shining object
+exhibited in his outstretched palm, from it back to him. And at last Mr.
+Quarterpage, to whom Spargo had more particularly addressed himself, spoke,
+pointing with great <i>empressement</i> to the ticket.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Young gentleman!&rdquo; he said, in accents that seemed to Spargo to
+tremble a little, &ldquo;young gentleman, where did you get that?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You know what it is, then?&rdquo; asked Spargo, willing to dally a
+little with the matter. &ldquo;You recognize it?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Know it! Recognize it!&rdquo; exclaimed Mr. Quarterpage. &ldquo;Yes, and
+so does every gentleman present. And it is just because I see you are a
+stranger to this town that I ask you where you got it. Not, I think, young
+gentleman, in this town.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No,&rdquo; replied Spargo. &ldquo;Certainly not in this town. How should
+I get it in this town if I&rsquo;m a stranger?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Quite true, quite true!&rdquo; murmured Mr. Quarterpage. &ldquo;I cannot
+conceive how any person in the town who is in possession of one of
+those&mdash;what shall we call them&mdash;heirlooms?&mdash;yes, heirlooms of
+antiquity, could possibly be base enough to part with it. Therefore, I ask
+again&mdash;Where did you get that, young gentleman?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Before I tell you that,&rdquo; answered Spargo, who, in answer to a
+silent sign from the fat man had drawn a chair amongst them, &ldquo;perhaps you
+will tell me exactly what this is? I see it to be a bit of old, polished, much
+worn silver, having on the obverse the arms or heraldic bearings of somebody or
+something; on the reverse the figure of a running horse. But&mdash;what is
+it?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The five old men all glanced at each other and made simultaneous grunts. Then
+Mr. Quarterpage spoke.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is one of the original fifty burgess tickets of Market Milcaster,
+young sir, which gave its holder special and greatly valued privileges in
+respect to attendance at our once famous race-meeting, now unfortunately a
+thing of the past,&rdquo; he added. &ldquo;Fifty&mdash;aye, forty!&mdash;years
+ago, to be in possession of one of those tickets was&mdash;was&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A grand thing!&rdquo; said one of the old gentlemen.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mr. Lummis is right,&rdquo; said Mr. Quarterpage. &ldquo;It was a grand
+thing&mdash;a very grand thing. Those tickets, sir, were treasured&mdash;are
+treasured. And yet you, a stranger, show us one! You got it, sir&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo saw that it was now necessary to cut matters short.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I found this ticket&mdash;under mysterious circumstances&mdash;in
+London,&rdquo; he answered. &ldquo;I want to trace it. I want to know who its
+original owner was. That is why I have come to Market Milcaster.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Quarterpage slowly looked round the circle of faces.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Wonderful!&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Wonderful! He found this
+ticket&mdash;one of our famous fifty&mdash;in London, and under mysterious
+circumstances. He wants to trace it&mdash;he wants to know to whom it belonged!
+That is why he has come to Market Milcaster. Most extraordinary! Gentlemen, I
+appeal to you if this is not the most extraordinary event that has happened in
+Market Milcaster for&mdash;I don&rsquo;t know how many years?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was a general murmur of assent, and Spargo found everybody looking at him
+as if he had just announced that he had come to buy the whole town.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But&mdash;why?&rdquo; he asked, showing great surprise.
+&ldquo;Why?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why?&rdquo; exclaimed Mr. Quarterpage. &ldquo;Why? He asks&mdash;why?
+Because, young gentleman, it is the greatest surprise to me, and to these
+friends of mine, too, every man jack of &rsquo;em, to hear that any one of our
+fifty tickets ever passed out of the possession of any of the fifty families to
+whom they belonged! And unless I am vastly, greatly, most unexplainably
+mistaken, young sir, you are not a member of any Market Milcaster
+family.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, I&rsquo;m not,&rdquo; admitted Spargo. And he was going to add that
+until the previous evening he had never even heard of Market Milcaster, but he
+wisely refrained. &ldquo;No, I&rsquo;m certainly not,&rdquo; he added.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Quarterpage waved his long pipe.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I believe,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;I believe that if the evening were not
+drawing to a close&mdash;it is already within a few minutes of our departure,
+young gentleman&mdash;I believe, I say, that if I had time, I could, from
+memory, give the names of the fifty families who held those tickets when the
+race-meeting came to an end. I believe I could!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;m sure you could!&rdquo; asserted the little man in the loud
+suit. &ldquo;Never was such a memory as yours, never!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Especially for anything relating to the old racing matters,&rdquo; said
+the fat man. &ldquo;Mr. Quarterpage is a walking encyclopaedia.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;My memory is good,&rdquo; said Mr. Quarterpage. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s the
+greatest blessing I have in my declining years. Yes, I am sure I could do that,
+with a little thought. And what&rsquo;s more, nearly every one of those fifty
+families is still in the town, or if not in the town, close by it, or if not
+close by it, I know where they are. Therefore, I cannot make out how this young
+gentleman&mdash;from London, did you say, sir?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;From London,&rdquo; answered Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;This young gentleman from London comes to be in possession of one of our
+tickets,&rdquo; continued Mr. Quarterpage. &ldquo;It is&mdash;wonderful! But I
+tell you what, young gentleman from London, if you will do me the honour to
+breakfast with me in the morning, sir, I will show you my racing books and
+papers and we will speedily discover who the original holder of that ticket
+was. My name, sir, is Quarterpage&mdash;Benjamin Quarterpage&mdash;and I reside
+at the ivy-covered house exactly opposite this inn, and my breakfast hour is
+nine o&rsquo;clock sharp, and I shall bid you heartily welcome!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo made his best bow.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Sir,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;I am greatly obliged by your kind
+invitation, and I shall consider it an honour to wait upon you to the
+moment.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Accordingly, at five minutes to nine next morning, Spargo found himself in an
+old-fashioned parlour, looking out upon a delightful garden, gay with summer
+flowers, and being introduced by Mr. Quarterpage, Senior, to Mr. Quarterpage,
+Junior&mdash;a pleasant gentleman of sixty, always referred to by his father as
+something quite juvenile&mdash;and to Miss Quarterpage, a young-old lady of
+something a little less elderly than her brother, and to a breakfast table
+bounteously spread with all the choice fare of the season. Mr. Quarterpage,
+Senior, was as fresh and rosy as a cherub; it was a revelation to Spargo to
+encounter so old a man who was still in possession of such life and spirits,
+and of such a vigorous and healthy appetite.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Naturally, the talk over the breakfast table ran on Spargo&rsquo;s possession
+of the old silver ticket, upon which subject it was evident Mr. Quarterpage was
+still exercising his intellect. And Spargo, who had judged it well to enlighten
+his host as to who he was, and had exhibited a letter with which the editor of
+the <i>Watchman</i> had furnished him, told how in the exercise of his
+journalistic duties he had discovered the ticket in the lining of an old box.
+But he made no mention of the Marbury matter, being anxious to see first
+whither Mr. Quarterpage&rsquo;s revelations would lead him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You have no idea, Mr. Spargo,&rdquo; said the old gentleman, when,
+breakfast over, he and Spargo were closeted together in a little library in
+which were abundant evidences of the host&rsquo;s taste in sporting matters;
+&ldquo;you have no idea of the value which was attached to the possession of
+one of those silver tickets. There is mine, as you see, securely framed and
+just as securely fastened to the wall. Those fifty silver tickets, my dear sir,
+were made when our old race-meeting was initiated, in the year 1781. They were
+made in the town by a local silversmith, whose great-great-grandson still
+carries on the business. The fifty were distributed amongst the fifty leading
+burgesses of the town to be kept in their families for ever&mdash;nobody ever
+anticipated in those days that our race-meeting would ever be discontinued. The
+ticket carried great privileges. It made its holder, and all members of his
+family, male and female, free of the stands, rings, and paddocks. It gave the
+holder himself and his eldest son, if of age, the right to a seat at our grand
+race banquet&mdash;at which, I may tell you, Mr. Spargo, Royalty itself has
+been present in the good old days. Consequently, as you see, to be the holder
+of a silver ticket was to be somebody.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And when the race-meeting fell through?&rdquo; asked Spargo. &ldquo;What
+then?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then, of course, the families who held the tickets looked upon them as
+heirlooms, to be taken great care of,&rdquo; replied Mr. Quarterpage.
+&ldquo;They were dealt with as I dealt with mine&mdash;framed on velvet, and
+hung up&mdash;or locked away: I am sure that anybody who had one took the
+greatest care of it. Now, I said last night, over there at the
+&lsquo;Dragon,&rsquo; that I could repeat the names of all the families who
+held these tickets. So I can. But here&rdquo;&mdash;the old gentleman drew out
+a drawer and produced from it a parchment-bound book which he handled with
+great reverence&mdash;&ldquo;here is a little volume of my own
+handwriting&mdash;memoranda relating to Market Milcaster Races&mdash;in which
+is a list of the original holders, together with another list showing who held
+the tickets when the races were given up. I make bold to say, Mr. Spargo, that
+by going through the second list, I could trace every ticket&mdash;except the
+one you have in your purse.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Every one?&rdquo; said Spargo, in some surprise.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Every one! For as I told you,&rdquo; continued Mr. Quarterpage,
+&ldquo;the families are either in the town (we&rsquo;re a conservative people
+here in Market Milcaster and we don&rsquo;t move far afield) or they&rsquo;re
+just outside the town, or they&rsquo;re not far away. I can&rsquo;t conceive
+how the ticket you have&mdash;and it&rsquo;s genuine enough&mdash;could ever
+get out of possession of one of these families, and&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Perhaps,&rdquo; suggested Spargo, &ldquo;it never has been out of
+possession. I told you it was found in the lining of a box&mdash;that box
+belonged to a dead man.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A dead man!&rdquo; exclaimed Mr. Quarterpage. &ldquo;A dead man! Who
+could&mdash;ah! Perhaps&mdash;perhaps I have an idea. Yes!&mdash;an idea. I
+remember something now that I had never thought of.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The old gentleman unfastened the clasp of his parchment-bound book, and turned
+over its pages until he came to one whereon was a list of names. He pointed
+this out to Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There is the list of holders of the silver tickets at the time the
+race-meetings came to an end,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;If you were acquainted
+with this town you would know that those are the names of our best-known
+inhabitants&mdash;all, of course, burgesses. There&rsquo;s mine, you
+see&mdash;Quarterpage. There&rsquo;s Lummis, there&rsquo;s Kaye, there&rsquo;s
+Skene, there&rsquo;s Templeby&mdash;the gentlemen you saw last night. All good
+old town names. They all are&mdash;on this list. I know every family mentioned.
+The holders of that time are many of them dead; but their successors have the
+tickets. Yes&mdash;and now that I think of it, there&rsquo;s only one man who
+held a ticket when this list was made about whom I don&rsquo;t know
+anything&mdash;at least, anything recent. The ticket, Mr. Spargo, which
+you&rsquo;ve found must have been his. But I thought&mdash;I thought somebody
+else had it!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And this man, sir? Who was he?&rdquo; asked Spargo, intuitively
+conscious that he was coming to news. &ldquo;Is his name there?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The old man ran the tip of his finger down the list of names.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There it is!&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;John Maitland.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo bent over the fine writing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, John Maitland,&rdquo; he observed. &ldquo;And who was John
+Maitland?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Quarterpage shook his head. He turned to another of the many drawers in an
+ancient bureau, and began to search amongst a mass of old newspapers, carefully
+sorted into small bundles and tied up.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If you had lived in Market Milcaster one-and-twenty years ago, Mr.
+Spargo,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;you would have known who John Maitland was. For
+some time, sir, he was the best-known man in the place&mdash;aye, and in this
+corner of the world. But&mdash;aye, here it is&mdash;the newspaper of October
+5th, 1891. Now, Mr. Spargo, you&rsquo;ll find in this old newspaper who John
+Maitland was, and all about him. Now, I&rsquo;ll tell you what to do.
+I&rsquo;ve just got to go into my office for an hour to talk the day&rsquo;s
+business over with my son&mdash;you take this newspaper out into the garden
+there with one of these cigars, and read what&rsquo;ll you find in it, and when
+you&rsquo;ve read that we&rsquo;ll have some more talk.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo carried the old newspaper into the sunlit garden.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap18"></a>CHAPTER EIGHTEEN<br/>
+AN OLD NEWSPAPER</h2>
+
+<p>
+As soon as Spargo unfolded the paper he saw what he wanted on the middle page,
+headed in two lines of big capitals. He lighted a cigar and settled down to
+read.
+</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+&ldquo;MARKET MILCASTER QUARTER SESSIONS<br/>
+&ldquo;TRIAL OF JOHN MAITLAND
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The Quarter Sessions for the Borough of Market Milcaster were held on
+Wednesday last, October 3rd, 1891, in the Town Hall, before the Recorder, Henry
+John Campernowne, Esq., K.C., who was accompanied on the bench by the
+Worshipful the Mayor of Market Milcaster (Alderman Pettiford), the Vicar of
+Market Milcaster (the Rev. P.B. Clabberton, M.A., R.D.), Alderman Banks, J.P.,
+Alderman Peters, J.P., Sir Gervais Racton, J.P., Colonel Fludgate, J.P.,
+Captain Murrill, J.P., and other magistrates and gentlemen. There was a crowded
+attendance of the public in anticipation of the trial of John Maitland,
+ex-manager of the Market Milcaster Bank, and the reserved portions of the Court
+were filled with the <i>élite</i> of the town and neighbourhood, including a
+considerable number of ladies who manifested the greatest interest in the
+proceedings.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The Recorder, in charging the Grand Jury, said he regretted that the
+very pleasant and gratifying experience which had been his upon the occasion of
+his last two official visits to Market Milcaster&mdash;he referred to the fact
+that on both those occasions his friend the Worshipful Mayor had been able to
+present him with a pair of white gloves&mdash;was not to be repeated on the
+present occasion. It would be their sad and regrettable lot to have before them
+a fellow-townsman whose family had for generations occupied a foremost position
+in the life of the borough. That fellow-townsman was charged with one of the
+most serious offences known to a commercial nation like ours: the offence of
+embezzling the moneys of the bank of which he had for many years been the
+trusted manager, and with which he had been connected all his life since his
+school days. He understood that the prisoner who would shortly be put before
+the court on his trial was about to plead guilty, and there would accordingly
+be no need for him to direct the gentlemen of the Grand Jury on this
+matter&mdash;what he had to say respecting the gravity and even enormity of the
+offence he would reserve. The Recorder then addressed himself to the Grand Jury
+on the merits of two minor cases, which came before the court at a later period
+of the morning, after which they retired, and having formally returned a true
+bill against the prisoner, and a petty jury, chosen from well-known burgesses
+of the town having been duly sworn.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;JOHN MAITLAND, aged 42, bank manager, of the Bank House, High Street,
+Market Milcaster, was formally charged with embezzling, on April 23rd, 1891,
+the sum of £4,875 10_s_. 6_d_., the moneys of his employers, the Market
+Milcaster Banking Company Ltd., and converting the same to his own use. The
+prisoner, who appeared to feel his position most acutely, and who looked very
+pale and much worn, was represented by Mr. Charles Doolittle, the well-known
+barrister of Kingshaven; Mr. Stephens, K.C., appeared on behalf of the
+prosecution.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Maitland, upon being charged, pleaded guilty.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mr. Stephens, K.C., addressing the Recorder, said that without any
+desire to unduly press upon the prisoner, who, he ventured to think, had taken
+a very wise course in pleading guilty to that particular count in the
+indictment with which he stood charged, he felt bound, in the interests of
+justice, to set forth to the Court some particulars of the defalcations which
+had arisen through the prisoner&rsquo;s much lamented dishonesty. He proposed
+to offer a clear and succinct account of the matter. The prisoner, John
+Maitland, was the last of an old Market Milcaster family&mdash;he was, in fact,
+he believed, with the exception of his own infant son, the very last of the
+race. His father had been manager of the bank before him. Maitland himself had
+entered the service of the bank at the age of eighteen, when he left the local
+Grammar School; he succeeded his father as manager at the age of thirty-two; he
+had therefore occupied this highest position of trust for ten years. His
+directors had the fullest confidence in him; they relied on his honesty and his
+honour; they gave him discretionary powers such as no bank-manager, probably,
+ever enjoyed or held before. In fact, he was so trusted that he was, to all
+intents and purposes, the Market Milcaster Banking Company; in other words he
+was allowed full control over everything, and given full licence to do what he
+liked. Whether the directors were wise in extending such liberty to even the
+most trusted servant, it was not for him (Mr. Stephens) to say; it was some
+consolation, under the circumstances, to know that the loss would fall upon the
+directors, inasmuch as they themselves held nearly the whole of the shares. But
+he had to speak of the loss&mdash;of the serious defalcations which Maitland
+had committed. The prisoner had wisely pleaded guilty to the first count of the
+indictment. But there were no less than seventeen counts in the indictment. He
+had pleaded guilty to embezzling a sum of £4,875 odd. But the total amount of
+the defalcations, comprised in the seventeen counts, was no less&mdash;it
+seemed a most amazing sum!&mdash;than £221,573 8_s_. 6_d_.! There was the
+fact&mdash;the banking company had been robbed of over two hundred thousand
+pounds by the prisoner in the dock before a mere accident, the most trifling
+chance, had revealed to the astounded directors that he was robbing them at
+all. And the most serious feature of the whole case was that not one penny of
+this money had been, or ever could be, recovered. He believed that the
+prisoner&rsquo;s learned counsel was about to urge upon the Court that the
+prisoner himself had been tricked and deceived by another man, unfortunately
+not before the Court&mdash;a man, he understood, also well known in Market
+Milcaster, who was now dead, and therefore could not be called, but whether he
+was so tricked or deceived was no excuse for his clever and wholesale robbing
+of his employers. He had thought it necessary to put these facts&mdash;which
+would not be denied&mdash;before the Court, in order that it might be known how
+heavy the defalcations really had been, and that they should be considered in
+dealing with the prisoner.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The Recorder asked if there was no possibility of recovering any part of
+the vast sum concerned.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mr. Stephens replied that they were informed that there was not the
+remotest chance&mdash;the money, it was said by prisoner and those acting on
+his behalf, had utterly vanished with the death of the man to whom he had just
+made reference.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mr. Doolittle, on behalf of the prisoner, craved to address a few words
+to the Court in mitigation of sentence. He thanked Mr. Stephens for the
+considerate and eminently dispassionate manner in which he had outlined the
+main facts of the case. He had no desire to minimize the prisoner&rsquo;s
+guilt. But, on prisoner&rsquo;s behalf, he desired to tell the true story as to
+how these things came to be. Until as recently as three years previously the
+prisoner had never made the slightest deviation from the straight path of
+integrity. Unfortunately for him, and, he believed, for some others in Market
+Milcaster, there came to the town three years before the present proceedings, a
+man named Chamberlayne, who commenced business in the High Street as a
+stock-and-share broker. A man of good address and the most plausible manners,
+Chamberlayne attracted a good many people&mdash;amongst them his unfortunate
+client. It was matter of common knowledge that Chamberlayne had induced
+numerous persons in Market Milcaster to enter into financial transactions with
+him; it was matter of common repute that those transactions had not always
+turned out well for Chamberlayne&rsquo;s clients. Unhappily for himself,
+Maitland had great faith in Chamberlayne. He had begun to have transactions
+with him in a large way; they had gone on and on in a large way until he was
+involved to vast amounts. Believing thoroughly in Chamberlayne and his methods,
+he had entrusted him with very large sums of money.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The Recorder interrupted Mr. Doolittle at this point to ask if he was to
+understand that Mr. Doolittle was referring to the prisoner&rsquo;s own money.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mr. Doolittle replied that he was afraid the large sums he referred to
+were the property of the bank. But the prisoner had such belief in Chamberlayne
+that he firmly anticipated that all would be well, and that these sums would be
+repaid, and that a vast profit would result from their use.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The Recorder remarked that he supposed the prisoner intended to put the
+profit into his own pockets.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mr. Doolittle said at any rate the prisoner assured him that of the two
+hundred and twenty thousand pounds which was in question, Chamberlayne had had
+the immediate handling of at least two hundred thousand, and he, the prisoner,
+had not the ghost of a notion as to what Chamberlayne had done with it.
+Unfortunately for everybody, for the bank, for some other people, and
+especially for his unhappy client, Chamberlayne died, very suddenly, just as
+these proceedings were instituted, and so far it had been absolutely impossible
+to trace anything of the moneys concerned. He had died under mysterious
+circumstances, and there was just as much mystery about his affairs.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The Recorder observed that he was still waiting to hear what Mr.
+Doolittle had to urge in mitigation of any sentence he, the Recorder, might
+think fit to pass.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mr. Doolittle said that he would trouble the Court with as few remarks
+as possible. All that he could urge on behalf of the unfortunate man in the
+dock was that until three years ago he had borne a most exemplary character,
+and had never committed a dishonest action. It had been his misfortune, his
+folly, to allow a plausible man to persuade him to these acts of dishonesty.
+That man had been called to another account, and the prisoner was left to bear
+the consequences of his association with him. It seemed as if Chamberlayne had
+made away with the money for his own purposes, and it might be that it would
+yet be recovered. He would only ask the Court to remember the prisoner&rsquo;s
+antecedents and his previous good conduct, and to bear in mind that whatever
+his near future might be he was, in a commercial sense, ruined for life.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The Recorder, in passing sentence, said that he had not heard a single
+word of valid excuse for Maitland&rsquo;s conduct. Such dishonesty must be
+punished in the most severe fashion, and the prisoner must go to penal
+servitude for ten years.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Maitland, who heard the sentence unmoved, was removed from the town
+later in the day to the county jail at Saxchester.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo read all this swiftly; then went over it again, noting certain points in
+it. At last he folded up the newspaper and turned to the house&mdash;to see old
+Quarterpage beckoning to him from the library window.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap19"></a>CHAPTER NINETEEN<br/>
+THE CHAMBERLAYNE STORY</h2>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I perceive, sir,&rdquo; said Mr. Quarterpage, as Spargo entered the
+library, &ldquo;that you have read the account of the Maitland trial.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Twice,&rdquo; replied Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And you have come to the conclusion that&mdash;but what conclusion have
+you come to?&rdquo; asked Mr. Quarterpage.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That the silver ticket in my purse was Maitland&rsquo;s property,&rdquo;
+said Spargo, who was not going to give all his conclusions at once.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Just so,&rdquo; agreed the old gentleman. &ldquo;I think so&mdash;I
+can&rsquo;t think anything else. But I was under the impression that I could
+have accounted for that ticket, just as I am sure I can account for the other
+forty-nine.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes&mdash;and how?&rdquo; asked Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Quarterpage turned to a corner cupboard and in silence produced a decanter
+and two curiously-shaped old wine-glasses. He carefully polished the glasses
+with a cloth which he took from a drawer, and set glasses and decanter on a
+table in the window, motioning Spargo to take a chair in proximity thereto. He
+himself pulled up his own elbow-chair.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We&rsquo;ll take a glass of my old brown sherry,&rdquo; he said.
+&ldquo;Though I say it as shouldn&rsquo;t, as the saying goes, I don&rsquo;t
+think you could find better brown sherry than that from Land&rsquo;s End to
+Berwick-upon-Tweed, Mr. Spargo&mdash;no, nor further north either, where they
+used to have good taste in liquor in my young days! Well, here&rsquo;s your
+good health, sir, and I&rsquo;ll tell you about Maitland.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;m curious,&rdquo; said Spargo. &ldquo;And about more than
+Maitland. I want to know about a lot of things arising out of that newspaper
+report. I want to know something about the man referred to so much&mdash;the
+stockbroker, Chamberlayne.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Just so,&rdquo; observed Mr. Quarterpage, smiling. &ldquo;I thought that
+would touch your sense of the inquisitive. But Maitland first. Now, when
+Maitland went to prison, he left behind him a child, a boy, just then about two
+years old. The child&rsquo;s mother was dead. Her sister, a Miss Baylis,
+appeared on the scene&mdash;Maitland had married his wife from a
+distance&mdash;and took possession of the child and of Maitland&rsquo;s
+personal effects. He had been made bankrupt while he was awaiting his trial,
+and all his household goods were sold. But this Miss Baylis took some small
+personal things, and I always believed that she took the silver ticket. And she
+may have done, for anything I know to the contrary. Anyway, she took the child
+away, and there was an end of the Maitland family in Market Milcaster.
+Maitland, of course, was in due procedure of things removed to Dartmoor, and
+there he served his term. There were people who were very anxious to get hold
+of him when he came out&mdash;the bank people, for they believed that he knew
+more about the disposition of that money than he&rsquo;d ever told, and they
+wanted to induce him to tell what they hoped he knew&mdash;between ourselves,
+Mr. Spargo, they were going to make it worth his while to tell.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo tapped the newspaper, which he had retained while the old gentleman
+talked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then they didn&rsquo;t believe what his counsel said&mdash;that
+Chamberlayne got all the money?&rdquo; he asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Quarterpage laughed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No&mdash;nor anybody else!&rdquo; he answered. &ldquo;There was a strong
+idea in the town&mdash;you&rsquo;ll see why afterwards&mdash;that it was all a
+put-up job, and that Maitland cheerfully underwent his punishment knowing that
+there was a nice fortune waiting for him when he came out. And as I say, the
+bank people meant to get hold of him. But though they sent a special agent to
+meet him on his release, they never did get hold of him. Some mistake
+arose&mdash;when Maitland was released, he got clear away. Nobody&rsquo;s ever
+heard a word of him from that day to this. Unless Miss Baylis has.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Where does this Miss Baylis live?&rdquo; asked Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, I don&rsquo;t know,&rdquo; replied Mr. Quarterpage. &ldquo;She did
+live in Brighton when she took the child away, and her address was known, and I
+have it somewhere. But when the bank people sought her out after
+Maitland&rsquo;s release, she, too, had clean disappeared, and all efforts to
+trace her failed. In fact, according to the folks who lived near her in
+Brighton, she&rsquo;d completely disappeared, with the child, five years
+before. So there wasn&rsquo;t a clue to Maitland. He served his time&mdash;made
+a model prisoner&mdash;they did find that much out!&mdash;earned the maximum
+remission, was released, and vanished. And for that very reason there&rsquo;s a
+theory about him in this very town to this very day!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What?&rdquo; asked Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;This. That he&rsquo;s now living comfortably, luxuriously abroad on what
+he got from the bank,&rdquo; replied Mr. Quarterpage. &ldquo;They say that the
+sister-in-law was in at the game; that when she disappeared with the child, she
+went abroad somewhere and made a home ready for Maitland, and that he went off
+to them as soon as he came out. Do you see?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I suppose that was possible,&rdquo; said Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Quite possible, sir. But now,&rdquo; continued the old gentleman,
+replenishing the glasses, &ldquo;now we come on to the Chamberlayne story.
+It&rsquo;s a good deal more to do with the Maitland story than appears at first
+sight, I&rsquo;ll tell it to you and you can form your own conclusions.
+Chamberlayne was a man who came to Market Milcaster&mdash;I don&rsquo;t know
+from where&mdash;in 1886&mdash;five years before the Maitland smash-up. He was
+then about Maitland&rsquo;s age&mdash;a man of thirty-seven or eight. He came
+as clerk to old Mr. Vallas, the rope and twine manufacturer: Vallas&rsquo;s
+place is still there, at the bottom of the High Street, near the river, though
+old Vallas is dead. He was a smart, cute, pushing chap, this Chamberlayne; he
+made himself indispensable to old Vallas, and old Vallas paid him a rare good
+salary. He settled down in the town, and he married a town girl, one of the
+Corkindales, the saddlers, when he&rsquo;d been here three years. Unfortunately
+she died in childbirth within a year of their marriage. It was very soon after
+that that Chamberlayne threw up his post at Vallas&rsquo;s, and started
+business as a stock-and-share broker. He&rsquo;d been a saving man; he&rsquo;d
+got a nice bit of money with his wife; he always let it be known that he had
+money of his own, and he started in a good way. He was a man of the most
+plausible manners: he&rsquo;d have coaxed butter out of a dog&rsquo;s throat if
+he&rsquo;d wanted to. The moneyed men of the town believed in him&mdash;I
+believed in him myself, Mr. Spargo&mdash;I&rsquo;d many a transaction with him,
+and I never lost aught by him&mdash;on the contrary, he did very well for me.
+He did well for most of his clients&mdash;there were, of course, ups and downs,
+but on the whole he satisfied his clients uncommonly well. But, naturally,
+nobody ever knew what was going on between him and Maitland.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I gather from this report,&rdquo; said Spargo, &ldquo;that everything
+came out suddenly&mdash;unexpectedly?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That was so, sir,&rdquo; replied Mr. Quarterpage. &ldquo;Sudden?
+Unexpected? Aye, as a crack of thunder on a fine winter&rsquo;s day. Nobody had
+the ghost of a notion that anything was wrong. John Maitland was much respected
+in the town; much thought of by everybody; well known to everybody. I can
+assure you, Mr. Spargo, that it was no pleasant thing to have to sit on that
+grand jury as I did&mdash;I was its foreman, sir,&mdash;and hear a man
+sentenced that you&rsquo;d regarded as a bosom friend. But there it was!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How was the thing discovered?&rdquo; asked Spargo, anxious to get at
+facts.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;In this way,&rdquo; replied Mr. Quarterpage. &ldquo;The Market Milcaster
+Bank is in reality almost entirely the property of two old families in the
+town, the Gutchbys and the Hostables. Owing to the death of his father, a young
+Hostable, fresh from college, came into the business. He was a shrewd, keen
+young fellow; he got some suspicion, somehow, about Maitland, and he insisted
+on the other partners consenting to a special investigation, and on their
+making it suddenly. And Maitland was caught before he had a chance. But
+we&rsquo;re talking about Chamberlayne.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, about Chamberlayne,&rdquo; agreed Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, now, Maitland was arrested one evening,&rdquo; continued Mr.
+Quarterpage. &ldquo;Of course, the news of his arrest ran through the town like
+wild-fire. Everybody was astonished; he was at that time&mdash;aye, and had
+been for years&mdash;a churchwarden at the Parish Church, and I don&rsquo;t
+think there could have been more surprise if we&rsquo;d heard that the Vicar
+had been arrested for bigamy. In a little town like this, news is all over the
+place in a few minutes. Of course, Chamberlayne would hear that news like
+everybody else. But it was remembered, and often remarked upon afterwards, that
+from the moment of Maitland&rsquo;s arrest nobody in Market Milcaster ever had
+speech with Chamberlayne again. After his wife&rsquo;s death he&rsquo;d taken
+to spending an hour or so of an evening across there at the
+&lsquo;Dragon,&rsquo; where you saw me and my friends last night, but on that
+night he didn&rsquo;t go to the &lsquo;Dragon.&rsquo; And next morning he
+caught the eight o&rsquo;clock train to London. He happened to remark to the
+stationmaster as he got into the train that he expected to be back late that
+night, and that he should have a tiring day of it. But Chamberlayne
+didn&rsquo;t come back that night, Mr. Spargo. He didn&rsquo;t come back to
+Market Milcaster for four days, and when he did come back it was in a
+coffin!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Dead?&rdquo; exclaimed Spargo. &ldquo;That was sudden!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Very sudden,&rdquo; agreed Mr. Quarterpage. &ldquo;Yes, sir, he came
+back in his coffin, did Chamberlayne. On the very evening on which he&rsquo;d
+spoken of being back, there came a telegram here to say that he&rsquo;d died
+very suddenly at the Cosmopolitan Hotel. That telegram came to his
+brother-in-law, Corkindale, the saddler&mdash;you&rsquo;ll find him down the
+street, opposite the Town Hall. It was sent to Corkindale by a nephew of
+Chamberlayne&rsquo;s, another Chamberlayne, Stephen, who lived in London, and
+was understood to be on the Stock Exchange there. I saw that telegram, Mr.
+Spargo, and it was a long one. It said that Chamberlayne had had a sudden
+seizure, and though a doctor had been got to him he&rsquo;d died shortly
+afterwards. Now, as Chamberlayne had his nephew and friends in London, his
+brother-in-law, Tom Corkindale, didn&rsquo;t feel that there was any necessity
+for him to go up to town, so he just sent off a wire to Stephen Chamberlayne
+asking if there was aught he could do. And next morning came another wire from
+Stephen saying that no inquest would be necessary, as the doctor had been
+present and able to certify the cause of death, and would Corkindale make all
+arrangements for the funeral two days later. You see, Chamberlayne had bought a
+vault in our cemetery when he buried his wife, so naturally they wished to bury
+him in it, with her.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo nodded. He was beginning to imagine all sorts of things and theories; he
+was taking everything in.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well,&rdquo; continued Mr. Quarterpage, &ldquo;on the second day after
+that, they brought Chamberlayne&rsquo;s body down. Three of &rsquo;em came with
+it&mdash;Stephen Chamberlayne, the doctor who&rsquo;d been called in, and a
+solicitor. Everything was done according to proper form and usage. As
+Chamberlayne had been well known in the town, a good number of townsfolk met
+the body at the station and followed it to the cemetery. Of course, many of us
+who had been clients of Chamberlayne&rsquo;s were anxious to know how he had
+come to such a sudden end. According to Stephen Chamberlayne&rsquo;s account,
+our Chamberlayne had wired to him and to his solicitor to meet him at the
+Cosmopolitan to do some business. They were awaiting him there when he arrived,
+and they had lunch together. After that, they got to their business in a
+private room. Towards the end of the afternoon, Chamberlayne was taken suddenly
+ill, and though they got a doctor to him at once, he died before evening. The
+doctor said he&rsquo;d a diseased heart. Anyhow, he was able to certify the
+cause of his death, so there was no inquest and they buried him, as I have told
+you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The old gentleman paused and, taking a sip at his sherry, smiled at some
+reminiscence which occurred to him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well,&rdquo; he said, presently going on, &ldquo;of course, on that came
+all the Maitland revelations, and Maitland vowed and declared that Chamberlayne
+had not only had nearly all the money, but that he was absolutely certain that
+most of it was in his hands in hard cash. But Chamberlayne, Mr. Spargo, had
+left practically nothing. All that could be traced was about three or four
+thousand pounds. He&rsquo;d left everything to his nephew, Stephen. There
+wasn&rsquo;t a trace, a clue to the vast sums with which Maitland had entrusted
+him. And then people began to talk, and they said what some of them say to this
+very day!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What&rsquo;s that?&rdquo; asked Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Quarterpage leaned forward and tapped his guest on the arm.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That Chamberlayne never did die, and that that coffin was weighted with
+lead!&rdquo; he answered.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap20"></a>CHAPTER TWENTY<br/>
+MAITLAND <i>ALIAS</i> MARBURY</h2>
+
+<p>
+This remarkable declaration awoke such a new conception of matters in
+Spargo&rsquo;s mind, aroused such infinitely new possibilities in his
+imagination, that for a full moment he sat silently staring at his informant,
+who chuckled with quiet enjoyment at his visitor&rsquo;s surprise.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Do you mean to tell me,&rdquo; said Spargo at last, &ldquo;that there
+are people in this town who still believe that the coffin in your cemetery
+which is said to contain Chamberlayne&rsquo;s body contains&mdash;lead?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Lots of &rsquo;em, my dear sir!&rdquo; replied Mr. Quarterpage.
+&ldquo;Lots of &rsquo;em! Go out in the street and ask the first six men you
+meet, and I&rsquo;ll go bail that four out of the six believe it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then why, in the sacred name of common sense did no one ever take steps
+to make certain?&rdquo; asked Spargo. &ldquo;Why didn&rsquo;t they get an order
+for exhumation?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Because it was nobody&rsquo;s particular business to do so,&rdquo;
+answered Mr. Quarterpage. &ldquo;You don&rsquo;t know country-town life, my
+dear sir. In towns like Market Milcaster folks talk and gossip a great deal,
+but they&rsquo;re always slow to do anything. It&rsquo;s a case of who&rsquo;ll
+start first&mdash;of initiative. And if they see it&rsquo;s going to cost
+anything&mdash;then they&rsquo;ll have nothing to do with it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But&mdash;the bank people?&rdquo; suggested Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Quarterpage shook his head.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;They&rsquo;re amongst the lot who believe that Chamberlayne did
+die,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;They&rsquo;re very old-fashioned,
+conservative-minded people, the Gutchbys and the Hostables, and they accepted
+the version of the nephew, and the doctor, and the solicitor. But now
+I&rsquo;ll tell you something about those three. There was a man here in the
+town, a gentleman of your own profession, who came to edit that paper
+you&rsquo;ve got on your knee. He got interested in this Chamberlayne case, and
+he began to make enquiries with the idea of getting hold of some
+good&mdash;what do you call it?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I suppose he&rsquo;d call it &lsquo;copy,&rsquo;&rdquo; said Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;Copy&rsquo;&mdash;that was his term,&rdquo; agreed Mr.
+Quarterpage. &ldquo;Well, he took the trouble to go to London to ask some quiet
+questions of the nephew, Stephen. That was just twelve months after
+Chamberlayne had been buried. But he found that Stephen Chamberlayne had left
+England&mdash;months before. Gone, they said, to one of the colonies, but they
+didn&rsquo;t know which. And the solicitor had also gone. And the
+doctor&mdash;couldn&rsquo;t be traced, no, sir, not even through the Medical
+Register. What do you think of all that, Mr. Spargo?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I think,&rdquo; answered Spargo, &ldquo;that Market Milcaster folk are
+considerably slow. I should have had that death and burial enquired into. The
+whole thing looks to me like a conspiracy.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, sir, it was, as I say, nobody&rsquo;s business,&rdquo; said Mr.
+Quarterpage. &ldquo;The newspaper gentleman tried to stir up interest in it,
+but it was no good, and very soon afterwards he left. And there it is.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mr. Quarterpage,&rdquo; said Spargo, &ldquo;what&rsquo;s your own honest
+opinion?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The old gentleman smiled.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah!&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve often wondered, Mr. Spargo, if I
+really have an opinion on that point. I think that what I probably feel about
+the whole affair is that there was a good deal of mystery attaching to it. But
+we seem, sir, to have gone a long way from the question of that old silver
+ticket which you&rsquo;ve got in your purse. Now&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No!&rdquo; said Spargo, interrupting his host with an accompanying wag
+of his forefinger. &ldquo;No! I think we&rsquo;re coming nearer to it. Now
+you&rsquo;ve given me a great deal of your time, Mr. Quarterpage, and told me a
+lot, and, first of all, before I tell you a lot, I&rsquo;m going to show you
+something.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And Spargo took out of his pocket-book a carefully-mounted photograph of John
+Marbury&mdash;the original of the process-picture which he had had made for the
+<i>Watchman</i>. He handed it over.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Do you recognize that photograph as that of anybody you know?&rdquo; he
+asked. &ldquo;Look at it well and closely.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Quarterpage put on a special pair of spectacles and studied the photograph
+from several points of view.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, sir,&rdquo; he said at last with a shake of the head. &ldquo;I
+don&rsquo;t recognize it at all.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Can&rsquo;t see in it any resemblance to any man you&rsquo;ve ever
+known?&rdquo; asked Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, sir, none!&rdquo; replied Mr. Quarterpage. &ldquo;None
+whatever.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Very well,&rdquo; said Spargo, laying the photograph on the table
+between them. &ldquo;Now, then, I want you to tell me what John Maitland was
+like when you knew him. Also, I want you to describe Chamberlayne as he was
+when he died, or was supposed to die. You remember them, of course, quite
+well?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Quarterpage got up and moved to the door.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I can do better than that,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I can show you
+photographs of both men as they were just before Maitland&rsquo;s trial. I have
+a photograph of a small group of Market Milcaster notabilities which was taken
+at a municipal garden-party; Maitland and Chamberlayne are both in it.
+It&rsquo;s been put away in a cabinet in my drawing-room for many a long year,
+and I&rsquo;ve no doubt it&rsquo;s as fresh as when it was taken.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He left the room and presently returned with a large mounted photograph which
+he laid on the table before his visitor.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There you are, sir,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Quite fresh, you see&mdash;it
+must be getting on to twenty years since that was taken out of the drawer that
+it&rsquo;s been kept in. Now, that&rsquo;s Maitland. And that&rsquo;s
+Chamberlayne.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo found himself looking at a group of men who stood against an ivy-covered
+wall in the stiff attitudes in which photographers arrange masses of sitters.
+He fixed his attention on the two figures indicated by Mr. Quarterpage, and saw
+two medium-heighted, rather sturdily-built men about whom there was nothing
+very specially noticeable.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Um!&rdquo; he said, musingly. &ldquo;Both bearded.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, they both wore beards&mdash;full beards,&rdquo; assented Mr.
+Quarterpage. &ldquo;And you see, they weren&rsquo;t so much alike. But Maitland
+was a much darker man than Chamberlayne, and he had brown eyes, while
+Chamberlayne&rsquo;s were rather a bright blue.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The removal of a beard makes a great difference,&rdquo; remarked Spargo.
+He looked at the photograph of Maitland in the group, comparing it with that of
+Marbury which he had taken from his pocket. &ldquo;And twenty years makes a
+difference, too,&rdquo; he added musingly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;To some people twenty years makes a vast difference, sir,&rdquo; said
+the old gentleman. &ldquo;To others it makes none&mdash;I haven&rsquo;t changed
+much, they tell me, during the past twenty years. But I&rsquo;ve known men
+change&mdash;age, almost beyond recognition!&mdash;in five years. It depends,
+sir, on what they go through.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo suddenly laid aside the photographs, put his hands in his pockets, and
+looked steadfastly at Mr. Quarterpage.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Look here!&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m going to tell you what
+I&rsquo;m after, Mr. Quarterpage. I&rsquo;m sure you&rsquo;ve heard all about
+what&rsquo;s known as the Middle Temple Murder&mdash;the Marbury case?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, I&rsquo;ve read of it,&rdquo; replied Mr. Quarterpage.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Have you read the accounts of it in my paper, the
+<i>Watchman</i>?&rdquo; asked Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Quarterpage shook his head.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve only read one newspaper, sir, since I was a young man,&rdquo;
+he replied. &ldquo;I take the <i>Times</i>, sir&mdash;we always took it, aye,
+even in the days when newspapers were taxed.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Very good,&rdquo; said Spargo. &ldquo;But perhaps I can tell you a
+little more than you&rsquo;ve read, for I&rsquo;ve been working up that case
+ever since the body of the man known as John Marbury was found. Now, if
+you&rsquo;ll just give me your attention, I&rsquo;ll tell you the whole story
+from that moment until&mdash;now.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And Spargo, briefly, succinctly, re-told the story of the Marbury case from the
+first instant of his own connection with it until the discovery of the silver
+ticket, and Mr. Quarterpage listened in rapt attention, nodding his head from
+time to time as the younger man made his points.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And now, Mr. Quarterpage,&rdquo; concluded Spargo, &ldquo;this is the
+point I&rsquo;ve come to. I believe that the man who came to the Anglo-Orient
+Hotel as John Marbury and who was undoubtedly murdered in Middle Temple Lane
+that night, was John Maitland&mdash;I haven&rsquo;t a doubt about it after
+learning what you tell me about the silver ticket. I&rsquo;ve found out a great
+deal that&rsquo;s valuable here, and I think I&rsquo;m getting nearer to a
+solution of the mystery. That is, of course, to find out who murdered John
+Maitland, or Marbury. What you have told me about the Chamberlayne affair has
+led me to think this&mdash;there may have been people, or a person, in London,
+who was anxious to get Marbury, as we&rsquo;ll call him, out of the way, and
+who somehow encountered him that night&mdash;anxious to silence him, I mean,
+because of the Chamberlayne affair. And I wondered, as there is so much mystery
+about him, and as he won&rsquo;t give any account of himself, if this man
+Aylmore was really Chamberlayne. Yes, I wondered that! But Aylmore&rsquo;s a
+tall, finely-built man, quite six feet in height, and his beard, though
+it&rsquo;s now getting grizzled, has been very dark, and Chamberlayne, you say,
+was a medium-sized, fair man, with blue eyes.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s so, sir,&rdquo; assented Mr. Quarterpage. &ldquo;Yes, a
+middling-sized man, and fair&mdash;very fair. Deary me, Mr. Spargo!&mdash;this
+is a revelation. And you really think, sir, that John Maitland and John Marbury
+are one and the same person?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;m sure of it, now,&rdquo; said Spargo. &ldquo;I see it in this
+way. Maitland, on his release, went out to Australia, and there he stopped. At
+last he comes back, evidently well-to-do. He&rsquo;s murdered the very day of
+his arrival. Aylmore is the only man who knows anything of him&mdash;Aylmore
+won&rsquo;t tell all he knows; that&rsquo;s flat. But Aylmore&rsquo;s admitted
+that he knew him at some vague date, say from twenty-one to twenty-two or three
+years ago. Now, where did Aylmore know him? He says in London. That&rsquo;s a
+vague term. He won&rsquo;t say where&mdash;he won&rsquo;t say anything
+definite&mdash;he won&rsquo;t even say what he, Aylmore, himself was in those
+days. Do you recollect anything of anybody like Aylmore coming here to see
+Maitland, Mr. Quarterpage?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t,&rdquo; answered Mr. Quarterpage. &ldquo;Maitland was a
+very quiet, retiring fellow, sir: he was about the quietest man in the town. I
+never remember that he had visitors; certainly I&rsquo;ve no recollection of
+such a friend of his as this Aylmore, from your description of him, would be at
+that time.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Did Maitland go up to London much in those days?&rdquo; asked Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Quarterpage laughed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, now, to show you what a good memory I have,&rdquo; he said,
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll tell you of something that occurred across there at the
+&lsquo;Dragon&rsquo; only a few months before the Maitland affair came out.
+There were some of us in there one evening, and, for a rare thing, Maitland
+came in with Chamberlayne. Chamberlayne happened to remark that he was going up
+to town next day&mdash;he was always to and fro&mdash;and we got talking about
+London. And Maitland said in course of conversation, that he believed he was
+about the only man of his age in England&mdash;and, of course, he meant of his
+class and means&mdash;who&rsquo;d never even seen London! And I don&rsquo;t
+think he ever went there between that time and his trial: in fact, I&rsquo;m
+sure he didn&rsquo;t, for if he had, I should have heard of it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, that&rsquo;s queer,&rdquo; remarked Spargo. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s very
+queer. For I&rsquo;m certain Maitland and Marbury are one and the same person.
+My theory about that old leather box is that Maitland had that carefully
+planted before his arrest; that he dug it up when he came put of Dartmoor; that
+he took it off to Australia with him; that he brought it back with him; and
+that, of course, the silver ticket and the photograph had been in it all these
+years. Now&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At that moment the door of the library was opened, and a parlourmaid looked in
+at her master.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There&rsquo;s the boots from the &lsquo;Dragon&rsquo; at the front door,
+sir,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s brought two telegrams across from there
+for Mr. Spargo, thinking he might like to have them at once.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap21"></a>CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE<br/>
+ARRESTED</h2>
+
+<p>
+Spargo hurried out to the hall, took the two telegrams from the boots of the
+&ldquo;Dragon,&rdquo; and, tearing open the envelopes, read the messages
+hastily. He went back to Mr. Quarterpage.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Here&rsquo;s important news,&rdquo; he said as he closed the library
+door and resumed his seat. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll read these telegrams to you, sir,
+and then we can discuss them in the light of what we&rsquo;ve been talking
+about this morning. The first is from our office. I told you we sent over to
+Australia for a full report about Marbury at the place he said he hailed
+from&mdash;Coolumbidgee. That report&rsquo;s just reached the <i>Watchman</i>,
+and they&rsquo;ve wired it on to me. It&rsquo;s from the chief of police at
+Coolumbidgee to the editor of the <i>Watchman</i>, London:&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p class="letter">
+&ldquo;John Marbury came to Coolumbidgee in the winter of 1898-9. He was
+unaccompanied. He appeared to be in possession of fairly considerable means and
+bought a share in a small sheep-farm from its proprietor, Andrew Robertson, who
+is still here, and who says that Marbury never told him anything about himself
+except that he had emigrated for health reasons and was a widower. He mentioned
+that he had had a son who was dead, and was now without relations. He lived a
+very quiet, steady life on the sheep-farm, never leaving it for many years.
+About six months ago, however, he paid a visit to Melbourne, and on returning
+told Robertson that he had decided to return to England in consequence of some
+news he had received, and must therefore sell his share in the farm. Robertson
+bought it from him for three thousand pounds, and Marbury shortly afterwards
+left for Melbourne. From what we could gather, Robertson thinks Marbury was
+probably in command of five or six thousand when he left Coolumbidgee. He told
+Robertson that he had met a man in Melbourne who had given him news that
+surprised him, but did not say what news. He had in his possession when he left
+Robertson exactly the luggage he brought with him when he came&mdash;a stout
+portmanteau and a small, square leather box. There are no effects of his left
+behind at Coolumbidgee.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s all,&rdquo; said Spargo, laying the first of the telegrams
+on the table. &ldquo;And it seems to me to signify a good deal. But now
+here&rsquo;s more startling news. This is from Rathbury, the Scotland Yard
+detective that I told you of, Mr. Quarterpage&mdash;he promised, you know, to
+keep me posted in what went on in my absence. Here&rsquo;s what he says:
+</p>
+
+<p class="letter">
+&ldquo;Fresh evidence tending to incriminate Aylmore has come to hand.
+Authorities have decided to arrest him on suspicion. You&rsquo;d better hurry
+back if you want material for to-morrow&rsquo;s paper.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo threw that telegram down, too, waited while the old gentleman glanced at
+both of them with evident curiosity, and then jumped up.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, I shall have to go, Mr. Quarterpage,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I
+looked the trains out this morning so as to be in readiness. I can catch the
+1.20 to Paddington&mdash;that&rsquo;ll get me in before half-past four.
+I&rsquo;ve an hour yet. Now, there&rsquo;s another man I want to see in Market
+Milcaster. That&rsquo;s the photographer&mdash;or a photographer. You remember
+I told you of the photograph found with the silver ticket? Well, I&rsquo;m
+calculating that that photograph was taken here, and I want to see the man who
+took it&mdash;if he&rsquo;s alive and I can find him.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Quarterpage rose and put on his hat.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There&rsquo;s only one photographer in this town, sir,&rdquo; he said,
+&ldquo;and he&rsquo;s been here for a good many years&mdash;Cooper. I&rsquo;ll
+take you to him&mdash;it&rsquo;s only a few doors away.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo wasted no time in letting the photographer know what he wanted. He put a
+direct question to Mr. Cooper&mdash;an elderly man.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Do you remember taking a photograph of the child of John Maitland, the
+bank manager, some twenty or twenty-one years ago?&rdquo; he asked, after Mr.
+Quarterpage had introduced him as a gentleman from London who wanted to ask a
+few questions.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Quite well, sir,&rdquo; replied Mr. Cooper. &ldquo;As well as if it had
+been yesterday.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Do you still happen to have a copy of it?&rdquo; asked Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But Mr. Cooper had already turned to a row of file albums. He took down one
+labelled 1891, and began to search its pages. In a minute or two he laid it on
+his table before his callers.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There you are, sir,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s the
+child!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo gave one glance at the photograph and turned to Mr. Quarterpage.
+&ldquo;Just as I thought,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s the same
+photograph we found in the leather box with the silver ticket. I&rsquo;m
+obliged to you, Mr. Cooper. Now, there&rsquo;s just one more question I want to
+ask. Did you ever supply any further copies of this photograph to anybody after
+the Maitland affair?&mdash;that is; after the family had left the town?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; replied the photographer. &ldquo;I supplied half a dozen
+copies to Miss Baylis, the child&rsquo;s aunt, who, as a matter of fact,
+brought him here to be photographed. And I can give you her address,
+too,&rdquo; he continued, beginning to turn over another old file. &ldquo;I
+have it somewhere.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Quarterpage nudged Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s something I couldn&rsquo;t have done!&rdquo; he remarked.
+&ldquo;As I told you, she&rsquo;d disappeared from Brighton when enquiries were
+made after Maitland&rsquo;s release.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Here you are,&rdquo; said Mr. Cooper. &ldquo;I sent six copies of that
+photograph to Miss Baylis in April, 1895. Her address was then 6, Chichester
+Square, Bayswater, W.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo rapidly wrote this address down, thanked the photographer for his
+courtesy, and went out with Mr. Quarterpage. In the street he turned to the old
+gentleman with a smile.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, I don&rsquo;t think there&rsquo;s much doubt about that!&rdquo; he
+exclaimed. &ldquo;Maitland and Marbury are the same man, Mr. Quarterpage.
+I&rsquo;m as certain of that as that I see your Town Hall there.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And what will you do next, sir?&rdquo; enquired Mr. Quarterpage.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Thank you&mdash;as I do&mdash;for all your kindness and assistance, and
+get off to town by this 1.20,&rdquo; replied Spargo. &ldquo;And I shan&rsquo;t
+fail to let you know how things go on.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;One moment,&rdquo; said the old gentleman, as Spargo was hurrying away,
+&ldquo;do you think this Mr. Aylmore really murdered Maitland?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No!&rdquo; answered Spargo with emphasis. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t! And I
+think we&rsquo;ve got a good deal to do before we find out who did.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo purposely let the Marbury case drop out of his mind during his journey
+to town. He ate a hearty lunch in the train and talked with his neighbours; it
+was a relief to let his mind and attention turn to something else than the
+theme which had occupied it unceasingly for so many days. But at Reading the
+newspaper boys were shouting the news of the arrest of a Member of Parliament,
+and Spargo, glancing out of the window, caught sight of a newspaper placard:
+</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+THE MARBURY MURDER CASE<br/>
+ARREST OF MR. AYLMORE
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He snatched a paper from a boy as the train moved out and, unfolding it, found
+a mere announcement in the space reserved for stop-press news:
+</p>
+
+<p class="letter">
+&ldquo;Mr. Stephen Aylmore, M.P., was arrested at two o&rsquo;clock this
+afternoon, on his way to the House of Commons, on a charge of being concerned
+in the murder of John Marbury in Middle Temple Lane on the night of June 21st
+last. It is understood he will be brought up at Bow Street at ten o&rsquo;clock
+tomorrow morning.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo hurried to New Scotland Yard as soon as he reached Paddington. He met
+Rathbury coming away from his room. At sight of him, the detective turned back.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, so there you are!&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I suppose you&rsquo;ve
+heard the news?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo nodded as he dropped into a chair.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What led to it?&rdquo; he asked abruptly. &ldquo;There must have been
+something.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There was something,&rdquo; he replied. &ldquo;The thing&mdash;stick,
+bludgeon, whatever you like to call it, some foreign article&mdash;with which
+Marbury was struck down was found last night.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well?&rdquo; asked Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It was proved to be Aylmore&rsquo;s property,&rdquo; answered Rathbury.
+&ldquo;It was a South American curio that he had in his rooms in Fountain
+Court.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Where was it found?&rdquo; asked Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Rathbury laughed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He was a clumsy fellow who did it, whether he was Aylmore or whoever he
+was!&rdquo; he replied. &ldquo;Do you know, it had been dropped into a
+sewer-trap in Middle Temple Lane&mdash;actually! Perhaps the murderer thought
+it would be washed out into the Thames and float away. But, of course, it was
+bound to come to light. A sewer man found it yesterday evening, and it was
+quickly recognized by the woman who cleans up for Aylmore as having been in his
+rooms ever since she knew them.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What does Aylmore say about it?&rdquo; asked Spargo. &ldquo;I suppose
+he&rsquo;s said something?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Says that the bludgeon is certainly his, and that he brought it from
+South America with him,&rdquo; announced Rathbury; &ldquo;but that he
+doesn&rsquo;t remember seeing it in his rooms for some time, and thinks that it
+was stolen from them.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Um!&rdquo; said Spargo, musingly. &ldquo;But&mdash;how do you know that
+was the thing that Marbury was struck down with?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Rathbury smiled grimly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There&rsquo;s some of his hair on it&mdash;mixed with blood,&rdquo; he
+answered. &ldquo;No doubt about that. Well&mdash;anything come of your jaunt
+westward?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; replied Spargo. &ldquo;Lots!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Good?&rdquo; asked Rathbury.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Extra good. I&rsquo;ve found out who Marbury really was.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No! Really?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No doubt, to my mind. I&rsquo;m certain of it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Rathbury sat down at his desk, watching Spargo with rapt attention.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And who was he?&rdquo; he asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;John Maitland, once of Market Milcaster,&rdquo; replied Spargo.
+&ldquo;Ex-bank manager. Also ex-convict.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ex-convict!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ex-convict. He was sentenced, at Market Milcaster Quarter Sessions, in
+autumn, 1891, to ten years&rsquo; penal servitude, for embezzling the
+bank&rsquo;s money, to the tune of over two hundred thousand pounds. Served his
+term at Dartmoor. Went to Australia as soon, or soon after, he came out.
+That&rsquo;s who Marbury was&mdash;Maitland. Dead&mdash;certain!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Rathbury still stared at his caller.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Go on!&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Tell all about it, Spargo. Let&rsquo;s
+hear every detail. I&rsquo;ll tell you all I know after. But what I
+know&rsquo;s nothing to that.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo told him the whole story of his adventures at Market Milcaster, and the
+detective listened with rapt attention.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; he said at the end. &ldquo;Yes&mdash;I don&rsquo;t think
+there&rsquo;s much doubt about that. Well, that clears up a lot, doesn&rsquo;t
+it?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo yawned.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, a whole slate full is wiped off there,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I
+haven&rsquo;t so much interest in Marbury, or Maitland now. My interest is all
+in Aylmore.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Rathbury nodded.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;The thing to find out is&mdash;who is
+Aylmore, or who was he, twenty years ago?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Your people haven&rsquo;t found anything out, then?&rdquo; asked Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nothing beyond the irreproachable history of Mr. Aylmore since he
+returned to this country, a very rich man, some ten years since,&rdquo;
+answered Rathbury, smiling. &ldquo;They&rsquo;ve no previous dates to go on.
+What are you going to do next, Spargo?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Seek out that Miss Baylis,&rdquo; replied Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You think you could get something there?&rdquo; asked Rathbury.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Look here!&rdquo; said Spargo. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t believe for a second
+Aylmore killed Marbury. I believe I shall get at the truth by following up what
+I call the Maitland trail. This Miss Baylis must know something&mdash;if
+she&rsquo;s alive. Well, now I&rsquo;m going to report at the office. Keep in
+touch with me, Rathbury.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He went on then to the <i>Watchman</i> office, and as he got out of his
+taxi-cab at its door, another cab came up and set down Mr. Aylmore&rsquo;s
+daughters.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap22"></a>CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO<br/>
+THE BLANK PAST</h2>
+
+<p>
+Jessie Aylmore came forward to meet Spargo with ready confidence; the elder
+girl hung back diffidently.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;May we speak to you?&rdquo; said Jessie. &ldquo;We have come on purpose
+to speak to you. Evelyn didn&rsquo;t want to come, but I made her come.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo shook hands silently with Evelyn Aylmore and motioned them both to
+follow him. He took them straight upstairs to his room and bestowed them in his
+easiest chairs before he addressed them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve only just got back to town,&rdquo; he said abruptly. &ldquo;I
+was sorry to hear the news about your father. That&rsquo;s what&rsquo;s brought
+you here, of course. But&mdash;I&rsquo;m afraid I can&rsquo;t do much.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I told you that we had no right to trouble Mr. Spargo, Jessie,&rdquo;
+said Evelyn Aylmore. &ldquo;What can he do to help us?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jessie shook her head impatiently.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The <i>Watchman&rsquo;s</i> about the most powerful paper in London,
+isn&rsquo;t it?&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;And isn&rsquo;t Mr. Spargo writing all
+these articles about the Marbury case? Mr. Spargo, you must help us!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo sat down at his desk and began turning over the letters and papers which
+had accumulated during his absence.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;To be absolutely frank with you,&rdquo; he said, presently, &ldquo;I
+don&rsquo;t see how anybody&rsquo;s going to help, so long as your father keeps
+up that mystery about the past.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That,&rdquo; said Evelyn, quietly, &ldquo;is exactly what Ronald says,
+Jessie. But we can&rsquo;t make our father speak, Mr. Spargo. That he is as
+innocent as we are of this terrible crime we are certain, and we don&rsquo;t
+know why he wouldn&rsquo;t answer the questions put to him at the inquest.
+And&mdash;we know no more than you know or anyone knows, and though I have
+begged my father to speak, he won&rsquo;t say a word. We saw his danger:
+Ronald&mdash;Mr. Breton&mdash;told us, and we implored him to tell everything
+he knew about Mr. Marbury. But so far he has simply laughed at the idea that he
+had anything to do with the murder, or could be arrested for it, and
+now&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And now he&rsquo;s locked up,&rdquo; said Spargo in his usual
+matter-of-fact fashion. &ldquo;Well, there are people who have to be saved from
+themselves, you know. Perhaps you&rsquo;ll have to save your father from the
+consequences of his own&mdash;shall we say obstinacy? Now, look here, between
+ourselves, how much do you know about your father&rsquo;s&mdash;past?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The two sisters looked at each other and then at Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nothing,&rdquo; said the elder.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Absolutely nothing!&rdquo; said the younger.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Answer a few plain questions,&rdquo; said Spargo. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m not
+going to print your replies, nor make use of them in any way: I&rsquo;m only
+asking the questions with a desire to help you. Have you any relations in
+England?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;None that we know of,&rdquo; replied Evelyn.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nobody you could go to for information about the past?&rdquo; asked
+Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No&mdash;nobody!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo drummed his fingers on his blotting-pad. He was thinking hard.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How old is your father?&rdquo; he asked suddenly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He was fifty-nine a few weeks ago,&rdquo; answered Evelyn.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And how old are you, and how old is your sister?&rdquo; demanded Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am twenty, and Jessie is nearly nineteen.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Where were you born?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Both of us at San Gregorio, which is in the San José province of
+Argentina, north of Monte Video.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Your father was in business there?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He was in business in the export trade, Mr. Spargo. There&rsquo;s no
+secret about that. He exported all sorts of things to England and to
+France&mdash;skins, hides, wools, dried salts, fruit. That&rsquo;s how he made
+his money.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You don&rsquo;t know how long he&rsquo;d been there when you were
+born?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Was he married when he went out there?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, he wasn&rsquo;t. We do know that. He&rsquo;s told us the
+circumstances of his marriage, because they were romantic. When he sailed from
+England to Buenos Ayres, he met on the steamer a young lady who, he said, was
+like himself, relationless and nearly friendless. She was going out to
+Argentina as a governess. She and my father fell in love with each other, and
+they were married in Buenos Ayres soon after the steamer arrived.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And your mother is dead?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;My mother died before we came to England. I was eight years old, and
+Jessie six, then.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And you came to England&mdash;how long after that?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Two years.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;So that you&rsquo;ve been in England ten years. And you know nothing
+whatever of your father&rsquo;s past beyond what you&rsquo;ve told me?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nothing&mdash;absolutely nothing.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Never heard him talk of&mdash;you see, according to your account, your
+father was a man of getting on to forty when he went out to Argentina. He must
+have had a career of some sort in this country. Have you never heard him speak
+of his boyhood? Did he never talk of old times, or that sort of thing?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I never remember hearing my father speak of any period antecedent to his
+marriage,&rdquo; replied Evelyn.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I once asked him a question about his childhood.&rdquo; said Jessie.
+&ldquo;He answered that his early days had not been very happy ones, and that
+he had done his best to forget them. So I never asked him anything
+again.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;So that it really comes to this,&rdquo; remarked Spargo. &ldquo;You know
+nothing whatever about your father, his family, his fortunes, his life, beyond
+what you yourselves have observed since you were able to observe? That&rsquo;s
+about it, isn&rsquo;t it?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I should say that that is exactly it,&rdquo; answered Evelyn.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Just so,&rdquo; said Spargo. &ldquo;And therefore, as I told your sister
+the other day, the public will say that your father has some dark secret behind
+him, and that Marbury had possession of it, and that your father killed him in
+order to silence him. That isn&rsquo;t my view. I not only believe your father
+to be absolutely innocent, but I believe that he knows no more than a child
+unborn of Marbury&rsquo;s murder, and I&rsquo;m doing my best to find out who
+that murderer was. By the by, since you&rsquo;ll see all about it in tomorrow
+morning&rsquo;s <i>Watchman</i>, I may as well tell you that I&rsquo;ve found
+out who Marbury really was. He&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At this moment Spargo&rsquo;s door was opened and in walked Ronald Breton. He
+shook his head at sight of the two sisters.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I thought I should find you here,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Jessie said she
+was coming to see you, Spargo. I don&rsquo;t know what good you can do&mdash;I
+don&rsquo;t see what good the most powerful newspaper in the world can do. My
+God!&mdash;everything&rsquo;s about as black as ever it can be. Mr.
+Aylmore&mdash;I&rsquo;ve just come away from him; his solicitor, Stratton, and
+I have been with him for an hour&mdash;is obstinate as ever&mdash;he will not
+tell more than he has told. Whatever good can you do, Spargo, when he
+won&rsquo;t speak about that knowledge of Marbury which he must have?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, well!&rdquo; said Spargo. &ldquo;Perhaps we can give him some
+information about Marbury. Mr. Aylmore has forgotten that it&rsquo;s not such a
+difficult thing to rake up the past as he seems to think it is. For example, as
+I was just telling these young ladies, I myself have discovered who Marbury
+really was.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Breton started.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You have? Without doubt?&rdquo; he exclaimed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Without reasonable doubt. Marbury was an ex-convict.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo watched the effect of this sudden announcement. The two girls showed no
+sign of astonishment or of unusual curiosity; they received the news with as
+much unconcern as if Spargo had told them that Marbury was a famous musician.
+But Ronald Breton started, and it seemed to Spargo that he saw a sense of
+suspicion dawn in his eyes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Marbury&mdash;an ex-convict!&rdquo; he exclaimed. &ldquo;You mean
+that?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Read your <i>Watchman</i> in the morning,&rdquo; said Spargo.
+&ldquo;You&rsquo;ll find the whole story there&mdash;I&rsquo;m going to write
+it tonight when you people have gone. It&rsquo;ll make good reading.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Evelyn and Jessie Aylmore took Spargo&rsquo;s hint and went away, Spargo seeing
+them to the door with another assurance of his belief in their father&rsquo;s
+innocence and his determination to hunt down the real criminal. Ronald Breton
+went down with them to the street and saw them into a cab, but in another
+minute he was back in Spargo&rsquo;s room as Spargo had expected. He shut the
+door carefully behind him and turned to Spargo with an eager face.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I say, Spargo, is that really so?&rdquo; he asked. &ldquo;About Marbury
+being an ex-convict?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s so, Breton. I&rsquo;ve no more doubt about it than I have
+that I see you. Marbury was in reality one John Maitland, a bank manager, of
+Market Milcaster, who got ten years&rsquo; penal servitude in 1891 for
+embezzlement.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;In 1891? Why&mdash;that&rsquo;s just about the time that Aylmore says he
+knew him!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Exactly. And&mdash;it just strikes me,&rdquo; said Spargo, sitting down
+at his desk and making a hurried note, &ldquo;it just strikes
+me&mdash;didn&rsquo;t Aylmore say he knew Marbury in London?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Certainly,&rdquo; replied Breton. &ldquo;In London.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Um!&rdquo; mused Spargo. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s queer, because Maitland had
+never been in London up to the time of his going to Dartmoor, whatever he may
+have done when he came out of Dartmoor, and, of course, Aylmore had gone to
+South America long before that. Look here, Breton,&rdquo; he continued, aloud,
+&ldquo;have you access to Aylmore? Will you, can you, see him before he&rsquo;s
+brought up at Bow Street tomorrow?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; answered Breton. &ldquo;I can see him with his
+solicitor.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then listen,&rdquo; said Spargo. &ldquo;Tomorrow morning you&rsquo;ll
+find the whole story of how I proved Marbury&rsquo;s identity with Maitland in
+the <i>Watchman</i>. Read it as early as you can; get an interview with Aylmore
+as early as you can; make him read it, every word, before he&rsquo;s brought
+up. Beg him if he values his own safety and his daughters&rsquo; peace of mind
+to throw away all that foolish reserve, and to tell all he knows about Maitland
+twenty years ago. He should have done that at first. Why, I was asking his
+daughters some questions before you came in&mdash;they know absolutely nothing
+of their father&rsquo;s history previous to the time when they began to
+understand things! Don&rsquo;t you see that Aylmore&rsquo;s career, previous to
+his return to England, is a blank past!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I know&mdash;I know!&rdquo; said Breton. &ldquo;Yes&mdash;although
+I&rsquo;ve gone there a great deal, I never heard Aylmore speak of anything
+earlier than his Argentine experiences. And yet, he must have been getting on
+when he went out there.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Thirty-seven or eight, at least,&rdquo; remarked Spargo. &ldquo;Well,
+Aylmore&rsquo;s more or less of a public man, and no public man can keep his
+life hidden nowadays. By the by, how did you get to know the Aylmores?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;My guardian, Mr. Elphick, and I met them in Switzerland,&rdquo; answered
+Breton. &ldquo;We kept up the acquaintance after our return.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mr. Elphick still interesting himself in the Marbury case?&rdquo; asked
+Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Very much so. And so is old Cardlestone, at the foot of whose stairs the
+thing came off. I dined with them last night and they talked of little
+else,&rdquo; said Breton.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And their theory&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, still the murder for the sake of robbery!&rdquo; replied Breton.
+&ldquo;Old Cardlestone is furious that such a thing could have happened at his
+very door. He says that there ought to be a thorough enquiry into every tenant
+of the Temple.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Longish business that,&rdquo; observed Spargo. &ldquo;Well, run away
+now, Breton&mdash;I must write.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Shall you be at Bow Street tomorrow morning?&rdquo; asked Breton as he
+moved to the door. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s to be at ten-thirty.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, I shan&rsquo;t!&rdquo; replied Spargo. &ldquo;It&rsquo;ll only be a
+remand, and I know already just as much as I should hear there. I&rsquo;ve got
+something much more important to do. But you&rsquo;ll remember what I asked of
+you&mdash;get Aylmore to read my story in the <i>Watchman</i>, and beg him to
+speak out and tell all he knows&mdash;all!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And when Breton had gone, Spargo again murmured those last words: &ldquo;All he
+knows&mdash;all!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap23"></a>CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE<br/>
+MISS BAYLIS</h2>
+
+<p>
+Next day, a little before noon, Spargo found himself in one of those
+pretentious yet dismal Bayswater squares, which are almost entirely given up to
+the trade, calling, or occupation of the lodging and boarding-house keeper.
+They are very pretentious, those squares, with their many-storied houses, their
+stuccoed frontages, and their pilastered and balconied doorways; innocent
+country folk, coming into them from the neighbouring station of Paddington,
+take them to be the residences of the dukes and earls who, of course, live
+nowhere else but in London. They are further encouraged in this belief by the
+fact that young male persons in evening dress are often seen at the doorways in
+more or less elegant attitudes. These, of course, are taken by the country folk
+to be young lords enjoying the air of Bayswater, but others, more knowing, are
+aware that they are Swiss or German waiters whose linen might be cleaner.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo gauged the character of the house at which he called as soon as the door
+was opened to him. There was the usual smell of eggs and bacon, of fish and
+chops; the usual mixed and ancient collection of overcoats, wraps, and sticks
+in the hall; the usual sort of parlourmaid to answer the bell. And presently,
+in answer to his enquiries, there was the usual type of landlady confronting
+him, a more than middle-aged person who desired to look younger, and made
+attempts in the way of false hair, teeth, and a little rouge, and who wore that
+somewhat air and smile which in its wearer&mdash;under these
+circumstances&mdash;always means that she is considering whether you will be
+able to cheat her or whether she will be able to see you.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You wish to see Miss Baylis?&rdquo; said this person, examining Spargo
+closely. &ldquo;Miss Baylis does not often see anybody.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I hope,&rdquo; said Spargo politely, &ldquo;that Miss Baylis is not an
+invalid?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, she&rsquo;s not an invalid,&rdquo; replied the landlady; &ldquo;but
+she&rsquo;s not as young as she was, and she&rsquo;s an objection to strangers.
+Is it anything I can tell her?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No,&rdquo; said Spargo. &ldquo;But you can, if you please, take her a
+message from me. Will you kindly give her my card, and tell her that I wish to
+ask her a question about John Maitland of Market Milcaster, and that I should
+be much obliged if she would give me a few minutes.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Perhaps you will sit down,&rdquo; said the landlady. She led Spargo into
+a room which opened out upon a garden; in it two or three old ladies, evidently
+inmates, were sitting. The landlady left Spargo to sit with them and to amuse
+himself by watching them knit or sew or read the papers, and he wondered if
+they always did these things every day, and if they would go on doing them
+until a day would come when they would do them no more, and he was beginning to
+feel very dreary when the door opened and a woman entered whom Spargo, after
+one sharp glance at her, decided to be a person who was undoubtedly out of the
+common. And as she slowly walked across the room towards him he let his first
+glance lengthen into a look of steady inspection.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The woman whom Spargo thus narrowly inspected was of very remarkable
+appearance. She was almost masculine; she stood nearly six feet in height; she
+was of a masculine gait and tread, and spare, muscular, and athletic. What at
+once struck Spargo about her face was the strange contrast between her dark
+eyes and her white hair; the hair, worn in abundant coils round a well-shaped
+head, was of the most snowy whiteness; the eyes of a real coal-blackness, as
+were also the eyebrows above them. The features were well-cut and of a striking
+firmness; the jaw square and determined. And Spargo&rsquo;s first thought on
+taking all this in was that Miss Baylis seemed to have been fitted by Nature to
+be a prison wardress, or the matron of a hospital, or the governess of an
+unruly girl, and he began to wonder if he would ever manage to extract anything
+out of those firmly-locked lips.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Miss Baylis, on her part, looked Spargo over as if she was half-minded to order
+him to instant execution. And Spargo was so impressed by her that he made a
+profound bow and found a difficulty in finding his tongue.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mr. Spargo?&rdquo; she said in a deep voice which seemed peculiarly
+suited to her. &ldquo;Of, I see, the <i>Watchman</i>? You wish to speak to
+me?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo again bowed in silence. She signed him to the window near which they
+were standing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Open the casement, if you please,&rdquo; she commanded him. &ldquo;We
+will walk in the garden. This is not private.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo obediently obeyed her orders; she swept through the opened window and he
+followed her. It was not until they had reached the bottom of the garden that
+she spoke again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I understand that you desire to ask me some question about John
+Maitland, of Market Milcaster?&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;Before you put it. I
+must ask you a question. Do you wish any reply I may give you for
+publication?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not without your permission,&rdquo; replied Spargo. &ldquo;I should not
+think of publishing anything you may tell me except with your express
+permission.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She looked at him gloomily, seemed to gather an impression of his good faith,
+and nodded her head.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;In that case,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;what do you want to ask?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have lately had reason for making certain enquiries about John
+Maitland,&rdquo; answered Spargo. &ldquo;I suppose you read the newspapers and
+possibly the <i>Watchman</i>, Miss Baylis?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But Miss Baylis shook her head.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I read no newspapers,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I have no interest in the
+affairs of the world. I have work which occupies all my time: I give my whole
+devotion to it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then you have not recently heard of what is known as the Marbury
+case&mdash;a case of a man who was found murdered?&rdquo; asked Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have not,&rdquo; she answered. &ldquo;I am not likely to hear such
+things.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo suddenly realized that the power of the Press is not quite as great nor
+as far-reaching as very young journalists hold it to be, and that there
+actually are, even in London, people who can live quite cheerfully without a
+newspaper. He concealed his astonishment and went on.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;I believe that the murdered man, known to
+the police as John Marbury, was, in reality, your brother-in-law, John
+Maitland. In fact, Miss Baylis, I&rsquo;m absolutely certain of it!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He made this declaration with some emphasis, and looked at his stern companion
+to see how she was impressed. But Miss Baylis showed no sign of being
+impressed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I can quite believe that, Mr. Spargo,&rdquo; she said coldly. &ldquo;It
+is no surprise to me that John Maitland should come to such an end. He was a
+thoroughly bad and unprincipled man, who brought the most terrible disgrace on
+those who were, unfortunately, connected with him. He was likely to die a bad
+man&rsquo;s death.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I may ask you a few questions about him?&rdquo; suggested Spargo in his
+most insinuating manner.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You may, so long as you do not drag my name into the papers,&rdquo; she
+replied. &ldquo;But pray, how do you know that I have the sad shame of being
+John Maitland&rsquo;s sister-in-law?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I found that out at Market Milcaster,&rdquo; said Spargo. &ldquo;The
+photographer told me&mdash;Cooper.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah!&rdquo; she exclaimed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The questions I want to ask are very simple,&rdquo; said Spargo.
+&ldquo;But your answers may materially help me. You remember Maitland going to
+prison, of course?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Miss Baylis laughed&mdash;a laugh of scorn.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Could I ever forget it?&rdquo; she exclaimed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Did you ever visit him in prison?&rdquo; asked Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Visit him in prison!&rdquo; she said indignantly. &ldquo;Visits in
+prison are to be paid to those who deserve them, who are repentant; not to
+scoundrels who are hardened in their sin!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;All right. Did you ever see him after he left prison?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I saw him, for he forced himself upon me&mdash;I could not help myself.
+He was in my presence before I was aware that he had even been released.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What did he come for?&rdquo; asked Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;To ask for his son&mdash;who had been in my charge,&rdquo; she replied.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s a thing I want to know about,&rdquo; said Spargo. &ldquo;Do
+you know what a certain lot of people in Market Milcaster say to this day, Miss
+Baylis?&mdash;they say that you were in at the game with Maitland; that you had
+a lot of the money placed in your charge; that when Maitland went to prison,
+you took the child away, first to Brighton, then abroad&mdash;disappeared with
+him&mdash;and that you made a home ready for Maitland when he came out.
+That&rsquo;s what&rsquo;s said by some people in Market Milcaster.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Miss Baylis&rsquo;s stern lips curled.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;People in Market Milcaster!&rdquo; she exclaimed. &ldquo;All the people
+I ever knew in Market Milcaster had about as many brains between them as that
+cat on the wall there. As for making a home for John Maitland, I would have
+seen him die in the gutter, of absolute want, before I would have given him a
+crust of dry bread!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You appear to have a terrible dislike of this man,&rdquo; observed
+Spargo, astonished at her vehemence.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I had&mdash;and I have,&rdquo; she answered. &ldquo;He tricked my sister
+into a marriage with him when he knew that she would rather have married an
+honest man who worshipped her; he treated her with quiet, infernal cruelty; he
+robbed her and me of the small fortunes our father left us.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah!&rdquo; said Spargo. &ldquo;Well, so you say Maitland came to you,
+when he came out of prison, to ask for his boy. Did he take the boy?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No&mdash;the boy was dead.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Dead, eh? Then I suppose Maitland did not stop long with you?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Miss Baylis laughed her scornful laugh.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I showed him the door!&rdquo; she said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, did he tell you that he was going to Australia?&rdquo; enquired
+Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I should not have listened to anything that he told me, Mr.
+Spargo,&rdquo; she answered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then, in short,&rdquo; said Spargo, &ldquo;you never heard of him
+again?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I never heard of him again,&rdquo; she declared passionately, &ldquo;and
+I only hope that what you tell me is true, and that Marbury really was
+Maitland!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap24"></a>CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR<br/>
+MOTHER GUTCH</h2>
+
+<p>
+Spargo, having exhausted the list of questions which he had thought out on his
+way to Bayswater, was about to take his leave of Miss Baylis, when a new idea
+suddenly occurred to him, and he turned back to that formidable lady.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve just thought of something else,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I told
+you that I&rsquo;m certain Marbury was Maitland, and that he came to a sad
+end&mdash;murdered.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And I&rsquo;ve told you,&rdquo; she replied scornfully, &ldquo;that in
+my opinion no end could be too bad for him.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Just so&mdash;I understand you,&rdquo; said Spargo. &ldquo;But I
+didn&rsquo;t tell you that he was not only murdered but robbed&mdash;robbed of
+probably a good deal. There&rsquo;s good reason to believe that he had
+securities, bank notes, loose diamonds, and other things on him to the value of
+a large amount. He&rsquo;d several thousand pounds when he left Coolumbidgee,
+in New South Wales, where he&rsquo;d lived quietly for some years.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Miss Baylis smiled sourly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What&rsquo;s all this to me?&rdquo; she asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Possibly nothing. But you see, that money, those securities, may be
+recovered. And as the boy you speak of is dead, there surely must be somebody
+who&rsquo;s entitled to the lot. It&rsquo;s worth having, Miss Baylis, and
+there&rsquo;s strong belief on the part of the police that it will turn
+up.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This was a bit of ingenious bluff on the part of Spargo; he watched its effect
+with keen eyes. But Miss Baylis was adamant, and she looked as scornful as
+ever.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I say again what&rsquo;s all that to me?&rdquo; she exclaimed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, but hadn&rsquo;t the dead boy any relatives on his father&rsquo;s
+side?&rdquo; asked Spargo. &ldquo;I know you&rsquo;re his aunt on the
+mother&rsquo;s side, and as you&rsquo;re indifferent perhaps, I can find some
+on the other side. It&rsquo;s very easy to find all these things out, you
+know.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Miss Baylis, who had begun to stalk back to the house in gloomy and majestic
+fashion, and had let Spargo see plainly that this part of the interview was
+distasteful to her, suddenly paused in her stride and glared at the young
+journalist.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Easy to find all these things out?&rdquo; she repeated.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo caught, or fancied he caught, a note of anxiety in her tone. He was
+quick to turn his fancy to practical purpose.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, easy enough!&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I could find out all about
+Maitland&rsquo;s family through that boy. Quite, quite easily!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Miss Baylis had stopped now, and stood glaring at him. &ldquo;How?&rdquo; she
+demanded.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll tell you,&rdquo; said Spargo with cheerful alacrity.
+&ldquo;It is, of course, the easiest thing in the world to trace all about his
+short life. I suppose I can find the register of his birth at Market Milcaster,
+and you, of course, will tell me where he died. By the by, when did he die,
+Miss Baylis?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But Miss Baylis was going on again to the house.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I shall tell you nothing more,&rdquo; she said angrily.
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve told you too much already, and I believe all you&rsquo;re
+here for is to get some news for your paper. But I will, at any rate tell you
+this&mdash;when Maitland went to prison his child would have been defenceless
+but for me; he&rsquo;d have had to go to the workhouse but for me; he
+hadn&rsquo;t a single relation in the world but me, on either father&rsquo;s or
+mother&rsquo;s side. And even at my age, old woman as I am, I&rsquo;d rather
+beg my bread in the street, I&rsquo;d rather starve and die, than touch a penny
+piece that had come from John Maitland! That&rsquo;s all.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then without further word, without offering to show Spargo the way out, she
+marched in at the open window and disappeared. And Spargo, knowing no other
+way, was about to follow her when he heard a sudden rustling sound in the
+shadow by which they had stood, and the next moment a queer, cracked, horrible
+voice, suggesting all sorts of things, said distinctly and yet in a whisper:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Young man!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo turned and stared at the privet hedge behind him. It was thick and
+bushy, and in its full summer green, but it seemed to him that he saw a
+nondescript shape behind. &ldquo;Who&rsquo;s there?&rdquo; he demanded.
+&ldquo;Somebody listening?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was a curious cackle of laughter from behind the hedge; then the cracked,
+husky voice spoke again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Young man, don&rsquo;t you move or look as if you were talking to
+anybody. Do you know where the &lsquo;King of Madagascar&rsquo; public-house is
+in this quarter of the town, young man?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No!&rdquo; answered Spargo. &ldquo;Certainly not!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, anybody&rsquo;ll tell you when you get outside, young man,&rdquo;
+continued the queer voice of the unseen person. &ldquo;Go there, and wait at
+the corner by the &lsquo;King of Madagascar,&rsquo; and I&rsquo;ll come there
+to you at the end of half an hour. Then I&rsquo;ll tell you something, young
+man&mdash;I&rsquo;ll tell you something. Now run away, young man, run away to
+the &lsquo;King of Madagascar&rsquo;&mdash;I&rsquo;m coming!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The voice ended in low, horrible cachinnation which made Spargo feel queer. But
+he was young enough to be in love with adventure, and he immediately turned on
+his heel without so much as a glance at the privet hedge, and went across the
+garden and through the house, and let himself out at the door. And at the next
+corner of the square he met a policeman and asked him if he knew where the
+&ldquo;King of Madagascar&rdquo; was.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;First to the right, second to the left,&rdquo; answered the policeman
+tersely. &ldquo;You can&rsquo;t miss it anywhere round there&mdash;it&rsquo;s a
+landmark.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And Spargo found the landmark&mdash;a great, square-built tavern&mdash;easily,
+and he waited at a corner of it wondering what he was going to see, and
+intensely curious about the owner of the queer voice, with all its suggestions
+of he knew not what. And suddenly there came up to him an old woman and leered
+at him in a fashion that made him suddenly realize how dreadful old age may be.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo had never seen such an old woman as this in his life. She was dressed
+respectably, better than respectably. Her gown was good; her bonnet was smart;
+her smaller fittings were good. But her face was evil; it showed unmistakable
+signs of a long devotion to the bottle; the old eyes leered and ogled, the old
+lips were wicked. Spargo felt a sense of disgust almost amounting to nausea,
+but he was going to hear what the old harridan had to say and he tried not to
+look what he felt.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well?&rdquo; he said, almost roughly. &ldquo;Well?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, young man, there you are,&rdquo; said his new acquaintance.
+&ldquo;Let us go inside, young man; there&rsquo;s a quiet little place where a
+lady can sit and take her drop of gin&mdash;I&rsquo;ll show you. And if
+you&rsquo;re good to me, I&rsquo;ll tell you something about that cat that you
+were talking to just now. But you&rsquo;ll give me a little matter to put in my
+pocket, young man? Old ladies like me have a right to buy little comforts, you
+know, little comforts.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo followed this extraordinary person into a small parlour within; the
+attendant who came in response to a ring showed no astonishment at her
+presence; he also seemed to know exactly what she required, which was a certain
+brand of gin, sweetened, and warm. And Spargo watched her curiously as with
+shaking hand she pushed up the veil which hid little of her wicked old face,
+and lifted the glass to her mouth with a zest which was not thirst but pure
+greed of liquor. Almost instantly he saw a new light steal into her eyes, and
+she laughed in a voice that grew clearer with every sound she made.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah, young man!&rdquo; she said with a confidential nudge of the elbow
+that made Spargo long to get up and fly. &ldquo;I wanted that! It&rsquo;s done
+me good. When I&rsquo;ve finished that, you&rsquo;ll pay for another for
+me&mdash;and perhaps another? They&rsquo;ll do me still more good. And
+you&rsquo;ll give me a little matter of money, won&rsquo;t you, young
+man?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not till I know what I&rsquo;m giving it for,&rdquo; replied Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You&rsquo;ll be giving it because I&rsquo;m going to tell you that if
+it&rsquo;s made worth my while I can tell you, or somebody that sent you, more
+about Jane Baylis than anybody in the world. I&rsquo;m not going to tell you
+that now, young man&mdash;I&rsquo;m sure you don&rsquo;t carry in your pocket
+what I shall want for my secret, not you, by the look of you! I&rsquo;m only
+going to show you that I have the secret. Eh?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Who are you?&rdquo; asked Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The woman leered and chuckled. &ldquo;What are you going to give me, young
+man?&rdquo; she asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo put his fingers in his pocket and pulled out two half-sovereigns.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Look here,&rdquo; he said, showing his companion the coins, &ldquo;if
+you can tell me anything of importance you shall have these. But no trifling,
+now. And no wasting of time. If you have anything to tell, out with it!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The woman stretched out a trembling, claw-like hand.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But let me hold one of those, young man!&rdquo; she implored. &ldquo;Let
+me hold one of the beautiful bits of gold. I shall tell you all the better if I
+hold one of them. Let me&mdash;there&rsquo;s a good young gentleman.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo gave her one of the coins, and resigned himself to his fate, whatever it
+might be.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You won&rsquo;t get the other unless you tell something,&rdquo; he said.
+&ldquo;Who are you, anyway?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The woman, who had begun mumbling and chuckling over the half-sovereign,
+grinned horribly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;At the boarding-house yonder, young man, they call me Mother
+Gutch,&rdquo; she answered; &ldquo;but my proper name is Mrs. Sabina Gutch, and
+once upon a time I was a good-looking young woman. And when my husband died I
+went to Jane Baylis as housekeeper, and when she retired from that and came to
+live in that boarding-house where we live now, she was forced to bring me with
+her and to keep me. Why had she to do that, young man?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Heaven knows!&rdquo; answered Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Because I&rsquo;ve got a hold on her, young man&mdash;I&rsquo;ve got a
+secret of hers,&rdquo; continued Mother Gutch. &ldquo;She&rsquo;d be scared to
+death if she knew I&rsquo;d been behind that hedge and had heard what she said
+to you, and she&rsquo;d be more than scared if she knew that you and I were
+here, talking. But she&rsquo;s grown hard and near with me, and she won&rsquo;t
+give me a penny to get a drop of anything with, and an old woman like me has a
+right to her little comforts, and if you&rsquo;ll buy the secret, young man,
+I&rsquo;ll split on her, there and then, when you pay the money.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Before I talk about buying any secret,&rdquo; said Spargo,
+&ldquo;you&rsquo;ll have to prove to me that you&rsquo;ve a secret to sell
+that&rsquo;s worth my buying.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And I will prove it!&rdquo; said Mother Gutch with sudden fierceness.
+&ldquo;Touch the bell, and let me have another glass, and then I&rsquo;ll tell
+you. Now,&rdquo; she went on, more quietly&mdash;Spargo noticed that the more
+she drank, the more rational she became, and that her nerves seemed to gain
+strength and her whole appearance to be improved&mdash;&ldquo;now, you came to
+her to find out about her brother-in-law, Maitland, that went to prison,
+didn&rsquo;t you?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well?&rdquo; demanded Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And about that boy of his?&rdquo; she continued.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You heard all that was said,&rdquo; answered Spargo. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m
+waiting to hear what you have to say.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But Mother Gutch was resolute in having her own way. She continued her
+questions:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And she told you that Maitland came and asked for the boy, and that she
+told him the boy was dead, didn&rsquo;t she?&rdquo; she went on.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well?&rdquo; said Spargo despairingly. &ldquo;She did. What then?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mother Gutch took an appreciative pull at her glass and smiled knowingly.
+&ldquo;What then?&rdquo; she chuckled. &ldquo;All lies, young man, the boy
+isn&rsquo;t dead&mdash;any more than I am. And my secret is&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well?&rdquo; demanded Spargo impatiently. &ldquo;What is it?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;This!&rdquo; answered Mother Gutch, digging her companion in the ribs,
+&ldquo;I know what she did with him!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap25"></a>CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE<br/>
+REVELATIONS</h2>
+
+<p>
+Spargo turned on his disreputable and dissolute companion with all his
+journalistic energies and instincts roused. He had not been sure, since
+entering the &ldquo;King of Madagascar,&rdquo; that he was going to hear
+anything material to the Middle Temple Murder; he had more than once feared
+that this old gin-drinking harridan was deceiving him, for the purpose of
+extracting drink and money from him. But now, at the mere prospect of getting
+important information from her, he forgot all about Mother Gutch&rsquo;s
+unfortunate propensities, evil eyes, and sodden face; he only saw in her
+somebody who could tell him something. He turned on her eagerly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You say that John Maitland&rsquo;s son didn&rsquo;t die!&rdquo; he
+exclaimed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The boy did not die,&rdquo; replied Mother Gutch.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And that you know where he is?&rdquo; asked Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mother Gutch shook her head.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t say that I know where he is, young man,&rdquo; she
+replied. &ldquo;I said I knew what she did with him.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What, then?&rdquo; demanded Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mother Gutch drew herself up in a vast assumption of dignity, and favoured
+Spargo with a look.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s the secret, young man,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m
+willing to sell that secret, but not for two half-sovereigns and two or three
+drops of cold gin. If Maitland left all that money you told Jane Baylis of,
+when I was listening to you from behind the hedge, my secret&rsquo;s worth
+something.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo suddenly remembered his bit of bluff to Miss Baylis. Here was an
+unexpected result of it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nobody but me can help you to trace Maitland&rsquo;s boy,&rdquo;
+continued Mother Gutch, &ldquo;and I shall expect to be paid accordingly.
+That&rsquo;s plain language, young man.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo considered the situation in silence for a minute or two. Could this
+wretched, bibulous old woman really be in possession of a secret which would
+lead to the solving of the mystery of the Middle Temple Murder? Well, it would
+be a fine thing for the <i>Watchman</i> if the clearing up of everything came
+through one of its men. And the <i>Watchman</i> was noted for being generous
+even to extravagance in laying out money on all sorts of objects: it had spent
+money like water on much less serious matters than this.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How much do you want for your secret?&rdquo; he suddenly asked, turning
+to his companion.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mother Gutch began to smooth out a pleat in her gown. It was really wonderful
+to Spargo to find how very sober and normal this old harridan had become; he
+did not understand that her nerves had been all a-quiver and on edge when he
+first met her, and that a resort to her favourite form of alcohol in liberal
+quantity had calmed and quickened them; secretly he was regarding her with
+astonishment as the most extraordinary old person he had ever met, and he was
+almost afraid of her as he waited for her decision. At last Mother Gutch spoke.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, young man,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;having considered matters, and
+having a right to look well to myself, I think that what I should prefer to
+have would be one of those annuities. A nice, comfortable annuity, paid
+weekly&mdash;none of your monthlies or quarterlies, but regular and punctual,
+every Saturday morning. Or Monday morning, as was convenient to the parties
+concerned&mdash;but punctual and regular. I know a good many ladies in my
+sphere of life as enjoys annuities, and it&rsquo;s a great comfort to have
+&rsquo;em paid weekly.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It occurred to Spargo that Mrs. Gutch would probably get rid of her weekly dole
+on the day it was paid, whether that day happened to be Monday or Saturday, but
+that, after all, was no concern of his, so he came back to first principles.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Even now you haven&rsquo;t said how much,&rdquo; he remarked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Three pound a week,&rdquo; replied Mother Gutch. &ldquo;And cheap,
+too!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo thought hard for two minutes. The secret might&mdash;might!&mdash;lead
+to something big. This wretched old woman would probably drink herself to death
+within a year or two. Anyhow, a few hundreds of pounds was nothing to the
+<i>Watchman</i>. He glanced at his watch. At that hour&mdash;for the next
+hour&mdash;the great man of the <i>Watchman</i> would be at the office. He
+jumped to his feet, suddenly resolved and alert.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Here, I&rsquo;ll take you to see my principals,&rdquo; he said.
+&ldquo;We&rsquo;ll run along in a taxi-cab.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;With all the pleasure in the world, young man,&rdquo; replied Mother
+Gutch; &ldquo;when you&rsquo;ve given me that other half-sovereign. As for
+principals, I&rsquo;d far rather talk business with masters than with
+men&mdash;though I mean no disrespect to you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo, feeling that he was in for it, handed over the second half-sovereign,
+and busied himself in ordering a taxi-cab. But when that came round he had to
+wait while Mrs. Gutch consumed a third glass of gin and purchased a flask of
+the same beverage to put in her pocket. At last he got her off, and in due
+course to the <i>Watchman</i> office, where the hall-porter and the messenger
+boys stared at her in amazement, well used as they were to seeing strange folk,
+and he got her to his own room, and locked her in, and then he sought the
+presence of the mighty.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+What Spargo said to his editor and to the great man who controlled the fortunes
+and workings of the <i>Watchman</i> he never knew. It was probably fortunate
+for him that they were both thoroughly conversant with the facts of the Middle
+Temple Murder, and saw that there might be an advantage in securing the
+revelations of which Spargo had got the conditional promise. At any rate, they
+accompanied Spargo to his room, intent on seeing, hearing and bargaining with
+the lady he had locked up there.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo&rsquo;s room smelt heavily of unsweetened gin, but Mother Gutch was
+soberer than ever. She insisted upon being introduced to proprietor and editor
+in due and proper form, and in discussing terms with them before going into any
+further particulars. The editor was all for temporizing with her until
+something could be done to find out what likelihood of truth there was in her,
+but the proprietor, after sizing her up in his own shrewd fashion, took his two
+companions out of the room.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We&rsquo;ll hear what the old woman has to say on her own terms,&rdquo;
+he said. &ldquo;She may have something to tell that is really of the greatest
+importance in this case: she certainly has something to tell. And, as Spargo
+says, she&rsquo;ll probably drink herself to death in about as short a time as
+possible. Come back&mdash;let&rsquo;s hear her story.&rdquo; So they returned
+to the gin-scented atmosphere, and a formal document was drawn out by which the
+proprietor of the <i>Watchman</i> bound himself to pay Mrs. Gutch the sum of
+three pounds a week for life (Mrs. Gutch insisting on the insertion of the
+words &ldquo;every Saturday morning, punctual and regular&rdquo;) and then Mrs.
+Gutch was invited to tell her tale. And Mrs. Gutch settled herself to do so,
+and Spargo prepared to take it down, word for word.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Which the story, as that young man called it, is not so long as a
+monkey&rsquo;s tail nor so short as a Manx cat&rsquo;s, gentlemen,&rdquo; said
+Mrs. Gutch; &ldquo;but full of meat as an egg. Now, you see, when that Maitland
+affair at Market Milcaster came off, I was housekeeper to Miss Jane Baylis at
+Brighton. She kept a boarding-house there, in Kemp Town, and close to the
+sea-front, and a very good thing she made out of it, and had saved a nice bit,
+and having, like her sister, Mrs. Maitland, had a little fortune left her by
+her father, as was at one time a publican here in London, she had a good lump
+of money. And all that money was in this here Maitland&rsquo;s hands, every
+penny. I very well remember the day when the news came about that affair of
+Maitland robbing the bank. Miss Baylis, she was like a mad thing when she saw
+it in the paper, and before she&rsquo;d seen it an hour she was off to Market
+Milcaster. I went up to the station with her, and she told me then before she
+got in the train that Maitland had all her fortune and her savings, and her
+sister&rsquo;s, his wife&rsquo;s, too, and that she feared all would be
+lost.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mrs. Maitland was then dead,&rdquo; observed Spargo without looking up
+from his writing-block.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;She was, young man, and a good thing, too,&rdquo; continued Mrs. Gutch.
+&ldquo;Well, away went Miss Baylis, and no more did I hear or see for nearly a
+week, and then back she comes, and brings a little boy with her&mdash;which was
+Maitland&rsquo;s. And she told me that night that she&rsquo;d lost every penny
+she had in the world, and that her sister&rsquo;s money, what ought to have
+been the child&rsquo;s, was gone, too, and she said her say about Maitland.
+However, she saw well to that child; nobody could have seen better. And very
+soon after, when Maitland was sent to prison for ten years, her and me talked
+about things. &lsquo;What&rsquo;s the use,&rsquo; says I to her, &lsquo;of your
+letting yourself get so fond of that child, and looking after it as you do, and
+educating it, and so on?&rsquo; I says. &lsquo;Why not?&rsquo; says she.
+&lsquo;&rsquo;Tisn&rsquo;t yours,&rsquo; I says, &lsquo;you haven&rsquo;t no
+right to it,&rsquo; I says. &lsquo;As soon as ever its father comes out,&rsquo;
+says I,&rsquo; he&rsquo;ll come and claim it, and you can&rsquo;t do nothing to
+stop him.&rsquo; Well, gentlemen, if you&rsquo;ll believe me, never did I see a
+woman look as she did when I says all that. And she up and swore that Maitland
+should never see or touch the child again&mdash;not under no circumstances
+whatever.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mrs. Gutch paused to take a little refreshment from her pocket-flask, with an
+apologetic remark as to the state of her heart. She resumed, presently,
+apparently refreshed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, gentlemen, that notion, about Maitland&rsquo;s taking the child
+away from her seemed to get on her mind, and she used to talk to me at times
+about it, always saying the same thing&mdash;that Maitland should never have
+him. And one day she told me she was going to London to see lawyers about it,
+and she went, and she came back, seeming more satisfied, and a day or two
+afterwards, there came a gentleman who looked like a lawyer, and he stopped a
+day or two, and he came again and again, until one day she came to me, and she
+says, &lsquo;You don&rsquo;t know who that gentleman is that&rsquo;s come so
+much lately?&rsquo; she says. &lsquo;Not I,&rsquo; I says, &lsquo;unless
+he&rsquo;s after you.&rsquo; &lsquo;After me!&rsquo; she says, tossing her
+head: &lsquo;That&rsquo;s the gentleman that ought to have married my poor
+sister if that scoundrel Maitland hadn&rsquo;t tricked her into throwing him
+over!&rsquo; &lsquo;You don&rsquo;t say so!&rsquo; I says. &lsquo;Then by
+rights he ought to have been the child&rsquo;s pa!&rsquo; &lsquo;He&rsquo;s
+going to be a father to the boy,&rsquo; she says. &lsquo;He&rsquo;s going to
+take him and educate him in the highest fashion, and make a gentleman of
+him,&rsquo; she says, &lsquo;for his mother&rsquo;s sake.&rsquo; &lsquo;Mercy
+on us!&rsquo; says I. &lsquo;What&rsquo;ll Maitland say when he comes for
+him?&rsquo; &lsquo;Maitland&rsquo;ll never come for him,&rsquo; she says,
+&lsquo;for I&rsquo;m going to leave here, and the boy&rsquo;ll be gone before
+then. This is all being done,&rsquo; she says, &lsquo;so that the
+child&rsquo;ll never know his father&rsquo;s shame&mdash;he&rsquo;ll never know
+who his father was.&rsquo; And true enough, the boy was taken away, but
+Maitland came before she&rsquo;d gone, and she told him the child was dead, and
+I never see a man so cut up. However, it wasn&rsquo;t no concern of mine. And
+so there&rsquo;s so much of the secret, gentlemen, and I would like to know if
+I ain&rsquo;t giving good value.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Very good,&rdquo; said the proprietor. &ldquo;Go on.&rdquo; But Spargo
+intervened.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Did you ever hear the name of the gentleman who took the boy
+away?&rdquo; he asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, I did,&rdquo; replied Mrs. Gutch. &ldquo;Of course I did. Which it
+was Elphick.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap26"></a>CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX<br/>
+STILL SILENT</h2>
+
+<p>
+Spargo dropped his pen on the desk before him with a sharp clatter that made
+Mrs. Gutch jump. A steady devotion to the bottle had made her nerves to be none
+of the strongest, and she looked at the startler of them with angry
+malevolence.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t do that again, young man!&rdquo; she exclaimed sharply.
+&ldquo;I can&rsquo;t a-bear to be jumped out of my skin, and it&rsquo;s bad
+manners. I observed that the gentleman&rsquo;s name was Elphick.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo contrived to get in a glance at his proprietor and his editor&mdash;a
+glance which came near to being a wink.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Just so&mdash;Elphick,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;A law gentleman I think
+you said, Mrs. Gutch?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I said,&rdquo; answered Mrs. Gutch, &ldquo;as how he looked like a
+lawyer gentleman. And since you&rsquo;re so particular, young man, though I
+wasn&rsquo;t addressing you but your principals, he was a lawyer gentleman. One
+of the sort that wears wigs and gowns&mdash;ain&rsquo;t I seen his picture in
+Jane Baylis&rsquo;s room at the boarding-house where you saw her this
+morning?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Elderly man?&rdquo; asked Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Elderly he will be now,&rdquo; replied the informant; &ldquo;but when he
+took the boy away he was a middle-aged man. About his age,&rdquo; she added,
+pointing to the editor in a fashion which made that worthy man wince and the
+proprietor desire to laugh unconsumedly; &ldquo;and not so very unlike him
+neither, being one as had no hair on his face.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah!&rdquo; said Spargo. &ldquo;And where did this Mr. Elphick take the
+boy, Mrs. Gutch?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But Mrs. Gutch shook her head.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ain&rsquo;t no idea,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;He took him. Then, as I
+told you, Maitland came, and Jane Baylis told him that the boy was dead. And
+after that she never even told me anything about the boy. She kept a tight
+tongue. Once or twice I asked her, and she says, &lsquo;Never you mind,&rsquo;
+she says; &lsquo;he&rsquo;s all right for life, if he lives to be as old as
+Methusalem.&rsquo; And she never said more, and I never said more. But,&rdquo;
+continued Mrs. Gutch, whose pocket-flask was empty, and who began to wipe tears
+away, &ldquo;she&rsquo;s treated me hard has Jane Baylis, never allowing me a
+little comfort such as a lady of my age should have, and when I hears the two
+of you a-talking this morning the other side of that privet hedge, thinks I,
+&lsquo;Now&rsquo;s the time to have my knife into you, my fine madam!&rsquo;
+And I hope I done it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo looked at the editor and the proprietor, nodding his head slightly. He
+meant them to understand that he had got all he wanted from Mother Gutch.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What are you going to do, Mrs. Gutch, when you leave here?&rdquo; he
+asked. &ldquo;You shall be driven straight back to Bayswater, if you
+like.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Which I shall be obliged for, young man,&rdquo; said Mrs. Gutch,
+&ldquo;and likewise for the first week of the annuity, and will call every
+Saturday for the same at eleven punctual, or can be posted to me on a Friday,
+whichever is agreeable to you gentlemen. And having my first week in my purse,
+and being driven to Bayswater, I shall take my boxes and go to a friend of mine
+where I shall be hearty welcome, shaking the dust of my feet off against Jane
+Baylis and where I&rsquo;ve been living with her.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, but, Mrs. Gutch,&rdquo; said Spargo, with some anxiety, &ldquo;if
+you go back there tonight, you&rsquo;ll be very careful not to tell Miss Baylis
+that you&rsquo;ve been here and told us all this?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mrs. Gutch rose, dignified and composed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Young man,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;you mean well, but you ain&rsquo;t
+used to dealing with ladies. I can keep my tongue as still as anybody when I
+like. I wouldn&rsquo;t tell Jane Baylis my affairs&mdash;my new affairs,
+gentlemen, thanks to you&mdash;not for two annuities, paid twice a week!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Take Mrs. Gutch downstairs, Spargo, and see her all right, and then come
+to my room,&rdquo; said the editor. &ldquo;And don&rsquo;t you forget, Mrs.
+Gutch&mdash;keep a quiet tongue in your head&mdash;no more talk&mdash;or
+there&rsquo;ll be no annuities on Saturday mornings.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+So Spargo took Mother Gutch to the cashier&rsquo;s department and paid her her
+first week&rsquo;s money, and he got her a taxi-cab, and paid for it, and saw
+her depart, and then he went to the editor&rsquo;s room, strangely thoughtful.
+The editor and the proprietor were talking, but they stopped when Spargo
+entered and looked at him eagerly. &ldquo;I think we&rsquo;ve done it,&rdquo;
+said Spargo quietly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What, precisely, have we found out?&rdquo; asked the editor.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A great deal more than I&rsquo;d anticipated,&rdquo; answered Spargo,
+&ldquo;and I don&rsquo;t know what fields it doesn&rsquo;t open out. If you
+look back, you&rsquo;ll remember that the only thing found on Marbury&rsquo;s
+body was a scrap of grey paper on which was a name and address&mdash;Ronald
+Breton, King&rsquo;s Bench Walk.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Breton is a young barrister. Also he writes a bit&mdash;I have accepted
+two or three articles of his for our literary page.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Further, he is engaged to Miss Aylmore, the eldest daughter of Aylmore,
+the Member of Parliament who has been charged at Bow Street today with the
+murder of Marbury.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I know. Well, what then, Spargo?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But the most important matter,&rdquo; continued Spargo, speaking very
+deliberately, &ldquo;is this&mdash;that is, taking that old woman&rsquo;s
+statement to be true, as I personally believe it is&mdash;that Breton, as he
+has told me himself (I have seen a good deal of him) was brought up by a
+guardian. That guardian is Mr. Septimus Elphick, the barrister.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The proprietor and the editor looked at each other. Their faces wore the
+expression of men thinking on the same lines and arriving at the same
+conclusion. And the proprietor suddenly turned on Spargo with a sharp
+interrogation: &ldquo;You think then&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo nodded.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I think that Mr. Septimus Elphick is the Elphick, and that Breton is the
+young Maitland of whom Mrs. Gutch has been talking,&rdquo; he answered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The editor got up, thrust his hands in his pockets, and began to pace the room.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If that&rsquo;s so,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;if that&rsquo;s so, the
+mystery deepens. What do you propose to do, Spargo?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I think,&rdquo; said Spargo, slowly, &ldquo;I think that without telling
+him anything of what we have learnt, I should like to see young Breton and get
+an introduction from him to Mr. Elphick. I can make a good excuse for wanting
+an interview with him. If you will leave it in my hands&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, yes!&rdquo; said the proprietor, waving a hand. &ldquo;Leave it
+entirely in Spargo&rsquo;s hands.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Keep me informed,&rdquo; said the editor. &ldquo;Do what you think. It
+strikes me you&rsquo;re on the track.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo left their presence, and going back to his own room, still faintly
+redolent of the personality of Mrs. Gutch, got hold of the reporter who had
+been present at Bow Street when Aylmore was brought up that morning. There was
+nothing new; the authorities had merely asked for another remand. So far as the
+reporter knew, Aylmore had said nothing fresh to anybody.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo went round to the Temple and up to Ronald Breton&rsquo;s chambers. He
+found the young barrister just preparing to leave, and looking unusually grave
+and thoughtful. At sight of Spargo he turned back from his outer door, beckoned
+the journalist to follow him, and led him into an inner room.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I say, Spargo!&rdquo; he said, as he motioned his visitor to take a
+chair. &ldquo;This is becoming something more than serious. You know what you
+told me to do yesterday as regards Aylmore?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;To get him to tell all?&mdash;Yes,&rdquo; said Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Breton shook his head.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Stratton&mdash;his solicitor, you know&mdash;and I saw him this morning
+before the police-court proceedings,&rdquo; he continued. &ldquo;I told him of
+my talk with you; I even went as far as to tell him that his daughters had been
+to the <i>Watchman</i> office. Stratton and I both begged him to take your
+advice and tell all, everything, no matter at what cost to his private
+feelings. We pointed out to him the serious nature of the evidence against him;
+how he had damaged himself by not telling the whole truth at once; how he had
+certainly done a great deal to excite suspicion against himself; how, as the
+evidence stands at present, any jury could scarcely do less than convict him.
+And it was all no good, Spargo!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He won&rsquo;t say anything?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He&rsquo;ll say no more. He was adamant. &lsquo;I told the entire truth
+in respect to my dealings with Marbury on the night he met his death at the
+inquest,&rsquo; he said, over and over again, &lsquo;and I shall say nothing
+further on any consideration. If the law likes to hang an innocent man on such
+evidence as that, let it!&rsquo; And he persisted in that until we left him.
+Spargo, I don&rsquo;t know what&rsquo;s to be done.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And nothing happened at the police-court?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nothing&mdash;another remand. Stratton and I saw Aylmore again before he
+was removed. He left us with a sort of sardonic remark&mdash;&lsquo;If you all
+want to prove me innocent,&rsquo; he said, &lsquo;find the guilty
+man.&rsquo;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, there was a tremendous lot of common sense in that,&rdquo; said
+Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, of course, but how, how, how is it going to be done?&rdquo;
+exclaimed Breton. &ldquo;Are you any nearer&mdash;is Rathbury any nearer? Is
+there the slightest clue that will fasten the guilt on anybody else?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo gave no answer to these questions. He remained silent a while,
+apparently thinking.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Was Rathbury in court?&rdquo; he suddenly asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He was,&rdquo; replied Breton. &ldquo;He was there with two or three
+other men who I suppose were detectives, and seemed to be greatly interested in
+Aylmore.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If I don&rsquo;t see Rathbury tonight I&rsquo;ll see him in the
+morning,&rdquo; said Spargo. He rose as if to go, but after lingering a moment,
+sat down again. &ldquo;Look here,&rdquo; he continued, &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t
+know how this thing stands in law, but would it be a very weak case against
+Aylmore if the prosecution couldn&rsquo;t show some motive for his killing
+Marbury?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Breton smiled.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There&rsquo;s no necessity to prove motive in murder,&rdquo; he said.
+&ldquo;But I&rsquo;ll tell you what, Spargo&mdash;if the prosecution can show
+that Aylmore had a motive for getting rid of Marbury, if they could prove that
+it was to Aylmore&rsquo;s advantage to silence him&mdash;why, then, I
+don&rsquo;t think he&rsquo;s a chance.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I see. But so far no motive, no reason for his killing Marbury has been
+shown.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I know of none.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo rose and moved to the door.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, I&rsquo;m off,&rdquo; he said. Then, as if he suddenly recollected
+something, he turned back. &ldquo;Oh, by the by,&rdquo; he said,
+&ldquo;isn&rsquo;t your guardian, Mr. Elphick, a big authority on
+philately?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;One of the biggest. Awful enthusiast.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Do you think he&rsquo;d tell me a bit about those Australian stamps
+which Marbury showed to Criedir, the dealer?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Certain, he would&mdash;delighted. Here&rdquo;&mdash;and Breton
+scribbled a few words on a card&mdash;&ldquo;there&rsquo;s his address and a
+word from me. I&rsquo;ll tell you when you can always find him in, five nights
+out of seven&mdash;at nine o&rsquo;clock, after he&rsquo;s dined. I&rsquo;d go
+with you tonight, but I must go to Aylmore&rsquo;s. The two girls are in
+terrible trouble.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Give them a message from me,&rdquo; said Spargo as they went out
+together. &ldquo;Tell them to keep up their hearts and their courage.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap27"></a>CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN<br/>
+MR. ELPHICK&rsquo;S CHAMBERS</h2>
+
+<p>
+Spargo went round again to the Temple that night at nine o&rsquo;clock, asking
+himself over and over again two questions&mdash;the first, how much does
+Elphick know? the second, how much shall I tell him?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The old house in the Temple to which he repaired and in which many a generation
+of old fogies had lived since the days of Queen Anne, was full of stairs and
+passages, and as Spargo had forgotten to get the exact number of the set of
+chambers he wanted, he was obliged to wander about in what was a deserted
+building. So wandering, he suddenly heard steps, firm, decisive steps coming up
+a staircase which he himself had just climbed. He looked over the banisters
+down into the hollow beneath. And there, marching up resolutely, was the figure
+of a tall, veiled woman, and Spargo suddenly realized, with a sharp quickening
+of his pulses, that for the second time that day he was beneath one roof with
+Miss Baylis.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo&rsquo;s mind acted quickly. Knowing what he now knew, from his
+extraordinary dealings with Mother Gutch, he had no doubt whatever that Miss
+Baylis had come to see Mr. Elphick&mdash;come, of course, to tell Mr. Elphick
+that he, Spargo, had visited her that morning, and that he was on the track of
+the Maitland secret history. He had never thought of it before, for he had been
+busily engaged since the departure of Mother Gutch; but, naturally, Miss Baylis
+and Mr. Elphick would keep in communication with each other. At any rate, here
+she was, and her destination was, surely, Elphick&rsquo;s chambers. And the
+question for him, Spargo, was&mdash;what to do?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+What Spargo did was to remain in absolute silence, motionless, tense, where he
+was on the stair, and to trust to the chance that the woman did not look up.
+But Miss Baylis neither looked up nor down: she reached a landing, turned along
+a corridor with decision, and marched forward. A moment later Spargo heard a
+sharp double knock on a door: a moment after that he heard a door heavily shut;
+he knew then that Miss Baylis had sought and gained admittance&mdash;somewhere.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+To find out precisely where that somewhere was drew Spargo down to the landing
+which Miss Baylis had just left. There was no one about&mdash;he had not, in
+fact, seen a soul since he entered the building. Accordingly he went along the
+corridor into which he had seen Miss Baylis turn. He knew that all the doors in
+that house were double ones, and that the outer oak in each was solid and
+substantial enough to be sound proof. Yet, as men will under such
+circumstances, he walked softly; he said to himself, smiling at the thought,
+that he would be sure to start if somebody suddenly opened a door on him. But
+no hand opened any door, and at last he came to the end of the corridor and
+found himself confronting a small board on which was painted in white letters
+on a black ground, Mr. Elphick&rsquo;s Chambers.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Having satisfied himself as to his exact whereabouts, Spargo drew back as
+quietly as he had come. There was a window half-way along the corridor from
+which, he had noticed as he came along, one could catch a glimpse of the
+Embankment and the Thames; to this he withdrew, and leaning on the sill looked
+out and considered matters. Should he go and&mdash;if he could gain
+admittance&mdash;beard these two conspirators? Should he wait until the woman
+came out and let her see that he was on the track? Should he hide again until
+she went, and then see Elphick alone?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the end Spargo did none of these things immediately. He let things slide for
+the moment. He lighted a cigarette and stared at the river and the brown sails,
+and the buildings across on the Surrey side. Ten minutes went by&mdash;twenty
+minutes&mdash;nothing happened. Then, as half-past nine struck from all the
+neighbouring clocks, Spargo flung away a second cigarette, marched straight
+down the corridor and knocked boldly at Mr. Elphick&rsquo;s door.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Greatly to Spargo&rsquo;s surprise, the door was opened before there was any
+necessity to knock again. And there, calmly confronting him, a benevolent, yet
+somewhat deprecating expression on his spectacled and placid face, stood Mr.
+Elphick, a smoking cap on his head, a tasseled smoking jacket over his dress
+shirt, and a short pipe in his hand.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo was taken aback: Mr. Elphick apparently was not. He held the door well
+open, and motioned the journalist to enter.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Come in, Mr. Spargo,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I was expecting you. Walk
+forward into my sitting-room.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo, much astonished at this reception, passed through an ante-room into a
+handsomely furnished apartment full of books and pictures. In spite of the fact
+that it was still very little past midsummer there was a cheery fire in the
+grate, and on a table set near a roomy arm-chair was set such creature comforts
+as a spirit-case, a syphon, a tumbler, and a novel&mdash;from which things
+Spargo argued that Mr. Elphick had been taking his ease since his dinner. But
+in another armchair on the opposite side of the hearth was the forbidding
+figure of Miss Baylis, blacker, gloomier, more mysterious than ever. She
+neither spoke nor moved when Spargo entered: she did not even look at him. And
+Spargo stood staring at her until Mr. Elphick, having closed his doors, touched
+him on the elbow, and motioned him courteously to a seat.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, I was expecting you, Mr. Spargo,&rdquo; he said, as he resumed his
+own chair. &ldquo;I have been expecting you at any time, ever since you took up
+your investigation of the Marbury affair, in some of the earlier stages of
+which you saw me, you will remember, at the mortuary. But since Miss Baylis
+told me, twenty minutes ago, that you had been to her this morning I felt sure
+that it would not be more than a few hours before you would come to me.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why, Mr. Elphick, should you suppose that I should come to you at
+all?&rdquo; asked Spargo, now in full possession of his wits.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Because I felt sure that you would leave no stone unturned, no corner
+unexplored,&rdquo; replied Mr. Elphick. &ldquo;The curiosity of the modern
+pressman is insatiable.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo stiffened.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have no curiosity, Mr. Elphick,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I am charged by
+my paper to investigate the circumstances of the death of the man who was found
+in Middle Temple Lane, and, if possible, to track his murderer,
+and&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Elphick laughed slightly and waved his hand.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;My good young gentleman!&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;You exaggerate your own
+importance. I don&rsquo;t approve of modern journalism nor of its methods. In
+your own case you have got hold of some absurd notion that the man John Marbury
+was in reality one John Maitland, once of Market Milcaster, and you have been
+trying to frighten Miss Baylis here into&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo suddenly rose from his chair. There was a certain temper in him which,
+when once roused, led him to straight hitting, and it was roused now. He looked
+the old barrister full in the face.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mr. Elphick,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;you are evidently unaware of all
+that I know. So I will tell you what I will do. I will go back to my office,
+and I will write down what I do know, and give the true and absolute proofs of
+what I know, and, if you will trouble yourself to read the <i>Watchman</i>
+tomorrow morning, then you, too, will know.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Dear me&mdash;dear me!&rdquo; said Mr. Elphick, banteringly. &ldquo;We
+are so used to ultra-sensational stories from the <i>Watchman</i>
+that&mdash;but I am a curious and inquisitive old man, my good young sir, so
+perhaps you will tell me in a word what it is you do know, eh?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo reflected for a second. Then he bent forward across the table and looked
+the old barrister straight in the face.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; he said quietly. &ldquo;I will tell you what I know beyond
+doubt. I know that the man murdered under the name of John Marbury was, without
+doubt, John Maitland, of Market Milcaster, and that Ronald Breton is his son,
+whom you took from that woman!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+If Spargo had desired a complete revenge for the cavalier fashion in which Mr.
+Elphick had treated it he could not have been afforded a more ample one than
+that offered to him by the old barrister&rsquo;s reception of this news. Mr.
+Elphick&rsquo;s face not only fell, but changed; his expression of almost
+sneering contempt was transformed to one clearly resembling abject terror; he
+dropped his pipe, fell back in his chair, recovered himself, gripped the
+chair&rsquo;s arms, and stared at Spargo as if the young man had suddenly
+announced to him that in another minute he must be led to instant execution.
+And Spargo, quick to see his advantage, followed it up.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That is what I know, Mr. Elphick, and if I choose, all the world shall
+know it tomorrow morning!&rdquo; he said firmly. &ldquo;Ronald Breton is the
+son of the murdered man, and Ronald Breton is engaged to be married to the
+daughter of the man charged with the murder. Do you hear that? It is not matter
+of suspicion, or of idea, or of conjecture, it is fact&mdash;fact!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Elphick slowly turned his face to Miss Baylis. He gasped out a few words.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You&mdash;did&mdash;not&mdash;tell&mdash;me&mdash;this!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then Spargo, turning to the woman, saw that she, too, was white to the lips and
+as frightened as the man.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&mdash;didn&rsquo;t know!&rdquo; she muttered. &ldquo;He didn&rsquo;t
+tell me. He only told me this morning what&mdash;what I&rsquo;ve told
+you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo picked up his hat.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Good-night, Mr. Elphick,&rdquo; he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But before he could reach the door the old barrister had leapt from his chair
+and seized him with trembling hands. Spargo turned and looked at him. He knew
+then that for some reason or other he had given Mr. Septimus Elphick a
+thoroughly bad fright.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well?&rdquo; he growled.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;My dear young gentleman!&rdquo; implored Mr. Elphick. &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t
+go! I&rsquo;ll&mdash;I&rsquo;ll do anything for you if you won&rsquo;t go away
+to print that. I&rsquo;ll&mdash;I&rsquo;ll give you a thousand pounds!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo shook him off.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s enough!&rdquo; he snarled. &ldquo;Now, I am off! What,
+you&rsquo;d try to bribe me?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Elphick wrung his hands.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t mean that&mdash;indeed I didn&rsquo;t!&rdquo; he almost
+wailed. &ldquo;I&mdash;I don&rsquo;t know what I meant. Stay, young gentleman,
+stay a little, and let us&mdash;let us talk. Let me have a word with
+you&mdash;as many words as you please. I implore you!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo made a fine pretence of hesitation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If I stay,&rdquo; he said, at last, &ldquo;it will only be on the strict
+condition that you answer&mdash;and answer truly&mdash;whatever questions I
+like to ask you. Otherwise&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He made another move to the door, and again Mr. Elphick laid beseeching hands
+on him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Stay!&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll answer anything you like!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap28"></a>CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT<br/>
+OF PROVED IDENTITY</h2>
+
+<p>
+Spargo sat down again in the chair which he had just left, and looked at the
+two people upon whom his startling announcement had produced such a curious
+effect. And he recognized as he looked at them that, while they were both
+frightened, they were frightened in different ways. Miss Baylis had already
+recovered her composure; she now sat sombre and stern as ever, returning
+Spargo&rsquo;s look with something of indifferent defiance; he thought he could
+see that in her mind a certain fear was battling with a certain amount of
+wonder that he had discovered the secret. It seemed to him that so far as she
+was concerned the secret had come to an end; it was as if she said in so many
+words that now the secret was out he might do his worst.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But upon Mr. Septimus Elphick the effect was very different. He was still
+trembling from excitement; he groaned as he sank into his chair and the hand
+with which he poured out a glass of spirits shook; the glass rattled against
+his teeth when he raised it to his lips. The half-contemptuous fashion of his
+reception of Spargo had now wholly disappeared; he was a man who had received a
+shock, and a bad one. And Spargo, watching him keenly, said to himself: This
+man knows a great deal more than, a great deal beyond, the mere fact that
+Marbury was Maitland, and that Ronald Breton is in reality Maitland&rsquo;s
+son; he knows something which he never wanted anybody to know, which he firmly
+believed it impossible anybody ever could know. It was as if he had buried
+something deep, deep down in the lowest depths, and was as astounded as he was
+frightened to find that it had been at last flung up to the broad light of day.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I shall wait,&rdquo; suddenly said Spargo, &ldquo;until you are
+composed, Mr. Elphick. I have no wish to distress you. But I see, of course,
+that the truths which I have told you are of a sort that cause you
+considerable&mdash;shall we say fear?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elphick took another stiff pull at his liquor. His hand had grown steadier, and
+the colour was coming back to his face.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If you will let me explain,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;If you will hear what
+was done for the boy&rsquo;s sake&mdash;eh?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That,&rdquo; answered Spargo, &ldquo;is precisely what I wish. I can
+tell you this&mdash;I am the last man in the world to wish harm of any sort to
+Mr. Breton.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Miss Baylis relieved her feelings with a scornful sniff. &ldquo;He says
+that!&rdquo; she exclaimed, addressing the ceiling. &ldquo;He says that,
+knowing that he means to tell the world in his rag of a paper that Ronald
+Breton, on whom every care has been lavished, is the son of a scoundrel, an
+ex-convict, a&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elphick lifted his hand.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Hush&mdash;hush!&rdquo; he said imploringly. &ldquo;Mr. Spargo means
+well, I am sure&mdash;I am convinced. If Mr. Spargo will hear
+me&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But before Spargo could reply, a loud insistent knocking came at the outer
+door. Elphick started nervously, but presently he moved across the room,
+walking as if he had received a blow, and opened the door. A boy&rsquo;s voice
+penetrated into the sitting-room.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If you please, sir, is Mr. Spargo, of the <i>Watchman</i>, here? He left
+this address in case he was wanted.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo recognized the voice as that of one of the office messenger boys, and
+jumping up, went to the door.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What is it, Rawlins?&rdquo; he asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Will you please come back to the office, sir, at once? There&rsquo;s Mr.
+Rathbury there and says he must see you instantly.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;All right,&rdquo; answered Spargo. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m coming just
+now.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He motioned the lad away, and turned to Elphick.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I shall have to go,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I may be kept. Now, Mr.
+Elphick, can I come to see you tomorrow morning?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, yes, tomorrow morning!&rdquo; replied Elphick eagerly.
+&ldquo;Tomorrow morning, certainly. At eleven&mdash;eleven o&rsquo;clock. That
+will do?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I shall be here at eleven,&rdquo; said Spargo. &ldquo;Eleven
+sharp.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He was moving away when Elphick caught him by the sleeve.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A word&mdash;just a word!&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;You&mdash;you have not
+told the&mdash;the boy&mdash;Ronald&mdash;of what you know? You
+haven&rsquo;t?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I haven&rsquo;t,&rdquo; replied Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elphick tightened his grip on Spargo&rsquo;s sleeve. He looked into his face
+beseechingly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Promise me&mdash;promise me, Mr. Spargo, that you won&rsquo;t tell him
+until you have seen me in the morning!&rdquo; he implored. &ldquo;I beg you to
+promise me this.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo hesitated, considering matters.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Very well&mdash;I promise,&rdquo; he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And you won&rsquo;t print it?&rdquo; continued Elphick, still clinging
+to him. &ldquo;Say you won&rsquo;t print it tonight?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I shall not print it tonight,&rdquo; answered Spargo.
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s certain.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elphick released his grip on the young man&rsquo;s arm.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Come&mdash;at eleven tomorrow morning,&rdquo; he said, and drew back and
+closed the door.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo ran quickly to the office and hurried up to his own room. And there,
+calmly seated in an easy-chair, smoking a cigar, and reading an evening
+newspaper, was Rathbury, unconcerned and outwardly as imperturbable as ever. He
+greeted Spargo with a careless nod and a smile.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;how&rsquo;s things?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo, half-breathless, dropped into his desk-chair.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You didn&rsquo;t come here to tell me that,&rdquo; he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Rathbury laughed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No,&rdquo; he said, throwing the newspaper aside, &ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t.
+I came to tell you my latest. You&rsquo;re at full liberty to stick it into
+your paper tonight: it may just as well be known.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well?&rdquo; said Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Rathbury took his cigar out of his lips and yawned.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Aylmore&rsquo;s identified,&rdquo; he said lazily.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo sat up, sharply.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Identified!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Identified, my son. Beyond doubt.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But as whom&mdash;as what?&rdquo; exclaimed Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Rathbury laughed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He&rsquo;s an old lag&mdash;an ex-convict. Served his time partly at
+Dartmoor. That, of course, is where he met Maitland or Marbury. D&rsquo;ye see?
+Clear as noontide now, Spargo.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo sat drumming his fingers on the desk before him. His eyes were fixed on
+a map of London that hung on the opposite wall; his ears heard the throbbing of
+the printing-machines far below. But what he really saw was the faces of the
+two girls; what he really heard was the voices of two girls …
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Clear as noontide&mdash;as noontide,&rdquo; repeated Rathbury with great
+cheerfulness.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo came back to the earth of plain and brutal fact.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What&rsquo;s clear as noontide?&rdquo; he asked sharply.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What? Why, the whole thing! Motive&mdash;everything,&rdquo; answered
+Rathbury. &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t you see, Maitland and Aylmore (his real name is
+Ainsworth, by the by) meet at Dartmoor, probably, or, rather, certainly, just
+before Aylmore&rsquo;s release. Aylmore goes abroad, makes money, in time comes
+back, starts new career, gets into Parliament, becomes big man. In time,
+Maitland, who, after his time, has also gone abroad, also comes back. The two
+meet. Maitland probably tries to blackmail Aylmore or threatens to let folk
+know that the flourishing Mr. Aylmore, M.P., is an ex-convict.
+Result&mdash;Aylmore lures him to the Temple and quiets him. Pooh!&mdash;the
+whole thing&rsquo;s clear as noontide, as I say. As&mdash;noontide!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo drummed his fingers again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How?&rdquo; he asked quietly. &ldquo;How came Aylmore to be
+identified?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;My work,&rdquo; said Rathbury proudly. &ldquo;My work, my son. You see,
+I thought a lot. And especially after we&rsquo;d found out that Marbury was
+Maitland.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You mean after I&rsquo;d found out,&rdquo; remarked Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Rathbury waved his cigar.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, well, it&rsquo;s all the same,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;You help me,
+and I help you, eh? Well, as I say, I thought a considerable lot. I
+thought&mdash;now, where did Maitland, or Marbury, know or meet Aylmore twenty
+or twenty-two years ago? Not in London, because we knew Maitland never was in
+London&mdash;at any rate, before his trial, and we haven&rsquo;t the least
+proof that he was in London after. And why won&rsquo;t Aylmore tell? Clearly
+because it must have been in some undesirable place. And then, all of a sudden,
+it flashed on me in a moment of&mdash;what do you writing fellows call those
+moments, Spargo?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Inspiration, I should think,&rdquo; said Spargo. &ldquo;Direct
+inspiration.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s it. In a moment of direct inspiration, it flashed on
+me&mdash;why, twenty years ago, Maitland was in Dartmoor&mdash;they must have
+met there! And so, we got some old warders who&rsquo;d been there at that time
+to come to town, and we gave &rsquo;em opportunities to see Aylmore and to
+study him. Of course, he&rsquo;s twenty years older, and he&rsquo;s grown a
+beard, but they began to recall him, and then one man remembered that if he was
+the man they thought he&rsquo;d a certain birth-mark. And&mdash;he has!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Does Aylmore know that he&rsquo;s been identified?&rdquo; asked Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Rathbury pitched his cigar into the fireplace and laughed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Know!&rdquo; he said scornfully. &ldquo;Know? He&rsquo;s admitted it.
+What was the use of standing out against proof like that. He admitted it
+tonight in my presence. Oh, he knows all right!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And what did he say?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Rathbury laughed contemptuously.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Say? Oh, not much. Pretty much what he said about this affair&mdash;that
+when he was convicted the time before he was an innocent man. He&rsquo;s
+certainly a good hand at playing the innocent game.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And of what was he convicted?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, of course, we know all about it&mdash;now. As soon as we found out
+who he really was, we had all the particulars turned up. Aylmore, or Ainsworth
+(Stephen Ainsworth his name really is) was a man who ran a sort of what they
+call a Mutual Benefit Society in a town right away up in the
+North&mdash;Cloudhampton&mdash;some thirty years ago. He was nominally
+secretary, but it was really his own affair. It was patronized by the working
+classes&mdash;Cloudhampton&rsquo;s a purely artisan population&mdash;and they
+stuck a lot of their brass, as they call it, in it. Then suddenly it came to
+smash, and there was nothing. He&mdash;Ainsworth, or Aylmore&mdash;pleaded that
+he was robbed and duped by another man, but the court didn&rsquo;t believe him,
+and he got seven years. Plain story you see, Spargo, when it all comes out,
+eh?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;All stories are quite plain&mdash;when they come out,&rdquo; observed
+Spargo. &ldquo;And he kept silence now, I suppose, because he didn&rsquo;t want
+his daughters to know about his past?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Just so,&rdquo; agreed Rathbury. &ldquo;And I don&rsquo;t know that I
+blame him. He thought, of course, that he&rsquo;d go scot-free over this
+Marbury affair. But he made his mistake in the initial stages, my boy&mdash;oh,
+yes!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo got up from his desk and walked around his room for a few minutes,
+Rathbury meanwhile finding and lighting another cigar. At last Spargo came back
+and clapped a hand on the detective&rsquo;s shoulder.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Look here, Rathbury!&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s very evident that
+you&rsquo;re now going on the lines that Aylmore did murder Marbury. Eh?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Rathbury looked up. His face showed astonishment.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;After evidence like that!&rdquo; he exclaimed. &ldquo;Why, of course.
+There&rsquo;s the motive, my son, the motive!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo laughed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Rathbury!&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Aylmore no more murdered Marbury than
+you did!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The detective got up and put on his hat.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh!&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Perhaps you know who did, then?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I shall know in a few days,&rdquo; answered Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Rathbury stared wonderingly at him. Then he suddenly walked to the door.
+&ldquo;Good-night!&rdquo; he said gruffly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Good-night, Rathbury,&rdquo; replied Spargo and sat down at his desk.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But that night Spargo wrote nothing for the <i>Watchman</i>. All he wrote was a
+short telegram addressed to Aylmore&rsquo;s daughters. There were only three
+words on it&mdash;<i>Have no fear.</i>
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap29"></a>CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE<br/>
+THE CLOSED DOORS</h2>
+
+<p>
+Alone of all the London morning newspapers, the <i>Watchman</i> appeared next
+day destitute of sensationalism in respect to the Middle Temple Murder. The
+other daily journals published more or less vivid accounts of the
+identification of Mr. Stephen Aylmore, M.P. for the Brookminster Division, as
+the <i>ci-devant</i> Stephen Ainsworth, ex-convict, once upon a time founder
+and secretary of the Hearth and Home Mutual Benefit Society, the headquarters
+of which had been at Cloudhampton, in Daleshire; the fall of which had involved
+thousands of honest working folk in terrible distress if not in absolute ruin.
+Most of them had raked up Ainsworth&rsquo;s past to considerable journalistic
+purpose: it had been an easy matter to turn up old files, to recount the fall
+of the Hearth and Home, to tell anew the story of the privations of the humble
+investors whose small hoards had gone in the crash; it had been easy, too, to
+set out again the history of Ainsworth&rsquo;s arrest, trial, and fate. There
+was plenty of romance in the story: it was that of a man who by his financial
+ability had built up a great industrial insurance society; had&mdash;as was
+alleged&mdash;converted the large sums entrusted to him to his own purposes;
+had been detected and punished; had disappeared, after his punishment, so
+effectually that no one knew where he had gone; had come back, comparatively a
+few years later, under another name, a very rich man, and had entered
+Parliament and been, in a modest way, a public character without any of those
+who knew him in his new career suspecting that he had once worn a dress
+liberally ornamented with the broad arrow. Fine copy, excellent copy: some of
+the morning newspapers made a couple of columns of it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But the <i>Watchman</i>, up to then easily ahead of all its contemporaries in
+keeping the public informed of all the latest news in connection with the
+Marbury affair, contented itself with a brief announcement. For after Rathbury
+had left him, Spargo had sought his proprietor and his editor, and had sat long
+in consultation with them, and the result of their talk had been that all the
+<i>Watchman</i> thought fit to tell its readers next morning was contained in a
+curt paragraph:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We understand that Mr. Stephen Aylmore, M.P., who is charged with the
+murder of John Marbury, or Maitland, in the Temple on June 21st last, was
+yesterday afternoon identified by certain officials as Stephen Ainsworth, who
+was sentenced to a term of penal servitude in connection with the Hearth and
+Home Mutual Benefit Society funds nearly thirty years ago.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Coming down to Fleet Street that morning, Spargo, strolling jauntily along the
+front of the Law Courts, encountered a fellow-journalist, a man on an
+opposition newspaper, who grinned at him in a fashion which indicated derision.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Left behind a bit, that rag of yours, this morning, Spargo, my
+boy!&rdquo; he remarked elegantly. &ldquo;Why, you&rsquo;ve missed one of the
+finest opportunities I ever heard of in connection with that Aylmore affair. A
+miserable paragraph!&mdash;why, I worked off a column and a half in ours! What
+were you doing last night, old man?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Sleeping,&rdquo; said Spargo and went by with a nod.
+&ldquo;Sleeping!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He left the other staring at him, and crossed the road to Middle Temple Lane.
+It was just on the stroke of eleven as he walked up the stairs to Mr.
+Elphick&rsquo;s chambers; precisely eleven as he knocked at the outer door. It
+is seldom that outer doors are closed in the Temple at that hour, but
+Elphick&rsquo;s door was closed fast enough. The night before it had been
+promptly opened, but there was no response to Spargo&rsquo;s first knock, nor
+to his second, nor to his third. And half-unconsciously he murmured aloud:
+&ldquo;Elphick&rsquo;s door is closed!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It never occurred to Spargo to knock again: instinct told him that
+Elphick&rsquo;s door was closed because Elphick was not there; closed because
+Elphick was not going to keep the appointment. He turned and walked slowly back
+along the corridor. And just as he reached the head of the stairs Ronald
+Breton, pale and anxious, came running up them, and at sight of Spargo paused,
+staring questioningly at him. As if with a mutual sympathy the two young men
+shook hands.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;m glad you didn&rsquo;t print more than those two or three lines
+in the <i>Watchman</i> this morning,&rdquo; said Breton. &ldquo;It
+was&mdash;considerate. As for the other papers!&mdash;Aylmore assured me last
+night, Spargo, that though he did serve that term at Dartmoor he was innocent
+enough! He was scapegoat for another man who disappeared.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then, as Spargo merely nodded, he added, awkwardly:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And I&rsquo;m obliged to you, too, old chap, for sending that wire to
+the two girls last night&mdash;it was good of you. They want all the comfort
+they can get, poor things! But&mdash;what are you doing here, Spargo?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo leant against the head of the stairs and folded his hands.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I came here,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;to keep an appointment with Mr.
+Elphick&mdash;an appointment which he made when I called on him, as you
+suggested, at nine o&rsquo;clock. The appointment&mdash;a most important
+one&mdash;was for eleven o&rsquo;clock.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Breton glanced at his watch.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Come on, then,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s well past that now, and
+my guardian&rsquo;s a very martinet in the matter of punctuality.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But Spargo did not move. Instead, he shook his head, regarding Breton with
+troubled eyes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;So am I,&rdquo; he answered. &ldquo;I was trained to it. Your guardian
+isn&rsquo;t there, Breton.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not there? If he made an appointment for eleven? Nonsense&mdash;I never
+knew him miss an appointment!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I knocked three times&mdash;three separate times,&rdquo; answered
+Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You should have knocked half a dozen times&mdash;he may have overslept
+himself. He sits up late&mdash;he and old Cardlestone often sit up half the
+night, talking stamps or playing piquet,&rdquo; said Breton. &ldquo;Come
+on&mdash;you&rsquo;ll see!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo shook his head again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He&rsquo;s not there, Breton,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s
+gone!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Breton stared at the journalist as if he had just announced that he had seen
+Mr. Septimus Elphick riding down Fleet Street on a dromedary. He seized
+Spargo&rsquo;s elbow.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Come on!&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I have a key to Mr. Elphick&rsquo;s
+door, so that I can go in and out as I like. I&rsquo;ll soon show you whether
+he&rsquo;s gone or not.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo followed the young barrister down the corridor.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;All the same,&rdquo; he said meditatively as Breton fitted a key to the
+latch, &ldquo;he&rsquo;s not there, Breton. He&rsquo;s&mdash;off!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Good heavens, man, I don&rsquo;t know what you&rsquo;re talking
+about!&rdquo; exclaimed Breton, opening the door and walking into the lobby.
+&ldquo;Off! Where on earth should he be off to, when he&rsquo;s made an
+appointment with you for eleven, and&mdash;Hullo!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He had opened the door of the room in which Spargo had met Elphick and Miss
+Baylis the night before, and was walking in when he pulled himself up on the
+threshold with a sharp exclamation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Good God!&rdquo; he cried. &ldquo;What&mdash;what&rsquo;s all
+this?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo quietly looked over Breton&rsquo;s shoulder. It needed but one quick
+glance to show him that much had happened in that quiet room since he had
+quitted it the night before. There stood the easy-chair in which he had left
+Elphick; there, close by it, but pushed aside, as if by a hurried hand, was the
+little table with its spirit case, its syphon, its glass, in which stale liquid
+still stood; there was the novel, turned face downwards; there, upon the novel,
+was Elphick&rsquo;s pipe. But the rest of the room was in dire confusion. The
+drawers of a bureau had been pulled open and never put back; papers of all
+descriptions, old legal-looking documents, old letters, littered the
+centre-table and the floor; in one corner of the room a black japanned box had
+been opened, its contents strewn about, and the lid left yawning. And in the
+grate, and all over the fender there were masses of burned and charred paper;
+it was only too evident that the occupant of the chambers, wherever he might
+have disappeared to, had spent some time before his disappearance in destroying
+a considerable heap of documents and papers, and in such haste that he had not
+troubled to put matters straight before he went.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Breton stared at this scene for a moment in utter consternation. Then he made
+one step towards an inner door, and Spargo followed him. Together they entered
+an inner room&mdash;a sleeping apartment. There was no one in it, but there
+were evidences that Elphick had just as hastily packed a bag as he had
+destroyed his papers. The clothes which Spargo had seen him wearing the
+previous evening were flung here, there, everywhere: the gorgeous
+smoking-jacket was tossed unceremoniously in one corner, a dress-shirt, in the
+bosom of which valuable studs still glistened, in another. One or two suitcases
+lay about, as if they had been examined and discarded in favour of something
+more portable; here, too, drawers, revealing stocks of linen and underclothing,
+had been torn open and left open; open, too, swung the door of a wardrobe,
+revealing a quantity of expensive clothing. And Spargo, looking around him,
+seemed to see all that had happened&mdash;the hasty, almost frantic search for
+and tearing up and burning of papers; the hurried change of clothing, of
+packing necessaries into a bag that could be carried, and then the flight the
+getting away, the&mdash;&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What on earth does all this mean?&rdquo; exclaimed Breton. &ldquo;What
+is it, Spargo?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I mean exactly what I told you,&rdquo; answered Spargo.
+&ldquo;He&rsquo;s off! Off!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Off! But why off? What&mdash;my guardian!&mdash;as quiet an old
+gentleman as there is in the Temple&mdash;off!&rdquo; cried Breton. &ldquo;For
+what reason, eh? It isn&rsquo;t&mdash;good God, Spargo, it isn&rsquo;t because
+of anything you said to him last night!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I should say it is precisely because of something that I said to him
+last night,&rdquo; replied Spargo. &ldquo;I was a fool ever to let him out of
+my sight.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Breton turned on his companion and gasped.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Out&mdash;of&mdash;your&mdash;sight!&rdquo; he exclaimed.
+&ldquo;Why&mdash;why&mdash;you don&rsquo;t mean to say that Mr. Elphick has
+anything to do with this Marbury affair? For God&rsquo;s sake,
+Spargo&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo laid a hand on the young barrister&rsquo;s shoulder.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;m afraid you&rsquo;ll have to hear a good deal, Breton,&rdquo;
+he said. &ldquo;I was going to talk to you today in any case. You
+see&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Before Spargo could say more a woman, bearing the implements which denote the
+charwoman&rsquo;s profession, entered the room and immediately cried out at
+what she saw. Breton turned on her almost savagely.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Here, you!&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Have you seen anything of Mr. Elphick
+this morning?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The charwoman rolled her eyes and lifted her hands.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Me, sir! Not a sign of him, sir. Which I never comes here much before
+half-past eleven, sir, Mr. Elphick being then gone out to his breakfast. I see
+him yesterday morning, sir, which he was then in his usual state of good
+health, sir, if any thing&rsquo;s the matter with him now. No, sir, I
+ain&rsquo;t seen nothing of him.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Breton let out another exclamation of impatience.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You&rsquo;d better leave all this,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Mr.
+Elphick&rsquo;s evidently gone away in a hurry, and you mustn&rsquo;t touch
+anything here until he comes back. I&rsquo;m going to lock up the chambers: if
+you&rsquo;ve a key of them give it to me.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The charwoman handed over a key, gave another astonished look at the rooms, and
+vanished, muttering, and Breton turned to Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What do you say?&rdquo; he demanded. &ldquo;I must hear&mdash;a good
+deal! Out with it, then, man, for Heaven&rsquo;s sake.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But Spargo shook his head.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not now, Breton,&rdquo; he answered. &ldquo;Presently, I tell you, for
+Miss Aylmore&rsquo;s sake, and your own, the first thing to do is to get on
+your guardian&rsquo;s track. We must&mdash;must, I say!&mdash;and at
+once.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Breton stood staring at Spargo for a moment as if he could not credit his own
+senses. Then he suddenly motioned Spargo out of the room.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Come on!&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I know who&rsquo;ll know where he is, if
+anybody does.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Who, then?&rdquo; asked Spargo, as they hurried out.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Cardlestone,&rdquo; answered Breton, grimly. &ldquo;Cardlestone!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap30"></a>CHAPTER THIRTY<br/>
+REVELATION</h2>
+
+<p>
+There was as much bright sunshine that morning in Middle Temple Lane as ever
+manages to get into it, and some of it was shining in the entry into which
+Spargo and Breton presently hurried. Full of haste as he was Breton paused at
+the foot of the stair. He looked down at the floor and at the wall at its side.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Wasn&rsquo;t it there?&rdquo; he said in a low voice, pointing at the
+place he looked at. &ldquo;Wasn&rsquo;t it there, Spargo, just there, that
+Marbury, or, rather, Maitland, was found?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It was just there,&rdquo; answered Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You saw him?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I saw him.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Soon&mdash;afterwards?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Immediately after he was found. You know all that, Breton. Why do you
+ask now?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Breton, who was still staring at the place on which he had fixed his eyes on
+walking into the entry, shook his head.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t know,&rdquo; he answered. &ldquo;I&mdash;but come
+on&mdash;let&rsquo;s see if old Cardlestone can tell us anything.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was another charwoman, armed with pails and buckets, outside
+Cardlestone&rsquo;s door, into which she was just fitting a key. It was evident
+to Spargo that she knew Breton, for she smiled at him as she opened the door.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think Mr. Cardlestone&rsquo;ll be in, sir,&rdquo; she
+said. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s generally gone out to breakfast at this time&mdash;him
+and Mr. Elphick goes together.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Just see,&rdquo; said Breton. &ldquo;I want to see him if he is
+in.&rdquo; The charwoman entered the chambers and immediately screamed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Quite so,&rdquo; remarked Spargo. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s what I expected to
+hear. Cardlestone, you see, Breton, is also&mdash;off!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Breton made no reply. He rushed after the charwoman, with Spargo in close
+attendance.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Good God&mdash;another!&rdquo; groaned Breton.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+If the confusion in Elphick&rsquo;s rooms had been bad, that in
+Cardlestone&rsquo;s chambers was worse. Here again all the features of the
+previous scene were repeated&mdash;drawers had been torn open, papers thrown
+about; the hearth was choked with light ashes; everything was at sixes and
+sevens. An open door leading into an inner room showed that Cardlestone, like
+Elphick, had hastily packed a bag; like Elphick had changed his clothes, and
+had thrown his discarded garments anywhere, into any corner. Spargo began to
+realize what had taken place&mdash;Elphick, having made his own preparations
+for flight, had come to Cardlestone, and had expedited him, and they had fled
+together. But&mdash;why?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The charwoman sat down in the nearest chair and began to moan and sob; Breton
+strode forward, across the heaps of papers and miscellaneous objects tossed
+aside in that hurried search and clearing up, into the inner room. And Spargo,
+looking about him, suddenly caught sight of something lying on the floor at
+which he made a sharp clutch. He had just secured it and hurried it into his
+pocket when Breton came back.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know what all this means, Spargo,&rdquo; he said, almost
+wearily. &ldquo;I suppose you do. Look here,&rdquo; he went on, turning to the
+charwoman, &ldquo;stop that row&mdash;that&rsquo;ll do no good, you know. I
+suppose Mr. Cardlestone&rsquo;s gone away in a hurry. You&rsquo;d
+better&mdash;what had she better do, Spargo?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Leave things exactly as they are, lock up the chambers, and as
+you&rsquo;re a friend of Mr. Cardlestone&rsquo;s give you the key,&rdquo;
+answered Spargo, with a significant glance. &ldquo;Do that, now, and
+let&rsquo;s go&mdash;I&rsquo;ve something to do.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Once outside, with the startled charwoman gone away, Spargo turned to Breton.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll tell you all I know, presently, Breton,&rdquo; he said.
+&ldquo;In the meantime, I want to find out if the lodge porter saw Mr. Elphick
+or Mr. Cardlestone leave. I must know where they&rsquo;ve gone&mdash;if I can
+only find out. I don&rsquo;t suppose they went on foot.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;All right,&rdquo; responded Breton, gloomily. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ll go and
+ask. But this is all beyond me. You don&rsquo;t mean to
+say&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Wait a while,&rdquo; answered Spargo. &ldquo;One thing at once,&rdquo;
+he continued, as they walked up Middle Temple Lane. &ldquo;This is the first
+thing. You ask the porter if he&rsquo;s seen anything of either of
+them&mdash;he knows you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The porter, duly interrogated, responded with alacrity.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Anything of Mr. Elphick this morning, Mr. Breton?&rdquo; he answered.
+&ldquo;Certainly, sir. I got a taxi for Mr. Elphick and Mr. Cardlestone early
+this morning&mdash;soon after seven. Mr. Elphick said they were going to Paris,
+and they&rsquo;d breakfast at Charing Cross before the train left.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Say when they&rsquo;d be back?&rdquo; asked Breton, with an assumption
+of entire carelessness.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, sir, Mr. Elphick didn&rsquo;t,&rdquo; answered the porter.
+&ldquo;But I should say they wouldn&rsquo;t be long because they&rsquo;d only
+got small suit-cases with them&mdash;such as they&rsquo;d put a day or
+two&rsquo;s things in, sir.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;All right,&rdquo; said Breton. He turned away towards Spargo who had
+already moved off. &ldquo;What next?&rdquo; he asked. &ldquo;Charing Cross, I
+suppose!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo smiled and shook his head.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No,&rdquo; he answered. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve no use for Charing Cross. They
+haven&rsquo;t gone to Paris. That was all a blind. For the present let&rsquo;s
+go back to your chambers. Then I&rsquo;ll talk to you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Once within Breton&rsquo;s inner room, with the door closed upon them, Spargo
+dropped into an easy-chair and looked at the young barrister with earnest
+attention.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Breton!&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I believe we&rsquo;re coming in sight of
+land. You want to save your prospective father-in-law, don&rsquo;t you?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Of course!&rdquo; growled Breton. &ldquo;That goes without saying.
+But&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But you may have to make some sacrifices in order to do it,&rdquo; said
+Spargo. &ldquo;You see&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Sacrifices!&rdquo; exclaimed Breton. &ldquo;What&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You may have to sacrifice some ideas&mdash;you may find that
+you&rsquo;ll not be able to think as well of some people in the future as you
+have thought of them in the past. For instance&mdash;Mr. Elphick.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Breton&rsquo;s face grew dark.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Speak plainly, Spargo!&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s best with
+me.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Very well,&rdquo; replied Spargo. &ldquo;Mr. Elphick, then, is in some
+way connected with this affair.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You mean the&mdash;murder?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I mean the murder. So is Cardlestone. Of that I&rsquo;m now dead
+certain. And that&rsquo;s why they&rsquo;re off. I startled Elphick last night.
+It&rsquo;s evident that he immediately communicated with Cardlestone, and that
+they made a rapid exit. Why?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why? That&rsquo;s what I&rsquo;m asking you! Why? Why? Why?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Because they&rsquo;re afraid of something coming out. And being afraid,
+their first instinct is to&mdash;run. They&rsquo;ve run at the first alarm.
+Foolish&mdash;but instinctive.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Breton, who had flung himself into the elbow-chair at his desk, jumped to his
+feet and thumped his blotting-pad.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Spargo!&rdquo; he exclaimed. &ldquo;Are you telling me that you accuse
+my guardian and his friend, Mr. Cardlestone, of being&mdash;murderers?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nothing of the sort. I am accusing Mr. Elphick and Mr. Cardlestone of
+knowing more about the murder than they care to tell or want to tell. I am also
+accusing them, and especially your guardian, of knowing all about Maitland,
+alias Marbury. I made him confess last night that he knew this dead man to be
+John Maitland.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You did!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I did. And now, Breton, since it&rsquo;s got to come out, we&rsquo;ll
+have the truth. Pull yourself together&mdash;get your nerves ready, for
+you&rsquo;ll have to stand a shock or two. But I know what I&rsquo;m talking
+about&mdash;I can prove every word I&rsquo;m going to say to you. And first let
+me ask you a few questions. Do you know anything about your parentage?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nothing&mdash;beyond what Mr. Elphick has told me.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And what was that?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That my parents were old friends of his, who died young, leaving me
+unprovided for, and that he took me up and looked after me.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And he&rsquo;s never given you any documentary evidence of any sort to
+prove the truth of that story?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Never! I never questioned his statement. Why should I?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You never remember anything of your childhood&mdash;I mean of any person
+who was particularly near you in your childhood?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I remember the people who brought me up from the time I was three years
+old. And I have just a faint, shadowy recollection of some woman, a tall, dark
+woman, I think, before that.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Miss Baylis,&rdquo; said Spargo to himself. &ldquo;All right,
+Breton,&rdquo; he went on aloud. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m going to tell you the truth.
+I&rsquo;ll tell it to you straight out and give you all the explanations
+afterwards. Your real name is not Breton at all. Your real name is Maitland,
+and you&rsquo;re the only child of the man who was found murdered at the foot
+of Cardlestone&rsquo;s staircase!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo had been wondering how Breton would take this, and he gazed at him with
+some anxiety as he got out the last words. What would he do?&mdash;what would
+he say?&mdash;what&mdash;&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Breton sat down quietly at his desk and looked Spargo hard between the eyes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Prove that to me, Spargo,&rdquo; he said, in hard, matter-of-fact tones.
+&ldquo;Prove it to me, every word. Every word, Spargo!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo nodded.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I will&mdash;every word,&rdquo; he answered. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s the right
+thing. Listen, then.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was a quarter to twelve, Spargo noticed, throwing a glance at the clock
+outside, as he began his story; it was past one when he brought it to an end.
+And all that time Breton listened with the keenest attention, only asking a
+question now and then; now and then making a brief note on a sheet of paper
+which he had drawn to him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s all,&rdquo; said Spargo at last.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It&rsquo;s plenty,&rdquo; observed Breton laconically.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He sat staring at his notes for a moment; then he looked up at Spargo.
+&ldquo;What do you really think?&rdquo; he asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;About&mdash;what?&rdquo; said Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;This flight of Elphick&rsquo;s and Cardlestone&rsquo;s.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I think, as I said, that they knew something which they think may be
+forced upon them. I never saw a man in a greater fright than that I saw Elphick
+in last night. And it&rsquo;s evident that Cardlestone shares in that fright,
+or they wouldn&rsquo;t have gone off in this way together.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Do you think they know anything of the actual murder?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo shook his head.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know. Probably. They know something. And&mdash;look
+here!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo put his hand in his breast pocket and drew something out which he handed
+to Breton, who gazed at it curiously.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What&rsquo;s this?&rdquo; he demanded. &ldquo;Stamps?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That, from the description of Criedir, the stamp-dealer, is a sheet of
+those rare Australian stamps which Maitland had on him&mdash;carried on him. I
+picked it up just now in Cardlestone&rsquo;s room, when you were looking into
+his bedroom.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But that, after all, proves nothing. Those mayn&rsquo;t be the identical
+stamps. And whether they are or not&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What are the probabilities?&rdquo; interrupted Spargo sharply. &ldquo;I
+believe that those are the stamps which Maitland&mdash;your father!&mdash;had
+on him, and I want to know how they came to be in Cardlestone&rsquo;s rooms.
+And I will know.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Breton handed the stamps back.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But the general thing, Spargo?&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;If they
+didn&rsquo;t murder&mdash;I can&rsquo;t realize the thing yet!&mdash;my
+father&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If they didn&rsquo;t murder your father, they know who did!&rdquo;
+exclaimed Spargo. &ldquo;Now, then, it&rsquo;s time for more action. Let
+Elphick and Cardlestone alone for the moment&mdash;they&rsquo;ll be tracked
+easily enough. I want to tackle something else for the moment. How do you get
+an authority from the Government to open a grave?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Order from the Home Secretary, which will have to be obtained by showing
+the very strongest reasons why it should be made.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Good! We&rsquo;ll give the reasons. I want to have a grave
+opened.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A grave opened! Whose grave?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The grave of the man Chamberlayne at Market Milcaster,&rdquo; replied
+Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Breton started.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;His? In Heaven&rsquo;s name, why?&rdquo; he demanded.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo laughed as he got up.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Because I believe it&rsquo;s empty,&rdquo; he answered. &ldquo;Because I
+believe that Chamberlayne is alive, and that his other name
+is&mdash;Cardlestone!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap31"></a>CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE<br/>
+THE PENITENT WINDOW-CLEANER</h2>
+
+<p>
+That afternoon Spargo had another of his momentous interviews with his
+proprietor and his editor. The first result was that all three drove to the
+offices of the legal gentleman who catered for the <i>Watchman</i> when it
+wanted any law, and that things were put in shape for an immediate application
+to the Home Office for permission to open the Chamberlayne grave at Market
+Milcaster; the second was that on the following morning there appeared in the
+<i>Watchman</i> a notice which set half the mouths of London a-watering. That
+notice; penned by Spargo, ran as follows:&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+&ldquo;ONE THOUSAND POUNDS REWARD.
+</p>
+
+<p class="letter">
+&ldquo;W<small>HEREAS</small>, on some date within the past twelve months,
+there was stolen, abstracted, or taken from the chambers in Fountain Court,
+Temple, occupied by Mr. Stephen Aylmore, M.P., under the name of Mr. Anderson,
+a walking-stick, or stout staff, of foreign make, and of curious workmanship,
+which stick was probably used in the murder of John Marbury, or Maitland, in
+Middle Temple Lane, on the night of June 21–22 last, and is now in the hands of
+the police:<br/>
+    &ldquo;This is to give notice that the Proprietor of the <i>Watchman</i>
+newspaper will pay the above-mentioned reward (O<small>NE</small>
+T<small>HOUSAND</small> P<small>OUNDS</small> S<small>TERLING</small>) at once
+and in cash to whosoever will prove that he or she stole, abstracted, or took
+away the said stick from the said chambers, and will further give full
+information as to his or her disposal of the same, and the Proprietor of the
+<i>Watchman</i> moreover engages to treat any revelation affecting the said
+stick in the most strictly private and confidential manner, and to abstain from
+using it in any way detrimental to the informant, who should call at the
+<i>Watchman</i> office, and ask for Mr. Frank Spargo at any time between eleven
+and one o&rsquo;clock midday, and seven and eleven o&rsquo;clock in the
+evening.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And you really expect to get some information through that?&rdquo; asked
+Breton, who came into Spargo&rsquo;s room about noon on the day on which the
+promising announcement came out. &ldquo;You really do?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Before today is out,&rdquo; said Spargo confidently. &ldquo;There is
+more magic in a thousand-pound reward than you fancy, Breton. I&rsquo;ll have
+the history of that stick before midnight.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How are you to tell that you won&rsquo;t be imposed upon?&rdquo;
+suggested Breton. &ldquo;Anybody can say that he or she stole the stick.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Whoever comes here with any tale of a stick will have to prove to me how
+he or she got the stick and what was done with the stick,&rdquo; said Spargo.
+&ldquo;I haven&rsquo;t the least doubt that that stick was stolen or taken away
+from Aylmore&rsquo;s rooms in Fountain Court, and that it got into the hands
+of&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, of whom?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s what I want to know in some fashion. I&rsquo;ve an idea,
+already. But I can afford to wait for definite information. I know one
+thing&mdash;when I get that information&mdash;as I shall&mdash;we shall be a
+long way on the road towards establishing Aylmore&rsquo;s innocence.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Breton made no remark upon this. He was looking at Spargo with a meditative
+expression.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Spargo,&rdquo; he said, suddenly, &ldquo;do you think you&rsquo;ll get
+that order for the opening of the grave at Market Milcaster?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I was talking to the solicitors over the &rsquo;phone just now,&rdquo;
+answered Spargo. &ldquo;They&rsquo;ve every confidence about it. In fact,
+it&rsquo;s possible it may be made this afternoon. In that case, the opening
+will be made early tomorrow morning.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Shall you go?&rdquo; asked Breton.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Certainly. And you can go with me, if you like. Better keep in touch
+with us all day in case we hear. You ought to be there&mdash;you&rsquo;re
+concerned.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I should like to go&mdash;I will go,&rdquo; said Breton. &ldquo;And if
+that grave proves to be&mdash;empty&mdash;I&rsquo;ll&mdash;I&rsquo;ll tell you
+something.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo looked up with sharp instinct.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You&rsquo;ll tell me something? Something? What?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Never mind&mdash;wait until we see if that coffin contains a dead body
+or lead and sawdust. If there&rsquo;s no body there&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At that moment one of the senior messenger boys came in and approached Spargo.
+His countenance, usually subdued to an official stolidity, showed signs of
+something very like excitement.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There&rsquo;s a man downstairs asking for you, Mr. Spargo,&rdquo; he
+said. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s been hanging about a bit, sir,&mdash;seems very shy
+about coming up. He won&rsquo;t say what he wants, and he won&rsquo;t fill up a
+form, sir. Says all he wants is a word or two with you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Bring him up at once!&rdquo; commanded Spargo. He turned to Breton when
+the boy had gone. &ldquo;There!&rdquo; he said, laughing. &ldquo;This is the
+man about the stick&mdash;you see if it isn&rsquo;t.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You&rsquo;re such a cock-sure chap, Spargo,&rdquo; said Breton.
+&ldquo;You&rsquo;re always going on a straight line.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Trying to, you mean,&rdquo; retorted Spargo. &ldquo;Well, stop here, and
+hear what this chap has to say: it&rsquo;ll no doubt be amusing.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The messenger boy, deeply conscious that he was ushering into Spargo&rsquo;s
+room an individual who might shortly carry away a thousand pounds of good
+<i>Watchman</i> money in his pocket, opened the door and introduced a shy and
+self-conscious young man, whose nervousness was painfully apparent to everybody
+and deeply felt by himself. He halted on the threshold, looking round the
+comfortably-furnished room, and at the two well-dressed young men which it
+framed as if he feared to enter on a scene of such grandeur.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Come in, come in!&rdquo; said Spargo, rising and pointing to an
+easy-chair at the side of his desk. &ldquo;Take a seat. You&rsquo;ve called
+about that reward, of course.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The man in the chair eyed the two of them cautiously, and not without
+suspicion. He cleared his throat with a palpable effort.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Of course,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s all on the strict private.
+Name of Edward Mollison, sir.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And where do you live, and what do you do?&rdquo; asked Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You might put it down Rowton House, Whitechapel,&rdquo; answered Edward
+Mollison. &ldquo;Leastways, that&rsquo;s where I generally hang out when I can
+afford it. And&mdash;window-cleaner. Leastways, I was window cleaning
+when&mdash;when&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;When you came in contact with the stick we&rsquo;ve been advertising
+about,&rdquo; suggested Spargo. &ldquo;Just so. Well, Mollison&mdash;what about
+the stick?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mollison looked round at the door, and then at the windows, and then at Breton.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There ain&rsquo;t no danger of me being got into trouble along of that
+stick?&rdquo; he asked. &ldquo;&rsquo;Cause if there is, I ain&rsquo;t a-going
+to say a word&mdash;no, not for no thousand pounds! Me never having been in no
+trouble of any sort, guv&rsquo;nor&mdash;though a poor man.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not the slightest danger in the world, Mollison,&rdquo; replied Spargo.
+&ldquo;Not the least. All you&rsquo;ve got to do is to tell the truth&mdash;and
+prove that it is the truth. So it was you who took that queer-looking stick out
+of Mr. Aylmore&rsquo;s rooms in Fountain Court, was it?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mollison appeared to find this direct question soothing to his feelings. He
+smiled weakly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It was cert&rsquo;nly me as took it, sir,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Not
+that I meant to pinch it&mdash;not me! And, as you might say, I didn&rsquo;t
+take it, when all&rsquo;s said and done. It was&mdash;put on me.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Put on you, was it?&rdquo; said Spargo. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s interesting.
+And how was it put on you?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mollison grinned again and rubbed his chin.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It was this here way,&rdquo; he answered. &ldquo;You see, I was working
+at that time&mdash;near on to nine months since, it is&mdash;for the Universal
+Daylight Window Cleaning Company, and I used to clean a many windows here and
+there in the Temple, and them windows at Mr. Aylmore&rsquo;s&mdash;only I knew
+them as Mr. Anderson&rsquo;s&mdash;among &rsquo;em. And I was there one
+morning, early it was, when the charwoman she says to me, &lsquo;I wish
+you&rsquo;d take these two or three hearthrugs,&rsquo; she says, &lsquo;and
+give &rsquo;em a good beating,&rsquo; she says. And me being always a ready one
+to oblige, &lsquo;All right!&rsquo; I says, and takes &rsquo;em.
+&lsquo;Here&rsquo;s something to wallop &rsquo;em with,&rsquo; she says, and
+pulls that there old stick out of a lot that was in a stand in a corner of the
+lobby. And that&rsquo;s how I came to handle it, sir.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I see,&rdquo; said Spargo. &ldquo;A good explanation. And when you had
+beaten the hearthrugs&mdash;what then?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mollison smiled his weak smile again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, sir, I looked at that there stick and I see it was something
+uncommon,&rdquo; he answered. &ldquo;And I thinks&mdash;&lsquo;Well, this Mr.
+Anderson, he&rsquo;s got a bundle of sticks and walking canes up
+there&mdash;he&rsquo;ll never miss this old thing,&rsquo; I thinks. And so I
+left it in a corner when I&rsquo;d done beating the rugs, and when I went away
+with my things I took it with me.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You took it with you?&rdquo; said Spargo. &ldquo;Just so. To keep as a
+curiosity, I suppose?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mollison&rsquo;s weak smile turned to one of cunning. He was obviously losing
+his nervousness; the sound of his own voice and the reception of his news was
+imparting confidence to him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not half!&rdquo; he answered. &ldquo;You see, guv&rsquo;nor, there was
+an old cove as I knew in the Temple there as is, or was, &rsquo;cause I
+ain&rsquo;t been there since, a collector of antikities, like, and I&rsquo;d
+sold him a queer old thing, time and again. And, of course, I had him in my eye
+when I took the stick away&mdash;see?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I see. And you took the stick to him?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I took it there and then,&rdquo; replied Mollison. &ldquo;Pitched him a
+tale, I did, about it having been brought from foreign parts by Uncle
+Simon&mdash;which I never had no Uncle Simon. Made out it was a rare
+curiosity&mdash;which it might ha&rsquo; been one, for all I know.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Exactly. And the old cove took a fancy to it, eh?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Bought it there and then,&rdquo; answered Mollison, with something very
+like a wink.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah! Bought it there and then. And how much did he give you for
+it?&rdquo; asked Spargo. &ldquo;Something handsome, I hope?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Couple o&rsquo; quid,&rdquo; replied Mollison. &ldquo;Me not wishing to
+part with a family heirloom for less.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Just so. And do you happen to be able to tell me the old cove&rsquo;s
+name and his address, Mollison?&rdquo; asked Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I do, sir. Which they&rsquo;ve painted on his entry&mdash;the fifth or
+sixth as you go down Middle Temple Lane,&rdquo; answered Mollison. &ldquo;Mr.
+Nicholas Cardlestone, first floor up the staircase.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo rose from his seat without as much as a look at Breton.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Come this way, Mollison,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ll go and see
+about your little reward. Excuse me, Breton.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Breton kicked his heels in solitude for half an hour. Then Spargo came back.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There&mdash;that&rsquo;s one matter settled, Breton,&rdquo; he said.
+&ldquo;Now for the next. The Home Secretary&rsquo;s made the order for the
+opening of the grave at Market Milcaster. I&rsquo;m going down there at once,
+and I suppose you&rsquo;re coming. And remember, if that grave&rsquo;s
+empty&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If that grave&rsquo;s empty,&rdquo; said Breton, &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll tell
+you&mdash;a good deal.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap32"></a>CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO<br/>
+THE CONTENTS OF THE COFFIN</h2>
+
+<p>
+There travelled down together to Market Milcaster late that afternoon, Spargo,
+Breton, the officials from the Home Office, entrusted with the order for the
+opening of the Chamberlayne grave, and a solicitor acting on behalf of the
+proprietor of the <i>Watchman</i>. It was late in the evening when they reached
+the little town, but Spargo, having looked in at the parlour of the
+&ldquo;Yellow Dragon&rdquo; and ascertained that Mr. Quarterpage had only just
+gone home, took Breton across the street to the old gentleman&rsquo;s house.
+Mr. Quarterpage himself came to the door, and recognized Spargo immediately.
+Nothing would satisfy him but that the two should go in; his family, he said,
+had just retired, but he himself was going to take a final nightcap and a
+cigar, and they must share it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;For a few minutes only then, Mr. Quarterpage,&rdquo; said Spargo as they
+followed the old man into his dining-room. &ldquo;We have to be up at daybreak.
+And&mdash;possibly&mdash;you, too, would like to be up just as early.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Quarterpage looked an enquiry over the top of a decanter which he was
+handling.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;At daybreak?&rdquo; he exclaimed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The fact is,&rdquo; said Spargo, &ldquo;that grave of
+Chamberlayne&rsquo;s is going to be opened at daybreak. We have managed to get
+an order from the Home Secretary for the exhumation of Chamberlayne&rsquo;s
+body: the officials in charge of it have come down in the same train with us;
+we&rsquo;re all staying across there at the &lsquo;Dragon.&rsquo; The officials
+have gone to make the proper arrangements with your authorities. It will be at
+daybreak, or as near it as can conveniently be managed. And I suppose, now that
+you know of it, you&rsquo;ll be there?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;God bless me!&rdquo; exclaimed Mr. Quarterpage. &ldquo;You&rsquo;ve
+really done that! Well, well, so we shall know the truth at last, after all
+these years. You&rsquo;re a very wonderful young man, Mr. Spargo, upon my word.
+And this other young gentleman?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo looked at Breton, who had already given him permission to speak.
+&ldquo;Mr. Quarterpage,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;this young gentleman is, without
+doubt, John Maitland&rsquo;s son. He&rsquo;s the young barrister, Mr. Ronald
+Breton, that I told you of, but there&rsquo;s no doubt about his parentage. And
+I&rsquo;m sure you&rsquo;ll shake hands with him and wish him well.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Quarterpage set down decanter and glass and hastened to give Breton his
+hand.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;My dear young sir!&rdquo; he exclaimed. &ldquo;That I will indeed! And
+as to wishing you well&mdash;ah, I never wished anything but well to your poor
+father. He was led away, sir, led away by Chamberlayne. God bless me, what a
+night of surprises! Why, Mr. Spargo, supposing that coffin is found
+empty&mdash;what then?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then,&rdquo; answered Spargo, &ldquo;then I think we shall be able to
+put our hands on the man who is supposed to be in it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You think my father was worked upon by this man Chamberlayne,
+sir?&rdquo; observed Breton a few minutes later when they had all sat down
+round Mr. Quarterpage&rsquo;s hospitable hearth. &ldquo;You think he was unduly
+influenced by him?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Quarterpage shook his head sadly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Chamberlayne, my dear young sir,&rdquo; he answered. &ldquo;Chamberlayne
+was a plausible and a clever fellow. Nobody knew anything about him until he
+came to this town, and yet before he had been here very long he had contrived
+to ingratiate himself with everybody&mdash;of course, to his own advantage. I
+firmly believe that he twisted your father round his little finger. As I told
+Mr. Spargo there when he was making his enquiries of me a short while back, it
+would never have been any surprise to me to hear&mdash;definitely, I mean,
+young gentlemen&mdash;that all this money that was in question went into
+Chamberlayne&rsquo;s pockets. Dear me&mdash;dear me!&mdash;and you really
+believe that Chamberlayne is actually alive, Mr. Spargo?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo pulled out his watch. &ldquo;We shall all know whether he was buried in
+that grave before another six hours are over, Mr. Quarterpage,&rdquo; he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He might well have spoken of four hours instead of six, for it was then nearly
+midnight, and before three o&rsquo;clock Spargo and Breton, with the other men
+who had accompanied them from London were out of the &ldquo;Yellow
+Dragon&rdquo; and on their way to the cemetery just outside the little town.
+Over the hills to the eastward the grey dawn was slowly breaking: the long
+stretch of marshland which lies between Market Milcaster and the sea was white
+with fog: on the cypresses and acacias of the cemetery hung veils and webs of
+gossamer: everything around them was quiet as the dead folk who lay beneath
+their feet. And the people actively concerned went quietly to work, and those
+who could do nothing but watch stood around in silence.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;In all my long life of over ninety years,&rdquo; whispered old
+Quarterpage, who had met them at the cemetery gates, looking fresh and brisk in
+spite of his shortened rest, &ldquo;I have never seen this done before. It
+seems a strange, strange thing to interfere with a dead man&rsquo;s last
+resting-place&mdash;a dreadful thing.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If there is a dead man there,&rdquo; said Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He himself was mainly curious about the details of this exhumation; he had no
+scruples, sentimental or otherwise, about the breaking in upon the dead. He
+watched all that was done. The men employed by the local authorities,
+instructed over-night, had fenced in the grave with canvas; the proceedings
+were accordingly conducted in strict privacy; a man was posted to keep away any
+very early passersby, who might be attracted by the unusual proceedings. At
+first there was nothing to do but wait, and Spargo occupied himself by
+reflecting that every spadeful of earth thrown out of that grave was bringing
+him nearer to the truth; he had an unconquerable intuition that the truth of at
+any rate one phase of the Marbury case was going to be revealed to them. If the
+coffin to which they were digging down contained a body, and that the body of
+the stockbroker, Chamberlayne, then a good deal of his, Spargo&rsquo;s, latest
+theory, would be dissolved to nothingness. But if that coffin contained no body
+at all, then&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;They&rsquo;re down to it!&rdquo; whispered Breton.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Presently they all went and looked down into the grave. The workmen had
+uncovered the coffin preparatory to lifting it to the surface; one of them was
+brushing the earth away from the name-plate. And in the now strong light they
+could all read the lettering on it.
+</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+JAMES CARTWRIGHT CHAMBERLAYNE<br/>
+Born 1852<br/>
+Died 1891
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo turned away as the men began to lift the coffin out of the grave.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We shall know now!&rdquo; he whispered to Breton. &ldquo;And
+yet&mdash;what is it we shall know if&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If what?&rdquo; said Breton. &ldquo;If&mdash;what?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But Spargo shook his head. This was one of the great moments he had lately been
+working for, and the issues were tremendous.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now for it!&rdquo; said the <i>Watchman&rsquo;s</i> solicitor in an
+undertone. &ldquo;Come, Mr. Spargo, now we shall see.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They all gathered round the coffin, set on low trestles at the graveside, as
+the workmen silently went to work on the screws. The screws were rusted in
+their sockets; they grated as the men slowly worked them out. It seemed to
+Spargo that each man grew slower and slower in his movements; he felt that he
+himself was getting fidgety. Then he heard a voice of authority.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Lift the lid off!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A man at the head of the coffin, a man at the foot suddenly and swiftly raised
+the lid: the men gathered round craned their necks with a quick movement.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sawdust!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The coffin was packed to the brim with sawdust, tightly pressed down. The
+surface lay smooth, undisturbed, levelled as some hand had levelled it long
+years before. They were not in the presence of death, but of deceit.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Somebody laughed faintly. The sound of the laughter broke the spell. The chief
+official present looked round him with a smile.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is evident that there were good grounds for suspicion,&rdquo; he
+remarked. &ldquo;Here is no dead body, gentlemen. See if anything lies beneath
+the sawdust,&rdquo; he added, turning to the workmen. &ldquo;Turn it
+out!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The workmen began to scoop out the sawdust with their hands; one of them,
+evidently desirous of making sure that no body was in the coffin, thrust down
+his fingers at various places along its length. He, too, laughed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The coffin&rsquo;s weighted with lead!&rdquo; he remarked.
+&ldquo;See!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And tearing the sawdust aside, he showed those around him that at three
+intervals bars of lead had been tightly wedged into the coffin where the head,
+the middle, and the feet of a corpse would have rested.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Done it cleverly,&rdquo; he remarked, looking round. &ldquo;You see how
+these weights have been adjusted. When a body&rsquo;s laid out in a coffin, you
+know, all the weight&rsquo;s in the end where the head and trunk rest. Here you
+see the heaviest bar of lead is in the middle; the lightest at the feet.
+Clever!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Clear out all the sawdust,&rdquo; said some one. &ldquo;Let&rsquo;s see
+if there&rsquo;s anything else.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was something else. At the bottom of the coffin two bundles of papers,
+tied up with pink tape. The legal gentlemen present immediately manifested
+great interest in these. So did Spargo, who, pulling Breton along with him,
+forced his way to where the officials from the Home Office and the solicitor
+sent by the <i>Watchman</i> were hastily examining their discoveries.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The first bundle of papers opened evidently related to transactions at Market
+Milcaster: Spargo caught glimpses of names that were familiar to him, Mr.
+Quarterpage&rsquo;s amongst them. He was not at all astonished to see these
+things. But he was something more than astonished when, on the second parcel
+being opened, a quantity of papers relating to Cloudhampton and the Hearth and
+Home Mutual Benefit Society were revealed. He gave a hasty glance at these and
+drew Breton aside.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It strikes me we&rsquo;ve found a good deal more than we ever bargained
+for!&rdquo; he exclaimed. &ldquo;Didn&rsquo;t Aylmore say that the real culprit
+at Cloudhampton was another man&mdash;his clerk or something of that
+sort?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He did,&rdquo; agreed Breton. &ldquo;He insists on it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then this fellow Chamberlayne must have been the man,&rdquo; said
+Spargo. &ldquo;He came to Market Milcaster from the north. What&rsquo;ll be
+done with those papers?&rdquo; he asked, turning to the officials.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We are going to seal them up at once, and take them to London,&rdquo;
+replied the principal person in authority. &ldquo;They will be quite safe, Mr.
+Spargo; have no fear. We don&rsquo;t know what they may reveal.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You don&rsquo;t, indeed!&rdquo; said Spargo. &ldquo;But I may as well
+tell you that I have a strong belief that they&rsquo;ll reveal a good deal that
+nobody dreams of, so take the greatest care of them.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then, without waiting for further talk with any one, Spargo hurried Breton out
+of the cemetery. At the gate, he seized him by the arm.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now, then, Breton!&rdquo; he commanded. &ldquo;Out with it!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;With what?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You promised to tell me something&mdash;a great deal, you said&mdash;if
+we found that coffin empty. It is empty. Come on&mdash;quick!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;All right. I believe I know where Elphick and Cardlestone can be found.
+That&rsquo;s all.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;All! It&rsquo;s enough. Where, then, in heaven&rsquo;s name?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Elphick has a queer little place where he and Cardlestone sometimes go
+fishing&mdash;right away up in one of the wildest parts of the Yorkshire moors.
+I expect they&rsquo;ve gone there. Nobody knows even their names
+there&mdash;they could go and lie quiet there for&mdash;ages.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Do you know the way to it?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I do&mdash;I&rsquo;ve been there.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo motioned him to hurry.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Come on, then,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re going there by the
+very first train out of this. I know the train, too&mdash;we&rsquo;ve just time
+to snatch a mouthful of breakfast and to send a wire to the <i>Watchman</i>,
+and then we&rsquo;ll be off. Yorkshire!&mdash;Gad, Breton, that&rsquo;s over
+three hundred miles away!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap33"></a>CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE<br/>
+FORESTALLED</h2>
+
+<p>
+Travelling all that long summer day, first from the south-west of England to
+the Midlands, then from the Midlands to the north, Spargo and Breton came late
+at night to Hawes&rsquo; Junction, on the border of Yorkshire and Westmoreland,
+and saw rising all around them in the half-darkness the mighty bulks of the
+great fells which rise amongst that wild and lonely stretch of land. At that
+hour of the night and amidst that weird silence, broken only by the murmur of
+some adjacent waterfall the scene was impressive and suggestive; it seemed to
+Spargo as if London were a million miles away, and the rush and bustle of human
+life a thing of another planet. Here and there in the valleys he saw a light,
+but such lights were few and far between; even as he looked some of them
+twinkled and went out. It was evident that he and Breton were presently to be
+alone with the night.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How far?&rdquo; he asked Breton as they walked away from the station.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We&rsquo;d better discuss matters,&rdquo; answered Breton. &ldquo;The
+place is in a narrow valley called Fossdale, some six or seven miles away
+across these fells, and as wild a walk as any lover of such things could wish
+for. It&rsquo;s half-past nine now, Spargo: I reckon it will take us a good two
+and a half hours, if not more, to do it. Now, the question is&mdash;Do we go
+straight there, or do we put up for the night? There&rsquo;s an inn here at
+this junction: there&rsquo;s the Moor Cock Inn a mile or so along the road
+which we must take before we turn off to the moorland and the fells. It&rsquo;s
+going to be a black night&mdash;look at those masses of black cloud gathering
+there!&mdash;and possibly a wet one, and we&rsquo;ve no waterproofs. But
+it&rsquo;s for you to say&mdash;I&rsquo;m game for whatever you like.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Do you know the way?&rdquo; asked Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve been the way. In the daytime I could go straight ahead. I
+remember all the landmarks. Even in the darkness I believe I can find my way.
+But it&rsquo;s rough walking.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We&rsquo;ll go straight there,&rdquo; said Spargo. &ldquo;Every
+minute&rsquo;s precious. But&mdash;can we get a mouthful of bread and cheese
+and a glass of ale first?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Good idea! We&rsquo;ll call in at the &lsquo;Moor Cock.&rsquo; Now then,
+while we&rsquo;re on this firm road, step it out lively.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The &ldquo;Moor Cock&rdquo; was almost deserted at that hour: there was
+scarcely a soul in it when the two travellers turned in to its dimly-lighted
+parlour. The landlord, bringing the desired refreshment, looked hard at Breton.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Come our way again then, sir?&rdquo; he remarked with a sudden grin of
+recognition.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah, you remember me?&rdquo; said Breton.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I call in mind when you came here with the two old gents last
+year,&rdquo; replied the landlord. &ldquo;I hear they&rsquo;re here
+again&mdash;Tom Summers was coming across that way this morning, and said
+he&rsquo;d seen &rsquo;em at the little cottage. Going to join &rsquo;em, I
+reckon, sir?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Breton kicked Spargo under the table.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, we&rsquo;re going to have a day or two with them,&rdquo; he
+answered. &ldquo;Just to get a breath of your moorland air.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, you&rsquo;ll have a roughish walk over there tonight,
+gentlemen,&rdquo; said the landlord. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s going to be a storm.
+And it&rsquo;s a stiffish way to make out at this time o&rsquo;night.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, we&rsquo;ll manage,&rdquo; said Breton, nonchalantly. &ldquo;I know
+the way, and we&rsquo;re not afraid of a wet skin.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The landlord laughed, and sitting down on his long settle folded his arms and
+scratched his elbows.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There was a gentleman&mdash;London gentleman by his tongue&mdash;came in
+here this afternoon, and asked the way to Fossdale,&rdquo; he observed.
+&ldquo;He&rsquo;ll be there long since&mdash;he&rsquo;d have daylight for his
+walk. Happen he&rsquo;s one of your party?&mdash;he asked where the old
+gentlemen&rsquo;s little cottage was.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Again Spargo felt his shin kicked and made no sign. &ldquo;One of their
+friends, perhaps,&rdquo; answered Breton. &ldquo;What was he like?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The landlord ruminated. He was not good at description and was conscious of the
+fact.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, a darkish, serious-faced gentleman,&rdquo; he said.
+&ldquo;Stranger hereabouts, at all events. Wore a grey suit&mdash;something
+like your friend&rsquo;s there. Yes&mdash;he took some bread and cheese with
+him when he heard what a long way it was.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Wise man,&rdquo; remarked Breton. He hastily finished his own bread and
+cheese, and drank off the rest of his pint of ale. &ldquo;Come on,&rdquo; he
+said, &ldquo;let&rsquo;s be stepping.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Outside, in the almost tangible darkness, Breton clutched Spargo&rsquo;s arm.
+&ldquo;Who&rsquo;s the man?&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Can you think,
+Spargo?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Can&rsquo;t,&rdquo; answered Spargo. &ldquo;I was trying to, while that
+chap was talking. But&mdash;it&rsquo;s somebody that&rsquo;s got in before us.
+Not Rathbury, anyhow&mdash;he&rsquo;s not serious-faced. Heavens, Breton,
+however are you going to find your way in this darkness?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You&rsquo;ll see presently. We follow the road a little. Then we turn up
+the fell side there. On the top, if the night clears a bit, we ought to see
+Great Shunnor Fell and Lovely Seat&mdash;they&rsquo;re both well over two
+thousand feet, and they stand up well. We want to make for a point clear
+between them. But I warn you, Spargo, it&rsquo;s stiff going!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Go ahead!&rdquo; said Spargo. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s the first time in my
+life I ever did anything of this sort, but we&rsquo;re going on if it takes us
+all night. I couldn&rsquo;t sleep in any bed now that I&rsquo;ve heard
+there&rsquo;s somebody ahead of us. Go first, old chap, and I&rsquo;ll
+follow.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Breton went steadily forward along the road. That was easy work, but when he
+turned off and began to thread his way up the fell-side by what was obviously
+no more than a sheep-track, Spargo&rsquo;s troubles began. It seemed to him
+that he was walking as in a nightmare; all that he saw was magnified and
+heightened; the darkening sky above; the faint outlines of the towering hills;
+the gaunt spectres of fir and pine; the figure of Breton forging stolidly and
+surely ahead. Now the ground was soft and spongy under his feet; now it was
+stony and rugged; more than once he caught an ankle in the wire-like heather
+and tripped, bruising his knees. And in the end he resigned himself to keeping
+his eye on Breton, outlined against the sky, and following doggedly in his
+footsteps.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Was there no other way than this?&rdquo; he asked after a long interval
+of silence. &ldquo;Do you mean to say those two&mdash;Elphick and
+Cardlestone&mdash;would take this way?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There is another way&mdash;down the valley, by Thwaite Bridge and
+Hardraw,&rdquo; answered Breton, &ldquo;but it&rsquo;s miles and miles round.
+This is a straight cut across country, and in daylight it&rsquo;s a delightful
+walk. But at night&mdash;Gad!&mdash;here&rsquo;s the rain, Spargo!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The rain came down as it does in that part of the world, with a suddenness that
+was as fierce as it was heavy. The whole of the grey night was blotted out;
+Spargo was only conscious that he stood in a vast solitude and was being
+gradually drowned. But Breton, whose sight was keener, and who had more
+knowledge of the situation dragged his companion into the shelter of a group of
+rocks. He laughed a little as they huddled closely together.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;This is a different sort of thing to pursuing detective work in Fleet
+Street, Spargo,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;You would come on, you know.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;m going on if we go through cataracts and floods,&rdquo;
+answered Spargo. &ldquo;I might have been induced to stop at the &lsquo;Moor
+Cock&rsquo; overnight if we hadn&rsquo;t heard of that chap in front. If
+he&rsquo;s after those two he&rsquo;s somebody who knows something. What I
+can&rsquo;t make out is&mdash;who he can be.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nor I,&rdquo; said Breton. &ldquo;I can&rsquo;t think of anybody who
+knows of this retreat. But&mdash;has it ever struck you, Spargo, that somebody
+beside yourself may have been investigating?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Possible,&rdquo; replied Spargo. &ldquo;One never knows. I only wish
+we&rsquo;d been a few hours earlier. For I wanted to have the first word with
+those two.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The rain ceased as suddenly as it had come. Just as suddenly the heavens
+cleared. And going forward to the top of the ridge which they were then
+crossing, Breton pointed an arm to something shining far away below them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You see that?&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s a sheet of water lying
+between us and Cotterdale. We leave that on our right hand, climb the fell
+beyond it, drop down into Cotterdale, cross two more ranges of fell, and come
+down into Fossdale under Lovely Seat. There&rsquo;s a good two hours and a half
+stiff pull yet, Spargo. Think you can stick it?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo set his teeth.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Go on!&rdquo; he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Up hill, down dale, now up to his ankles in peaty ground, now tearing his
+shins, now bruising his knees, Spargo, yearning for the London lights, the
+well-paved London streets, the convenient taxi-cab, even the humble omnibus,
+plodded forward after his guide. It seemed to him that they had walked for ages
+and had traversed a whole continent of mountains and valley when at last
+Breton, halting on the summit of a wind-swept ridge, laid one hand on his
+companion&rsquo;s shoulder and pointed downward with the other.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There!&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;There!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo looked ahead into the night. Far away, at what seemed to him to be a
+considerable distance, he saw the faint, very faint glimmer of a light&mdash;a
+mere spark of a light.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s the cottage,&rdquo; said Breton, &ldquo;Late as it is, you
+see, they&rsquo;re up. And here&rsquo;s the roughest bit of the journey.
+It&rsquo;ll take me all my time to find the track across this moor, Spargo, so
+step carefully after me&mdash;there are bogs and holes hereabouts.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Another hour had gone by ere the two came to the cottage. Sometimes the guiding
+light had vanished, blotted out by intervening rises in the ground; always,
+when they saw it again, they were slowly drawing nearer to it. And now when
+they were at last close to it, Spargo realized that he found himself in one of
+the loneliest places he had ever been capable of imagining&mdash;so lonely and
+desolate a spot he had certainly never seen. In the dim light he could see a
+narrow, crawling stream, making its way down over rocks and stones from the
+high ground of Great Shunnor Fell. Opposite to the place at which they stood,
+on the edge of the moorland, a horseshoe like formation of ground was backed by
+a ring of fir and pine; beneath this protecting fringe of trees stood a small
+building of grey stone which looked as if it had been originally built by some
+shepherd as a pen for the moorland sheep. It was of no more than one storey in
+height, but of some length; a considerable part of it was hidden by shrubs and
+brushwood. And from one uncurtained, blindless window the light of a lamp shone
+boldly into the fading darkness without.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Breton pulled up on the edge of the crawling stream.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We&rsquo;ve got to get across there, Spargo,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;But
+as we&rsquo;re already soaked to the knee it doesn&rsquo;t matter about getting
+another wetting. Have you any idea how long we&rsquo;ve been walking?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Hours&mdash;days&mdash;years!&rdquo; replied Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I should say quite four hours,&rdquo; said Breton. &ldquo;In that case,
+it&rsquo;s well past two o&rsquo;clock, and the light will be breaking in
+another hour or so. Now, once across this stream, what shall we do?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What have we come to do? Go to the cottage, of course!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Wait a bit. No need to startle them. By the fact they&rsquo;ve got a
+light, I take it that they&rsquo;re up. Look there!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As he spoke, a figure crossed the window passing between it and the light.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s not Elphick, nor yet Cardlestone,&rdquo; said Spargo.
+&ldquo;They&rsquo;re medium-heighted men. That&rsquo;s a tallish man.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then it&rsquo;s the man the landlord of the &lsquo;Moor Cock&rsquo; told
+us about,&rdquo; said Breton. &ldquo;Now, look here&mdash;I know every inch of
+this place. When we&rsquo;re across let me go up to the cottage, and I&rsquo;ll
+take an observation through that window and see who&rsquo;s inside. Come
+on.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He led Spargo across the stream at a place where a succession of boulders made
+a natural bridge, and bidding him keep quiet, went up the bank to the cottage.
+Spargo, watching him, saw him make his way past the shrubs and undergrowth
+until he came to a great bush which stood between the lighted window and the
+projecting porch of the cottage. He lingered in the shadow of this bush but for
+a short moment; then came swiftly and noiselessly back to his companion. His
+hand fell on Spargo&rsquo;s arm with a clutch of nervous excitement.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Spargo!&rdquo; he whispered. &ldquo;Who on earth do you think the other
+man is?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap34"></a>CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR<br/>
+THE WHIP HAND</h2>
+
+<p>
+Spargo, almost irritable from desire to get at close grips with the objects of
+his long journey, shook off Breton&rsquo;s hand with a growl of resentment.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And how on earth can I waste time guessing?&rdquo; he exclaimed.
+&ldquo;Who is he?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Breton laughed softly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Steady, Spargo, steady!&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s
+Myerst&mdash;the Safe Deposit man. Myerst!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo started as if something had bitten him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Myerst!&rdquo; he almost shouted. &ldquo;Myerst! Good Lord!&mdash;why
+did I never think of him? Myerst! Then&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know why you should have thought of him,&rdquo; said
+Breton. &ldquo;But&mdash;he&rsquo;s there.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo took a step towards the cottage: Breton pulled him back.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Wait!&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ve got to discuss this. I&rsquo;d
+better tell you what they&rsquo;re doing.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What are they doing, then?&rdquo; demanded Spargo impatiently.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well,&rdquo; answered Breton. &ldquo;They&rsquo;re going through a
+quantity of papers. The two old gentlemen look very ill and very miserable.
+Myerst is evidently laying down the law to them in some fashion or other.
+I&rsquo;ve formed a notion, Spargo.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What notion?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Myerst is in possession of whatever secret they have, and he&rsquo;s
+followed them down here to blackmail them. That&rsquo;s my notion.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo thought awhile, pacing up and down the river bank.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I daresay you&rsquo;re right,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Now, what&rsquo;s
+to be done?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Breton, too, considered matters.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I wish,&rdquo; he said at last, &ldquo;I wish we could get in there and
+overhear what&rsquo;s going on. But that&rsquo;s impossible&mdash;I know that
+cottage. The only thing we can do is this&mdash;we must catch Myerst unawares.
+He&rsquo;s here for no good. Look here!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And reaching round to his hip-pocket Breton drew out a Browning revolver and
+wagged it in his hand with a smile.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s a useful thing to have, Spargo,&rdquo; he remarked.
+&ldquo;I slipped it into my pocket the other day, wondering why on earth I did
+it. Now it&rsquo;ll come in handy. For anything we know Myerst may be
+armed.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well?&rdquo; said Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Come up to the cottage. If things turn out as I think they will, Myerst,
+when he&rsquo;s got what he wants, will be off. Now, you shall get where I did
+just now, behind that bush, and I&rsquo;ll station myself in the doorway. You
+can report to me, and when Myerst comes out I&rsquo;ll cover him. Come on,
+Spargo; it&rsquo;s beginning to get light already.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Breton cautiously led the way along the river bank, making use of such cover as
+the willows and alders afforded. Together, he and Spargo made their way to the
+front of the cottage. Arrived at the door, Breton posted himself in the porch,
+motioning to Spargo to creep in behind the bushes and to look through the
+window. And Spargo noiselessly followed his directions and slightly parting the
+branches which concealed him looked in through the uncurtained glass.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The interior into which he looked was rough and comfortless in the extreme.
+There were the bare accessories of a moorland cottage; rough chairs and tables,
+plastered walls, a fishing rod or two piled in a corner; some food set out on a
+side table. At the table in the middle of the floor the three men sat.
+Cardlestone&rsquo;s face was in the shadow; Myerst had his back to the window;
+old Elphick bending over the table was laboriously writing with shaking
+fingers. And Spargo twisted his head round to his companion.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Elphick,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;is writing a cheque. Myerst has another
+cheque in his hand. Be ready!&mdash;when he gets that second cheque I guess
+he&rsquo;ll be off.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Breton smiled grimly and nodded. A moment later Spargo whispered again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Look out, Breton! He&rsquo;s coming.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Breton drew back into the angle of the porch; Spargo quitted his protecting
+bush and took the other angle. The door opened. And they heard Myerst&rsquo;s
+voice, threatening, commanding in tone.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now, remember all I&rsquo;ve said! And don&rsquo;t you
+forget&mdash;I&rsquo;ve the whip hand of both of you&mdash;the whip
+hand!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then Myerst turned and stepped out into the grey light&mdash;to find himself
+confronted by an athletic young man who held the muzzle of an ugly revolver
+within two inches of the bridge of his nose and in a remarkably firm and steady
+grip. Another glance showed him the figure of a second business-like looking
+young man at his side, whose attitude showed a desire to grapple with him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Good-morning, Mr. Myerst,&rdquo; said Breton with cold and ironic
+politeness. &ldquo;We are glad to meet you so unexpectedly. And&mdash;I must
+trouble you to put up your hands. Quick!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myerst made one hurried movement of his right hand towards his hip, but a
+sudden growl from Breton made him shift it just as quickly above his head,
+whither the left followed it. Breton laughed softly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s wise, Mr. Myerst,&rdquo; he said, keeping his revolver
+steadily pointed at his prisoner&rsquo;s nose. &ldquo;Discretion will certainly
+be the better part of your valour on this occasion. Spargo&mdash;may I trouble
+you to see what Mr. Myerst carries in his pockets? Go through them carefully.
+Not for papers or documents&mdash;just now. We can leave that
+matter&mdash;we&rsquo;ve plenty of time. See if he&rsquo;s got a weapon of any
+sort on him, Spargo&mdash;that&rsquo;s the important thing.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Considering that Spargo had never gone through the experience of searching a
+man before, he made sharp and creditable work of seeing what the prisoner
+carried. And he forthwith drew out and exhibited a revolver, while Myerst,
+finding his tongue, cursed them both, heartily and with profusion.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Excellent!&rdquo; said Breton, laughing again. &ldquo;Sure he&rsquo;s
+got nothing else on him that&rsquo;s dangerous, Spargo? All right. Now, Mr.
+Myerst, right about face! Walk into the cottage, hands up, and remember there
+are two revolvers behind your back. March!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myerst obeyed this peremptory order with more curses. The three walked into the
+cottage. Breton kept his eye on his captive; Spargo gave a glance at the two
+old men. Cardlestone, white and shaking, was lying back in his chair; Elphick,
+scarcely less alarmed, had risen, and was coming forward with trembling limbs.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Wait a moment,&rdquo; said Breton, soothingly. &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t alarm
+yourself. We&rsquo;ll deal with Mr. Myerst here first. Now, Myerst, my man, sit
+down in that chair&mdash;it&rsquo;s the heaviest the place affords. Into it,
+now! Spargo, you see that coil of rope there. Tie Myerst up&mdash;hand and
+foot&mdash;to that chair. And tie him well. All the knots to be double, Spargo,
+and behind him.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myerst suddenly laughed. &ldquo;You damned young bully!&rdquo; he exclaimed.
+&ldquo;If you put a rope round me, you&rsquo;re only putting ropes round the
+necks of these two old villains. Mark that, my fine fellows!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We&rsquo;ll see about that later,&rdquo; answered Breton. He kept Myerst
+covered while Spargo made play with the rope. &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t be afraid of
+hurting him, Spargo,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Tie him well and strong. He
+won&rsquo;t shift that chair in a hurry.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo spliced his man to the chair in a fashion that would have done credit to
+a sailor. He left Myerst literally unable to move either hand or foot, and
+Myerst cursed him from crown to heel for his pains. &ldquo;That&rsquo;ll
+do,&rdquo; said Breton at last. He dropped his revolver into his pocket and
+turned to the two old men. Elphick averted his eyes and sank into a chair in
+the darkest corner of the room: old Cardlestone shook as with palsy and
+muttered words which the two young men could not catch. &ldquo;Guardian,&rdquo;
+continued Breton, &ldquo;don&rsquo;t be frightened! And don&rsquo;t you be
+frightened, either, Mr. Cardlestone. There&rsquo;s nothing to be afraid of,
+just yet, whatever there may be later on. It seems to me that Mr. Spargo and I
+came just in time. Now, guardian, what was this fellow after?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Old Elphick lifted his head and shook it; he was plainly on the verge of tears;
+as for Cardlestone, it was evident that his nerve was completely gone. And
+Breton pointed Spargo to an old corner cupboard.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Spargo,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;I&rsquo;m pretty sure you&rsquo;ll find
+whisky in there. Give them both a stiff dose: they&rsquo;ve broken up. Now,
+guardian,&rdquo; he continued, when Spargo had carried out this order,
+&ldquo;what was he after? Shall I suggest it? Was it&mdash;blackmail?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Cardlestone began to whimper; Elphick nodded his head. &ldquo;Yes, yes!&rdquo;
+he muttered. &ldquo;Blackmail! That was it&mdash;blackmail. He&mdash;he got
+money&mdash;papers&mdash;from us. They&rsquo;re on him.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Breton turned on the captive with a look of contempt.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I thought as much, Mr. Myerst,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Spargo,
+let&rsquo;s see what he has on him.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo began to search the prisoner&rsquo;s pockets. He laid out everything on
+the table as he found it. It was plain that Myerst had contemplated some sort
+of flight or a long, long journey. There was a quantity of loose gold; a number
+of bank-notes of the more easily negotiated denominations; various foreign
+securities, realizable in Paris. And there was an open cheque, signed by
+Cardlestone for ten thousand pounds, and another, with Elphick&rsquo;s name at
+the foot, also open, for half that amount. Breton examined all these matters as
+Spargo handed them out. He turned to old Elphick.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Guardian,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;why have you or Mr. Cardlestone given
+this man these cheques and securities? What hold has he on you?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Old Cardlestone began to whimper afresh; Elphick turned a troubled face on his
+ward.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He&mdash;he threatened to accuse us of the murder of Marbury!&rdquo; he
+faltered. &ldquo;We&mdash;we didn&rsquo;t see that we had a chance.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What does he know of the murder of Marbury and of you in connection with
+it?&rdquo; demanded Breton. &ldquo;Come&mdash;tell me the truth now.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He&rsquo;s been investigating&mdash;so he says,&rdquo; answered Elphick.
+&ldquo;He lives in that house in Middle Temple Lane, you know, in the top-floor
+rooms above Cardlestone&rsquo;s. And&mdash;and he says he&rsquo;s the fullest
+evidence against Cardlestone&mdash;and against me as an accessory after the
+fact.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And&mdash;it&rsquo;s a lie?&rdquo; asked Breton.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A lie!&rdquo; answered Elphick. &ldquo;Of course, it&rsquo;s a lie.
+But&mdash;he&rsquo;s so clever that&mdash;that&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That you don&rsquo;t know how you could prove it otherwise,&rdquo; said
+Breton. &ldquo;Ah! And so this fellow lives over Mr. Cardlestone there, does
+he? That may account for a good many things. Now we must have the police
+here.&rdquo; He sat down at the table and drew the writing materials to him.
+&ldquo;Look here, Spargo,&rdquo; he continued. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m going to write
+a note to the superintendent of police at Hawes&mdash;there&rsquo;s a farm half
+a mile from here where I can get a man to ride down to Hawes with the note.
+Now, if you want to send a wire to the <i>Watchman</i>, draft it out, and
+he&rsquo;ll take it with him.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elphick began to move in his corner.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Must the police come?&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Must&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The police must come,&rdquo; answered Breton firmly. &ldquo;Go ahead
+with your wire, Spargo, while I write this note.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Three quarters of an hour later, when Breton came back from the farm, he sat
+down at Elphick&rsquo;s side and laid his hand on the old man&rsquo;s.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now, guardian,&rdquo; he said, quietly, &ldquo;you&rsquo;ve got to tell
+us the truth.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap35"></a>CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE<br/>
+MYERST EXPLAINS</h2>
+
+<p>
+It had been apparent to Spargo, from the moment of his entering the cottage,
+that the two old men were suffering badly from shock and fright: Cardlestone
+still sat in his corner shivering and trembling; he looked incapable of
+explaining anything; Elphick was scarcely more fitted to speak. And when Breton
+issued his peremptory invitation to his guardian to tell the truth, Spargo
+intervened.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Far better leave him alone, Breton,&rdquo; he said in a low voice.
+&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t you see the old chap&rsquo;s done up? They&rsquo;re both
+done up. We don&rsquo;t know what they&rsquo;ve gone through with this fellow
+before we came, and it&rsquo;s certain they&rsquo;ve had no sleep. Leave it all
+till later&mdash;after all, we&rsquo;ve found them and we&rsquo;ve found
+him.&rdquo; He jerked his thumb over his shoulder in Myerst&rsquo;s direction,
+and Breton involuntarily followed the movement. He caught the prisoner&rsquo;s
+eye, and Myerst laughed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I daresay you two young men think yourselves very clever,&rdquo; he said
+sneeringly. &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t you, now?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We&rsquo;ve been clever enough to catch you, anyway,&rdquo; retorted
+Breton. &ldquo;And now we&rsquo;ve got you we&rsquo;ll keep you till the police
+can relieve us of you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh!&rdquo; said Myerst, with another sneering laugh. &ldquo;And on what
+charge do you propose to hand me over to the police? It strikes me you&rsquo;ll
+have some difficulty in formulating one, Mr. Breton.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well see about that later,&rdquo; said Breton. &ldquo;You&rsquo;ve
+extorted money by menaces from these gentlemen, at any rate.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Have I? How do you know they didn&rsquo;t entrust me with these cheques
+as their agent?&rdquo; exclaimed Myerst. &ldquo;Answer me that! Or, rather, let
+them answer if they dare. Here you, Cardlestone, you Elphick&mdash;didn&rsquo;t
+you give me these cheques as your agent? Speak up now, and quick!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo, watching the two old men, saw them both quiver at the sound of
+Myerst&rsquo;s voice; Cardlestone indeed, began to whimper softly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Look here, Breton,&rdquo; he said, whispering, &ldquo;this
+scoundrel&rsquo;s got some hold on these two old chaps&mdash;they&rsquo;re
+frightened to death of him. Leave them alone: it would be best for them if they
+could get some rest. Hold your tongue, you!&rdquo; he added aloud, turning to
+Myerst. &ldquo;When we want you to speak we&rsquo;ll tell you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But Myerst laughed again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;All very high and mighty, Mr. Spargo of the <i>Watchman</i>!&rdquo; he
+sneered. &ldquo;You&rsquo;re another of the cock-sure lot. And you&rsquo;re
+very clever, but not clever enough. Now, look here! Supposing&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo turned his back on him. He went over to old Cardlestone and felt his
+hands. And he turned to Breton with a look of concern.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I say!&rdquo; he exclaimed. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s more than
+frightened&mdash;he&rsquo;s ill! What&rsquo;s to be done?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I asked the police to bring a doctor along with them,&rdquo; answered
+Breton. &ldquo;In the meantime, let&rsquo;s put him to bed&mdash;there are beds
+in that inner room. We&rsquo;ll get him to bed and give him something hot to
+drink&mdash;that&rsquo;s all I can think of for the present.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Between them they managed to get Cardlestone to his bed, and Spargo, with a
+happy thought, boiled water on the rusty stove and put hot bottles to his feet.
+When that was done they persuaded Elphick to lie down in the inner room.
+Presently both old men fell asleep, and then Breton and Spargo suddenly
+realized that they themselves were hungry and wet and weary.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There ought to be food in the cupboard,&rdquo; said Breton, beginning to
+rummage. &ldquo;They&rsquo;ve generally had a good stock of tinned things. Here
+we are, Spargo&mdash;these are tongues and sardines. Make some hot coffee while
+I open one of these tins.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The prisoner watched the preparations for a rough and ready breakfast with eyes
+that eventually began to glisten.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I may remind you that I&rsquo;m hungry, too,&rdquo; he said as Spargo
+set the coffee on the table. &ldquo;And you&rsquo;ve no right to starve me,
+even if you&rsquo;ve the physical ability to keep me tied up. Give me something
+to eat, if you please.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You shan&rsquo;t starve,&rdquo; said Breton, carelessly. He cut an ample
+supply of bread and meat, filled a cup with coffee and placed cup and plate
+before Myerst. &ldquo;Untie his right arm, Spargo,&rdquo; he continued.
+&ldquo;I think we can give him that liberty. We&rsquo;ve got his revolver,
+anyhow.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For a while the three men ate and drank in silence. At last Myerst pushed his
+plate away. He looked scrutinizingly at his two captors. &ldquo;Look
+here!&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;You think you know a lot about all this affair,
+Spargo, but there&rsquo;s only one person who knows all about it. That&rsquo;s
+me!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We&rsquo;re taking that for granted,&rdquo; said Spargo. &ldquo;We
+guessed as much when we found you here. You&rsquo;ll have ample opportunity for
+explanation, you know, later on.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll explain now, if you care to hear,&rdquo; said Myerst with
+another of his cynical laughs. &ldquo;And if I do, I&rsquo;ll tell you the
+truth. I know you&rsquo;ve got an idea in your heads that isn&rsquo;t
+favourable to me, but you&rsquo;re utterly wrong, whatever you may think. Look
+here!&mdash;I&rsquo;ll make you a fair offer. There are some cigars in my case
+there&mdash;give me one, and mix me a drink of that whisky&mdash;a good
+&rsquo;un&mdash;and I&rsquo;ll tell you what I know about this matter. Come
+on!&mdash;anything&rsquo;s better than sitting here doing nothing.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The two young men looked at each other. Then Breton nodded. &ldquo;Let him talk
+if he likes,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re not bound to believe him. And
+we may hear something that&rsquo;s true. Give him his cigar and his
+drink.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myerst took a stiff pull at the contents of the tumbler which Spargo presently
+set before him. He laughed as he inhaled the first fumes of his cigar.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;As it happens, you&rsquo;ll hear nothing but the truth,&rdquo; he
+observed. &ldquo;Now that things are as they are, there&rsquo;s no reason why I
+shouldn&rsquo;t tell the truth. The fact is, I&rsquo;ve nothing to fear. You
+can&rsquo;t give me in charge, for it so happens that I&rsquo;ve got a power of
+attorney from these two old chaps inside there to act for them in regard to the
+money they entrusted me with. It&rsquo;s in an inside pocket of that
+letter-case, and if you look at it, Breton, you&rsquo;ll see it&rsquo;s in
+order. I&rsquo;m not even going to dare you to interfere with or destroy
+it&mdash;you&rsquo;re a barrister, and you&rsquo;ll respect the law. But
+that&rsquo;s a fact&mdash;and if anybody&rsquo;s got a case against anybody, I
+have against you two for assault and illegal detention. But I&rsquo;m not a
+vindictive man, and&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Breton took up Myerst&rsquo;s letter-case and examined its contents. And
+presently he turned to Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He&rsquo;s right!&rdquo; he whispered. &ldquo;This is quite in
+order.&rdquo; He turned to Myerst. &ldquo;All the same,&rdquo; he said,
+addressing him, &ldquo;we shan&rsquo;t release you, because we believe
+you&rsquo;re concerned in the murder of John Marbury. We&rsquo;re justified in
+holding you on that account.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;All right, my young friend,&rdquo; said Myerst. &ldquo;Have your own
+stupid way. But I said I&rsquo;d tell you the plain truth. Well, the plain
+truth is that I know no more of the absolute murder of your father than I know
+of what is going on in Timbuctoo at this moment! I do not know who killed John
+Maitland. That&rsquo;s a fact! It may have been the old man in there
+who&rsquo;s already at his own last gasp, or it mayn&rsquo;t. I tell you I
+don&rsquo;t know&mdash;though, like you, Spargo, I&rsquo;ve tried hard to find
+out. That&rsquo;s the truth&mdash;I do not know.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You expect us to believe that?&rdquo; exclaimed Breton incredulously.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Believe it or not, as you like&mdash;it&rsquo;s the truth,&rdquo;
+answered Myerst. &ldquo;Now, look here&mdash;I said nobody knew as much of this
+affair as I know, and that&rsquo;s true also. And here&rsquo;s the truth of
+what I know. The old man in that room, whom you know as Nicholas Cardlestone,
+is in reality Chamberlayne, the stockbroker, of Market Milcaster, whose name
+was so freely mentioned when your father was tried there. That&rsquo;s another
+fact!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How,&rdquo; asked Breton, sternly, &ldquo;can you prove it? How do you
+know it?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Because,&rdquo; replied Myerst, with a cunning grin, &ldquo;I helped to
+carry out his mock death and burial&mdash;I was a solicitor in those days, and
+my name was&mdash;something else. There were three of us at it:
+Chamberlayne&rsquo;s nephew; a doctor of no reputation; and myself. We carried
+it out very cleverly, and Chamberlayne gave us five thousand pounds apiece for
+our trouble. It was not the first time that I had helped him and been well paid
+for my help. The first time was in connection with the Cloudhampton Hearth and
+Home Mutual Benefit Society affair&mdash;Aylmore, or Ainsworth, was as innocent
+as a child in that!&mdash;Chamberlayne was the man at the back. But,
+unfortunately, Chamberlayne didn&rsquo;t profit&mdash;he lost all he got by it,
+pretty quick. That was why be transferred his abilities to Market
+Milcaster.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You can prove all this, I suppose?&rdquo; remarked Spargo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Every word&mdash;every letter! But about the Market Milcaster affair:
+Your father, Breton, was right in what he said about Chamberlayne having all
+the money that was got from the bank. He had&mdash;and he engineered that mock
+death and funeral so that he could disappear, and he paid us who helped him
+generously, as I&rsquo;ve told you. The thing couldn&rsquo;t have been better
+done. When it was done, the nephew disappeared; the doctor disappeared;
+Chamberlayne disappeared. I had bad luck&mdash;to tell you the truth, I was
+struck off the rolls for a technical offence. So I changed my name and became
+Mr. Myerst, and eventually what I am now. And it was not until three years ago
+that I found Chamberlayne. I found him in this way: After I became secretary to
+the Safe Deposit Company, I took chambers in the Temple, above
+Cardlestone&rsquo;s. And I speedily found out who he was. Instead of going
+abroad, the old fox&mdash;though he was a comparatively young &rsquo;un,
+then!&mdash;had shaved off his beard, settled down in the Temple and given
+himself up to his two hobbies, collecting curiosities and stamps. There
+he&rsquo;d lived quietly all these years, and nobody had ever recognized or
+suspected him. Indeed, I don&rsquo;t see how they could; he lived such a quiet,
+secluded life, with his collections, his old port, and his little whims and
+fads. But&mdash;I knew him!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And you doubtless profited by your recognition,&rdquo; suggested Breton.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I certainly did. He was glad to pay me a nice sum every quarter to hold
+my tongue,&rdquo; replied Myerst, &ldquo;and I was glad to take it and,
+naturally, I gained a considerable knowledge of him. He had only one
+friend&mdash;Mr. Elphick, in there. Now, I&rsquo;ll tell you about him.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Only if you are going to speak respectfully of him,&rdquo; said Breton
+sternly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve no reason to do otherwise. Elphick is the man who ought to
+have married your mother. When things turned out as they did, Elphick took you
+and brought you up as he has done, so that you should never know of your
+father&rsquo;s disgrace. Elphick never knew until last night that Cardlestone
+is Chamberlayne. Even the biggest scoundrels have friends&mdash;Elphick&rsquo;s
+very fond of Cardlestone. He&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo turned sharply on Myerst.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You say Elphick didn&rsquo;t know until last night!&rdquo; he exclaimed.
+&ldquo;Why, then, this running away? What were they running from?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have no more notion than you have, Spargo,&rdquo; replied Myerst.
+&ldquo;I tell you one or other of them knows something that I don&rsquo;t.
+Elphick, I gather, took fright from you, and went to Cardlestone&mdash;then
+they both vanished. It may be that Cardlestone did kill Maitland&mdash;I
+don&rsquo;t know. But I&rsquo;ll tell you what I know about the actual
+murder&mdash;for I do know a good deal about it, though, as I say, I
+don&rsquo;t know who killed Maitland. Now, first, you know all that about
+Maitland&rsquo;s having papers and valuables and gold on him? Very
+well&mdash;I&rsquo;ve got all that. The whole lot is locked
+up&mdash;safely&mdash;and I&rsquo;m willing to hand it over to you, Breton,
+when we go back to town, and the necessary proof is given&mdash;as it will
+be&mdash;that you&rsquo;re Maitland&rsquo;s son.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myerst paused to see the effect of this announcement, and laughed when he saw
+the blank astonishment which stole over his hearers&rsquo; faces.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And still more,&rdquo; he continued, &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve got all the
+contents of that leather box which Maitland deposited with
+me&mdash;that&rsquo;s safely locked up, too, and at your disposal. I took
+possession of that the day after the murder. Then, for purposes of my own, I
+went to Scotland Yard, as Spargo there is aware. You see, I was playing a
+game&mdash;and it required some ingenuity.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A game!&rdquo; exclaimed Breton. &ldquo;Good heavens&mdash;what
+game?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I never knew until I had possession of all these things that Marbury was
+Maitland of Market Milcaster,&rdquo; answered Myerst. &ldquo;When I did know
+then I began to put things together and to pursue my own line, independent of
+everybody. I tell you I had all Maitland&rsquo;s papers and possessions, by
+that time&mdash;except one thing. That packet of Australian stamps. And&mdash;I
+found out that those stamps were in the hands of&mdash;Cardlestone!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap36"></a>CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX.<br/>
+THE FINAL TELEGRAM</h2>
+
+<p>
+Myerst paused, to take a pull at his glass, and to look at the two amazed
+listeners with a smile of conscious triumph.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;In the hands of Cardlestone,&rdquo; he repeated. &ldquo;Now, what did I
+argue from that? Why, of course, that Maitland had been to Cardlestone&rsquo;s
+rooms that night. Wasn&rsquo;t he found lying dead at the foot of
+Cardlestone&rsquo;s stairs? Aye&mdash;but who found him? Not the
+porter&mdash;not the police&mdash;not you, Master Spargo, with all your
+cleverness. The man who found Maitland lying dead there that night
+was&mdash;I!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the silence that followed, Spargo, who had been making notes of what Myerst
+said, suddenly dropped his pencil and thrusting his hands in his pockets sat
+bolt upright with a look which Breton, who was watching him seriously, could
+not make out. It was the look of a man whose ideas and conceptions are being
+rudely upset. And Myerst, too, saw it and he laughed, more sneeringly than
+ever.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s one for you, Spargo!&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;That surprises
+you&mdash;that makes you think. Now what do you think?&mdash;if one may
+ask.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I think,&rdquo; said Spargo, &ldquo;that you are either a consummate
+liar, or that this mystery is bigger than before.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I can lie when it&rsquo;s necessary,&rdquo; retorted Myerst. &ldquo;Just
+now it isn&rsquo;t necessary. I&rsquo;m telling you the plain truth:
+there&rsquo;s no reason why I shouldn&rsquo;t. As I&rsquo;ve said before,
+although you two young bullies have tied me up in this fashion, you can&rsquo;t
+do anything against me. I&rsquo;ve a power of attorney from those two old men
+in there, and that&rsquo;s enough to satisfy anybody as to my possession of
+their cheques and securities. I&rsquo;ve the whip hand of you, my sons, in all
+ways. And that&rsquo;s why I&rsquo;m telling you the truth&mdash;to amuse
+myself during this period of waiting. The plain truth, my sons!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;In pursuance of which,&rdquo; observed Breton, drily, &ldquo;I think you
+mentioned that you were the first person to find my father lying dead?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I was. That is&mdash;as far as I can gather. I&rsquo;ll tell you all
+about it. As I said, I live over Cardlestone. That night I came home very
+late&mdash;it was well past one o&rsquo;clock. There was nobody about&mdash;as
+a matter of fact, no one has residential chambers in that building but
+Cardlestone and myself. I found the body of a man lying in the entry. I struck
+a match and immediately recognized my visitor of the afternoon&mdash;John
+Marbury. Now, although I was so late in going home, I was as sober as a man can
+be, and I think pretty quickly at all times. I thought at double extra speed
+just then. And the first thing I did was to strip the body of every article it
+had on it&mdash;money, papers, everything. All these things are safely locked
+up&mdash;they&rsquo;ve never been tracked. Next day, using my facilities as
+secretary to the Safe Deposit Company, I secured the things in that box. Then I
+found out who the dead man really was. And then I deliberately set to work to
+throw dust in the eyes of the police and of the newspapers, and particularly in
+the eyes of young Master Spargo there. I had an object.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What?&rdquo; asked Breton.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What! Knowing all I did, I firmly believed that Marbury, or, rather,
+Maitland, had been murdered by either Cardlestone or Elphick. I put it to
+myself in this way, and my opinion was strengthened as you, Spargo, inserted
+news in your paper&mdash;Maitland, finding himself in the vicinity of
+Cardlestone after leaving Aylmore&rsquo;s rooms that night, turned into our
+building, perhaps just to see where Cardlestone lived. He met Cardlestone
+accidentally, or he perhaps met Cardlestone and Elphick together&mdash;they
+recognized each other. Maitland probably threatened to expose Cardlestone, or,
+rather, Chamberlayne&mdash;nobody, of course, could know what happened, but my
+theory was that Chamberlayne killed him. There, at any rate, was the fact that
+Maitland was found murdered at Chamberlayne&rsquo;s very threshold. And, in the
+course of a few days, I proved, to my own positive satisfaction, by getting
+access to Chamberlayne&rsquo;s rooms in his absence that Maitland had been
+there, had been in those rooms. For I found there, in Chamberlayne&rsquo;s
+desk, the rare Australian stamps of which Criedir told at the inquest. That was
+proof positive.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo looked at Breton. They knew what Myerst did not know&mdash;that the
+stamps of which he spoke were lying in Spargo&rsquo;s breast pocket, where they
+had lain since he had picked them up from the litter and confusion of
+Chamberlayne&rsquo;s floor.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why,&rdquo; asked Breton, after a pause, &ldquo;why did you never accuse
+Cardlestone, or Chamberlayne, of the murder?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I did! I have accused him a score of times&mdash;and Elphick,
+too,&rdquo; replied Myerst with emphasis. &ldquo;Not at first, mind you&mdash;I
+never let Chamberlayne know that I ever suspected him for some time. I had my
+own game to play. But at last&mdash;not so many days ago&mdash;I did. I accused
+them both. That&rsquo;s how I got the whip hand of them. They began to be
+afraid&mdash;by that time Elphick had got to know all about Cardlestone&rsquo;s
+past as Chamberlayne. And as I tell you, Elphick&rsquo;s fond of Cardlestone.
+It&rsquo;s queer, but he is. He&mdash;wants to shield him.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What did they say when you accused them?&rdquo; asked Breton.
+&ldquo;Let&rsquo;s keep to that point&mdash;never mind their feelings for one
+another.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Just so, but that feeling&rsquo;s a lot more to do with this mystery
+than you think, my young friend,&rdquo; said Myerst. &ldquo;What did they say,
+you ask? Why, they strenuously denied it, Cardlestone swore solemnly to me that
+he had no part or lot in the murder of Maitland. So did Elphick. But&mdash;they
+know something about the murder. If those two old men can&rsquo;t tell you
+definitely who actually struck John Maitland down, I&rsquo;m certain that they
+have a very clear idea in their minds as to who really did! They&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A sudden sharp cry from the inner room interrupted Myerst. Breton and Spargo
+started to their feet and made for the door. But before they could reach it
+Elphick came out, white and shaking.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He&rsquo;s gone!&rdquo; he exclaimed in quavering accents. &ldquo;My old
+friend&rsquo;s gone&mdash;he&rsquo;s dead! I was&mdash;asleep. I woke suddenly
+and looked at him. He&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo forced the old man into a chair and gave him some whisky; Breton passed
+quickly into the inner room; only to come back shaking his head.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He&rsquo;s dead,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;He evidently died in his
+sleep.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then his secret&rsquo;s gone with him,&rdquo; remarked Myerst, calmly.
+&ldquo;And now we shall never know if he did kill John Maitland or if he
+didn&rsquo;t. So that&rsquo;s done with!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Old Elphick suddenly sat up in his chair, pushing Spargo fiercely away from his
+side.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He didn&rsquo;t kill John Maitland!&rdquo; he cried angrily, attempting
+to shake his fist at Myerst. &ldquo;Whoever says he killed Maitland lies. He
+was as innocent as I am. You&rsquo;ve tortured and tormented him to his death
+with that charge, as you&rsquo;re torturing me&mdash;among you. I tell you
+he&rsquo;d nothing to do with John Maitland&rsquo;s death&mdash;nothing!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myerst laughed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Who had, then?&rdquo; he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Hold your tongue!&rdquo; commanded Breton, turning angrily on him. He
+sat down by Elphick&rsquo;s side and laid his hand soothingly on the old
+man&rsquo;s arm.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Guardian,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;why don&rsquo;t you tell what you know?
+Don&rsquo;t be afraid of that fellow there&mdash;he&rsquo;s safe enough. Tell
+Spargo and me what you know of the matter. Remember, nothing can hurt
+Cardlestone, or Chamberlayne, or whoever he is or was, now.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elphick sat for a moment shaking his head. He allowed Spargo to give him
+another drink; he lifted his head and looked at the two young men with
+something of an appeal.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;m badly shaken,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve suffered much
+lately&mdash;I&rsquo;ve learnt things that I didn&rsquo;t know. Perhaps I ought
+to have spoken before, but I was afraid for&mdash;for him. He was a good
+friend, Cardlestone, whatever else he may have been&mdash;a good friend.
+And&mdash;I don&rsquo;t know any more than what happened that night.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Tell us what happened that night,&rdquo; said Breton.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, that night I went round, as I often did, to play piquet with
+Cardlestone. That was about ten o&rsquo;clock. About eleven Jane Baylis came to
+Cardlestone&rsquo;s&mdash;she&rsquo;d been to my rooms to find me&mdash;wanted
+to see me particularly&mdash;and she&rsquo;d come on there, knowing where I
+should be. Cardlestone would make her have a glass of wine and a biscuit; she
+sat down and we all talked. Then, about, I should think, a quarter to twelve, a
+knock came at Cardlestone&rsquo;s door&mdash;his outer door was open, and of
+course anybody outside could see lights within. Cardlestone went to the door:
+we heard a man&rsquo;s voice enquire for him by name; then the voice added that
+Criedir, the stamp dealer, had advised him to call on Mr. Cardlestone to show
+him some rare Australian stamps, and that seeing a light under his door he had
+knocked. Cardlestone asked him in&mdash;he came in. That was the man we saw
+next day at the mortuary. Upon my honour, we didn&rsquo;t know him, either that
+night or next day!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What happened when he came in?&rdquo; asked Breton.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Cardlestone asked him to sit down: he offered and gave him a drink. The
+man said Criedir had given him Cardlestone&rsquo;s address, and that he&rsquo;d
+been with a friend at some rooms in Fountain Court, and as he was passing our
+building he&rsquo;d just looked to make sure where Cardlestone lived, and as
+he&rsquo;d noticed a light he&rsquo;d made bold to knock. He and Cardlestone
+began to examine the stamps. Jane Baylis said good-night, and she and I left
+Cardlestone and the man together.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No one had recognized him?&rdquo; said Breton.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No one! Remember, I only once or twice saw Maitland in all my life. The
+others certainly did not recognize him. At least, I never knew that they
+did&mdash;if they did.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Tell us,&rdquo; said Spargo, joining in for the first time, &ldquo;tell
+us what you and Miss Baylis did?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;At the foot of the stairs Jane Baylis suddenly said she&rsquo;d
+forgotten something in Cardlestone&rsquo;s lobby. As she was going out in to
+Fleet Street, and I was going down Middle Temple Lane to turn off to my own
+rooms we said good-night. She went back upstairs. And I went home. And upon my
+soul and honour that&rsquo;s all I know!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo suddenly leapt to his feet. He snatched at his cap&mdash;a sodden and
+bedraggled headgear which he had thrown down when they entered the cottage.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s enough!&rdquo; he almost shouted. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve got
+it&mdash;at last! Breton&mdash;where&rsquo;s the nearest telegraph office?
+Hawes? Straight down this valley? Then, here&rsquo;s for it! Look after things
+till I&rsquo;m back, or, when the police come, join me there. I shall catch the
+first train to town, anyhow, after wiring.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But&mdash;what are you after, Spargo?&rdquo; exclaimed Breton.
+&ldquo;Stop! What on earth&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But Spargo had closed the door and was running for all he was worth down the
+valley. Three quarters of an hour later he startled a quiet and peaceful
+telegraphist by darting, breathless and dirty, into a sleepy country post
+office, snatching a telegraph form and scribbling down a message in shaky
+handwriting:&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p class="letter">
+<i>Rathbury, New Scotland Yard, London.</i><br/>
+<i>Arrest Jane Baylis at once for murder of John Maitland.</i><br/>
+<i>Coming straight to town with full evidence.</i><br/>
+          <i>Frank Spargo</i>.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then Spargo dropped on the office bench, and while the wondering operator set
+the wires ticking, strove to get his breath, utterly spent in his mad race
+across the heather. And when it was got he set out again&mdash;to find the
+station.
+</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>
+Some days later, Spargo, having seen Stephen Aylmore walk out of the Bow Street
+dock, cleared of the charge against him, and in a fair way of being cleared of
+the affair of twenty years before, found himself in a very quiet corner of the
+Court holding the hand of Jessie Aylmore, who, he discovered, was saying things
+to him which he scarcely comprehended. There was nobody near them and the girl
+spoke freely and warmly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But you will come&mdash;you will come today&mdash;and be properly
+thanked,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;You will&mdash;won&rsquo;t you?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spargo allowed himself to retain possession of the hand. Also he took a
+straight look into Jessie Aylmore&rsquo;s eyes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t want thanks,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;It was all a lot of
+luck. And if I come&mdash;today&mdash;it will be to see&mdash;just you!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jessie Aylmore looked down at the two hands.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I think,&rdquo; she whispered, &ldquo;I think that is what I really
+meant!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+THE END
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MIDDLE TEMPLE MURDER ***</div>
+<div style='text-align:left'>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+Updated editions will replace the previous one&#8212;the old editions will
+be renamed.
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright
+law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works,
+so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United
+States without permission and without paying copyright
+royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part
+of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project
+Gutenberg&#8482; electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG&#8482;
+concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark,
+and may not be used if you charge for an eBook, except by following
+the terms of the trademark license, including paying royalties for use
+of the Project Gutenberg trademark. If you do not charge anything for
+copies of this eBook, complying with the trademark license is very
+easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose such as creation
+of derivative works, reports, performances and research. Project
+Gutenberg eBooks may be modified and printed and given away--you may
+do practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks not protected
+by U.S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject to the trademark
+license, especially commercial redistribution.
+</div>
+
+<div style='margin:0.83em 0; font-size:1.1em; text-align:center'>START: FULL LICENSE<br />
+<span style='font-size:smaller'>THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE<br />
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK</span>
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+To protect the Project Gutenberg&#8482; mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase &#8220;Project
+Gutenberg&#8221;), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full
+Project Gutenberg&#8482; License available with this file or online at
+www.gutenberg.org/license.
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; font-size:1.1em; margin:1em 0; font-weight:bold'>
+Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg&#8482; electronic works
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg&#8482;
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or
+destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg&#8482; electronic works in your
+possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a
+Project Gutenberg&#8482; electronic work and you do not agree to be bound
+by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person
+or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+1.B. &#8220;Project Gutenberg&#8221; is a registered trademark. It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg&#8482; electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See
+paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg&#8482; electronic works if you follow the terms of this
+agreement and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg&#8482;
+electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below.
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation (&#8220;the
+Foundation&#8221; or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection
+of Project Gutenberg&#8482; electronic works. Nearly all the individual
+works in the collection are in the public domain in the United
+States. If an individual work is unprotected by copyright law in the
+United States and you are located in the United States, we do not
+claim a right to prevent you from copying, distributing, performing,
+displaying or creating derivative works based on the work as long as
+all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Of course, we hope
+that you will support the Project Gutenberg&#8482; mission of promoting
+free access to electronic works by freely sharing Project Gutenberg&#8482;
+works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for keeping the
+Project Gutenberg&#8482; name associated with the work. You can easily
+comply with the terms of this agreement by keeping this work in the
+same format with its attached full Project Gutenberg&#8482; License when
+you share it without charge with others.
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are
+in a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States,
+check the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this
+agreement before downloading, copying, displaying, performing,
+distributing or creating derivative works based on this work or any
+other Project Gutenberg&#8482; work. The Foundation makes no
+representations concerning the copyright status of any work in any
+country other than the United States.
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other
+immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg&#8482; License must appear
+prominently whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg&#8482; work (any work
+on which the phrase &#8220;Project Gutenberg&#8221; appears, or with which the
+phrase &#8220;Project Gutenberg&#8221; is associated) is accessed, displayed,
+performed, viewed, copied or distributed:
+</div>
+
+<blockquote>
+  <div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+    This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
+    other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
+    whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
+    of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
+    at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you
+    are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws
+    of the country where you are located before using this eBook.
+  </div>
+</blockquote>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg&#8482; electronic work is
+derived from texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (does not
+contain a notice indicating that it is posted with permission of the
+copyright holder), the work can be copied and distributed to anyone in
+the United States without paying any fees or charges. If you are
+redistributing or providing access to a work with the phrase &#8220;Project
+Gutenberg&#8221; associated with or appearing on the work, you must comply
+either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 or
+obtain permission for the use of the work and the Project Gutenberg&#8482;
+trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg&#8482; electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any
+additional terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms
+will be linked to the Project Gutenberg&#8482; License for all works
+posted with the permission of the copyright holder found at the
+beginning of this work.
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg&#8482;
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg&#8482;.
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg&#8482; License.
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including
+any word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access
+to or distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg&#8482; work in a format
+other than &#8220;Plain Vanilla ASCII&#8221; or other format used in the official
+version posted on the official Project Gutenberg&#8482; website
+(www.gutenberg.org), you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense
+to the user, provide a copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means
+of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original &#8220;Plain
+Vanilla ASCII&#8221; or other form. Any alternate format must include the
+full Project Gutenberg&#8482; License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg&#8482; works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg&#8482; electronic works
+provided that:
+</div>
+
+<div style='margin-left:0.7em;'>
+    <div style='text-indent:-0.7em'>
+        &bull; You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+        the use of Project Gutenberg&#8482; works calculated using the method
+        you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed
+        to the owner of the Project Gutenberg&#8482; trademark, but he has
+        agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the Project
+        Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments must be paid
+        within 60 days following each date on which you prepare (or are
+        legally required to prepare) your periodic tax returns. Royalty
+        payments should be clearly marked as such and sent to the Project
+        Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the address specified in
+        Section 4, &#8220;Information about donations to the Project Gutenberg
+        Literary Archive Foundation.&#8221;
+    </div>
+
+    <div style='text-indent:-0.7em'>
+        &bull; You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+        you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+        does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg&#8482;
+        License. You must require such a user to return or destroy all
+        copies of the works possessed in a physical medium and discontinue
+        all use of and all access to other copies of Project Gutenberg&#8482;
+        works.
+    </div>
+
+    <div style='text-indent:-0.7em'>
+        &bull; You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of
+        any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+        electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of
+        receipt of the work.
+    </div>
+
+    <div style='text-indent:-0.7em'>
+        &bull; You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+        distribution of Project Gutenberg&#8482; works.
+    </div>
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project
+Gutenberg&#8482; electronic work or group of works on different terms than
+are set forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing
+from the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the manager of
+the Project Gutenberg&#8482; trademark. Contact the Foundation as set
+forth in Section 3 below.
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+1.F.
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+works not protected by U.S. copyright law in creating the Project
+Gutenberg&#8482; collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg&#8482;
+electronic works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may
+contain &#8220;Defects,&#8221; such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate
+or corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other
+intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or
+other medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that damage or
+cannot be read by your equipment.
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the &#8220;Right
+of Replacement or Refund&#8221; described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg&#8482; trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg&#8482; electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium
+with your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you
+with the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in
+lieu of a refund. If you received the work electronically, the person
+or entity providing it to you may choose to give you a second
+opportunity to receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If
+the second copy is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing
+without further opportunities to fix the problem.
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you &#8216;AS-IS&#8217;, WITH NO
+OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT
+LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of
+damages. If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement
+violates the law of the state applicable to this agreement, the
+agreement shall be interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or
+limitation permitted by the applicable state law. The invalidity or
+unenforceability of any provision of this agreement shall not void the
+remaining provisions.
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg&#8482; electronic works in
+accordance with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the
+production, promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg&#8482;
+electronic works, harmless from all liability, costs and expenses,
+including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of
+the following which you do or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this
+or any Project Gutenberg&#8482; work, (b) alteration, modification, or
+additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg&#8482; work, and (c) any
+Defect you cause.
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; font-size:1.1em; margin:1em 0; font-weight:bold'>
+Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg&#8482;
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+Project Gutenberg&#8482; is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of
+computers including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It
+exists because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations
+from people in all walks of life.
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg&#8482;&#8217;s
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg&#8482; collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg&#8482; and future
+generations. To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation and how your efforts and donations can help, see
+Sections 3 and 4 and the Foundation information page at www.gutenberg.org.
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; font-size:1.1em; margin:1em 0; font-weight:bold'>
+Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non-profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service. The Foundation&#8217;s EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent permitted by
+U.S. federal laws and your state&#8217;s laws.
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+The Foundation&#8217;s business office is located at 809 North 1500 West,
+Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email contact links and up
+to date contact information can be found at the Foundation&#8217;s website
+and official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; font-size:1.1em; margin:1em 0; font-weight:bold'>
+Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+Project Gutenberg&#8482; depends upon and cannot survive without widespread
+public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine-readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To SEND
+DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any particular state
+visit <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/donate/">www.gutenberg.org/donate</a>.
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+Please check the Project Gutenberg web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. To
+donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; font-size:1.1em; margin:1em 0; font-weight:bold'>
+Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg&#8482; electronic works
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project
+Gutenberg&#8482; concept of a library of electronic works that could be
+freely shared with anyone. For forty years, he produced and
+distributed Project Gutenberg&#8482; eBooks with only a loose network of
+volunteer support.
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+Project Gutenberg&#8482; eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as not protected by copyright in
+the U.S. unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not
+necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper
+edition.
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+Most people start at our website which has the main PG search
+facility: <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>.
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+This website includes information about Project Gutenberg&#8482;,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
+</div>
+
+</div>
+
+</body>
+
+</html>
+
+
diff --git a/old/10373-h/images/cover.jpg b/old/10373-h/images/cover.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..baccebc
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/10373-h/images/cover.jpg
diff --git a/old/old/10373-8.txt b/old/old/10373-8.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..3668d6e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/old/10373-8.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,9833 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Middle Temple Murder, by J.S. Fletcher
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Middle Temple Murder
+
+Author: J.S. Fletcher
+
+Release Date: December 3, 2003 [EBook #10373]
+[Last updated: October 11, 2020]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MIDDLE TEMPLE MURDER ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Linda Cantoni and PG Distributed
+Proofreaders
+
+
+
+
+
+THE MIDDLE TEMPLE MURDER
+
+BY
+
+J. S. FLETCHER
+
+1919
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+CHAPTER
+
+I THE SCRAP OF GREY PAPER
+
+II HIS FIRST BRIEF
+
+III THE CLUE OF THE CAP
+
+IV THE ANGLO-ORIENT HOTEL
+
+V SPARGO WISHES TO SPECIALIZE
+
+VI WITNESS TO A MEETING
+
+VII MR. AYLMORE
+
+VIII THE MAN FROM THE SAFE DEPOSIT
+
+IX THE DEALER IN RARE STAMPS
+
+X THE LEATHER BOX
+
+XI MR. AYLMORE IS QUESTIONED
+
+XII THE NEW WITNESS
+
+XIII UNDER SUSPICION
+
+XIV THE SILVER TICKET
+
+XV MARKET MILCASTER
+
+XVI THE "YELLOW DRAGON"
+
+XVII MR. QUARTERPAGE HARKS BACK
+
+XVIII AN OLD NEWSPAPER
+
+XIX THE CHAMBERLAYNE STORY
+
+XX MAITLAND _alias_ MARBURY
+
+XXI ARRESTED
+
+XXII THE BLANK PAST
+
+XXIII MISS BAYLIS
+
+XXIV MOTHER GUTCH
+
+XXV REVELATIONS
+
+XXVI STILL SILENT
+
+XXVII MR. ELPHICK'S CHAMBERS
+
+XXVIII OF PROVED IDENTITY
+
+XXIX THE CLOSED DOORS
+
+XXX REVELATION
+
+XXXI THE PENITENT WINDOW-CLEANER
+
+XXXII THE CONTENTS OF THE COFFIN
+
+XXXIII FORESTALLED
+
+XXXIV THE WHIP HAND
+
+XXXV MYERST EXPLAINS
+
+XXXVI THE FINAL TELEGRAM
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER ONE
+
+THE SCRAP OF GREY PAPER
+
+
+As a rule, Spargo left the _Watchman_ office at two o'clock. The paper
+had then gone to press. There was nothing for him, recently promoted to
+a sub-editorship, to do after he had passed the column for which he was
+responsible; as a matter of fact he could have gone home before the
+machines began their clatter. But he generally hung about, trifling,
+until two o'clock came. On this occasion, the morning of the 22nd of
+June, 1912, he stopped longer than usual, chatting with Hacket, who had
+charge of the foreign news, and who began telling him about a telegram
+which had just come through from Durazzo. What Hacket had to tell was
+interesting: Spargo lingered to hear all about it, and to discuss it.
+Altogether it was well beyond half-past two when he went out of the
+office, unconsciously puffing away from him as he reached the threshold
+the last breath of the atmosphere in which he had spent his midnight.
+In Fleet Street the air was fresh, almost to sweetness, and the first
+grey of the coming dawn was breaking faintly around the high silence of
+St. Paul's.
+
+Spargo lived in Bloomsbury, on the west side of Russell Square. Every
+night and every morning he walked to and from the _Watchman_ office by
+the same route--Southampton Row, Kingsway, the Strand, Fleet Street.
+He came to know several faces, especially amongst the police; he formed
+the habit of exchanging greetings with various officers whom he
+encountered at regular points as he went slowly homewards, smoking his
+pipe. And on this morning, as he drew near to Middle Temple Lane, he
+saw a policeman whom he knew, one Driscoll, standing at the entrance,
+looking about him. Further away another policeman appeared, sauntering.
+Driscoll raised an arm and signalled; then, turning, he saw Spargo. He
+moved a step or two towards him. Spargo saw news in his face.
+
+"What is it?" asked Spargo.
+
+Driscoll jerked a thumb over his shoulder, towards the partly open door
+of the lane. Within, Spargo saw a man hastily donning a waistcoat and
+jacket.
+
+"He says," answered Driscoll, "him, there--the porter--that there's a
+man lying in one of them entries down the lane, and he thinks he's
+dead. Likewise, he thinks he's murdered."
+
+Spargo echoed the word.
+
+"But what makes him think that?" he asked, peeping with curiosity
+beyond Driscoll's burly form. "Why?"
+
+"He says there's blood about him," answered Driscoll. He turned and
+glanced at the oncoming constable, and then turned again to Spargo.
+"You're a newspaper man, sir?" he suggested.
+
+"I am," replied Spargo.
+
+"You'd better walk down with us," said Driscoll, with a grin. "There'll
+be something to write pieces in the paper about. At least, there may
+be." Spargo made no answer. He continued to look down the lane,
+wondering what secret it held, until the other policeman came up. At
+the same moment the porter, now fully clothed, came out.
+
+"Come on!" he said shortly. "I'll show you."
+
+Driscoll murmured a word or two to the newly-arrived constable, and
+then turned to the porter.
+
+"How came you to find him, then?" he asked
+
+The porter jerked his head at the door which they were leaving.
+
+"I heard that door slam," he replied, irritably, as if the fact which
+he mentioned caused him offence. "I know I did! So I got up to look
+around. Then--well, I saw that!"
+
+He raised a hand, pointing down the lane. The three men followed his
+outstretched finger. And Spargo then saw a man's foot, booted,
+grey-socked, protruding from an entry on the left hand.
+
+"Sticking out there, just as you see it now," said the porter. "I ain't
+touched it. And so--"
+
+He paused and made a grimace as if at the memory of some unpleasant
+thing. Driscoll nodded comprehendingly.
+
+"And so you went along and looked?" he suggested. "Just so--just to see
+who it belonged to, as it might be."
+
+"Just to see--what there was to see," agreed the porter. "Then I saw
+there was blood. And then--well, I made up the lane to tell one of you
+chaps."
+
+"Best thing you could have done," said Driscoll. "Well, now then--"
+
+The little procession came to a halt at the entry. The entry was a cold
+and formal thing of itself; not a nice place to lie dead in, having
+glazed white tiles for its walls and concrete for its flooring;
+something about its appearance in that grey morning air suggested to
+Spargo the idea of a mortuary. And that the man whose foot projected
+over the step was dead he had no doubt: the limpness of his pose
+certified to it.
+
+For a moment none of the four men moved or spoke. The two policemen
+unconsciously stuck their thumbs in their belts and made play with
+their fingers; the porter rubbed his chin thoughtfully--Spargo
+remembered afterwards the rasping sound of this action; he himself put
+his hands in his pockets and began to jingle his money and his keys.
+Each man had his own thoughts as he contemplated the piece of human
+wreckage which lay before him.
+
+"You'll notice," suddenly observed Driscoll, speaking in a hushed
+voice, "You'll notice that he's lying there in a queer way--same as
+if--as if he'd been put there. Sort of propped up against that wall, at
+first, and had slid down, like."
+
+Spargo was taking in all the details with a professional eye. He saw at
+his feet the body of an elderly man; the face was turned away from him,
+crushed in against the glaze of the wall, but he judged the man to be
+elderly because of grey hair and whitening whisker; it was clothed in a
+good, well-made suit of grey check cloth--tweed--and the boots were
+good: so, too, was the linen cuff which projected from the sleeve that
+hung so limply. One leg was half doubled under the body; the other was
+stretched straight out across the threshold; the trunk was twisted to
+the wall. Over the white glaze of the tiles against which it and the
+shoulder towards which it had sunk were crushed there were gouts and
+stains of blood. And Driscoll, taking a hand out of his belt, pointed a
+finger at them.
+
+"Seems to me," he said, slowly, "seems to me as how he's been struck
+down from behind as he came out of here. That blood's from his
+nose--gushed out as he fell. What do you say, Jim?" The other policeman
+coughed.
+
+"Better get the inspector here," he said. "And the doctor and the
+ambulance. Dead--ain't he?"
+
+Driscoll bent down and put a thumb on the hand which lay on the
+pavement.
+
+"As ever they make 'em," he remarked laconically. "And stiff, too.
+Well, hurry up, Jim!"
+
+Spargo waited until the inspector arrived; waited until the
+hand-ambulance came. More policemen came with it; they moved the body
+for transference to the mortuary, and Spargo then saw the dead man's
+face. He looked long and steadily at it while the police arranged the
+limbs, wondering all the time who it was that he gazed at, how he came
+to that end, what was the object of his murderer, and many other
+things. There was some professionalism in Spargo's curiosity, but there
+was also a natural dislike that a fellow-being should have been so
+unceremoniously smitten out of the world.
+
+There was nothing very remarkable about the dead man's face. It was
+that of a man of apparently sixty to sixty-five years of age; plain,
+even homely of feature, clean-shaven, except for a fringe of white
+whisker, trimmed, after an old-fashioned pattern, between the ear and
+the point of the jaw. The only remarkable thing about it was that it
+was much lined and seamed; the wrinkles were many and deep around the
+corners of the lips and the angles of the eyes; this man, you would
+have said to yourself, has led a hard life and weathered storm, mental
+as well as physical.
+
+Driscoll nudged Spargo with a turn of his elbow. He gave him a wink.
+"Better come down to the dead-house," he muttered confidentially.
+
+"Why?" asked Spargo.
+
+"They'll go through him," whispered Driscoll. "Search him, d'ye see?
+Then you'll get to know all about him, and so on. Help to write that
+piece in the paper, eh?"
+
+Spargo hesitated. He had had a stiff night's work, and until his
+encounter with Driscoll he had cherished warm anticipation of the meal
+which would be laid out for him at his rooms, and of the bed into which
+he would subsequently tumble. Besides, a telephone message would send a
+man from the _Watchman_ to the mortuary. This sort of thing was not in
+his line now, now--
+
+"You'll be for getting one o' them big play-cards out with something
+about a mystery on it," suggested Driscoll. "You never know what lies
+at the bottom o' these affairs, no more you don't."
+
+That last observation decided Spargo; moreover, the old instinct for
+getting news began to assert itself.
+
+"All right," he said. "I'll go along with you."
+
+And re-lighting his pipe he followed the little cort�ge through the
+streets, still deserted and quiet, and as he walked behind he reflected
+on the unobtrusive fashion in which murder could stalk about. Here was
+the work of murder, no doubt, and it was being quietly carried along a
+principal London thoroughfare, without fuss or noise, by officials to
+whom the dealing with it was all a matter of routine. Surely--
+
+"My opinion," said a voice at Spargo's elbow, "my opinion is that it
+was done elsewhere. Not there! He was put there. That's what I say."
+Spargo turned and saw that the porter was at his side. He, too, was
+accompanying the body.
+
+"Oh!" said Spargo. "You think--"
+
+"I think he was struck down elsewhere and carried there," said the
+porter. "In somebody's chambers, maybe. I've known of some queer games
+in our bit of London! Well!--he never came in at my lodge last
+night--I'll stand to that. And who is he, I should like to know? From
+what I see of him, not the sort to be about our place."
+
+"That's what we shall hear presently," said Spargo. "They're going to
+search him."
+
+But Spargo was presently made aware that the searchers had found
+nothing. The police-surgeon said that the dead man had, without doubt,
+been struck down from behind by a terrible blow which had fractured the
+skull and caused death almost instantaneously. In Driscoll's opinion,
+the murder had been committed for the sake of plunder. For there was
+nothing whatever on the body. It was reasonable to suppose that a man
+who is well dressed would possess a watch and chain, and have money in
+his pockets, and possibly rings on his fingers. But there was nothing
+valuable to be found; in fact there was nothing at all to be found that
+could lead to identification--no letters, no papers, nothing. It was
+plain that whoever had struck the dead man down had subsequently
+stripped him of whatever was on him. The only clue to possible identity
+lay in the fact that a soft cap of grey cloth appeared to have been
+newly purchased at a fashionable shop in the West End.
+
+Spargo went home; there seemed to be nothing to stop for. He ate his
+food and he went to bed, only to do poor things in the way of sleeping.
+He was not the sort to be impressed by horrors, but he recognized at
+last that the morning's event had destroyed his chance of rest; he
+accordingly rose, took a cold bath, drank a cup of coffee, and went
+out. He was not sure of any particular idea when he strolled away from
+Bloomsbury, but it did not surprise him when, half an hour later he
+found that he had walked down to the police station near which the
+unknown man's body lay in the mortuary. And there he met Driscoll, just
+going off duty. Driscoll grinned at sight of him.
+
+"You're in luck," he said. "'Tisn't five minutes since they found a bit
+of grey writing paper crumpled up in the poor man's waistcoat
+pocket--it had slipped into a crack. Come in, and you'll see it."
+
+Spargo went into the inspector's office. In another minute he found
+himself staring at the scrap of paper. There was nothing on it but an
+address, scrawled in pencil:--Ronald Breton, Barrister, King's Bench
+Walk, Temple, London.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWO
+
+HIS FIRST BRIEF
+
+
+Spargo looked up at the inspector with a quick jerk of his head. "I
+know this man," he said.
+
+The inspector showed new interest.
+
+"What, Mr. Breton?" he asked.
+
+"Yes. I'm on the _Watchman_, you know, sub-editor. I took an article
+from him the other day--article on 'Ideal Sites for Campers-Out.' He
+came to the office about it. So this was in the dead man's pocket?"
+
+"Found in a hole in his pocket, I understand: I wasn't present myself.
+It's not much, but it may afford some clue to identity."
+
+Spargo picked up the scrap of grey paper and looked closely at it. It
+seemed to him to be the sort of paper that is found in hotels and in
+clubs; it had been torn roughly from the sheet.
+
+"What," he asked meditatively, "what will you do about getting this man
+identified?"
+
+The inspector shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"Oh, usual thing, I suppose. There'll be publicity, you know. I suppose
+you'll be doing a special account yourself, for your paper, eh? Then
+there'll be the others. And we shall put out the usual notice. Somebody
+will come forward to identify--sure to. And--"
+
+A man came into the office--a stolid-faced, quiet-mannered, soberly
+attired person, who might have been a respectable tradesman out for a
+stroll, and who gave the inspector a sidelong nod as he approached his
+desk, at the same time extending his hand towards the scrap of paper
+which Spargo had just laid down.
+
+"I'll go along to King's Bench Walk and see Mr. Breton," he observed,
+looking at his watch. "It's just about ten--I daresay he'll be there
+now."
+
+"I'm going there, too," remarked Spargo, but as if speaking to himself.
+"Yes, I'll go there."
+
+The newcomer glanced at Spargo, and then at the inspector. The
+inspector nodded at Spargo.
+
+"Journalist," he said, "Mr. Spargo of the _Watchman_. Mr. Spargo was
+there when the body was found. And he knows Mr. Breton." Then he nodded
+from Spargo to the stolid-faced person. "This is Detective-Sergeant
+Rathbury, from the Yard," he said to Spargo. "He's come to take charge
+of this case."
+
+"Oh?" said Spargo blankly. "I see--what," he went on, with sudden
+abruptness, "what shall you do about Breton?"
+
+"Get him to come and look at the body," replied Rathbury. "He may know
+the man and he mayn't. Anyway, his name and address are here, aren't
+they?"
+
+"Come along," said Spargo. "I'll walk there with you."
+
+Spargo remained in a species of brown study all the way along Tudor
+Street; his companion also maintained silence in a fashion which showed
+that he was by nature and custom a man of few words. It was not until
+the two were climbing the old balustrated staircase of the house in
+King's Bench Walk in which Ronald Breton's chambers were somewhere
+situate that Spargo spoke.
+
+"Do you think that old chap was killed for what he may have had on
+him?" he asked, suddenly turning on the detective.
+
+"I should like to know what he had on him before I answered that
+question, Mr. Spargo," replied Rathbury, with a smile.
+
+"Yes," said Spargo, dreamily. "I suppose so. He might have had--nothing
+on him, eh?"
+
+The detective laughed, and pointed to a board on which names were
+printed.
+
+"We don't know anything yet, sir," he observed, "except that Mr. Breton
+is on the fourth floor. By which I conclude that it isn't long since he
+was eating his dinner."
+
+"Oh, he's young--he's quite young," said Spargo. "I should say he's
+about four-and-twenty. I've met him only--"
+
+At that moment the unmistakable sounds of girlish laughter came down
+the staircase. Two girls seemed to be laughing--presently masculine
+laughter mingled with the lighter feminine.
+
+"Seems to be studying law in very pleasant fashion up here, anyway,"
+said Rathbury. "Mr. Breton's chambers, too. And the door's open."
+
+The outer oak door of Ronald Breton's chambers stood thrown wide; the
+inner one was well ajar; through the opening thus made Spargo and the
+detective obtained a full view of the interior of Mr. Ronald Breton's
+rooms. There, against a background of law books, bundles of papers tied
+up with pink tape, and black-framed pictures of famous legal
+notabilities, they saw a pretty, vivacious-eyed girl, who, perched on a
+chair, wigged and gowned, and flourishing a mass of crisp paper, was
+haranguing an imaginary judge and jury, to the amusement of a young man
+who had his back to the door, and of another girl who leant
+confidentially against his shoulder.
+
+"I put it to you, gentlemen of the jury--I put it to you with
+confidence, feeling that you must be, must necessarily be, some,
+perhaps brothers, perhaps husbands, and fathers, can you, on your
+consciences do my client the great wrong, the irreparable injury,
+the--the--"
+
+"Think of some more adjectives!" exclaimed the young man. "Hot and
+strong 'uns--pile 'em up. That's what they like--they--Hullo!"
+
+This exclamation arose from the fact that at this point of the
+proceedings the detective rapped at the inner door, and then put his
+head round its edge. Whereupon the young lady who was orating from the
+chair, jumped hastily down; the other young lady withdrew from the
+young man's protecting arm; there was a feminine giggle and a feminine
+swishing of skirts, and a hasty bolt into an inner room, and Mr. Ronald
+Breton came forward, blushing a little, to greet the interrupter.
+
+"Come in, come in!" he exclaimed hastily. "I--"
+
+Then he paused, catching sight of Spargo, and held out his hand with a
+look of surprise.
+
+"Oh--Mr. Spargo?" he said. "How do you do?--we--I--we were just having
+a lark--I'm off to court in a few minutes. What can I do for you, Mr.
+Spargo?"
+
+He had backed to the inner door as he spoke, and he now closed it and
+turned again to the two men, looking from one to the other. The
+detective, on his part, was looking at the young barrister. He saw a
+tall, slimly-built youth, of handsome features and engaging presence,
+perfectly groomed, and immaculately garbed, and having upon him a
+general air of well-to-do-ness, and he formed the impression from these
+matters that Mr. Breton was one of those fortunate young men who may
+take up a profession but are certainly not dependent upon it. He turned
+and glanced at the journalist.
+
+"How do you do?" said Spargo slowly. "I--the fact is, I came here with
+Mr. Rathbury. He--wants to see you. Detective-Sergeant Rathbury--of New
+Scotland Yard."
+
+Spargo pronounced this formal introduction as if he were repeating a
+lesson. But he was watching the young barrister's face. And Breton
+turned to the detective with a look of surprise.
+
+"Oh!" he said. "You wish--"
+
+Rathbury had been fumbling in his pocket for the scrap of grey paper,
+which he had carefully bestowed in a much-worn memorandum-book. "I
+wished to ask a question, Mr. Breton," he said. "This morning, about a
+quarter to three, a man--elderly man--was found dead in Middle Temple
+Lane, and there seems little doubt that he was murdered. Mr. Spargo
+here--he was present when the body was found."
+
+"Soon after," corrected Spargo. "A few minutes after."
+
+"When this body was examined at the mortuary," continued Rathbury, in
+his matter-of-fact, business-like tones, "nothing was found that could
+lead to identification. The man appears to have been robbed. There was
+nothing whatever on him--but this bit of torn paper, which was found in
+a hole in the lining of his waistcoat pocket. It's got your name and
+address on it, Mr. Breton. See?"
+
+Ronald Breton took the scrap of paper and looked at it with knitted
+brows.
+
+"By Jove!" he muttered. "So it has; that's queer. What's he like, this
+man?"
+
+Rathbury glanced at a clock which stood on the mantelpiece.
+
+"Will you step round and take a look at him, Mr. Breton?" he said.
+"It's close by."
+
+"Well--I--the fact is, I've got a case on, in Mr. Justice Borrow's
+court," Breton answered, also glancing at his clock. "But it won't be
+called until after eleven. Will--"
+
+"Plenty of time, sir," said Rathbury; "it won't take you ten minutes to
+go round and back again--a look will do. You don't recognize this
+handwriting, I suppose?"
+
+Breton still held the scrap of paper in his fingers. He looked at it
+again, intently.
+
+"No!" he answered. "I don't. I don't know it at all--I can't think, of
+course, who this man could be, to have my name and address. I thought
+he might have been some country solicitor, wanting my professional
+services, you know," he went on, with a shy smile at Spargo; "but,
+three--three o'clock in the morning, eh?"
+
+"The doctor," observed Rathbury, "the doctor thinks he had been dead
+about two and a half hours."
+
+Breton turned to the inner door.
+
+"I'll--I'll just tell these ladies I'm going out for a quarter of an
+hour," he said. "They're going over to the court with me--I got my
+first brief yesterday," he went on with a boyish laugh, glancing right
+and left at his visitors. "It's nothing much--small case--but I
+promised my fianc�e and her sister that they should be present, you
+know. A moment."
+
+He disappeared into the next room and came back a moment later in all
+the glory of a new silk hat. Spargo, a young man who was never very
+particular about his dress, began to contrast his own attire with the
+butterfly appearance of this youngster; he had been quick to notice
+that the two girls who had whisked into the inner room had been
+similarly garbed in fine raiment, more characteristic of Mayfair than
+of Fleet Street. Already he felt a strange curiosity about Breton, and
+about the young ladies whom he heard talking behind the inner door.
+
+"Well, come on," said Breton. "Let's go straight there."
+
+The mortuary to which Rathbury led the way was cold, drab, repellent to
+the general gay sense of the summer morning. Spargo shivered
+involuntarily as he entered it and took a first glance around. But the
+young barrister showed no sign of feeling or concern; he looked quickly
+about him and stepped alertly to the side of the dead man, from whose
+face the detective was turning back a cloth. He looked steadily and
+earnestly at the fixed features. Then he drew back, shaking his head.
+
+"No!" he said with decision. "Don't know him--don't know him from Adam.
+Never set eyes on him in my life, that I know of."
+
+Rathbury replaced the cloth.
+
+"I didn't suppose you would," he remarked. "Well, I expect we must go
+on the usual lines. Somebody'll identify him."
+
+"You say he was murdered?" said Breton. "Is that--certain?"
+
+Rathbury jerked his thumb at the corpse.
+
+"The back of his skull is smashed in," he said laconically. "The doctor
+says he must have been struck down from behind--and a fearful blow,
+too. I'm much obliged to you, Mr. Breton."
+
+"Oh, all right!" said Breton. "Well, you know where to find me if you
+want me. I shall be curious about this. Good-bye--good-bye, Mr.
+Spargo."
+
+The young barrister hurried away, and Rathbury turned to the
+journalist.
+
+"I didn't expect anything from that," he remarked. "However, it was a
+thing to be done. You are going to write about this for your paper?"
+
+Spargo nodded.
+
+"Well," continued Rathbury, "I've sent a man to Fiskie's, the hatter's,
+where that cap came from, you know. We may get a bit of information
+from that quarter--it's possible. If you like to meet me here at
+twelve o'clock I'll tell you anything I've heard. Just now I'm going to
+get some breakfast."
+
+"I'll meet you here," said Spargo, "at twelve o'clock."
+
+He watched Rathbury go away round one corner; he himself suddenly set
+off round another. He went to the _Watchman_ office, wrote a few lines,
+which he enclosed in an envelope for the day-editor, and went out
+again. Somehow or other, his feet led him up Fleet Street, and before
+he quite realized what he was doing he found himself turning into the
+Law Courts.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THREE
+
+THE CLUE OF THE CAP
+
+
+Having no clear conception of what had led him to these scenes of
+litigation, Spargo went wandering aimlessly about in the great hall and
+the adjacent corridors until an official, who took him to be lost,
+asked him if there was any particular part of the building he wanted.
+For a moment Spargo stared at the man as if he did not comprehend his
+question. Then his mental powers reasserted themselves.
+
+"Isn't Mr. Justice Borrow sitting in one of the courts this morning?"
+he suddenly asked.
+
+"Number seven," replied the official. "What's your case--when's it
+down?"
+
+"I haven't got a case," said Spargo. "I'm a pressman--reporter, you
+know."
+
+The official stuck out a finger.
+
+"Round the corner--first to your right--second on the left," he said
+automatically. "You'll find plenty of room--nothing much doing there
+this morning."
+
+He turned away, and Spargo recommenced his apparently aimless
+perambulation of the dreary, depressing corridors.
+
+"Upon my honour!" he muttered. "Upon my honour, I really don't know
+what I've come up here for. I've no business here."
+
+Just then he turned a corner and came face to face with Ronald Breton.
+The young barrister was now in his wig and gown and carried a bundle of
+papers tied up with pink tape; he was escorting two young ladies, who
+were laughing and chattering as they tripped along at his side. And
+Spargo, glancing at them meditatively, instinctively told himself which
+of them it was that he and Rathbury had overheard as she made her
+burlesque speech: it was not the elder one, who walked by Ronald Breton
+with something of an air of proprietorship, but the younger, the girl
+with the laughing eyes and the vivacious smile, and it suddenly dawned
+upon him that somewhere, deep within him, there had been a notion, a
+hope of seeing this girl again--why, he could not then think.
+
+Spargo, thus coming face to face with these three, mechanically lifted
+his hat. Breton stopped, half inquisitive. His eyes seemed to ask a
+question.
+
+"Yes," said Spargo. "I--the fact is, I remembered that you said you
+were coming up here, and I came after you. I want--when you've time--to
+have a talk, to ask you a few questions. About--this affair of the dead
+man, you know."
+
+Breton nodded. He tapped Spargo on the arm.
+
+"Look here," he said. "When this case of mine is over, I can give you
+as much time as you like. Can you wait a bit? Yes? Well, I say, do me a
+favour. I was taking these ladies round to the gallery--round there,
+and up the stairs--and I'm a bit pressed for time--I've a solicitor
+waiting for me. You take them--there's a good fellow; then, when the
+case is over, bring them down here, and you and I will talk. Here--I'll
+introduce you all--no ceremony. Miss Aylmore--Miss Jessie Aylmore. Mr.
+Spargo--of the _Watchman_. Now, I'm off!" Breton turned on the instant;
+his gown whisked round a corner, and Spargo found himself staring at
+two smiling girls. He saw then that both were pretty and attractive,
+and that one seemed to be the elder by some three or four years.
+
+"That is very cool of Ronald," observed the elder young lady. "Perhaps
+his scheme doesn't fit in with yours, Mr. Spargo? Pray don't--"
+
+"Oh, it's all right!" said Spargo, feeling himself uncommonly stupid.
+"I've nothing to do. But--where did Mr. Breton say you wished to be
+taken?"
+
+"Into the gallery of number seven court," said the younger girl
+promptly. "Round this corner--I think I know the way."
+
+Spargo, still marvelling at the rapidity with which affairs were moving
+that morning, bestirred himself to act as cicerone, and presently led
+the two young ladies to the very front of one of those public galleries
+from which idlers and specially-interested spectators may see and hear
+the proceedings which obtain in the badly-ventilated, ill-lighted tanks
+wherein justice is dispensed at the Law Courts. There was no one else
+in that gallery; the attendant in the corridor outside seemed to be
+vastly amazed that any one should wish to enter it, and he presently
+opened the door, beckoned to Spargo, and came half-way down the stairs
+to meet him.
+
+"Nothing much going on here this morning," he whispered behind a raised
+hand. "But there's a nice breach case in number five--get you three
+good seats there if you like."
+
+Spargo declined this tempting offer, and went back to his charges. He
+had decided by that time that Miss Aylmore was about twenty-three, and
+her sister about eighteen; he also thought that young Breton was a
+lucky dog to be in possession of such a charming future wife and an
+equally charming sister-in-law. And he dropped into a seat at Miss
+Jessie Aylmore's side, and looked around him as if he were much awed by
+his surroundings.
+
+"I suppose one can talk until the judge enters?" he whispered. "Is this
+really Mr. Breton's first case?"
+
+"His very first--all on his own responsibility, any way," replied
+Spargo's companion, smiling. "And he's very nervous--and so's my
+sister. Aren't you, now, Evelyn?"
+
+Evelyn Aylmore looked at Spargo, and smiled quietly.
+
+"I suppose one's always nervous about first appearances," she said.
+"However, I think Ronald's got plenty of confidence, and, as he says,
+it's not much of a case: it isn't even a jury case. I'm afraid you'll
+find it dull, Mr. Spargo--it's only something about a promissory
+note."
+
+"Oh, I'm all right, thank you," replied Spargo, unconsciously falling
+back on a favourite formula. "I always like to hear lawyers--they
+manage to say such a lot about--about--"
+
+"About nothing," said Jessie Aylmore. "But there--so do gentlemen who
+write for the papers, don't they?"
+
+Spargo was about to admit that there was a good deal to be said on that
+point when Miss Aylmore suddenly drew her sister's attention to a man
+who had just entered the well of the court.
+
+"Look, Jessie!" she observed. "There's Mr. Elphick!"
+
+Spargo looked down at the person indicated: an elderly, large-faced,
+smooth-shaven man, a little inclined to stoutness, who, wigged and
+gowned, was slowly making his way to a corner seat just outside that
+charmed inner sanctum wherein only King's Counsel are permitted to sit.
+He dropped into this in a fashion which showed that he was one of those
+men who loved personal comfort; he bestowed his plump person at the
+most convenient angle and fitting a monocle in his right eye, glanced
+around him. There were a few of his professional brethren in his
+vicinity; there were half a dozen solicitors and their clerks in
+conversation with one or other of them; there were court officials. But
+the gentleman of the monocle swept all these with an indifferent look
+and cast his eyes upward until he caught sight of the two girls.
+Thereupon he made a most gracious bow in their direction; his broad
+face beamed in a genial smile, and he waved a white hand.
+
+"Do you know Mr. Elphick, Mr. Spargo?" enquired the younger Miss
+Aylmore.
+
+"I rather think I've seen him, somewhere about the Temple," answered
+Spargo. "In fact, I'm sure I have."
+
+"His chambers are in Paper Buildings," said Jessie. "Sometimes he gives
+tea-parties in them. He is Ronald's guardian, and preceptor, and
+mentor, and all that, and I suppose he's dropped into this court to
+hear how his pupil goes on."
+
+"Here is Ronald," whispered Miss Aylmore.
+
+"And here," said her sister, "is his lordship, looking very cross. Now,
+Mr. Spargo, you're in for it."
+
+Spargo, to tell the truth, paid little attention to what went on
+beneath him. The case which young Breton presently opened was a
+commercial one, involving certain rights and properties in a promissory
+note; it seemed to the journalist that Breton dealt with it very well,
+showing himself master of the financial details, and speaking with
+readiness and assurance. He was much more interested in his companions,
+and especially in the younger one, and he was meditating on how he
+could improve his further acquaintance when he awoke to the fact that
+the defence, realizing that it stood no chance, had agreed to withdraw,
+and that Mr. Justice Borrow was already giving judgment in Ronald
+Breton's favour.
+
+In another minute he was walking out of the gallery in rear of the two
+sisters.
+
+"Very good--very good, indeed," he said, absent-mindedly. "I thought he
+put his facts very clearly and concisely."
+
+Downstairs, in the corridor, Ronald Breton was talking to Mr. Elphick.
+He pointed a finger at Spargo as the latter came up with the girls:
+Spargo gathered that Breton was speaking of the murder and of his,
+Spargo's, connection with it. And directly they approached, he spoke.
+
+"This is Mr. Spargo, sub-editor of the _Watchman_." Breton said. "Mr.
+Elphick--Mr. Spargo. I was just telling Mr. Elphick, Spargo, that you
+saw this poor man soon after he was found."
+
+Spargo, glancing at Mr. Elphick, saw that he was deeply interested. The
+elderly barrister took him--literally--by the button-hole.
+
+"My dear sir!" he said. "You--saw this poor fellow? Lying dead--in the
+third entry down Middle Temple Lane! The third entry, eh?"
+
+"Yes," replied Spargo, simply. "I saw him. It was the third entry."
+
+"Singular!" said Mr. Elphick, musingly. "I know a man who lives in that
+house. In fact, I visited him last night, and did not leave until
+nearly midnight. And this unfortunate man had Mr. Ronald Breton's name
+and address in his pocket?"
+
+Spargo nodded. He looked at Breton, and pulled out his watch. Just then
+he had no idea of playing the part of informant to Mr. Elphick.
+
+"Yes, that's so," he answered shortly. Then, looking at Breton
+significantly, he added, "If you can give me those few minutes, now--?"
+
+"Yes--yes!" responded Ronald Breton, nodding. "I understand.
+Evelyn--I'll leave you and Jessie to Mr. Elphick; I must go."
+
+Mr. Elphick seized Spargo once more.
+
+"My dear sir!" he said, eagerly. "Do you--do you think I could possibly
+see--the body?"
+
+"It's at the mortuary," answered Spargo. "I don't know what their
+regulations are."
+
+Then he escaped with Breton. They had crossed Fleet Street and were in
+the quieter shades of the Temple before Spargo spoke.
+
+"About what I wanted to say to you," he said at last. "It was--this.
+I--well, I've always wanted, as a journalist, to have a real big murder
+case. I think this is one. I want to go right into it--thoroughly,
+first and last. And--I think you can help me."
+
+"How do you know that it is a murder case?" asked Breton quietly.
+
+"It's a murder case," answered Spargo, stolidly. "I feel it. Instinct,
+perhaps. I'm going to ferret out the truth. And it seems to me--"
+
+He paused and gave his companion a sharp glance.
+
+"It seems to me," he presently continued, "that the clue lies in that
+scrap of paper. That paper and that man are connecting links between
+you and--somebody else."
+
+"Possibly," agreed Breton. "You want to find the somebody else?"
+
+"I want you to help me to find the somebody else," answered Spargo. "I
+believe this is a big, very big affair: I want to do it. I don't
+believe in police methods--much. By the by, I'm just going to meet
+Rathbury. He may have heard of something. Would you like to come?"
+
+Breton ran into his chambers in King's Bench Walk, left his gown and
+wig, and walked round with Spargo to the police office. Rathbury came
+out as they were stepping in.
+
+"Oh!" he said. "Ah!--I've got what may be helpful, Mr. Spargo. I told
+you I'd sent a man to Fiskie's, the hatter! Well, he's just returned.
+The cap which the dead man was wearing was bought at Fiskie's yesterday
+afternoon, and it was sent to Mr. Marbury, Room 20, at the Anglo-Orient
+Hotel."
+
+"Where is that?" asked Spargo.
+
+"Waterloo district," answered Rathbury. "A small house, I believe.
+Well, I'm going there. Are you coming?"
+
+"Yes," replied Spargo. "Of course. And Mr. Breton wants to come, too."
+
+"If I'm not in the way," said Breton.
+
+Rathbury laughed.
+
+"Well, we may find out something about this scrap of paper," he
+observed. And he waved a signal to the nearest taxi-cab driver.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER FOUR
+
+THE ANGLO-ORIENT HOTEL
+
+
+The house at which Spargo and his companions presently drew up was an
+old-fashioned place in the immediate vicinity of Waterloo Railway
+Station--a plain-fronted, four-square erection, essentially
+mid-Victorian in appearance, and suggestive, somehow, of the very early
+days of railway travelling. Anything more in contrast with the modern
+ideas of a hotel it would have been difficult to find in London, and
+Ronald Breton said so as he and the others crossed the pavement.
+
+"And yet a good many people used to favour this place on their way to
+and from Southampton in the old days," remarked Rathbury. "And I
+daresay that old travellers, coming back from the East after a good
+many years' absence, still rush in here. You see, it's close to the
+station, and travellers have a knack of walking into the nearest place
+when they've a few thousand miles of steamboat and railway train behind
+them. Look there, now!" They had crossed the threshold as the
+detective spoke, and as they entered a square, heavily-furnished hall,
+he made a sidelong motion of his head towards a bar on the left,
+wherein stood or lounged a number of men who from their general
+appearance, their slouched hats, and their bronzed faces appeared to be
+Colonials, or at any rate to have spent a good part of their time
+beneath Oriental skies. There was a murmur of tongues that had a
+Colonial accent in it; an aroma of tobacco that suggested Sumatra and
+Trichinopoly, and Rathbury wagged his head sagely. "Lay you anything
+the dead man was a Colonial, Mr. Spargo," he remarked. "Well, now, I
+suppose that's the landlord and landlady."
+
+There was an office facing them, at the rear of the hall, and a man and
+woman were regarding them from a box window which opened above a ledge
+on which lay a register book. They were middle-aged folk: the man, a
+fleshy, round-faced, somewhat pompous-looking individual, who might at
+some time have been a butler; the woman a tall, spare-figured,
+thin-featured, sharp-eyed person, who examined the newcomers with an
+enquiring gaze. Rathbury went up to them with easy confidence.
+
+"You the landlord of this house, sir?" he asked. "Mr. Walters? Just
+so--and Mrs. Walters, I presume?"
+
+The landlord made a stiff bow and looked sharply at his questioner.
+
+"What can I do for you, sir?" he enquired.
+
+"A little matter of business, Mr. Walters," replied Rathbury, pulling
+out a card. "You'll see there who I am--Detective-Sergeant Rathbury, of
+the Yard. This is Mr. Frank Spargo, a newspaper man; this is Mr. Ronald
+Breton, a barrister."
+
+The landlady, hearing their names and description, pointed to a side
+door, and signed Rathbury and his companions to pass through. Obeying
+her pointed finger, they found themselves in a small private parlour.
+Walters closed the two doors which led into it and looked at his
+principal visitor.
+
+"What is it, Mr. Rathbury?" he enquired. "Anything wrong?"
+
+"We want a bit of information," answered Rathbury, almost with
+indifference.
+
+"Did anybody of the name of Marbury put up here yesterday--elderly man,
+grey hair, fresh complexion?"
+
+Mrs. Walters started, glancing at her husband.
+
+"There!" she exclaimed. "I knew some enquiry would be made. Yes--a Mr.
+Marbury took a room here yesterday morning, just after the noon train
+got in from Southampton. Number 20 he took. But--he didn't use it last
+night. He went out--very late--and he never came back."
+
+Rathbury nodded. Answering a sign from the landlord, he took a chair
+and, sitting down, looked at Mrs. Walters.
+
+"What made you think some enquiry would be made, ma'am?" he asked. "Had
+you noticed anything?"
+
+Mrs. Walters seemed a little confused by this direct question. Her
+husband gave vent to a species of growl.
+
+"Nothing to notice," he muttered. "Her way of speaking--that's all."
+
+"Well--why I said that was this," said the landlady. "He happened to
+tell us, did Mr. Marbury, that he hadn't been in London for over twenty
+years, and couldn't remember anything about it, him, he said, never
+having known much about London at any time. And, of course, when he
+went out so late and never came back, why, naturally, I thought
+something had happened to him, and that there'd be enquiries made."
+
+"Just so--just so!" said Rathbury. "So you would, ma'am--so you would.
+Well, something has happened to him. He's dead. What's more, there's
+strong reason to think he was murdered."
+
+Mr. and Mrs. Walters received this announcement with proper surprise
+and horror, and the landlord suggested a little refreshment to his
+visitors. Spargo and Breton declined, on the ground that they had work
+to do during the afternoon; Rathbury accepted it, evidently as a matter
+of course.
+
+"My respects," he said, lifting his glass. "Well, now, perhaps you'll
+just tell me what you know of this man? I may as well tell you, Mr. and
+Mrs. Walters, that he was found dead in Middle Temple Lane this
+morning, at a quarter to three; that there wasn't anything on him but
+his clothes and a scrap of paper which bore this gentleman's name and
+address; that this gentleman knows nothing whatever of him, and that I
+traced him here because he bought a cap at a West End hatter's
+yesterday, and had it sent to your hotel."
+
+"Yes," said Mrs. Walters quickly, "that's so. And he went out in that
+cap last night. Well--we don't know much about him. As I said, he came
+in here about a quarter past twelve yesterday morning, and booked
+Number 20. He had a porter with him that brought a trunk and a
+bag--they're in 20 now, of course. He told me that he had stayed at
+this house over twenty years ago, on his way to Australia--that, of
+course, was long before we took it. And he signed his name in the book
+as John Marbury."
+
+"We'll look at that, if you please," said Rathbury.
+
+Walters fetched in the register and turned the leaf to the previous
+day's entries. They all bent over the dead man's writing.
+
+"'John Marbury, Coolumbidgee, New South Wales,'" said Rathbury.
+"Ah--now I was wondering if that writing would be the same as that on
+the scrap of paper, Mr. Breton. But, you see, it isn't--it's quite
+different."
+
+"Quite different," said Breton. He, too, was regarding the handwriting
+with great interest. And Rathbury noticed his keen inspection of it,
+and asked another question.
+
+"Ever seen that writing before?" he suggested.
+
+"Never," answered Breton. "And yet--there's something very familiar
+about it."
+
+"Then the probability is that you have seen it before," remarked
+Rathbury. "Well--now we'll hear a little more about Marbury's doings
+here. Just tell me all you know, Mr. and Mrs. Walters."
+
+"My wife knows most," said Walters. "I scarcely saw the man--I don't
+remember speaking with him."
+
+"No," said Mrs. Walters. "You didn't--you weren't much in his way.
+Well," she continued, "I showed him up to his room. He talked a
+bit--said he'd just landed at Southampton from Melbourne."
+
+"Did he mention his ship?" asked Rathbury. "But if he didn't, it
+doesn't matter, for we can find out."
+
+"I believe the name's on his things," answered the landlady. "There are
+some labels of that sort. Well, he asked for a chop to be cooked for
+him at once, as he was going out. He had his chop, and he went out at
+exactly one o'clock, saying to me that he expected he'd get lost, as he
+didn't know London well at any time, and shouldn't know it at all now.
+He went outside there--I saw him--looked about him and walked off
+towards Blackfriars way. During the afternoon the cap you spoke of came
+for him--from Fiskie's. So, of course, I judged he'd been Piccadilly
+way. But he himself never came in until ten o'clock. And then he
+brought a gentleman with him."
+
+"Aye?" said Rathbury. "A gentleman, now? Did you see him?"
+
+"Just," replied the landlady. "They went straight up to 20, and I just
+caught a mere glimpse of the gentleman as they turned up the stairs. A
+tall, well-built gentleman, with a grey beard, very well dressed as far
+as I could see, with a top hat and a white silk muffler round his
+throat, and carrying an umbrella."
+
+"And they went to Marbury's room?" said Rathbury. "What then?"
+
+"Well, then, Mr. Marbury rang for some whiskey and soda," continued
+Mrs. Walters. "He was particular to have a decanter of whiskey: that,
+and a syphon of soda were taken up there. I heard nothing more until
+nearly midnight; then the hall-porter told me that the gentleman in 20
+had gone out, and had asked him if there was a night-porter--as, of
+course, there is. He went out at half-past eleven."
+
+"And the other gentleman?" asked Rathbury.
+
+"The other gentleman," answered the landlady, "went out with him. The
+hall-porter said they turned towards the station. And that was the
+last anybody in this house saw of Mr. Marbury. He certainly never came
+back."
+
+"That," observed Rathbury with a quiet smile, "that is quite certain,
+ma'am? Well--I suppose we'd better see this Number 20 room, and have a
+look at what he left there."
+
+"Everything," said Mrs. Walters, "is just as he left it. Nothing's been
+touched."
+
+It seemed to two of the visitors that there was little to touch. On the
+dressing-table lay a few ordinary articles of toilet--none of them of
+any quality or value: the dead man had evidently been satisfied with
+the plain necessities of life. An overcoat hung from a peg: Rathbury,
+without ceremony, went through its pockets; just as unceremoniously he
+proceeded to examine trunk and bag, and finding both unlocked, he laid
+out on the bed every article they contained and examined each
+separately and carefully. And he found nothing whereby he could gather
+any clue to the dead owner's identity.
+
+"There you are!" he said, making an end of his task. "You see, it's
+just the same with these things as with the clothes he had on him.
+There are no papers--there's nothing to tell who he was, what he was
+after, where he'd come from--though that we may find out in other
+ways. But it's not often that a man travels without some clue to his
+identity. Beyond the fact that some of this linen was, you see, bought
+in Melbourne, we know nothing of him. Yet he must have had papers and
+money on him. Did you see anything of his money, now, ma'am?" he asked,
+suddenly turning to Mrs. Walters. "Did he pull out his purse in your
+presence, now?"
+
+"Yes," answered the landlady, with promptitude. "He came into the bar
+for a drink after he'd been up to his room. He pulled out a handful of
+gold when he paid for it--a whole handful. There must have been some
+thirty to forty sovereigns and half-sovereigns."
+
+"And he hadn't a penny piece on him--when found," muttered Rathbury.
+
+"I noticed another thing, too," remarked the landlady. "He was wearing
+a very fine gold watch and chain, and had a splendid ring on his left
+hand--little finger--gold, with a big diamond in it."
+
+"Yes," said the detective, thoughtfully, "I noticed that he'd worn a
+ring, and that it had been a bit tight for him. Well--now there's only
+one thing to ask about. Did your chambermaid notice if he left any torn
+paper around--tore any letters up, or anything like that?"
+
+But the chambermaid, produced, had not noticed anything of the sort; on
+the contrary, the gentleman of Number 20 had left his room very tidy
+indeed. So Rathbury intimated that he had no more to ask, and nothing
+further to say, just then, and he bade the landlord and landlady of the
+Anglo-Orient Hotel good morning, and went away, followed by the two
+young men.
+
+"What next?" asked Spargo, as they gained the street.
+
+"The next thing," answered Rathbury, "is to find the man with whom
+Marbury left this hotel last night."
+
+"And how's that to be done?" asked Spargo.
+
+"At present," replied Rathbury, "I don't know."
+
+And with a careless nod, he walked off, apparently desirous of being
+alone.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER FIVE
+
+SPARGO WISHES TO SPECIALIZE
+
+
+The barrister and the journalist, left thus unceremoniously on a
+crowded pavement, looked at each other. Breton laughed.
+
+"We don't seem to have gained much information," he remarked. "I'm
+about as wise as ever."
+
+"No--wiser," said Spargo. "At any rate, I am. I know now that this dead
+man called himself John Marbury; that he came from Australia; that he
+only landed at Southampton yesterday morning, and that he was in the
+company last night of a man whom we have had described to us--a tall,
+grey-bearded, well-dressed man, presumably a gentleman."
+
+Breton shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"I should say that description would fit a hundred thousand men in
+London," he remarked.
+
+"Exactly--so it would," answered Spargo. "But we know that it was one
+of the hundred thousand, or half-million, if you like. The thing is to
+find that one--the one."
+
+"And you think you can do it?"
+
+"I think I'm going to have a big try at it."
+
+Breton shrugged his shoulders again.
+
+"What?--by going up to every man who answers the description, and
+saying 'Sir, are you the man who accompanied John Marbury to the
+Anglo----"
+
+Spargo suddenly interrupted him.
+
+"Look here!" he said. "Didn't you say that you knew a man who lives in
+that block in the entry of which Marbury was found?"
+
+"No, I didn't," answered Breton. "It was Mr. Elphick who said that. All
+the same, I do know that man--he's Mr. Cardlestone, another barrister.
+He and Mr. Elphick are friends--they're both enthusiastic
+philatelists--stamp collectors, you know--and I dare say Mr. Elphick
+was round there last night examining something new Cardlestone's got
+hold of. Why?"
+
+"I'd like to go round there and make some enquiries," replied Spargo.
+"If you'd be kind enough to----"
+
+"Oh, I'll go with you!" responded Breton, with alacrity. "I'm just as
+keen about this business as you are, Spargo! I want to know who this
+man Marbury is, and how he came to have my name and address on him.
+Now, if I had been a well-known man in my profession, you know, why--"
+
+"Yes," said Spargo, as they got into a cab, "yes, that would have
+explained a lot. It seems to me that we'll get at the murderer through
+that scrap of paper a lot quicker than through Rathbury's line. Yes,
+that's what I think."
+
+Breton looked at his companion with interest.
+
+"But--you don't know what Rathbury's line is," he remarked.
+
+"Yes, I do," said Spargo. "Rathbury's gone off to discover who the man
+is with whom Marbury left the Anglo-Orient Hotel last night. That's his
+line."
+
+"And you want----?"
+
+"I want to find out the full significance of that bit of paper, and who
+wrote it," answered Spargo. "I want to know why that old man was coming
+to you when he was murdered."
+
+Breton started.
+
+"By Jove!" he exclaimed. "I--I never thought of that. You--you really
+think he was coming to me when he was struck down?"
+
+"Certain. Hadn't he got an address in the Temple? Wasn't he in the
+Temple? Of course, he was trying to find you."
+
+"But--the late hour?"
+
+"No matter. How else can you explain his presence in the Temple? I
+think he was asking his way. That's why I want to make some enquiries
+in this block."
+
+It appeared to Spargo that a considerable number of people, chiefly of
+the office-boy variety, were desirous of making enquiries about the
+dead man. Being luncheon-hour, that bit of Middle Temple Lane where the
+body was found, was thick with the inquisitive and the
+sensation-seeker, for the news of the murder had spread, and though
+there was nothing to see but the bare stones on which the body had
+lain, there were more open mouths and staring eyes around the entry
+than Spargo had seen for many a day. And the nuisance had become so
+great that the occupants of the adjacent chambers had sent for a
+policeman to move the curious away, and when Spargo and his companion
+presented themselves at the entry this policeman was being lectured as
+to his duties by a little weazen-faced gentleman, in very snuffy and
+old-fashioned garments, and an ancient silk hat, who was obviously
+greatly exercised by the unwonted commotion.
+
+"Drive them all out into the street!" exclaimed this personage. "Drive
+them all away, constable--into Fleet Street or upon the
+Embankment--anywhere, so long as you rid this place of them. This is a
+disgrace, and an inconvenience, a nuisance, a----"
+
+"That's old Cardlestone," whispered Breton. "He's always irascible, and
+I don't suppose we'll get anything out of him. Mr. Cardlestone," he
+continued, making his way up to the old gentleman who was now
+retreating up the stone steps, brandishing an umbrella as ancient as
+himself. "I was just coming to see you, sir. This is Mr. Spargo, a
+journalist, who is much interested in this murder. He----"
+
+"I know nothing about the murder, my dear sir!" exclaimed Mr.
+Cardlestone. "And I never talk to journalists--a pack of busybodies,
+sir, saving your presence. I am not aware that any murder has been
+committed, and I object to my doorway being filled by a pack of office
+boys and street loungers. Murder indeed! I suppose the man fell down
+these steps and broke his neck--drunk, most likely."
+
+He opened his outer door as he spoke, and Breton, with a reassuring
+smile and a nod at Spargo, followed him into his chambers on the first
+landing, motioning the journalist to keep at their heels.
+
+"Mr. Elphick tells me that he was with you until a late hour last
+evening, Mr. Cardlestone," he said. "Of course, neither of you heard
+anything suspicious?"
+
+"What should we hear that was suspicious in the Temple, sir?" demanded
+Mr. Cardlestone, angrily. "I hope the Temple is free from that sort of
+thing, young Mr. Breton. Your respected guardian and myself had a quiet
+evening on our usual peaceful pursuits, and when he went away all was
+as quiet as the grave, sir. What may have gone on in the chambers above
+and around me I know not! Fortunately, our walls are thick,
+sir--substantial. I say, sir, the man probably fell down and broke his
+neck. What he was doing here, I do not presume to say."
+
+"Well, it's guess, you know, Mr. Cardlestone," remarked Breton, again
+winking at Spargo. "But all that was found on this man was a scrap of
+paper on which my name and address were written. That's practically all
+that was known of him, except that he'd just arrived from Australia."
+
+Mr. Cardlestone suddenly turned on the young barrister with a sharp,
+acute glance.
+
+"Eh?" he exclaimed. "What's this? You say this man had your name and
+address on him, young Breton!--yours? And that he came from--Australia?"
+
+"That's so," answered Breton. "That's all that's known."
+
+Mr. Cardlestone put aside his umbrella, produced a bandanna
+handkerchief of strong colours, and blew his nose in a reflective
+fashion.
+
+"That's a mysterious thing," he observed. "Um--does Elphick know all
+that?"
+
+Breton looked at Spargo as if he was asking him for an explanation of
+Mr. Cardlestone's altered manner. And Spargo took up the conversation.
+
+"No," he said. "All that Mr. Elphick knows is that Mr. Ronald Breton's
+name and address were on the scrap of paper found on the body. Mr.
+Elphick"--here Spargo paused and looked at Breton--"Mr. Elphick," he
+presently continued, slowly transferring his glance to the old
+barrister, "spoke of going to view the body."
+
+"Ah!" exclaimed Mr. Cardlestone, eagerly. "It can be seen? Then I'll go
+and see it. Where is it?"
+
+Breton started.
+
+"But--my dear sir!" he said. "Why?"
+
+Mr. Cardlestone picked up his umbrella again.
+
+"I feel a proper curiosity about a mystery which occurs at my very
+door," he said. "Also, I have known more than one man who went to
+Australia. This might--I say might, young gentlemen--might be a man I
+had once known. Show me where this body is."
+
+Breton looked helplessly at Spargo: it was plain that he did not
+understand the turn that things were taking. But Spargo was quick to
+seize an opportunity. In another minute he was conducting Mr.
+Cardlestone through the ins and outs of the Temple towards Blackfriars.
+And as they turned into Tudor Street they encountered Mr. Elphick.
+
+"I am going to the mortuary," he remarked. "So, I suppose, are you,
+Cardlestone? Has anything more been discovered, young man?"
+
+Spargo tried a chance shot--at what he did not know. "The man's name
+was Marbury," he said. "He was from Australia."
+
+He was keeping a keen eye on Mr. Elphick, but he failed to see that Mr.
+Elphick showed any of the surprise which Mr. Cardlestone had exhibited.
+Rather, he seemed indifferent.
+
+"Oh?" he said--"Marbury? And from Australia. Well--I should like to see
+the body."
+
+Spargo and Breton had to wait outside the mortuary while the two elder
+gentlemen went in. There was nothing to be learnt from either when they
+reappeared.
+
+"We don't know the man," said Mr. Elphick, calmly. "As Mr. Cardlestone,
+I understand, has said to you already--we have known men who went to
+Australia, and as this man was evidently wandering about the Temple, we
+thought it might have been one of them, come back. But--we don't
+recognize him."
+
+"Couldn't recognize him," said Mr. Cardlestone. "No!"
+
+They went away together arm in arm, and Breton looked at Spargo.
+
+"As if anybody on earth ever fancied they'd recognize him!" he said.
+"Well--what are you going to do now, Spargo? I must go."
+
+Spargo, who had been digging his walking-stick into a crack in the
+pavement, came out of a fit of abstraction.
+
+"I?" he said. "Oh--I'm going to the office." And he turned abruptly
+away, and walking straight off to the editorial rooms at the
+_Watchman_, made for one in which sat the official guardian of the
+editor. "Try to get me a few minutes with the chief," he said.
+
+The private secretary looked up.
+
+"Really important?" he asked.
+
+"Big!" answered Spargo. "Fix it."
+
+Once closeted with the great man, whose idiosyncrasies he knew pretty
+well by that time, Spargo lost no time.
+
+"You've heard about this murder in Middle Temple Lane?" he suggested.
+
+"The mere facts," replied the editor, tersely.
+
+"I was there when the body was found," continued Spargo, and gave a
+brief r�sum� of his doings. "I'm certain this is a most unusual
+affair," he went on. "It's as full of mystery as--as it could be. I
+want to give my attention to it. I want to specialize on it. I can make
+such a story of it as we haven't had for some time--ages. Let me have
+it. And to start with, let me have two columns for tomorrow morning.
+I'll make it--big!"
+
+The editor looked across his desk at Spargo's eager face.
+
+"Your other work?" he said.
+
+"Well in hand," replied Spargo. "I'm ahead a whole week--both articles
+and reviews. I can tackle both."
+
+The editor put his finger tips together.
+
+"Have you got some idea about this, young man?" he asked.
+
+"I've got a great idea," answered Spargo. He faced the great man
+squarely, and stared at him until he had brought a smile to the
+editorial face. "That's why I want to do it," he added. "And--it's not
+mere boasting nor over-confidence--I know I shall do it better than
+anybody else."
+
+The editor considered matters for a brief moment.
+
+"You mean to find out who killed this man?" he said at last.
+
+Spargo nodded his head--twice.
+
+"I'll find that out," he said doggedly.
+
+The editor picked up a pencil, and bent to his desk.
+
+"All right," he said. "Go ahead. You shall have your two columns."
+
+Spargo went quietly away to his own nook and corner. He got hold of a
+block of paper and began to write. He was going to show how to do
+things.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER SIX
+
+WITNESS TO A MEETING
+
+
+Ronald Breton walked into the _Watchman_ office and into Spargo's room
+next morning holding a copy of the current issue in his hand. He waved
+it at Spargo with an enthusiasm which was almost boyish.
+
+"I say!" he exclaimed. "That's the way to do it, Spargo! I congratulate
+you. Yes, that's the way--certain!"
+
+Spargo, idly turning over a pile of exchanges, yawned.
+
+"What way?" he asked indifferently.
+
+"The way you've written this thing up," said Breton. "It's a hundred
+thousand times better than the usual cut-and-dried account of a murder.
+It's--it's like a--a romance!"
+
+"Merely a new method of giving news," said Spargo. He picked up a copy
+of the _Watchman_, and glanced at his two columns, which had somehow
+managed to make themselves into three, viewing the displayed lettering,
+the photograph of the dead man, the line drawing of the entry in Middle
+Temple Lane, and the facsimile of the scrap of grey paper, with a
+critical eye. "Yes--merely a new method," he continued. "The question
+is--will it achieve its object?"
+
+"What's the object?" asked Breton.
+
+Spargo fished out a box of cigarettes from an untidy drawer, pushed it
+over to his visitor, helped himself, and tilting back his chair, put
+his feet on his desk.
+
+"The object?" he said, drily. "Oh, well, the object is the ultimate
+detection of the murderer."
+
+"You're after that?"
+
+"I'm after that--just that."
+
+"And not--not simply out to make effective news?"
+
+"I'm out to find the murderer of John Marbury," said Spargo
+deliberately slow in his speech. "And I'll find him."
+
+"Well, there doesn't seem to be much in the way of clues, so far,"
+remarked Breton. "I see--nothing. Do you?"
+
+Spargo sent a spiral of scented smoke into the air.
+
+"I want to know an awful lot," he said. "I'm hungering for news. I want
+to know who John Marbury is. I want to know what he did with himself
+between the time when he walked out of the Anglo-Orient Hotel, alive
+and well, and the time when he was found in Middle Temple Lane, with
+his skull beaten in and dead. I want to know where he got that scrap of
+paper. Above everything, Breton, I want to know what he'd got to do
+with you!"
+
+He gave the young barrister a keen look, and Breton nodded.
+
+"Yes," he said. "I confess that's a corker. But I think----"
+
+"Well?" said Spargo.
+
+"I think he may have been a man who had some legal business in hand, or
+in prospect, and had been recommended to--me," said Breton.
+
+Spargo smiled--a little sardonically.
+
+"That's good!" he said. "You had your very first brief--yesterday.
+Come--your fame isn't blown abroad through all the heights yet, my
+friend! Besides--don't intending clients approach--isn't it strict
+etiquette for them to approach?--barristers through solicitors?"
+
+"Quite right--in both your remarks," replied Breton, good-humouredly.
+"Of course, I'm not known a bit, but all the same I've known several
+cases where a barrister has been approached in the first instance and
+asked to recommend a solicitor. Somebody who wanted to do me a good
+turn may have given this man my address."
+
+"Possible," said Spargo. "But he wouldn't have come to consult you at
+midnight. Breton!--the more I think of it, the more I'm certain there's
+a tremendous mystery in this affair! That's why I got the chief to let
+me write it up as I have done--here. I'm hoping that this
+photograph--though to be sure, it's of a dead face--and this facsimile
+of the scrap of paper will lead to somebody coming forward who can----"
+
+Just then one of the uniformed youths who hang about the marble
+pillared vestibule of the _Watchman_ office came into the room with the
+unmistakable look and air of one who carries news of moment.
+
+"I dare lay a sovereign to a cent that I know what this is," muttered
+Spargo in an aside. "Well?" he said to the boy. "What is it?"
+
+The messenger came up to the desk.
+
+"Mr. Spargo," he said, "there's a man downstairs who says that he wants
+to see somebody about that murder case that's in the paper this
+morning, sir. Mr. Barrett said I was to come to you."
+
+"Who is the man?" asked Spargo.
+
+"Won't say, sir," replied the boy. "I gave him a form to fill up, but
+he said he wouldn't write anything--said all he wanted was to see the
+man who wrote the piece in the paper."
+
+"Bring him here," commanded Spargo. He turned to Breton when the boy
+had gone, and he smiled. "I knew we should have somebody here sooner or
+later," he said. "That's why I hurried over my breakfast and came down
+at ten o'clock. Now then, what will you bet on the chances of this
+chap's information proving valuable?"
+
+"Nothing," replied Breton. "He's probably some crank or faddist who's
+got some theory that he wants to ventilate."
+
+The man who was presently ushered in by the messenger seemed from
+preliminary and outward appearance to justify Breton's prognostication.
+He was obviously a countryman, a tall, loosely-built, middle-aged man,
+yellow of hair, blue of eye, who was wearing his Sunday-best array of
+pearl-grey trousers and black coat, and sported a necktie in which were
+several distinct colours. Oppressed with the splendour and grandeur of
+the _Watchman_ building, he had removed his hard billycock hat as he
+followed the boy, and he ducked his bared head at the two young men as
+he stepped on to the thick pile of the carpet which made luxurious
+footing in Spargo's room. His blue eyes, opened to their widest, looked
+round him in astonishment at the sumptuousness of modern
+newspaper-office accommodation.
+
+"How do you do, sir?" said Spargo, pointing a finger to one of the
+easy-chairs for which the _Watchman_ office is famous. "I understand
+that you wish to see me?"
+
+The caller ducked his yellow head again, sat down on the edge of the
+chair, put his hat on the floor, picked it up again, and endeavoured to
+hang it on his knee, and looked at Spargo innocently and shyly.
+
+"What I want to see, sir," he observed in a rustic accent, "is the
+gentleman as wrote that piece in your newspaper about this here murder
+in Middle Temple Lane."
+
+"You see him," said Spargo. "I am that man."
+
+The caller smiled--generously.
+
+"Indeed, sir?" he said. "A very nice bit of reading, I'm sure. And what
+might your name be, now, sir? I can always talk free-er to a man when I
+know what his name is."
+
+"So can I," answered Spargo. "My name is Spargo--Frank Spargo. What's
+yours?"
+
+"Name of Webster, sir--William Webster. I farm at One Ash Farm, at
+Gosberton, in Oakshire. Me and my wife," continued Mr. Webster, again
+smiling and distributing his smile between both his hearers, "is at
+present in London on a holiday. And very pleasant we find it--weather
+and all."
+
+"That's right," said Spargo. "And--you wanted to see me about this
+murder, Mr. Webster?"
+
+"I did, sir. Me, I believe, knowing, as I think, something that'll do
+for you to put in your paper. You see, Mr. Spargo, it come about in
+this fashion--happen you'll be for me to tell it in my own way."
+
+"That," answered Spargo, "is precisely what I desire."
+
+"Well, to be sure, I couldn't tell it in no other," declared Mr.
+Webster. "You see, sir, I read your paper this morning while I was
+waiting for my breakfast--they take their breakfasts so late in them
+hotels--and when I'd read it, and looked at the pictures, I says to my
+wife 'As soon as I've had my breakfast,' I says, 'I'm going to where
+they print this newspaper to tell 'em something.' 'Aye?' she says,
+'Why, what have you to tell, I should like to know?' just like that,
+Mr. Spargo."
+
+"Mrs. Webster," said Spargo, "is a lady of businesslike principles. And
+what have you to tell?"
+
+Mr. Webster looked into the crown of his hat, looked out of it, and
+smiled knowingly.
+
+"Well, sir," he continued, "Last night, my wife, she went out to a part
+they call Clapham, to take her tea and supper with an old friend of
+hers as lives there, and as they wanted to have a bit of woman-talk,
+like, I didn't go. So thinks I to myself, I'll go and see this here
+House of Commons. There was a neighbour of mine as had told me that all
+you'd got to do was to tell the policeman at the door that you wanted
+to see your own Member of Parliament. So when I got there I told 'em
+that I wanted to see our M.P., Mr. Stonewood--you'll have heard tell of
+him, no doubt; he knows me very well--and they passed me, and I wrote
+out a ticket for him, and they told me to sit down while they found
+him. So I sat down in a grand sort of hall where there were a rare lot
+of people going and coming, and some fine pictures and images to look
+at, and for a time I looked at them, and then I began to take a bit of
+notice of the folk near at hand, waiting, you know, like myself. And as
+sure as I'm a christened man, sir, the gentleman whose picture you've
+got in your paper--him as was murdered--was sitting next to me! I knew
+that picture as soon as I saw it this morning."
+
+Spargo, who had been making unmeaning scribbles on a block of paper,
+suddenly looked at his visitor.
+
+"What time was that?" he asked.
+
+"It was between a quarter and half-past nine, sir," answered Mr.
+Webster. "It might ha' been twenty past--it might ha' been twenty-five
+past."
+
+"Go on, if you please," said Spargo.
+
+"Well, sir, me and this here dead gentleman talked a bit. About what a
+long time it took to get a member to attend to you, and such-like. I
+made mention of the fact that I hadn't been in there before. 'Neither
+have I!' he says, 'I came in out of curiosity,' he says, and then he
+laughed, sir--queer-like. And it was just after that that what I'm
+going to tell you about happened."
+
+"Tell," commanded Spargo.
+
+"Well, sir, there was a gentleman came along, down this grand hall that
+we were sitting in--a tall, handsome gentleman, with a grey beard. He'd
+no hat on, and he was carrying a lot of paper and documents in his
+hand, so I thought he was happen one of the members. And all of a
+sudden this here man at my side, he jumps up with a sort of start and
+an exclamation, and----"
+
+Spargo lifted his hand. He looked keenly at his visitor.
+
+"Now, you're absolutely sure about what you heard him exclaim?" he
+asked. "Quite sure about it? Because I see you are going to tell us
+what he did exclaim."
+
+"I'll tell you naught but what I'm certain of, sir," replied Webster.
+"What he said as he jumped up was 'Good God!' he says, sharp-like--and
+then he said a name, and I didn't right catch it, but it sounded like
+Danesworth, or Painesworth, or something of that sort--one of them
+there, or very like 'em, at any rate. And then he rushed up to this
+here gentleman, and laid his hand on his arm--sudden-like."
+
+"And--the gentleman?" asked Spargo, quietly.
+
+"Well, he seemed taken aback, sir. He jumped. Then he stared at the
+man. Then they shook hands. And then, after they'd spoken a few words
+together-like, they walked off, talking. And, of course, I never saw no
+more of 'em. But when I saw your paper this morning, sir, and that
+picture in it, I said to myself 'That's the man I sat next to in that
+there hall at the House of Commons!' Oh, there's no doubt of it, sir!"
+
+"And supposing you saw a photograph of the tall gentleman with the grey
+beard?" suggested Spargo. "Could you recognize him from that?"
+
+"Make no doubt of it, sir," answered Mr. Webster. "I observed him
+particular."
+
+Spargo rose, and going over to a cabinet, took from it a thick volume,
+the leaves of which he turned over for several minutes.
+
+"Come here, if you please, Mr. Webster," he said.
+
+The farmer went across the room.
+
+"There is a full set of photographs of members of the present House of
+Commons here," said Spargo. "Now, pick out the one you saw. Take your
+time--and be sure."
+
+He left his caller turning over the album and went back to Breton.
+
+"There!" he whispered. "Getting nearer--a bit nearer--eh?"
+
+"To what?" asked Breton. "I don't see--"
+
+A sudden exclamation from the farmer interrupted Breton's remark.
+
+"This is him, sir!" answered Mr. Webster. "That's the gentleman--know
+him anywhere!"
+
+The two young men crossed the room. The farmer was pointing a stubby
+finger to a photograph, beneath which was written _Stephen Aylmore,
+Esq., M.P. for Brookminster_.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER SEVEN
+
+MR. AYLMORE
+
+
+Spargo, keenly observant and watchful, felt, rather than saw, Breton
+start; he himself preserved an imperturbable equanimity. He gave a mere
+glance at the photograph to which Mr. Webster was pointing.
+
+"Oh!" he said. "That he?"
+
+"That's the gentleman, sir," replied Webster. "Done to the life, that
+is. No difficulty in recognizing of that, Mr. Spargo."
+
+"You're absolutely sure?" demanded Spargo. "There are a lot of men in
+the House of Commons, you know, who wear beards, and many of the beards
+are grey."
+
+But Webster wagged his head.
+
+"That's him, sir!" he repeated. "I'm as sure of that as I am that my
+name's William Webster. That's the man I saw talking to him whose
+picture you've got in your paper. Can't say no more, sir."
+
+"Very good," said Spargo. "I'm much obliged to you. I'll see Mr.
+Aylmore. Leave me your address in London, Mr. Webster. How long do you
+remain in town?"
+
+"My address is the Beachcroft Hotel, Bloomsbury, sir, and I shall be
+there for another week," answered the farmer. "Hope I've been of some
+use, Mr. Spargo. As I says to my wife----"
+
+Spargo cut his visitor short in polite fashion and bowed him out. He
+turned to Breton, who still stood staring at the album of portraits.
+
+"There!--what did I tell you?" he said. "Didn't I say I should get some
+news? There it is."
+
+Breton nodded his head. He seemed thoughtful.
+
+"Yes," he agreed. "Yes, I say, Spargo!"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Mr. Aylmore is my prospective father-in-law, you know."
+
+"Quite aware of it. Didn't you introduce me to his daughters--only
+yesterday?"
+
+"But--how did you know they were his daughters?"
+
+Spargo laughed as he sat down to his desk.
+
+"Instinct--intuition," he answered. "However, never mind that, just
+now. Well--I've found something out. Marbury--if that is the dead
+man's real name, and anyway, it's all we know him by--was in the
+company of Mr. Aylmore that night. Good!"
+
+"What are you going to do about it?" asked Breton.
+
+"Do? See Mr. Aylmore, of course."
+
+He was turning over the leaves of a telephone address-book; one hand
+had already picked up the mouthpiece of the instrument on his desk.
+
+"Look here," said Breton. "I know where Mr. Aylmore is always to be
+found at twelve o'clock. At the A. and P.--the Atlantic and Pacific
+Club, you know, in St. James's. If you like, I'll go with you."
+
+Spargo glanced at the clock and laid down the telephone.
+
+"All right," he said. "Eleven o'clock, now. I've something to do. I'll
+meet you outside the A. and P. at exactly noon."
+
+"I'll be there," agreed Breton. He made for the door, and with his hand
+on it, turned. "What do you expect from--from what we've just heard?"
+he asked.
+
+Spargo shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"Wait--until we hear what Mr. Aylmore has to say," he answered. "I
+suppose this man Marbury was some old acquaintance."
+
+Breton closed the door and went away: left alone, Spargo began to
+mutter to himself.
+
+"Good God!" he says. "Dainsworth--Painsworth--something of that
+sort--one of the two. Excellent--that our farmer friend should have so
+much observation. Ah!--and why should Mr. Stephen Aylmore be recognized
+as Dainsworth or Painsworth or something of that sort. Now, who is Mr.
+Stephen Aylmore--beyond being what I know him to be?"
+
+Spargo's fingers went instinctively to one of a number of books of
+reference which stood on his desk: they turned with practised swiftness
+to a page over which his eye ran just as swiftly. He read aloud:
+
+"AYLMORE, STEPHEN, M.P. for Brookminster since 1910. Residences: 23,
+St. Osythe Court, Kensington: Buena Vista, Great Marlow. Member
+Atlantic and Pacific and City Venturers' Clubs. Interested in South
+American enterprise."
+
+"Um!" muttered Spargo, putting the book away. "That's not very
+illuminating. However, we've got one move finished. Now we'll make
+another."
+
+Going over to the album of photographs, Spargo deftly removed that of
+Mr. Aylmore, put it in an envelope and the envelope in his pocket and,
+leaving the office, hailed a taxi-cab, and ordered its driver to take
+him to the Anglo-Orient Hotel. This was the something-to-do of which
+he had spoken to Breton: Spargo wanted to do it alone.
+
+Mrs. Walters was in her low-windowed office when Spargo entered the
+hall; she recognized him at once and motioned him into her parlour.
+
+"I remember you," said Mrs. Walters; "you came with the detective--Mr.
+Rathbury."
+
+"Have you seen him, since?" asked Spargo.
+
+"Not since," replied Mrs. Walters. "No--and I was wondering if he'd be
+coming round, because----" She paused there and looked at Spargo with
+particular enquiry--"You're a friend of his, aren't you?" she asked. "I
+suppose you know as much as he does--about this?"
+
+"He and I," replied Spargo, with easy confidence, "are working this
+case together. You can tell me anything you'd tell him."
+
+The landlady rummaged in her pocket and produced an old purse, from an
+inner compartment of which she brought out a small object wrapped in
+tissue paper.
+
+"Well," she said, unwrapping the paper, "we found this in Number 20
+this morning--it was lying under the dressing-table. The girl that
+found it brought it to me, and I thought it was a bit of glass, but
+Walters, he says as how he shouldn't be surprised if it's a diamond.
+And since we found it, the waiter who took the whisky up to 20, after
+Mr. Marbury came in with the other gentleman, has told me that when he
+went into the room the two gentlemen were looking at a paper full of
+things like this. So there?"
+
+Spargo fingered the shining bit of stone.
+
+"That's a diamond--right enough," he said. "Put it away, Mrs.
+Walters--I shall see Rathbury presently, and I'll tell him about it.
+Now, that other gentleman! You told us you saw him. Could you recognize
+him--I mean, a photograph of him? Is this the man?"
+
+Spargo knew from the expression of Mrs. Walters' face that she had no
+more doubt than Webster had.
+
+"Oh, yes!" she said. "That's the gentleman who came in with Mr.
+Marbury--I should have known him in a thousand. Anybody would recognize
+him from that--perhaps you'd let our hall-porter and the waiter I
+mentioned just now look at it?"
+
+"I'll see them separately and see if they've ever seen a man who
+resembles this," replied Spargo.
+
+The two men recognized the photograph at once, without any prompting,
+and Spargo, after a word or two with the landlady, rode off to the
+Atlantic and Pacific Club, and found Ronald Breton awaiting him on the
+steps. He made no reference to his recent doings, and together they
+went into the house and asked for Mr. Aylmore.
+
+Spargo looked with more than uncommon interest at the man who presently
+came to them in the visitors' room. He was already familiar with Mr.
+Aylmore's photograph, but he never remembered seeing him in real life;
+the Member for Brookminster was one of that rapidly diminishing body of
+legislators whose members are disposed to work quietly and
+unobtrusively, doing yeoman service on committees, obeying every behest
+of the party whips, without forcing themselves into the limelight or
+seizing every opportunity to air their opinions. Now that Spargo met
+him in the flesh he proved to be pretty much what the journalist had
+expected--a rather cold-mannered, self-contained man, who looked as if
+he had been brought up in a school of rigid repression, and taught not
+to waste words. He showed no more than the merest of languid interests
+in Spargo when Breton introduced him, and his face was quite
+expressionless when Spargo brought to an end his brief explanation
+--purposely shortened--of his object in calling upon him.
+
+"Yes," he said indifferently. "Yes, it is quite true that I met Marbury
+and spent a little time with him on the evening your informant spoke
+of. I met him, as he told you, in the lobby of the House. I was much
+surprised to meet him. I had not seen him for--I really don't know how
+many years."
+
+He paused and looked at Spargo as if he was wondering what he ought or
+not to say to a newspaper man. Spargo remained silent, waiting. And
+presently Mr. Aylmore went on.
+
+"I read your account in the _Watchman_ this morning," he said. "I was
+wondering, when you called just now, if I would communicate with you or
+with the police. The fact is--I suppose you want this for your paper,
+eh?" he continued after a sudden breaking off.
+
+"I shall not print anything that you wish me not to print," answered
+Spargo. "If you care to give me any information----"
+
+"Oh, well!" said Mr. Aylmore. "I don't mind. The fact is, I knew next
+to nothing. Marbury was a man with whom I had some--well, business
+relations, of a sort, a great many years ago. It must be twenty
+years--perhaps more--since I lost sight of him. When he came up to me
+in the lobby the other night, I had to make an effort of memory to
+recall him. He wished me, having once met me, to give him some advice,
+and as there was little doing in the House that night, and as he had
+once been--almost a friend--I walked to his hotel with him, chatting.
+He told me that he had only landed from Australia that morning, and
+what he wanted my advice about, principally, was--diamonds. Australian
+diamonds."
+
+"I was unaware," remarked Spargo, "that diamonds were ever found in
+Australia."
+
+Mr. Aylmore smiled--a little cynically.
+
+"Perhaps so," he said. "But diamonds have been found in Australia from
+time to time, ever since Australia was known to Europeans, and in the
+opinion of experts, they will eventually be found there in quantity.
+Anyhow, Marbury had got hold of some Australian diamonds, and he showed
+them to me at his hotel--a number of them. We examined them in his
+room."
+
+"What did he do with them--afterwards?" asked Spargo.
+
+"He put them in his waistcoat pocket--in a very small wash-leather bag,
+from which he had taken them. There were, in all, sixteen or twenty
+stones--not more, and they were all small. I advised him to see some
+expert--I mentioned Streeter's to him. Now, I can tell you how he got
+hold of Mr. Breton's address."
+
+The two young men pricked up their ears. Spargo unconsciously tightened
+his hold on the pencil with which he was making notes.
+
+"He got it from me," continued Mr. Aylmore. "The handwriting on the
+scrap of paper is mine, hurriedly scrawled. He wanted legal advice. As
+I knew very little about lawyers, I told him that if he called on Mr.
+Breton, Mr. Breton would be able to tell him of a first-class, sharp
+solicitor. I wrote down Mr. Breton's address for him, on a scrap of
+paper which he tore off a letter that he took from his pocket. By the
+by, I observe that when his body was found there was nothing on it in
+the shape of papers or money. I am quite sure that when I left him he
+had a lot of gold on him, those diamonds, and a breast-pocket full of
+letters."
+
+"Where did you leave him, sir?" asked Spargo. "You left the hotel
+together, I believe?"
+
+"Yes. We strolled along when we left it. Having once met, we had much
+to talk of, and it was a fine night. We walked across Waterloo Bridge
+and very shortly afterwards he left me. And that is really all I know.
+My own impression----" He paused for a moment and Spargo waited
+silently.
+
+"My own impression--though I confess it may seem to have no very solid
+grounds--is that Marbury was decoyed to where he was found, and was
+robbed and murdered by some person who knew he had valuables on him.
+There is the fact that he was robbed, at any rate."
+
+"I've had a notion," said Breton, diffidently. "Mayn't be worth much,
+but I've had it, all the same. Some fellow-passenger of Marbury's may
+have tracked him all day--Middle Temple Lane's pretty lonely at night,
+you know."
+
+No one made any comment upon this suggestion, and on Spargo looking at
+Mr. Aylmore, the Member of Parliament rose and glanced at the door.
+
+"Well, that's all I can tell you, Mr. Spargo," he said. "You see, it's
+not much, after all. Of course, there'll be an inquest on Marbury, and
+I shall have to re-tell it. But you're welcome to print what I've told
+you."
+
+Spargo left Breton with his future father-in-law and went away towards
+New Scotland Yard. He and Rathbury had promised to share news--now he
+had some to communicate.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER EIGHT
+
+THE MAN FROM THE SAFE DEPOSIT
+
+
+Spargo found Rathbury sitting alone in a small, somewhat dismal
+apartment which was chiefly remarkable for the business-like paucity of
+its furnishings and its indefinable air of secrecy. There was a plain
+writing-table and a hard chair or two; a map of London, much
+discoloured, on the wall; a few faded photographs of eminent bands in
+the world of crime, and a similar number of well-thumbed books of
+reference. The detective himself, when Spargo was shown in to him, was
+seated at the table, chewing an unlighted cigar, and engaged in the
+apparently aimless task of drawing hieroglyphics on scraps of paper. He
+looked up as the journalist entered, and held out his hand.
+
+"Well, I congratulate you on what you stuck in the _Watchman_ this
+morning," he said. "Made extra good reading, I thought. They did right
+to let you tackle that job. Going straight through with it now, I
+suppose, Mr. Spargo?"
+
+Spargo dropped into the chair nearest to Rathbury's right hand. He
+lighted a cigarette, and having blown out a whiff of smoke, nodded his
+head in a fashion which indicated that the detective might consider his
+question answered in the affirmative.
+
+"Look here," he said. "We settled yesterday, didn't we, that you and I
+are to consider ourselves partners, as it were, in this job? That's all
+right," he continued, as Rathbury nodded very quietly. "Very well--have
+you made any further progress?"
+
+Rathbury put his thumbs in the armholes of his waistcoat and, leaning
+back in his chair, shook his head.
+
+"Frankly, I haven't," he replied. "Of course, there's a lot being done
+in the usual official-routine way. We've men out making various
+enquiries. We're enquiring about Marbury's voyage to England. All that
+we know up to now is that he was certainly a passenger on a liner which
+landed at Southampton in accordance with what he told those people at
+the Anglo-Orient, that he left the ship in the usual way and was
+understood to take the train to town--as he did. That's all. There's
+nothing in that. We've cabled to Melbourne for any news of him from
+there. But I expect little from that."
+
+"All right," said Spargo. "And--what are you doing--you, yourself?
+Because, if we're to share facts, I must know what my partner's after.
+Just now, you seemed to be--drawing."
+
+Rathbury laughed.
+
+"Well, to tell you the truth," he said, "when I want to work things
+out, I come into this room--it's quiet, as you see--and I scribble
+anything on paper while I think. I was figuring on my next step, and--"
+
+"Do you see it?" asked Spargo, quickly.
+
+"Well--I want to find the man who went with Marbury to that hotel,"
+replied Rathbury. "It seems to me--"
+
+Spargo wagged his finger at his fellow-contriver.
+
+"I've found him," he said. "That's what I wrote that article for--to
+find him. I knew it would find him. I've never had any training in your
+sort of work, but I knew that article would get him. And it has got
+him."
+
+Rathbury accorded the journalist a look of admiration.
+
+"Good!" he said. "And--who is he?"
+
+"I'll tell you the story," answered Spargo, "and in a summary. This
+morning a man named Webster, a farmer, a visitor to London, came to me
+at the office, and said that being at the House of Commons last night
+he witnessed a meeting between Marbury and a man who was evidently a
+Member of Parliament, and saw them go away together. I showed him an
+album of photographs of the present members, and he immediately
+recognized the portrait of one of them as the man in question. I
+thereupon took the portrait to the Anglo-Orient Hotel--Mrs. Walters
+also at once recognized it as that of the man who came to the hotel
+with Marbury, stopped with him a while in his room, and left with him.
+The man is Mr. Stephen Aylmore, the member for Brookminster."
+
+Rathbury expressed his feelings in a sharp whistle.
+
+"I know him!" he said. "Of course--I remember Mrs. Walters's
+description now. But his is a familiar type--tall, grey-bearded,
+well-dressed. Um!--well, we'll have to see Mr. Aylmore at once."
+
+"I've seen him," said Spargo. "Naturally! For you see, Mrs. Walters
+gave me a bit more evidence. This morning they found a loose diamond on
+the floor of Number 20, and after it was found the waiter who took the
+drinks up to Marbury and his guest that night remembered that when he
+entered the room the two gentlemen were looking at a paper full of
+similar objects. So then I went on to see Mr. Aylmore. You know young
+Breton, the barrister?--you met him with me, you remember?"
+
+"The young fellow whose name and address were found on Marbury,"
+replied Rathbury. "I remember."
+
+"Breton is engaged to Aylmore's daughter," continued Spargo. "Breton
+took me to Aylmore's club. And Aylmore gives a plain, straightforward
+account of the matter which he's granted me leave to print. It clears
+up a lot of things. Aylmore knew Marbury over twenty years ago. He lost
+sight of him. They met accidentally in the lobby of the House on the
+evening preceding the murder. Marbury told him that he wanted his
+advice about those rare things, Australian diamonds. He went back with
+him to his hotel and spent a while with him; then they walked out
+together as far as Waterloo Bridge, where Aylmore left him and went
+home. Further, the scrap of grey paper is accounted for. Marbury wanted
+the address of a smart solicitor; Aylmore didn't know of one but told
+Marbury that if he called on young Breton, he'd know, and would put him
+in the way to find one. Marbury wrote Breton's address down. That's
+Aylmore's story. But it's got an important addition. Aylmore says that
+when he left Marbury, Marbury had on him a quantity of those diamonds
+in a wash-leather bag, a lot of gold, and a breast-pocket full of
+letters and papers. Now--there was nothing on him when he was found
+dead in Middle Temple Lane."
+
+Spargo stopped and lighted a fresh cigarette.
+
+"That's all I know," he said. "What do you make of it?"
+
+Rathbury leaned back in his chair in his apparently favourite attitude
+and stared hard at the dusty ceiling above him.
+
+"Don't know," he said. "It brings things up to a point, certainly.
+Aylmore and Marbury parted at Waterloo Bridge--very late. Waterloo
+Bridge is pretty well next door to the Temple. But--how did Marbury get
+into the Temple, unobserved? We've made every enquiry, and we can't
+trace him in any way as regards that movement. There's a clue for his
+going there in the scrap of paper bearing Breton's address, but even a
+Colonial would know that no business was done in the Temple at
+midnight, eh?"
+
+"Well," said Spargo, "I've thought of one or two things. He may have
+been one of those men who like to wander around at night. He may have
+seen--he would see--plenty of lights in the Temple at that hour; he
+may have slipped in unobserved--it's possible, it's quite possible. I
+once had a moonlight saunter in the Temple myself after midnight, and
+had no difficulty about walking in and out, either. But--if Marbury was
+murdered for the sake of what he had on him--how did he meet with his
+murderer or murderers in there? Criminals don't hang about Middle
+Temple Lane."
+
+The detective shook his head. He picked up his pencil and began making
+more hieroglyphics.
+
+"What's your theory, Mr. Spargo?" he asked suddenly. "I suppose you've
+got one."
+
+"Have you?" asked Spargo, bluntly.
+
+"Well," returned Rathbury, hesitatingly, "I hadn't, up to now. But
+now--now, after what you've told me, I think I can make one. It seems
+to me that after Marbury left Aylmore he probably mooned about by
+himself, that he was decoyed into the Temple, and was there murdered
+and robbed. There are a lot of queer ins and outs, nooks and corners in
+that old spot, Mr. Spargo, and the murderer, if he knew his ground
+well, could easily hide himself until he could get away in the morning.
+He might be a man who had access to chambers or offices--think how easy
+it would be for such a man, having once killed and robbed his victim,
+to lie hid for hours afterwards? For aught we know, the man who
+murdered Marbury may have been within twenty feet of you when you first
+saw his dead body that morning. Eh?"
+
+Before Spargo could reply to this suggestion an official entered the
+room and whispered a few words in the detective's ear.
+
+"Show him in at once," said Rathbury. He turned to Spargo as the man
+quitted the room and smiled significantly. "Here's somebody wants to
+tell something about the Marbury case," he remarked. "Let's hope it'll
+be news worth hearing."
+
+Spargo smiled in his queer fashion.
+
+"It strikes me that you've only got to interest an inquisitive public
+in order to get news," he said. "The principal thing is to investigate
+it when you've got it. Who's this, now?"
+
+The official had returned with a dapper-looking gentleman in a
+frock-coat and silk hat, bearing upon him the unmistakable stamp of the
+city man, who inspected Rathbury with deliberation and Spargo with a
+glance, and being seated turned to the detective as undoubtedly the
+person he desired to converse with.
+
+"I understand that you are the officer in charge of the Marbury murder
+case," he observed. "I believe I can give you some valuable information
+in respect to that. I read the account of the affair in the _Watchman_
+newspaper this morning, and saw the portrait of the murdered man there,
+and I was at first inclined to go to the _Watchman_ office with my
+information, but I finally decided to approach the police instead of
+the Press, regarding the police as being more--more responsible."
+
+"Much obliged to you, sir," said Rathbury, with a glance at Spargo.
+"Whom have I the pleasure of----"
+
+"My name," replied the visitor, drawing out and laying down a card, "is
+Myerst--Mr. E.P. Myerst, Secretary of the London and Universal Safe
+Deposit Company. I may, I suppose, speak with confidence," continued
+Mr. Myerst, with a side-glance at Spargo. "My information
+is--confidential."
+
+Rathbury inclined his head and put his fingers together.
+
+"You may speak with every confidence, Mr. Myerst," he answered. "If
+what you have to tell has any real bearing on the Marbury case, it will
+probably have to be repeated in public, you know, sir. But at present
+it will be treated as private."
+
+"It has a very real bearing on the case, I should say," replied Mr.
+Myerst. "Yes, I should decidedly say so. The fact is that on June 21st
+at about--to be precise--three o'clock in the afternoon, a stranger,
+who gave the name of John Marbury, and his present address as the
+Anglo-Orient Hotel, Waterloo, called at our establishment, and asked if
+he could rent a small safe. He explained to me that he desired to
+deposit in such a safe a small leather box--which, by the by, was of
+remarkably ancient appearance--that he had brought with him. I showed
+him a safe such as he wanted, informed him of the rent, and of the
+rules of the place, and he engaged the safe, paid the rent for one year
+in advance, and deposited his leather box--an affair of about a foot
+square--there and then. After that, having exchanged a remark or two
+about the altered conditions of London, which, I understood him to say,
+he had not seen for a great many years, he took his key and his
+departure. I think there can be no doubt about this being the Mr.
+Marbury who was found murdered."
+
+"None at all, I should say, Mr. Myerst," said Rathbury. "And I'm much
+obliged to you for coming here. Now you might tell me a little more,
+sir. Did Marbury tell you anything about the contents of the box?"
+
+"No. He merely remarked that he wished the greatest care to be taken of
+it," replied the secretary.
+
+"Didn't give you any hint as to what was in it?" asked Rathbury.
+
+"None. But he was very particular to assure himself that it could not
+be burnt, nor burgled, nor otherwise molested," replied Mr. Myerst. "He
+appeared to be greatly relieved when he found that it was impossible
+for anyone but himself to take his property from his safe."
+
+"Ah!" said Rathbury, winking at Spargo. "So he would, no doubt. And
+Marbury himself, sir, now? How did he strike you?"
+
+Mr. Myerst gravely considered this question.
+
+"Mr. Marbury struck me," he answered at last, "as a man who had
+probably seen strange places. And before leaving he made, what I will
+term, a remarkable remark. About--in fact, about his leather box."
+
+"His leather box?" said Rathbury. "And what was it, sir?"
+
+"This," replied the secretary. "'That box,' he said, 'is safe now. But
+it's been safer. It's been buried--and deep-down, too--for many and
+many a year!'"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER NINE
+
+THE DEALER IN RARE STAMPS
+
+
+"Buried--and deep-down, too--for many and many a year," repeated Mr.
+Myerst, eyeing his companions with keen glances. "I consider that,
+gentlemen, a very remarkable remark--very remarkable!"
+
+Rathbury stuck his thumbs in the armholes of his waistcoat again and
+began swaying backwards and forwards in his chair. He looked at Spargo.
+And with his knowledge of men, he knew that all Spargo's journalistic
+instincts had been aroused, and that he was keen as mustard to be off
+on a new scent.
+
+"Remarkable--remarkable, Mr. Myerst!" he assented. "What do you say,
+Mr. Spargo?"
+
+Spargo turned slowly, and for the first time since Myerst had entered
+made a careful inspection of him. The inspection lasted several
+seconds; then Spargo spoke.
+
+"And what did you say to that?" he asked quietly.
+
+Myerst looked from his questioner to Rathbury. And Rathbury thought it
+time to enlighten the caller.
+
+"I may as well tell you, Mr. Myerst," he said smilingly, "that this is
+Mr. Spargo, of the _Watchman_. Mr. Spargo wrote the article about the
+Marbury case of which you spoke when you came in. Mr. Spargo, you'll
+gather, is deeply interested in this matter--and he and I, in our
+different capacities, are working together. So--you understand?" Myerst
+regarded Spargo in a new light. And while he was so looking at him.
+Spargo repeated the question he had just put.
+
+"I said--What did you say to that?"
+
+Myerst hesitated.
+
+"Well--er--I don't think I said anything," he replied. "Nothing that
+one might call material, you know."
+
+"Didn't ask him what he meant?" suggested Spargo.
+
+"Oh, no--not at all," replied Myerst.
+
+Spargo got up abruptly from his chair.
+
+"Then you missed one of the finest opportunities I ever heard of!" he
+said, half-sneeringly. "You might have heard such a story--"
+
+He paused, as if it were not worth while to continue, and turned to
+Rathbury, who was regarding him with amusement.
+
+"Look here, Rathbury," he said. "Is it possible to get that box
+opened?"
+
+"It'll have to be opened," answered Rathbury, rising. "It's got to be
+opened. It probably contains the clue we want. I'm going to ask Mr.
+Myerst here to go with me just now to take the first steps about having
+it opened. I shall have to get an order. We may get the matter through
+today, but at any rate we'll have it done tomorrow morning."
+
+"Can you arrange for me to be present when that comes off?" asked
+Spargo. "You can--certain? That's all right, Rathbury. Now I'm off, and
+you'll ring me up or come round if you hear anything, and I'll do the
+same by you."
+
+And without further word, Spargo went quickly away, and just as quickly
+returned to the _Watchman_ office. There the assistant who had been
+told off to wait upon his orders during this new crusade met him with a
+business card.
+
+"This gentleman came in to see you about an hour ago, Mr. Spargo," he
+said. "He thinks he can tell you something about the Marbury affair,
+and he said that as he couldn't wait, perhaps you'd step round to his
+place when you came in."
+
+Spargo took the card and read:
+
+  MR. JAMES CRIEDIR,
+  DEALER IN PHILATELIC RARITIES,
+  2,021, STRAND.
+
+Spargo put the card in his waistcoat pocket and went out again,
+wondering why Mr. James Criedir could not, would not, or did not call
+himself a dealer in rare postage stamps, and so use plain English. He
+went up Fleet Street and soon found the shop indicated on the card, and
+his first glance at its exterior showed that whatever business might
+have been done by Mr. Criedir in the past at that establishment there
+was to be none done there in the future by him, for there were
+newly-printed bills in the window announcing that the place was to let.
+And inside he found a short, portly, elderly man who was superintending
+the packing-up and removal of the last of his stock. He turned a
+bright, enquiring eye on the journalist.
+
+"Mr. Criedir?" said Spargo.
+
+"The same, sir," answered the philatelist. "You are--?"
+
+"Mr. Spargo, of the _Watchman_. You called on me."
+
+Mr. Criedir opened the door of a tiny apartment at the rear of the very
+little shop and motioned his caller to enter. He followed him in and
+carefully closed the door.
+
+"Glad to see you, Mr. Spargo," he said genially. "Take a seat, sir--I'm
+all in confusion here--giving up business, you see. Yes, I called on
+you. I think, having read the _Watchman_ account of that Marbury
+affair, and having seen the murdered man's photograph in your columns,
+that I can give you a bit of information."
+
+"Material?" asked Spargo, tersely.
+
+Mr. Criedir cocked one of his bright eyes at his visitor. He coughed
+drily.
+
+"That's for you to decide--when you've heard it," he said. "I should
+say, considering everything, that it was material. Well, it's this--I
+kept open until yesterday--everything as usual, you know--stock in the
+window and so on--so that anybody who was passing would naturally have
+thought that the business was going on, though as a matter of fact, I'm
+retiring--retired," added Mr. Criedir with a laugh, "last night.
+Now--but won't you take down what I've got to tell you?"
+
+"I am taking it down," answered Spargo. "Every word. In my head."
+
+Mr. Criedir laughed and rubbed his hands.
+
+"Oh!" he said. "Ah, well, in my young days journalists used to pull out
+pencil and notebook at the first opportunity. But you modern young
+men--"
+
+"Just so," agreed Spargo. "This information, now?"
+
+"Well," said Mr. Criedir, "we'll go on then. Yesterday afternoon the
+man described as Marbury came into my shop. He--"
+
+"What time--exact time?" asked Spargo.
+
+"Two--to the very minute by St. Clement Danes clock," answered Mr.
+Criedir. "I'd swear twenty affidavits on that point. He was precisely
+as you've described him--dress, everything--I tell you I knew his
+photo as soon as I saw it. He was carrying a little box--"
+
+"What sort of box?" said Spargo.
+
+"A queer, old-fashioned, much-worn leather box--a very miniature trunk,
+in fact," replied Mr. Criedir. "About a foot square; the sort of thing
+you never see nowadays. It was very much worn; it attracted me for that
+very reason. He set it on the counter and looked at me. 'You're a
+dealer in stamps--rare stamps?' he said. 'I am,' I replied. 'I've
+something here I'd like to show you,' he said, unlocking the box.
+'It's--'"
+
+"Stop a bit," said Spargo. "Where did he take the key from with which
+he unlocked the box?"
+
+"It was one of several which he carried on a split ring, and he took
+the bunch out of his left-hand trousers pocket," replied Mr. Criedir.
+"Oh, I keep my eyes open, young gentleman! Well--he opened his box. It
+seemed to me to be full of papers--at any rate there were a lot of
+legal-looking documents on the top, tied up with red tape. To show you
+how I notice things I saw that the papers were stained with age, and
+that the red tape was faded to a mere washed-out pink."
+
+"Good--good!" murmured Spargo. "Excellent! Proceed, sir."
+
+"He put his hand under the topmost papers and drew out an envelope,"
+continued Mr. Criedir. "From the envelope he produced an exceedingly
+rare, exceedingly valuable set of Colonial stamps--the very-first ever
+issued. 'I've just come from Australia,' he said. 'I promised a young
+friend of mine out there to sell these stamps for him in London, and as
+I was passing this way I caught sight of your shop. Will you buy 'em,
+and how much will you give for 'em?'"
+
+"Prompt," muttered Spargo.
+
+"He seemed to me the sort of man who doesn't waste words," agreed Mr.
+Criedir. "Well, there was no doubt about the stamps, nor about their
+great value. But I had to explain to him that I was retiring from
+business that very day, and did not wish to enter into even a single
+deal, and that, therefore, I couldn't do anything. 'No matter,' he
+says, 'I daresay there are lots of men in your line of trade--perhaps
+you can recommend me to a good firm?' 'I could recommend you to a dozen
+extra-good firms,' I answered. 'But I can do better for you. I'll give
+you the name and address of a private buyer who, I haven't the least
+doubt, will be very glad to buy that set from you and will give you a
+big price.' 'Write it down,' he says, 'and thank you for your trouble.'
+So I gave him a bit of advice as to the price he ought to get, and I
+wrote the name and address of the man I referred to on the back of one
+of my cards."
+
+"Whose name and address?" asked Spargo.
+
+"Mr. Nicholas Cardlestone, 2, Pilcox Buildings, Middle Temple Lane,"
+replied Mr. Criedir. "Mr. Cardlestone is one of the most enthusiastic
+and accomplished philatelists in Europe. And I knew he didn't possess
+that set of stamps."
+
+"I know Mr. Cardlestone," remarked Spargo. "It was at the foot of his
+stairs that Marbury was found murdered."
+
+"Just so," said Mr. Criedir. "Which makes me think that he was going to
+see Mr. Cardlestone when he was set upon, murdered, and robbed."
+
+Spargo looked fixedly at the retired stamp-dealer.
+
+"What, going to see an elderly gentleman in his rooms in the Temple, to
+offer to sell him philatelic rarities at--past midnight?" he said. "I
+think--not much!"
+
+"All right," replied Mr. Criedir. "You think and argue on modern
+lines--which are, of course, highly superior. But--how do you account
+for my having given Marbury Mr. Cardlestone's address and for his
+having been found dead--murdered--at the foot of Cardlestone's stairs
+a few hours later?"
+
+"I don't account for it," said Spargo. "I'm trying to."
+
+Mr. Criedir made no comment on this. He looked his visitor up and down
+for a moment; gathered some idea of his capabilities, and suddenly
+offered him a cigarette. Spargo accepted it with a laconic word of
+thanks, and smoked half-way through it before he spoke again.
+
+"Yes," he said. "I'm trying to account. And I shall account. And I'm
+much obliged to you, Mr. Criedir, for what you've told me. Now, then,
+may I ask you a question or two?"
+
+"A thousand!" responded Mr. Criedir with great geniality.
+
+"Very well. Did Marbury say he'd call on Cardlestone?"
+
+"He did. Said he'd call as soon as he could--that day."
+
+"Have you told Cardlestone what you've just told me?"
+
+"I have. But not until an hour ago--on my way back from your office, in
+fact. I met him in Fleet Street and told him."
+
+"Had he received a call from Marbury?"
+
+"No! Never heard of or seen the man. At least, never heard of him until
+he heard of the murder. He told me he and his friend, Mr. Elphick,
+another philatelist, went to see the body, wondering if they could
+recognize it as any man they'd ever known, but they couldn't."
+
+"I know they did," said Spargo. "I saw 'em at the mortuary. Um!
+Well--one more question. When Marbury left you, did he put those stamps
+in his box again, as before?"
+
+"No," replied Mr. Criedir. "He put them in his right-hand breast
+pocket, and he locked up his old box, and went off swinging it in his
+left hand."
+
+Spargo went away down Fleet Street, seeing nobody. He muttered to
+himself, and he was still muttering when he got into his room at the
+office. And what he muttered was the same thing, repeated over and over
+again:
+
+"Six hours--six hours--six hours! Those six hours!"
+
+Next morning the _Watchman_ came out with four leaded columns of
+up-to-date news about the Marbury Case, and right across the top of the
+four ran a heavy double line of great capitals, black and staring:--
+
+WHO SAW JOHN MARBURY BETWEEN 3.15 P.M. AND 9.15 P.M. ON THE DAY
+PRECEDING HIS MURDER?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TEN
+
+THE LEATHER BOX
+
+
+Whether Spargo was sanguine enough to expect that his staring headline
+would bring him information of the sort he wanted was a secret which he
+kept to himself. That a good many thousands of human beings must have
+set eyes on John Marbury between the hours which Spargo set forth in
+that headline was certain; the problem was--What particular owner or
+owners of a pair or of many pairs of those eyes would remember him? Why
+should they remember him? Walters and his wife had reason to remember
+him; Criedir had reason to remember him; so had Myerst; so had William
+Webster. But between a quarter past three, when he left the London and
+Universal Safe Deposit, and a quarter past nine, when he sat down by
+Webster's side in the lobby of the House of Commons, nobody seemed to
+have any recollection of him except Mr. Fiskie, the hatter, and he only
+remembered him faintly, and because Marbury had bought a fashionable
+cloth cap at his shop. At any rate, by noon of that day, nobody had
+come forward with any recollection of him. He must have gone West from
+seeing Myerst, because he bought his cap at Fiskie's; he must
+eventually have gone South-West, because he turned up at Westminster.
+But where else did he go? What did he do? To whom did he speak? No
+answer came to these questions.
+
+"That shows," observed young Mr. Ronald Breton, lazing an hour away in
+Spargo's room at the _Watchman_ at that particular hour which is
+neither noon nor afternoon, wherein even busy men do nothing, "that
+shows how a chap can go about London as if he were merely an ant that
+had strayed into another ant-heap than his own. Nobody notices."
+
+"You'd better go and read up a little elementary entomology, Breton,"
+said Spargo. "I don't know much about it myself, but I've a pretty good
+idea that when an ant walks into the highways and byways of a colony to
+which he doesn't belong he doesn't survive his intrusion by many
+seconds."
+
+"Well, you know what I mean," said Breton. "London's an ant-heap, isn't
+it? One human ant more or less doesn't count. This man Marbury must
+have gone about a pretty tidy lot during those six hours. He'd ride on
+a 'bus--almost certain. He'd get into a taxi-cab--I think that's much
+more certain, because it would be a novelty to him. He'd want some
+tea--anyway, he'd be sure to want a drink, and he'd turn in somewhere
+to get one or the other. He'd buy things in shops--these Colonials
+always do. He'd go somewhere to get his dinner. He'd--but what's the
+use of enumeration in this case?"
+
+"A mere piling up of platitudes," answered Spargo.
+
+"What I mean is," continued Breton, "that piles of people must have
+seen him, and yet it's now hours and hours since your paper came out
+this morning, and nobody's come forward to tell anything. And when you
+come to think of it, why should they? Who'd remember an ordinary man in
+a grey tweed suit?"
+
+"'An ordinary man in a grey tweed suit,'" repeated Spargo. "Good line.
+You haven't any copyright in it, remember. It would make a good
+cross-heading."
+
+Breton laughed. "You're a queer chap, Spargo," he said. "Seriously, do
+you think you're getting any nearer anything?"
+
+"I'm getting nearer something with everything that's done," Spargo
+answered. "You can't start on a business like this without evolving
+something out of it, you know."
+
+"Well," said Breton, "to me there's not so much mystery in it. Mr.
+Aylmore's explained the reason why my address was found on the body;
+Criedir, the stamp-man, has explained--"
+
+Spargo suddenly looked up.
+
+"What?" he said sharply.
+
+"Why, the reason of Marbury's being found where he was found," replied
+Breton. "Of course, I see it all! Marbury was mooning around Fleet
+Street; he slipped into Middle Temple Lane, late as it was, just to see
+where old Cardlestone hangs out, and he was set upon and done for. The
+thing's plain to me. The only thing now is to find who did it."
+
+"Yes, that's it," agreed Spargo. "That's it." He turned over the leaves
+of the diary which lay on his desk. "By the by," he said, looking up
+with some interest, "the adjourned inquest is at eleven o'clock
+tomorrow morning. Are you going?"
+
+"I shall certainly go," answered Breton. "What's more, I'm going to
+take Miss Aylmore and her sister. As the gruesome details were over at
+the first sitting, and as there'll be nothing but this new evidence
+tomorrow, and as they've never been in a coroner's court----"
+
+"Mr. Aylmore'll be the principal witness tomorrow," interrupted Spargo.
+"I suppose he'll be able to tell a lot more than he told--me."
+
+Breton shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"I don't see that there's much more to tell," he said. "But," he added,
+with a sly laugh, "I suppose you want some more good copy, eh?"
+
+Spargo glanced at his watch, rose, and picked up his hat. "I'll tell
+you what I want," he said. "I want to know who John Marbury was. That
+would make good copy. Who he was--twenty--twenty-five--forty years ago.
+Eh?"
+
+"And you think Mr. Aylmore can tell?" asked Breton.
+
+"Mr. Aylmore," answered Spargo as they walked towards the door, "is the
+only person I have met so far who has admitted that he knew John
+Marbury in the--past. But he didn't tell me--much. Perhaps he'll tell
+the coroner and his jury--more. Now, I'm off Breton--I've an
+appointment."
+
+And leaving Breton to find his own way out, Spargo hurried away, jumped
+into a taxi-cab and speeded to the London and Universal Safe Deposit.
+At the corner of its building he found Rathbury awaiting him.
+
+"Well?" said Spargo, as he sprang out: "How is it?"
+
+"It's all right," answered Rathbury. "You can be present: I got the
+necessary permission. As there are no relations known, there'll only be
+one or two officials and you, and the Safe Deposit people, and myself.
+Come on--it's about time."
+
+"It sounds," observed Spargo, "like an exhumation."
+
+Rathbury laughed. "Well, we're certainly going to dig up a dead man's
+secrets," he said. "At least, we may be going to do so. In my opinion,
+Mr. Spargo, we'll find some clue in this leather box."
+
+Spargo made no answer. They entered the office, to be shown into a room
+where were already assembled Mr. Myerst, a gentleman who turned out to
+be the chairman of the company, and the officials of whom Rathbury had
+spoken. And in another moment Spargo heard the chairman explaining that
+the company possessed duplicate keys to all safes, and that the proper
+authorization having been received from the proper authorities, those
+present would now proceed to the safe recently tenanted by the late Mr.
+John Marbury, and take from it the property which he himself had
+deposited there, a small leather box, which they would afterwards bring
+to that room and cause to be opened in each other's presence.
+
+It seemed to Spargo that there was an unending unlocking of bolts and
+bars before he and his fellow-processionists came to the safe so
+recently rented by the late Mr. John Marbury, now undoubtedly deceased.
+And at first sight of it, he saw that it was so small an affair that it
+seemed ludicrous to imagine that it could contain anything of any
+importance. In fact, it looked to be no more than a plain wooden
+locker, one amongst many in a small strong room: it reminded Spargo
+irresistibly of the locker in which, in his school days, he had kept
+his personal belongings and the jam tarts, sausage rolls, and hardbake
+smuggled in from the tuck-shop. Marbury's name had been newly painted
+upon it; the paint was scarcely dry. But when the wooden door--the
+front door, as it were, of this temple of mystery, had been solemnly
+opened by the chairman, a formidable door of steel was revealed, and
+expectation still leapt in the bosoms of the beholders.
+
+"The duplicate key, Mr. Myerst, if you please," commanded the chairman,
+"the duplicate key!"
+
+Myerst, who was fully as solemn as his principal, produced a
+curious-looking key: the chairman lifted his hand as if he were about
+to christen a battleship: the steel door swung slowly back. And there,
+in a two-foot square cavity, lay the leather box.
+
+It struck Spargo as they filed back to the secretary's room that the
+procession became more funereal-like than ever. First walked the
+chairman, abreast with the high official, who had brought the necessary
+authorization from the all-powerful quarter; then came Myerst carrying
+the box: followed two other gentlemen, both legal lights, charged with
+watching official and police interests; Rathbury and Spargo brought up
+the rear. He whispered something of his notions to the detective;
+Rathbury nodded a comprehensive understanding.
+
+"Let's hope we're going to see--something!" he said.
+
+In the secretary's room a man waited who touched his forelock
+respectfully as the heads of the procession entered. Myerst set the box
+on the table: the man made a musical jingle of keys: the other members
+of the procession gathered round.
+
+"As we naturally possess no key to this box," announced the chairman in
+grave tones, "it becomes our duty to employ professional assistance in
+opening it. Jobson!"
+
+He waved a hand, and the man of the keys stepped forward with alacrity.
+He examined the lock of the box with a knowing eye; it was easy to see
+that he was anxious to fall upon it. While he considered matters,
+Spargo looked at the box. It was pretty much what it had been described
+to him as being; a small, square box of old cow-hide, very strongly
+made, much worn and tarnished, fitted with a handle projecting from the
+lid, and having the appearance of having been hidden away somewhere for
+many a long day.
+
+There was a click, a spring: Jobson stepped back.
+
+"That's it, if you please, sir," he said.
+
+The chairman motioned to the high official.
+
+"If you would be good enough to open the box, sir," he said. "Our duty
+is now concluded."
+
+As the high official laid his hand on the lid the other men gathered
+round with craning necks and expectant eyes. The lid was lifted:
+somebody sighed deeply. And Spargo pushed his own head and eyes nearer.
+
+The box was empty!
+
+Empty, as anything that can be empty is empty! thought Spargo: there
+was literally nothing in it. They were all staring into the interior of
+a plain, time-worn little receptacle, lined out with old-fashioned
+chintz stuff, such as our Mid-Victorian fore-fathers were familiar
+with, and containing--nothing.
+
+"God bless my soul!" exclaimed the chairman. "This is--dear me!--why,
+there is nothing in the box!"
+
+"That," remarked the high official, drily, "appears to be obvious."
+
+The chairman looked at the secretary.
+
+"I understood the box was valuable, Mr. Myerst," he said, with the
+half-injured air of a man who considers himself to have been robbed of
+an exceptionally fine treat. "Valuable!"
+
+Myerst coughed.
+
+"I can only repeat what I have already said, Sir Benjamin," he
+answered. "The--er late Mr. Marbury spoke of the deposit as being of
+great value to him; he never permitted it out of his hand until he
+placed it in the safe. He appeared to regard it as of the greatest
+value."
+
+"But we understand from the evidence of Mr. Criedir, given to the
+_Watchman_ newspaper, that it was full of papers and--and other
+articles," said the chairman. "Criedir saw papers in it about an hour
+before it was brought here."
+
+Myerst spread out his hands.
+
+"I can only repeat what I have said, Sir Benjamin," he answered. "I
+know nothing more."
+
+"But why should a man deposit an empty box?" began the chairman. "I--"
+
+The high official interposed.
+
+"That the box is empty is certain," he observed. "Did you ever handle
+it yourself, Mr. Myerst?"
+
+Myerst smiled in a superior fashion.
+
+"I have already observed, sir, that from the time the deceased entered
+this room until the moment he placed the box in the safe which he
+rented, the box was never out of his hands," he replied.
+
+Then there was silence. At last the high official turned to the
+chairman.
+
+"Very well," he said. "We've made the enquiry. Rathbury, take the box
+away with you and lock it up at the Yard."
+
+So Spargo went out with Rathbury and the box; and saw excellent, if
+mystifying, material for the article which had already become the daily
+feature of his paper.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER ELEVEN
+
+MR. AYLMORE IS QUESTIONED
+
+
+It seemed to Spargo as he sat listening to the proceedings at the
+adjourned inquest next day that the whole story of what was now
+world-famous as the Middle Temple Murder Case was being reiterated
+before him for the thousandth time. There was not a detail of the story
+with which he had not become familiar to fulness. The first proceeding
+before the coroner had been of a merely formal nature; these were
+thorough and exhaustive; the representative of the Crown and twelve
+good men and true of the City of London were there to hear and to find
+out and to arrive at a conclusion as to how the man known as John
+Marbury came by his death. And although he knew all about it, Spargo
+found himself tabulating the evidence in a professional manner, and
+noting how each successive witness contributed, as it were, a chapter
+to the story. The story itself ran quite easily, naturally,
+consecutively--you could make it in sections. And Spargo, sitting
+merely to listen, made them:
+
+1. The Temple porter and Constable Driscoll proved the finding of the
+body.
+
+2. The police surgeon testified as to the cause of death--the man had
+been struck down from behind by a blow, a terrible blow--from some
+heavy instrument, and had died immediately.
+
+3. The police and the mortuary officials proved that when the body was
+examined nothing was found in the clothing but the now famous scrap of
+grey paper.
+
+4. Rathbury proved that by means of the dead man's new fashionable
+cloth cap, bought at Fiskie's well-known shop in the West-End, he
+traced Marbury to the Anglo-Orient Hotel in the Waterloo District.
+
+5. Mr. and Mrs. Walters gave evidence of the arrival of Marbury at the
+Anglo-Orient Hotel, and of his doings while he was in and about there.
+
+6. The purser of the ss. _Wambarino_ proved that Marbury sailed from
+Melbourne to Southampton on that ship, excited no remark, behaved
+himself like any other well-regulated passenger, and left the
+_Wambarino_ at Southampton early in the morning of what was to be the
+last day of his life in just the ordinary manner.
+
+7. Mr. Criedir gave evidence of his rencontre with Marbury in the
+matter of the stamps.
+
+8. Mr. Myerst told of Marbury's visit to the Safe Deposit, and further
+proved that the box which he placed there proved, on official
+examination, to be empty.
+
+9. William Webster re-told the story of his encounter with Marbury in
+one of the vestibules of the House of Commons, and of his witnessing
+the meeting between him and the gentleman whom he (Webster) now knew to
+be Mr. Aylmore, a Member of Parliament.
+
+All this led up to the appearance of Mr. Aylmore, M.P., in the
+witness-box. And Spargo knew and felt that it was that appearance for
+which the crowded court was waiting. Thanks to his own vivid and
+realistic specials in the _Watchman_, everybody there had already
+become well and thoroughly acquainted with the mass of evidence
+represented by the nine witnesses who had been in the box before Mr.
+Aylmore entered it. They were familiar, too, with the facts which Mr.
+Aylmore had permitted Spargo to print after the interview at the club,
+which Ronald Breton arranged. Why, then, the extraordinary interest
+which the Member of Parliament's appearance aroused? For everybody was
+extraordinarily interested; from the Coroner downwards to the last man
+who had managed to squeeze himself into the last available inch of the
+public gallery, all who were there wanted to hear and see the man who
+met Marbury under such dramatic circumstances, and who went to his
+hotel with him, hobnobbed with him, gave him advice, walked out of the
+hotel with him for a stroll from which Marbury never returned. Spargo
+knew well why the interest was so keen--everybody knew that Aylmore was
+the only man who could tell the court anything really pertinent about
+Marbury; who he was, what he was after; what his life had been.
+
+He looked round the court as the Member of Parliament entered the
+witness-box--a tall, handsome, perfectly-groomed man, whose beard was
+only slightly tinged with grey, whose figure was as erect as a
+well-drilled soldier's, who carried about him an air of conscious
+power. Aylmore's two daughters sat at a little distance away, opposite
+Spargo, with Ronald Breton in attendance upon them; Spargo had
+encountered their glance as they entered the court, and they had given
+him a friendly nod and smile. He had watched them from time to time; it
+was plain to him that they regarded the whole affair as a novel sort of
+entertainment; they might have been idlers in some Eastern bazaar,
+listening to the unfolding of many tales from the professional
+tale-tellers. Now, as their father entered the box, Spargo looked at
+them again; he saw nothing more than a little heightening of colour in
+their cheeks, a little brightening of their eyes.
+
+"All that they feel," he thought, "is a bit of extra excitement at the
+idea that their father is mixed up in this delightful mystery. Um!
+Well--now how much is he mixed up?"
+
+And he turned to the witness-box and from that moment never took his
+eyes off the man who now stood in it. For Spargo had ideas about the
+witness which he was anxious to develop.
+
+The folk who expected something immediately sensational in Mr.
+Aylmore's evidence were disappointed. Aylmore, having been sworn, and
+asked a question or two by the Coroner, requested permission to tell,
+in his own way, what he knew of the dead man and of this sad affair;
+and having received that permission, he went on in a calm,
+unimpassioned manner to repeat precisely what he had told Spargo. It
+sounded a very plain, ordinary story. He had known Marbury many years
+ago. He had lost sight of him for--oh, quite twenty years. He had met
+him accidentally in one of the vestibules of the House of Commons on
+the evening preceding the murder. Marbury had asked his advice. Having
+no particular duty, and willing to do an old acquaintance a good turn,
+he had gone back to the Anglo-Orient Hotel with Marbury, had remained
+awhile with him in his room, examining his Australian diamonds, and had
+afterwards gone out with him. He had given him the advice he wanted;
+they had strolled across Waterloo Bridge; shortly afterwards they had
+parted. That was all he knew.
+
+The court, the public, Spargo, everybody there, knew all this already.
+It had been in print, under a big headline, in the _Watchman_. Aylmore
+had now told it again; having told it, he seemed to consider that his
+next step was to leave the box and the court, and after a perfunctory
+question or two from the Coroner and the foreman of the jury he made a
+motion as if to step down. But Spargo, who had been aware since the
+beginning of the enquiry of the presence of a certain eminent counsel
+who represented the Treasury, cocked his eye in that gentleman's
+direction, and was not surprised to see him rise in his well-known,
+apparently indifferent fashion, fix his monocle in his right eye, and
+glance at the tall figure in the witness-box.
+
+"The fun is going to begin," muttered Spargo.
+
+The Treasury representative looked from Aylmore to the Coroner and made
+a jerky bow; from the Coroner to Aylmore and straightened himself. He
+looked like a man who is going to ask indifferent questions about the
+state of the weather, or how Smith's wife was last time you heard of
+her, or if stocks are likely to rise or fall. But Spargo had heard this
+man before, and he knew many signs of his in voice and manner and
+glance.
+
+"I want to ask you a few questions, Mr. Aylmore, about your
+acquaintanceship with the dead man. It was an acquaintanceship of some
+time ago?" began the suave, seemingly careless voice.
+
+"A considerable time ago," answered Aylmore.
+
+"How long--roughly speaking?"
+
+"I should say from twenty to twenty-two or three years."
+
+"Never saw him during that time until you met accidentally in the way
+you have described to us?"
+
+"Never."
+
+"Ever heard from him?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Ever heard of him?"
+
+"No."
+
+"But when you met, you knew each other at once?"
+
+"Well--almost at once."
+
+"Almost at once. Then, I take it, you were very well known to each
+other twenty or twenty-two years ago?"
+
+"We were--yes, well known to each other."
+
+"Close friends?"
+
+"I said we were acquaintances."
+
+"Acquaintances. What was his name when you knew him at that time?"
+
+"His name? It was--Marbury."
+
+"Marbury--the same name. Where did you know him?"
+
+"I--oh, here in London."
+
+"What was he?"
+
+"Do you mean--what was his occupation?"
+
+"What was his occupation?"
+
+"I believe he was concerned in financial matters."
+
+"Concerned in financial matters. Had you dealings with him?"
+
+"Well, yes--on occasions."
+
+"What was his business address in London?"
+
+"I can't remember that."
+
+"What was his private address?"
+
+"That I never knew."
+
+"Where did you transact your business with him?"
+
+"Well, we met, now and then."
+
+"Where? What place, office, resort?"
+
+"I can't remember particular places. Sometimes--in the City."
+
+"In the City. Where in the City? Mansion House, or Lombard Street, or
+St. Paul's Churchyard, or the Old Bailey, or where?"
+
+"I have recollections of meeting him outside the Stock Exchange."
+
+"Oh! Was he a member of that institution?"
+
+"Not that I know of."
+
+"Were you?"
+
+"Certainly not!"
+
+"What were the dealings that you had with him?"
+
+"Financial dealings--small ones."
+
+"How long did your acquaintanceship with him last--what period did it
+extend over?"
+
+"I should say about six months to nine months."
+
+"No more?"
+
+"Certainly no more."
+
+"It was quite a slight acquaintanceship, then?"
+
+"Oh, quite!"
+
+"And yet, after losing sight of this merely slight acquaintance for
+over twenty years, you, on meeting him, take great interest in him?"
+
+"Well, I was willing to do him a good turn, I was interested in what he
+told me the other evening."
+
+"I see. Now you will not object to my asking you a personal question or
+two. You are a public man, and the facts about the lives of public men
+are more or less public property. You are represented in this work of
+popular reference as coming to this country in 1902, from Argentina,
+where you made a considerable fortune. You have told us, however, that
+you were in London, acquainted with Marbury, about the years, say 1890
+to 1892. Did you then leave England soon after knowing Marbury?"
+
+"I did. I left England in 1891 or 1892--I am not sure which."
+
+"We are wanting to be very sure about this matter, Mr. Aylmore. We want
+to solve the important question--who is, who was John Marbury, and how
+did he come by his death? You seem to be the only available person who
+knows anything about him. What was your business before you left
+England?"
+
+"I was interested in financial affairs."
+
+"Like Marbury. Where did you carry on your business?"
+
+"In London, of course."
+
+"At what address?"
+
+For some moments Aylmore had been growing more and more restive. His
+brow had flushed; his moustache had begun to twitch. And now he squared
+his shoulders and faced his questioner defiantly.
+
+"I resent these questions about my private affairs!" he snapped out.
+
+"Possibly. But I must put them. I repeat my last question."
+
+"And I refuse to answer it."
+
+"Then I ask you another. Where did you live in London at the time you
+are telling us of, when you knew John Marbury?"
+
+"I refuse to answer that question also!"
+
+The Treasury Counsel sat down and looked at the Coroner.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWELVE
+
+THE NEW WITNESS
+
+
+The voice of the Coroner, bland, suave, deprecating, broke the silence.
+He was addressing the witness.
+
+"I am sure, Mr. Aylmore," he said, "there is no wish to trouble you
+with unnecessary questions. But we are here to get at the truth of this
+matter of John Marbury's death, and as you are the only witness we have
+had who knew him personally--"
+
+Aylmore turned impatiently to the Coroner.
+
+"I have every wish to respect your authority, sir!" he exclaimed. "And
+I have told you all that I know of Marbury and of what happened when I
+met him the other evening. But I resent being questioned on my private
+affairs of twenty years ago--I very much resent it! Any question that
+is really pertinent I will answer, but I will not answer questions that
+seem to me wholly foreign to the scope of this enquiry."
+
+The Treasury Counsel rose again. His manner had become of the quietest,
+and Spargo again became keenly attentive.
+
+"Perhaps I can put a question or two to Mr. Aylmore which will not
+yield him offence," he remarked drily. He turned once more to the
+witness, regarding him as if with interest. "Can you tell us of any
+person now living who knew Marbury in London at the time under
+discussion--twenty to twenty-two or three years ago?" he asked.
+
+Aylmore shook his head angrily.
+
+"No, I can't,'' he replied.
+
+"And yet you and he must have had several business acquaintances at
+that time who knew you both!"
+
+"Possibly--at that time. But when I returned to England my business and
+my life lay in different directions to those of that time. I don't know
+of anybody who knew Marbury then--anybody."
+
+The Counsel turned to a clerk who sat behind him, whispered to him;
+Spargo saw the clerk make a sidelong motion of his head towards the
+door of the court. The Counsel looked again at the witness.
+
+"One more question. You told the court a little time since that you
+parted with Marbury on the evening preceding his death at the end of
+Waterloo Bridge--at, I think you said, a quarter to twelve."
+
+"About that time."
+
+"And at that place?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"That is all I want to ask you, Mr. Aylmore--just now," said the
+Counsel. He turned to the Coroner. "I am going to ask you, sir, at this
+point to call a witness who has volunteered certain evidence to the
+police authorities this morning. That evidence is of a very important
+nature, and I think that this is the stage at which it ought to be
+given to you and the jury. If you would be pleased to direct that David
+Lyell be called--"
+
+Spargo turned instinctively to the door, having seen the clerk who had
+sat behind the Treasury Counsel make his way there. There came into
+view, ushered by the clerk, a smart-looking, alert, self-confident
+young man, evidently a Scotsman, who, on the name of David Lyell being
+called, stepped jauntily and readily into the place which the member of
+Parliament just vacated. He took the oath--Scotch fashion--with the
+same readiness and turned easily to the Treasury Counsel. And Spargo,
+glancing quickly round, saw that the court was breathless with
+anticipation, and that its anticipation was that the new witness was
+going to tell something which related to the evidence just given by
+Aylmore.
+
+"Your name is David Lyell?"
+
+"That is my name, sir."
+
+"And you reside at 23, Cumbrae Side, Kilmarnock, Scotland?"
+
+"I do."
+
+"What are you, Mr. Lyell?"
+
+"Traveller, sir, for the firm of Messrs. Stevenson, Robertson & Soutar,
+distillers, of Kilmarnock."
+
+"Your duties take you, I think, over to Paris occasionally?"
+
+"They do--once every six weeks I go to Paris."
+
+"On the evening of June 21st last were you in London on your way to
+Paris?"
+
+"I was."
+
+"I believe you stayed at De Keyser's Hotel, at the Blackfriars end of
+the Embankment?"
+
+"I did--it's handy for the continental trains."
+
+"About half-past eleven, or a little later, that evening, did you go
+along the Embankment, on the Temple Gardens side, for a walk?"
+
+"I did, sir. I'm a bad sleeper, and it's a habit of mine to take a walk
+of half an hour or so last thing before I go to bed."
+
+"How far did you walk?"
+
+"As far as Waterloo Bridge."
+
+"Always on the Temple side?"
+
+"Just so, sir--straight along on that side."
+
+"Very good. When you got close to Waterloo Bridge, did you meet anybody
+you knew?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Mr. Aylmore, the Member of Parliament."
+
+Spargo could not avoid a glance at the two sisters. The elder's head
+was averted; the younger was staring at the witness steadily. And
+Breton was nervously tapping his fingers on the crown of his shining
+silk hat.
+
+"Mr. Aylmore, the Member of Parliament," repeated the Counsel's suave,
+clear tones. "Oh! And how did you come to recognize Mr. Aylmore, Member
+of Parliament?"
+
+"Well, sir, in this way. At home, I'm the secretary of our Liberal Ward
+Club, and last year we had a demonstration, and it fell to me to
+arrange with the principal speakers. I got Mr. Aylmore to come and
+speak, and naturally I met him several times, in London and in
+Scotland."
+
+"So that you knew him quite well?"
+
+"Oh yes, sir."
+
+"Do you see him now, Mr. Lyell?"
+
+Lyell smiled and half turned in the box.
+
+"Why, of course!" he answered. "There is Mr. Aylmore."
+
+"There is Mr. Aylmore. Very good. Now we go on. You met Mr. Aylmore
+close to Waterloo Bridge? How close?"
+
+"Well, sir, to be exact, Mr. Aylmore came down the steps from the
+bridge on to the Embankment."
+
+"Alone?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Who was with him?"
+
+"A man, sir."
+
+"Did you know the man?"
+
+"No. But seeing who he was with. I took a good look at him. I haven't
+forgotten his face."
+
+"You haven't forgotten his face. Mr. Lyell--has anything recalled that
+face to you within this last day or two?"
+
+"Yes, sir, indeed!"
+
+"What?"
+
+"The picture of the man they say was murdered--John Marbury."
+
+"You're sure of that?"
+
+"I'm as certain, sir, as that my name's what it is."
+
+"It is your belief that Mr. Aylmore, when you met him, was accompanied
+by the man who, according to the photographs, was John Marbury?"
+
+"It is, sir!"
+
+"Very well. Now, having seen Mr. Aylmore and his companion, what did
+you do?"
+
+"Oh, I just turned and walked after them."
+
+"You walked after them? They were going eastward, then?"
+
+"They were walking by the way I'd come."
+
+"You followed them eastward?"
+
+"I did--I was going back to the hotel, you see."
+
+"What were they doing?"
+
+"Talking uncommonly earnestly, sir."
+
+"How far did you follow them?"
+
+"I followed them until they came to the Embankment lodge of Middle
+Temple Lane, sir."
+
+"And then?"
+
+"Why, sir, they turned in there, and I went straight on to De Keyser's,
+and to my bed."
+
+There was a deeper silence in court at that moment than at any other
+period of the long day, and it grew still deeper when the quiet, keen
+voice put the next question.
+
+"You swear on your oath that you saw Mr. Aylmore take his companion
+into the Temple by the Embankment entrance of Middle Temple Lane on the
+occasion in question?"
+
+"I do! I could swear no other, sir."
+
+"Can you tell us, as near as possible, what time that would be?"
+
+"Yes. It was, to a minute or so, about five minutes past twelve."
+
+The Treasury Counsel nodded to the Coroner, and the Coroner, after a
+whispered conference with the foreman of the jury, looked at the
+witness.
+
+"You have only just given this information to the police, I
+understand?" he said.
+
+"Yes, sir. I have been in Paris, and in Amiens, and I only returned by
+this morning's boat. As soon as I had read all the news in the
+papers--the English papers--and seen the dead man's photographs I
+determined to tell the police what I knew, and I went to New Scotland
+Yard as soon as I got to London this morning."
+
+Nobody else wanted to ask Mr. David Lyell any questions, and he stepped
+down. And Mr. Aylmore suddenly came forward again, seeking the
+Coroner's attention.
+
+"May I be allowed to make an explanation, sir?" he began. "I--"
+
+But the Treasury Counsel was on his feet, this time stern and
+implacable. "I would point out, sir, that you have had Mr. Aylmore in
+the box, and that he was not then at all ready to give explanations, or
+even to answer questions," he said. "And before you allow him to make
+any explanation now, I ask you to hear another witness whom I wish to
+interpose at this stage. That witness is----"
+
+Mr. Aylmore turned almost angrily to the Coroner.
+
+"After the evidence of the last witness, I think I have a right to be
+heard at once!" he said with emphasis. "As matters stand at present, it
+looks as if I had trifled, sir, with you and the jury, whereas if I am
+allowed to make an explanation--"
+
+"I must respectfully ask that before Mr. Aylmore is allowed to make any
+explanation, the witness I have referred to is heard," said the
+Treasury Counsel sternly. "There are weighty reasons."
+
+"I am afraid you must wait a little, Mr. Aylmore, if you wish to give
+an explanation," said the Coroner. He turned to the Counsel. "Who is
+this other witness?" he asked.
+
+Aylmore stepped back. And Spargo noticed that the younger of his two
+daughters was staring at him with an anxious expression. There was no
+distrust of her father in her face; she was anxious. She, too, slowly
+turned to the next witness. This man was the porter of the Embankment
+lodge of Middle Temple Lane. The Treasury Counsel put a straight
+question to him at once.
+
+"You see that gentleman," he said, pointing to Aylmore. "Do you know
+him as an inmate of the Temple?"
+
+The man stared at Aylmore, evidently confused.
+
+"Why, certainly, sir!" he answered. "Quite well, sir."
+
+"Very good. And now--what name do you know him by?"
+
+The man grew evidently more bewildered.
+
+"Name, sir. Why, Mr. Anderson, sir!" he replied. "Mr. Anderson!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THIRTEEN
+
+UNDER SUSPICION
+
+
+A distinct, uncontrollable murmur of surprise ran round the packed
+court as this man in the witness-box gave this answer. It signified
+many things--that there were people present who had expected some such
+dramatic development; that there were others present who had not; that
+the answer itself was only a prelude to further developments. And
+Spargo, looking narrowly about him, saw that the answer had aroused
+different feelings in Aylmore's two daughters. The elder one had
+dropped her face until it was quite hidden; the younger was sitting
+bolt upright, staring at her father in utter and genuine bewilderment.
+And for the first time, Aylmore made no response to her.
+
+But the course of things was going steadily forward. There was no
+stopping the Treasury Counsel now; he was going to get at some truth in
+his own merciless fashion. He had exchanged one glance with the
+Coroner, had whispered a word to the solicitor who sat close by him,
+and now he turned again to the witness.
+
+"So you know that gentleman--make sure now--as Mr. Anderson, an inmate
+of the Temple?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"You don't know him by any other name?"
+
+"No, sir, I don't."
+
+"How long have you known him by that name?"
+
+"I should say two or three years, sir."
+
+"See him go in and out regularly?"
+
+"No, sir--not regularly."
+
+"How often, then?"
+
+"Now and then, sir--perhaps once a week."
+
+"Tell us what you know of Mr. Anderson's goings-in-and-out."
+
+"Well, sir, I might see him two nights running; then I mightn't see him
+again for perhaps a week or two. Irregular, as you might say, sir."
+
+"You say 'nights.' Do I understand that you never see Mr. Anderson
+except at night?"
+
+"Yes, sir. I've never seen him except at night. Always about the same
+time, sir."
+
+"What time?"
+
+"Just about midnight, sir."
+
+"Very well. Do you remember the midnight of June 21st-22nd?"
+
+"I do, sir."
+
+"Did you see Mr. Anderson enter then?"
+
+"Yes, sir, just after twelve."
+
+"Was he alone?"
+
+"No, sir; there was another gentleman with him."
+
+"Remember anything about that other gentleman?"
+
+"Nothing, sir, except that I noticed as they walked through, that the
+other gentleman had grey clothes on."
+
+"Had grey clothes on. You didn't see his face?"
+
+"Not to remember it, sir. I don't remember anything but what I've told
+you, sir."
+
+"That is that the other gentleman wore a grey suit. Where did Mr.
+Anderson and this gentleman in the grey suit go when they'd passed
+through?"
+
+"Straight up the Lane, sir."
+
+"Do you know where Mr. Anderson's rooms in the Temple are?"
+
+"Not exactly, sir, but I understood in Fountain Court."
+
+"Now, on that night in question, did Mr. Anderson leave again by your
+lodge?"
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"You heard of the discovery of the body of a dead man in Middle Temple
+Lane next morning?"
+
+"I did, sir."
+
+"Did you connect that man with the gentleman in the grey suit?"
+
+"No, sir, I didn't. It never occurred to me. A lot of the gentlemen who
+live in the Temple bring friends in late of nights; I never gave the
+matter any particular thought."
+
+"Never mentioned it to anybody until now, when you were sent for to
+come here?"
+
+"No, sir, never, to anybody."
+
+"And you have never known the gentleman standing there as anybody but
+Mr. Anderson?"
+
+"No, sir, never heard any other name but Anderson."
+
+The Coroner glanced at the Counsel.
+
+"I think this may be a convenient opportunity for Mr. Aylmore to give
+the explanation he offered a few minutes ago," he said. "Do you suggest
+anything?"
+
+"I suggest, sir, that if Mr. Aylmore desires to give any explanation he
+should return to the witness-box and submit himself to examination
+again on his oath," replied the Counsel. "The matter is in your hands."
+
+The Coroner turned to Aylmore.
+
+"Do you object to that?" he asked.
+
+Aylmore stepped boldly forward and into the box.
+
+"I object to nothing," he said in clear tones, "except to being asked
+to reply to questions about matters of the past which have not and
+cannot have anything to do with this case. Ask me what questions you
+like, arising out of the evidence of the last two witnesses, and I will
+answer them so far as I see myself justified in doing so. Ask me
+questions about matters of twenty years ago, and I shall answer them or
+not as I see fit. And I may as well say that I will take all the
+consequences of my silence or my speech."
+
+The Treasury Counsel rose again.
+
+"Very well, Mr. Aylmore," he said. "I will put certain questions to
+you. You heard the evidence of David Lyell?"
+
+"I did."
+
+"Was that quite true as regards yourself?"
+
+"Quite true--absolutely true."
+
+"And you heard that of the last witness. Was that also true!"
+
+"Equally true."
+
+"Then you admit that the evidence you gave this morning, before these
+witnesses came on the scene, was not true?"
+
+"No, I do not! Most emphatically I do not. It was true."
+
+"True? You told me, on oath, that you parted from John Marbury on
+Waterloo Bridge!"
+
+"Pardon me, I said nothing of the sort. I said that from the
+Anglo-Orient Hotel we strolled across Waterloo Bridge, and that shortly
+afterwards we parted--I did not say where we parted. I see there is a
+shorthand writer here who is taking everything down--ask him if that is
+not exactly what I said?"
+
+A reference to the stenographer proved Aylmore to be right, and the
+Treasury Counsel showed plain annoyance.
+
+"Well, at any rate, you so phrased your answer that nine persons out of
+ten would have understood that you parted from Marbury in the open
+streets after crossing Waterloo Bridge," he said. "Now--?"
+
+Aylmore smiled.
+
+"I am not responsible for the understanding of nine people out of ten
+any more than I am for your understanding," he said, with a sneer. "I
+said what I now repeat--Marbury and I walked across Waterloo Bridge,
+and shortly afterwards we parted. I told you the truth."
+
+"Indeed! Perhaps you will continue to tell us the truth. Since you have
+admitted that the evidence of the last two witnesses is absolutely
+correct, perhaps you will tell us exactly where you and Marbury did
+part?"
+
+"I will--willingly. We parted at the door of my chambers in Fountain
+Court."
+
+"Then--to reiterate--it was you who took Marbury into the Temple that
+night?"
+
+"It was certainly I who took Marbury into the Temple that night."
+
+There was another murmur amongst the crowded benches. Here at any rate
+was fact--solid, substantial fact. And Spargo began to see a possible
+course of events which he had not anticipated.
+
+"That is a candid admission, Mr. Aylmore. I suppose you see a certain
+danger to yourself in making it."
+
+"I need not say whether I do or I do not. I have made it."
+
+"Very good. Why did you not make it before?"
+
+"For my own reasons. I told you as much as I considered necessary for
+the purpose of this enquiry. I have virtually altered nothing now. I
+asked to be allowed to make a statement, to give an explanation, as
+soon as Mr. Lyell had left this box: I was not allowed to do so. I am
+willing to make it now."
+
+"Make it then."
+
+"It is simply this," said Aylmore, turning to the Coroner. "I have
+found it convenient, during the past three years, to rent a simple set
+of chambers in the Temple, where I could occasionally--very
+occasionally, as a rule--go late at night. I also found it convenient,
+for my own reasons--with which, I think, no one has anything to do--to
+rent those chambers under the name of Mr. Anderson. It was to my
+chambers that Marbury accompanied me for a few moments on the midnight
+with which we are dealing. He was not in them more than five minutes at
+the very outside: I parted from him at my outer door, and I understood
+that he would leave the Temple by the way we had entered and would
+drive or walk straight back to his hotel. That is the whole truth. I
+wish to add that I ought perhaps to have told all this at first. I had
+reasons for not doing so. I told what I considered necessary, that I
+parted from Marbury, leaving him well and alive, soon after midnight."
+
+"What reasons were or are they which prevented you from telling all
+this at first?" asked the Treasury Counsel.
+
+"Reasons which are private to me."
+
+"Will you tell them to the court?"
+
+"No!"
+
+"Then will you tell us why Marbury went with you to the chambers in
+Fountain Court which you tenant under the name of Anderson?"
+
+"Yes. To fetch a document which I had in my keeping, and had kept for
+him for twenty years or more."
+
+"A document of importance?"
+
+"Of very great importance."
+
+"He would have it on him when he was--as we believe he was--murdered
+and robbed?"
+
+"He had it on him when he left me."
+
+"Will you tell us what it was?"
+
+"Certainly not!"
+
+"In fact, you won't tell us any more than you choose to tell?"
+
+"I have told you all I can tell of the events of that night."
+
+"Then I am going to ask you a very pertinent question. Is it not a fact
+that you know a great deal more about John Marbury than you have told
+this court?"
+
+"That I shall not answer."
+
+"Is it not a fact that you could, if you would, tell this court more
+about John Marbury and your acquaintanceship with him twenty years
+ago?"
+
+"I also decline to answer that."
+
+The Treasury Counsel made a little movement of his shoulders and turned
+to the Coroner.
+
+"I should suggest, sir, that you adjourn this enquiry," he said
+quietly.
+
+"For a week," assented the Coroner, turning to the jury.
+
+The crowd surged out of the court, chattering, murmuring, exclaiming--
+spectators, witnesses, jurymen, reporters, legal folk, police folk, all
+mixed up together. And Spargo, elbowing his own way out, and busily
+reckoning up the value of the new complexions put on everything by the
+day's work, suddenly felt a hand laid on his arm. Turning he found
+himself gazing at Jessie Aylmore.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER FOURTEEN
+
+THE SILVER TICKET
+
+
+With a sudden instinct of protection, Spargo quickly drew the girl
+aside from the struggling crowd, and within a moment had led her into a
+quiet by-street. He looked down at her as she stood recovering her
+breath.
+
+"Yes?" he said quietly.
+
+Jessie Aylmore looked up at him, smiling faintly.
+
+"I want to speak to you," she said. "I must speak to you."
+
+"Yes," said Spargo. "But--the others? Your sister?--Breton?"
+
+"I left them on purpose to speak to you," she answered. "They knew I
+did. I am well accustomed to looking after myself."
+
+Spargo moved down the by-street, motioning his companion to move with
+him.
+
+"Tea," he said, "is what you want. I know a queer, old-fashioned place
+close by here where you can get the best China tea in London. Come and
+have some."
+
+Jessie Aylmore smiled and followed her guide obediently. And Spargo
+said nothing, marching stolidly along with his thumbs in his waistcoat
+pockets, his fingers playing soundless tunes outside, until he had
+installed himself and his companion in a quiet nook in the old
+tea-house he had told her of, and had given an order for tea and hot
+tea-cakes to a waitress who evidently knew him. Then he turned to her.
+
+"You want," he said, "to talk to me about your father."
+
+"Yes," she answered. "I do."
+
+"Why?" asked Spargo.
+
+The girl gave him a searching look.
+
+"Ronald Breton says you're the man who's written all those special
+articles in the _Watchman_ about the Marbury case," she answered. "Are
+you?"
+
+"I am," said Spargo.
+
+"Then you're a man of great influence," she went on. "You can stir the
+public mind. Mr. Spargo--what are you going to write about my father
+and today's proceedings?"
+
+Spargo signed to her to pour out the tea which had just arrived. He
+seized, without ceremony, upon a piece of the hot buttered tea-cake,
+and bit a great lump out of it.
+
+"Frankly," he mumbled, speaking with his mouth full, "frankly, I don't
+know. I don't know--yet. But I'll tell you this--it's best to be
+candid--I shouldn't allow myself to be prejudiced or biassed in making
+up my conclusions by anything that you may say to me. Understand?"
+
+Jessie Aylmore took a sudden liking to Spargo because of the
+unconventionality and brusqueness of his manners.
+
+"I'm not wanting to prejudice or bias you," she said. "All I want is
+that you should be very sure before you say--anything."
+
+"I'll be sure," said Spargo. "Don't bother. Is the tea all right?"
+
+"Beautiful!" she answered, with a smile that made Spargo look at her
+again. "Delightful! Mr. Spargo, tell me!--what did you think
+about--about what has just happened?"
+
+Spargo, regardless of the fact that his fingers were liberally
+ornamented with butter, lifted a hand and rubbed his always untidy
+hair. Then he ate more tea-cake and gulped more tea.
+
+"Look here!" he said suddenly. "I'm no great hand at talking. I can
+write pretty decently when I've a good story to tell, but I don't talk
+an awful lot, because I never can express what I mean unless I've got a
+pen in my hand. Frankly, I find it hard to tell you what I think. When
+I write my article this evening, I'll get all these things marshalled
+in proper form, and I shall write clearly about 'em. But I'll tell you
+one thing I do think--I wish your father had made a clean breast of
+things to me at first, when he gave me that interview, or had told
+everything when he first went into that box."
+
+"Why?" she asked.
+
+"Because he's now set up an atmosphere of doubt and suspicion around
+himself. People'll think--Heaven knows what they'll think! They already
+know that he knows more about Marbury than he'll tell, that--"
+
+"But does he?" she interrupted quickly. "Do you think he does?"
+
+"Yes!" replied Spargo, with emphasis. "I do. A lot more! If he had only
+been explicit at first--however, he wasn't. Now it's done. As things
+stand--look here, does it strike you that your father is in a very
+serious position?"
+
+"Serious?" she exclaimed.
+
+"Dangerous! Here's the fact--he's admitted that he took Marbury to his
+rooms in the Temple that midnight. Well, next morning Marbury's found
+robbed and murdered in an entry, not fifty yards off!"
+
+"Does anybody suppose that my father would murder him for the sake of
+robbing him of whatever he had on him?" she laughed scornfully. "My
+father is a very wealthy man, Mr. Spargo."
+
+"May be," answered Spargo. "But millionaires have been known to murder
+men who held secrets."
+
+"Secrets!" she exclaimed.
+
+"Have some more tea," said Spargo, nodding at the teapot. "Look
+here--this way it is. The theory that people--some people--will build
+up (I won't say that it hasn't suggested itself to me) is
+this:--There's some mystery about the relationship, acquaintanceship,
+connection, call it what you like, of your father and Marbury twenty
+odd years ago. Must be. There's some mystery about your father's life,
+twenty odd years ago. Must be--or else he'd have answered those
+questions. Very well. 'Ha, ha!' says the general public. 'Now we have
+it!' 'Marbury,' says the general public, 'was a man who had a hold on
+Aylmore. He turned up. Aylmore trapped him into the Temple, killed him
+to preserve his own secret, and robbed him of all he had on him as a
+blind.' Eh?"
+
+"You think--people will say that?" she exclaimed.
+
+"Cock-sure! They're saying it. Heard half a dozen of 'em say it, in
+more or less elegant fashion as I came out of that court. Of course,
+they'll say it. Why, what else could they say?"
+
+For a moment Jessie Aylmore sat looking silently into her tea-cup. Then
+she turned her eyes on Spargo, who immediately manifested a new
+interest in what remained of the tea-cakes.
+
+"Is that what you're going to say in your article tonight?" she asked,
+quietly.
+
+"No!" replied Spargo, promptly. "It isn't. I'm going to sit on the
+fence tonight. Besides, the case is _sub judice_. All I'm going to do
+is to tell, in my way, what took place at the inquest."
+
+The girl impulsively put her hand across the table and laid it on
+Spargo's big fist.
+
+"Is it what you think?" she asked in a low voice.
+
+"Honour bright, no!" exclaimed Spargo. "It isn't--it isn't! I don't
+think it. I think there's a most extraordinary mystery at the bottom of
+Marbury's death, and I think your father knows an enormous lot about
+Marbury that he won't tell, but I'm certain sure that he neither killed
+Marbury nor knows anything whatever about his death. And as I'm out to
+clear this mystery up, and mean to do it, nothing'll make me more glad
+than to clear your father. I say, do have some more tea-cake? We'll
+have fresh ones--and fresh tea."
+
+"No, thank you," she said smiling. "And thank you for what you've just
+said. I'm going now, Mr. Spargo. You've done me good."
+
+"Oh, rot!" exclaimed Spargo. "Nothing--nothing! I've just told you what
+I'm thinking. You must go?..."
+
+He saw her into a taxi-cab presently, and when she had gone stood
+vacantly staring after the cab until a hand clapped him smartly on the
+shoulder. Turning, he found Rathbury grinning at him.
+
+"All right, Mr. Spargo, I saw you!" he said. "Well, it's a pleasant
+change to squire young ladies after being all day in that court. Look
+here, are you going to start your writing just now?"
+
+"I'm not going to start my writing as you call it, until after I've
+dined at seven o'clock and given myself time to digest my modest
+dinner," answered Spargo. "What is it?"
+
+"Come back with me and have another look at that blessed leather box,"
+said Rathbury. "I've got it in my room, and I'd like to examine it for
+myself. Come on!"
+
+"The thing's empty," said Spargo.
+
+"There might be a false bottom in it," remarked Rathbury. "One never
+knows. Here, jump into this!"
+
+He pushed Spargo into a passing taxi-cab, and following, bade the
+driver go straight to the Yard. Arrived there, he locked Spargo and
+himself into the drab-visaged room in which the journalist had seen
+him before.
+
+"What d'ye think of today's doings, Spargo?" he asked, as he proceeded
+to unlock a cupboard.
+
+"I think," said Spargo, "that some of you fellows must have had your
+ears set to tingling."
+
+"That's so," assented Rathbury. "Of course, the next thing'll be to
+find out all about the Mr. Aylmore of twenty years since. When a man
+won't tell you where he lived twenty years ago, what he was exactly
+doing, what his precise relationship with another man was--why, then,
+you've just got to find out, eh? Oh, some of our fellows are at work on
+the life history of Stephen Aylmore, Esq., M.P., already--you bet!
+Well, now, Spargo, here's the famous box."
+
+The detective brought the old leather case out of the cupboard in which
+he had been searching, and placed it on his desk. Spargo threw back the
+lid and looked inside, measuring the inner capacity against the
+exterior lines.
+
+"No false bottom in that, Rathbury," he said. "There's just the outer
+leather case, and the inner lining, of this old bed-hanging stuff, and
+that's all. There's no room for any false bottom or anything of that
+sort, d'you see?"
+
+Rathbury also sized up the box's capacity.
+
+"Looks like it," he said disappointedly. "Well, what about the lid,
+then? I remember there was an old box like this in my grandmother's
+farmhouse, where I was reared--there was a pocket in the lid. Let's see
+if there's anything of the sort here?"
+
+He threw the lid back and began to poke about the lining of it with the
+tips of his fingers, and presently he turned to his companion with a
+sharp exclamation.
+
+"By George, Spargo!" he said. "I don't know about any pocket, but
+there's something under this lining. Feels like--here, you feel.
+There--and there."
+
+Spargo put a finger on the places indicated.
+
+"Yes, that's so," he agreed. "Feels like two cards--a large and a small
+one. And the small one's harder than the other. Better cut that lining
+out, Rathbury."
+
+"That," remarked Rathbury, producing a pen-knife, "is just what I'm
+going to do. We'll cut along this seam."
+
+He ripped the lining carefully open along the upper part of the lining
+of the lid, and looking into the pocket thus made, drew out two objects
+which he dropped on his blotting pad.
+
+"A child's photograph," he said, glancing at one of them. "But what on
+earth is that?"
+
+The object to which he pointed was a small, oblong piece of thin,
+much-worn silver, about the size of a railway ticket. On one side of it
+was what seemed to be a heraldic device or coat-of-arms, almost
+obliterated by rubbing; on the other, similarly worn down by friction,
+was the figure of a horse.
+
+"That's a curious object," remarked Spargo, picking it up. "I never saw
+anything like that before. What can it be?"
+
+"Don't know--I never saw anything of the sort either," said Rathbury.
+"Some old token, I should say. Now this photo. Ah--you see, the
+photographer's name and address have been torn away or broken
+off--there's nothing left but just two letters of what's apparently
+been the name of the town--see. Er--that's all there is. Portrait of a
+baby, eh?"
+
+Spargo gave, what might have been called in anybody else but him, a
+casual glance at the baby's portrait. He picked up the silver ticket
+again and turned it over and over.
+
+"Look here, Rathbury," he said. "Let me take this silver thing. I know
+where I can find out what it is. At least, I think I do.''
+
+"All right," agreed the detective, "but take the greatest care of it,
+and don't tell a soul that we found it in this box, you know. No
+connection with the Marbury case, Spargo, remember."
+
+"Oh, all right," said Spargo. "Trust me."
+
+He put the silver ticket in his pocket, and went back to the office,
+wondering about this singular find. And when he had written his article
+that evening, and seen a proof of it, Spargo went into Fleet Street
+intent on seeking peculiar information.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER FIFTEEN
+
+MARKET MILCASTER
+
+
+The haunt of well-informed men which Spargo had in view when he turned
+out of the _Watchman_ office lay well hidden from ordinary sight and
+knowledge in one of those Fleet Street courts the like of which is not
+elsewhere in the world. Only certain folk knew of it. It was, of
+course, a club; otherwise it would not have been what it was. It is the
+simplest thing in life, in England, at any rate, to form a club of
+congenial spirits. You get so many of your choice friends and
+acquaintances to gather round you; you register yourselves under a name
+of your own choosing; you take a house and furnish it according to your
+means and your taste: you comply with the very easy letter of the law,
+and there you are. Keep within that easy letter, and you can do what
+you please on your own premises. It is much more agreeable to have a
+small paradise of your own of this description than to lounge about
+Fleet Street bars.
+
+The particular club to which Spargo bent his steps was called the
+Octoneumenoi. Who evolved this extraordinary combination of Latin and
+Greek was a dark mystery: there it was, however, on a tiny brass plate
+you once reached the portals. The portals were gained by devious ways.
+You turned out of Fleet Street by an alley so narrow that it seemed as
+if you might suddenly find yourself squeezed between the ancient walls.
+Then you suddenly dived down another alley and found yourself in a
+small court, with high walls around you and a smell of printer's ink in
+your nose and a whirring of printing presses in your ears. You made
+another dive into a dark entry, much encumbered by bales of paper,
+crates of printing material, jars of printing ink; after falling over a
+few of these you struck an ancient flight of stairs and went up past
+various landings, always travelling in a state of gloom and fear. After
+a lot of twisting and turning you came to the very top of the house and
+found it heavily curtained off. You lifted a curtain and found yourself
+in a small entresol, somewhat artistically painted--the whole and sole
+work of an artistic member who came one day with a formidable array of
+lumber and paint-pots and worked his will on the ancient wood. Then you
+saw the brass plate and its fearful name, and beneath it the formal
+legal notice that this club was duly registered and so on, and if you
+were a member you went in, and if you weren't a member you tinkled an
+electric bell and asked to see a member--if you knew one.
+
+Spargo was not a member, but he knew many members, and he tinkled the
+bell, and asked the boy who answered it for Mr. Starkey. Mr. Starkey, a
+young gentleman with the biceps of a prize-fighter and a head of curly
+hair that would have done credit to Antinous, came forth in due course
+and shook Spargo by the hand until his teeth rattled.
+
+"Had we known you were coming," said Mr. Starkey, "we'd have had a
+brass band on the stairs."
+
+"I want to come in," remarked Spargo.
+
+"Sure!" said Mr. Starkey. "That's what you've come for."
+
+"Well, stand out of the way, then, and let's get in," said Spargo.
+"Look here," he continued when they had penetrated into a small
+vestibule, "doesn't old Crowfoot turn in here about this time every
+night?"
+
+"Every night as true as the clock, my son Spargo, Crowfoot puts his
+nose in at precisely eleven, having by that time finished that daily
+column wherein he informs a section of the populace as to the prospects
+of their spotting a winner tomorrow," answered Mr. Starkey. "It's five
+minutes to his hour now. Come in and drink till he comes. Want him?"
+
+"A word with him," answered Spargo. "A mere word--or two."
+
+He followed Starkey into a room which was so filled with smoke and
+sound that for a moment it was impossible to either see or hear. But
+the smoke was gradually making itself into a canopy, and beneath the
+canopy Spargo made out various groups of men of all ages, sitting
+around small tables, smoking and drinking, and all talking as if the
+great object of their lives was to get as many words as possible out of
+their mouths in the shortest possible time. In the further corner was a
+small bar; Starkey pulled Spargo up to it.
+
+"Name it, my son," commanded Starkey. "Try the Octoneumenoi very extra
+special. Two of 'em, Dick. Come to beg to be a member, Spargo?"
+
+"I'll think about being a member of this ante-room of the infernal
+regions when you start a ventilating fan and provide members with a
+route-map of the way from Fleet Street," answered Spargo, taking his
+glass. "Phew!--what an atmosphere!"
+
+"We're considering a ventilating fan," said Starkey. "I'm on the house
+committee now, and I brought that very matter up at our last meeting.
+But Templeson, of the _Bulletin_--you know Templeson--he says what we
+want is a wine-cooler to stand under that sideboard--says no club is
+proper without a wine-cooler, and that he knows a chap--second-hand
+dealer, don't you know--what has a beauty to dispose of in old
+Sheffield plate. Now, if you were on our house committee, Spargo, old
+man, would you go in for the wine-cooler or the ventilating fan? You
+see--"
+
+"There is Crowfoot," said Spargo. "Shout him over here, Starkey, before
+anybody else collars him."
+
+Through the door by which Spargo had entered a few minutes previously
+came a man who stood for a moment blinking at the smoke and the lights.
+He was a tall, elderly man with a figure and bearing of a soldier; a
+big, sweeping moustache stood well out against a square-cut jaw and
+beneath a prominent nose; a pair of keen blue eyes looked out from
+beneath a tousled mass of crinkled hair. He wore neither hat nor cap;
+his attire was a carelessly put on Norfolk suit of brown tweed; he
+looked half-unkempt, half-groomed. But knotted at the collar of his
+flannel shirt were the colours of one of the most famous and exclusive
+cricket clubs in the world, and everybody knew that in his day their
+wearer had been a mighty figure in the public eye.
+
+"Hi, Crowfoot!" shouted Starkey above the din and babel. "Crowfoot,
+Crowfoot! Come over here, there's a chap dying to see you!"
+
+"Yes, that's the way to get him, isn't it?" said Spargo. "Here, I'll
+get him myself."
+
+He went across the room and accosted the old sporting journalist.
+
+"I want a quiet word with you," he said. "This place is like a
+pandemonium."
+
+Crowfoot led the way into a side alcove and ordered a drink.
+
+"Always is, this time," he said, yawning. "But it's companionable. What
+is it, Spargo?"
+
+Spargo took a pull at the glass which he had carried with him. "I
+should say," he said, "that you know as much about sporting matters as
+any man writing about 'em?"
+
+"Well, I think you might say it with truth," answered Crowfoot.
+
+"And old sporting matters?" said Spargo.
+
+"Yes, and old sporting matters," replied the other with a sudden flash
+of the eye. "Not that they greatly interest the modern generation, you
+know."
+
+"Well, there's something that's interesting me greatly just now,
+anyway," said Spargo. "And I believe it's got to do with old sporting
+affairs. And I came to you for information about it, believing you to
+be the only man I know of that could tell anything."
+
+"Yes--what is it?" asked Crowfoot.
+
+Spargo drew out an envelope, and took from it the carefully-wrapped-up
+silver ticket. He took off the wrappings and laid the ticket on
+Crowfoot's outstretched palm.
+
+"Can you tell me what that is?" he asked.
+
+Another sudden flash came into the old sportsman's eyes--he eagerly
+turned the silver ticket over.
+
+"God bless my soul!" he exclaimed. "Where did you get this?"
+
+"Never mind, just now," replied Spargo. "You know what it is?"
+
+"Certainly I know what it is! But--Gad! I've not seen one of these
+things for Lord knows how many years. It makes me feel something like a
+young 'un again!" said Crowfoot. "Quite a young 'un!"
+
+"But what is it?" asked Spargo.
+
+Crowfoot turned the ticket over, showing the side on which the heraldic
+device was almost worn away.
+
+"It's one of the original silver stand tickets of the old racecourse at
+Market Milcaster," answered Crowfoot. "That's what it is. One of the
+old original silver stand tickets. There are the arms of Market
+Milcaster, you see, nearly worn away by much rubbing. There, on the
+obverse, is the figure of a running horse. Oh, yes, that's what it is!
+Bless me!--most interesting."
+
+"Where's Market Milcaster?" enquired Spargo. "Don't know it."
+
+"Market Milcaster," replied Crowfoot, still turning the silver ticket
+over and over, "is what the topographers call a decayed town in
+Elmshire. It has steadily decayed since the river that led to it got
+gradually silted up. There used to be a famous race-meeting there in
+June every year. It's nearly forty years since that meeting fell
+through. I went to it often when I was a lad--often!"
+
+"And you say that's a ticket for the stand?" asked Spargo.
+
+"This is one of fifty silver tickets, or passes, or whatever you like
+to call 'em, which were given by the race committee to fifty burgesses
+of the town," answered Crowfoot. "It was, I remember, considered a
+great privilege to possess a silver ticket. It admitted its
+possessor--for life, mind you!--to the stand, the paddocks, the ring,
+anywhere. It also gave him a place at the annual race-dinner. Where on
+earth did you get this, Spargo?"
+
+Spargo took the ticket and carefully re-wrapped it, this time putting
+it in his purse.
+
+"I'm awfully obliged to you, Crowfoot," he said, "The fact is, I can't
+tell you where I got it just now, but I'll promise you that I will tell
+you, and all about it, too, as soon as my tongue's free to do so."
+
+"Some mystery, eh?" suggested Crowfoot.
+
+"Considerable," answered Spargo. "Don't mention to anyone that I showed
+it to you. You shall know everything eventually."
+
+"Oh, all right, my boy, all right!" said Crowfoot. "Odd how things turn
+up, isn't it? Now, I'll wager anything that there aren't half a dozen
+of these old things outside Market Milcaster itself. As I said, there
+were only fifty, and they were all in possession of burgesses. They
+were so much thought of that they were taken great care of. I've been
+in Market Milcaster myself since the races were given up, and I've seen
+these tickets carefully framed and hung over mantelpieces--oh, yes!"
+
+Spargo caught at a notion.
+
+"How do you get to Market Milcaster?" he asked.
+
+"Paddington," replied Crowfoot. "It's a goodish way."
+
+"I wonder," said Spargo, "if there's any old sporting man there who
+could remember--things. Anything about this ticket, for instance?"
+
+"Old sporting man!" exclaimed Crowfoot. "Egad!--but no, he must be
+dead--anyhow, if he isn't dead, he must be a veritable patriarch. Old
+Ben Quarterpage, he was an auctioneer in the town, and a rare
+sportsman."
+
+"I may go down there," said Spargo. "I'll see if he's alive."
+
+"Then, if you do go down," suggested Crowfoot, "go to the old 'Yellow
+Dragon' in the High Street, a fine old place. Quarterpage's place of
+business and his private house were exactly opposite the 'Dragon.' But
+I'm afraid you'll find him dead--it's five and twenty years since I was
+in Market Milcaster, and he was an old bird then. Let's see, now. If
+Old Ben Quarterpage is alive, Spargo, he'll be ninety years of age!"
+
+"Well, I've known men of ninety who were spry enough, even in my bit of
+experience," said Spargo. "I know one--now--my own grandfather. Well,
+the best of thanks, Crowfoot, and I'll tell you all about it some day."
+
+"Have another drink?" suggested Crowfoot.
+
+But Spargo excused himself. He was going back to the office, he said;
+he still had something to do. And he got himself away from the
+Octoneumenoi, in spite of Starkey, who wished to start a general debate
+on the wisest way of expending the club's ready money balance, and went
+back to the _Watchman_, and there he sought the presence of the editor,
+and in spite of the fact that it was the busiest hour of the night, saw
+him and remained closeted with him for the extraordinary space of ten
+minutes. And after that Spargo went home and fell into bed.
+
+But next morning, bright and early, he was on the departure platform at
+Paddington, suit-case in hand, and ticket in pocket for Market
+Milcaster, and in the course of that afternoon he found himself in an
+old-fashioned bedroom looking out on Market Milcaster High Street. And
+there, right opposite him, he saw an ancient house, old brick,
+ivy-covered, with an office at its side, over the door of which was the
+name, _Benjamin Quarterpage_.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER SIXTEEN
+
+THE "YELLOW DRAGON"
+
+
+Spargo, changing his clothes, washing away the dust of his journey, in
+that old-fashioned lavender-scented bedroom, busied his mind in
+further speculations on his plan of campaign in Market Milcaster. He
+had no particularly clear plan. The one thing he was certain of was
+that in the old leather box which the man whom he knew as John Marbury
+had deposited with the London and Universal Safe Deposit Company, he
+and Rathbury had discovered one of the old silver tickets of Market
+Milcaster racecourse, and that he, Spargo, had come to Market
+Milcaster, with the full approval of his editor, in an endeavour to
+trace it. How was he going to set about this difficult task?
+
+"The first thing," said Spargo to himself as he tied a new tie, "is to
+have a look round. That'll be no long job."
+
+For he had already seen as he approached the town, and as he drove from
+the station to the "Yellow Dragon" Hotel, that Market Milcaster was a
+very small place. It chiefly consisted of one long, wide
+thoroughfare--the High Street--with smaller streets leading from it on
+either side. In the High Street seemed to be everything that the town
+could show--the ancient parish church, the town hall, the market cross,
+the principal houses and shops, the bridge, beneath which ran the river
+whereon ships had once come up to the town before its mouth, four miles
+away, became impassably silted up. It was a bright, clean, little town,
+but there were few signs of trade in it, and Spargo had been quick to
+notice that in the "Yellow Dragon," a big, rambling old hostelry,
+reminiscent of the old coaching days, there seemed to be little doing.
+He had eaten a bit of lunch in the coffee-room immediately on his
+arrival; the coffee-room was big enough to accommodate a hundred and
+fifty people, but beyond himself, an old gentleman and his daughter,
+evidently tourists, two young men talking golf, a man who looked like
+an artist, and an unmistakable honeymooning couple, there was no one in
+it. There was little traffic in the wide street beneath Spargo's
+windows; little passage of people to and fro on the sidewalks; here a
+countryman drove a lazy cow as lazily along; there a farmer in his
+light cart sat idly chatting with an aproned tradesman, who had come
+out of his shop to talk to him. Over everything lay the quiet of the
+sunlight of the summer afternoon, and through the open windows stole a
+faint, sweet scent of the new-mown hay lying in the meadows outside the
+old houses.
+
+"A veritable Sleepy Hollow," mused Spargo. "Let's go down and see if
+there's anybody to talk to. Great Scott!--to think that I was in the
+poisonous atmosphere of the Octoneumenoi only sixteen hours ago!"
+
+Spargo, after losing himself in various corridors and passages, finally
+landed in the wide, stone-paved hall of the old hotel, and with a sure
+instinct turned into the bar-parlour which he had noticed when he
+entered the place. This was a roomy, comfortable, bow-windowed
+apartment, looking out upon the High Street, and was furnished and
+ornamented with the usual appurtenances of country-town hotels. There
+were old chairs and tables and sideboards and cupboards, which had
+certainly been made a century before, and seemed likely to endure for a
+century or two longer; there were old prints of the road and the chase,
+and an old oil-painting or two of red-faced gentlemen in pink coats;
+there were foxes' masks on the wall, and a monster pike in a glass case
+on a side-table; there were ancient candlesticks on the mantelpiece and
+an antique snuff-box set between them. Also there was a small,
+old-fashioned bar in a corner of the room, and a new-fashioned young
+woman seated behind it, who was yawning over a piece of fancy
+needlework, and looked at Spargo when he entered as Andromeda may have
+looked at Perseus when he made arrival at her rock. And Spargo,
+treating himself to a suitable drink and choosing a cigar to accompany
+it, noted the look, and dropped into the nearest chair.
+
+"This," he remarked, eyeing the damsel with enquiry, "appears to me to
+be a very quiet place."
+
+"Quiet!" exclaimed the lady. "Quiet?"
+
+"That," continued Spargo, "is precisely what I observed. Quiet. I see
+that you agree with me. You expressed your agreement with two shades of
+emphasis, the surprised and the scornful. We may conclude, thus far,
+that the place is undoubtedly quiet."
+
+The damsel looked at Spargo as if she considered him in the light of a
+new specimen, and picking up her needlework she quitted the bar and
+coming out into the room took a chair near his own.
+
+"It makes you thankful to see a funeral go by here," she remarked.
+"It's about all that one ever does see."
+
+"Are there many?" asked Spargo. "Do the inhabitants die much of
+inanition?"
+
+The damsel gave Spargo another critical inspection.
+
+"Oh, you're joking!" she said. "It's well you can. Nothing ever happens
+here. This place is a back number."
+
+"Even the back numbers make pleasant reading at times," murmured
+Spargo. "And the backwaters of life are refreshing. Nothing doing in
+this town, then?" he added in a louder voice.
+
+"Nothing!" replied his companion. "It's fast asleep. I came here from
+Birmingham, and I didn't know what I was coming to. In Birmingham you
+see as many people in ten minutes as you see here in ten months."
+
+"Ah!" said Spargo. "What you are suffering from is dulness. You must
+have an antidote."
+
+"Dulness!" exclaimed the damsel. "That's the right word for Market
+Milcaster. There's just a few regular old customers drop in here of a
+morning, between eleven and one. A stray caller looks in--perhaps
+during the afternoon. Then, at night, a lot of old fogies sit
+round that end of the room and talk about old times. Old times,
+indeed!--what they want in Market Milcaster is new times."
+
+Spargo pricked up his ears.
+
+"Well, but it's rather interesting to hear old fogies talk about old
+times," he said. "I love it!"
+
+"Then you can get as much of it as ever you want here," remarked the
+barmaid. "Look in tonight any time after eight o'clock, and if you
+don't know more about the history of Market Milcaster by ten than you
+did when you sat down, you must be deaf. There are some old gentlemen
+drop in here every night, regular as clockwork, who seem to feel that
+they couldn't go to bed unless they've told each other stories about
+old days which I should think they've heard a thousand times already!"
+
+"Very old men?" asked Spargo.
+
+"Methuselahs," replied the lady. "There's old Mr. Quarterpage, across
+the way there, the auctioneer, though he doesn't do any business
+now--they say he's ninety, though I'm sure you wouldn't take him for
+more than seventy. And there's Mr. Lummis, further down the
+street--he's eighty-one. And Mr. Skene, and Mr. Kaye--they're regular
+patriarchs. I've sat here and listened to them till I believe I could
+write a history of Market Milcaster since the year One."
+
+"I can conceive of that as a pleasant and profitable occupation," said
+Spargo.
+
+He chatted a while longer in a fashion calculated to cheer the
+barmaid's spirits, after which he went out and strolled around the town
+until seven o'clock, the "Dragon's" hour for dinner. There were no more
+people in the big coffee-room than there had been at lunch and Spargo
+was glad, when his solitary meal was over, to escape to the
+bar-parlour, where he took his coffee in a corner near to that sacred
+part in which the old townsmen had been reported to him to sit.
+
+"And mind you don't sit in one of their chairs," said the barmaid,
+warningly. "They all have their own special chairs and their special
+pipes there on that rack, and I suppose the ceiling would fall in if
+anybody touched pipe or chair. But you're all right there, and you'll
+hear all they've got to say."
+
+To Spargo, who had never seen anything of the sort before, and who,
+twenty-four hours previously, would have believed the thing impossible,
+the proceedings of that evening in the bar-parlour of the "Yellow
+Dragon" at Market Milcaster were like a sudden transference to the
+eighteenth century. Precisely as the clock struck eight and a bell
+began to toll somewhere in the recesses of the High Street, an old
+gentleman walked in, and the barmaid, catching Spargo's eye, gave him a
+glance which showed that the play was about to begin.
+
+"Good evening, Mr. Kaye," said the barmaid. "You're first tonight."
+
+"Evening," said Mr. Kaye and took a seat, scowled around him, and
+became silent. He was a tall, lank old gentleman, clad in rusty black
+clothes, with a pointed collar sticking up on both sides of his fringe
+of grey whisker and a voluminous black neckcloth folded several times
+round his neck, and by the expression of his countenance was inclined
+to look on life severely. "Nobody been in yet?" asked Mr. Kaye. "No,
+but here's Mr. Lummis and Mr. Skene," replied the barmaid.
+
+Two more old gentlemen entered the bar-parlour. Of these, one was a
+little, dapper-figured man, clad in clothes of an eminently sporting
+cut, and of very loud pattern; he sported a bright blue necktie, a
+flower in his lapel, and a tall white hat, which he wore at a rakish
+angle. The other was a big, portly, bearded man with a Falstaffian
+swagger and a rakish eye, who chaffed the barmaid as he entered, and
+gave her a good-humoured chuck under the chin as he passed her. These
+two also sank into chairs which seemed to have been specially designed
+to meet them, and the stout man slapped the arms of his as familiarly
+as he had greeted the barmaid. He looked at his two cronies.
+
+"Well?" he said, "Here's three of us. And there's a symposium."
+
+"Wait a bit, wait a bit," said the dapper little man. "Grandpa'll be
+here in a minute. We'll start fair."
+
+The barmaid glanced out of the window.
+
+"There's Mr. Quarterpage coming across the street now," she announced.
+"Shall I put the things on the table?"
+
+"Aye, put them on, my dear, put them on!" commanded the fat man. "Have
+all in readiness."
+
+The barmaid thereupon placed a round table before the sacred chairs,
+set out upon it a fine old punch-bowl and the various ingredients for
+making punch, a box of cigars, and an old leaden tobacco-box, and she
+had just completed this interesting prelude to the evening's discourse
+when the door opened again and in walked one of the most remarkable old
+men Spargo had ever seen. And by this time, knowing that this was the
+venerable Mr. Benjamin Quarterpage, of whom Crowfoot had told him, he
+took good stock of the newcomer as he took his place amongst his
+friends, who on their part received him with ebullitions of delight
+which were positively boyish.
+
+Mr. Quarterpage was a youthful buck of ninety--a middle-sized,
+sturdily-built man, straight as a dart, still active of limb,
+clear-eyed, and strong of voice. His clean-shaven old countenance was
+ruddy as a sun-warmed pippin; his hair was still only silvered; his
+hand was steady as a rock. His clothes of buff-coloured whipcord were
+smart and jaunty, his neckerchief as gay as if he had been going to a
+fair. It seemed to Spargo that Mr. Quarterpage had a pretty long lease
+of life before him even at his age.
+
+Spargo, in his corner, sat fascinated while the old gentlemen began
+their symposium. Another, making five, came in and joined them--the
+five had the end of the bar-parlour to themselves. Mr. Quarterpage made
+the punch with all due solemnity and ceremony; when it was ladled out
+each man lighted his pipe or took a cigar, and the tongues began to
+wag. Other folk came and went; the old gentlemen were oblivious of
+anything but their own talk. Now and then a young gentleman of the town
+dropped in to take his modest half-pint of bitter beer and to dally in
+the presence of the barmaid; such looked with awe at the patriarchs: as
+for the patriarchs themselves they were lost in the past.
+
+Spargo began to understand what the damsel behind the bar meant when
+she said that she believed she could write a history of Market
+Milcaster since the year One. After discussing the weather, the local
+events of the day, and various personal matters, the old fellows got to
+reminiscences of the past, telling tale after tale, recalling incident
+upon incident of long years before. At last they turned to memories of
+racing days at Market Milcaster. And at that Spargo determined on a
+bold stroke. Now was the time to get some information. Taking the
+silver ticket from his purse, he laid it, the heraldic device
+uppermost, on the palm of his hand, and approaching the group with a
+polite bow, said quietly:
+
+"Gentlemen, can any of you tell me anything about that?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
+
+MR. QUARTERPAGE HARKS BACK
+
+
+If Spargo had upset the old gentlemen's bowl of punch--the second of
+the evening--or had dropped an infernal machine in their midst, he
+could scarcely have produced a more startling effect than that wrought
+upon them by his sudden production of the silver ticket. Their babble
+of conversation died out; one of them dropped his pipe; another took
+his cigar out of his mouth as if he had suddenly discovered that he was
+sucking a stick of poison; all lifted astonished faces to the
+interrupter, staring from him to the shining object exhibited in his
+outstretched palm, from it back to him. And at last Mr. Quarterpage, to
+whom Spargo had more particularly addressed himself, spoke, pointing
+with great _empressement_ to the ticket.
+
+"Young gentleman!" he said, in accents that seemed to Spargo to tremble
+a little, "young gentleman, where did you get that?"
+
+"You know what it is, then?" asked Spargo, willing to dally a little
+with the matter. "You recognize it?"
+
+"Know it! Recognize it!" exclaimed Mr. Quarterpage. "Yes, and so does
+every gentleman present. And it is just because I see you are a
+stranger to this town that I ask you where you got it. Not, I think,
+young gentleman, in this town."
+
+"No," replied Spargo. "Certainly not in this town. How should I get it
+in this town if I'm a stranger?"
+
+"Quite true, quite true!" murmured Mr. Quarterpage. "I cannot conceive
+how any person in the town who is in possession of one of those--what
+shall we call them--heirlooms?--yes, heirlooms of antiquity, could
+possibly be base enough to part with it. Therefore, I ask again--Where
+did you get that, young gentleman?"
+
+"Before I tell you that," answered Spargo, who, in answer to a silent
+sign from the fat man had drawn a chair amongst them, "perhaps you will
+tell me exactly what this is? I see it to be a bit of old, polished,
+much worn silver, having on the obverse the arms or heraldic bearings
+of somebody or something; on the reverse the figure of a running horse.
+But--what is it?"
+
+The five old men all glanced at each other and made simultaneous
+grunts. Then Mr. Quarterpage spoke.
+
+"It is one of the original fifty burgess tickets of Market Milcaster,
+young sir, which gave its holder special and greatly valued privileges
+in respect to attendance at our once famous race-meeting, now
+unfortunately a thing of the past," he added. "Fifty--aye,
+forty!--years ago, to be in possession of one of those tickets
+was--was--"
+
+"A grand thing!" said one of the old gentlemen.
+
+"Mr. Lummis is right," said Mr. Quarterpage. "It was a grand thing--a
+very grand thing. Those tickets, sir, were treasured--are treasured.
+And yet you, a stranger, show us one! You got it, sir--"
+
+Spargo saw that it was now necessary to cut matters short.
+
+"I found this ticket--under mysterious circumstances--in London," he
+answered. "I want to trace it. I want to know who its original owner
+was. That is why I have come to Market Milcaster."
+
+Mr. Quarterpage slowly looked round the circle of faces.
+
+"Wonderful!" he said. "Wonderful! He found this ticket--one of our
+famous fifty--in London, and under mysterious circumstances. He wants
+to trace it--he wants to know to whom it belonged! That is why he has
+come to Market Milcaster. Most extraordinary! Gentlemen, I appeal to
+you if this is not the most extraordinary event that has happened in
+Market Milcaster for--I don't know how many years?"
+
+There was a general murmur of assent, and Spargo found everybody
+looking at him as if he had just announced that he had come to buy the
+whole town.
+
+"But--why?" he asked, showing great surprise. "Why?"
+
+"Why?" exclaimed Mr. Quarterpage. "Why? He asks--why? Because, young
+gentleman, it is the greatest surprise to me, and to these friends of
+mine, too, every man jack of 'em, to hear that any one of our fifty
+tickets ever passed out of the possession of any of the fifty families
+to whom they belonged! And unless I am vastly, greatly, most
+unexplainably mistaken, young sir, you are not a member of any Market
+Milcaster family."
+
+"No, I'm not," admitted Spargo. And he was going to add that until the
+previous evening he had never even heard of Market Milcaster, but he
+wisely refrained. "No, I'm certainly not," he added.
+
+Mr. Quarterpage waved his long pipe.
+
+"I believe," he said, "I believe that if the evening were not drawing
+to a close--it is already within a few minutes of our departure, young
+gentleman--I believe, I say, that if I had time, I could, from memory,
+give the names of the fifty families who held those tickets when the
+race-meeting came to an end. I believe I could!"
+
+"I'm sure you could!" asserted the little man in the loud suit. "Never
+was such a memory as yours, never!"
+
+"Especially for anything relating to the old racing matters," said the
+fat man. "Mr. Quarterpage is a walking encyclopaedia."
+
+"My memory is good," said Mr. Quarterpage. "It's the greatest blessing
+I have in my declining years. Yes, I am sure I could do that, with a
+little thought. And what's more, nearly every one of those fifty
+families is still in the town, or if not in the town, close by it, or
+if not close by it, I know where they are. Therefore, I cannot make out
+how this young gentleman--from London, did you say, sir?"
+
+"From London," answered Spargo.
+
+"This young gentleman from London comes to be in possession of one of
+our tickets," continued Mr. Quarterpage. "It is--wonderful! But I tell
+you what, young gentleman from London, if you will do me the honour to
+breakfast with me in the morning, sir, I will show you my racing books
+and papers and we will speedily discover who the original holder of
+that ticket was. My name, sir, is Quarterpage--Benjamin
+Quarterpage--and I reside at the ivy-covered house exactly opposite
+this inn, and my breakfast hour is nine o'clock sharp, and I shall bid
+you heartily welcome!"
+
+Spargo made his best bow.
+
+"Sir," he said, "I am greatly obliged by your kind invitation, and I
+shall consider it an honour to wait upon you to the moment."
+
+Accordingly, at five minutes to nine next morning, Spargo found himself
+in an old-fashioned parlour, looking out upon a delightful garden, gay
+with summer flowers, and being introduced by Mr. Quarterpage, Senior,
+to Mr. Quarterpage, Junior--a pleasant gentleman of sixty, always
+referred to by his father as something quite juvenile--and to Miss
+Quarterpage, a young-old lady of something a little less elderly than
+her brother, and to a breakfast table bounteously spread with all the
+choice fare of the season. Mr. Quarterpage, Senior, was as fresh and
+rosy as a cherub; it was a revelation to Spargo to encounter so old a
+man who was still in possession of such life and spirits, and of such a
+vigorous and healthy appetite.
+
+Naturally, the talk over the breakfast table ran on Spargo's possession
+of the old silver ticket, upon which subject it was evident Mr.
+Quarterpage was still exercising his intellect. And Spargo, who had
+judged it well to enlighten his host as to who he was, and had
+exhibited a letter with which the editor of the _Watchman_ had
+furnished him, told how in the exercise of his journalistic duties he
+had discovered the ticket in the lining of an old box. But he made no
+mention of the Marbury matter, being anxious to see first whither Mr.
+Quarterpage's revelations would lead him.
+
+"You have no idea, Mr. Spargo," said the old gentleman, when, breakfast
+over, he and Spargo were closeted together in a little library in which
+were abundant evidences of the host's taste in sporting matters; "you
+have no idea of the value which was attached to the possession of one
+of those silver tickets. There is mine, as you see, securely framed and
+just as securely fastened to the wall. Those fifty silver tickets, my
+dear sir, were made when our old race-meeting was initiated, in the
+year 1781. They were made in the town by a local silversmith, whose
+great-great-grandson still carries on the business. The fifty were
+distributed amongst the fifty leading burgesses of the town to be kept
+in their families for ever--nobody ever anticipated in those days that
+our race-meeting would ever be discontinued. The ticket carried great
+privileges. It made its holder, and all members of his family, male and
+female, free of the stands, rings, and paddocks. It gave the holder
+himself and his eldest son, if of age, the right to a seat at our grand
+race banquet--at which, I may tell you, Mr. Spargo, Royalty itself has
+been present in the good old days. Consequently, as you see, to be the
+holder of a silver ticket was to be somebody."
+
+"And when the race-meeting fell through?" asked Spargo. "What then?"
+
+"Then, of course, the families who held the tickets looked upon them as
+heirlooms, to be taken great care of," replied Mr. Quarterpage. "They
+were dealt with as I dealt with mine--framed on velvet, and hung up--or
+locked away: I am sure that anybody who had one took the greatest care
+of it. Now, I said last night, over there at the 'Dragon,' that I could
+repeat the names of all the families who held these tickets. So I can.
+But here"--the old gentleman drew out a drawer and produced from it a
+parchment-bound book which he handled with great reverence--"here is a
+little volume of my own handwriting--memoranda relating to Market
+Milcaster Races--in which is a list of the original holders, together
+with another list showing who held the tickets when the races were
+given up. I make bold to say, Mr. Spargo, that by going through the
+second list, I could trace every ticket--except the one you have in
+your purse."
+
+"Every one?" said Spargo, in some surprise.
+
+"Every one! For as I told you," continued Mr. Quarterpage, "the
+families are either in the town (we're a conservative people here in
+Market Milcaster and we don't move far afield) or they're just outside
+the town, or they're not far away. I can't conceive how the ticket you
+have--and it's genuine enough--could ever get out of possession of one
+of these families, and--"
+
+"Perhaps," suggested Spargo, "it never has been out of possession. I
+told you it was found in the lining of a box--that box belonged to a
+dead man."
+
+"A dead man!" exclaimed Mr. Quarterpage. "A dead man! Who could--ah!
+Perhaps--perhaps I have an idea. Yes!--an idea. I remember something
+now that I had never thought of."
+
+The old gentleman unfastened the clasp of his parchment-bound book, and
+turned over its pages until he came to one whereon was a list of names.
+He pointed this out to Spargo.
+
+"There is the list of holders of the silver tickets at the time the
+race-meetings came to an end," he said. "If you were acquainted with
+this town you would know that those are the names of our best-known
+inhabitants--all, of course, burgesses. There's mine, you
+see--Quarterpage. There's Lummis, there's Kaye, there's Skene, there's
+Templeby--the gentlemen you saw last night. All good old town names.
+They all are--on this list. I know every family mentioned. The holders
+of that time are many of them dead; but their successors have the
+tickets. Yes--and now that I think of it, there's only one man who held
+a ticket when this list was made about whom I don't know anything--at
+least, anything recent. The ticket, Mr. Spargo, which you've found must
+have been his. But I thought--I thought somebody else had it!"
+
+"And this man, sir? Who was he?" asked Spargo, intuitively conscious
+that he was coming to news. "Is his name there?"
+
+The old man ran the tip of his finger down the list of names.
+
+"There it is!" he said. "John Maitland."
+
+Spargo bent over the fine writing.
+
+"Yes, John Maitland," he observed. "And who was John Maitland?"
+
+Mr. Quarterpage shook his head. He turned to another of the many
+drawers in an ancient bureau, and began to search amongst a mass of old
+newspapers, carefully sorted into small bundles and tied up.
+
+"If you had lived in Market Milcaster one-and-twenty years ago, Mr.
+Spargo," he said, "you would have known who John Maitland was. For some
+time, sir, he was the best-known man in the place--aye, and in this
+corner of the world. But--aye, here it is--the newspaper of October
+5th, 1891. Now, Mr. Spargo, you'll find in this old newspaper who John
+Maitland was, and all about him. Now, I'll tell you what to do. I've
+just got to go into my office for an hour to talk the day's business
+over with my son--you take this newspaper out into the garden there
+with one of these cigars, and read what'll you find in it, and when
+you've read that we'll have some more talk."
+
+Spargo carried the old newspaper into the sunlit garden.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
+
+AN OLD NEWSPAPER
+
+
+As soon as Spargo unfolded the paper he saw what he wanted on the
+middle page, headed in two lines of big capitals. He lighted a cigar
+and settled down to read.
+
+"MARKET MILCASTER QUARTER SESSIONS
+
+"TRIAL OF JOHN MAITLAND
+
+"The Quarter Sessions for the Borough of Market Milcaster were held on
+Wednesday last, October 3rd, 1891, in the Town Hall, before the
+Recorder, Henry John Campernowne, Esq., K.C., who was accompanied on
+the bench by the Worshipful the Mayor of Market Milcaster (Alderman
+Pettiford), the Vicar of Market Milcaster (the Rev. P.B. Clabberton,
+M.A., R.D.), Alderman Banks, J.P., Alderman Peters, J.P., Sir Gervais
+Racton, J.P., Colonel Fludgate, J.P., Captain Murrill, J.P., and other
+magistrates and gentlemen. There was a crowded attendance of the
+public in anticipation of the trial of John Maitland, ex-manager of
+the Market Milcaster Bank, and the reserved portions of the Court were
+filled with the _�lite_ of the town and neighbourhood, including a
+considerable number of ladies who manifested the greatest interest in
+the proceedings.
+
+"The Recorder, in charging the Grand Jury, said he regretted that the
+very pleasant and gratifying experience which had been his upon the
+occasion of his last two official visits to Market Milcaster--he
+referred to the fact that on both those occasions his friend the
+Worshipful Mayor had been able to present him with a pair of white
+gloves--was not to be repeated on the present occasion. It would be
+their sad and regrettable lot to have before them a fellow-townsman
+whose family had for generations occupied a foremost position in the
+life of the borough. That fellow-townsman was charged with one of the
+most serious offences known to a commercial nation like ours: the
+offence of embezzling the moneys of the bank of which he had for many
+years been the trusted manager, and with which he had been connected
+all his life since his school days. He understood that the prisoner
+who would shortly be put before the court on his trial was about to
+plead guilty, and there would accordingly be no need for him to direct
+the gentlemen of the Grand Jury on this matter--what he had to say
+respecting the gravity and even enormity of the offence he would
+reserve. The Recorder then addressed himself to the Grand Jury on the
+merits of two minor cases, which came before the court at a later
+period of the morning, after which they retired, and having formally
+returned a true bill against the prisoner, and a petty jury, chosen
+from well-known burgesses of the town having been duly sworn.
+
+"JOHN MAITLAND, aged 42, bank manager, of the Bank House, High Street,
+Market Milcaster, was formally charged with embezzling, on April 23rd,
+1891, the sum of �4,875 10_s_. 6_d_., the moneys of his employers,
+the Market Milcaster Banking Company Ltd., and converting the same to
+his own use. The prisoner, who appeared to feel his position most
+acutely, and who looked very pale and much worn, was represented by
+Mr. Charles Doolittle, the well-known barrister of Kingshaven; Mr.
+Stephens, K.C., appeared on behalf of the prosecution.
+
+"Maitland, upon being charged, pleaded guilty.
+
+"Mr. Stephens, K.C., addressing the Recorder, said that without any
+desire to unduly press upon the prisoner, who, he ventured to think,
+had taken a very wise course in pleading guilty to that particular
+count in the indictment with which he stood charged, he felt bound,
+in the interests of justice, to set forth to the Court some
+particulars of the defalcations which had arisen through the
+prisoner's much lamented dishonesty. He proposed to offer a clear and
+succinct account of the matter. The prisoner, John Maitland, was the
+last of an old Market Milcaster family--he was, in fact, he believed,
+with the exception of his own infant son, the very last of the race.
+His father had been manager of the bank before him. Maitland himself
+had entered the service of the bank at the age of eighteen, when he
+left the local Grammar School; he succeeded his father as manager at
+the age of thirty-two; he had therefore occupied this highest position
+of trust for ten years. His directors had the fullest confidence in
+him; they relied on his honesty and his honour; they gave him
+discretionary powers such as no bank-manager, probably, ever enjoyed
+or held before. In fact, he was so trusted that he was, to all
+intents and purposes, the Market Milcaster Banking Company; in other
+words he was allowed full control over everything, and given full
+licence to do what he liked. Whether the directors were wise in
+extending such liberty to even the most trusted servant, it was not
+for him (Mr. Stephens) to say; it was some consolation, under the
+circumstances, to know that the loss would fall upon the directors,
+inasmuch as they themselves held nearly the whole of the shares. But
+he had to speak of the loss--of the serious defalcations which
+Maitland had committed. The prisoner had wisely pleaded guilty to the
+first count of the indictment. But there were no less than seventeen
+counts in the indictment. He had pleaded guilty to embezzling a sum of
+�4,875 odd. But the total amount of the defalcations, comprised in the
+seventeen counts, was no less--it seemed a most amazing sum!--than
+�221,573 8_s_. 6_d_.! There was the fact--the banking company had been
+robbed of over two hundred thousand pounds by the prisoner in the dock
+before a mere accident, the most trifling chance, had revealed to the
+astounded directors that he was robbing them at all. And the most
+serious feature of the whole case was that not one penny of this money
+had been, or ever could be, recovered. He believed that the prisoner's
+learned counsel was about to urge upon the Court that the prisoner
+himself had been tricked and deceived by another man, unfortunately
+not before the Court--a man, he understood, also well known in Market
+Milcaster, who was now dead, and therefore could not be called, but
+whether he was so tricked or deceived was no excuse for his clever and
+wholesale robbing of his employers. He had thought it necessary to put
+these facts--which would not be denied--before the Court, in order
+that it might be known how heavy the defalcations really had been, and
+that they should be considered in dealing with the prisoner.
+
+"The Recorder asked if there was no possibility of recovering any part
+of the vast sum concerned.
+
+"Mr. Stephens replied that they were informed that there was not the
+remotest chance--the money, it was said by prisoner and those acting
+on his behalf, had utterly vanished with the death of the man to whom
+he had just made reference.
+
+"Mr. Doolittle, on behalf of the prisoner, craved to address a few
+words to the Court in mitigation of sentence. He thanked Mr. Stephens
+for the considerate and eminently dispassionate manner in which he had
+outlined the main facts of the case. He had no desire to minimize the
+prisoner's guilt. But, on prisoner's behalf, he desired to tell the
+true story as to how these things came to be. Until as recently as
+three years previously the prisoner had never made the slightest
+deviation from the straight path of integrity. Unfortunately for him,
+and, he believed, for some others in Market Milcaster, there came to
+the town three years before the present proceedings, a man named
+Chamberlayne, who commenced business in the High Street as a
+stock-and-share broker. A man of good address and the most plausible
+manners, Chamberlayne attracted a good many people--amongst them his
+unfortunate client. It was matter of common knowledge that
+Chamberlayne had induced numerous persons in Market Milcaster to
+enter into financial transactions with him; it was matter of common
+repute that those transactions had not always turned out well for
+Chamberlayne's clients. Unhappily for himself, Maitland had great
+faith in Chamberlayne. He had begun to have transactions with him in a
+large way; they had gone on and on in a large way until he was
+involved to vast amounts. Believing thoroughly in Chamberlayne and
+his methods, he had entrusted him with very large sums of money.
+
+"The Recorder interrupted Mr. Doolittle at this point to ask if he was
+to understand that Mr. Doolittle was referring to the prisoner's own
+money.
+
+"Mr. Doolittle replied that he was afraid the large sums he referred
+to were the property of the bank. But the prisoner had such belief in
+Chamberlayne that he firmly anticipated that all would be well, and
+that these sums would be repaid, and that a vast profit would result
+from their use.
+
+"The Recorder remarked that he supposed the prisoner intended to put
+the profit into his own pockets.
+
+"Mr. Doolittle said at any rate the prisoner assured him that of the
+two hundred and twenty thousand pounds which was in question,
+Chamberlayne had had the immediate handling of at least two hundred
+thousand, and he, the prisoner, had not the ghost of a notion as to
+what Chamberlayne had done with it. Unfortunately for everybody, for
+the bank, for some other people, and especially for his unhappy
+client, Chamberlayne died, very suddenly, just as these proceedings
+were instituted, and so far it had been absolutely impossible to trace
+anything of the moneys concerned. He had died under mysterious
+circumstances, and there was just as much mystery about his affairs.
+
+"The Recorder observed that he was still waiting to hear what Mr.
+Doolittle had to urge in mitigation of any sentence he, the Recorder,
+might think fit to pass.
+
+"Mr. Doolittle said that he would trouble the Court with as few
+remarks as possible. All that he could urge on behalf of the
+unfortunate man in the dock was that until three years ago he had
+borne a most exemplary character, and had never committed a dishonest
+action. It had been his misfortune, his folly, to allow a plausible
+man to persuade him to these acts of dishonesty. That man had been
+called to another account, and the prisoner was left to bear the
+consequences of his association with him. It seemed as if
+Chamberlayne had made away with the money for his own purposes, and it
+might be that it would yet be recovered. He would only ask the Court
+to remember the prisoner's antecedents and his previous good conduct,
+and to bear in mind that whatever his near future might be he was, in
+a commercial sense, ruined for life.
+
+"The Recorder, in passing sentence, said that he had not heard a
+single word of valid excuse for Maitland's conduct. Such dishonesty
+must be punished in the most severe fashion, and the prisoner must go
+to penal servitude for ten years.
+
+"Maitland, who heard the sentence unmoved, was removed from the town
+later in the day to the county jail at Saxchester."
+
+Spargo read all this swiftly; then went over it again, noting certain
+points in it. At last he folded up the newspaper and turned to the
+house--to see old Quarterpage beckoning to him from the library window.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER NINETEEN
+
+THE CHAMBERLAYNE STORY
+
+
+"I perceive, sir," said Mr. Quarterpage, as Spargo entered the library,
+"that you have read the account of the Maitland trial."
+
+"Twice," replied Spargo.
+
+"And you have come to the conclusion that--but what conclusion have you
+come to?" asked Mr. Quarterpage.
+
+"That the silver ticket in my purse was Maitland's property," said
+Spargo, who was not going to give all his conclusions at once.
+
+"Just so," agreed the old gentleman. "I think so--I can't think
+anything else. But I was under the impression that I could have
+accounted for that ticket, just as I am sure I can account for the
+other forty-nine."
+
+"Yes--and how?" asked Spargo.
+
+Mr. Quarterpage turned to a corner cupboard and in silence produced a
+decanter and two curiously-shaped old wine-glasses. He carefully
+polished the glasses with a cloth which he took from a drawer, and set
+glasses and decanter on a table in the window, motioning Spargo to take
+a chair in proximity thereto. He himself pulled up his own elbow-chair.
+
+"We'll take a glass of my old brown sherry," he said. "Though I say it
+as shouldn't, as the saying goes, I don't think you could find better
+brown sherry than that from Land's End to Berwick-upon-Tweed, Mr.
+Spargo--no, nor further north either, where they used to have good
+taste in liquor in my young days! Well, here's your good health, sir,
+and I'll tell you about Maitland."
+
+"I'm curious," said Spargo. "And about more than Maitland. I want to
+know about a lot of things arising out of that newspaper report. I want
+to know something about the man referred to so much--the stockbroker,
+Chamberlayne."
+
+"Just so," observed Mr. Quarterpage, smiling. "I thought that would
+touch your sense of the inquisitive. But Maitland first. Now, when
+Maitland went to prison, he left behind him a child, a boy, just then
+about two years old. The child's mother was dead. Her sister, a Miss
+Baylis, appeared on the scene--Maitland had married his wife from a
+distance--and took possession of the child and of Maitland's personal
+effects. He had been made bankrupt while he was awaiting his trial, and
+all his household goods were sold. But this Miss Baylis took some small
+personal things, and I always believed that she took the silver ticket.
+And she may have done, for anything I know to the contrary. Anyway, she
+took the child away, and there was an end of the Maitland family in
+Market Milcaster. Maitland, of course, was in due procedure of things
+removed to Dartmoor, and there he served his term. There were people
+who were very anxious to get hold of him when he came out--the bank
+people, for they believed that he knew more about the disposition of
+that money than he'd ever told, and they wanted to induce him to tell
+what they hoped he knew--between ourselves, Mr. Spargo, they were going
+to make it worth his while to tell."
+
+Spargo tapped the newspaper, which he had retained while the old
+gentleman talked.
+
+"Then they didn't believe what his counsel said--that Chamberlayne got
+all the money?" he asked.
+
+Mr. Quarterpage laughed.
+
+"No--nor anybody else!" he answered. "There was a strong idea in the
+town--you'll see why afterwards--that it was all a put-up job, and
+that Maitland cheerfully underwent his punishment knowing that there
+was a nice fortune waiting for him when he came out. And as I say, the
+bank people meant to get hold of him. But though they sent a special
+agent to meet him on his release, they never did get hold of him. Some
+mistake arose--when Maitland was released, he got clear away. Nobody's
+ever heard a word of him from that day to this. Unless Miss Baylis
+has."
+
+"Where does this Miss Baylis live?" asked Spargo.
+
+"Well, I don't know," replied Mr. Quarterpage. "She did live in
+Brighton when she took the child away, and her address was known, and I
+have it somewhere. But when the bank people sought her out after
+Maitland's release, she, too, had clean disappeared, and all efforts to
+trace her failed. In fact, according to the folks who lived near her in
+Brighton, she'd completely disappeared, with the child, five years
+before. So there wasn't a clue to Maitland. He served his time--made a
+model prisoner--they did find that much out!--earned the maximum
+remission, was released, and vanished. And for that very reason there's
+a theory about him in this very town to this very day!"
+
+"What?" asked Spargo.
+
+"This. That he's now living comfortably, luxuriously abroad on what he
+got from the bank," replied Mr. Quarterpage. "They say that the
+sister-in-law was in at the game; that when she disappeared with the
+child, she went abroad somewhere and made a home ready for Maitland,
+and that he went off to them as soon as he came out. Do you see?"
+
+"I suppose that was possible," said Spargo.
+
+"Quite possible, sir. But now," continued the old gentleman,
+replenishing the glasses, "now we come on to the Chamberlayne story.
+It's a good deal more to do with the Maitland story than appears at
+first sight, I'll tell it to you and you can form your own conclusions.
+Chamberlayne was a man who came to Market Milcaster--I don't know from
+where--in 1886--five years before the Maitland smash-up. He was then
+about Maitland's age--a man of thirty-seven or eight. He came as clerk
+to old Mr. Vallas, the rope and twine manufacturer: Vallas's place is
+still there, at the bottom of the High Street, near the river, though
+old Vallas is dead. He was a smart, cute, pushing chap, this
+Chamberlayne; he made himself indispensable to old Vallas, and old
+Vallas paid him a rare good salary. He settled down in the town, and he
+married a town girl, one of the Corkindales, the saddlers, when he'd
+been here three years. Unfortunately she died in childbirth within a
+year of their marriage. It was very soon after that that Chamberlayne
+threw up his post at Vallas's, and started business as a stock-and-share
+broker. He'd been a saving man; he'd got a nice bit of money with
+his wife; he always let it be known that he had money of his own, and
+he started in a good way. He was a man of the most plausible manners:
+he'd have coaxed butter out of a dog's throat if he'd wanted to. The
+moneyed men of the town believed in him--I believed in him myself, Mr.
+Spargo--I'd many a transaction with him, and I never lost aught by
+him--on the contrary, he did very well for me. He did well for most of
+his clients--there were, of course, ups and downs, but on the whole he
+satisfied his clients uncommonly well. But, naturally, nobody ever knew
+what was going on between him and Maitland."
+
+"I gather from this report," said Spargo, "that everything came out
+suddenly--unexpectedly?"
+
+"That was so, sir," replied Mr. Quarterpage. "Sudden? Unexpected? Aye,
+as a crack of thunder on a fine winter's day. Nobody had the ghost of a
+notion that anything was wrong. John Maitland was much respected in the
+town; much thought of by everybody; well known to everybody. I can
+assure you, Mr. Spargo, that it was no pleasant thing to have to sit on
+that grand jury as I did--I was its foreman, sir,--and hear a man
+sentenced that you'd regarded as a bosom friend. But there it was!"
+
+"How was the thing discovered?" asked Spargo, anxious to get at facts.
+
+"In this way," replied Mr. Quarterpage. "The Market Milcaster Bank is
+in reality almost entirely the property of two old families in the
+town, the Gutchbys and the Hostables. Owing to the death of his father,
+a young Hostable, fresh from college, came into the business. He was a
+shrewd, keen young fellow; he got some suspicion, somehow, about
+Maitland, and he insisted on the other partners consenting to a special
+investigation, and on their making it suddenly. And Maitland was caught
+before he had a chance. But we're talking about Chamberlayne."
+
+"Yes, about Chamberlayne," agreed Spargo.
+
+"Well, now, Maitland was arrested one evening," continued Mr.
+Quarterpage. "Of course, the news of his arrest ran through the town
+like wild-fire. Everybody was astonished; he was at that time--aye, and
+had been for years--a churchwarden at the Parish Church, and I don't
+think there could have been more surprise if we'd heard that the Vicar
+had been arrested for bigamy. In a little town like this, news is all
+over the place in a few minutes. Of course, Chamberlayne would hear
+that news like everybody else. But it was remembered, and often
+remarked upon afterwards, that from the moment of Maitland's arrest
+nobody in Market Milcaster ever had speech with Chamberlayne again.
+After his wife's death he'd taken to spending an hour or so of an
+evening across there at the 'Dragon,' where you saw me and my friends
+last night, but on that night he didn't go to the 'Dragon.' And next
+morning he caught the eight o'clock train to London. He happened to
+remark to the stationmaster as he got into the train that he expected
+to be back late that night, and that he should have a tiring day of it.
+But Chamberlayne didn't come back that night, Mr. Spargo. He didn't
+come back to Market Milcaster for four days, and when he did come back
+it was in a coffin!"
+
+"Dead?" exclaimed Spargo. "That was sudden!"
+
+"Very sudden," agreed Mr. Quarterpage. "Yes, sir, he came back in his
+coffin, did Chamberlayne. On the very evening on which he'd spoken of
+being back, there came a telegram here to say that he'd died very
+suddenly at the Cosmopolitan Hotel. That telegram came to his
+brother-in-law, Corkindale, the saddler--you'll find him down the
+street, opposite the Town Hall. It was sent to Corkindale by a nephew
+of Chamberlayne's, another Chamberlayne, Stephen, who lived in London,
+and was understood to be on the Stock Exchange there. I saw that
+telegram, Mr. Spargo, and it was a long one. It said that Chamberlayne
+had had a sudden seizure, and though a doctor had been got to him he'd
+died shortly afterwards. Now, as Chamberlayne had his nephew and
+friends in London, his brother-in-law, Tom Corkindale, didn't feel that
+there was any necessity for him to go up to town, so he just sent off a
+wire to Stephen Chamberlayne asking if there was aught he could do. And
+next morning came another wire from Stephen saying that no inquest
+would be necessary, as the doctor had been present and able to certify
+the cause of death, and would Corkindale make all arrangements for the
+funeral two days later. You see, Chamberlayne had bought a vault in our
+cemetery when he buried his wife, so naturally they wished to bury him
+in it, with her."
+
+Spargo nodded. He was beginning to imagine all sorts of things and
+theories; he was taking everything in.
+
+"Well," continued Mr. Quarterpage, "on the second day after that, they
+brought Chamberlayne's body down. Three of 'em came with it--Stephen
+Chamberlayne, the doctor who'd been called in, and a solicitor.
+Everything was done according to proper form and usage. As Chamberlayne
+had been well known in the town, a good number of townsfolk met the
+body at the station and followed it to the cemetery. Of course, many of
+us who had been clients of Chamberlayne's were anxious to know how he
+had come to such a sudden end. According to Stephen Chamberlayne's
+account, our Chamberlayne had wired to him and to his solicitor to meet
+him at the Cosmopolitan to do some business. They were awaiting him
+there when he arrived, and they had lunch together. After that, they
+got to their business in a private room. Towards the end of the
+afternoon, Chamberlayne was taken suddenly ill, and though they got a
+doctor to him at once, he died before evening. The doctor said he'd a
+diseased heart. Anyhow, he was able to certify the cause of his death,
+so there was no inquest and they buried him, as I have told you."
+
+The old gentleman paused and, taking a sip at his sherry, smiled at
+some reminiscence which occurred to him.
+
+"Well," he said, presently going on, "of course, on that came all the
+Maitland revelations, and Maitland vowed and declared that Chamberlayne
+had not only had nearly all the money, but that he was absolutely
+certain that most of it was in his hands in hard cash. But
+Chamberlayne, Mr. Spargo, had left practically nothing. All that could
+be traced was about three or four thousand pounds. He'd left everything
+to his nephew, Stephen. There wasn't a trace, a clue to the vast sums
+with which Maitland had entrusted him. And then people began to talk,
+and they said what some of them say to this very day!"
+
+"What's that?" asked Spargo.
+
+Mr. Quarterpage leaned forward and tapped his guest on the arm.
+
+"That Chamberlayne never did die, and that that coffin was weighted
+with lead!" he answered.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY
+
+MAITLAND _ALIAS_ MARBURY
+
+
+This remarkable declaration awoke such a new conception of matters in
+Spargo's mind, aroused such infinitely new possibilities in his
+imagination, that for a full moment he sat silently staring at his
+informant, who chuckled with quiet enjoyment at his visitor's surprise.
+
+"Do you mean to tell me," said Spargo at last, "that there are people
+in this town who still believe that the coffin in your cemetery which
+is said to contain Chamberlayne's body contains--lead?"
+
+"Lots of 'em, my dear sir!" replied Mr. Quarterpage. "Lots of 'em! Go
+out in the street and ask the first six men you meet, and I'll go
+bail that four out of the six believe it."
+
+"Then why, in the sacred name of common sense did no one ever take
+steps to make certain?" asked Spargo. "Why didn't they get an order for
+exhumation?"
+
+"Because it was nobody's particular business to do so," answered Mr.
+Quarterpage. "You don't know country-town life, my dear sir. In towns
+like Market Milcaster folks talk and gossip a great deal, but they're
+always slow to do anything. It's a case of who'll start first--of
+initiative. And if they see it's going to cost anything--then they'll
+have nothing to do with it."
+
+"But--the bank people?" suggested Spargo.
+
+Mr. Quarterpage shook his head.
+
+"They're amongst the lot who believe that Chamberlayne did die," he
+said. "They're very old-fashioned, conservative-minded people, the
+Gutchbys and the Hostables, and they accepted the version of the
+nephew, and the doctor, and the solicitor. But now I'll tell you
+something about those three. There was a man here in the town, a
+gentleman of your own profession, who came to edit that paper you've
+got on your knee. He got interested in this Chamberlayne case, and he
+began to make enquiries with the idea of getting hold of some
+good--what do you call it?"
+
+"I suppose he'd call it 'copy,'" said Spargo.
+
+"'Copy'--that was his term," agreed Mr. Quarterpage. "Well, he took the
+trouble to go to London to ask some quiet questions of the nephew,
+Stephen. That was just twelve months after Chamberlayne had been
+buried. But he found that Stephen Chamberlayne had left England--months
+before. Gone, they said, to one of the colonies, but they didn't know
+which. And the solicitor had also gone. And the doctor--couldn't be
+traced, no, sir, not even through the Medical Register. What do you
+think of all that, Mr. Spargo?"
+
+"I think," answered Spargo, "that Market Milcaster folk are
+considerably slow. I should have had that death and burial enquired
+into. The whole thing looks to me like a conspiracy."
+
+"Well, sir, it was, as I say, nobody's business," said Mr. Quarterpage.
+"The newspaper gentleman tried to stir up interest in it, but it was no
+good, and very soon afterwards he left. And there it is."
+
+"Mr. Quarterpage," said Spargo, "what's your own honest opinion?"
+
+The old gentleman smiled.
+
+"Ah!" he said. "I've often wondered, Mr. Spargo, if I really have an
+opinion on that point. I think that what I probably feel about the
+whole affair is that there was a good deal of mystery attaching to it.
+But we seem, sir, to have gone a long way from the question of that old
+silver ticket which you've got in your purse. Now----"
+
+"No!" said Spargo, interrupting his host with an accompanying wag of
+his forefinger. "No! I think we're coming nearer to it. Now you've
+given me a great deal of your time, Mr. Quarterpage, and told me a lot,
+and, first of all, before I tell you a lot, I'm going to show you
+something."
+
+And Spargo took out of his pocket-book a carefully-mounted photograph
+of John Marbury--the original of the process-picture which he had had
+made for the _Watchman_. He handed it over.
+
+"Do you recognize that photograph as that of anybody you know?" he
+asked. "Look at it well and closely."
+
+Mr. Quarterpage put on a special pair of spectacles and studied the
+photograph from several points of view.
+
+"No, sir," he said at last with a shake of the head. "I don't recognize
+it at all."
+
+"Can't see in it any resemblance to any man you've ever known?" asked
+Spargo.
+
+"No, sir, none!" replied Mr. Quarterpage. "None whatever."
+
+"Very well," said Spargo, laying the photograph on the table between
+them. "Now, then, I want you to tell me what John Maitland was like
+when you knew him. Also, I want you to describe Chamberlayne as he was
+when he died, or was supposed to die. You remember them, of course,
+quite well?"
+
+Mr. Quarterpage got up and moved to the door.
+
+"I can do better than that," he said. "I can show you photographs of
+both men as they were just before Maitland's trial. I have a photograph
+of a small group of Market Milcaster notabilities which was taken at a
+municipal garden-party; Maitland and Chamberlayne are both in it. It's
+been put away in a cabinet in my drawing-room for many a long year, and
+I've no doubt it's as fresh as when it was taken."
+
+He left the room and presently returned with a large mounted photograph
+which he laid on the table before his visitor.
+
+"There you are, sir," he said. "Quite fresh, you see--it must be
+getting on to twenty years since that was taken out of the drawer that
+it's been kept in. Now, that's Maitland. And that's Chamberlayne."
+
+Spargo found himself looking at a group of men who stood against an
+ivy-covered wall in the stiff attitudes in which photographers arrange
+masses of sitters. He fixed his attention on the two figures indicated
+by Mr. Quarterpage, and saw two medium-heighted, rather sturdily-built
+men about whom there was nothing very specially noticeable.
+
+"Um!" he said, musingly. "Both bearded."
+
+"Yes, they both wore beards--full beards," assented Mr. Quarterpage.
+"And you see, they weren't so much alike. But Maitland was a much
+darker man than Chamberlayne, and he had brown eyes, while
+Chamberlayne's were rather a bright blue."
+
+"The removal of a beard makes a great difference," remarked Spargo. He
+looked at the photograph of Maitland in the group, comparing it with
+that of Marbury which he had taken from his pocket. "And twenty years
+makes a difference, too," he added musingly.
+
+"To some people twenty years makes a vast difference, sir," said the
+old gentleman. "To others it makes none--I haven't changed much, they
+tell me, during the past twenty years. But I've known men change--age,
+almost beyond recognition!--in five years. It depends, sir, on what
+they go through."
+
+Spargo suddenly laid aside the photographs, put his hands in his
+pockets, and looked steadfastly at Mr. Quarterpage.
+
+"Look here!" he said. "I'm going to tell you what I'm after, Mr.
+Quarterpage. I'm sure you've heard all about what's known as the Middle
+Temple Murder--the Marbury case?"
+
+"Yes, I've read of it," replied Mr. Quarterpage.
+
+"Have you read the accounts of it in my paper, the _Watchman_?" asked
+Spargo.
+
+Mr. Quarterpage shook his head.
+
+"I've only read one newspaper, sir, since I was a young man," he
+replied. "I take the _Times_, sir--we always took it, aye, even in the
+days when newspapers were taxed."
+
+"Very good," said Spargo. "But perhaps I can tell you a little more
+than you've read, for I've been working up that case ever since the
+body of the man known as John Marbury was found. Now, if you'll just
+give me your attention, I'll tell you the whole story from that moment
+until--now."
+
+And Spargo, briefly, succinctly, re-told the story of the Marbury case
+from the first instant of his own connection with it until the
+discovery of the silver ticket, and Mr. Quarterpage listened in rapt
+attention, nodding his head from time to time as the younger man made
+his points.
+
+"And now, Mr. Quarterpage," concluded Spargo, "this is the point I've
+come to. I believe that the man who came to the Anglo-Orient Hotel as
+John Marbury and who was undoubtedly murdered in Middle Temple Lane
+that night, was John Maitland--I haven't a doubt about it after
+learning what you tell me about the silver ticket. I've found out a
+great deal that's valuable here, and I think I'm getting nearer to a
+solution of the mystery. That is, of course, to find out who murdered
+John Maitland, or Marbury. What you have told me about the Chamberlayne
+affair has led me to think this--there may have been people, or a
+person, in London, who was anxious to get Marbury, as we'll call him,
+out of the way, and who somehow encountered him that night--anxious to
+silence him, I mean, because of the Chamberlayne affair. And I
+wondered, as there is so much mystery about him, and as he won't give
+any account of himself, if this man Aylmore was really Chamberlayne.
+Yes, I wondered that! But Aylmore's a tall, finely-built man, quite six
+feet in height, and his beard, though it's now getting grizzled, has
+been very dark, and Chamberlayne, you say, was a medium-sized, fair
+man, with blue eyes."
+
+"That's so, sir," assented Mr. Quarterpage. "Yes, a middling-sized man,
+and fair--very fair. Deary me, Mr. Spargo!--this is a revelation. And
+you really think, sir, that John Maitland and John Marbury are one and
+the same person?"
+
+"I'm sure of it, now," said Spargo. "I see it in this way. Maitland, on
+his release, went out to Australia, and there he stopped. At last he
+comes back, evidently well-to-do. He's murdered the very day of his
+arrival. Aylmore is the only man who knows anything of him--Aylmore
+won't tell all he knows; that's flat. But Aylmore's admitted that he
+knew him at some vague date, say from twenty-one to twenty-two or three
+years ago. Now, where did Aylmore know him? He says in London. That's a
+vague term. He won't say where--he won't say anything definite--he
+won't even say what he, Aylmore, himself was in those days. Do you
+recollect anything of anybody like Aylmore coming here to see Maitland,
+Mr. Quarterpage?"
+
+"I don't," answered Mr. Quarterpage. "Maitland was a very quiet,
+retiring fellow, sir: he was about the quietest man in the town. I
+never remember that he had visitors; certainly I've no recollection of
+such a friend of his as this Aylmore, from your description of him,
+would be at that time."
+
+"Did Maitland go up to London much in those days?" asked Spargo.
+
+Mr. Quarterpage laughed.
+
+"Well, now, to show you what a good memory I have," he said, "I'll tell
+you of something that occurred across there at the 'Dragon' only a few
+months before the Maitland affair came out. There were some of us in
+there one evening, and, for a rare thing, Maitland came in with
+Chamberlayne. Chamberlayne happened to remark that he was going up to
+town next day--he was always to and fro--and we got talking about
+London. And Maitland said in course of conversation, that he believed
+he was about the only man of his age in England--and, of course, he
+meant of his class and means--who'd never even seen London! And I don't
+think he ever went there between that time and his trial: in fact, I'm
+sure he didn't, for if he had, I should have heard of it."
+
+"Well, that's queer," remarked Spargo. "It's very queer. For I'm
+certain Maitland and Marbury are one and the same person. My theory
+about that old leather box is that Maitland had that carefully planted
+before his arrest; that he dug it up when he came put of Dartmoor; that
+he took it off to Australia with him; that he brought it back with him;
+and that, of course, the silver ticket and the photograph had been in
+it all these years. Now----"
+
+At that moment the door of the library was opened, and a parlourmaid
+looked in at her master.
+
+"There's the boots from the 'Dragon' at the front door, sir," she said.
+"He's brought two telegrams across from there for Mr. Spargo, thinking
+he might like to have them at once."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
+
+ARRESTED
+
+
+Spargo hurried out to the hall, took the two telegrams from the boots
+of the "Dragon," and, tearing open the envelopes, read the messages
+hastily. He went back to Mr. Quarterpage.
+
+"Here's important news," he said as he closed the library door and
+resumed his seat. "I'll read these telegrams to you, sir, and then we
+can discuss them in the light of what we've been talking about this
+morning. The first is from our office. I told you we sent over to
+Australia for a full report about Marbury at the place he said he
+hailed from--Coolumbidgee. That report's just reached the _Watchman_,
+and they've wired it on to me. It's from the chief of police at
+Coolumbidgee to the editor of the _Watchman_, London:--
+
+"John Marbury came to Coolumbidgee in the winter of 1898-9. He was
+unaccompanied. He appeared to be in possession of fairly considerable
+means and bought a share in a small sheep-farm from its proprietor,
+Andrew Robertson, who is still here, and who says that Marbury never
+told him anything about himself except that he had emigrated for health
+reasons and was a widower. He mentioned that he had had a son who was
+dead, and was now without relations. He lived a very quiet, steady life
+on the sheep-farm, never leaving it for many years. About six months
+ago, however, he paid a visit to Melbourne, and on returning told
+Robertson that he had decided to return to England in consequence of
+some news he had received, and must therefore sell his share in the
+farm. Robertson bought it from him for three thousand pounds, and
+Marbury shortly afterwards left for Melbourne. From what we could
+gather, Robertson thinks Marbury was probably in command of five or six
+thousand when he left Coolumbidgee. He told Robertson that he had met a
+man in Melbourne who had given him news that surprised him, but did not
+say what news. He had in his possession when he left Robertson exactly
+the luggage he brought with him when he came--a stout portmanteau and a
+small, square leather box. There are no effects of his left behind at
+Coolumbidgee."
+
+"That's all," said Spargo, laying the first of the telegrams on the
+table. "And it seems to me to signify a good deal. But now here's more
+startling news. This is from Rathbury, the Scotland Yard detective that
+I told you of, Mr. Quarterpage--he promised, you know, to keep me
+posted in what went on in my absence. Here's what he says:
+
+"Fresh evidence tending to incriminate Aylmore has come to hand.
+Authorities have decided to arrest him on suspicion. You'd better hurry
+back if you want material for to-morrow's paper."
+
+Spargo threw that telegram down, too, waited while the old gentleman
+glanced at both of them with evident curiosity, and then jumped up.
+
+"Well, I shall have to go, Mr. Quarterpage," he said. "I looked the
+trains out this morning so as to be in readiness. I can catch the 1.20
+to Paddington--that'll get me in before half-past four. I've an hour
+yet. Now, there's another man I want to see in Market Milcaster. That's
+the photographer--or a photographer. You remember I told you of the
+photograph found with the silver ticket? Well, I'm calculating that
+that photograph was taken here, and I want to see the man who took
+it--if he's alive and I can find him."
+
+Mr. Quarterpage rose and put on his hat.
+
+"There's only one photographer in this town, sir," he said, "and he's
+been here for a good many years--Cooper. I'll take you to him--it's
+only a few doors away."
+
+Spargo wasted no time in letting the photographer know what he wanted.
+He put a direct question to Mr. Cooper--an elderly man.
+
+"Do you remember taking a photograph of the child of John Maitland, the
+bank manager, some twenty or twenty-one years ago?" he asked, after Mr.
+Quarterpage had introduced him as a gentleman from London who wanted to
+ask a few questions.
+
+"Quite well, sir," replied Mr. Cooper. "As well as if it had been
+yesterday."
+
+"Do you still happen to have a copy of it?" asked Spargo.
+
+But Mr. Cooper had already turned to a row of file albums. He took down
+one labelled 1891, and began to search its pages. In a minute or two he
+laid it on his table before his callers.
+
+"There you are, sir," he said. "That's the child!"
+
+Spargo gave one glance at the photograph and turned to Mr. Quarterpage.
+"Just as I thought," he said. "That's the same photograph we found in
+the leather box with the silver ticket. I'm obliged to you, Mr. Cooper.
+Now, there's just one more question I want to ask. Did you ever supply
+any further copies of this photograph to anybody after the Maitland
+affair?--that is; after the family had left the town?"
+
+"Yes," replied the photographer. "I supplied half a dozen copies to
+Miss Baylis, the child's aunt, who, as a matter of fact, brought him
+here to be photographed. And I can give you her address, too," he
+continued, beginning to turn over another old file. "I have it
+somewhere."
+
+Mr. Quarterpage nudged Spargo.
+
+"That's something I couldn't have done!" he remarked. "As I told you,
+she'd disappeared from Brighton when enquiries were made after
+Maitland's release."
+
+"Here you are," said Mr. Cooper. "I sent six copies of that photograph
+to Miss Baylis in April, 1895. Her address was then 6, Chichester
+Square, Bayswater, W."
+
+Spargo rapidly wrote this address down, thanked the photographer for
+his courtesy, and went out with Mr. Quarterpage. In the street he
+turned to the old gentleman with a smile.
+
+"Well, I don't think there's much doubt about that!" he exclaimed.
+"Maitland and Marbury are the same man, Mr. Quarterpage. I'm as certain
+of that as that I see your Town Hall there."
+
+"And what will you do next, sir?" enquired Mr. Quarterpage.
+
+"Thank you--as I do--for all your kindness and assistance, and get off
+to town by this 1.20," replied Spargo. "And I shan't fail to let you
+know how things go on."
+
+"One moment," said the old gentleman, as Spargo was hurrying away, "do
+you think this Mr. Aylmore really murdered Maitland?"
+
+"No!" answered Spargo with emphasis. "I don't! And I think we've got a
+good deal to do before we find out who did."
+
+Spargo purposely let the Marbury case drop out of his mind during his
+journey to town. He ate a hearty lunch in the train and talked with his
+neighbours; it was a relief to let his mind and attention turn to
+something else than the theme which had occupied it unceasingly for so
+many days. But at Reading the newspaper boys were shouting the news of
+the arrest of a Member of Parliament, and Spargo, glancing out of the
+window, caught sight of a newspaper placard:
+
+  THE MARBURY MURDER CASE
+  ARREST OF MR. AYLMORE
+
+He snatched a paper from a boy as the train moved out and, unfolding
+it, found a mere announcement in the space reserved for stop-press
+news:
+
+"Mr. Stephen Aylmore, M.P., was arrested at two o'clock this afternoon,
+on his way to the House of Commons, on a charge of being concerned in
+the murder of John Marbury in Middle Temple Lane on the night of June
+21st last. It is understood he will be brought up at Bow Street at ten
+o'clock tomorrow morning."
+
+Spargo hurried to New Scotland Yard as soon as he reached Paddington.
+He met Rathbury coming away from his room. At sight of him, the
+detective turned back.
+
+"Well, so there you are!" he said. "I suppose you've heard the news?"
+
+Spargo nodded as he dropped into a chair.
+
+"What led to it?" he asked abruptly. "There must have been something."
+
+"There was something," he replied. "The thing--stick, bludgeon,
+whatever you like to call it, some foreign article--with which Marbury
+was struck down was found last night."
+
+"Well?" asked Spargo.
+
+"It was proved to be Aylmore's property," answered Rathbury. "It was a
+South American curio that he had in his rooms in Fountain Court."
+
+"Where was it found?" asked Spargo.
+
+Rathbury laughed.
+
+"He was a clumsy fellow who did it, whether he was Aylmore or whoever
+he was!" he replied. "Do you know, it had been dropped into a
+sewer-trap in Middle Temple Lane--actually! Perhaps the murderer
+thought it would be washed out into the Thames and float away. But, of
+course, it was bound to come to light. A sewer man found it yesterday
+evening, and it was quickly recognized by the woman who cleans up for
+Aylmore as having been in his rooms ever since she knew them."
+
+"What does Aylmore say about it?" asked Spargo. "I suppose he's said
+something?"
+
+"Says that the bludgeon is certainly his, and that he brought
+it from South America with him," announced Rathbury; "but that
+he doesn't remember seeing it in his rooms for some time, and thinks
+that it was stolen from them."
+
+"Um!" said Spargo, musingly. "But--how do you know that was the thing
+that Marbury was struck down with?"
+
+Rathbury smiled grimly.
+
+"There's some of his hair on it--mixed with blood," he answered. "No
+doubt about that. Well--anything come of your jaunt westward?"
+
+"Yes," replied Spargo. "Lots!"
+
+"Good?" asked Rathbury.
+
+"Extra good. I've found out who Marbury really was."
+
+"No! Really?"
+
+"No doubt, to my mind. I'm certain of it."
+
+Rathbury sat down at his desk, watching Spargo with rapt attention.
+
+"And who was he?" he asked.
+
+"John Maitland, once of Market Milcaster," replied Spargo. "Ex-bank
+manager. Also ex-convict."
+
+"Ex-convict!"
+
+"Ex-convict. He was sentenced, at Market Milcaster Quarter Sessions, in
+autumn, 1891, to ten years' penal servitude, for embezzling the bank's
+money, to the tune of over two hundred thousand pounds. Served his term
+at Dartmoor. Went to Australia as soon, or soon after, he came out.
+That's who Marbury was--Maitland. Dead--certain!"
+
+Rathbury still stared at his caller.
+
+"Go on!" he said. "Tell all about it, Spargo. Let's hear every detail.
+I'll tell you all I know after. But what I know's nothing to that."
+
+Spargo told him the whole story of his adventures at Market Milcaster,
+and the detective listened with rapt attention.
+
+"Yes," he said at the end. "Yes--I don't think there's much doubt about
+that. Well, that clears up a lot, doesn't it?"
+
+Spargo yawned.
+
+"Yes, a whole slate full is wiped off there," he said. "I haven't so
+much interest in Marbury, or Maitland now. My interest is all in
+Aylmore."
+
+Rathbury nodded.
+
+"Yes," he said. "The thing to find out is--who is Aylmore, or who was
+he, twenty years ago?"
+
+"Your people haven't found anything out, then?" asked Spargo.
+
+"Nothing beyond the irreproachable history of Mr. Aylmore since he
+returned to this country, a very rich man, some ten years since,"
+answered Rathbury, smiling. "They've no previous dates to go on. What
+are you going to do next, Spargo?"
+
+"Seek out that Miss Baylis," replied Spargo.
+
+"You think you could get something there?" asked Rathbury.
+
+"Look here!" said Spargo. "I don't believe for a second Aylmore killed
+Marbury. I believe I shall get at the truth by following up what I call
+the Maitland trail. This Miss Baylis must know something--if she's
+alive. Well, now I'm going to report at the office. Keep in touch with
+me, Rathbury."
+
+He went on then to the _Watchman_ office, and as he got out of his
+taxi-cab at its door, another cab came up and set down Mr. Aylmore's
+daughters.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
+
+THE BLANK PAST
+
+
+Jessie Aylmore came forward to meet Spargo with ready confidence; the
+elder girl hung back diffidently.
+
+"May we speak to you?" said Jessie. "We have come on purpose to speak
+to you. Evelyn didn't want to come, but I made her come."
+
+Spargo shook hands silently with Evelyn Aylmore and motioned them both
+to follow him. He took them straight upstairs to his room and bestowed
+them in his easiest chairs before he addressed them.
+
+"I've only just got back to town," he said abruptly. "I was sorry to
+hear the news about your father. That's what's brought you here, of
+course. But--I'm afraid I can't do much."
+
+"I told you that we had no right to trouble Mr. Spargo, Jessie," said
+Evelyn Aylmore. "What can he do to help us?"
+
+Jessie shook her head impatiently.
+
+"The _Watchman's_ about the most powerful paper in London, isn't it?"
+she said. "And isn't Mr. Spargo writing all these articles about the
+Marbury case? Mr. Spargo, you must help us!"
+
+Spargo sat down at his desk and began turning over the letters and
+papers which had accumulated during his absence.
+
+"To be absolutely frank with you," he said, presently, "I don't see how
+anybody's going to help, so long as your father keeps up that mystery
+about the past."
+
+"That," said Evelyn, quietly, "is exactly what Ronald says, Jessie. But
+we can't make our father speak, Mr. Spargo. That he is as innocent as
+we are of this terrible crime we are certain, and we don't know why he
+wouldn't answer the questions put to him at the inquest. And--we know
+no more than you know or anyone knows, and though I have begged my
+father to speak, he won't say a word. We saw his danger: Ronald--Mr.
+Breton--told us, and we implored him to tell everything he knew about
+Mr. Marbury. But so far he has simply laughed at the idea that he had
+anything to do with the murder, or could be arrested for it, and
+now----"
+
+"And now he's locked up," said Spargo in his usual matter-of-fact
+fashion. "Well, there are people who have to be saved from themselves,
+you know. Perhaps you'll have to save your father from the consequences
+of his own--shall we say obstinacy? Now, look here, between ourselves,
+how much do you know about your father's--past?"
+
+The two sisters looked at each other and then at Spargo.
+
+"Nothing," said the elder.
+
+"Absolutely nothing!" said the younger.
+
+"Answer a few plain questions," said Spargo. "I'm not going to print
+your replies, nor make use of them in any way: I'm only asking the
+questions with a desire to help you. Have you any relations in
+England?"
+
+"None that we know of," replied Evelyn.
+
+"Nobody you could go to for information about the past?" asked Spargo.
+
+"No--nobody!"
+
+Spargo drummed his fingers on his blotting-pad. He was thinking hard.
+
+"How old is your father?" he asked suddenly.
+
+"He was fifty-nine a few weeks ago," answered Evelyn.
+
+"And how old are you, and how old is your sister?" demanded Spargo.
+
+"I am twenty, and Jessie is nearly nineteen."
+
+"Where were you born?"
+
+"Both of us at San Gregorio, which is in the San Jos� province of
+Argentina, north of Monte Video."
+
+"Your father was in business there?"
+
+"He was in business in the export trade, Mr. Spargo. There's no secret
+about that. He exported all sorts of things to England and to
+France--skins, hides, wools, dried salts, fruit. That's how he made his
+money."
+
+"You don't know how long he'd been there when you were born?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Was he married when he went out there?"
+
+"No, he wasn't. We do know that. He's told us the circumstances of his
+marriage, because they were romantic. When he sailed from England to
+Buenos Ayres, he met on the steamer a young lady who, he said, was like
+himself, relationless and nearly friendless. She was going out to
+Argentina as a governess. She and my father fell in love with each
+other, and they were married in Buenos Ayres soon after the steamer
+arrived."
+
+"And your mother is dead?"
+
+"My mother died before we came to England. I was eight years old, and
+Jessie six, then."
+
+"And you came to England--how long after that?"
+
+"Two years."
+
+"So that you've been in England ten years. And you know nothing
+whatever of your father's past beyond what you've told me?"
+
+"Nothing--absolutely nothing."
+
+"Never heard him talk of--you see, according to your account, your
+father was a man of getting on to forty when he went out to Argentina.
+He must have had a career of some sort in this country. Have you never
+heard him speak of his boyhood? Did he never talk of old times, or that
+sort of thing?"
+
+"I never remember hearing my father speak of any period antecedent to
+his marriage," replied Evelyn.
+
+"I once asked him a question about his childhood." said Jessie. "He
+answered that his early days had not been very happy ones, and that he
+had done his best to forget them. So I never asked him anything again."
+
+"So that it really comes to this," remarked Spargo. "You know nothing
+whatever about your father, his family, his fortunes, his life, beyond
+what you yourselves have observed since you were able to observe?
+That's about it, isn't it?"
+
+"I should say that that is exactly it," answered Evelyn.
+
+"Just so," said Spargo. "And therefore, as I told your sister the other
+day, the public will say that your father has some dark secret behind
+him, and that Marbury had possession of it, and that your father killed
+him in order to silence him. That isn't my view. I not only believe
+your father to be absolutely innocent, but I believe that he knows no
+more than a child unborn of Marbury's murder, and I'm doing my best to
+find out who that murderer was. By the by, since you'll see all about
+it in tomorrow morning's _Watchman_, I may as well tell you that I've
+found out who Marbury really was. He----"
+
+At this moment Spargo's door was opened and in walked Ronald Breton. He
+shook his head at sight of the two sisters.
+
+"I thought I should find you here," he said. "Jessie said she was
+coming to see you, Spargo. I don't know what good you can do--I don't
+see what good the most powerful newspaper in the world can do. My
+God!--everything's about as black as ever it can be. Mr. Aylmore--I've
+just come away from him; his solicitor, Stratton, and I have been with
+him for an hour--is obstinate as ever--he will not tell more than he
+has told. Whatever good can you do, Spargo, when he won't speak about
+that knowledge of Marbury which he must have?"
+
+"Oh, well!" said Spargo. "Perhaps we can give him some information
+about Marbury. Mr. Aylmore has forgotten that it's not such a difficult
+thing to rake up the past as he seems to think it is. For example, as I
+was just telling these young ladies, I myself have discovered who
+Marbury really was."
+
+Breton started.
+
+"You have? Without doubt?" he exclaimed.
+
+"Without reasonable doubt. Marbury was an ex-convict."
+
+Spargo watched the effect of this sudden announcement. The two girls
+showed no sign of astonishment or of unusual curiosity; they received
+the news with as much unconcern as if Spargo had told them that Marbury
+was a famous musician. But Ronald Breton started, and it seemed to
+Spargo that he saw a sense of suspicion dawn in his eyes.
+
+"Marbury--an ex-convict!" he exclaimed. "You mean that?"
+
+"Read your _Watchman_ in the morning," said Spargo. "You'll find the
+whole story there--I'm going to write it tonight when you people have
+gone. It'll make good reading."
+
+Evelyn and Jessie Aylmore took Spargo's hint and went away, Spargo
+seeing them to the door with another assurance of his belief in their
+father's innocence and his determination to hunt down the real
+criminal. Ronald Breton went down with them to the street and saw them
+into a cab, but in another minute he was back in Spargo's room as
+Spargo had expected. He shut the door carefully behind him and turned
+to Spargo with an eager face.
+
+"I say, Spargo, is that really so?" he asked. "About Marbury being an
+ex-convict?"
+
+"That's so, Breton. I've no more doubt about it than I have that I see
+you. Marbury was in reality one John Maitland, a bank manager, of
+Market Milcaster, who got ten years' penal servitude in 1891 for
+embezzlement."
+
+"In 1891? Why--that's just about the time that Aylmore says he knew
+him!"
+
+"Exactly. And--it just strikes me," said Spargo, sitting down at his
+desk and making a hurried note, "it just strikes me--didn't Aylmore say
+he knew Marbury in London?"
+
+"Certainly," replied Breton. "In London."
+
+"Um!" mused Spargo. "That's queer, because Maitland had never been in
+London up to the time of his going to Dartmoor, whatever he may have
+done when he came out of Dartmoor, and, of course, Aylmore had gone to
+South America long before that. Look here, Breton," he continued,
+aloud, "have you access to Aylmore? Will you, can you, see him before
+he's brought up at Bow Street tomorrow?"
+
+"Yes," answered Breton. "I can see him with his solicitor."
+
+"Then listen," said Spargo. "Tomorrow morning you'll find the whole
+story of how I proved Marbury's identity with Maitland in the
+_Watchman_. Read it as early as you can; get an interview with Aylmore
+as early as you can; make him read it, every word, before he's brought
+up. Beg him if he values his own safety and his daughters' peace of
+mind to throw away all that foolish reserve, and to tell all he knows
+about Maitland twenty years ago. He should have done that at first.
+Why, I was asking his daughters some questions before you came in--they
+know absolutely nothing of their father's history previous to the time
+when they began to understand things! Don't you see that Aylmore's
+career, previous to his return to England, is a blank past!"
+
+"I know--I know!" said Breton. "Yes--although I've gone there a great
+deal, I never heard Aylmore speak of anything earlier than his
+Argentine experiences. And yet, he must have been getting on when he
+went out there."
+
+"Thirty-seven or eight, at least," remarked Spargo. "Well, Aylmore's
+more or less of a public man, and no public man can keep his life
+hidden nowadays. By the by, how did you get to know the Aylmores?"
+
+"My guardian, Mr. Elphick, and I met them in Switzerland," answered
+Breton. "We kept up the acquaintance after our return."
+
+"Mr. Elphick still interesting himself in the Marbury case?" asked
+Spargo.
+
+"Very much so. And so is old Cardlestone, at the foot of whose stairs
+the thing came off. I dined with them last night and they talked of
+little else," said Breton.
+
+"And their theory--"
+
+"Oh, still the murder for the sake of robbery!" replied Breton. "Old
+Cardlestone is furious that such a thing could have happened at his
+very door. He says that there ought to be a thorough enquiry into every
+tenant of the Temple."
+
+"Longish business that," observed Spargo. "Well, run away now,
+Breton--I must write."
+
+"Shall you be at Bow Street tomorrow morning?" asked Breton as he moved
+to the door. "It's to be at ten-thirty."
+
+"No, I shan't!" replied Spargo. "It'll only be a remand, and I know
+already just as much as I should hear there. I've got something much
+more important to do. But you'll remember what I asked of you--get
+Aylmore to read my story in the _Watchman_, and beg him to speak out
+and tell all he knows--all!"
+
+And when Breton had gone, Spargo again murmured those last words: "All
+he knows--all!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
+
+MISS BAYLIS
+
+
+Next day, a little before noon, Spargo found himself in one of those
+pretentious yet dismal Bayswater squares, which are almost entirely
+given up to the trade, calling, or occupation of the lodging and
+boarding-house keeper. They are very pretentious, those squares, with
+their many-storied houses, their stuccoed frontages, and their
+pilastered and balconied doorways; innocent country folk, coming into
+them from the neighbouring station of Paddington, take them to be the
+residences of the dukes and earls who, of course, live nowhere else but
+in London. They are further encouraged in this belief by the fact that
+young male persons in evening dress are often seen at the doorways in
+more or less elegant attitudes. These, of course, are taken by the
+country folk to be young lords enjoying the air of Bayswater, but
+others, more knowing, are aware that they are Swiss or German waiters
+whose linen might be cleaner.
+
+Spargo gauged the character of the house at which he called as soon as
+the door was opened to him. There was the usual smell of eggs and
+bacon, of fish and chops; the usual mixed and ancient collection of
+overcoats, wraps, and sticks in the hall; the usual sort of parlourmaid
+to answer the bell. And presently, in answer to his enquiries, there
+was the usual type of landlady confronting him, a more than middle-aged
+person who desired to look younger, and made attempts in the way of
+false hair, teeth, and a little rouge, and who wore that somewhat air
+and smile which in its wearer--under these circumstances--always means
+that she is considering whether you will be able to cheat her or
+whether she will be able to see you.
+
+"You wish to see Miss Baylis?" said this person, examining Spargo
+closely. "Miss Baylis does not often see anybody."
+
+"I hope," said Spargo politely, "that Miss Baylis is not an invalid?"
+
+"No, she's not an invalid," replied the landlady; "but she's not as
+young as she was, and she's an objection to strangers. Is it anything I
+can tell her?"
+
+"No," said Spargo. "But you can, if you please, take her a message from
+me. Will you kindly give her my card, and tell her that I wish to ask
+her a question about John Maitland of Market Milcaster, and that I
+should be much obliged if she would give me a few minutes."
+
+"Perhaps you will sit down," said the landlady. She led Spargo into a
+room which opened out upon a garden; in it two or three old ladies,
+evidently inmates, were sitting. The landlady left Spargo to sit with
+them and to amuse himself by watching them knit or sew or read the
+papers, and he wondered if they always did these things every day, and
+if they would go on doing them until a day would come when they would
+do them no more, and he was beginning to feel very dreary when the door
+opened and a woman entered whom Spargo, after one sharp glance at her,
+decided to be a person who was undoubtedly out of the common. And as
+she slowly walked across the room towards him he let his first glance
+lengthen into a look of steady inspection.
+
+The woman whom Spargo thus narrowly inspected was of very remarkable
+appearance. She was almost masculine; she stood nearly six feet in
+height; she was of a masculine gait and tread, and spare, muscular, and
+athletic. What at once struck Spargo about her face was the strange
+contrast between her dark eyes and her white hair; the hair, worn in
+abundant coils round a well-shaped head, was of the most snowy
+whiteness; the eyes of a real coal-blackness, as were also the eyebrows
+above them. The features were well-cut and of a striking firmness; the
+jaw square and determined. And Spargo's first thought on taking all
+this in was that Miss Baylis seemed to have been fitted by Nature to be
+a prison wardress, or the matron of a hospital, or the governess of an
+unruly girl, and he began to wonder if he would ever manage to extract
+anything out of those firmly-locked lips.
+
+Miss Baylis, on her part, looked Spargo over as if she was half-minded
+to order him to instant execution. And Spargo was so impressed by her
+that he made a profound bow and found a difficulty in finding his
+tongue.
+
+"Mr. Spargo?" she said in a deep voice which seemed peculiarly suited
+to her. "Of, I see, the _Watchman_? You wish to speak to me?"
+
+Spargo again bowed in silence. She signed him to the window near which
+they were standing.
+
+"Open the casement, if you please," she commanded him. "We will walk in
+the garden. This is not private."
+
+Spargo obediently obeyed her orders; she swept through the opened
+window and he followed her. It was not until they had reached the
+bottom of the garden that she spoke again.
+
+"I understand that you desire to ask me some question about John
+Maitland, of Market Milcaster?" she said. "Before you put it. I must
+ask you a question. Do you wish any reply I may give you for
+publication?"
+
+"Not without your permission," replied Spargo. "I should not think of
+publishing anything you may tell me except with your express
+permission."
+
+She looked at him gloomily, seemed to gather an impression of his good
+faith, and nodded her head.
+
+"In that case," she said, "what do you want to ask?"
+
+"I have lately had reason for making certain enquiries about John
+Maitland," answered Spargo. "I suppose you read the newspapers and
+possibly the _Watchman_, Miss Baylis?"
+
+But Miss Baylis shook her head.
+
+"I read no newspapers," she said. "I have no interest in the affairs of
+the world. I have work which occupies all my time: I give my whole
+devotion to it."
+
+"Then you have not recently heard of what is known as the Marbury
+case--a case of a man who was found murdered?" asked Spargo.
+
+"I have not," she answered. "I am not likely to hear such things."
+
+Spargo suddenly realized that the power of the Press is not quite as
+great nor as far-reaching as very young journalists hold it to be, and
+that there actually are, even in London, people who can live quite
+cheerfully without a newspaper. He concealed his astonishment and went
+on.
+
+"Well," he said, "I believe that the murdered man, known to the police
+as John Marbury, was, in reality, your brother-in-law, John Maitland.
+In fact, Miss Baylis, I'm absolutely certain of it!"
+
+He made this declaration with some emphasis, and looked at his stern
+companion to see how she was impressed. But Miss Baylis showed no sign
+of being impressed.
+
+"I can quite believe that, Mr. Spargo," she said coldly. "It is no
+surprise to me that John Maitland should come to such an end. He was a
+thoroughly bad and unprincipled man, who brought the most terrible
+disgrace on those who were, unfortunately, connected with him. He was
+likely to die a bad man's death."
+
+"I may ask you a few questions about him?" suggested Spargo in his most
+insinuating manner.
+
+"You may, so long as you do not drag my name into the papers," she
+replied. "But pray, how do you know that I have the sad shame of being
+John Maitland's sister-in-law?"
+
+"I found that out at Market Milcaster," said Spargo. "The photographer
+told me--Cooper."
+
+"Ah!" she exclaimed.
+
+"The questions I want to ask are very simple," said Spargo. "But your
+answers may materially help me. You remember Maitland going to prison,
+of course?"
+
+Miss Baylis laughed--a laugh of scorn.
+
+"Could I ever forget it?" she exclaimed.
+
+"Did you ever visit him in prison?" asked Spargo.
+
+"Visit him in prison!" she said indignantly. "Visits in prison are to
+be paid to those who deserve them, who are repentant; not to scoundrels
+who are hardened in their sin!"
+
+"All right. Did you ever see him after he left prison?"
+
+"I saw him, for he forced himself upon me--I could not help myself. He
+was in my presence before I was aware that he had even been released."
+
+"What did he come for?" asked Spargo.
+
+"To ask for his son--who had been in my charge," she replied.
+
+"That's a thing I want to know about," said Spargo. "Do you know what a
+certain lot of people in Market Milcaster say to this day, Miss
+Baylis?--they say that you were in at the game with Maitland; that you
+had a lot of the money placed in your charge; that when Maitland went
+to prison, you took the child away, first to Brighton, then
+abroad--disappeared with him--and that you made a home ready for
+Maitland when he came out. That's what's said by some people in Market
+Milcaster."
+
+Miss Baylis's stern lips curled.
+
+"People in Market Milcaster!" she exclaimed. "All the people I ever
+knew in Market Milcaster had about as many brains between them as that
+cat on the wall there. As for making a home for John Maitland, I would
+have seen him die in the gutter, of absolute want, before I would have
+given him a crust of dry bread!"
+
+"You appear to have a terrible dislike of this man," observed Spargo,
+astonished at her vehemence.
+
+"I had--and I have," she answered. "He tricked my sister into a
+marriage with him when he knew that she would rather have married an
+honest man who worshipped her; he treated her with quiet, infernal
+cruelty; he robbed her and me of the small fortunes our father left
+us."
+
+"Ah!" said Spargo. "Well, so you say Maitland came to you, when he came
+out of prison, to ask for his boy. Did he take the boy?"
+
+"No--the boy was dead."
+
+"Dead, eh? Then I suppose Maitland did not stop long with you?"
+
+Miss Baylis laughed her scornful laugh.
+
+"I showed him the door!" she said.
+
+"Well, did he tell you that he was going to Australia?" enquired
+Spargo.
+
+"I should not have listened to anything that he told me, Mr. Spargo,"
+she answered.
+
+"Then, in short," said Spargo, "you never heard of him again?"
+
+"I never heard of him again," she declared passionately, "and I only
+hope that what you tell me is true, and that Marbury really was
+Maitland!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
+
+MOTHER GUTCH
+
+
+Spargo, having exhausted the list of questions which he had thought out
+on his way to Bayswater, was about to take his leave of Miss Baylis,
+when a new idea suddenly occurred to him, and he turned back to that
+formidable lady.
+
+"I've just thought of something else," he said. "I told you that I'm
+certain Marbury was Maitland, and that he came to a sad end--murdered."
+
+"And I've told you," she replied scornfully, "that in my opinion no end
+could be too bad for him."
+
+"Just so--I understand you," said Spargo. "But I didn't tell you that
+he was not only murdered but robbed--robbed of probably a good deal.
+There's good reason to believe that he had securities, bank notes,
+loose diamonds, and other things on him to the value of a large amount.
+He'd several thousand pounds when he left Coolumbidgee, in New South
+Wales, where he'd lived quietly for some years."
+
+Miss Baylis smiled sourly.
+
+"What's all this to me?" she asked.
+
+"Possibly nothing. But you see, that money, those securities, may be
+recovered. And as the boy you speak of is dead, there surely must be
+somebody who's entitled to the lot. It's worth having, Miss Baylis, and
+there's strong belief on the part of the police that it will turn up."
+
+This was a bit of ingenious bluff on the part of Spargo; he watched its
+effect with keen eyes. But Miss Baylis was adamant, and she looked as
+scornful as ever.
+
+"I say again what's all that to me?" she exclaimed.
+
+"Well, but hadn't the dead boy any relatives on his father's side?"
+asked Spargo. "I know you're his aunt on the mother's side, and as
+you're indifferent perhaps, I can find some on the other side. It's
+very easy to find all these things out, you know."
+
+Miss Baylis, who had begun to stalk back to the house in gloomy and
+majestic fashion, and had let Spargo see plainly that this part of the
+interview was distasteful to her, suddenly paused in her stride and
+glared at the young journalist.
+
+"Easy to find all these things out?" she repeated.
+
+Spargo caught, or fancied he caught, a note of anxiety in her tone. He
+was quick to turn his fancy to practical purpose.
+
+"Oh, easy enough!" he said. "I could find out all about Maitland's
+family through that boy. Quite, quite easily!"
+
+Miss Baylis had stopped now, and stood glaring at him. "How?" she
+demanded.
+
+"I'll tell you," said Spargo with cheerful alacrity. "It is, of course,
+the easiest thing in the world to trace all about his short life. I
+suppose I can find the register of his birth at Market Milcaster, and
+you, of course, will tell me where he died. By the by, when did he die,
+Miss Baylis?"
+
+But Miss Baylis was going on again to the house.
+
+"I shall tell you nothing more," she said angrily. "I've told you too
+much already, and I believe all you're here for is to get some news for
+your paper. But I will, at any rate tell you this--when Maitland went
+to prison his child would have been defenceless but for me; he'd have
+had to go to the workhouse but for me; he hadn't a single relation in
+the world but me, on either father's or mother's side. And even at my
+age, old woman as I am, I'd rather beg my bread in the street, I'd
+rather starve and die, than touch a penny piece that had come from John
+Maitland! That's all."
+
+Then without further word, without offering to show Spargo the way out,
+she marched in at the open window and disappeared. And Spargo, knowing
+no other way, was about to follow her when he heard a sudden rustling
+sound in the shadow by which they had stood, and the next moment a
+queer, cracked, horrible voice, suggesting all sorts of things, said
+distinctly and yet in a whisper:
+
+"Young man!"
+
+Spargo turned and stared at the privet hedge behind him. It was thick
+and bushy, and in its full summer green, but it seemed to him that he
+saw a nondescript shape behind. "Who's there?" he demanded. "Somebody
+listening?"
+
+There was a curious cackle of laughter from behind the hedge; then the
+cracked, husky voice spoke again.
+
+"Young man, don't you move or look as if you were talking to anybody.
+Do you know where the 'King of Madagascar' public-house is in this
+quarter of the town, young man?"
+
+"No!" answered Spargo. "Certainly not!"
+
+"Well, anybody'll tell you when you get outside, young man," continued
+the queer voice of the unseen person. "Go there, and wait at the corner
+by the 'King of Madagascar,' and I'll come there to you at the end of
+half an hour. Then I'll tell you something, young man--I'll tell you
+something. Now run away, young man, run away to the 'King of
+Madagascar'--I'm coming!"
+
+The voice ended in low, horrible cachinnation which made Spargo feel
+queer. But he was young enough to be in love with adventure, and he
+immediately turned on his heel without so much as a glance at the
+privet hedge, and went across the garden and through the house, and let
+himself out at the door. And at the next corner of the square he met a
+policeman and asked him if he knew where the "King of Madagascar" was.
+
+"First to the right, second to the left," answered the policeman
+tersely. "You can't miss it anywhere round there--it's a landmark."
+
+And Spargo found the landmark--a great, square-built tavern--easily,
+and he waited at a corner of it wondering what he was going to see, and
+intensely curious about the owner of the queer voice, with all its
+suggestions of he knew not what. And suddenly there came up to him an
+old woman and leered at him in a fashion that made him suddenly realize
+how dreadful old age may be.
+
+Spargo had never seen such an old woman as this in his life. She was
+dressed respectably, better than respectably. Her gown was good; her
+bonnet was smart; her smaller fittings were good. But her face was
+evil; it showed unmistakable signs of a long devotion to the bottle;
+the old eyes leered and ogled, the old lips were wicked. Spargo felt a
+sense of disgust almost amounting to nausea, but he was going to hear
+what the old harridan had to say and he tried not to look what he felt.
+
+"Well?" he said, almost roughly. "Well?"
+
+"Well, young man, there you are," said his new acquaintance. "Let us go
+inside, young man; there's a quiet little place where a lady can sit
+and take her drop of gin--I'll show you. And if you're good to me, I'll
+tell you something about that cat that you were talking to just now.
+But you'll give me a little matter to put in my pocket, young man? Old
+ladies like me have a right to buy little comforts, you know, little
+comforts."
+
+Spargo followed this extraordinary person into a small parlour within;
+the attendant who came in response to a ring showed no astonishment at
+her presence; he also seemed to know exactly what she required, which
+was a certain brand of gin, sweetened, and warm. And Spargo watched her
+curiously as with shaking hand she pushed up the veil which hid little
+of her wicked old face, and lifted the glass to her mouth with a zest
+which was not thirst but pure greed of liquor. Almost instantly he saw
+a new light steal into her eyes, and she laughed in a voice that grew
+clearer with every sound she made.
+
+"Ah, young man!" she said with a confidential nudge of the elbow that
+made Spargo long to get up and fly. "I wanted that! It's done me good.
+When I've finished that, you'll pay for another for me--and perhaps
+another? They'll do me still more good. And you'll give me a little
+matter of money, won't you, young man?"
+
+"Not till I know what I'm giving it for," replied Spargo.
+
+"You'll be giving it because I'm going to tell you that if it's made
+worth my while I can tell you, or somebody that sent you, more about
+Jane Baylis than anybody in the world. I'm not going to tell you that
+now, young man--I'm sure you don't carry in your pocket what I shall
+want for my secret, not you, by the look of you! I'm only going to show
+you that I have the secret. Eh?"
+
+"Who are you?" asked Spargo.
+
+The woman leered and chuckled. "What are you going to give me, young
+man?" she asked.
+
+Spargo put his fingers in his pocket and pulled out two
+half-sovereigns.
+
+"Look here," he said, showing his companion the coins, "if you can tell
+me anything of importance you shall have these. But no trifling, now.
+And no wasting of time. If you have anything to tell, out with it!"
+
+The woman stretched out a trembling, claw-like hand.
+
+"But let me hold one of those, young man!" she implored. "Let me hold
+one of the beautiful bits of gold. I shall tell you all the better if I
+hold one of them. Let me--there's a good young gentleman."
+
+Spargo gave her one of the coins, and resigned himself to his fate,
+whatever it might be.
+
+"You won't get the other unless you tell something," he said. "Who are
+you, anyway?"
+
+The woman, who had begun mumbling and chuckling over the
+half-sovereign, grinned horribly.
+
+"At the boarding-house yonder, young man, they call me Mother Gutch,"
+she answered; "but my proper name is Mrs. Sabina Gutch, and once upon a
+time I was a good-looking young woman. And when my husband died I went
+to Jane Baylis as housekeeper, and when she retired from that and came
+to live in that boarding-house where we live now, she was forced to
+bring me with her and to keep me. Why had she to do that, young man?"
+
+"Heaven knows!" answered Spargo.
+
+"Because I've got a hold on her, young man--I've got a secret of hers,"
+continued Mother Gutch. "She'd be scared to death if she knew I'd been
+behind that hedge and had heard what she said to you, and she'd be more
+than scared if she knew that you and I were here, talking. But she's
+grown hard and near with me, and she won't give me a penny to get a
+drop of anything with, and an old woman like me has a right to her
+little comforts, and if you'll buy the secret, young man, I'll split on
+her, there and then, when you pay the money."
+
+"Before I talk about buying any secret," said Spargo, "you'll have to
+prove to me that you've a secret to sell that's worth my buying."
+
+"And I will prove it!" said Mother Gutch with sudden fierceness. "Touch
+the bell, and let me have another glass, and then I'll tell you. Now,"
+she went on, more quietly--Spargo noticed that the more she drank, the
+more rational she became, and that her nerves seemed to gain strength
+and her whole appearance to be improved--"now, you came to her to find
+out about her brother-in-law, Maitland, that went to prison, didn't
+you?"
+
+"Well?" demanded Spargo.
+
+"And about that boy of his?" she continued.
+
+"You heard all that was said," answered Spargo. "I'm waiting to hear
+what you have to say."
+
+But Mother Gutch was resolute in having her own way. She continued her
+questions:
+
+"And she told you that Maitland came and asked for the boy, and that
+she told him the boy was dead, didn't she?" she went on.
+
+"Well?" said Spargo despairingly. "She did. What then?"
+
+Mother Gutch took an appreciative pull at her glass and smiled
+knowingly. "What then?" she chuckled. "All lies, young man, the boy
+isn't dead--any more than I am. And my secret is--"
+
+"Well?" demanded Spargo impatiently. "What is it?"
+
+"This!" answered Mother Gutch, digging her companion in the ribs, "I
+know what she did with him!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
+
+REVELATIONS
+
+
+Spargo turned on his disreputable and dissolute companion with all his
+journalistic energies and instincts roused. He had not been sure, since
+entering the "King of Madagascar," that he was going to hear anything
+material to the Middle Temple Murder; he had more than once feared that
+this old gin-drinking harridan was deceiving him, for the purpose of
+extracting drink and money from him. But now, at the mere prospect of
+getting important information from her, he forgot all about Mother
+Gutch's unfortunate propensities, evil eyes, and sodden face; he only
+saw in her somebody who could tell him something. He turned on her
+eagerly.
+
+"You say that John Maitland's son didn't die!" he exclaimed.
+
+"The boy did not die," replied Mother Gutch.
+
+"And that you know where he is?" asked Spargo.
+
+Mother Gutch shook her head.
+
+"I didn't say that I know where he is, young man," she replied. "I said
+I knew what she did with him."
+
+"What, then?" demanded Spargo.
+
+Mother Gutch drew herself up in a vast assumption of dignity, and
+favoured Spargo with a look.
+
+"That's the secret, young man," she said. "I'm willing to sell that
+secret, but not for two half-sovereigns and two or three drops of cold
+gin. If Maitland left all that money you told Jane Baylis of, when I
+was listening to you from behind the hedge, my secret's worth
+something."
+
+Spargo suddenly remembered his bit of bluff to Miss Baylis. Here was an
+unexpected result of it.
+
+"Nobody but me can help you to trace Maitland's boy," continued Mother
+Gutch, "and I shall expect to be paid accordingly. That's plain
+language, young man."
+
+Spargo considered the situation in silence for a minute or two. Could
+this wretched, bibulous old woman really be in possession of a secret
+which would lead to the solving of the mystery of the Middle Temple
+Murder? Well, it would be a fine thing for the _Watchman_ if the
+clearing up of everything came through one of its men. And the
+_Watchman_ was noted for being generous even to extravagance in laying
+out money on all sorts of objects: it had spent money like water on
+much less serious matters than this.
+
+"How much do you want for your secret?" he suddenly asked, turning to
+his companion.
+
+Mother Gutch began to smooth out a pleat in her gown. It was really
+wonderful to Spargo to find how very sober and normal this old harridan
+had become; he did not understand that her nerves had been all a-quiver
+and on edge when he first met her, and that a resort to her favourite
+form of alcohol in liberal quantity had calmed and quickened them;
+secretly he was regarding her with astonishment as the most
+extraordinary old person he had ever met, and he was almost afraid of
+her as he waited for her decision. At last Mother Gutch spoke.
+
+"Well, young man," she said, "having considered matters, and having a
+right to look well to myself, I think that what I should prefer to have
+would be one of those annuities. A nice, comfortable annuity, paid
+weekly--none of your monthlies or quarterlies, but regular and
+punctual, every Saturday morning. Or Monday morning, as was convenient
+to the parties concerned--but punctual and regular. I know a good many
+ladies in my sphere of life as enjoys annuities, and it's a great
+comfort to have 'em paid weekly."
+
+It occurred to Spargo that Mrs. Gutch would probably get rid of her
+weekly dole on the day it was paid, whether that day happened to be
+Monday or Saturday, but that, after all, was no concern of his, so he
+came back to first principles.
+
+"Even now you haven't said how much," he remarked.
+
+"Three pound a week," replied Mother Gutch. "And cheap, too!"
+
+Spargo thought hard for two minutes. The secret might--might!--lead to
+something big. This wretched old woman would probably drink herself to
+death within a year or two. Anyhow, a few hundreds of pounds was
+nothing to the _Watchman_. He glanced at his watch. At that hour--for
+the next hour--the great man of the _Watchman_ would be at the office.
+He jumped to his feet, suddenly resolved and alert.
+
+"Here, I'll take you to see my principals," he said. "We'll run along
+in a taxi-cab."
+
+"With all the pleasure in the world, young man," replied Mother Gutch;
+"when you've given me that other half-sovereign. As for principals, I'd
+far rather talk business with masters than with men--though I mean no
+disrespect to you." Spargo, feeling that he was in for it, handed over
+the second half-sovereign, and busied himself in ordering a taxi-cab.
+But when that came round he had to wait while Mrs. Gutch consumed a
+third glass of gin and purchased a flask of the same beverage to put in
+her pocket. At last he got her off, and in due course to the _Watchman_
+office, where the hall-porter and the messenger boys stared at her in
+amazement, well used as they were to seeing strange folk, and he got
+her to his own room, and locked her in, and then he sought the presence
+of the mighty.
+
+What Spargo said to his editor and to the great man who controlled the
+fortunes and workings of the _Watchman_ he never knew. It was probably
+fortunate for him that they were both thoroughly conversant with the
+facts of the Middle Temple Murder, and saw that there might be an
+advantage in securing the revelations of which Spargo had got the
+conditional promise. At any rate, they accompanied Spargo to his room,
+intent on seeing, hearing and bargaining with the lady he had locked up
+there.
+
+Spargo's room smelt heavily of unsweetened gin, but Mother Gutch was
+soberer than ever. She insisted upon being introduced to proprietor and
+editor in due and proper form, and in discussing terms with them before
+going into any further particulars. The editor was all for temporizing
+with her until something could be done to find out what likelihood of
+truth there was in her, but the proprietor, after sizing her up in his
+own shrewd fashion, took his two companions out of the room.
+
+"We'll hear what the old woman has to say on her own terms," he said.
+"She may have something to tell that is really of the greatest
+importance in this case: she certainly has something to tell. And, as
+Spargo says, she'll probably drink herself to death in about as short a
+time as possible. Come back--let's hear her story." So they returned to
+the gin-scented atmosphere, and a formal document was drawn out by
+which the proprietor of the _Watchman_ bound himself to pay Mrs. Gutch
+the sum of three pounds a week for life (Mrs. Gutch insisting on the
+insertion of the words "every Saturday morning, punctual and regular")
+and then Mrs. Gutch was invited to tell her tale. And Mrs. Gutch
+settled herself to do so, and Spargo prepared to take it down, word for
+word.
+
+"Which the story, as that young man called it, is not so long as a
+monkey's tail nor so short as a Manx cat's, gentlemen," said Mrs.
+Gutch; "but full of meat as an egg. Now, you see, when that Maitland
+affair at Market Milcaster came off, I was housekeeper to Miss Jane
+Baylis at Brighton. She kept a boarding-house there, in Kemp Town, and
+close to the sea-front, and a very good thing she made out of it, and
+had saved a nice bit, and having, like her sister, Mrs. Maitland, had a
+little fortune left her by her father, as was at one time a publican
+here in London, she had a good lump of money. And all that money was in
+this here Maitland's hands, every penny. I very well remember the day
+when the news came about that affair of Maitland robbing the bank. Miss
+Baylis, she was like a mad thing when she saw it in the paper, and
+before she'd seen it an hour she was off to Market Milcaster. I went up
+to the station with her, and she told me then before she got in the
+train that Maitland had all her fortune and her savings, and her
+sister's, his wife's, too, and that she feared all would be lost."
+
+"Mrs. Maitland was then dead," observed Spargo without looking up from
+his writing-block.
+
+"She was, young man, and a good thing, too," continued Mrs. Gutch.
+"Well, away went Miss Baylis, and no more did I hear or see for nearly
+a week, and then back she comes, and brings a little boy with
+her--which was Maitland's. And she told me that night that she'd lost
+every penny she had in the world, and that her sister's money, what
+ought to have been the child's, was gone, too, and she said her say
+about Maitland. However, she saw well to that child; nobody could have
+seen better. And very soon after, when Maitland was sent to prison for
+ten years, her and me talked about things. 'What's the use,' says I to
+her, 'of your letting yourself get so fond of that child, and looking
+after it as you do, and educating it, and so on?' I says. 'Why not?'
+says she. 'Tisn't yours,' I says, 'you haven't no right to it,' I says.
+'As soon as ever its father comes out,' says I,' he'll come and claim
+it, and you can't do nothing to stop him.' Well, gentlemen, if you'll
+believe me, never did I see a woman look as she did when I says all
+that. And she up and swore that Maitland should never see or touch the
+child again--not under no circumstances whatever."
+
+Mrs. Gutch paused to take a little refreshment from her pocket-flask,
+with an apologetic remark as to the state of her heart. She resumed,
+presently, apparently refreshed.
+
+"Well, gentlemen, that notion, about Maitland's taking the child away
+from her seemed to get on her mind, and she used to talk to me at times
+about it, always saying the same thing--that Maitland should never have
+him. And one day she told me she was going to London to see lawyers
+about it, and she went, and she came back, seeming more satisfied, and
+a day or two afterwards, there came a gentleman who looked like a
+lawyer, and he stopped a day or two, and he came again and again, until
+one day she came to me, and she says, 'You don't know who that
+gentleman is that's come so much lately?' she says. 'Not I,' I says,
+'unless he's after you.' 'After me!' she says, tossing her head:
+'That's the gentleman that ought to have married my poor sister if that
+scoundrel Maitland hadn't tricked her into throwing him over!' 'You
+don't say so!' I says. 'Then by rights he ought to have been the
+child's pa!' 'He's going to be a father to the boy,' she says. 'He's
+going to take him and educate him in the highest fashion, and make a
+gentleman of him,' she says, 'for his mother's sake.' 'Mercy on us!'
+says I. 'What'll Maitland say when he comes for him?' 'Maitland'll
+never come for him,' she says, 'for I'm going to leave here, and the
+boy'll be gone before then. This is all being done,' she says, 'so that
+the child'll never know his father's shame--he'll never know who his
+father was.' And true enough, the boy was taken away, but Maitland came
+before she'd gone, and she told him the child was dead, and I never see
+a man so cut up. However, it wasn't no concern of mine. And so there's
+so much of the secret, gentlemen, and I would like to know if I ain't
+giving good value."
+
+"Very good," said the proprietor. "Go on." But Spargo intervened.
+
+"Did you ever hear the name of the gentleman who took the boy away?" he
+asked.
+
+"Yes, I did," replied Mrs. Gutch. "Of course I did. Which it was
+Elphick."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
+
+STILL SILENT
+
+
+Spargo dropped his pen on the desk before him with a sharp clatter that
+made Mrs. Gutch jump. A steady devotion to the bottle had made her
+nerves to be none of the strongest, and she looked at the startler of
+them with angry malevolence.
+
+"Don't do that again, young man!" she exclaimed sharply. "I can't
+a-bear to be jumped out of my skin, and it's bad manners. I observed
+that the gentleman's name was Elphick."
+
+Spargo contrived to get in a glance at his proprietor and his editor--a
+glance which came near to being a wink.
+
+"Just so--Elphick," he said. "A law gentleman I think you said, Mrs.
+Gutch?"
+
+"I said," answered Mrs. Gutch, "as how he looked like a lawyer
+gentleman. And since you're so particular, young man, though I wasn't
+addressing you but your principals, he was a lawyer gentleman. One of
+the sort that wears wigs and gowns--ain't I seen his picture in Jane
+Baylis's room at the boarding-house where you saw her this morning?"
+
+"Elderly man?" asked Spargo.
+
+"Elderly he will be now," replied the informant; "but when he took the
+boy away he was a middle-aged man. About his age," she added, pointing
+to the editor in a fashion which made that worthy man wince and the
+proprietor desire to laugh unconsumedly; "and not so very unlike him
+neither, being one as had no hair on his face."
+
+"Ah!" said Spargo. "And where did this Mr. Elphick take the boy, Mrs.
+Gutch?"
+
+But Mrs. Gutch shook her head.
+
+"Ain't no idea," she said. "He took him. Then, as I told you, Maitland
+came, and Jane Baylis told him that the boy was dead. And after that
+she never even told me anything about the boy. She kept a tight tongue.
+Once or twice I asked her, and she says, 'Never you mind,' she says;
+'he's all right for life, if he lives to be as old as Methusalem.' And
+she never said more, and I never said more. But," continued Mrs. Gutch,
+whose pocket-flask was empty, and who began to wipe tears away, "she's
+treated me hard has Jane Baylis, never allowing me a little comfort
+such as a lady of my age should have, and when I hears the two of you
+a-talking this morning the other side of that privet hedge, thinks I,
+'Now's the time to have my knife into you, my fine madam!' And I hope I
+done it."
+
+Spargo looked at the editor and the proprietor, nodding his head
+slightly. He meant them to understand that he had got all he wanted
+from Mother Gutch.
+
+"What are you going to do, Mrs. Gutch, when you leave here?" he asked.
+"You shall be driven straight back to Bayswater, if you like."
+
+"Which I shall be obliged for, young man," said Mrs. Gutch, "and
+likewise for the first week of the annuity, and will call every
+Saturday for the same at eleven punctual, or can be posted to me on a
+Friday, whichever is agreeable to you gentlemen. And having my first
+week in my purse, and being driven to Bayswater, I shall take my boxes
+and go to a friend of mine where I shall be hearty welcome, shaking the
+dust of my feet off against Jane Baylis and where I've been living with
+her."
+
+"Yes, but, Mrs. Gutch," said Spargo, with some anxiety, "if you go back
+there tonight, you'll be very careful not to tell Miss Baylis that
+you've been here and told us all this?"
+
+Mrs. Gutch rose, dignified and composed.
+
+"Young man," she said, "you mean well, but you ain't used to dealing
+with ladies. I can keep my tongue as still as anybody when I like. I
+wouldn't tell Jane Baylis my affairs--my new affairs, gentlemen, thanks
+to you--not for two annuities, paid twice a week!"
+
+"Take Mrs. Gutch downstairs, Spargo, and see her all right, and then
+come to my room," said the editor. "And don't you forget, Mrs.
+Gutch--keep a quiet tongue in your head--no more talk--or there'll be
+no annuities on Saturday mornings."
+
+So Spargo took Mother Gutch to the cashier's department and paid her
+her first week's money, and he got her a taxi-cab, and paid for it, and
+saw her depart, and then he went to the editor's room, strangely
+thoughtful. The editor and the proprietor were talking, but they
+stopped when Spargo entered and looked at him eagerly. "I think we've
+done it," said Spargo quietly.
+
+"What, precisely, have we found out?" asked the editor.
+
+"A great deal more than I'd anticipated," answered Spargo, "and I don't
+know what fields it doesn't open out. If you look back, you'll remember
+that the only thing found on Marbury's body was a scrap of grey paper
+on which was a name and address--Ronald Breton, King's Bench Walk."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Breton is a young barrister. Also he writes a bit--I have accepted two
+or three articles of his for our literary page."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Further, he is engaged to Miss Aylmore, the eldest daughter of
+Aylmore, the Member of Parliament who has been charged at Bow Street
+today with the murder of Marbury."
+
+"I know. Well, what then, Spargo?"
+
+"But the most important matter," continued Spargo, speaking very
+deliberately, "is this--that is, taking that old woman's statement to
+be true, as I personally believe it is--that Breton, as he has told me
+himself (I have seen a good deal of him) was brought up by a guardian.
+That guardian is Mr. Septimus Elphick, the barrister."
+
+The proprietor and the editor looked at each other. Their faces wore
+the expression of men thinking on the same lines and arriving at the
+same conclusion. And the proprietor suddenly turned on Spargo with a
+sharp interrogation: "You think then----"
+
+Spargo nodded.
+
+"I think that Mr. Septimus Elphick is the Elphick, and that Breton is
+the young Maitland of whom Mrs. Gutch has been talking," he answered.
+
+The editor got up, thrust his hands in his pockets, and began to pace
+the room.
+
+"If that's so," he said, "if that's so, the mystery deepens. What do
+you propose to do, Spargo?"
+
+"I think," said Spargo, slowly, "I think that without telling him
+anything of what we have learnt, I should like to see young Breton and
+get an introduction from him to Mr. Elphick. I can make a good excuse
+for wanting an interview with him. If you will leave it in my hands--"
+
+"Yes, yes!" said the proprietor, waving a hand. "Leave it entirely in
+Spargo's hands."
+
+"Keep me informed," said the editor. "Do what you think. It strikes me
+you're on the track."
+
+Spargo left their presence, and going back to his own room, still
+faintly redolent of the personality of Mrs. Gutch, got hold of the
+reporter who had been present at Bow Street when Aylmore was brought up
+that morning. There was nothing new; the authorities had merely asked
+for another remand. So far as the reporter knew, Aylmore had said
+nothing fresh to anybody.
+
+Spargo went round to the Temple and up to Ronald Breton's chambers. He
+found the young barrister just preparing to leave, and looking
+unusually grave and thoughtful. At sight of Spargo he turned back from
+his outer door, beckoned the journalist to follow him, and led him into
+an inner room.
+
+"I say, Spargo!" he said, as he motioned his visitor to take a chair.
+"This is becoming something more than serious. You know what you told
+me to do yesterday as regards Aylmore?"
+
+"To get him to tell all?--Yes," said Spargo.
+
+Breton shook his head.
+
+"Stratton--his solicitor, you know--and I saw him this morning before
+the police-court proceedings," he continued. "I told him of my talk
+with you; I even went as far as to tell him that his daughters had been
+to the _Watchman_ office. Stratton and I both begged him to take your
+advice and tell all, everything, no matter at what cost to his private
+feelings. We pointed out to him the serious nature of the evidence
+against him; how he had damaged himself by not telling the whole truth
+at once; how he had certainly done a great deal to excite suspicion
+against himself; how, as the evidence stands at present, any jury could
+scarcely do less than convict him. And it was all no good, Spargo!"
+
+"He won't say anything?"
+
+"He'll say no more. He was adamant. 'I told the entire truth in respect
+to my dealings with Marbury on the night he met his death at the
+inquest,' he said, over and over again, 'and I shall say nothing
+further on any consideration. If the law likes to hang an innocent man
+on such evidence as that, let it!' And he persisted in that until we
+left him. Spargo, I don't know what's to be done."
+
+"And nothing happened at the police-court?"
+
+"Nothing--another remand. Stratton and I saw Aylmore again before he
+was removed. He left us with a sort of sardonic remark--'If you all
+want to prove me innocent,' he said, 'find the guilty man.'"
+
+"Well, there was a tremendous lot of common sense in that," said
+Spargo.
+
+"Yes, of course, but how, how, how is it going to be done?" exclaimed
+Breton. "Are you any nearer--is Rathbury any nearer? Is there the
+slightest clue that will fasten the guilt on anybody else?"
+
+Spargo gave no answer to these questions. He remained silent a while,
+apparently thinking.
+
+"Was Rathbury in court?" he suddenly asked.
+
+"He was," replied Breton. "He was there with two or three other men who
+I suppose were detectives, and seemed to be greatly interested in
+Aylmore."
+
+"If I don't see Rathbury tonight I'll see him in the morning," said
+Spargo. He rose as if to go, but after lingering a moment, sat down
+again. "Look here," he continued, "I don't know how this thing stands
+in law, but would it be a very weak case against Aylmore if the
+prosecution couldn't show some motive for his killing Marbury?"
+
+Breton smiled.
+
+"There's no necessity to prove motive in murder," he said. "But I'll
+tell you what, Spargo--if the prosecution can show that Aylmore had a
+motive for getting rid of Marbury, if they could prove that it was to
+Aylmore's advantage to silence him--why, then, I don't think he's a
+chance."
+
+"I see. But so far no motive, no reason for his killing Marbury has
+been shown."
+
+"I know of none."
+
+Spargo rose and moved to the door.
+
+"Well, I'm off," he said. Then, as if he suddenly recollected
+something, he turned back. "Oh, by the by," he said, "isn't your
+guardian, Mr. Elphick, a big authority on philately?"
+
+"One of the biggest. Awful enthusiast."
+
+"Do you think he'd tell me a bit about those Australian stamps which
+Marbury showed to Criedir, the dealer?"
+
+"Certain, he would--delighted. Here"--and Breton scribbled a few words
+on a card--"there's his address and a word from me. I'll tell you when
+you can always find him in, five nights out of seven--at nine o'clock,
+after he's dined. I'd go with you tonight, but I must go to Aylmore's.
+The two girls are in terrible trouble."
+
+"Give them a message from me," said Spargo as they went out together.
+"Tell them to keep up their hearts and their courage."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
+
+MR. ELPHICK'S CHAMBERS
+
+
+Spargo went round again to the Temple that night at nine o'clock,
+asking himself over and over again two questions--the first, how much
+does Elphick know? the second, how much shall I tell him?
+
+The old house in the Temple to which he repaired and in which many a
+generation of old fogies had lived since the days of Queen Anne, was
+full of stairs and passages, and as Spargo had forgotten to get the
+exact number of the set of chambers he wanted, he was obliged to wander
+about in what was a deserted building. So wandering, he suddenly heard
+steps, firm, decisive steps coming up a staircase which he himself had
+just climbed. He looked over the banisters down into the hollow
+beneath. And there, marching up resolutely, was the figure of a tall,
+veiled woman, and Spargo suddenly realized, with a sharp quickening of
+his pulses, that for the second time that day he was beneath one roof
+with Miss Baylis.
+
+Spargo's mind acted quickly. Knowing what he now knew, from his
+extraordinary dealings with Mother Gutch, he had no doubt whatever that
+Miss Baylis had come to see Mr. Elphick--come, of course, to tell Mr.
+Elphick that he, Spargo, had visited her that morning, and that he was
+on the track of the Maitland secret history. He had never thought of it
+before, for he had been busily engaged since the departure of Mother
+Gutch; but, naturally, Miss Baylis and Mr. Elphick would keep in
+communication with each other. At any rate, here she was, and her
+destination was, surely, Elphick's chambers. And the question for him,
+Spargo, was--what to do?
+
+What Spargo did was to remain in absolute silence, motionless, tense,
+where he was on the stair, and to trust to the chance that the woman
+did not look up. But Miss Baylis neither looked up nor down: she
+reached a landing, turned along a corridor with decision, and marched
+forward. A moment later Spargo heard a sharp double knock on a door: a
+moment after that he heard a door heavily shut; he knew then that Miss
+Baylis had sought and gained admittance--somewhere.
+
+To find out precisely where that somewhere was drew Spargo down to the
+landing which Miss Baylis had just left. There was no one about--he had
+not, in fact, seen a soul since he entered the building. Accordingly he
+went along the corridor into which he had seen Miss Baylis turn. He
+knew that all the doors in that house were double ones, and that the
+outer oak in each was solid and substantial enough to be sound proof.
+Yet, as men will under such circumstances, he walked softly; he said to
+himself, smiling at the thought, that he would be sure to start if
+somebody suddenly opened a door on him. But no hand opened any door,
+and at last he came to the end of the corridor and found himself
+confronting a small board on which was painted in white letters on a
+black ground, Mr. Elphick's Chambers.
+
+Having satisfied himself as to his exact whereabouts, Spargo drew back
+as quietly as he had come. There was a window half-way along the
+corridor from which, he had noticed as he came along, one could catch a
+glimpse of the Embankment and the Thames; to this he withdrew, and
+leaning on the sill looked out and considered matters. Should he go
+and--if he could gain admittance--beard these two conspirators? Should
+he wait until the woman came out and let her see that he was on the
+track? Should he hide again until she went, and then see Elphick alone?
+
+In the end Spargo did none of these things immediately. He let things
+slide for the moment. He lighted a cigarette and stared at the river
+and the brown sails, and the buildings across on the Surrey side. Ten
+minutes went by--twenty minutes--nothing happened. Then, as half-past
+nine struck from all the neighbouring clocks, Spargo flung away a
+second cigarette, marched straight down the corridor and knocked boldly
+at Mr. Elphick's door.
+
+Greatly to Spargo's surprise, the door was opened before there was any
+necessity to knock again. And there, calmly confronting him, a
+benevolent, yet somewhat deprecating expression on his spectacled and
+placid face, stood Mr. Elphick, a smoking cap on his head, a tasseled
+smoking jacket over his dress shirt, and a short pipe in his hand.
+
+Spargo was taken aback: Mr. Elphick apparently was not. He held the
+door well open, and motioned the journalist to enter.
+
+"Come in, Mr. Spargo," he said. "I was expecting you. Walk forward into
+my sitting-room."
+
+Spargo, much astonished at this reception, passed through an ante-room
+into a handsomely furnished apartment full of books and pictures. In
+spite of the fact that it was still very little past midsummer there
+was a cheery fire in the grate, and on a table set near a roomy
+arm-chair was set such creature comforts as a spirit-case, a syphon, a
+tumbler, and a novel--from which things Spargo argued that Mr. Elphick
+had been taking his ease since his dinner. But in another armchair on
+the opposite side of the hearth was the forbidding figure of Miss
+Baylis, blacker, gloomier, more mysterious than ever. She neither spoke
+nor moved when Spargo entered: she did not even look at him. And Spargo
+stood staring at her until Mr. Elphick, having closed his doors,
+touched him on the elbow, and motioned him courteously to a seat.
+
+"Yes, I was expecting you, Mr. Spargo," he said, as he resumed his own
+chair. "I have been expecting you at any time, ever since you took up
+your investigation of the Marbury affair, in some of the earlier stages
+of which you saw me, you will remember, at the mortuary. But since Miss
+Baylis told me, twenty minutes ago, that you had been to her this
+morning I felt sure that it would not be more than a few hours before
+you would come to me."
+
+"Why, Mr. Elphick, should you suppose that I should come to you at
+all?" asked Spargo, now in full possession of his wits.
+
+"Because I felt sure that you would leave no stone unturned, no corner
+unexplored," replied Mr. Elphick. "The curiosity of the modern pressman
+is insatiable."
+
+Spargo stiffened.
+
+"I have no curiosity, Mr. Elphick," he said. "I am charged by my paper
+to investigate the circumstances of the death of the man who was found
+in Middle Temple Lane, and, if possible, to track his murderer,
+and----"
+
+Mr. Elphick laughed slightly and waved his hand.
+
+"My good young gentleman!" he said. "You exaggerate your own
+importance. I don't approve of modern journalism nor of its methods. In
+your own case you have got hold of some absurd notion that the man John
+Marbury was in reality one John Maitland, once of Market Milcaster, and
+you have been trying to frighten Miss Baylis here into----"
+
+Spargo suddenly rose from his chair. There was a certain temper in him
+which, when once roused, led him to straight hitting, and it was roused
+now. He looked the old barrister full in the face.
+
+"Mr. Elphick," he said, "you are evidently unaware of all that I know.
+So I will tell you what I will do. I will go back to my office, and I
+will write down what I do know, and give the true and absolute proofs
+of what I know, and, if you will trouble yourself to read the
+_Watchman_ tomorrow morning, then you, too, will know."
+
+"Dear me--dear me!" said Mr. Elphick, banteringly. "We are so used to
+ultra-sensational stories from the _Watchman_ that--but I am a curious
+and inquisitive old man, my good young sir, so perhaps you will tell me
+in a word what it is you do know, eh?"
+
+Spargo reflected for a second. Then he bent forward across the table
+and looked the old barrister straight in the face.
+
+"Yes," he said quietly. "I will tell you what I know beyond doubt. I
+know that the man murdered under the name of John Marbury was, without
+doubt, John Maitland, of Market Milcaster, and that Ronald Breton is
+his son, whom you took from that woman!"
+
+If Spargo had desired a complete revenge for the cavalier fashion in
+which Mr. Elphick had treated it he could not have been afforded a more
+ample one than that offered to him by the old barrister's reception of
+this news. Mr. Elphick's face not only fell, but changed; his
+expression of almost sneering contempt was transformed to one clearly
+resembling abject terror; he dropped his pipe, fell back in his chair,
+recovered himself, gripped the chair's arms, and stared at Spargo as if
+the young man had suddenly announced to him that in another minute he
+must be led to instant execution. And Spargo, quick to see his
+advantage, followed it up.
+
+"That is what I know, Mr. Elphick, and if I choose, all the world shall
+know it tomorrow morning!" he said firmly. "Ronald Breton is the son of
+the murdered man, and Ronald Breton is engaged to be married to the
+daughter of the man charged with the murder. Do you hear that? It is
+not matter of suspicion, or of idea, or of conjecture, it is
+fact--fact!"
+
+Mr. Elphick slowly turned his face to Miss Baylis. He gasped out a few
+words.
+
+"You--did--not--tell--me--this!"
+
+Then Spargo, turning to the woman, saw that she, too, was white to the
+lips and as frightened as the man.
+
+"I--didn't know!" she muttered. "He didn't tell me. He only told me
+this morning what--what I've told you."
+
+Spargo picked up his hat.
+
+"Good-night, Mr. Elphick," he said.
+
+But before he could reach the door the old barrister had leapt from his
+chair and seized him with trembling hands. Spargo turned and looked at
+him. He knew then that for some reason or other he had given Mr.
+Septimus Elphick a thoroughly bad fright.
+
+"Well?" he growled.
+
+"My dear young gentleman!" implored Mr. Elphick. "Don't go! I'll--I'll
+do anything for you if you won't go away to print that. I'll--I'll give
+you a thousand pounds!"
+
+Spargo shook him off.
+
+"That's enough!" he snarled. "Now, I am off! What, you'd try to bribe
+me?"
+
+Mr. Elphick wrung his hands.
+
+"I didn't mean that--indeed I didn't!" he almost wailed. "I--I don't
+know what I meant. Stay, young gentleman, stay a little, and let
+us--let us talk. Let me have a word with you--as many words as you
+please. I implore you!"
+
+Spargo made a fine pretence of hesitation.
+
+"If I stay," he said, at last, "it will only be on the strict condition
+that you answer--and answer truly--whatever questions I like to ask
+you. Otherwise----"
+
+He made another move to the door, and again Mr. Elphick laid beseeching
+hands on him.
+
+"Stay!" he said. "I'll answer anything you like!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
+
+OF PROVED IDENTITY
+
+
+Spargo sat down again in the chair which he had just left, and looked
+at the two people upon whom his startling announcement had produced
+such a curious effect. And he recognized as he looked at them that,
+while they were both frightened, they were frightened in different
+ways. Miss Baylis had already recovered her composure; she now sat
+sombre and stern as ever, returning Spargo's look with something of
+indifferent defiance; he thought he could see that in her mind a
+certain fear was battling with a certain amount of wonder that he had
+discovered the secret. It seemed to him that so far as she was
+concerned the secret had come to an end; it was as if she said in so
+many words that now the secret was out he might do his worst.
+
+But upon Mr. Septimus Elphick the effect was very different. He was
+still trembling from excitement; he groaned as he sank into his chair
+and the hand with which he poured out a glass of spirits shook; the
+glass rattled against his teeth when he raised it to his lips. The
+half-contemptuous fashion of his reception of Spargo had now wholly
+disappeared; he was a man who had received a shock, and a bad one. And
+Spargo, watching him keenly, said to himself: This man knows a great
+deal more than, a great deal beyond, the mere fact that Marbury was
+Maitland, and that Ronald Breton is in reality Maitland's son; he knows
+something which he never wanted anybody to know, which he firmly
+believed it impossible anybody ever could know. It was as if he had
+buried something deep, deep down in the lowest depths, and was as
+astounded as he was frightened to find that it had been at last flung
+up to the broad light of day.
+
+"I shall wait," suddenly said Spargo, "until you are composed, Mr.
+Elphick. I have no wish to distress you. But I see, of course, that the
+truths which I have told you are of a sort that cause you
+considerable--shall we say fear?"
+
+Elphick took another stiff pull at his liquor. His hand had grown
+steadier, and the colour was coming back to his face.
+
+"If you will let me explain," he said. "If you will hear what was done
+for the boy's sake--eh?"
+
+"That," answered Spargo, "is precisely what I wish. I can tell you
+this--I am the last man in the world to wish harm of any sort to Mr.
+Breton."
+
+Miss Baylis relieved her feelings with a scornful sniff. "He says
+that!" she exclaimed, addressing the ceiling. "He says that, knowing
+that he means to tell the world in his rag of a paper that Ronald
+Breton, on whom every care has been lavished, is the son of a
+scoundrel, an ex-convict, a----"
+
+Elphick lifted his hand.
+
+"Hush--hush!" he said imploringly. "Mr. Spargo means well, I am sure--I
+am convinced. If Mr. Spargo will hear me----"
+
+But before Spargo could reply, a loud insistent knocking came at the
+outer door. Elphick started nervously, but presently he moved across
+the room, walking as if he had received a blow, and opened the door. A
+boy's voice penetrated into the sitting-room.
+
+"If you please, sir, is Mr. Spargo, of the _Watchman_, here? He left
+this address in case he was wanted."
+
+Spargo recognized the voice as that of one of the office messenger
+boys, and jumping up, went to the door.
+
+"What is it, Rawlins?" he asked.
+
+"Will you please come back to the office, sir, at once? There's Mr.
+Rathbury there and says he must see you instantly."
+
+"All right," answered Spargo. "I'm coming just now."
+
+He motioned the lad away, and turned to Elphick.
+
+"I shall have to go," he said. "I may be kept. Now, Mr. Elphick, can I
+come to see you tomorrow morning?"
+
+"Yes, yes, tomorrow morning!" replied Elphick eagerly. "Tomorrow
+morning, certainly. At eleven--eleven o'clock. That will do?"
+
+"I shall be here at eleven," said Spargo. "Eleven sharp."
+
+He was moving away when Elphick caught him by the sleeve.
+
+"A word--just a word!" he said. "You--you have not told the--the
+boy--Ronald--of what you know? You haven't?"
+
+"I haven't," replied Spargo.
+
+Elphick tightened his grip on Spargo's sleeve. He looked into his face
+beseechingly.
+
+"Promise me--promise me, Mr. Spargo, that you won't tell him until you
+have seen me in the morning!" he implored. "I beg you to promise me
+this."
+
+Spargo hesitated, considering matters.
+
+"Very well--I promise," he said.
+
+"And you won't print it?" continued Elphick, still clinging to him.
+"Say you won't print it tonight?"
+
+"I shall not print it tonight," answered Spargo. "That's certain."
+
+Elphick released his grip on the young man's arm.
+
+"Come--at eleven tomorrow morning," he said, and drew back and closed
+the door.
+
+Spargo ran quickly to the office and hurried up to his own room. And
+there, calmly seated in an easy-chair, smoking a cigar, and reading an
+evening newspaper, was Rathbury, unconcerned and outwardly as
+imperturbable as ever. He greeted Spargo with a careless nod and a
+smile.
+
+"Well," he said, "how's things?"
+
+Spargo, half-breathless, dropped into his desk-chair.
+
+"You didn't come here to tell me that," he said.
+
+Rathbury laughed.
+
+"No," he said, throwing the newspaper aside, "I didn't. I came to tell
+you my latest. You're at full liberty to stick it into your paper
+tonight: it may just as well be known."
+
+"Well?" said Spargo.
+
+Rathbury took his cigar out of his lips and yawned.
+
+"Aylmore's identified," he said lazily.
+
+Spargo sat up, sharply.
+
+"Identified!"
+
+"Identified, my son. Beyond doubt."
+
+"But as whom--as what?" exclaimed Spargo.
+
+Rathbury laughed.
+
+"He's an old lag--an ex-convict. Served his time partly at Dartmoor.
+That, of course, is where he met Maitland or Marbury. D'ye see? Clear
+as noontide now, Spargo."
+
+Spargo sat drumming his fingers on the desk before him. His eyes were
+fixed on a map of London that hung on the opposite wall; his ears heard
+the throbbing of the printing-machines far below. But what he really
+saw was the faces of the two girls; what he really heard was the voices
+of two girls ...
+
+"Clear as noontide--as noontide," repeated Rathbury with great
+cheerfulness.
+
+Spargo came back to the earth of plain and brutal fact.
+
+"What's clear as noontide?" he asked sharply.
+
+"What? Why, the whole thing! Motive--everything," answered Rathbury.
+"Don't you see, Maitland and Aylmore (his real name is Ainsworth, by
+the by) meet at Dartmoor, probably, or, rather, certainly, just before
+Aylmore's release. Aylmore goes abroad, makes money, in time comes
+back, starts new career, gets into Parliament, becomes big man. In
+time, Maitland, who, after his time, has also gone abroad, also comes
+back. The two meet. Maitland probably tries to blackmail Aylmore or
+threatens to let folk know that the flourishing Mr. Aylmore, M.P., is
+an ex-convict. Result--Aylmore lures him to the Temple and quiets him.
+Pooh!--the whole thing's clear as noontide, as I say. As--noontide!"
+
+Spargo drummed his fingers again.
+
+"How?" he asked quietly. "How came Aylmore to be identified?"
+
+"My work," said Rathbury proudly. "My work, my son. You see, I thought
+a lot. And especially after we'd found out that Marbury was Maitland."
+
+"You mean after I'd found out," remarked Spargo.
+
+Rathbury waved his cigar.
+
+"Well, well, it's all the same," he said. "You help me, and I help you,
+eh? Well, as I say, I thought a considerable lot. I thought--now, where
+did Maitland, or Marbury, know or meet Aylmore twenty or twenty-two
+years ago? Not in London, because we knew Maitland never was in
+London--at any rate, before his trial, and we haven't the least proof
+that he was in London after. And why won't Aylmore tell? Clearly
+because it must have been in some undesirable place. And then, all of a
+sudden, it flashed on me in a moment of--what do you writing fellows
+call those moments, Spargo?"
+
+"Inspiration, I should think," said Spargo. "Direct inspiration."
+
+"That's it. In a moment of direct inspiration, it flashed on me--why,
+twenty years ago, Maitland was in Dartmoor--they must have met there!
+And so, we got some old warders who'd been there at that time to come
+to town, and we gave 'em opportunities to see Aylmore and to study him.
+Of course, he's twenty years older, and he's grown a beard, but they
+began to recall him, and then one man remembered that if he was the man
+they thought he'd a certain birth-mark. And--he has!"
+
+"Does Aylmore know that he's been identified?" asked Spargo.
+
+Rathbury pitched his cigar into the fireplace and laughed.
+
+"Know!" he said scornfully. "Know? He's admitted it. What was the use
+of standing out against proof like that. He admitted it tonight in my
+presence. Oh, he knows all right!"
+
+"And what did he say?"
+
+Rathbury laughed contemptuously.
+
+"Say? Oh, not much. Pretty much what he said about this affair--that
+when he was convicted the time before he was an innocent man. He's
+certainly a good hand at playing the innocent game."
+
+"And of what was he convicted?"
+
+"Oh, of course, we know all about it--now. As soon as we found out who
+he really was, we had all the particulars turned up. Aylmore, or
+Ainsworth (Stephen Ainsworth his name really is) was a man who ran a
+sort of what they call a Mutual Benefit Society in a town right away up
+in the North--Cloudhampton--some thirty years ago. He was nominally
+secretary, but it was really his own affair. It was patronized by the
+working classes--Cloudhampton's a purely artisan population--and they
+stuck a lot of their brass, as they call it, in it. Then suddenly
+it came to smash, and there was nothing. He--Ainsworth, or
+Aylmore--pleaded that he was robbed and duped by another man, but the
+court didn't believe him, and he got seven years. Plain story you see,
+Spargo, when it all comes out, eh?"
+
+"All stories are quite plain--when they come out," observed Spargo.
+"And he kept silence now, I suppose, because he didn't want his
+daughters to know about his past?"
+
+"Just so," agreed Rathbury. "And I don't know that I blame him. He
+thought, of course, that he'd go scot-free over this Marbury affair.
+But he made his mistake in the initial stages, my boy--oh, yes!"
+
+Spargo got up from his desk and walked around his room for a few
+minutes, Rathbury meanwhile finding and lighting another cigar. At last
+Spargo came back and clapped a hand on the detective's shoulder.
+
+"Look here, Rathbury!" he said. "It's very evident that you're now
+going on the lines that Aylmore did murder Marbury. Eh?"
+
+Rathbury looked up. His face showed astonishment.
+
+"After evidence like that!" he exclaimed. "Why, of course. There's the
+motive, my son, the motive!"
+
+Spargo laughed.
+
+"Rathbury!" he said. "Aylmore no more murdered Marbury than you did!"
+
+The detective got up and put on his hat.
+
+"Oh!" he said. "Perhaps you know who did, then?"
+
+"I shall know in a few days," answered Spargo.
+
+Rathbury stared wonderingly at him. Then he suddenly walked to the
+door. "Good-night!" he said gruffly.
+
+"Good-night, Rathbury," replied Spargo and sat down at his desk.
+
+But that night Spargo wrote nothing for the _Watchman_. All he wrote
+was a short telegram addressed to Aylmore's daughters. There were only
+three words on it--_Have no fear._
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
+
+THE CLOSED DOORS
+
+
+Alone of all the London morning newspapers, the _Watchman_ appeared
+next day destitute of sensationalism in respect to the Middle Temple
+Murder. The other daily journals published more or less vivid accounts
+of the identification of Mr. Stephen Aylmore, M.P. for the Brookminster
+Division, as the _ci-devant_ Stephen Ainsworth, ex-convict, once upon a
+time founder and secretary of the Hearth and Home Mutual Benefit
+Society, the headquarters of which had been at Cloudhampton, in
+Daleshire; the fall of which had involved thousands of honest working
+folk in terrible distress if not in absolute ruin. Most of them had
+raked up Ainsworth's past to considerable journalistic purpose: it had
+been an easy matter to turn up old files, to recount the fall of the
+Hearth and Home, to tell anew the story of the privations of the humble
+investors whose small hoards had gone in the crash; it had been easy,
+too, to set out again the history of Ainsworth's arrest, trial, and
+fate. There was plenty of romance in the story: it was that of a man
+who by his financial ability had built up a great industrial insurance
+society; had--as was alleged--converted the large sums entrusted to him
+to his own purposes; had been detected and punished; had disappeared,
+after his punishment, so effectually that no one knew where he had
+gone; had come back, comparatively a few years later, under another
+name, a very rich man, and had entered Parliament and been, in a modest
+way, a public character without any of those who knew him in his new
+career suspecting that he had once worn a dress liberally ornamented
+with the broad arrow. Fine copy, excellent copy: some of the morning
+newspapers made a couple of columns of it.
+
+But the _Watchman_, up to then easily ahead of all its contemporaries
+in keeping the public informed of all the latest news in connection
+with the Marbury affair, contented itself with a brief announcement.
+For after Rathbury had left him, Spargo had sought his proprietor and
+his editor, and had sat long in consultation with them, and the result
+of their talk had been that all the _Watchman_ thought fit to tell its
+readers next morning was contained in a curt paragraph:
+
+"We understand that Mr. Stephen Aylmore, M.P., who is charged with the
+murder of John Marbury, or Maitland, in the Temple on June 21st last,
+was yesterday afternoon identified by certain officials as Stephen
+Ainsworth, who was sentenced to a term of penal servitude in connection
+with the Hearth and Home Mutual Benefit Society funds nearly thirty
+years ago."
+
+Coming down to Fleet Street that morning, Spargo, strolling jauntily
+along the front of the Law Courts, encountered a fellow-journalist, a
+man on an opposition newspaper, who grinned at him in a fashion which
+indicated derision.
+
+"Left behind a bit, that rag of yours, this morning, Spargo, my boy!"
+he remarked elegantly. "Why, you've missed one of the finest
+opportunities I ever heard of in connection with that Aylmore affair. A
+miserable paragraph!--why, I worked off a column and a half in ours!
+What were you doing last night, old man?"
+
+"Sleeping," said Spargo and went by with a nod. "Sleeping!"
+
+He left the other staring at him, and crossed the road to Middle Temple
+Lane. It was just on the stroke of eleven as he walked up the stairs to
+Mr. Elphick's chambers; precisely eleven as he knocked at the outer
+door. It is seldom that outer doors are closed in the Temple at that
+hour, but Elphick's door was closed fast enough. The night before it
+had been promptly opened, but there was no response to Spargo's first
+knock, nor to his second, nor to his third. And half-unconsciously he
+murmured aloud: "Elphick's door is closed!"
+
+It never occurred to Spargo to knock again: instinct told him that
+Elphick's door was closed because Elphick was not there; closed because
+Elphick was not going to keep the appointment. He turned and walked
+slowly back along the corridor. And just as he reached the head of the
+stairs Ronald Breton, pale and anxious, came running up them, and at
+sight of Spargo paused, staring questioningly at him. As if with a
+mutual sympathy the two young men shook hands.
+
+"I'm glad you didn't print more than those two or three lines in the
+_Watchman_ this morning," said Breton. "It was--considerate. As for the
+other papers!--Aylmore assured me last night, Spargo, that though he
+did serve that term at Dartmoor he was innocent enough! He was
+scapegoat for another man who disappeared."
+
+Then, as Spargo merely nodded, he added, awkwardly:
+
+"And I'm obliged to you, too, old chap, for sending that wire to the
+two girls last night--it was good of you. They want all the comfort
+they can get, poor things! But--what are you doing here, Spargo?"
+
+Spargo leant against the head of the stairs and folded his hands.
+
+"I came here," he said, "to keep an appointment with Mr. Elphick--an
+appointment which he made when I called on him, as you suggested, at
+nine o'clock. The appointment--a most important one--was for eleven
+o'clock."
+
+Breton glanced at his watch.
+
+"Come on, then," he said. "It's well past that now, and my guardian's a
+very martinet in the matter of punctuality."
+
+But Spargo did not move. Instead, he shook his head, regarding Breton
+with troubled eyes.
+
+"So am I," he answered. "I was trained to it. Your guardian isn't
+there, Breton."
+
+"Not there? If he made an appointment for eleven? Nonsense--I never
+knew him miss an appointment!"
+
+"I knocked three times--three separate times," answered Spargo.
+
+"You should have knocked half a dozen times--he may have overslept
+himself. He sits up late--he and old Cardlestone often sit up half the
+night, talking stamps or playing piquet," said Breton. "Come on--you'll
+see!"
+
+Spargo shook his head again.
+
+"He's not there, Breton," he said. "He's gone!"
+
+Breton stared at the journalist as if he had just announced that he had
+seen Mr. Septimus Elphick riding down Fleet Street on a dromedary. He
+seized Spargo's elbow.
+
+"Come on!" he said. "I have a key to Mr. Elphick's door, so that I can
+go in and out as I like. I'll soon show you whether he's gone or not."
+
+Spargo followed the young barrister down the corridor.
+
+"All the same," he said meditatively as Breton fitted a key to the
+latch, "he's not there, Breton. He's--off!"
+
+"Good heavens, man, I don't know what you're talking about!" exclaimed
+Breton, opening the door and walking into the lobby. "Off! Where on
+earth should he be off to, when he's made an appointment with you for
+eleven, and--Hullo!"
+
+He had opened the door of the room in which Spargo had met Elphick and
+Miss Baylis the night before, and was walking in when he pulled himself
+up on the threshold with a sharp exclamation.
+
+"Good God!" he cried. "What--what's all this?"
+
+Spargo quietly looked over Breton's shoulder. It needed but one quick
+glance to show him that much had happened in that quiet room since he
+had quitted it the night before. There stood the easy-chair in which he
+had left Elphick; there, close by it, but pushed aside, as if by a
+hurried hand, was the little table with its spirit case, its syphon,
+its glass, in which stale liquid still stood; there was the novel,
+turned face downwards; there, upon the novel, was Elphick's pipe. But
+the rest of the room was in dire confusion. The drawers of a bureau had
+been pulled open and never put back; papers of all descriptions, old
+legal-looking documents, old letters, littered the centre-table and
+the floor; in one corner of the room a black japanned box had been
+opened, its contents strewn about, and the lid left yawning. And in the
+grate, and all over the fender there were masses of burned and charred
+paper; it was only too evident that the occupant of the chambers,
+wherever he might have disappeared to, had spent some time before his
+disappearance in destroying a considerable heap of documents and
+papers, and in such haste that he had not troubled to put matters
+straight before he went.
+
+Breton stared at this scene for a moment in utter consternation. Then
+he made one step towards an inner door, and Spargo followed him.
+Together they entered an inner room--a sleeping apartment. There was no
+one in it, but there were evidences that Elphick had just as hastily
+packed a bag as he had destroyed his papers. The clothes which Spargo
+had seen him wearing the previous evening were flung here, there,
+everywhere: the gorgeous smoking-jacket was tossed unceremoniously in
+one corner, a dress-shirt, in the bosom of which valuable studs still
+glistened, in another. One or two suitcases lay about, as if they had
+been examined and discarded in favour of something more portable; here,
+too, drawers, revealing stocks of linen and underclothing, had been
+torn open and left open; open, too, swung the door of a wardrobe,
+revealing a quantity of expensive clothing. And Spargo, looking around
+him, seemed to see all that had happened--the hasty, almost frantic
+search for and tearing up and burning of papers; the hurried change of
+clothing, of packing necessaries into a bag that could be carried, and
+then the flight the getting away, the----
+
+"What on earth does all this mean?" exclaimed Breton. "What is it,
+Spargo?"
+
+"I mean exactly what I told you," answered Spargo. "He's off! Off!"
+
+"Off! But why off? What--my guardian!--as quiet an old gentleman as
+there is in the Temple--off!" cried Breton. "For what reason, eh? It
+isn't--good God, Spargo, it isn't because of anything you said to him
+last night!"
+
+"I should say it is precisely because of something that I said to him
+last night," replied Spargo. "I was a fool ever to let him out of my
+sight."
+
+Breton turned on his companion and gasped.
+
+"Out--of--your--sight!" he exclaimed. "Why--why--you don't mean to say
+that Mr. Elphick has anything to do with this Marbury affair? For God's
+sake, Spargo----"
+
+Spargo laid a hand on the young barrister's shoulder.
+
+"I'm afraid you'll have to hear a good deal, Breton," he said. "I was
+going to talk to you today in any case. You see----"
+
+Before Spargo could say more a woman, bearing the implements which
+denote the charwoman's profession, entered the room and immediately
+cried out at what she saw. Breton turned on her almost savagely.
+
+"Here, you!" he said. "Have you seen anything of Mr. Elphick this
+morning?"
+
+The charwoman rolled her eyes and lifted her hands.
+
+"Me, sir! Not a sign of him, sir. Which I never comes here much before
+half-past eleven, sir, Mr. Elphick being then gone out to his
+breakfast. I see him yesterday morning, sir, which he was then in his
+usual state of good health, sir, if any thing's the matter with him
+now. No, sir, I ain't seen nothing of him."
+
+Breton let out another exclamation of impatience.
+
+"You'd better leave all this," he said. "Mr. Elphick's evidently gone
+away in a hurry, and you mustn't touch anything here until he comes
+back. I'm going to lock up the chambers: if you've a key of them give
+it to me."
+
+The charwoman handed over a key, gave another astonished look at the
+rooms, and vanished, muttering, and Breton turned to Spargo.
+
+"What do you say?" he demanded. "I must hear--a good deal! Out with it,
+then, man, for Heaven's sake."
+
+But Spargo shook his head.
+
+"Not now, Breton," he answered. "Presently, I tell you, for Miss
+Aylmore's sake, and your own, the first thing to do is to get on your
+guardian's track. We must--must, I say!--and at once."
+
+Breton stood staring at Spargo for a moment as if he could not credit
+his own senses. Then he suddenly motioned Spargo out of the room.
+
+"Come on!" he said. "I know who'll know where he is, if anybody does."
+
+"Who, then?" asked Spargo, as they hurried out.
+
+"Cardlestone," answered Breton, grimly. "Cardlestone!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THIRTY
+
+REVELATION
+
+
+There was as much bright sunshine that morning in Middle Temple Lane as
+ever manages to get into it, and some of it was shining in the entry
+into which Spargo and Breton presently hurried. Full of haste as he was
+Breton paused at the foot of the stair. He looked down at the floor and
+at the wall at its side.
+
+"Wasn't it there?" he said in a low voice, pointing at the place he
+looked at. "Wasn't it there, Spargo, just there, that Marbury, or,
+rather, Maitland, was found?"
+
+"It was just there," answered Spargo.
+
+"You saw him?"
+
+"I saw him."
+
+"Soon--afterwards?"
+
+"Immediately after he was found. You know all that, Breton. Why do you
+ask now?"
+
+Breton, who was still staring at the place on which he had fixed his
+eyes on walking into the entry, shook his head.
+
+"Don't know," he answered. "I--but come on--let's see if old
+Cardlestone can tell us anything."
+
+There was another charwoman, armed with pails and buckets, outside
+Cardlestone's door, into which she was just fitting a key. It was
+evident to Spargo that she knew Breton, for she smiled at him as she
+opened the door.
+
+"I don't think Mr. Cardlestone'll be in, sir," she said. "He's
+generally gone out to breakfast at this time--him and Mr. Elphick goes
+together."
+
+"Just see," said Breton. "I want to see him if he is in." The charwoman
+entered the chambers and immediately screamed.
+
+"Quite so," remarked Spargo. "That's what I expected to hear.
+Cardlestone, you see, Breton, is also--off!"
+
+Breton made no reply. He rushed after the charwoman, with Spargo in
+close attendance.
+
+"Good God--another!" groaned Breton.
+
+If the confusion in Elphick's rooms had been bad, that in Cardlestone's
+chambers was worse. Here again all the features of the previous scene
+were repeated--drawers had been torn open, papers thrown about; the
+hearth was choked with light ashes; everything was at sixes and sevens.
+An open door leading into an inner room showed that Cardlestone, like
+Elphick, had hastily packed a bag; like Elphick had changed his
+clothes, and had thrown his discarded garments anywhere, into any
+corner. Spargo began to realize what had taken place--Elphick, having
+made his own preparations for flight, had come to Cardlestone, and had
+expedited him, and they had fled together. But--why?
+
+The charwoman sat down in the nearest chair and began to moan and sob;
+Breton strode forward, across the heaps of papers and miscellaneous
+objects tossed aside in that hurried search and clearing up, into the
+inner room. And Spargo, looking about him, suddenly caught sight of
+something lying on the floor at which he made a sharp clutch. He had
+just secured it and hurried it into his pocket when Breton came back.
+
+"I don't know what all this means, Spargo," he said, almost wearily. "I
+suppose you do. Look here," he went on, turning to the charwoman, "stop
+that row--that'll do no good, you know. I suppose Mr. Cardlestone's
+gone away in a hurry. You'd better--what had she better do, Spargo?"
+
+"Leave things exactly as they are, lock up the chambers, and as you're
+a friend of Mr. Cardlestone's give you the key," answered Spargo, with
+a significant glance. "Do that, now, and let's go--I've something to
+do." Once outside, with the startled charwoman gone away, Spargo turned
+to Breton.
+
+"I'll tell you all I know, presently, Breton," he said. "In the
+meantime, I want to find out if the lodge porter saw Mr. Elphick or Mr.
+Cardlestone leave. I must know where they've gone--if I can only find
+out. I don't suppose they went on foot."
+
+"All right," responded Breton, gloomily. "We'll go and ask. But this is
+all beyond me. You don't mean to say----"
+
+"Wait a while," answered Spargo. "One thing at once," he continued, as
+they walked up Middle Temple Lane. "This is the first thing. You ask
+the porter if he's seen anything of either of them--he knows you."
+
+The porter, duly interrogated, responded with alacrity.
+
+"Anything of Mr. Elphick this morning, Mr. Breton?" he answered.
+"Certainly, sir. I got a taxi for Mr. Elphick and Mr. Cardlestone early
+this morning--soon after seven. Mr. Elphick said they were going to
+Paris, and they'd breakfast at Charing Cross before the train left."
+
+"Say when they'd be back?" asked Breton, with an assumption of entire
+carelessness.
+
+"No, sir, Mr. Elphick didn't," answered the porter. "But I should say
+they wouldn't be long because they'd only got small suit-cases with
+them--such as they'd put a day or two's things in, sir."
+
+"All right," said Breton. He turned away towards Spargo who had already
+moved off. "What next?" he asked. "Charing Cross, I suppose!"
+
+Spargo smiled and shook his head.
+
+"No," he answered. "I've no use for Charing Cross. They haven't gone to
+Paris. That was all a blind. For the present let's go back to your
+chambers. Then I'll talk to you."
+
+Once within Breton's inner room, with the door closed upon them, Spargo
+dropped into an easy-chair and looked at the young barrister with
+earnest attention.
+
+"Breton!" he said. "I believe we're coming in sight of land. You want
+to save your prospective father-in-law, don't you?"
+
+"Of course!" growled Breton. "That goes without saying. But----"
+
+"But you may have to make some sacrifices in order to do it," said
+Spargo. "You see----"
+
+"Sacrifices!" exclaimed Breton. "What----"
+
+"You may have to sacrifice some ideas--you may find that you'll not be
+able to think as well of some people in the future as you have thought
+of them in the past. For instance--Mr. Elphick."
+
+Breton's face grew dark.
+
+"Speak plainly, Spargo!" he said. "It's best with me."
+
+"Very well," replied Spargo. "Mr. Elphick, then, is in some way
+connected with this affair."
+
+"You mean the--murder?"
+
+"I mean the murder. So is Cardlestone. Of that I'm now dead certain.
+And that's why they're off. I startled Elphick last night. It's evident
+that he immediately communicated with Cardlestone, and that they made a
+rapid exit. Why?"
+
+"Why? That's what I'm asking you! Why? Why? Why?"
+
+"Because they're afraid of something coming out. And being afraid,
+their first instinct is to--run. They've run at the first alarm.
+Foolish--but instinctive."
+
+Breton, who had flung himself into the elbow-chair at his desk, jumped
+to his feet and thumped his blotting-pad.
+
+"Spargo!" he exclaimed. "Are you telling me that you accuse my guardian
+and his friend, Mr. Cardlestone. of being--murderers?"
+
+"Nothing of the sort. I am accusing Mr. Elphick and Mr. Cardlestone of
+knowing more about the murder than they care to tell or want to tell. I
+am also accusing them, and especially your guardian, of knowing all
+about Maitland, alias Marbury. I made him confess last night that he
+knew this dead man to be John Maitland."
+
+"You did!"
+
+"I did. And now, Breton, since it's got to come out, we'll have the
+truth. Pull yourself together--get your nerves ready, for you'll have
+to stand a shock or two. But I know what I'm talking about--I can prove
+every word I'm going to say to you. And first let me ask you a few
+questions. Do you know anything about your parentage?"
+
+"Nothing--beyond what Mr. Elphick has told me."
+
+"And what was that?"
+
+"That my parents were old friends of his, who died young, leaving me
+unprovided for, and that he took me up and looked after me."
+
+"And he's never given you any documentary evidence of any sort to prove
+the truth of that story?"
+
+"Never! I never questioned his statement. Why should I?"
+
+"You never remember anything of your childhood--I mean of any person
+who was particularly near you in your childhood?"
+
+"I remember the people who brought me up from the time I was three
+years old. And I have just a faint, shadowy recollection of some woman,
+a tall, dark woman, I think, before that."
+
+"Miss Baylis," said Spargo to himself. "All right, Breton," he went on
+aloud. "I'm going to tell you the truth. I'll tell it to you straight
+out and give you all the explanations afterwards. Your real name is not
+Breton at all. Your real name is Maitland, and you're the only child of
+the man who was found murdered at the foot of Cardlestone's staircase!"
+
+Spargo had been wondering how Breton would take this, and he gazed at
+him with some anxiety as he got out the last words. What would he
+do?--what would he say?--what----
+
+Breton sat down quietly at his desk and looked Spargo hard between the
+eyes.
+
+"Prove that to me, Spargo," he said, in hard, matter-of-fact tones.
+"Prove it to me, every word. Every word, Spargo!"
+
+Spargo nodded.
+
+"I will--every word," he answered. "It's the right thing. Listen,
+then."
+
+It was a quarter to twelve, Spargo noticed, throwing a glance at the
+clock outside, as he began his story; it was past one when he brought
+it to an end. And all that time Breton listened with the keenest
+attention, only asking a question now and then; now and then making a
+brief note on a sheet of paper which he had drawn to him.
+
+"That's all," said Spargo at last.
+
+"It's plenty," observed Breton laconically.
+
+He sat staring at his notes for a moment; then he looked up at Spargo.
+"What do you really think?" he asked.
+
+"About--what?" said Spargo.
+
+"This flight of Elphick's and Cardlestone's."
+
+"I think, as I said, that they knew something which they think may be
+forced upon them. I never saw a man in a greater fright than that I saw
+Elphick in last night. And it's evident that Cardlestone shares in that
+fright, or they wouldn't have gone off in this way together."
+
+"Do you think they know anything of the actual murder?"
+
+Spargo shook his head.
+
+"I don't know. Probably. They know something. And--look here!"
+
+Spargo put his hand in his breast pocket and drew something out which
+he handed to Breton, who gazed at it curiously.
+
+"What's this?" he demanded. "Stamps?"
+
+"That, from the description of Criedir, the stamp-dealer, is a sheet of
+those rare Australian stamps which Maitland had on him--carried on him.
+I picked it up just now in Cardlestone's room, when you were looking
+into his bedroom."
+
+"But that, after all, proves nothing. Those mayn't be the identical
+stamps. And whether they are or not----"
+
+"What are the probabilities?" interrupted Spargo sharply. "I believe
+that those are the stamps which Maitland--your father!--had on him,
+and I want to know how they came to be in Cardlestone's rooms.
+And I will know."
+
+Breton handed the stamps back.
+
+"But the general thing, Spargo?" he said. "If they didn't murder--I
+can't realize the thing yet!--my father----"
+
+"If they didn't murder your father, they know who did!" exclaimed
+Spargo. "Now, then, it's time for more action. Let Elphick and
+Cardlestone alone for the moment--they'll be tracked easily enough. I
+want to tackle something else for the moment. How do you get an
+authority from the Government to open a grave?"
+
+"Order from the Home Secretary, which will have to be obtained by
+showing the very strongest reasons why it should be made."
+
+"Good! We'll give the reasons. I want to have a grave opened."
+
+"A grave opened! Whose grave?"
+
+"The grave of the man Chamberlayne at Market Milcaster," replied
+Spargo.
+
+Breton started.
+
+"His? In Heaven's name, why?" he demanded.
+
+Spargo laughed as he got up.
+
+"Because I believe it's empty," he answered. "Because I believe that
+Chamberlayne is alive, and that his other name is--Cardlestone!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
+
+THE PENITENT WINDOW-CLEANER
+
+
+That afternoon Spargo had another of his momentous interviews with his
+proprietor and his editor. The first result was that all three drove to
+the offices of the legal gentleman who catered for the _Watchman_ when
+it wanted any law, and that things were put in shape for an immediate
+application to the Home Office for permission to open the Chamberlayne
+grave at Market Milcaster; the second was that on the following morning
+there appeared in the _Watchman_ a notice which set half the mouths of
+London a-watering. That notice; penned by Spargo, ran as follows:--
+
+"ONE THOUSAND POUNDS REWARD.
+
+"WHEREAS, on some date within the past twelve months, there was
+stolen, abstracted, or taken from the chambers in Fountain Court,
+Temple, occupied by Mr. Stephen Aylmore, M.P., under the name of Mr.
+Anderson, a walking-stick, or stout staff, of foreign make, and of
+curious workmanship, which stick was probably used in the murder of
+John Marbury, or Maitland, in Middle Temple Lane, on the night of
+June 21-22 last, and is now in the hands of the police:
+
+"This is to give notice that the Proprietor of the _Watchman_
+newspaper will pay the above-mentioned reward (ONE THOUSAND POUNDS
+STERLING) at once and in cash to whosoever will prove that he or she
+stole, abstracted, or took away the said stick from the said chambers,
+and will further give full information as to his or her disposal of
+the same, and the Proprietor of the _Watchman_ moreover engages to
+treat any revelation affecting the said stick in the most strictly
+private and confidential manner, and to abstain from using it in any
+way detrimental to the informant, who should call at the _Watchman_
+office, and ask for Mr. Frank Spargo at any time between eleven and
+one o'clock midday, and seven and eleven o'clock in the evening."
+
+"And you really expect to get some information through that?" asked
+Breton, who came into Spargo's room about noon on the day on which the
+promising announcement came out. "You really do?"
+
+"Before today is out," said Spargo confidently. "There is more magic in
+a thousand-pound reward than you fancy, Breton. I'll have the history
+of that stick before midnight."
+
+"How are you to tell that you won't be imposed upon?" suggested Breton.
+"Anybody can say that he or she stole the stick."
+
+"Whoever comes here with any tale of a stick will have to prove to me
+how he or she got the stick and what was done with the stick," said
+Spargo. "I haven't the least doubt that that stick was stolen or taken
+away from Aylmore's rooms in Fountain Court, and that it got into the
+hands of--"
+
+"Yes, of whom?"
+
+"That's what I want to know in some fashion. I've an idea, already. But
+I can afford to wait for definite information. I know one thing--when I
+get that information--as I shall--we shall be a long way on the road
+towards establishing Aylmore's innocence."
+
+Breton made no remark upon this. He was looking at Spargo with a
+meditative expression.
+
+"Spargo," he said, suddenly, "do you think you'll get that order for
+the opening of the grave at Market Milcaster?"
+
+"I was talking to the solicitors over the 'phone just now," answered
+Spargo. "They've every confidence about it. In fact, it's possible it
+may be made this afternoon. In that case, the opening will be made
+early tomorrow morning."
+
+"Shall you go?" asked Breton.
+
+"Certainly. And you can go with me, if you like. Better keep in touch
+with us all day in case we hear. You ought to be there--you're
+concerned."
+
+"I should like to go--I will go," said Breton. "And if that grave
+proves to be--empty--I'll--I'll tell you something."
+
+Spargo looked up with sharp instinct.
+
+"You'll tell me something? Something? What?"
+
+"Never mind--wait until we see if that coffin contains a dead body or
+lead and sawdust. If there's no body there----"
+
+At that moment one of the senior messenger boys came in and approached
+Spargo. His countenance, usually subdued to an official stolidity,
+showed signs of something very like excitement.
+
+"There's a man downstairs asking for you, Mr. Spargo," he said. "He's
+been hanging about a bit, sir,--seems very shy about coming up. He
+won't say what he wants, and he won't fill up a form, sir. Says all he
+wants is a word or two with you."
+
+"Bring him up at once!" commanded Spargo. He turned to Breton when the
+boy had gone. "There!" he said, laughing. "This is the man about the
+stick--you see if it isn't."
+
+"You're such a cock-sure chap, Spargo," said Breton. "You're always
+going on a straight line."
+
+"Trying to, you mean," retorted Spargo. "Well, stop here, and hear what
+this chap has to say: it'll no doubt be amusing."
+
+The messenger boy, deeply conscious that he was ushering into Spargo's
+room an individual who might shortly carry away a thousand pounds of
+good _Watchman_ money in his pocket, opened the door and introduced a
+shy and self-conscious young man, whose nervousness was painfully
+apparent to everybody and deeply felt by himself. He halted on the
+threshold, looking round the comfortably-furnished room, and at the two
+well-dressed young men which it framed as if he feared to enter on a
+scene of such grandeur.
+
+"Come in, come in!" said Spargo, rising and pointing to an easy-chair
+at the side of his desk. "Take a seat. You've called about that reward,
+of course."
+
+The man in the chair eyed the two of them cautiously, and not without
+suspicion. He cleared his throat with a palpable effort.
+
+"Of course," he said. "It's all on the strict private. Name of Edward
+Mollison, sir."
+
+"And where do you live, and what do you do?" asked Spargo.
+
+"You might put it down Rowton House, Whitechapel," answered Edward
+Mollison. "Leastways, that's where I generally hang out when I can
+afford it. And--window-cleaner. Leastways, I was window cleaning
+when--when----"
+
+"When you came in contact with the stick we've been advertising about,"
+suggested Spargo. "Just so. Well, Mollison--what about the stick?"
+
+Mollison looked round at the door, and then at the windows, and then at
+Breton.
+
+"There ain't no danger of me being got into trouble along of that
+stick?" he asked. "'Cause if there is, I ain't a-going to say a
+word--no, not for no thousand pounds! Me never having been in no
+trouble of any sort, guv'nor--though a poor man."
+
+"Not the slightest danger in the world, Mollison," replied Spargo. "Not
+the least. All you've got to do is to tell the truth--and prove that it
+is the truth. So it was you who took that queer-looking stick out of
+Mr. Aylmore's rooms in Fountain Court, was it?"
+
+Mollison appeared to find this direct question soothing to his
+feelings. He smiled weakly.
+
+"It was cert'nly me as took it, sir," he said. "Not that I meant to
+pinch it--not me! And, as you might say, I didn't take it, when all's
+said and done. It was--put on me."
+
+"Put on you, was it?" said Spargo. "That's interesting. And how was it
+put on you?"
+
+Mollison grinned again and rubbed his chin.
+
+"It was this here way," he answered. "You see, I was working at that
+time--near on to nine months since, it is--for the Universal Daylight
+Window Cleaning Company, and I used to clean a many windows here and
+there in the Temple, and them windows at Mr. Aylmore's--only I knew
+them as Mr. Anderson's--among 'em. And I was there one morning, early
+it was, when the charwoman she says to me, 'I wish you'd take these two
+or three hearthrugs,' she says, 'and give 'em a good beating,' she
+says. And me being always a ready one to oblige, 'All right!' I says,
+and takes 'em. 'Here's something to wallop 'em with,' she says, and
+pulls that there old stick out of a lot that was in a stand in a corner
+of the lobby. And that's how I came to handle it, sir."
+
+"I see," said Spargo. "A good explanation. And when you had beaten the
+hearthrugs--what then?"
+
+Mollison smiled his weak smile again.
+
+"Well, sir, I looked at that there stick and I see it was something
+uncommon," he answered. "And I thinks--'Well, this Mr. Anderson, he's
+got a bundle of sticks and walking canes up there--he'll never miss this
+old thing,' I thinks. And so I left it in a corner when I'd done
+beating the rugs, and when I went away with my things I took it with
+me."
+
+"You took it with you?" said Spargo. "Just so. To keep as a curiosity,
+I suppose?"
+
+Mollison's weak smile turned to one of cunning. He was obviously losing
+his nervousness; the sound of his own voice and the reception of his
+news was imparting confidence to him.
+
+"Not half!" he answered. "You see, guv'nor, there was an old cove as I
+knew in the Temple there as is, or was, 'cause I ain't been there
+since, a collector of antikities, like, and I'd sold him a queer old
+thing, time and again. And, of course, I had him in my eye when I took
+the stick away--see?"
+
+"I see. And you took the stick to him?"
+
+"I took it there and then," replied Mollison. "Pitched him a tale, I
+did, about it having been brought from foreign parts by Uncle
+Simon--which I never had no Uncle Simon. Made out it was a rare
+curiosity--which it might ha' been one, for all I know."
+
+"Exactly. And the old cove took a fancy to it, eh?"
+
+"Bought it there and then," answered Mollison, with something very like
+a wink.
+
+"Ah! Bought it there and then. And how much did he give you for it?"
+asked Spargo. "Something handsome, I hope?"
+
+"Couple o' quid," replied Mollison. "Me not wishing to part with a
+family heirloom for less."
+
+"Just so. And do you happen to be able to tell me the old cove's name
+and his address, Mollison?" asked Spargo.
+
+"I do, sir. Which they've painted on his entry--the fifth or sixth as
+you go down Middle Temple Lane," answered Mollison. "Mr. Nicholas
+Cardlestone, first floor up the staircase."
+
+Spargo rose from his seat without as much as a look at Breton.
+
+"Come this way, Mollison," he said. "We'll go and see about your little
+reward. Excuse me, Breton."
+
+Breton kicked his heels in solitude for half an hour. Then Spargo came
+back.
+
+"There--that's one matter settled, Breton," he said. "Now for the next.
+The Home Secretary's made the order for the opening of the grave at
+Market Milcaster. I'm going down there at once, and I suppose you're
+coming. And remember, if that grave's empty----"
+
+"If that grave's empty," said Breton, "I'll tell you--a good deal."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
+
+THE CONTENTS OF THE COFFIN
+
+
+There travelled down together to Market Milcaster late that afternoon,
+Spargo, Breton, the officials from the Home Office, entrusted with the
+order for the opening of the Chamberlayne grave, and a solicitor acting
+on behalf of the proprietor of the _Watchman_. It was late in the
+evening when they reached the little town, but Spargo, having looked in
+at the parlour of the "Yellow Dragon" and ascertained that Mr.
+Quarterpage had only just gone home, took Breton across the street to
+the old gentleman's house. Mr. Quarterpage himself came to the door,
+and recognized Spargo immediately. Nothing would satisfy him but that
+the two should go in; his family, he said, had just retired, but he
+himself was going to take a final nightcap and a cigar, and they must
+share it.
+
+"For a few minutes only then, Mr. Quarterpage," said Spargo as they
+followed the old man into his dining-room. "We have to be up at
+daybreak. And--possibly--you, too, would like to be up just as early."
+
+Mr. Quarterpage looked an enquiry over the top of a decanter which he
+was handling.
+
+"At daybreak?" he exclaimed.
+
+"The fact is," said Spargo, "that grave of Chamberlayne's is going to
+be opened at daybreak. We have managed to get an order from the Home
+Secretary for the exhumation of Chamberlayne's body: the officials in
+charge of it have come down in the same train with us; we're all
+staying across there at the 'Dragon.' The officials have gone to make
+the proper arrangements with your authorities. It will be at daybreak,
+or as near it as can conveniently be managed. And I suppose, now that
+you know of it, you'll be there?"
+
+"God bless me!" exclaimed Mr. Quarterpage. "You've really done that!
+Well, well, so we shall know the truth at last, after all these years.
+You're a very wonderful young man, Mr. Spargo, upon my word. And this
+other young gentleman?"
+
+Spargo looked at Breton, who had already given him permission to speak.
+"Mr. Quarterpage," he said, "this young gentleman is, without doubt,
+John Maitland's son. He's the young barrister, Mr. Ronald Breton, that
+I told you of, but there's no doubt about his parentage. And I'm sure
+you'll shake hands with him and wish him well."
+
+Mr. Quarterpage set down decanter and glass and hastened to give Breton
+his hand.
+
+"My dear young sir!" he exclaimed. "That I will indeed! And as to
+wishing you well--ah, I never wished anything but well to your poor
+father. He was led away, sir, led away by Chamberlayne. God bless me,
+what a night of surprises! Why, Mr. Spargo, supposing that coffin is
+found empty--what then?"
+
+"Then," answered Spargo, "then I think we shall be able to put our
+hands on the man who is supposed to be in it."
+
+"You think my father was worked upon by this man Chamberlayne, sir?"
+observed Breton a few minutes later when they had all sat down round
+Mr. Quarterpage's hospitable hearth. "You think he was unduly
+influenced by him?"
+
+Mr. Quarterpage shook his head sadly.
+
+"Chamberlayne, my dear young sir," he answered. "Chamberlayne was a
+plausible and a clever fellow. Nobody knew anything about him until he
+came to this town, and yet before he had been here very long he had
+contrived to ingratiate himself with everybody--of course, to his own
+advantage. I firmly believe that he twisted your father round his
+little finger. As I told Mr. Spargo there when he was making his
+enquiries of me a short while back, it would never have been any
+surprise to me to hear--definitely, I mean, young gentlemen--that all
+this money that was in question went into Chamberlayne's pockets. Dear
+me--dear me!--and you really believe that Chamberlayne is actually
+alive, Mr. Spargo?"
+
+Spargo pulled out his watch. "We shall all know whether he was buried
+in that grave before another six hours are over, Mr. Quarterpage," he
+said.
+
+He might well have spoken of four hours instead of six, for it was then
+nearly midnight, and before three o'clock Spargo and Breton, with the
+other men who had accompanied them from London were out of the "Yellow
+Dragon" and on their way to the cemetery just outside the little town.
+Over the hills to the eastward the grey dawn was slowly breaking: the
+long stretch of marshland which lies between Market Milcaster and the
+sea was white with fog: on the cypresses and acacias of the cemetery
+hung veils and webs of gossamer: everything around them was quiet as
+the dead folk who lay beneath their feet. And the people actively
+concerned went quietly to work, and those who could do nothing but
+watch stood around in silence.
+
+"In all my long life of over ninety years," whispered old Quarterpage,
+who had met them at the cemetery gates, looking fresh and brisk in
+spite of his shortened rest, "I have never seen this done before. It
+seems a strange, strange thing to interfere with a dead man's last
+resting-place--a dreadful thing."
+
+"If there is a dead man there," said Spargo.
+
+He himself was mainly curious about the details of this exhumation; he
+had no scruples, sentimental or otherwise, about the breaking in upon
+the dead. He watched all that was done. The men employed by the local
+authorities, instructed over-night, had fenced in the grave with
+canvas; the proceedings were accordingly conducted in strict privacy; a
+man was posted to keep away any very early passersby, who might be
+attracted by the unusual proceedings. At first there was nothing to do
+but wait, and Spargo occupied himself by reflecting that every spadeful
+of earth thrown out of that grave was bringing him nearer to the truth;
+he had an unconquerable intuition that the truth of at any rate one
+phase of the Marbury case was going to be revealed to them. If the
+coffin to which they were digging down contained a body, and that the
+body of the stockbroker, Chamberlayne, then a good deal of his,
+Spargo's, latest theory, would be dissolved to nothingness. But if that
+coffin contained no body at all, then--"
+
+"They're down to it!" whispered Breton.
+
+Presently they all went and looked down into the grave. The workmen had
+uncovered the coffin preparatory to lifting it to the surface; one of
+them was brushing the earth away from the name-plate. And in the now
+strong light they could all read the lettering on it.
+
+  JAMES CARTWRIGHT CHAMBERLAYNE
+  Born 1852
+  Died 1891
+
+Spargo turned away as the men began to lift the coffin out of the
+grave.
+
+"We shall know now!" he whispered to Breton. "And yet--what is it we
+shall know if----"
+
+"If what?" said Breton. "If--what?"
+
+But Spargo shook his head. This was one of the great moments he had
+lately been working for, and the issues were tremendous.
+
+"Now for it!" said the _Watchman's_ solicitor in an undertone. "Come,
+Mr. Spargo, now we shall see."
+
+They all gathered round the coffin, set on low trestles at the
+graveside, as the workmen silently went to work on the screws. The
+screws were rusted in their sockets; they grated as the men slowly
+worked them out. It seemed to Spargo that each man grew slower and
+slower in his movements; he felt that he himself was getting fidgety.
+Then he heard a voice of authority.
+
+"Lift the lid off!"
+
+A man at the head of the coffin, a man at the foot suddenly and swiftly
+raised the lid: the men gathered round craned their necks with a quick
+movement.
+
+Sawdust!
+
+The coffin was packed to the brim with sawdust, tightly pressed down.
+The surface lay smooth, undisturbed, levelled as some hand had levelled
+it long years before. They were not in the presence of death, but of
+deceit.
+
+Somebody laughed faintly. The sound of the laughter broke the spell.
+The chief official present looked round him with a smile.
+
+"It is evident that there were good grounds for suspicion," he
+remarked. "Here is no dead body, gentlemen. See if anything lies
+beneath the sawdust," he added, turning to the workmen. "Turn it out!"
+
+The workmen began to scoop out the sawdust with their hands; one of
+them, evidently desirous of making sure that no body was in the coffin,
+thrust down his fingers at various places along its length. He, too,
+laughed.
+
+"The coffin's weighted with lead!" he remarked. "See!"
+
+And tearing the sawdust aside, he showed those around him that at three
+intervals bars of lead had been tightly wedged into the coffin where
+the head, the middle, and the feet of a corpse would have rested.
+
+"Done it cleverly," he remarked, looking round. "You see how these
+weights have been adjusted. When a body's laid out in a coffin, you
+know, all the weight's in the end where the head and trunk rest. Here
+you see the heaviest bar of lead is in the middle; the lightest at the
+feet. Clever!"
+
+"Clear out all the sawdust," said some one. "Let's see if there's
+anything else."
+
+There was something else. At the bottom of the coffin two bundles of
+papers, tied up with pink tape. The legal gentlemen present immediately
+manifested great interest in these. So did Spargo, who, pulling Breton
+along with him, forced his way to where the officials from the Home
+Office and the solicitor sent by the _Watchman_ were hastily examining
+their discoveries.
+
+The first bundle of papers opened evidently related to transactions at
+Market Milcaster: Spargo caught glimpses of names that were familiar to
+him, Mr. Quarterpage's amongst them. He was not at all astonished to
+see these things. But he was something more than astonished when, on
+the second parcel being opened, a quantity of papers relating to
+Cloudhampton and the Hearth and Home Mutual Benefit Society were
+revealed. He gave a hasty glance at these and drew Breton aside.
+
+"It strikes me we've found a good deal more than we ever bargained
+for!" he exclaimed. "Didn't Aylmore say that the real culprit at
+Cloudhampton was another man--his clerk or something of that sort?"
+
+"He did," agreed Breton. "He insists on it."
+
+"Then this fellow Chamberlayne must have been the man," said Spargo.
+"He came to Market Milcaster from the north. What'll be done with those
+papers?" he asked, turning to the officials.
+
+"We are going to seal them up at once, and take them to London,"
+replied the principal person in authority. "They will be quite safe,
+Mr. Spargo; have no fear. We don't know what they may reveal."
+
+"You don't, indeed!" said Spargo. "But I may as well tell you that I
+have a strong belief that they'll reveal a good deal that nobody dreams
+of, so take the greatest care of them."
+
+Then, without waiting for further talk with any one, Spargo hurried
+Breton out of the cemetery. At the gate, he seized him by the arm.
+
+"Now, then, Breton!" he commanded. "Out with it!"
+
+"With what?"
+
+"You promised to tell me something--a great deal, you said--if we found
+that coffin empty. It is empty. Come on--quick!"
+
+"All right. I believe I know where Elphick and Cardlestone can be
+found. That's all."
+
+"All! It's enough. Where, then, in heaven's name?"
+
+"Elphick has a queer little place where he and Cardlestone sometimes go
+fishing--right away up in one of the wildest parts of the Yorkshire
+moors. I expect they've gone there. Nobody knows even their names
+there--they could go and lie quiet there for--ages."
+
+"Do you know the way to it?"
+
+"I do--I've been there."
+
+Spargo motioned him to hurry.
+
+"Come on, then," he said. "We're going there by the very first train
+out of this. I know the train, too--we've just time to snatch a
+mouthful of breakfast and to send a wire to the _Watchman_, and then
+we'll be off. Yorkshire!--Gad, Breton, that's over three hundred miles
+away!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
+
+FORESTALLED
+
+
+Travelling all that long summer day, first from the south-west of
+England to the Midlands, then from the Midlands to the north, Spargo
+and Breton came late at night to Hawes' Junction, on the border of
+Yorkshire and Westmoreland, and saw rising all around them in the
+half-darkness the mighty bulks of the great fells which rise amongst
+that wild and lonely stretch of land. At that hour of the night and
+amidst that weird silence, broken only by the murmur of some adjacent
+waterfall the scene was impressive and suggestive; it seemed to Spargo
+as if London were a million miles away, and the rush and bustle of
+human life a thing of another planet. Here and there in the valleys he
+saw a light, but such lights were few and far between; even as he
+looked some of them twinkled and went out. It was evident that he and
+Breton were presently to be alone with the night.
+
+"How far?" he asked Breton as they walked away from the station.
+
+"We'd better discuss matters," answered Breton. "The place is in a
+narrow valley called Fossdale, some six or seven miles away across
+these fells, and as wild a walk as any lover of such things could wish
+for. It's half-past nine now, Spargo: I reckon it will take us a good
+two and a half hours, if not more, to do it. Now, the question is--Do
+we go straight there, or do we put up for the night? There's an inn
+here at this junction: there's the Moor Cock Inn a mile or so along the
+road which we must take before we turn off to the moorland and the
+fells. It's going to be a black night--look at those masses of black
+cloud gathering there!--and possibly a wet one, and we've no
+waterproofs. But it's for you to say--I'm game for whatever you like."
+
+"Do you know the way?" asked Spargo.
+
+"I've been the way. In the daytime I could go straight ahead. I
+remember all the landmarks. Even in the darkness I believe I can find
+my way. But it's rough walking."
+
+"We'll go straight there," said Spargo. "Every minute's precious.
+But--can we get a mouthful of bread and cheese and a glass of ale
+first?"
+
+"Good idea! We'll call in at the 'Moor Cock.' Now then, while we're on
+this firm road, step it out lively."
+
+The "Moor Cock" was almost deserted at that hour: there was scarcely a
+soul in it when the two travellers turned in to its dimly-lighted
+parlour. The landlord, bringing the desired refreshment, looked hard at
+Breton.
+
+"Come our way again then, sir?" he remarked with a sudden grin of
+recognition.
+
+"Ah, you remember me?" said Breton.
+
+"I call in mind when you came here with the two old gents last year,"
+replied the landlord. "I hear they're here again--Tom Summers was
+coming across that way this morning, and said he'd seen 'em at the
+little cottage. Going to join 'em, I reckon, sir?"
+
+Breton kicked Spargo under the table.
+
+"Yes, we're going to have a day or two with them," he answered. "Just
+to get a breath of your moorland air."
+
+"Well, you'll have a roughish walk over there tonight, gentlemen," said
+the landlord. "There's going to be a storm. And it's a stiffish way to
+make out at this time o'night."
+
+"Oh, we'll manage," said Breton, nonchalantly. "I know the way, and
+we're not afraid of a wet skin."
+
+The landlord laughed, and sitting down on his long settle folded his
+arms and scratched his elbows.
+
+"There was a gentleman--London gentleman by his tongue--came in here
+this afternoon, and asked the way to Fossdale," he observed. "He'll be
+there long since--he'd have daylight for his walk. Happen he's one of
+your party?--he asked where the old gentlemen's little cottage was."
+
+Again Spargo felt his shin kicked and made no sign. "One of their
+friends, perhaps," answered Breton. "What was he like?"
+
+The landlord ruminated. He was not good at description and was
+conscious of the fact.
+
+"Well, a darkish, serious-faced gentleman," he said. "Stranger
+hereabouts, at all events. Wore a grey suit--something like your
+friend's there. Yes--he took some bread and cheese with him when he
+heard what a long way it was."
+
+"Wise man," remarked Breton. He hastily finished his own bread and
+cheese, and drank off the rest of his pint of ale. "Come on," he said,
+"let's be stepping."
+
+Outside, in the almost tangible darkness, Breton clutched Spargo's arm.
+"Who's the man?" he said. "Can you think, Spargo?"
+
+"Can't" answered Spargo. "I was trying to, while that chap was talking.
+But--it's somebody that's got in before us. Not Rathbury, anyhow--he's
+not serious-faced. Heavens, Breton, however are you going to find your
+way in this darkness?"
+
+"You'll see presently. We follow the road a little. Then we turn up the
+fell side there. On the top, if the night clears a bit, we ought to see
+Great Shunnor Fell and Lovely Seat--they're both well over two thousand
+feet, and they stand up well. We want to make for a point clear between
+them. But I warn you, Spargo, it's stiff going!"
+
+"Go ahead!" said Spargo. "It's the first time in my life I ever did
+anything of this sort, but we're going on if it takes us all night. I
+couldn't sleep in any bed now that I've heard there's somebody ahead of
+us. Go first, old chap, and I'll follow."
+
+Breton went steadily forward along the road. That was easy work, but
+when he turned off and began to thread his way up the fell-side by what
+was obviously no more than a sheep-track, Spargo's troubles began. It
+seemed to him that he was walking as in a nightmare; all that he saw
+was magnified and heightened; the darkening sky above; the faint
+outlines of the towering hills; the gaunt spectres of fir and pine; the
+figure of Breton forging stolidly and surely ahead. Now the ground was
+soft and spongy under his feet; now it was stony and rugged; more than
+once he caught an ankle in the wire-like heather and tripped, bruising
+his knees. And in the end he resigned himself to keeping his eye on
+Breton, outlined against the sky, and following doggedly in his
+footsteps.
+
+"Was there no other way than this?" he asked after a long interval of
+silence. "Do you mean to say those two--Elphick and Cardlestone--would
+take this way?"
+
+"There is another way--down the valley, by Thwaite Bridge and Hardraw,"
+answered Breton, "but it's miles and miles round. This is a straight
+cut across country, and in daylight it's a delightful walk. But at
+night--Gad!--here's the rain, Spargo!"
+
+The rain came down as it does in that part of the world, with a
+suddenness that was as fierce as it was heavy. The whole of the grey
+night was blotted out; Spargo was only conscious that he stood in a
+vast solitude and was being gradually drowned. But Breton, whose sight
+was keener, and who had more knowledge of the situation dragged his
+companion into the shelter of a group of rocks. He laughed a little as
+they huddled closely together.
+
+"This is a different sort of thing to pursuing detective work in Fleet
+Street, Spargo," he said. "You would come on, you know."
+
+"I'm going on if we go through cataracts and floods," answered Spargo.
+"I might have been induced to stop at the 'Moor Cock' overnight if we
+hadn't heard of that chap in front. If he's after those two he's
+somebody who knows something. What I can't make out is--who he can be."
+
+"Nor I," said Breton. "I can't think of anybody who knows of this
+retreat. But--has it ever struck you, Spargo, that somebody beside
+yourself may have been investigating?"
+
+"Possible," replied Spargo. "One never knows. I only wish we'd been a
+few hours earlier. For I wanted to have the first word with those two."
+
+The rain ceased as suddenly as it had come. Just as suddenly the
+heavens cleared. And going forward to the top of the ridge which they
+were then crossing, Breton pointed an arm to something shining far away
+below them.
+
+"You see that?" he said. "That's a sheet of water lying between us and
+Cotterdale. We leave that on our right hand, climb the fell beyond it,
+drop down into Cotterdale, cross two more ranges of fell, and come down
+into Fossdale under Lovely Seat. There's a good two hours and a half
+stiff pull yet, Spargo. Think you can stick it?"
+
+Spargo set his teeth.
+
+"Go on!" he said.
+
+Up hill, down dale, now up to his ankles in peaty ground, now tearing
+his shins, now bruising his knees, Spargo, yearning for the London
+lights, the well-paved London streets, the convenient taxi-cab, even
+the humble omnibus, plodded forward after his guide. It seemed to him
+that they had walked for ages and had traversed a whole continent of
+mountains and valley when at last Breton, halting on the summit of a
+wind-swept ridge, laid one hand on his companion's shoulder and pointed
+downward with the other.
+
+"There!" he said. "There!"
+
+Spargo looked ahead into the night. Far away, at what seemed to him to
+be a considerable distance, he saw the faint, very faint glimmer of a
+light--a mere spark of a light.
+
+"That's the cottage," said Breton, "Late as it is, you see, they're up.
+And here's the roughest bit of the journey. It'll take me all my time
+to find the track across this moor, Spargo, so step carefully after
+me--there are bogs and holes hereabouts."
+
+Another hour had gone by ere the two came to the cottage. Sometimes the
+guiding light had vanished, blotted out by intervening rises in the
+ground; always, when they saw it again, they were slowly drawing nearer
+to it. And now when they were at last close to it, Spargo realized that
+he found himself in one of the loneliest places he had ever been
+capable of imagining--so lonely and desolate a spot he had certainly
+never seen. In the dim light he could see a narrow, crawling stream,
+making its way down over rocks and stones from the high ground of Great
+Shunnor Fell. Opposite to the place at which they stood, on the edge of
+the moorland, a horseshoe like formation of ground was backed by a ring
+of fir and pine; beneath this protecting fringe of trees stood a small
+building of grey stone which looked as if it had been originally built
+by some shepherd as a pen for the moorland sheep. It was of no more
+than one storey in height, but of some length; a considerable part of
+it was hidden by shrubs and brushwood. And from one uncurtained,
+blindless window the light of a lamp shone boldly into the fading
+darkness without.
+
+Breton pulled up on the edge of the crawling stream.
+
+"We've got to get across there, Spargo," he said. "But as we're already
+soaked to the knee it doesn't matter about getting another wetting.
+Have you any idea how long we've been walking?"
+
+"Hours--days--years!" replied Spargo.
+
+"I should say quite four hours," said Breton. "In that case, it's well
+past two o'clock, and the light will be breaking in another hour or so.
+Now, once across this stream, what shall we do?"
+
+"What have we come to do? Go to the cottage, of course!"
+
+"Wait a bit. No need to startle them. By the fact they've got a light,
+I take it that they're up. Look there!"
+
+As he spoke, a figure crossed the window passing between it and the
+light.
+
+"That's not Elphick, nor yet Cardlestone," said Spargo. "They're
+medium-heighted men. That's a tallish man."
+
+"Then it's the man the landlord of the 'Moor Cock' told us about," said
+Breton. "Now, look here--I know every inch of this place. When we're
+across let me go up to the cottage, and I'll take an observation
+through that window and see who's inside. Come on."
+
+He led Spargo across the stream at a place where a succession of
+boulders made a natural bridge, and bidding him keep quiet, went up the
+bank to the cottage. Spargo, watching him, saw him make his way past
+the shrubs and undergrowth until he came to a great bush which stood
+between the lighted window and the projecting porch of the cottage. He
+lingered in the shadow of this bush but for a short moment; then came
+swiftly and noiselessly back to his companion. His hand fell on
+Spargo's arm with a clutch of nervous excitement.
+
+"Spargo!" he whispered. "Who on earth do you think the other man is?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
+
+THE WHIP HAND
+
+
+Spargo, almost irritable from desire to get at close grips with the
+objects of his long journey, shook off Breton's hand with a growl of
+resentment.
+
+"And how on earth can I waste time guessing?" he exclaimed. "Who is
+he?"
+
+Breton laughed softly.
+
+"Steady, Spargo, steady!" he said. "It's Myerst--the Safe Deposit man.
+Myerst!"
+
+Spargo started as if something had bitten him.
+
+"Myerst!" he almost shouted. "Myerst! Good Lord!--why did I never think
+of him? Myerst! Then----"
+
+"I don't know why you should have thought of him," said Breton.
+"But--he's there."
+
+Spargo took a step towards the cottage: Breton pulled him back.
+
+"Wait!" he said. "We've got to discuss this. I'd better tell you what
+they're doing."
+
+"What are they doing, then?" demanded Spargo impatiently.
+
+"Well," answered Breton. "They're going through a quantity of papers.
+The two old gentlemen look very ill and very miserable. Myerst is
+evidently laying down the law to them in some fashion or other. I've
+formed a notion, Spargo."
+
+"What notion?"
+
+"Myerst is in possession of whatever secret they have, and he's
+followed them down here to blackmail them. That's my notion."
+
+Spargo thought awhile, pacing up and down the river bank.
+
+"I daresay you're right," he said. "Now, what's to be done?"
+
+Breton, too, considered matters.
+
+"I wish," he said at last, "I wish we could get in there and overhear
+what's going on. But that's impossible--I know that cottage. The only
+thing we can do is this--we must catch Myerst unawares. He's here for
+no good. Look here!"
+
+And reaching round to his hip-pocket Breton drew out a Browning
+revolver and wagged it in his hand with a smile.
+
+"That's a useful thing to have, Spargo," he remarked. "I slipped it
+into my pocket the other day, wondering why on earth I did it. Now
+it'll come in handy. For anything we know Myerst may be armed."
+
+"Well?" said Spargo.
+
+"Come up to the cottage. If things turn out as I think they will,
+Myerst, when he's got what he wants, will be off. Now, you shall get
+where I did just now, behind that bush, and I'll station myself in the
+doorway. You can report to me, and when Myerst comes out I'll cover
+him. Come on, Spargo; it's beginning to get light already."
+
+Breton cautiously led the way along the river bank, making use of such
+cover as the willows and alders afforded. Together, he and Spargo made
+their way to the front of the cottage. Arrived at the door, Breton
+posted himself in the porch, motioning to Spargo to creep in behind the
+bushes and to look through the window. And Spargo noiselessly followed
+his directions and slightly parting the branches which concealed him
+looked in through the uncurtained glass.
+
+The interior into which he looked was rough and comfortless in the
+extreme. There were the bare accessories of a moorland cottage; rough
+chairs and tables, plastered walls, a fishing rod or two piled in a
+corner; some food set out on a side table. At the table in the middle
+of the floor the three men sat. Cardlestone's face was in the shadow;
+Myerst had his back to the window; old Elphick bending over the table
+was laboriously writing with shaking fingers. And Spargo twisted his
+head round to his companion.
+
+"Elphick," he said, "is writing a cheque. Myerst has another cheque in
+his hand. Be ready!--when he gets that second cheque I guess he'll be
+off."
+
+Breton smiled grimly and nodded. A moment later Spargo whispered again.
+
+"Look out, Breton! He's coming."
+
+Breton drew back into the angle of the porch; Spargo quitted his
+protecting bush and took the other angle. The door opened. And they
+heard Myerst's voice, threatening, commanding in tone.
+
+"Now, remember all I've said! And don't you forget--I've the whip hand
+of both of you--the whip hand!"
+
+Then Myerst turned and stepped out into the grey light--to find himself
+confronted by an athletic young man who held the muzzle of an ugly
+revolver within two inches of the bridge of his nose and in a
+remarkably firm and steady grip. Another glance showed him the figure
+of a second business-like looking young man at his side, whose attitude
+showed a desire to grapple with him.
+
+"Good-morning, Mr. Myerst," said Breton with cold and ironic
+politeness. "We are glad to meet you so unexpectedly. And--I must
+trouble you to put up your hands. Quick!"
+
+Myerst made one hurried movement of his right hand towards his hip, but
+a sudden growl from Breton made him shift it just as quickly above his
+head, whither the left followed it. Breton laughed softly.
+
+"That's wise, Mr. Myerst," he said, keeping his revolver steadily
+pointed at his prisoner's nose. "Discretion will certainly be the
+better part of your valour on this occasion. Spargo--may I trouble you
+to see what Mr. Myerst carries in his pockets? Go through them
+carefully. Not for papers or documents--just now. We can leave that
+matter--we've plenty of time. See if he's got a weapon of any sort on
+him, Spargo--that's the important thing."
+
+Considering that Spargo had never gone through the experience of
+searching a man before, he made sharp and creditable work of seeing
+what the prisoner carried. And he forthwith drew out and exhibited a
+revolver, while Myerst, finding his tongue, cursed them both, heartily
+and with profusion.
+
+"Excellent!" said Breton, laughing again. "Sure he's got nothing else
+on him that's dangerous, Spargo? All right. Now, Mr. Myerst, right
+about face! Walk into the cottage, hands up, and remember there are two
+revolvers behind your back. March!"
+
+Myerst obeyed this peremptory order with more curses. The three walked
+into the cottage. Breton kept his eye on his captive; Spargo gave a
+glance at the two old men. Cardlestone, white and shaking, was lying
+back in his chair; Elphick, scarcely less alarmed, had risen, and was
+coming forward with trembling limbs.
+
+"Wait a moment," said Breton, soothingly. "Don't alarm yourself. We'll
+deal with Mr. Myerst here first. Now, Myerst, my man, sit down in that
+chair--it's the heaviest the place affords. Into it, now! Spargo, you
+see that coil of rope there. Tie Myerst up--hand and foot--to that
+chair. And tie him well. All the knots to be double, Spargo, and behind
+him."
+
+Myerst suddenly laughed. "You damned young bully!" he exclaimed. "If
+you put a rope round me, you're only putting ropes round the necks of
+these two old villains. Mark that, my fine fellows!"
+
+"We'll see about that later," answered Breton. He kept Myerst covered
+while Spargo made play with the rope. "Don't be afraid of hurting him,
+Spargo," he said. "Tie him well and strong. He won't shift that chair
+in a hurry."
+
+Spargo spliced his man to the chair in a fashion that would have done
+credit to a sailor. He left Myerst literally unable to move either hand
+or foot, and Myerst cursed him from crown to heel for his pains.
+"That'll do," said Breton at last. He dropped his revolver into his
+pocket and turned to the two old men. Elphick averted his eyes and sank
+into a chair in the darkest corner of the room: old Cardlestone shook
+as with palsy and muttered words which the two young men could not
+catch. "Guardian," continued Breton, "don't be frightened! And don't
+you be frightened, either, Mr. Cardlestone. There's nothing to be
+afraid of, just yet, whatever there may be later on. It seems to me
+that Mr. Spargo and I came just in time. Now, guardian, what was this
+fellow after?"
+
+Old Elphick lifted his head and shook it; he was plainly on the verge
+of tears; as for Cardlestone, it was evident that his nerve was
+completely gone. And Breton pointed Spargo to an old corner cupboard.
+
+"Spargo," he said, "I'm pretty sure you'll find whisky in there. Give
+them both a stiff dose: they've broken up. Now, guardian," he
+continued, when Spargo had carried out this order, "what was he after?
+Shall I suggest it? Was it--blackmail?"
+
+Cardlestone began to whimper; Elphick nodded his head. "Yes, yes!" he
+muttered. "Blackmail! That was it--blackmail. He--he got
+money--papers--from us. They're on him."
+
+Breton turned on the captive with a look of contempt.
+
+"I thought as much, Mr. Myerst," he said. "Spargo, let's see what he
+has on him."
+
+Spargo began to search the prisoner's pockets. He laid out everything
+on the table as he found it. It was plain that Myerst had contemplated
+some sort of flight or a long, long journey. There was a quantity of
+loose gold; a number of bank-notes of the more easily negotiated
+denominations; various foreign securities, realizable in Paris. And
+there was an open cheque, signed by Cardlestone for ten thousand
+pounds, and another, with Elphick's name at the foot, also open, for
+half that amount. Breton examined all these matters as Spargo handed
+them out. He turned to old Elphick.
+
+"Guardian," he said, "why have you or Mr. Cardlestone given this man
+these cheques and securities? What hold has he on you?"
+
+Old Cardlestone began to whimper afresh; Elphick turned a troubled face
+on his ward.
+
+"He--he threatened to accuse us of the murder of Marbury!" he faltered.
+"We--we didn't see that we had a chance."
+
+"What does he know of the murder of Marbury and of you in connection
+with it?" demanded Breton. "Come--tell me the truth now."
+
+"He's been investigating--so he says," answered Elphick. "He lives in
+that house in Middle Temple Lane, you know, in the top-floor rooms
+above Cardlestone's. And--and he says he's the fullest evidence against
+Cardlestone--and against me as an accessory after the fact."
+
+"And--it's a lie?" asked Breton.
+
+"A lie!" answered Elphick. "Of course, it's a lie. But--he's so clever
+that--that----"
+
+"That you don't know how you could prove it otherwise," said Breton.
+"Ah! And so this fellow lives over Mr. Cardlestone there, does he? That
+may account for a good many things. Now we must have the police here."
+He sat down at the table and drew the writing materials to him. "Look
+here, Spargo," he continued. "I'm going to write a note to the
+superintendent of police at Hawes--there's a farm half a mile from here
+where I can get a man to ride down to Hawes with the note. Now, if you
+want to send a wire to the _Watchman_, draft it out, and he'll take it
+with him."
+
+Elphick began to move in his corner.
+
+"Must the police come?" he said. "Must----"
+
+"The police must come," answered Breton firmly. "Go ahead with your
+wire, Spargo, while I write this note."
+
+Three quarters of an hour later, when Breton came back from the farm,
+he sat down at Elphick's side and laid his hand on the old man's.
+
+"Now, guardian," he said, quietly, "you've got to tell us the truth."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
+
+MYERST EXPLAINS
+
+
+It had been apparent to Spargo, from the moment of his entering the
+cottage, that the two old men were suffering badly from shock and
+fright: Cardlestone still sat in his corner shivering and trembling; he
+looked incapable of explaining anything; Elphick was scarcely more
+fitted to speak. And when Breton issued his peremptory invitation to
+his guardian to tell the truth, Spargo intervened.
+
+"Far better leave him alone, Breton," he said in a low voice. "Don't
+you see the old chap's done up? They're both done up. We don't know
+what they've gone through with this fellow before we came, and it's
+certain they've had no sleep. Leave it all till later--after all, we've
+found them and we've found him." He jerked his thumb over his shoulder
+in Myerst's direction, and Breton involuntarily followed the movement.
+He caught the prisoner's eye, and Myerst laughed.
+
+"I daresay you two young men think yourselves very clever," he said
+sneeringly. "Don't you, now?"
+
+"We've been clever enough to catch you, anyway," retorted Breton. "And
+now we've got you we'll keep you till the police can relieve us of
+you."
+
+"Oh!" said Myerst, with another sneering laugh. "And on what charge do
+you propose to hand me over to the police? It strikes me you'll have
+some difficulty in formulating one, Mr. Breton."
+
+"Well see about that later," said Breton. "You've extorted money by
+menaces from these gentlemen, at any rate."
+
+"Have I? How do you know they didn't entrust me with these cheques as
+their agent?" exclaimed Myerst. "Answer me that! Or, rather, let them
+answer if they dare. Here you, Cardlestone, you Elphick--didn't you
+give me these cheques as your agent? Speak up now, and quick!"
+
+Spargo, watching the two old men, saw them both quiver at the sound of
+Myerst's voice; Cardlestone indeed, began to whimper softly.
+
+"Look here, Breton," he said, whispering, "this scoundrel's got some
+hold on these two old chaps--they're frightened to death of him. Leave
+them alone: it would be best for them if they could get some rest. Hold
+your tongue, you!" he added aloud, turning to Myerst. "When we want you
+to speak we'll tell you."
+
+But Myerst laughed again.
+
+"All very high and mighty, Mr. Spargo of the _Watchman_!" he sneered.
+"You're another of the cock-sure lot. And you're very clever, but not
+clever enough. Now, look here! Supposing--"
+
+Spargo turned his back on him. He went over to old Cardlestone and felt
+his hands. And he turned to Breton with a look of concern.
+
+"I say!" he exclaimed. "He's more than frightened--he's ill! What's to
+be done?"
+
+"I asked the police to bring a doctor along with them," answered
+Breton. "In the meantime, let's put him to bed--there are beds in that
+inner room. We'll get him to bed and give him something hot to
+drink--that's all I can think of for the present."
+
+Between them they managed to get Cardlestone to his bed, and Spargo,
+with a happy thought, boiled water on the rusty stove and put hot
+bottles to his feet. When that was done they persuaded Elphick to lie
+down in the inner room. Presently both old men fell asleep, and then
+Breton and Spargo suddenly realized that they themselves were hungry
+and wet and weary.
+
+"There ought to be food in the cupboard," said Breton, beginning to
+rummage. "They've generally had a good stock of tinned things. Here we
+are, Spargo--these are tongues and sardines. Make some hot coffee while
+I open one of these tins."
+
+The prisoner watched the preparations for a rough and ready breakfast
+with eyes that eventually began to glisten.
+
+"I may remind you that I'm hungry, too," he said as Spargo set the
+coffee on the table. "And you've no right to starve me, even if you've
+the physical ability to keep me tied up. Give me something to eat, if
+you please."
+
+"You shan't starve," said Breton, carelessly. He cut an ample supply of
+bread and meat, filled a cup with coffee and placed cup and plate
+before Myerst. "Untie his right arm, Spargo," he continued. "I think we
+can give him that liberty. We've got his revolver, anyhow."
+
+For a while the three men ate and drank in silence. At last Myerst
+pushed his plate away. He looked scrutinizingly at his two captors.
+"Look here!" he said. "You think you know a lot about all this affair,
+Spargo, but there's only one person who knows all about it. That's me!"
+
+"We're taking that for granted," said Spargo. "We guessed as much when
+we found you here. You'll have ample opportunity for explanation, you
+know, later on."
+
+"I'll explain now, if you care to hear," said Myerst with another of
+his cynical laughs. "And if I do, I'll tell you the truth. I know
+you've got an idea in your heads that isn't favourable to me, but
+you're utterly wrong, whatever you may think. Look here!--I'll make you
+a fair offer. There are some cigars in my case there--give me one, and
+mix me a drink of that whisky--a good 'un--and I'll tell you what I
+know about this matter. Come on!--anything's better than sitting here
+doing nothing."
+
+The two young men looked at each other. Then Breton nodded. "Let him
+talk if he likes," he said. "We're not bound to believe him. And we may
+hear something that's true. Give him his cigar and his drink."
+
+Myerst took a stiff pull at the contents of the tumbler which Spargo
+presently set before him. He laughed as he inhaled the first fumes of
+his cigar.
+
+"As it happens, you'll hear nothing but the truth," he observed. "Now
+that things are as they are, there's no reason why I shouldn't tell the
+truth. The fact is, I've nothing to fear. You can't give me in charge,
+for it so happens that I've got a power of attorney from these two old
+chaps inside there to act for them in regard to the money they
+entrusted me with. It's in an inside pocket of that letter-case, and if
+you look at it, Breton, you'll see it's in order. I'm not even going to
+dare you to interfere with or destroy it--you're a barrister, and
+you'll respect the law. But that's a fact--and if anybody's got a case
+against anybody, I have against you two for assault and illegal
+detention. But I'm not a vindictive man, and----"
+
+Breton took up Myerst's letter-case and examined its contents. And
+presently he turned to Spargo.
+
+"He's right!" he whispered. "This is quite in order." He turned to
+Myerst. "All the same," he said, addressing him, "we shan't release
+you, because we believe you're concerned in the murder of John Marbury.
+We're justified in holding you on that account."
+
+"All right, my young friend," said Myerst. "Have your own stupid way.
+But I said I'd tell you the plain truth. Well, the plain truth is that
+I know no more of the absolute murder of your father than I know of
+what is going on in Timbuctoo at this moment! I do not know who killed
+John Maitland. That's a fact! It may have been the old man in there
+who's already at his own last gasp, or it mayn't. I tell you I don't
+know--though, like you, Spargo, I've tried hard to find out. That's the
+truth--I do not know."
+
+"You expect us to believe that?" exclaimed Breton incredulously.
+
+"Believe it or not, as you like--it's the truth," answered Myerst.
+"Now, look here--I said nobody knew as much of this affair as I know,
+and that's true also. And here's the truth of what I know. The old man
+in that room, whom you know as Nicholas Cardlestone, is in reality
+Chamberlayne, the stockbroker, of Market Milcaster, whose name was so
+freely mentioned when your father was tried there. That's another
+fact!"
+
+"How," asked Breton, sternly, "can you prove it? How do you know it?"
+
+"Because," replied Myerst, with a cunning grin, "I helped to carry out
+his mock death and burial--I was a solicitor in those days, and my name
+was--something else. There were three of us at it: Chamberlayne's
+nephew; a doctor of no reputation; and myself. We carried it out very
+cleverly, and Chamberlayne gave us five thousand pounds apiece for our
+trouble. It was not the first time that I had helped him and been well
+paid for my help. The first time was in connection with the
+Cloudhampton Hearth and Home Mutual Benefit Society affair--Aylmore, or
+Ainsworth, was as innocent as a child in that!--Chamberlayne was the
+man at the back. But, unfortunately, Chamberlayne didn't profit--he
+lost all he got by it, pretty quick. That was why be transferred his
+abilities to Market Milcaster."
+
+"You can prove all this, I suppose?" remarked Spargo.
+
+"Every word--every letter! But about the Market Milcaster affair: Your
+father, Breton, was right in what he said about Chamberlayne having all
+the money that was got from the bank. He had--and he engineered that
+mock death and funeral so that he could disappear, and he paid us who
+helped him generously, as I've told you. The thing couldn't have been
+better done. When it was done, the nephew disappeared; the doctor
+disappeared; Chamberlayne disappeared. I had bad luck--to tell you the
+truth, I was struck off the rolls for a technical offence. So I changed
+my name and became Mr. Myerst, and eventually what I am now. And it was
+not until three years ago that I found Chamberlayne. I found him in
+this way: After I became secretary to the Safe Deposit Company, I took
+chambers in the Temple, above Cardlestone's. And I speedily found out
+who he was. Instead of going abroad, the old fox--though he was a
+comparatively young 'un, then!--had shaved off his beard, settled down
+in the Temple and given himself up to his two hobbies, collecting
+curiosities and stamps. There he'd lived quietly all these years, and
+nobody had ever recognized or suspected him. Indeed, I don't see how
+they could; he lived such a quiet, secluded life, with his collections,
+his old port, and his little whims and fads. But--I knew him!"
+
+"And you doubtless profited by your recognition," suggested Breton.
+
+"I certainly did. He was glad to pay me a nice sum every quarter to
+hold my tongue," replied Myerst, "and I was glad to take it and,
+naturally, I gained a considerable knowledge of him. He had only one
+friend--Mr. Elphick, in there. Now, I'll tell you about him."
+
+"Only if you are going to speak respectfully of him," said Breton
+sternly.
+
+"I've no reason to do otherwise. Elphick is the man who ought to have
+married your mother. When things turned out as they did, Elphick took
+you and brought you up as he has done, so that you should never know of
+your father's disgrace. Elphick never knew until last night that
+Cardlestone is Chamberlayne. Even the biggest scoundrels have
+friends--Elphick's very fond of Cardlestone. He----"
+
+Spargo turned sharply on Myerst.
+
+"You say Elphick didn't know until last night!" he exclaimed. "Why,
+then, this running away? What were they running from?"
+
+"I have no more notion than you have, Spargo," replied Myerst. "I tell
+you one or other of them knows something that I don't. Elphick, I
+gather, took fright from you, and went to Cardlestone--then they both
+vanished. It may be that Cardlestone did kill Maitland--I don't know.
+But I'll tell you what I know about the actual murder--for I do know a
+good deal about it, though, as I say, I don't know who killed Maitland.
+Now, first, you know all that about Maitland's having papers and
+valuables and gold on him? Very well--I've got all that. The whole lot
+is locked up--safely--and I'm willing to hand it over to you, Breton,
+when we go back to town, and the necessary proof is given--as it will
+be--that you're Maitland's son."
+
+Myerst paused to see the effect of this announcement, and laughed when
+he saw the blank astonishment which stole over his hearers' faces.
+
+"And still more," he continued, "I've got all the contents of that
+leather box which Maitland deposited with me--that's safely locked up,
+too, and at your disposal. I took possession of that the day after the
+murder. Then, for purposes of my own, I went to Scotland Yard, as
+Spargo there is aware. You see, I was playing a game--and it required
+some ingenuity."
+
+"A game!" exclaimed Breton. "Good heavens--what game?"
+
+"I never knew until I had possession of all these things that Marbury
+was Maitland of Market Milcaster," answered Myerst. "When I did know
+then I began to put things together and to pursue my own line,
+independent of everybody. I tell you I had all Maitland's papers and
+possessions, by that time--except one thing. That packet of Australian
+stamps. And--I found out that those stamps were in the hands
+of--Cardlestone!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
+
+THE FINAL TELEGRAM
+
+
+Myerst paused, to take a pull at his glass, and to look at the two
+amazed listeners with a smile of conscious triumph.
+
+"In the hands of Cardlestone," he repeated. "Now, what did I argue from
+that? Why, of course, that Maitland had been to Cardlestone's rooms
+that night. Wasn't he found lying dead at the foot of Cardlestone's
+stairs? Aye--but who found him? Not the porter--not the police--not
+you, Master Spargo, with all your cleverness. The man who found
+Maitland lying dead there that night was--I!"
+
+In the silence that followed, Spargo, who had been making notes of what
+Myerst said, suddenly dropped his pencil and thrusting his hands in his
+pockets sat bolt upright with a look which Breton, who was watching him
+seriously, could not make out. It was the look of a man whose ideas and
+conceptions are being rudely upset. And Myerst, too, saw it and he
+laughed, more sneeringly than ever.
+
+"That's one for you, Spargo!" he said. "That surprises you--that makes
+you think. Now what do you think?--if one may ask."
+
+"I think," said Spargo, "that you are either a consummate liar, or that
+this mystery is bigger than before."
+
+"I can lie when it's necessary," retorted Myerst. "Just now it isn't
+necessary. I'm telling you the plain truth: there's no reason why I
+shouldn't. As I've said before, although you two young bullies have
+tied me up in this fashion, you can't do anything against me. I've a
+power of attorney from those two old men in there, and that's enough to
+satisfy anybody as to my possession of their cheques and securities.
+I've the whip hand of you, my sons, in all ways. And that's why I'm
+telling you the truth--to amuse myself during this period of waiting.
+The plain truth, my sons!"
+
+"In pursuance of which," observed Breton, drily, "I think you mentioned
+that you were the first person to find my father lying dead?"
+
+"I was. That is--as far as I can gather. I'll tell you all about it. As
+I said, I live over Cardlestone. That night I came home very late--it
+was well past one o'clock. There was nobody about--as a matter of fact,
+no one has residential chambers in that building but Cardlestone and
+myself. I found the body of a man lying in the entry. I struck a match
+and immediately recognized my visitor of the afternoon--John Marbury.
+Now, although I was so late in going home, I was as sober as a man can
+be, and I think pretty quickly at all times. I thought at double extra
+speed just then. And the first thing I did was to strip the body of
+every article it had on it--money, papers, everything. All these things
+are safely locked up--they've never been tracked. Next day, using my
+facilities as secretary to the Safe Deposit Company, I secured the
+things in that box. Then I found out who the dead man really was. And
+then I deliberately set to work to throw dust in the eyes of the police
+and of the newspapers, and particularly in the eyes of young Master
+Spargo there. I had an object."
+
+"What?" asked Breton.
+
+"What! Knowing all I did, I firmly believed that Marbury, or, rather,
+Maitland, had been murdered by either Cardlestone or Elphick. I put it
+to myself in this way, and my opinion was strengthened as you, Spargo,
+inserted news in your paper--Maitland, finding himself in the vicinity
+of Cardlestone after leaving Aylmore's rooms that night, turned into
+our building, perhaps just to see where Cardlestone lived. He met
+Cardlestone accidentally, or he perhaps met Cardlestone and Elphick
+together--they recognized each other. Maitland probably threatened to
+expose Cardlestone, or, rather, Chamberlayne--nobody, of course, could
+know what happened, but my theory was that Chamberlayne killed him.
+There, at any rate, was the fact that Maitland was found murdered at
+Chamberlayne's very threshold. And, in the course of a few days, I
+proved, to my own positive satisfaction, by getting access to
+Chamberlayne's rooms in his absence that Maitland had been there, had
+been in those rooms. For I found there, in Chamberlayne's desk, the
+rare Australian stamps of which Criedir told at the inquest. That was
+proof positive."
+
+Spargo looked at Breton. They knew what Myerst did not know--that the
+stamps of which he spoke were lying in Spargo's breast pocket, where
+they had lain since he had picked them up from the litter and confusion
+of Chamberlayne's floor.
+
+"Why," asked Breton, after a pause, "why did you never accuse
+Cardlestone, or Chamberlayne, of the murder?"
+
+"I did! I have accused him a score of times--and Elphick, too," replied
+Myerst with emphasis. "Not at first, mind you--I never let Chamberlayne
+know that I ever suspected him for some time. I had my own game to
+play. But at last--not so many days ago--I did. I accused them both.
+That's how I got the whip hand of them. They began to be afraid--by
+that time Elphick had got to know all about Cardlestone's past as
+Chamberlayne. And as I tell you, Elphick's fond of Cardlestone. It's
+queer, but he is. He--wants to shield him."
+
+"What did they say when you accused them?" asked Breton. "Let's keep to
+that point--never mind their feelings for one another."
+
+"Just so, but that feeling's a lot more to do with this mystery than
+you think, my young friend," said Myerst. "What did they say, you ask?
+Why, they strenuously denied it, Cardlestone swore solemnly to me that
+he had no part or lot in the murder of Maitland. So did Elphick.
+But--they know something about the murder. If those two old men can't
+tell you definitely who actually struck John Maitland down, I'm certain
+that they have a very clear idea in their minds as to who really did!
+They--"
+
+A sudden sharp cry from the inner room interrupted Myerst. Breton and
+Spargo started to their feet and made for the door. But before they
+could reach it Elphick came out, white and shaking.
+
+"He's gone!" he exclaimed in quavering accents. "My old friend's
+gone--he's dead! I was--asleep. I woke suddenly and looked at him.
+He----"
+
+Spargo forced the old man into a chair and gave him some whisky; Breton
+passed quickly into the inner room; only to come back shaking his head.
+
+"He's dead," he said. "He evidently died in his sleep."
+
+"Then his secret's gone with him," remarked Myerst, calmly. "And now we
+shall never know if he did kill John Maitland or if he didn't. So
+that's done with!"
+
+Old Elphick suddenly sat up in his chair, pushing Spargo fiercely away
+from his side.
+
+"He didn't kill John Maitland!" he cried angrily, attempting to shake
+his fist at Myerst. "Whoever says he killed Maitland lies. He was as
+innocent as I am. You've tortured and tormented him to his death with
+that charge, as you're torturing me--among you. I tell you he'd nothing
+to do with John Maitland's death--nothing!"
+
+Myerst laughed.
+
+"Who had, then?" he said.
+
+"Hold your tongue!" commanded Breton, turning angrily on him. He sat
+down by Elphick's side and laid his hand soothingly on the old man's
+arm.
+
+"Guardian," he said, "why don't you tell what you know? Don't be afraid
+of that fellow there--he's safe enough. Tell Spargo and me what you
+know of the matter. Remember, nothing can hurt Cardlestone, or
+Chamberlayne, or whoever he is or was, now."
+
+Elphick sat for a moment shaking his head. He allowed Spargo to give
+him another drink; he lifted his head and looked at the two young men
+with something of an appeal.
+
+"I'm badly shaken," he said. "I've suffered much lately--I've learnt
+things that I didn't know. Perhaps I ought to have spoken before, but I
+was afraid for--for him. He was a good friend, Cardlestone, whatever
+else he may have been--a good friend. And--I don't know any more than
+what happened that night."
+
+"Tell us what happened that night," said Breton.
+
+"Well, that night I went round, as I often did, to play piquet with
+Cardlestone. That was about ten o'clock. About eleven Jane Baylis came
+to Cardlestone's--she'd been to my rooms to find me--wanted to see me
+particularly--and she'd come on there, knowing where I should be.
+Cardlestone would make her have a glass of wine and a biscuit; she sat
+down and we all talked. Then, about, I should think, a quarter to
+twelve, a knock came at Cardlestone's door--his outer door was open,
+and of course anybody outside could see lights within. Cardlestone went
+to the door: we heard a man's voice enquire for him by name; then the
+voice added that Criedir, the stamp dealer, had advised him to call on
+Mr. Cardlestone to show him some rare Australian stamps, and that
+seeing a light under his door he had knocked. Cardlestone asked him
+in--he came in. That was the man we saw next day at the mortuary. Upon
+my honour, we didn't know him, either that night or next day!"
+
+"What happened when he came in?" asked Breton.
+
+"Cardlestone asked him to sit down: he offered and gave him a drink.
+The man said Criedir had given him Cardlestone's address, and that he'd
+been with a friend at some rooms in Fountain Court, and as he was
+passing our building he'd just looked to make sure where Cardlestone
+lived, and as he'd noticed a light he'd made bold to knock. He and
+Cardlestone began to examine the stamps. Jane Baylis said good-night,
+and she and I left Cardlestone and the man together."
+
+"No one had recognized him?" said Breton.
+
+"No one! Remember, I only once or twice saw Maitland in all my life.
+The others certainly did not recognize him. At least, I never knew that
+they did--if they did."
+
+"Tell us," said Spargo, joining in for the first time, "tell us what
+you and Miss Baylis did?"
+
+"At the foot of the stairs Jane Baylis suddenly said she'd forgotten
+something in Cardlestone's lobby. As she was going out in to Fleet
+Street, and I was going down Middle Temple Lane to turn off to my own
+rooms we said good-night. She went back upstairs. And I went home. And
+upon my soul and honour that's all I know!"
+
+Spargo suddenly leapt to his feet. He snatched at his cap--a sodden and
+bedraggled headgear which he had thrown down when they entered the
+cottage.
+
+"That's enough!" he almost shouted. "I've got it--at last!
+Breton--where's the nearest telegraph office? Hawes? Straight down this
+valley? Then, here's for it! Look after things till I'm back, or, when
+the police come, join me there. I shall catch the first train to town,
+anyhow, after wiring."
+
+"But--what are you after, Spargo?" exclaimed Breton. "Stop! What on
+earth----"
+
+But Spargo had closed the door and was running for all he was worth
+down the valley. Three quarters of an hour later he startled a quiet
+and peaceful telegraphist by darting, breathless and dirty, into a
+sleepy country post office, snatching a telegraph form and scribbling
+down a message in shaky handwriting:--
+
+  _Rathbury, New Scotland Yard, London._
+  _Arrest Jane Baylis at once for murder of John Maitland._
+  _Coming straight to town with full evidence._
+
+  _Frank Spargo_.
+
+Then Spargo dropped on the office bench, and while the wondering
+operator set the wires ticking, strove to get his breath, utterly spent
+in his mad race across the heather. And when it was got he set out
+again--to find the station.
+
+Some days later, Spargo, having seen Stephen Aylmore walk out of the
+Bow Street dock, cleared of the charge against him, and in a fair way
+of being cleared of the affair of twenty years before, found himself in
+a very quiet corner of the Court holding the hand of Jessie Aylmore,
+who, he discovered, was saying things to him which he scarcely
+comprehended. There was nobody near them and the girl spoke freely and
+warmly.
+
+"But you will come--you will come today--and be properly thanked," she
+said. "You will--won't you?"
+
+Spargo allowed himself to retain possession of the hand. Also he took a
+straight look into Jessie Aylmore's eyes.
+
+"I don't want thanks," he said. "It was all a lot of luck. And if I
+come--today--it will be to see--just you!"
+
+Jessie Aylmore looked down at the two hands.
+
+"I think," she whispered, "I think that is what I really meant!"
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Middle Temple Murder, by J.S. Fletcher
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MIDDLE TEMPLE MURDER ***
+
+***** This file should be named 10373-8.txt or 10373-8.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/3/7/10373/
+
+Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Linda Cantoni and PG Distributed
+Proofreaders
+
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
+https://gutenberg.org/license).
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS," WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation web page at https://www.pglaf.org.
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
+https://pglaf.org/fundraising.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
+809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
+page at https://pglaf.org
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit https://pglaf.org
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including including checks, online payments and credit card
+donations.  To donate, please visit: https://pglaf.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+Each eBook is in a subdirectory of the same number as the eBook's
+eBook number, often in several formats including plain vanilla ASCII,
+compressed (zipped), HTML and others.
+
+Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks replace the old file and take over
+the old filename and etext number.  The replaced older file is renamed.
+VERSIONS based on separate sources are treated as new eBooks receiving
+new filenames and etext numbers.
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     https://www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
+
+EBooks posted prior to November 2003, with eBook numbers BELOW #10000,
+are filed in directories based on their release date.  If you want to
+download any of these eBooks directly, rather than using the regular
+search system you may utilize the following addresses and just
+download by the etext year.
+
+     http://www.ibiblio.org/gutenberg/etext06
+
+    (Or /etext 05, 04, 03, 02, 01, 00, 99,
+     98, 97, 96, 95, 94, 93, 92, 92, 91 or 90)
+
+EBooks posted since November 2003, with etext numbers OVER #10000, are
+filed in a different way.  The year of a release date is no longer part
+of the directory path.  The path is based on the etext number (which is
+identical to the filename).  The path to the file is made up of single
+digits corresponding to all but the last digit in the filename.  For
+example an eBook of filename 10234 would be found at:
+
+     https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/2/3/10234
+
+or filename 24689 would be found at:
+     https://www.gutenberg.org/2/4/6/8/24689
+
+An alternative method of locating eBooks:
+     https://www.gutenberg.org/GUTINDEX.ALL
+
+
diff --git a/old/old/10373-8.zip b/old/old/10373-8.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..b0c0d40
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/old/10373-8.zip
diff --git a/old/old/10373.txt b/old/old/10373.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..7190033
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/old/10373.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,9833 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Middle Temple Murder, by J.S. Fletcher
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Middle Temple Murder
+
+Author: J.S. Fletcher
+
+Release Date: December 3, 2003 [EBook #10373]
+[Last updated: October 11, 2020]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MIDDLE TEMPLE MURDER ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Linda Cantoni and PG Distributed
+Proofreaders
+
+
+
+
+
+THE MIDDLE TEMPLE MURDER
+
+BY
+
+J. S. FLETCHER
+
+1919
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+CHAPTER
+
+I THE SCRAP OF GREY PAPER
+
+II HIS FIRST BRIEF
+
+III THE CLUE OF THE CAP
+
+IV THE ANGLO-ORIENT HOTEL
+
+V SPARGO WISHES TO SPECIALIZE
+
+VI WITNESS TO A MEETING
+
+VII MR. AYLMORE
+
+VIII THE MAN FROM THE SAFE DEPOSIT
+
+IX THE DEALER IN RARE STAMPS
+
+X THE LEATHER BOX
+
+XI MR. AYLMORE IS QUESTIONED
+
+XII THE NEW WITNESS
+
+XIII UNDER SUSPICION
+
+XIV THE SILVER TICKET
+
+XV MARKET MILCASTER
+
+XVI THE "YELLOW DRAGON"
+
+XVII MR. QUARTERPAGE HARKS BACK
+
+XVIII AN OLD NEWSPAPER
+
+XIX THE CHAMBERLAYNE STORY
+
+XX MAITLAND _alias_ MARBURY
+
+XXI ARRESTED
+
+XXII THE BLANK PAST
+
+XXIII MISS BAYLIS
+
+XXIV MOTHER GUTCH
+
+XXV REVELATIONS
+
+XXVI STILL SILENT
+
+XXVII MR. ELPHICK'S CHAMBERS
+
+XXVIII OF PROVED IDENTITY
+
+XXIX THE CLOSED DOORS
+
+XXX REVELATION
+
+XXXI THE PENITENT WINDOW-CLEANER
+
+XXXII THE CONTENTS OF THE COFFIN
+
+XXXIII FORESTALLED
+
+XXXIV THE WHIP HAND
+
+XXXV MYERST EXPLAINS
+
+XXXVI THE FINAL TELEGRAM
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER ONE
+
+THE SCRAP OF GREY PAPER
+
+
+As a rule, Spargo left the _Watchman_ office at two o'clock. The paper
+had then gone to press. There was nothing for him, recently promoted to
+a sub-editorship, to do after he had passed the column for which he was
+responsible; as a matter of fact he could have gone home before the
+machines began their clatter. But he generally hung about, trifling,
+until two o'clock came. On this occasion, the morning of the 22nd of
+June, 1912, he stopped longer than usual, chatting with Hacket, who had
+charge of the foreign news, and who began telling him about a telegram
+which had just come through from Durazzo. What Hacket had to tell was
+interesting: Spargo lingered to hear all about it, and to discuss it.
+Altogether it was well beyond half-past two when he went out of the
+office, unconsciously puffing away from him as he reached the threshold
+the last breath of the atmosphere in which he had spent his midnight.
+In Fleet Street the air was fresh, almost to sweetness, and the first
+grey of the coming dawn was breaking faintly around the high silence of
+St. Paul's.
+
+Spargo lived in Bloomsbury, on the west side of Russell Square. Every
+night and every morning he walked to and from the _Watchman_ office by
+the same route--Southampton Row, Kingsway, the Strand, Fleet Street.
+He came to know several faces, especially amongst the police; he formed
+the habit of exchanging greetings with various officers whom he
+encountered at regular points as he went slowly homewards, smoking his
+pipe. And on this morning, as he drew near to Middle Temple Lane, he
+saw a policeman whom he knew, one Driscoll, standing at the entrance,
+looking about him. Further away another policeman appeared, sauntering.
+Driscoll raised an arm and signalled; then, turning, he saw Spargo. He
+moved a step or two towards him. Spargo saw news in his face.
+
+"What is it?" asked Spargo.
+
+Driscoll jerked a thumb over his shoulder, towards the partly open door
+of the lane. Within, Spargo saw a man hastily donning a waistcoat and
+jacket.
+
+"He says," answered Driscoll, "him, there--the porter--that there's a
+man lying in one of them entries down the lane, and he thinks he's
+dead. Likewise, he thinks he's murdered."
+
+Spargo echoed the word.
+
+"But what makes him think that?" he asked, peeping with curiosity
+beyond Driscoll's burly form. "Why?"
+
+"He says there's blood about him," answered Driscoll. He turned and
+glanced at the oncoming constable, and then turned again to Spargo.
+"You're a newspaper man, sir?" he suggested.
+
+"I am," replied Spargo.
+
+"You'd better walk down with us," said Driscoll, with a grin. "There'll
+be something to write pieces in the paper about. At least, there may
+be." Spargo made no answer. He continued to look down the lane,
+wondering what secret it held, until the other policeman came up. At
+the same moment the porter, now fully clothed, came out.
+
+"Come on!" he said shortly. "I'll show you."
+
+Driscoll murmured a word or two to the newly-arrived constable, and
+then turned to the porter.
+
+"How came you to find him, then?" he asked
+
+The porter jerked his head at the door which they were leaving.
+
+"I heard that door slam," he replied, irritably, as if the fact which
+he mentioned caused him offence. "I know I did! So I got up to look
+around. Then--well, I saw that!"
+
+He raised a hand, pointing down the lane. The three men followed his
+outstretched finger. And Spargo then saw a man's foot, booted,
+grey-socked, protruding from an entry on the left hand.
+
+"Sticking out there, just as you see it now," said the porter. "I ain't
+touched it. And so--"
+
+He paused and made a grimace as if at the memory of some unpleasant
+thing. Driscoll nodded comprehendingly.
+
+"And so you went along and looked?" he suggested. "Just so--just to see
+who it belonged to, as it might be."
+
+"Just to see--what there was to see," agreed the porter. "Then I saw
+there was blood. And then--well, I made up the lane to tell one of you
+chaps."
+
+"Best thing you could have done," said Driscoll. "Well, now then--"
+
+The little procession came to a halt at the entry. The entry was a cold
+and formal thing of itself; not a nice place to lie dead in, having
+glazed white tiles for its walls and concrete for its flooring;
+something about its appearance in that grey morning air suggested to
+Spargo the idea of a mortuary. And that the man whose foot projected
+over the step was dead he had no doubt: the limpness of his pose
+certified to it.
+
+For a moment none of the four men moved or spoke. The two policemen
+unconsciously stuck their thumbs in their belts and made play with
+their fingers; the porter rubbed his chin thoughtfully--Spargo
+remembered afterwards the rasping sound of this action; he himself put
+his hands in his pockets and began to jingle his money and his keys.
+Each man had his own thoughts as he contemplated the piece of human
+wreckage which lay before him.
+
+"You'll notice," suddenly observed Driscoll, speaking in a hushed
+voice, "You'll notice that he's lying there in a queer way--same as
+if--as if he'd been put there. Sort of propped up against that wall, at
+first, and had slid down, like."
+
+Spargo was taking in all the details with a professional eye. He saw at
+his feet the body of an elderly man; the face was turned away from him,
+crushed in against the glaze of the wall, but he judged the man to be
+elderly because of grey hair and whitening whisker; it was clothed in a
+good, well-made suit of grey check cloth--tweed--and the boots were
+good: so, too, was the linen cuff which projected from the sleeve that
+hung so limply. One leg was half doubled under the body; the other was
+stretched straight out across the threshold; the trunk was twisted to
+the wall. Over the white glaze of the tiles against which it and the
+shoulder towards which it had sunk were crushed there were gouts and
+stains of blood. And Driscoll, taking a hand out of his belt, pointed a
+finger at them.
+
+"Seems to me," he said, slowly, "seems to me as how he's been struck
+down from behind as he came out of here. That blood's from his
+nose--gushed out as he fell. What do you say, Jim?" The other policeman
+coughed.
+
+"Better get the inspector here," he said. "And the doctor and the
+ambulance. Dead--ain't he?"
+
+Driscoll bent down and put a thumb on the hand which lay on the
+pavement.
+
+"As ever they make 'em," he remarked laconically. "And stiff, too.
+Well, hurry up, Jim!"
+
+Spargo waited until the inspector arrived; waited until the
+hand-ambulance came. More policemen came with it; they moved the body
+for transference to the mortuary, and Spargo then saw the dead man's
+face. He looked long and steadily at it while the police arranged the
+limbs, wondering all the time who it was that he gazed at, how he came
+to that end, what was the object of his murderer, and many other
+things. There was some professionalism in Spargo's curiosity, but there
+was also a natural dislike that a fellow-being should have been so
+unceremoniously smitten out of the world.
+
+There was nothing very remarkable about the dead man's face. It was
+that of a man of apparently sixty to sixty-five years of age; plain,
+even homely of feature, clean-shaven, except for a fringe of white
+whisker, trimmed, after an old-fashioned pattern, between the ear and
+the point of the jaw. The only remarkable thing about it was that it
+was much lined and seamed; the wrinkles were many and deep around the
+corners of the lips and the angles of the eyes; this man, you would
+have said to yourself, has led a hard life and weathered storm, mental
+as well as physical.
+
+Driscoll nudged Spargo with a turn of his elbow. He gave him a wink.
+"Better come down to the dead-house," he muttered confidentially.
+
+"Why?" asked Spargo.
+
+"They'll go through him," whispered Driscoll. "Search him, d'ye see?
+Then you'll get to know all about him, and so on. Help to write that
+piece in the paper, eh?"
+
+Spargo hesitated. He had had a stiff night's work, and until his
+encounter with Driscoll he had cherished warm anticipation of the meal
+which would be laid out for him at his rooms, and of the bed into which
+he would subsequently tumble. Besides, a telephone message would send a
+man from the _Watchman_ to the mortuary. This sort of thing was not in
+his line now, now--
+
+"You'll be for getting one o' them big play-cards out with something
+about a mystery on it," suggested Driscoll. "You never know what lies
+at the bottom o' these affairs, no more you don't."
+
+That last observation decided Spargo; moreover, the old instinct for
+getting news began to assert itself.
+
+"All right," he said. "I'll go along with you."
+
+And re-lighting his pipe he followed the little cortege through the
+streets, still deserted and quiet, and as he walked behind he reflected
+on the unobtrusive fashion in which murder could stalk about. Here was
+the work of murder, no doubt, and it was being quietly carried along a
+principal London thoroughfare, without fuss or noise, by officials to
+whom the dealing with it was all a matter of routine. Surely--
+
+"My opinion," said a voice at Spargo's elbow, "my opinion is that it
+was done elsewhere. Not there! He was put there. That's what I say."
+Spargo turned and saw that the porter was at his side. He, too, was
+accompanying the body.
+
+"Oh!" said Spargo. "You think--"
+
+"I think he was struck down elsewhere and carried there," said the
+porter. "In somebody's chambers, maybe. I've known of some queer games
+in our bit of London! Well!--he never came in at my lodge last
+night--I'll stand to that. And who is he, I should like to know? From
+what I see of him, not the sort to be about our place."
+
+"That's what we shall hear presently," said Spargo. "They're going to
+search him."
+
+But Spargo was presently made aware that the searchers had found
+nothing. The police-surgeon said that the dead man had, without doubt,
+been struck down from behind by a terrible blow which had fractured the
+skull and caused death almost instantaneously. In Driscoll's opinion,
+the murder had been committed for the sake of plunder. For there was
+nothing whatever on the body. It was reasonable to suppose that a man
+who is well dressed would possess a watch and chain, and have money in
+his pockets, and possibly rings on his fingers. But there was nothing
+valuable to be found; in fact there was nothing at all to be found that
+could lead to identification--no letters, no papers, nothing. It was
+plain that whoever had struck the dead man down had subsequently
+stripped him of whatever was on him. The only clue to possible identity
+lay in the fact that a soft cap of grey cloth appeared to have been
+newly purchased at a fashionable shop in the West End.
+
+Spargo went home; there seemed to be nothing to stop for. He ate his
+food and he went to bed, only to do poor things in the way of sleeping.
+He was not the sort to be impressed by horrors, but he recognized at
+last that the morning's event had destroyed his chance of rest; he
+accordingly rose, took a cold bath, drank a cup of coffee, and went
+out. He was not sure of any particular idea when he strolled away from
+Bloomsbury, but it did not surprise him when, half an hour later he
+found that he had walked down to the police station near which the
+unknown man's body lay in the mortuary. And there he met Driscoll, just
+going off duty. Driscoll grinned at sight of him.
+
+"You're in luck," he said. "'Tisn't five minutes since they found a bit
+of grey writing paper crumpled up in the poor man's waistcoat
+pocket--it had slipped into a crack. Come in, and you'll see it."
+
+Spargo went into the inspector's office. In another minute he found
+himself staring at the scrap of paper. There was nothing on it but an
+address, scrawled in pencil:--Ronald Breton, Barrister, King's Bench
+Walk, Temple, London.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWO
+
+HIS FIRST BRIEF
+
+
+Spargo looked up at the inspector with a quick jerk of his head. "I
+know this man," he said.
+
+The inspector showed new interest.
+
+"What, Mr. Breton?" he asked.
+
+"Yes. I'm on the _Watchman_, you know, sub-editor. I took an article
+from him the other day--article on 'Ideal Sites for Campers-Out.' He
+came to the office about it. So this was in the dead man's pocket?"
+
+"Found in a hole in his pocket, I understand: I wasn't present myself.
+It's not much, but it may afford some clue to identity."
+
+Spargo picked up the scrap of grey paper and looked closely at it. It
+seemed to him to be the sort of paper that is found in hotels and in
+clubs; it had been torn roughly from the sheet.
+
+"What," he asked meditatively, "what will you do about getting this man
+identified?"
+
+The inspector shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"Oh, usual thing, I suppose. There'll be publicity, you know. I suppose
+you'll be doing a special account yourself, for your paper, eh? Then
+there'll be the others. And we shall put out the usual notice. Somebody
+will come forward to identify--sure to. And--"
+
+A man came into the office--a stolid-faced, quiet-mannered, soberly
+attired person, who might have been a respectable tradesman out for a
+stroll, and who gave the inspector a sidelong nod as he approached his
+desk, at the same time extending his hand towards the scrap of paper
+which Spargo had just laid down.
+
+"I'll go along to King's Bench Walk and see Mr. Breton," he observed,
+looking at his watch. "It's just about ten--I daresay he'll be there
+now."
+
+"I'm going there, too," remarked Spargo, but as if speaking to himself.
+"Yes, I'll go there."
+
+The newcomer glanced at Spargo, and then at the inspector. The
+inspector nodded at Spargo.
+
+"Journalist," he said, "Mr. Spargo of the _Watchman_. Mr. Spargo was
+there when the body was found. And he knows Mr. Breton." Then he nodded
+from Spargo to the stolid-faced person. "This is Detective-Sergeant
+Rathbury, from the Yard," he said to Spargo. "He's come to take charge
+of this case."
+
+"Oh?" said Spargo blankly. "I see--what," he went on, with sudden
+abruptness, "what shall you do about Breton?"
+
+"Get him to come and look at the body," replied Rathbury. "He may know
+the man and he mayn't. Anyway, his name and address are here, aren't
+they?"
+
+"Come along," said Spargo. "I'll walk there with you."
+
+Spargo remained in a species of brown study all the way along Tudor
+Street; his companion also maintained silence in a fashion which showed
+that he was by nature and custom a man of few words. It was not until
+the two were climbing the old balustrated staircase of the house in
+King's Bench Walk in which Ronald Breton's chambers were somewhere
+situate that Spargo spoke.
+
+"Do you think that old chap was killed for what he may have had on
+him?" he asked, suddenly turning on the detective.
+
+"I should like to know what he had on him before I answered that
+question, Mr. Spargo," replied Rathbury, with a smile.
+
+"Yes," said Spargo, dreamily. "I suppose so. He might have had--nothing
+on him, eh?"
+
+The detective laughed, and pointed to a board on which names were
+printed.
+
+"We don't know anything yet, sir," he observed, "except that Mr. Breton
+is on the fourth floor. By which I conclude that it isn't long since he
+was eating his dinner."
+
+"Oh, he's young--he's quite young," said Spargo. "I should say he's
+about four-and-twenty. I've met him only--"
+
+At that moment the unmistakable sounds of girlish laughter came down
+the staircase. Two girls seemed to be laughing--presently masculine
+laughter mingled with the lighter feminine.
+
+"Seems to be studying law in very pleasant fashion up here, anyway,"
+said Rathbury. "Mr. Breton's chambers, too. And the door's open."
+
+The outer oak door of Ronald Breton's chambers stood thrown wide; the
+inner one was well ajar; through the opening thus made Spargo and the
+detective obtained a full view of the interior of Mr. Ronald Breton's
+rooms. There, against a background of law books, bundles of papers tied
+up with pink tape, and black-framed pictures of famous legal
+notabilities, they saw a pretty, vivacious-eyed girl, who, perched on a
+chair, wigged and gowned, and flourishing a mass of crisp paper, was
+haranguing an imaginary judge and jury, to the amusement of a young man
+who had his back to the door, and of another girl who leant
+confidentially against his shoulder.
+
+"I put it to you, gentlemen of the jury--I put it to you with
+confidence, feeling that you must be, must necessarily be, some,
+perhaps brothers, perhaps husbands, and fathers, can you, on your
+consciences do my client the great wrong, the irreparable injury,
+the--the--"
+
+"Think of some more adjectives!" exclaimed the young man. "Hot and
+strong 'uns--pile 'em up. That's what they like--they--Hullo!"
+
+This exclamation arose from the fact that at this point of the
+proceedings the detective rapped at the inner door, and then put his
+head round its edge. Whereupon the young lady who was orating from the
+chair, jumped hastily down; the other young lady withdrew from the
+young man's protecting arm; there was a feminine giggle and a feminine
+swishing of skirts, and a hasty bolt into an inner room, and Mr. Ronald
+Breton came forward, blushing a little, to greet the interrupter.
+
+"Come in, come in!" he exclaimed hastily. "I--"
+
+Then he paused, catching sight of Spargo, and held out his hand with a
+look of surprise.
+
+"Oh--Mr. Spargo?" he said. "How do you do?--we--I--we were just having
+a lark--I'm off to court in a few minutes. What can I do for you, Mr.
+Spargo?"
+
+He had backed to the inner door as he spoke, and he now closed it and
+turned again to the two men, looking from one to the other. The
+detective, on his part, was looking at the young barrister. He saw a
+tall, slimly-built youth, of handsome features and engaging presence,
+perfectly groomed, and immaculately garbed, and having upon him a
+general air of well-to-do-ness, and he formed the impression from these
+matters that Mr. Breton was one of those fortunate young men who may
+take up a profession but are certainly not dependent upon it. He turned
+and glanced at the journalist.
+
+"How do you do?" said Spargo slowly. "I--the fact is, I came here with
+Mr. Rathbury. He--wants to see you. Detective-Sergeant Rathbury--of New
+Scotland Yard."
+
+Spargo pronounced this formal introduction as if he were repeating a
+lesson. But he was watching the young barrister's face. And Breton
+turned to the detective with a look of surprise.
+
+"Oh!" he said. "You wish--"
+
+Rathbury had been fumbling in his pocket for the scrap of grey paper,
+which he had carefully bestowed in a much-worn memorandum-book. "I
+wished to ask a question, Mr. Breton," he said. "This morning, about a
+quarter to three, a man--elderly man--was found dead in Middle Temple
+Lane, and there seems little doubt that he was murdered. Mr. Spargo
+here--he was present when the body was found."
+
+"Soon after," corrected Spargo. "A few minutes after."
+
+"When this body was examined at the mortuary," continued Rathbury, in
+his matter-of-fact, business-like tones, "nothing was found that could
+lead to identification. The man appears to have been robbed. There was
+nothing whatever on him--but this bit of torn paper, which was found in
+a hole in the lining of his waistcoat pocket. It's got your name and
+address on it, Mr. Breton. See?"
+
+Ronald Breton took the scrap of paper and looked at it with knitted
+brows.
+
+"By Jove!" he muttered. "So it has; that's queer. What's he like, this
+man?"
+
+Rathbury glanced at a clock which stood on the mantelpiece.
+
+"Will you step round and take a look at him, Mr. Breton?" he said.
+"It's close by."
+
+"Well--I--the fact is, I've got a case on, in Mr. Justice Borrow's
+court," Breton answered, also glancing at his clock. "But it won't be
+called until after eleven. Will--"
+
+"Plenty of time, sir," said Rathbury; "it won't take you ten minutes to
+go round and back again--a look will do. You don't recognize this
+handwriting, I suppose?"
+
+Breton still held the scrap of paper in his fingers. He looked at it
+again, intently.
+
+"No!" he answered. "I don't. I don't know it at all--I can't think, of
+course, who this man could be, to have my name and address. I thought
+he might have been some country solicitor, wanting my professional
+services, you know," he went on, with a shy smile at Spargo; "but,
+three--three o'clock in the morning, eh?"
+
+"The doctor," observed Rathbury, "the doctor thinks he had been dead
+about two and a half hours."
+
+Breton turned to the inner door.
+
+"I'll--I'll just tell these ladies I'm going out for a quarter of an
+hour," he said. "They're going over to the court with me--I got my
+first brief yesterday," he went on with a boyish laugh, glancing right
+and left at his visitors. "It's nothing much--small case--but I
+promised my fiancee and her sister that they should be present, you
+know. A moment."
+
+He disappeared into the next room and came back a moment later in all
+the glory of a new silk hat. Spargo, a young man who was never very
+particular about his dress, began to contrast his own attire with the
+butterfly appearance of this youngster; he had been quick to notice
+that the two girls who had whisked into the inner room had been
+similarly garbed in fine raiment, more characteristic of Mayfair than
+of Fleet Street. Already he felt a strange curiosity about Breton, and
+about the young ladies whom he heard talking behind the inner door.
+
+"Well, come on," said Breton. "Let's go straight there."
+
+The mortuary to which Rathbury led the way was cold, drab, repellent to
+the general gay sense of the summer morning. Spargo shivered
+involuntarily as he entered it and took a first glance around. But the
+young barrister showed no sign of feeling or concern; he looked quickly
+about him and stepped alertly to the side of the dead man, from whose
+face the detective was turning back a cloth. He looked steadily and
+earnestly at the fixed features. Then he drew back, shaking his head.
+
+"No!" he said with decision. "Don't know him--don't know him from Adam.
+Never set eyes on him in my life, that I know of."
+
+Rathbury replaced the cloth.
+
+"I didn't suppose you would," he remarked. "Well, I expect we must go
+on the usual lines. Somebody'll identify him."
+
+"You say he was murdered?" said Breton. "Is that--certain?"
+
+Rathbury jerked his thumb at the corpse.
+
+"The back of his skull is smashed in," he said laconically. "The doctor
+says he must have been struck down from behind--and a fearful blow,
+too. I'm much obliged to you, Mr. Breton."
+
+"Oh, all right!" said Breton. "Well, you know where to find me if you
+want me. I shall be curious about this. Good-bye--good-bye, Mr.
+Spargo."
+
+The young barrister hurried away, and Rathbury turned to the
+journalist.
+
+"I didn't expect anything from that," he remarked. "However, it was a
+thing to be done. You are going to write about this for your paper?"
+
+Spargo nodded.
+
+"Well," continued Rathbury, "I've sent a man to Fiskie's, the hatter's,
+where that cap came from, you know. We may get a bit of information
+from that quarter--it's possible. If you like to meet me here at
+twelve o'clock I'll tell you anything I've heard. Just now I'm going to
+get some breakfast."
+
+"I'll meet you here," said Spargo, "at twelve o'clock."
+
+He watched Rathbury go away round one corner; he himself suddenly set
+off round another. He went to the _Watchman_ office, wrote a few lines,
+which he enclosed in an envelope for the day-editor, and went out
+again. Somehow or other, his feet led him up Fleet Street, and before
+he quite realized what he was doing he found himself turning into the
+Law Courts.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THREE
+
+THE CLUE OF THE CAP
+
+
+Having no clear conception of what had led him to these scenes of
+litigation, Spargo went wandering aimlessly about in the great hall and
+the adjacent corridors until an official, who took him to be lost,
+asked him if there was any particular part of the building he wanted.
+For a moment Spargo stared at the man as if he did not comprehend his
+question. Then his mental powers reasserted themselves.
+
+"Isn't Mr. Justice Borrow sitting in one of the courts this morning?"
+he suddenly asked.
+
+"Number seven," replied the official. "What's your case--when's it
+down?"
+
+"I haven't got a case," said Spargo. "I'm a pressman--reporter, you
+know."
+
+The official stuck out a finger.
+
+"Round the corner--first to your right--second on the left," he said
+automatically. "You'll find plenty of room--nothing much doing there
+this morning."
+
+He turned away, and Spargo recommenced his apparently aimless
+perambulation of the dreary, depressing corridors.
+
+"Upon my honour!" he muttered. "Upon my honour, I really don't know
+what I've come up here for. I've no business here."
+
+Just then he turned a corner and came face to face with Ronald Breton.
+The young barrister was now in his wig and gown and carried a bundle of
+papers tied up with pink tape; he was escorting two young ladies, who
+were laughing and chattering as they tripped along at his side. And
+Spargo, glancing at them meditatively, instinctively told himself which
+of them it was that he and Rathbury had overheard as she made her
+burlesque speech: it was not the elder one, who walked by Ronald Breton
+with something of an air of proprietorship, but the younger, the girl
+with the laughing eyes and the vivacious smile, and it suddenly dawned
+upon him that somewhere, deep within him, there had been a notion, a
+hope of seeing this girl again--why, he could not then think.
+
+Spargo, thus coming face to face with these three, mechanically lifted
+his hat. Breton stopped, half inquisitive. His eyes seemed to ask a
+question.
+
+"Yes," said Spargo. "I--the fact is, I remembered that you said you
+were coming up here, and I came after you. I want--when you've time--to
+have a talk, to ask you a few questions. About--this affair of the dead
+man, you know."
+
+Breton nodded. He tapped Spargo on the arm.
+
+"Look here," he said. "When this case of mine is over, I can give you
+as much time as you like. Can you wait a bit? Yes? Well, I say, do me a
+favour. I was taking these ladies round to the gallery--round there,
+and up the stairs--and I'm a bit pressed for time--I've a solicitor
+waiting for me. You take them--there's a good fellow; then, when the
+case is over, bring them down here, and you and I will talk. Here--I'll
+introduce you all--no ceremony. Miss Aylmore--Miss Jessie Aylmore. Mr.
+Spargo--of the _Watchman_. Now, I'm off!" Breton turned on the instant;
+his gown whisked round a corner, and Spargo found himself staring at
+two smiling girls. He saw then that both were pretty and attractive,
+and that one seemed to be the elder by some three or four years.
+
+"That is very cool of Ronald," observed the elder young lady. "Perhaps
+his scheme doesn't fit in with yours, Mr. Spargo? Pray don't--"
+
+"Oh, it's all right!" said Spargo, feeling himself uncommonly stupid.
+"I've nothing to do. But--where did Mr. Breton say you wished to be
+taken?"
+
+"Into the gallery of number seven court," said the younger girl
+promptly. "Round this corner--I think I know the way."
+
+Spargo, still marvelling at the rapidity with which affairs were moving
+that morning, bestirred himself to act as cicerone, and presently led
+the two young ladies to the very front of one of those public galleries
+from which idlers and specially-interested spectators may see and hear
+the proceedings which obtain in the badly-ventilated, ill-lighted tanks
+wherein justice is dispensed at the Law Courts. There was no one else
+in that gallery; the attendant in the corridor outside seemed to be
+vastly amazed that any one should wish to enter it, and he presently
+opened the door, beckoned to Spargo, and came half-way down the stairs
+to meet him.
+
+"Nothing much going on here this morning," he whispered behind a raised
+hand. "But there's a nice breach case in number five--get you three
+good seats there if you like."
+
+Spargo declined this tempting offer, and went back to his charges. He
+had decided by that time that Miss Aylmore was about twenty-three, and
+her sister about eighteen; he also thought that young Breton was a
+lucky dog to be in possession of such a charming future wife and an
+equally charming sister-in-law. And he dropped into a seat at Miss
+Jessie Aylmore's side, and looked around him as if he were much awed by
+his surroundings.
+
+"I suppose one can talk until the judge enters?" he whispered. "Is this
+really Mr. Breton's first case?"
+
+"His very first--all on his own responsibility, any way," replied
+Spargo's companion, smiling. "And he's very nervous--and so's my
+sister. Aren't you, now, Evelyn?"
+
+Evelyn Aylmore looked at Spargo, and smiled quietly.
+
+"I suppose one's always nervous about first appearances," she said.
+"However, I think Ronald's got plenty of confidence, and, as he says,
+it's not much of a case: it isn't even a jury case. I'm afraid you'll
+find it dull, Mr. Spargo--it's only something about a promissory
+note."
+
+"Oh, I'm all right, thank you," replied Spargo, unconsciously falling
+back on a favourite formula. "I always like to hear lawyers--they
+manage to say such a lot about--about--"
+
+"About nothing," said Jessie Aylmore. "But there--so do gentlemen who
+write for the papers, don't they?"
+
+Spargo was about to admit that there was a good deal to be said on that
+point when Miss Aylmore suddenly drew her sister's attention to a man
+who had just entered the well of the court.
+
+"Look, Jessie!" she observed. "There's Mr. Elphick!"
+
+Spargo looked down at the person indicated: an elderly, large-faced,
+smooth-shaven man, a little inclined to stoutness, who, wigged and
+gowned, was slowly making his way to a corner seat just outside that
+charmed inner sanctum wherein only King's Counsel are permitted to sit.
+He dropped into this in a fashion which showed that he was one of those
+men who loved personal comfort; he bestowed his plump person at the
+most convenient angle and fitting a monocle in his right eye, glanced
+around him. There were a few of his professional brethren in his
+vicinity; there were half a dozen solicitors and their clerks in
+conversation with one or other of them; there were court officials. But
+the gentleman of the monocle swept all these with an indifferent look
+and cast his eyes upward until he caught sight of the two girls.
+Thereupon he made a most gracious bow in their direction; his broad
+face beamed in a genial smile, and he waved a white hand.
+
+"Do you know Mr. Elphick, Mr. Spargo?" enquired the younger Miss
+Aylmore.
+
+"I rather think I've seen him, somewhere about the Temple," answered
+Spargo. "In fact, I'm sure I have."
+
+"His chambers are in Paper Buildings," said Jessie. "Sometimes he gives
+tea-parties in them. He is Ronald's guardian, and preceptor, and
+mentor, and all that, and I suppose he's dropped into this court to
+hear how his pupil goes on."
+
+"Here is Ronald," whispered Miss Aylmore.
+
+"And here," said her sister, "is his lordship, looking very cross. Now,
+Mr. Spargo, you're in for it."
+
+Spargo, to tell the truth, paid little attention to what went on
+beneath him. The case which young Breton presently opened was a
+commercial one, involving certain rights and properties in a promissory
+note; it seemed to the journalist that Breton dealt with it very well,
+showing himself master of the financial details, and speaking with
+readiness and assurance. He was much more interested in his companions,
+and especially in the younger one, and he was meditating on how he
+could improve his further acquaintance when he awoke to the fact that
+the defence, realizing that it stood no chance, had agreed to withdraw,
+and that Mr. Justice Borrow was already giving judgment in Ronald
+Breton's favour.
+
+In another minute he was walking out of the gallery in rear of the two
+sisters.
+
+"Very good--very good, indeed," he said, absent-mindedly. "I thought he
+put his facts very clearly and concisely."
+
+Downstairs, in the corridor, Ronald Breton was talking to Mr. Elphick.
+He pointed a finger at Spargo as the latter came up with the girls:
+Spargo gathered that Breton was speaking of the murder and of his,
+Spargo's, connection with it. And directly they approached, he spoke.
+
+"This is Mr. Spargo, sub-editor of the _Watchman_." Breton said. "Mr.
+Elphick--Mr. Spargo. I was just telling Mr. Elphick, Spargo, that you
+saw this poor man soon after he was found."
+
+Spargo, glancing at Mr. Elphick, saw that he was deeply interested. The
+elderly barrister took him--literally--by the button-hole.
+
+"My dear sir!" he said. "You--saw this poor fellow? Lying dead--in the
+third entry down Middle Temple Lane! The third entry, eh?"
+
+"Yes," replied Spargo, simply. "I saw him. It was the third entry."
+
+"Singular!" said Mr. Elphick, musingly. "I know a man who lives in that
+house. In fact, I visited him last night, and did not leave until
+nearly midnight. And this unfortunate man had Mr. Ronald Breton's name
+and address in his pocket?"
+
+Spargo nodded. He looked at Breton, and pulled out his watch. Just then
+he had no idea of playing the part of informant to Mr. Elphick.
+
+"Yes, that's so," he answered shortly. Then, looking at Breton
+significantly, he added, "If you can give me those few minutes, now--?"
+
+"Yes--yes!" responded Ronald Breton, nodding. "I understand.
+Evelyn--I'll leave you and Jessie to Mr. Elphick; I must go."
+
+Mr. Elphick seized Spargo once more.
+
+"My dear sir!" he said, eagerly. "Do you--do you think I could possibly
+see--the body?"
+
+"It's at the mortuary," answered Spargo. "I don't know what their
+regulations are."
+
+Then he escaped with Breton. They had crossed Fleet Street and were in
+the quieter shades of the Temple before Spargo spoke.
+
+"About what I wanted to say to you," he said at last. "It was--this.
+I--well, I've always wanted, as a journalist, to have a real big murder
+case. I think this is one. I want to go right into it--thoroughly,
+first and last. And--I think you can help me."
+
+"How do you know that it is a murder case?" asked Breton quietly.
+
+"It's a murder case," answered Spargo, stolidly. "I feel it. Instinct,
+perhaps. I'm going to ferret out the truth. And it seems to me--"
+
+He paused and gave his companion a sharp glance.
+
+"It seems to me," he presently continued, "that the clue lies in that
+scrap of paper. That paper and that man are connecting links between
+you and--somebody else."
+
+"Possibly," agreed Breton. "You want to find the somebody else?"
+
+"I want you to help me to find the somebody else," answered Spargo. "I
+believe this is a big, very big affair: I want to do it. I don't
+believe in police methods--much. By the by, I'm just going to meet
+Rathbury. He may have heard of something. Would you like to come?"
+
+Breton ran into his chambers in King's Bench Walk, left his gown and
+wig, and walked round with Spargo to the police office. Rathbury came
+out as they were stepping in.
+
+"Oh!" he said. "Ah!--I've got what may be helpful, Mr. Spargo. I told
+you I'd sent a man to Fiskie's, the hatter! Well, he's just returned.
+The cap which the dead man was wearing was bought at Fiskie's yesterday
+afternoon, and it was sent to Mr. Marbury, Room 20, at the Anglo-Orient
+Hotel."
+
+"Where is that?" asked Spargo.
+
+"Waterloo district," answered Rathbury. "A small house, I believe.
+Well, I'm going there. Are you coming?"
+
+"Yes," replied Spargo. "Of course. And Mr. Breton wants to come, too."
+
+"If I'm not in the way," said Breton.
+
+Rathbury laughed.
+
+"Well, we may find out something about this scrap of paper," he
+observed. And he waved a signal to the nearest taxi-cab driver.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER FOUR
+
+THE ANGLO-ORIENT HOTEL
+
+
+The house at which Spargo and his companions presently drew up was an
+old-fashioned place in the immediate vicinity of Waterloo Railway
+Station--a plain-fronted, four-square erection, essentially
+mid-Victorian in appearance, and suggestive, somehow, of the very early
+days of railway travelling. Anything more in contrast with the modern
+ideas of a hotel it would have been difficult to find in London, and
+Ronald Breton said so as he and the others crossed the pavement.
+
+"And yet a good many people used to favour this place on their way to
+and from Southampton in the old days," remarked Rathbury. "And I
+daresay that old travellers, coming back from the East after a good
+many years' absence, still rush in here. You see, it's close to the
+station, and travellers have a knack of walking into the nearest place
+when they've a few thousand miles of steamboat and railway train behind
+them. Look there, now!" They had crossed the threshold as the
+detective spoke, and as they entered a square, heavily-furnished hall,
+he made a sidelong motion of his head towards a bar on the left,
+wherein stood or lounged a number of men who from their general
+appearance, their slouched hats, and their bronzed faces appeared to be
+Colonials, or at any rate to have spent a good part of their time
+beneath Oriental skies. There was a murmur of tongues that had a
+Colonial accent in it; an aroma of tobacco that suggested Sumatra and
+Trichinopoly, and Rathbury wagged his head sagely. "Lay you anything
+the dead man was a Colonial, Mr. Spargo," he remarked. "Well, now, I
+suppose that's the landlord and landlady."
+
+There was an office facing them, at the rear of the hall, and a man and
+woman were regarding them from a box window which opened above a ledge
+on which lay a register book. They were middle-aged folk: the man, a
+fleshy, round-faced, somewhat pompous-looking individual, who might at
+some time have been a butler; the woman a tall, spare-figured,
+thin-featured, sharp-eyed person, who examined the newcomers with an
+enquiring gaze. Rathbury went up to them with easy confidence.
+
+"You the landlord of this house, sir?" he asked. "Mr. Walters? Just
+so--and Mrs. Walters, I presume?"
+
+The landlord made a stiff bow and looked sharply at his questioner.
+
+"What can I do for you, sir?" he enquired.
+
+"A little matter of business, Mr. Walters," replied Rathbury, pulling
+out a card. "You'll see there who I am--Detective-Sergeant Rathbury, of
+the Yard. This is Mr. Frank Spargo, a newspaper man; this is Mr. Ronald
+Breton, a barrister."
+
+The landlady, hearing their names and description, pointed to a side
+door, and signed Rathbury and his companions to pass through. Obeying
+her pointed finger, they found themselves in a small private parlour.
+Walters closed the two doors which led into it and looked at his
+principal visitor.
+
+"What is it, Mr. Rathbury?" he enquired. "Anything wrong?"
+
+"We want a bit of information," answered Rathbury, almost with
+indifference.
+
+"Did anybody of the name of Marbury put up here yesterday--elderly man,
+grey hair, fresh complexion?"
+
+Mrs. Walters started, glancing at her husband.
+
+"There!" she exclaimed. "I knew some enquiry would be made. Yes--a Mr.
+Marbury took a room here yesterday morning, just after the noon train
+got in from Southampton. Number 20 he took. But--he didn't use it last
+night. He went out--very late--and he never came back."
+
+Rathbury nodded. Answering a sign from the landlord, he took a chair
+and, sitting down, looked at Mrs. Walters.
+
+"What made you think some enquiry would be made, ma'am?" he asked. "Had
+you noticed anything?"
+
+Mrs. Walters seemed a little confused by this direct question. Her
+husband gave vent to a species of growl.
+
+"Nothing to notice," he muttered. "Her way of speaking--that's all."
+
+"Well--why I said that was this," said the landlady. "He happened to
+tell us, did Mr. Marbury, that he hadn't been in London for over twenty
+years, and couldn't remember anything about it, him, he said, never
+having known much about London at any time. And, of course, when he
+went out so late and never came back, why, naturally, I thought
+something had happened to him, and that there'd be enquiries made."
+
+"Just so--just so!" said Rathbury. "So you would, ma'am--so you would.
+Well, something has happened to him. He's dead. What's more, there's
+strong reason to think he was murdered."
+
+Mr. and Mrs. Walters received this announcement with proper surprise
+and horror, and the landlord suggested a little refreshment to his
+visitors. Spargo and Breton declined, on the ground that they had work
+to do during the afternoon; Rathbury accepted it, evidently as a matter
+of course.
+
+"My respects," he said, lifting his glass. "Well, now, perhaps you'll
+just tell me what you know of this man? I may as well tell you, Mr. and
+Mrs. Walters, that he was found dead in Middle Temple Lane this
+morning, at a quarter to three; that there wasn't anything on him but
+his clothes and a scrap of paper which bore this gentleman's name and
+address; that this gentleman knows nothing whatever of him, and that I
+traced him here because he bought a cap at a West End hatter's
+yesterday, and had it sent to your hotel."
+
+"Yes," said Mrs. Walters quickly, "that's so. And he went out in that
+cap last night. Well--we don't know much about him. As I said, he came
+in here about a quarter past twelve yesterday morning, and booked
+Number 20. He had a porter with him that brought a trunk and a
+bag--they're in 20 now, of course. He told me that he had stayed at
+this house over twenty years ago, on his way to Australia--that, of
+course, was long before we took it. And he signed his name in the book
+as John Marbury."
+
+"We'll look at that, if you please," said Rathbury.
+
+Walters fetched in the register and turned the leaf to the previous
+day's entries. They all bent over the dead man's writing.
+
+"'John Marbury, Coolumbidgee, New South Wales,'" said Rathbury.
+"Ah--now I was wondering if that writing would be the same as that on
+the scrap of paper, Mr. Breton. But, you see, it isn't--it's quite
+different."
+
+"Quite different," said Breton. He, too, was regarding the handwriting
+with great interest. And Rathbury noticed his keen inspection of it,
+and asked another question.
+
+"Ever seen that writing before?" he suggested.
+
+"Never," answered Breton. "And yet--there's something very familiar
+about it."
+
+"Then the probability is that you have seen it before," remarked
+Rathbury. "Well--now we'll hear a little more about Marbury's doings
+here. Just tell me all you know, Mr. and Mrs. Walters."
+
+"My wife knows most," said Walters. "I scarcely saw the man--I don't
+remember speaking with him."
+
+"No," said Mrs. Walters. "You didn't--you weren't much in his way.
+Well," she continued, "I showed him up to his room. He talked a
+bit--said he'd just landed at Southampton from Melbourne."
+
+"Did he mention his ship?" asked Rathbury. "But if he didn't, it
+doesn't matter, for we can find out."
+
+"I believe the name's on his things," answered the landlady. "There are
+some labels of that sort. Well, he asked for a chop to be cooked for
+him at once, as he was going out. He had his chop, and he went out at
+exactly one o'clock, saying to me that he expected he'd get lost, as he
+didn't know London well at any time, and shouldn't know it at all now.
+He went outside there--I saw him--looked about him and walked off
+towards Blackfriars way. During the afternoon the cap you spoke of came
+for him--from Fiskie's. So, of course, I judged he'd been Piccadilly
+way. But he himself never came in until ten o'clock. And then he
+brought a gentleman with him."
+
+"Aye?" said Rathbury. "A gentleman, now? Did you see him?"
+
+"Just," replied the landlady. "They went straight up to 20, and I just
+caught a mere glimpse of the gentleman as they turned up the stairs. A
+tall, well-built gentleman, with a grey beard, very well dressed as far
+as I could see, with a top hat and a white silk muffler round his
+throat, and carrying an umbrella."
+
+"And they went to Marbury's room?" said Rathbury. "What then?"
+
+"Well, then, Mr. Marbury rang for some whiskey and soda," continued
+Mrs. Walters. "He was particular to have a decanter of whiskey: that,
+and a syphon of soda were taken up there. I heard nothing more until
+nearly midnight; then the hall-porter told me that the gentleman in 20
+had gone out, and had asked him if there was a night-porter--as, of
+course, there is. He went out at half-past eleven."
+
+"And the other gentleman?" asked Rathbury.
+
+"The other gentleman," answered the landlady, "went out with him. The
+hall-porter said they turned towards the station. And that was the
+last anybody in this house saw of Mr. Marbury. He certainly never came
+back."
+
+"That," observed Rathbury with a quiet smile, "that is quite certain,
+ma'am? Well--I suppose we'd better see this Number 20 room, and have a
+look at what he left there."
+
+"Everything," said Mrs. Walters, "is just as he left it. Nothing's been
+touched."
+
+It seemed to two of the visitors that there was little to touch. On the
+dressing-table lay a few ordinary articles of toilet--none of them of
+any quality or value: the dead man had evidently been satisfied with
+the plain necessities of life. An overcoat hung from a peg: Rathbury,
+without ceremony, went through its pockets; just as unceremoniously he
+proceeded to examine trunk and bag, and finding both unlocked, he laid
+out on the bed every article they contained and examined each
+separately and carefully. And he found nothing whereby he could gather
+any clue to the dead owner's identity.
+
+"There you are!" he said, making an end of his task. "You see, it's
+just the same with these things as with the clothes he had on him.
+There are no papers--there's nothing to tell who he was, what he was
+after, where he'd come from--though that we may find out in other
+ways. But it's not often that a man travels without some clue to his
+identity. Beyond the fact that some of this linen was, you see, bought
+in Melbourne, we know nothing of him. Yet he must have had papers and
+money on him. Did you see anything of his money, now, ma'am?" he asked,
+suddenly turning to Mrs. Walters. "Did he pull out his purse in your
+presence, now?"
+
+"Yes," answered the landlady, with promptitude. "He came into the bar
+for a drink after he'd been up to his room. He pulled out a handful of
+gold when he paid for it--a whole handful. There must have been some
+thirty to forty sovereigns and half-sovereigns."
+
+"And he hadn't a penny piece on him--when found," muttered Rathbury.
+
+"I noticed another thing, too," remarked the landlady. "He was wearing
+a very fine gold watch and chain, and had a splendid ring on his left
+hand--little finger--gold, with a big diamond in it."
+
+"Yes," said the detective, thoughtfully, "I noticed that he'd worn a
+ring, and that it had been a bit tight for him. Well--now there's only
+one thing to ask about. Did your chambermaid notice if he left any torn
+paper around--tore any letters up, or anything like that?"
+
+But the chambermaid, produced, had not noticed anything of the sort; on
+the contrary, the gentleman of Number 20 had left his room very tidy
+indeed. So Rathbury intimated that he had no more to ask, and nothing
+further to say, just then, and he bade the landlord and landlady of the
+Anglo-Orient Hotel good morning, and went away, followed by the two
+young men.
+
+"What next?" asked Spargo, as they gained the street.
+
+"The next thing," answered Rathbury, "is to find the man with whom
+Marbury left this hotel last night."
+
+"And how's that to be done?" asked Spargo.
+
+"At present," replied Rathbury, "I don't know."
+
+And with a careless nod, he walked off, apparently desirous of being
+alone.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER FIVE
+
+SPARGO WISHES TO SPECIALIZE
+
+
+The barrister and the journalist, left thus unceremoniously on a
+crowded pavement, looked at each other. Breton laughed.
+
+"We don't seem to have gained much information," he remarked. "I'm
+about as wise as ever."
+
+"No--wiser," said Spargo. "At any rate, I am. I know now that this dead
+man called himself John Marbury; that he came from Australia; that he
+only landed at Southampton yesterday morning, and that he was in the
+company last night of a man whom we have had described to us--a tall,
+grey-bearded, well-dressed man, presumably a gentleman."
+
+Breton shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"I should say that description would fit a hundred thousand men in
+London," he remarked.
+
+"Exactly--so it would," answered Spargo. "But we know that it was one
+of the hundred thousand, or half-million, if you like. The thing is to
+find that one--the one."
+
+"And you think you can do it?"
+
+"I think I'm going to have a big try at it."
+
+Breton shrugged his shoulders again.
+
+"What?--by going up to every man who answers the description, and
+saying 'Sir, are you the man who accompanied John Marbury to the
+Anglo----"
+
+Spargo suddenly interrupted him.
+
+"Look here!" he said. "Didn't you say that you knew a man who lives in
+that block in the entry of which Marbury was found?"
+
+"No, I didn't," answered Breton. "It was Mr. Elphick who said that. All
+the same, I do know that man--he's Mr. Cardlestone, another barrister.
+He and Mr. Elphick are friends--they're both enthusiastic
+philatelists--stamp collectors, you know--and I dare say Mr. Elphick
+was round there last night examining something new Cardlestone's got
+hold of. Why?"
+
+"I'd like to go round there and make some enquiries," replied Spargo.
+"If you'd be kind enough to----"
+
+"Oh, I'll go with you!" responded Breton, with alacrity. "I'm just as
+keen about this business as you are, Spargo! I want to know who this
+man Marbury is, and how he came to have my name and address on him.
+Now, if I had been a well-known man in my profession, you know, why--"
+
+"Yes," said Spargo, as they got into a cab, "yes, that would have
+explained a lot. It seems to me that we'll get at the murderer through
+that scrap of paper a lot quicker than through Rathbury's line. Yes,
+that's what I think."
+
+Breton looked at his companion with interest.
+
+"But--you don't know what Rathbury's line is," he remarked.
+
+"Yes, I do," said Spargo. "Rathbury's gone off to discover who the man
+is with whom Marbury left the Anglo-Orient Hotel last night. That's his
+line."
+
+"And you want----?"
+
+"I want to find out the full significance of that bit of paper, and who
+wrote it," answered Spargo. "I want to know why that old man was coming
+to you when he was murdered."
+
+Breton started.
+
+"By Jove!" he exclaimed. "I--I never thought of that. You--you really
+think he was coming to me when he was struck down?"
+
+"Certain. Hadn't he got an address in the Temple? Wasn't he in the
+Temple? Of course, he was trying to find you."
+
+"But--the late hour?"
+
+"No matter. How else can you explain his presence in the Temple? I
+think he was asking his way. That's why I want to make some enquiries
+in this block."
+
+It appeared to Spargo that a considerable number of people, chiefly of
+the office-boy variety, were desirous of making enquiries about the
+dead man. Being luncheon-hour, that bit of Middle Temple Lane where the
+body was found, was thick with the inquisitive and the
+sensation-seeker, for the news of the murder had spread, and though
+there was nothing to see but the bare stones on which the body had
+lain, there were more open mouths and staring eyes around the entry
+than Spargo had seen for many a day. And the nuisance had become so
+great that the occupants of the adjacent chambers had sent for a
+policeman to move the curious away, and when Spargo and his companion
+presented themselves at the entry this policeman was being lectured as
+to his duties by a little weazen-faced gentleman, in very snuffy and
+old-fashioned garments, and an ancient silk hat, who was obviously
+greatly exercised by the unwonted commotion.
+
+"Drive them all out into the street!" exclaimed this personage. "Drive
+them all away, constable--into Fleet Street or upon the
+Embankment--anywhere, so long as you rid this place of them. This is a
+disgrace, and an inconvenience, a nuisance, a----"
+
+"That's old Cardlestone," whispered Breton. "He's always irascible, and
+I don't suppose we'll get anything out of him. Mr. Cardlestone," he
+continued, making his way up to the old gentleman who was now
+retreating up the stone steps, brandishing an umbrella as ancient as
+himself. "I was just coming to see you, sir. This is Mr. Spargo, a
+journalist, who is much interested in this murder. He----"
+
+"I know nothing about the murder, my dear sir!" exclaimed Mr.
+Cardlestone. "And I never talk to journalists--a pack of busybodies,
+sir, saving your presence. I am not aware that any murder has been
+committed, and I object to my doorway being filled by a pack of office
+boys and street loungers. Murder indeed! I suppose the man fell down
+these steps and broke his neck--drunk, most likely."
+
+He opened his outer door as he spoke, and Breton, with a reassuring
+smile and a nod at Spargo, followed him into his chambers on the first
+landing, motioning the journalist to keep at their heels.
+
+"Mr. Elphick tells me that he was with you until a late hour last
+evening, Mr. Cardlestone," he said. "Of course, neither of you heard
+anything suspicious?"
+
+"What should we hear that was suspicious in the Temple, sir?" demanded
+Mr. Cardlestone, angrily. "I hope the Temple is free from that sort of
+thing, young Mr. Breton. Your respected guardian and myself had a quiet
+evening on our usual peaceful pursuits, and when he went away all was
+as quiet as the grave, sir. What may have gone on in the chambers above
+and around me I know not! Fortunately, our walls are thick,
+sir--substantial. I say, sir, the man probably fell down and broke his
+neck. What he was doing here, I do not presume to say."
+
+"Well, it's guess, you know, Mr. Cardlestone," remarked Breton, again
+winking at Spargo. "But all that was found on this man was a scrap of
+paper on which my name and address were written. That's practically all
+that was known of him, except that he'd just arrived from Australia."
+
+Mr. Cardlestone suddenly turned on the young barrister with a sharp,
+acute glance.
+
+"Eh?" he exclaimed. "What's this? You say this man had your name and
+address on him, young Breton!--yours? And that he came from--Australia?"
+
+"That's so," answered Breton. "That's all that's known."
+
+Mr. Cardlestone put aside his umbrella, produced a bandanna
+handkerchief of strong colours, and blew his nose in a reflective
+fashion.
+
+"That's a mysterious thing," he observed. "Um--does Elphick know all
+that?"
+
+Breton looked at Spargo as if he was asking him for an explanation of
+Mr. Cardlestone's altered manner. And Spargo took up the conversation.
+
+"No," he said. "All that Mr. Elphick knows is that Mr. Ronald Breton's
+name and address were on the scrap of paper found on the body. Mr.
+Elphick"--here Spargo paused and looked at Breton--"Mr. Elphick," he
+presently continued, slowly transferring his glance to the old
+barrister, "spoke of going to view the body."
+
+"Ah!" exclaimed Mr. Cardlestone, eagerly. "It can be seen? Then I'll go
+and see it. Where is it?"
+
+Breton started.
+
+"But--my dear sir!" he said. "Why?"
+
+Mr. Cardlestone picked up his umbrella again.
+
+"I feel a proper curiosity about a mystery which occurs at my very
+door," he said. "Also, I have known more than one man who went to
+Australia. This might--I say might, young gentlemen--might be a man I
+had once known. Show me where this body is."
+
+Breton looked helplessly at Spargo: it was plain that he did not
+understand the turn that things were taking. But Spargo was quick to
+seize an opportunity. In another minute he was conducting Mr.
+Cardlestone through the ins and outs of the Temple towards Blackfriars.
+And as they turned into Tudor Street they encountered Mr. Elphick.
+
+"I am going to the mortuary," he remarked. "So, I suppose, are you,
+Cardlestone? Has anything more been discovered, young man?"
+
+Spargo tried a chance shot--at what he did not know. "The man's name
+was Marbury," he said. "He was from Australia."
+
+He was keeping a keen eye on Mr. Elphick, but he failed to see that Mr.
+Elphick showed any of the surprise which Mr. Cardlestone had exhibited.
+Rather, he seemed indifferent.
+
+"Oh?" he said--"Marbury? And from Australia. Well--I should like to see
+the body."
+
+Spargo and Breton had to wait outside the mortuary while the two elder
+gentlemen went in. There was nothing to be learnt from either when they
+reappeared.
+
+"We don't know the man," said Mr. Elphick, calmly. "As Mr. Cardlestone,
+I understand, has said to you already--we have known men who went to
+Australia, and as this man was evidently wandering about the Temple, we
+thought it might have been one of them, come back. But--we don't
+recognize him."
+
+"Couldn't recognize him," said Mr. Cardlestone. "No!"
+
+They went away together arm in arm, and Breton looked at Spargo.
+
+"As if anybody on earth ever fancied they'd recognize him!" he said.
+"Well--what are you going to do now, Spargo? I must go."
+
+Spargo, who had been digging his walking-stick into a crack in the
+pavement, came out of a fit of abstraction.
+
+"I?" he said. "Oh--I'm going to the office." And he turned abruptly
+away, and walking straight off to the editorial rooms at the
+_Watchman_, made for one in which sat the official guardian of the
+editor. "Try to get me a few minutes with the chief," he said.
+
+The private secretary looked up.
+
+"Really important?" he asked.
+
+"Big!" answered Spargo. "Fix it."
+
+Once closeted with the great man, whose idiosyncrasies he knew pretty
+well by that time, Spargo lost no time.
+
+"You've heard about this murder in Middle Temple Lane?" he suggested.
+
+"The mere facts," replied the editor, tersely.
+
+"I was there when the body was found," continued Spargo, and gave a
+brief resume of his doings. "I'm certain this is a most unusual
+affair," he went on. "It's as full of mystery as--as it could be. I
+want to give my attention to it. I want to specialize on it. I can make
+such a story of it as we haven't had for some time--ages. Let me have
+it. And to start with, let me have two columns for tomorrow morning.
+I'll make it--big!"
+
+The editor looked across his desk at Spargo's eager face.
+
+"Your other work?" he said.
+
+"Well in hand," replied Spargo. "I'm ahead a whole week--both articles
+and reviews. I can tackle both."
+
+The editor put his finger tips together.
+
+"Have you got some idea about this, young man?" he asked.
+
+"I've got a great idea," answered Spargo. He faced the great man
+squarely, and stared at him until he had brought a smile to the
+editorial face. "That's why I want to do it," he added. "And--it's not
+mere boasting nor over-confidence--I know I shall do it better than
+anybody else."
+
+The editor considered matters for a brief moment.
+
+"You mean to find out who killed this man?" he said at last.
+
+Spargo nodded his head--twice.
+
+"I'll find that out," he said doggedly.
+
+The editor picked up a pencil, and bent to his desk.
+
+"All right," he said. "Go ahead. You shall have your two columns."
+
+Spargo went quietly away to his own nook and corner. He got hold of a
+block of paper and began to write. He was going to show how to do
+things.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER SIX
+
+WITNESS TO A MEETING
+
+
+Ronald Breton walked into the _Watchman_ office and into Spargo's room
+next morning holding a copy of the current issue in his hand. He waved
+it at Spargo with an enthusiasm which was almost boyish.
+
+"I say!" he exclaimed. "That's the way to do it, Spargo! I congratulate
+you. Yes, that's the way--certain!"
+
+Spargo, idly turning over a pile of exchanges, yawned.
+
+"What way?" he asked indifferently.
+
+"The way you've written this thing up," said Breton. "It's a hundred
+thousand times better than the usual cut-and-dried account of a murder.
+It's--it's like a--a romance!"
+
+"Merely a new method of giving news," said Spargo. He picked up a copy
+of the _Watchman_, and glanced at his two columns, which had somehow
+managed to make themselves into three, viewing the displayed lettering,
+the photograph of the dead man, the line drawing of the entry in Middle
+Temple Lane, and the facsimile of the scrap of grey paper, with a
+critical eye. "Yes--merely a new method," he continued. "The question
+is--will it achieve its object?"
+
+"What's the object?" asked Breton.
+
+Spargo fished out a box of cigarettes from an untidy drawer, pushed it
+over to his visitor, helped himself, and tilting back his chair, put
+his feet on his desk.
+
+"The object?" he said, drily. "Oh, well, the object is the ultimate
+detection of the murderer."
+
+"You're after that?"
+
+"I'm after that--just that."
+
+"And not--not simply out to make effective news?"
+
+"I'm out to find the murderer of John Marbury," said Spargo
+deliberately slow in his speech. "And I'll find him."
+
+"Well, there doesn't seem to be much in the way of clues, so far,"
+remarked Breton. "I see--nothing. Do you?"
+
+Spargo sent a spiral of scented smoke into the air.
+
+"I want to know an awful lot," he said. "I'm hungering for news. I want
+to know who John Marbury is. I want to know what he did with himself
+between the time when he walked out of the Anglo-Orient Hotel, alive
+and well, and the time when he was found in Middle Temple Lane, with
+his skull beaten in and dead. I want to know where he got that scrap of
+paper. Above everything, Breton, I want to know what he'd got to do
+with you!"
+
+He gave the young barrister a keen look, and Breton nodded.
+
+"Yes," he said. "I confess that's a corker. But I think----"
+
+"Well?" said Spargo.
+
+"I think he may have been a man who had some legal business in hand, or
+in prospect, and had been recommended to--me," said Breton.
+
+Spargo smiled--a little sardonically.
+
+"That's good!" he said. "You had your very first brief--yesterday.
+Come--your fame isn't blown abroad through all the heights yet, my
+friend! Besides--don't intending clients approach--isn't it strict
+etiquette for them to approach?--barristers through solicitors?"
+
+"Quite right--in both your remarks," replied Breton, good-humouredly.
+"Of course, I'm not known a bit, but all the same I've known several
+cases where a barrister has been approached in the first instance and
+asked to recommend a solicitor. Somebody who wanted to do me a good
+turn may have given this man my address."
+
+"Possible," said Spargo. "But he wouldn't have come to consult you at
+midnight. Breton!--the more I think of it, the more I'm certain there's
+a tremendous mystery in this affair! That's why I got the chief to let
+me write it up as I have done--here. I'm hoping that this
+photograph--though to be sure, it's of a dead face--and this facsimile
+of the scrap of paper will lead to somebody coming forward who can----"
+
+Just then one of the uniformed youths who hang about the marble
+pillared vestibule of the _Watchman_ office came into the room with the
+unmistakable look and air of one who carries news of moment.
+
+"I dare lay a sovereign to a cent that I know what this is," muttered
+Spargo in an aside. "Well?" he said to the boy. "What is it?"
+
+The messenger came up to the desk.
+
+"Mr. Spargo," he said, "there's a man downstairs who says that he wants
+to see somebody about that murder case that's in the paper this
+morning, sir. Mr. Barrett said I was to come to you."
+
+"Who is the man?" asked Spargo.
+
+"Won't say, sir," replied the boy. "I gave him a form to fill up, but
+he said he wouldn't write anything--said all he wanted was to see the
+man who wrote the piece in the paper."
+
+"Bring him here," commanded Spargo. He turned to Breton when the boy
+had gone, and he smiled. "I knew we should have somebody here sooner or
+later," he said. "That's why I hurried over my breakfast and came down
+at ten o'clock. Now then, what will you bet on the chances of this
+chap's information proving valuable?"
+
+"Nothing," replied Breton. "He's probably some crank or faddist who's
+got some theory that he wants to ventilate."
+
+The man who was presently ushered in by the messenger seemed from
+preliminary and outward appearance to justify Breton's prognostication.
+He was obviously a countryman, a tall, loosely-built, middle-aged man,
+yellow of hair, blue of eye, who was wearing his Sunday-best array of
+pearl-grey trousers and black coat, and sported a necktie in which were
+several distinct colours. Oppressed with the splendour and grandeur of
+the _Watchman_ building, he had removed his hard billycock hat as he
+followed the boy, and he ducked his bared head at the two young men as
+he stepped on to the thick pile of the carpet which made luxurious
+footing in Spargo's room. His blue eyes, opened to their widest, looked
+round him in astonishment at the sumptuousness of modern
+newspaper-office accommodation.
+
+"How do you do, sir?" said Spargo, pointing a finger to one of the
+easy-chairs for which the _Watchman_ office is famous. "I understand
+that you wish to see me?"
+
+The caller ducked his yellow head again, sat down on the edge of the
+chair, put his hat on the floor, picked it up again, and endeavoured to
+hang it on his knee, and looked at Spargo innocently and shyly.
+
+"What I want to see, sir," he observed in a rustic accent, "is the
+gentleman as wrote that piece in your newspaper about this here murder
+in Middle Temple Lane."
+
+"You see him," said Spargo. "I am that man."
+
+The caller smiled--generously.
+
+"Indeed, sir?" he said. "A very nice bit of reading, I'm sure. And what
+might your name be, now, sir? I can always talk free-er to a man when I
+know what his name is."
+
+"So can I," answered Spargo. "My name is Spargo--Frank Spargo. What's
+yours?"
+
+"Name of Webster, sir--William Webster. I farm at One Ash Farm, at
+Gosberton, in Oakshire. Me and my wife," continued Mr. Webster, again
+smiling and distributing his smile between both his hearers, "is at
+present in London on a holiday. And very pleasant we find it--weather
+and all."
+
+"That's right," said Spargo. "And--you wanted to see me about this
+murder, Mr. Webster?"
+
+"I did, sir. Me, I believe, knowing, as I think, something that'll do
+for you to put in your paper. You see, Mr. Spargo, it come about in
+this fashion--happen you'll be for me to tell it in my own way."
+
+"That," answered Spargo, "is precisely what I desire."
+
+"Well, to be sure, I couldn't tell it in no other," declared Mr.
+Webster. "You see, sir, I read your paper this morning while I was
+waiting for my breakfast--they take their breakfasts so late in them
+hotels--and when I'd read it, and looked at the pictures, I says to my
+wife 'As soon as I've had my breakfast,' I says, 'I'm going to where
+they print this newspaper to tell 'em something.' 'Aye?' she says,
+'Why, what have you to tell, I should like to know?' just like that,
+Mr. Spargo."
+
+"Mrs. Webster," said Spargo, "is a lady of businesslike principles. And
+what have you to tell?"
+
+Mr. Webster looked into the crown of his hat, looked out of it, and
+smiled knowingly.
+
+"Well, sir," he continued, "Last night, my wife, she went out to a part
+they call Clapham, to take her tea and supper with an old friend of
+hers as lives there, and as they wanted to have a bit of woman-talk,
+like, I didn't go. So thinks I to myself, I'll go and see this here
+House of Commons. There was a neighbour of mine as had told me that all
+you'd got to do was to tell the policeman at the door that you wanted
+to see your own Member of Parliament. So when I got there I told 'em
+that I wanted to see our M.P., Mr. Stonewood--you'll have heard tell of
+him, no doubt; he knows me very well--and they passed me, and I wrote
+out a ticket for him, and they told me to sit down while they found
+him. So I sat down in a grand sort of hall where there were a rare lot
+of people going and coming, and some fine pictures and images to look
+at, and for a time I looked at them, and then I began to take a bit of
+notice of the folk near at hand, waiting, you know, like myself. And as
+sure as I'm a christened man, sir, the gentleman whose picture you've
+got in your paper--him as was murdered--was sitting next to me! I knew
+that picture as soon as I saw it this morning."
+
+Spargo, who had been making unmeaning scribbles on a block of paper,
+suddenly looked at his visitor.
+
+"What time was that?" he asked.
+
+"It was between a quarter and half-past nine, sir," answered Mr.
+Webster. "It might ha' been twenty past--it might ha' been twenty-five
+past."
+
+"Go on, if you please," said Spargo.
+
+"Well, sir, me and this here dead gentleman talked a bit. About what a
+long time it took to get a member to attend to you, and such-like. I
+made mention of the fact that I hadn't been in there before. 'Neither
+have I!' he says, 'I came in out of curiosity,' he says, and then he
+laughed, sir--queer-like. And it was just after that that what I'm
+going to tell you about happened."
+
+"Tell," commanded Spargo.
+
+"Well, sir, there was a gentleman came along, down this grand hall that
+we were sitting in--a tall, handsome gentleman, with a grey beard. He'd
+no hat on, and he was carrying a lot of paper and documents in his
+hand, so I thought he was happen one of the members. And all of a
+sudden this here man at my side, he jumps up with a sort of start and
+an exclamation, and----"
+
+Spargo lifted his hand. He looked keenly at his visitor.
+
+"Now, you're absolutely sure about what you heard him exclaim?" he
+asked. "Quite sure about it? Because I see you are going to tell us
+what he did exclaim."
+
+"I'll tell you naught but what I'm certain of, sir," replied Webster.
+"What he said as he jumped up was 'Good God!' he says, sharp-like--and
+then he said a name, and I didn't right catch it, but it sounded like
+Danesworth, or Painesworth, or something of that sort--one of them
+there, or very like 'em, at any rate. And then he rushed up to this
+here gentleman, and laid his hand on his arm--sudden-like."
+
+"And--the gentleman?" asked Spargo, quietly.
+
+"Well, he seemed taken aback, sir. He jumped. Then he stared at the
+man. Then they shook hands. And then, after they'd spoken a few words
+together-like, they walked off, talking. And, of course, I never saw no
+more of 'em. But when I saw your paper this morning, sir, and that
+picture in it, I said to myself 'That's the man I sat next to in that
+there hall at the House of Commons!' Oh, there's no doubt of it, sir!"
+
+"And supposing you saw a photograph of the tall gentleman with the grey
+beard?" suggested Spargo. "Could you recognize him from that?"
+
+"Make no doubt of it, sir," answered Mr. Webster. "I observed him
+particular."
+
+Spargo rose, and going over to a cabinet, took from it a thick volume,
+the leaves of which he turned over for several minutes.
+
+"Come here, if you please, Mr. Webster," he said.
+
+The farmer went across the room.
+
+"There is a full set of photographs of members of the present House of
+Commons here," said Spargo. "Now, pick out the one you saw. Take your
+time--and be sure."
+
+He left his caller turning over the album and went back to Breton.
+
+"There!" he whispered. "Getting nearer--a bit nearer--eh?"
+
+"To what?" asked Breton. "I don't see--"
+
+A sudden exclamation from the farmer interrupted Breton's remark.
+
+"This is him, sir!" answered Mr. Webster. "That's the gentleman--know
+him anywhere!"
+
+The two young men crossed the room. The farmer was pointing a stubby
+finger to a photograph, beneath which was written _Stephen Aylmore,
+Esq., M.P. for Brookminster_.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER SEVEN
+
+MR. AYLMORE
+
+
+Spargo, keenly observant and watchful, felt, rather than saw, Breton
+start; he himself preserved an imperturbable equanimity. He gave a mere
+glance at the photograph to which Mr. Webster was pointing.
+
+"Oh!" he said. "That he?"
+
+"That's the gentleman, sir," replied Webster. "Done to the life, that
+is. No difficulty in recognizing of that, Mr. Spargo."
+
+"You're absolutely sure?" demanded Spargo. "There are a lot of men in
+the House of Commons, you know, who wear beards, and many of the beards
+are grey."
+
+But Webster wagged his head.
+
+"That's him, sir!" he repeated. "I'm as sure of that as I am that my
+name's William Webster. That's the man I saw talking to him whose
+picture you've got in your paper. Can't say no more, sir."
+
+"Very good," said Spargo. "I'm much obliged to you. I'll see Mr.
+Aylmore. Leave me your address in London, Mr. Webster. How long do you
+remain in town?"
+
+"My address is the Beachcroft Hotel, Bloomsbury, sir, and I shall be
+there for another week," answered the farmer. "Hope I've been of some
+use, Mr. Spargo. As I says to my wife----"
+
+Spargo cut his visitor short in polite fashion and bowed him out. He
+turned to Breton, who still stood staring at the album of portraits.
+
+"There!--what did I tell you?" he said. "Didn't I say I should get some
+news? There it is."
+
+Breton nodded his head. He seemed thoughtful.
+
+"Yes," he agreed. "Yes, I say, Spargo!"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Mr. Aylmore is my prospective father-in-law, you know."
+
+"Quite aware of it. Didn't you introduce me to his daughters--only
+yesterday?"
+
+"But--how did you know they were his daughters?"
+
+Spargo laughed as he sat down to his desk.
+
+"Instinct--intuition," he answered. "However, never mind that, just
+now. Well--I've found something out. Marbury--if that is the dead
+man's real name, and anyway, it's all we know him by--was in the
+company of Mr. Aylmore that night. Good!"
+
+"What are you going to do about it?" asked Breton.
+
+"Do? See Mr. Aylmore, of course."
+
+He was turning over the leaves of a telephone address-book; one hand
+had already picked up the mouthpiece of the instrument on his desk.
+
+"Look here," said Breton. "I know where Mr. Aylmore is always to be
+found at twelve o'clock. At the A. and P.--the Atlantic and Pacific
+Club, you know, in St. James's. If you like, I'll go with you."
+
+Spargo glanced at the clock and laid down the telephone.
+
+"All right," he said. "Eleven o'clock, now. I've something to do. I'll
+meet you outside the A. and P. at exactly noon."
+
+"I'll be there," agreed Breton. He made for the door, and with his hand
+on it, turned. "What do you expect from--from what we've just heard?"
+he asked.
+
+Spargo shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"Wait--until we hear what Mr. Aylmore has to say," he answered. "I
+suppose this man Marbury was some old acquaintance."
+
+Breton closed the door and went away: left alone, Spargo began to
+mutter to himself.
+
+"Good God!" he says. "Dainsworth--Painsworth--something of that
+sort--one of the two. Excellent--that our farmer friend should have so
+much observation. Ah!--and why should Mr. Stephen Aylmore be recognized
+as Dainsworth or Painsworth or something of that sort. Now, who is Mr.
+Stephen Aylmore--beyond being what I know him to be?"
+
+Spargo's fingers went instinctively to one of a number of books of
+reference which stood on his desk: they turned with practised swiftness
+to a page over which his eye ran just as swiftly. He read aloud:
+
+"AYLMORE, STEPHEN, M.P. for Brookminster since 1910. Residences: 23,
+St. Osythe Court, Kensington: Buena Vista, Great Marlow. Member
+Atlantic and Pacific and City Venturers' Clubs. Interested in South
+American enterprise."
+
+"Um!" muttered Spargo, putting the book away. "That's not very
+illuminating. However, we've got one move finished. Now we'll make
+another."
+
+Going over to the album of photographs, Spargo deftly removed that of
+Mr. Aylmore, put it in an envelope and the envelope in his pocket and,
+leaving the office, hailed a taxi-cab, and ordered its driver to take
+him to the Anglo-Orient Hotel. This was the something-to-do of which
+he had spoken to Breton: Spargo wanted to do it alone.
+
+Mrs. Walters was in her low-windowed office when Spargo entered the
+hall; she recognized him at once and motioned him into her parlour.
+
+"I remember you," said Mrs. Walters; "you came with the detective--Mr.
+Rathbury."
+
+"Have you seen him, since?" asked Spargo.
+
+"Not since," replied Mrs. Walters. "No--and I was wondering if he'd be
+coming round, because----" She paused there and looked at Spargo with
+particular enquiry--"You're a friend of his, aren't you?" she asked. "I
+suppose you know as much as he does--about this?"
+
+"He and I," replied Spargo, with easy confidence, "are working this
+case together. You can tell me anything you'd tell him."
+
+The landlady rummaged in her pocket and produced an old purse, from an
+inner compartment of which she brought out a small object wrapped in
+tissue paper.
+
+"Well," she said, unwrapping the paper, "we found this in Number 20
+this morning--it was lying under the dressing-table. The girl that
+found it brought it to me, and I thought it was a bit of glass, but
+Walters, he says as how he shouldn't be surprised if it's a diamond.
+And since we found it, the waiter who took the whisky up to 20, after
+Mr. Marbury came in with the other gentleman, has told me that when he
+went into the room the two gentlemen were looking at a paper full of
+things like this. So there?"
+
+Spargo fingered the shining bit of stone.
+
+"That's a diamond--right enough," he said. "Put it away, Mrs.
+Walters--I shall see Rathbury presently, and I'll tell him about it.
+Now, that other gentleman! You told us you saw him. Could you recognize
+him--I mean, a photograph of him? Is this the man?"
+
+Spargo knew from the expression of Mrs. Walters' face that she had no
+more doubt than Webster had.
+
+"Oh, yes!" she said. "That's the gentleman who came in with Mr.
+Marbury--I should have known him in a thousand. Anybody would recognize
+him from that--perhaps you'd let our hall-porter and the waiter I
+mentioned just now look at it?"
+
+"I'll see them separately and see if they've ever seen a man who
+resembles this," replied Spargo.
+
+The two men recognized the photograph at once, without any prompting,
+and Spargo, after a word or two with the landlady, rode off to the
+Atlantic and Pacific Club, and found Ronald Breton awaiting him on the
+steps. He made no reference to his recent doings, and together they
+went into the house and asked for Mr. Aylmore.
+
+Spargo looked with more than uncommon interest at the man who presently
+came to them in the visitors' room. He was already familiar with Mr.
+Aylmore's photograph, but he never remembered seeing him in real life;
+the Member for Brookminster was one of that rapidly diminishing body of
+legislators whose members are disposed to work quietly and
+unobtrusively, doing yeoman service on committees, obeying every behest
+of the party whips, without forcing themselves into the limelight or
+seizing every opportunity to air their opinions. Now that Spargo met
+him in the flesh he proved to be pretty much what the journalist had
+expected--a rather cold-mannered, self-contained man, who looked as if
+he had been brought up in a school of rigid repression, and taught not
+to waste words. He showed no more than the merest of languid interests
+in Spargo when Breton introduced him, and his face was quite
+expressionless when Spargo brought to an end his brief explanation
+--purposely shortened--of his object in calling upon him.
+
+"Yes," he said indifferently. "Yes, it is quite true that I met Marbury
+and spent a little time with him on the evening your informant spoke
+of. I met him, as he told you, in the lobby of the House. I was much
+surprised to meet him. I had not seen him for--I really don't know how
+many years."
+
+He paused and looked at Spargo as if he was wondering what he ought or
+not to say to a newspaper man. Spargo remained silent, waiting. And
+presently Mr. Aylmore went on.
+
+"I read your account in the _Watchman_ this morning," he said. "I was
+wondering, when you called just now, if I would communicate with you or
+with the police. The fact is--I suppose you want this for your paper,
+eh?" he continued after a sudden breaking off.
+
+"I shall not print anything that you wish me not to print," answered
+Spargo. "If you care to give me any information----"
+
+"Oh, well!" said Mr. Aylmore. "I don't mind. The fact is, I knew next
+to nothing. Marbury was a man with whom I had some--well, business
+relations, of a sort, a great many years ago. It must be twenty
+years--perhaps more--since I lost sight of him. When he came up to me
+in the lobby the other night, I had to make an effort of memory to
+recall him. He wished me, having once met me, to give him some advice,
+and as there was little doing in the House that night, and as he had
+once been--almost a friend--I walked to his hotel with him, chatting.
+He told me that he had only landed from Australia that morning, and
+what he wanted my advice about, principally, was--diamonds. Australian
+diamonds."
+
+"I was unaware," remarked Spargo, "that diamonds were ever found in
+Australia."
+
+Mr. Aylmore smiled--a little cynically.
+
+"Perhaps so," he said. "But diamonds have been found in Australia from
+time to time, ever since Australia was known to Europeans, and in the
+opinion of experts, they will eventually be found there in quantity.
+Anyhow, Marbury had got hold of some Australian diamonds, and he showed
+them to me at his hotel--a number of them. We examined them in his
+room."
+
+"What did he do with them--afterwards?" asked Spargo.
+
+"He put them in his waistcoat pocket--in a very small wash-leather bag,
+from which he had taken them. There were, in all, sixteen or twenty
+stones--not more, and they were all small. I advised him to see some
+expert--I mentioned Streeter's to him. Now, I can tell you how he got
+hold of Mr. Breton's address."
+
+The two young men pricked up their ears. Spargo unconsciously tightened
+his hold on the pencil with which he was making notes.
+
+"He got it from me," continued Mr. Aylmore. "The handwriting on the
+scrap of paper is mine, hurriedly scrawled. He wanted legal advice. As
+I knew very little about lawyers, I told him that if he called on Mr.
+Breton, Mr. Breton would be able to tell him of a first-class, sharp
+solicitor. I wrote down Mr. Breton's address for him, on a scrap of
+paper which he tore off a letter that he took from his pocket. By the
+by, I observe that when his body was found there was nothing on it in
+the shape of papers or money. I am quite sure that when I left him he
+had a lot of gold on him, those diamonds, and a breast-pocket full of
+letters."
+
+"Where did you leave him, sir?" asked Spargo. "You left the hotel
+together, I believe?"
+
+"Yes. We strolled along when we left it. Having once met, we had much
+to talk of, and it was a fine night. We walked across Waterloo Bridge
+and very shortly afterwards he left me. And that is really all I know.
+My own impression----" He paused for a moment and Spargo waited
+silently.
+
+"My own impression--though I confess it may seem to have no very solid
+grounds--is that Marbury was decoyed to where he was found, and was
+robbed and murdered by some person who knew he had valuables on him.
+There is the fact that he was robbed, at any rate."
+
+"I've had a notion," said Breton, diffidently. "Mayn't be worth much,
+but I've had it, all the same. Some fellow-passenger of Marbury's may
+have tracked him all day--Middle Temple Lane's pretty lonely at night,
+you know."
+
+No one made any comment upon this suggestion, and on Spargo looking at
+Mr. Aylmore, the Member of Parliament rose and glanced at the door.
+
+"Well, that's all I can tell you, Mr. Spargo," he said. "You see, it's
+not much, after all. Of course, there'll be an inquest on Marbury, and
+I shall have to re-tell it. But you're welcome to print what I've told
+you."
+
+Spargo left Breton with his future father-in-law and went away towards
+New Scotland Yard. He and Rathbury had promised to share news--now he
+had some to communicate.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER EIGHT
+
+THE MAN FROM THE SAFE DEPOSIT
+
+
+Spargo found Rathbury sitting alone in a small, somewhat dismal
+apartment which was chiefly remarkable for the business-like paucity of
+its furnishings and its indefinable air of secrecy. There was a plain
+writing-table and a hard chair or two; a map of London, much
+discoloured, on the wall; a few faded photographs of eminent bands in
+the world of crime, and a similar number of well-thumbed books of
+reference. The detective himself, when Spargo was shown in to him, was
+seated at the table, chewing an unlighted cigar, and engaged in the
+apparently aimless task of drawing hieroglyphics on scraps of paper. He
+looked up as the journalist entered, and held out his hand.
+
+"Well, I congratulate you on what you stuck in the _Watchman_ this
+morning," he said. "Made extra good reading, I thought. They did right
+to let you tackle that job. Going straight through with it now, I
+suppose, Mr. Spargo?"
+
+Spargo dropped into the chair nearest to Rathbury's right hand. He
+lighted a cigarette, and having blown out a whiff of smoke, nodded his
+head in a fashion which indicated that the detective might consider his
+question answered in the affirmative.
+
+"Look here," he said. "We settled yesterday, didn't we, that you and I
+are to consider ourselves partners, as it were, in this job? That's all
+right," he continued, as Rathbury nodded very quietly. "Very well--have
+you made any further progress?"
+
+Rathbury put his thumbs in the armholes of his waistcoat and, leaning
+back in his chair, shook his head.
+
+"Frankly, I haven't," he replied. "Of course, there's a lot being done
+in the usual official-routine way. We've men out making various
+enquiries. We're enquiring about Marbury's voyage to England. All that
+we know up to now is that he was certainly a passenger on a liner which
+landed at Southampton in accordance with what he told those people at
+the Anglo-Orient, that he left the ship in the usual way and was
+understood to take the train to town--as he did. That's all. There's
+nothing in that. We've cabled to Melbourne for any news of him from
+there. But I expect little from that."
+
+"All right," said Spargo. "And--what are you doing--you, yourself?
+Because, if we're to share facts, I must know what my partner's after.
+Just now, you seemed to be--drawing."
+
+Rathbury laughed.
+
+"Well, to tell you the truth," he said, "when I want to work things
+out, I come into this room--it's quiet, as you see--and I scribble
+anything on paper while I think. I was figuring on my next step, and--"
+
+"Do you see it?" asked Spargo, quickly.
+
+"Well--I want to find the man who went with Marbury to that hotel,"
+replied Rathbury. "It seems to me--"
+
+Spargo wagged his finger at his fellow-contriver.
+
+"I've found him," he said. "That's what I wrote that article for--to
+find him. I knew it would find him. I've never had any training in your
+sort of work, but I knew that article would get him. And it has got
+him."
+
+Rathbury accorded the journalist a look of admiration.
+
+"Good!" he said. "And--who is he?"
+
+"I'll tell you the story," answered Spargo, "and in a summary. This
+morning a man named Webster, a farmer, a visitor to London, came to me
+at the office, and said that being at the House of Commons last night
+he witnessed a meeting between Marbury and a man who was evidently a
+Member of Parliament, and saw them go away together. I showed him an
+album of photographs of the present members, and he immediately
+recognized the portrait of one of them as the man in question. I
+thereupon took the portrait to the Anglo-Orient Hotel--Mrs. Walters
+also at once recognized it as that of the man who came to the hotel
+with Marbury, stopped with him a while in his room, and left with him.
+The man is Mr. Stephen Aylmore, the member for Brookminster."
+
+Rathbury expressed his feelings in a sharp whistle.
+
+"I know him!" he said. "Of course--I remember Mrs. Walters's
+description now. But his is a familiar type--tall, grey-bearded,
+well-dressed. Um!--well, we'll have to see Mr. Aylmore at once."
+
+"I've seen him," said Spargo. "Naturally! For you see, Mrs. Walters
+gave me a bit more evidence. This morning they found a loose diamond on
+the floor of Number 20, and after it was found the waiter who took the
+drinks up to Marbury and his guest that night remembered that when he
+entered the room the two gentlemen were looking at a paper full of
+similar objects. So then I went on to see Mr. Aylmore. You know young
+Breton, the barrister?--you met him with me, you remember?"
+
+"The young fellow whose name and address were found on Marbury,"
+replied Rathbury. "I remember."
+
+"Breton is engaged to Aylmore's daughter," continued Spargo. "Breton
+took me to Aylmore's club. And Aylmore gives a plain, straightforward
+account of the matter which he's granted me leave to print. It clears
+up a lot of things. Aylmore knew Marbury over twenty years ago. He lost
+sight of him. They met accidentally in the lobby of the House on the
+evening preceding the murder. Marbury told him that he wanted his
+advice about those rare things, Australian diamonds. He went back with
+him to his hotel and spent a while with him; then they walked out
+together as far as Waterloo Bridge, where Aylmore left him and went
+home. Further, the scrap of grey paper is accounted for. Marbury wanted
+the address of a smart solicitor; Aylmore didn't know of one but told
+Marbury that if he called on young Breton, he'd know, and would put him
+in the way to find one. Marbury wrote Breton's address down. That's
+Aylmore's story. But it's got an important addition. Aylmore says that
+when he left Marbury, Marbury had on him a quantity of those diamonds
+in a wash-leather bag, a lot of gold, and a breast-pocket full of
+letters and papers. Now--there was nothing on him when he was found
+dead in Middle Temple Lane."
+
+Spargo stopped and lighted a fresh cigarette.
+
+"That's all I know," he said. "What do you make of it?"
+
+Rathbury leaned back in his chair in his apparently favourite attitude
+and stared hard at the dusty ceiling above him.
+
+"Don't know," he said. "It brings things up to a point, certainly.
+Aylmore and Marbury parted at Waterloo Bridge--very late. Waterloo
+Bridge is pretty well next door to the Temple. But--how did Marbury get
+into the Temple, unobserved? We've made every enquiry, and we can't
+trace him in any way as regards that movement. There's a clue for his
+going there in the scrap of paper bearing Breton's address, but even a
+Colonial would know that no business was done in the Temple at
+midnight, eh?"
+
+"Well," said Spargo, "I've thought of one or two things. He may have
+been one of those men who like to wander around at night. He may have
+seen--he would see--plenty of lights in the Temple at that hour; he
+may have slipped in unobserved--it's possible, it's quite possible. I
+once had a moonlight saunter in the Temple myself after midnight, and
+had no difficulty about walking in and out, either. But--if Marbury was
+murdered for the sake of what he had on him--how did he meet with his
+murderer or murderers in there? Criminals don't hang about Middle
+Temple Lane."
+
+The detective shook his head. He picked up his pencil and began making
+more hieroglyphics.
+
+"What's your theory, Mr. Spargo?" he asked suddenly. "I suppose you've
+got one."
+
+"Have you?" asked Spargo, bluntly.
+
+"Well," returned Rathbury, hesitatingly, "I hadn't, up to now. But
+now--now, after what you've told me, I think I can make one. It seems
+to me that after Marbury left Aylmore he probably mooned about by
+himself, that he was decoyed into the Temple, and was there murdered
+and robbed. There are a lot of queer ins and outs, nooks and corners in
+that old spot, Mr. Spargo, and the murderer, if he knew his ground
+well, could easily hide himself until he could get away in the morning.
+He might be a man who had access to chambers or offices--think how easy
+it would be for such a man, having once killed and robbed his victim,
+to lie hid for hours afterwards? For aught we know, the man who
+murdered Marbury may have been within twenty feet of you when you first
+saw his dead body that morning. Eh?"
+
+Before Spargo could reply to this suggestion an official entered the
+room and whispered a few words in the detective's ear.
+
+"Show him in at once," said Rathbury. He turned to Spargo as the man
+quitted the room and smiled significantly. "Here's somebody wants to
+tell something about the Marbury case," he remarked. "Let's hope it'll
+be news worth hearing."
+
+Spargo smiled in his queer fashion.
+
+"It strikes me that you've only got to interest an inquisitive public
+in order to get news," he said. "The principal thing is to investigate
+it when you've got it. Who's this, now?"
+
+The official had returned with a dapper-looking gentleman in a
+frock-coat and silk hat, bearing upon him the unmistakable stamp of the
+city man, who inspected Rathbury with deliberation and Spargo with a
+glance, and being seated turned to the detective as undoubtedly the
+person he desired to converse with.
+
+"I understand that you are the officer in charge of the Marbury murder
+case," he observed. "I believe I can give you some valuable information
+in respect to that. I read the account of the affair in the _Watchman_
+newspaper this morning, and saw the portrait of the murdered man there,
+and I was at first inclined to go to the _Watchman_ office with my
+information, but I finally decided to approach the police instead of
+the Press, regarding the police as being more--more responsible."
+
+"Much obliged to you, sir," said Rathbury, with a glance at Spargo.
+"Whom have I the pleasure of----"
+
+"My name," replied the visitor, drawing out and laying down a card, "is
+Myerst--Mr. E.P. Myerst, Secretary of the London and Universal Safe
+Deposit Company. I may, I suppose, speak with confidence," continued
+Mr. Myerst, with a side-glance at Spargo. "My information
+is--confidential."
+
+Rathbury inclined his head and put his fingers together.
+
+"You may speak with every confidence, Mr. Myerst," he answered. "If
+what you have to tell has any real bearing on the Marbury case, it will
+probably have to be repeated in public, you know, sir. But at present
+it will be treated as private."
+
+"It has a very real bearing on the case, I should say," replied Mr.
+Myerst. "Yes, I should decidedly say so. The fact is that on June 21st
+at about--to be precise--three o'clock in the afternoon, a stranger,
+who gave the name of John Marbury, and his present address as the
+Anglo-Orient Hotel, Waterloo, called at our establishment, and asked if
+he could rent a small safe. He explained to me that he desired to
+deposit in such a safe a small leather box--which, by the by, was of
+remarkably ancient appearance--that he had brought with him. I showed
+him a safe such as he wanted, informed him of the rent, and of the
+rules of the place, and he engaged the safe, paid the rent for one year
+in advance, and deposited his leather box--an affair of about a foot
+square--there and then. After that, having exchanged a remark or two
+about the altered conditions of London, which, I understood him to say,
+he had not seen for a great many years, he took his key and his
+departure. I think there can be no doubt about this being the Mr.
+Marbury who was found murdered."
+
+"None at all, I should say, Mr. Myerst," said Rathbury. "And I'm much
+obliged to you for coming here. Now you might tell me a little more,
+sir. Did Marbury tell you anything about the contents of the box?"
+
+"No. He merely remarked that he wished the greatest care to be taken of
+it," replied the secretary.
+
+"Didn't give you any hint as to what was in it?" asked Rathbury.
+
+"None. But he was very particular to assure himself that it could not
+be burnt, nor burgled, nor otherwise molested," replied Mr. Myerst. "He
+appeared to be greatly relieved when he found that it was impossible
+for anyone but himself to take his property from his safe."
+
+"Ah!" said Rathbury, winking at Spargo. "So he would, no doubt. And
+Marbury himself, sir, now? How did he strike you?"
+
+Mr. Myerst gravely considered this question.
+
+"Mr. Marbury struck me," he answered at last, "as a man who had
+probably seen strange places. And before leaving he made, what I will
+term, a remarkable remark. About--in fact, about his leather box."
+
+"His leather box?" said Rathbury. "And what was it, sir?"
+
+"This," replied the secretary. "'That box,' he said, 'is safe now. But
+it's been safer. It's been buried--and deep-down, too--for many and
+many a year!'"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER NINE
+
+THE DEALER IN RARE STAMPS
+
+
+"Buried--and deep-down, too--for many and many a year," repeated Mr.
+Myerst, eyeing his companions with keen glances. "I consider that,
+gentlemen, a very remarkable remark--very remarkable!"
+
+Rathbury stuck his thumbs in the armholes of his waistcoat again and
+began swaying backwards and forwards in his chair. He looked at Spargo.
+And with his knowledge of men, he knew that all Spargo's journalistic
+instincts had been aroused, and that he was keen as mustard to be off
+on a new scent.
+
+"Remarkable--remarkable, Mr. Myerst!" he assented. "What do you say,
+Mr. Spargo?"
+
+Spargo turned slowly, and for the first time since Myerst had entered
+made a careful inspection of him. The inspection lasted several
+seconds; then Spargo spoke.
+
+"And what did you say to that?" he asked quietly.
+
+Myerst looked from his questioner to Rathbury. And Rathbury thought it
+time to enlighten the caller.
+
+"I may as well tell you, Mr. Myerst," he said smilingly, "that this is
+Mr. Spargo, of the _Watchman_. Mr. Spargo wrote the article about the
+Marbury case of which you spoke when you came in. Mr. Spargo, you'll
+gather, is deeply interested in this matter--and he and I, in our
+different capacities, are working together. So--you understand?" Myerst
+regarded Spargo in a new light. And while he was so looking at him.
+Spargo repeated the question he had just put.
+
+"I said--What did you say to that?"
+
+Myerst hesitated.
+
+"Well--er--I don't think I said anything," he replied. "Nothing that
+one might call material, you know."
+
+"Didn't ask him what he meant?" suggested Spargo.
+
+"Oh, no--not at all," replied Myerst.
+
+Spargo got up abruptly from his chair.
+
+"Then you missed one of the finest opportunities I ever heard of!" he
+said, half-sneeringly. "You might have heard such a story--"
+
+He paused, as if it were not worth while to continue, and turned to
+Rathbury, who was regarding him with amusement.
+
+"Look here, Rathbury," he said. "Is it possible to get that box
+opened?"
+
+"It'll have to be opened," answered Rathbury, rising. "It's got to be
+opened. It probably contains the clue we want. I'm going to ask Mr.
+Myerst here to go with me just now to take the first steps about having
+it opened. I shall have to get an order. We may get the matter through
+today, but at any rate we'll have it done tomorrow morning."
+
+"Can you arrange for me to be present when that comes off?" asked
+Spargo. "You can--certain? That's all right, Rathbury. Now I'm off, and
+you'll ring me up or come round if you hear anything, and I'll do the
+same by you."
+
+And without further word, Spargo went quickly away, and just as quickly
+returned to the _Watchman_ office. There the assistant who had been
+told off to wait upon his orders during this new crusade met him with a
+business card.
+
+"This gentleman came in to see you about an hour ago, Mr. Spargo," he
+said. "He thinks he can tell you something about the Marbury affair,
+and he said that as he couldn't wait, perhaps you'd step round to his
+place when you came in."
+
+Spargo took the card and read:
+
+  MR. JAMES CRIEDIR,
+  DEALER IN PHILATELIC RARITIES,
+  2,021, STRAND.
+
+Spargo put the card in his waistcoat pocket and went out again,
+wondering why Mr. James Criedir could not, would not, or did not call
+himself a dealer in rare postage stamps, and so use plain English. He
+went up Fleet Street and soon found the shop indicated on the card, and
+his first glance at its exterior showed that whatever business might
+have been done by Mr. Criedir in the past at that establishment there
+was to be none done there in the future by him, for there were
+newly-printed bills in the window announcing that the place was to let.
+And inside he found a short, portly, elderly man who was superintending
+the packing-up and removal of the last of his stock. He turned a
+bright, enquiring eye on the journalist.
+
+"Mr. Criedir?" said Spargo.
+
+"The same, sir," answered the philatelist. "You are--?"
+
+"Mr. Spargo, of the _Watchman_. You called on me."
+
+Mr. Criedir opened the door of a tiny apartment at the rear of the very
+little shop and motioned his caller to enter. He followed him in and
+carefully closed the door.
+
+"Glad to see you, Mr. Spargo," he said genially. "Take a seat, sir--I'm
+all in confusion here--giving up business, you see. Yes, I called on
+you. I think, having read the _Watchman_ account of that Marbury
+affair, and having seen the murdered man's photograph in your columns,
+that I can give you a bit of information."
+
+"Material?" asked Spargo, tersely.
+
+Mr. Criedir cocked one of his bright eyes at his visitor. He coughed
+drily.
+
+"That's for you to decide--when you've heard it," he said. "I should
+say, considering everything, that it was material. Well, it's this--I
+kept open until yesterday--everything as usual, you know--stock in the
+window and so on--so that anybody who was passing would naturally have
+thought that the business was going on, though as a matter of fact, I'm
+retiring--retired," added Mr. Criedir with a laugh, "last night.
+Now--but won't you take down what I've got to tell you?"
+
+"I am taking it down," answered Spargo. "Every word. In my head."
+
+Mr. Criedir laughed and rubbed his hands.
+
+"Oh!" he said. "Ah, well, in my young days journalists used to pull out
+pencil and notebook at the first opportunity. But you modern young
+men--"
+
+"Just so," agreed Spargo. "This information, now?"
+
+"Well," said Mr. Criedir, "we'll go on then. Yesterday afternoon the
+man described as Marbury came into my shop. He--"
+
+"What time--exact time?" asked Spargo.
+
+"Two--to the very minute by St. Clement Danes clock," answered Mr.
+Criedir. "I'd swear twenty affidavits on that point. He was precisely
+as you've described him--dress, everything--I tell you I knew his
+photo as soon as I saw it. He was carrying a little box--"
+
+"What sort of box?" said Spargo.
+
+"A queer, old-fashioned, much-worn leather box--a very miniature trunk,
+in fact," replied Mr. Criedir. "About a foot square; the sort of thing
+you never see nowadays. It was very much worn; it attracted me for that
+very reason. He set it on the counter and looked at me. 'You're a
+dealer in stamps--rare stamps?' he said. 'I am,' I replied. 'I've
+something here I'd like to show you,' he said, unlocking the box.
+'It's--'"
+
+"Stop a bit," said Spargo. "Where did he take the key from with which
+he unlocked the box?"
+
+"It was one of several which he carried on a split ring, and he took
+the bunch out of his left-hand trousers pocket," replied Mr. Criedir.
+"Oh, I keep my eyes open, young gentleman! Well--he opened his box. It
+seemed to me to be full of papers--at any rate there were a lot of
+legal-looking documents on the top, tied up with red tape. To show you
+how I notice things I saw that the papers were stained with age, and
+that the red tape was faded to a mere washed-out pink."
+
+"Good--good!" murmured Spargo. "Excellent! Proceed, sir."
+
+"He put his hand under the topmost papers and drew out an envelope,"
+continued Mr. Criedir. "From the envelope he produced an exceedingly
+rare, exceedingly valuable set of Colonial stamps--the very-first ever
+issued. 'I've just come from Australia,' he said. 'I promised a young
+friend of mine out there to sell these stamps for him in London, and as
+I was passing this way I caught sight of your shop. Will you buy 'em,
+and how much will you give for 'em?'"
+
+"Prompt," muttered Spargo.
+
+"He seemed to me the sort of man who doesn't waste words," agreed Mr.
+Criedir. "Well, there was no doubt about the stamps, nor about their
+great value. But I had to explain to him that I was retiring from
+business that very day, and did not wish to enter into even a single
+deal, and that, therefore, I couldn't do anything. 'No matter,' he
+says, 'I daresay there are lots of men in your line of trade--perhaps
+you can recommend me to a good firm?' 'I could recommend you to a dozen
+extra-good firms,' I answered. 'But I can do better for you. I'll give
+you the name and address of a private buyer who, I haven't the least
+doubt, will be very glad to buy that set from you and will give you a
+big price.' 'Write it down,' he says, 'and thank you for your trouble.'
+So I gave him a bit of advice as to the price he ought to get, and I
+wrote the name and address of the man I referred to on the back of one
+of my cards."
+
+"Whose name and address?" asked Spargo.
+
+"Mr. Nicholas Cardlestone, 2, Pilcox Buildings, Middle Temple Lane,"
+replied Mr. Criedir. "Mr. Cardlestone is one of the most enthusiastic
+and accomplished philatelists in Europe. And I knew he didn't possess
+that set of stamps."
+
+"I know Mr. Cardlestone," remarked Spargo. "It was at the foot of his
+stairs that Marbury was found murdered."
+
+"Just so," said Mr. Criedir. "Which makes me think that he was going to
+see Mr. Cardlestone when he was set upon, murdered, and robbed."
+
+Spargo looked fixedly at the retired stamp-dealer.
+
+"What, going to see an elderly gentleman in his rooms in the Temple, to
+offer to sell him philatelic rarities at--past midnight?" he said. "I
+think--not much!"
+
+"All right," replied Mr. Criedir. "You think and argue on modern
+lines--which are, of course, highly superior. But--how do you account
+for my having given Marbury Mr. Cardlestone's address and for his
+having been found dead--murdered--at the foot of Cardlestone's stairs
+a few hours later?"
+
+"I don't account for it," said Spargo. "I'm trying to."
+
+Mr. Criedir made no comment on this. He looked his visitor up and down
+for a moment; gathered some idea of his capabilities, and suddenly
+offered him a cigarette. Spargo accepted it with a laconic word of
+thanks, and smoked half-way through it before he spoke again.
+
+"Yes," he said. "I'm trying to account. And I shall account. And I'm
+much obliged to you, Mr. Criedir, for what you've told me. Now, then,
+may I ask you a question or two?"
+
+"A thousand!" responded Mr. Criedir with great geniality.
+
+"Very well. Did Marbury say he'd call on Cardlestone?"
+
+"He did. Said he'd call as soon as he could--that day."
+
+"Have you told Cardlestone what you've just told me?"
+
+"I have. But not until an hour ago--on my way back from your office, in
+fact. I met him in Fleet Street and told him."
+
+"Had he received a call from Marbury?"
+
+"No! Never heard of or seen the man. At least, never heard of him until
+he heard of the murder. He told me he and his friend, Mr. Elphick,
+another philatelist, went to see the body, wondering if they could
+recognize it as any man they'd ever known, but they couldn't."
+
+"I know they did," said Spargo. "I saw 'em at the mortuary. Um!
+Well--one more question. When Marbury left you, did he put those stamps
+in his box again, as before?"
+
+"No," replied Mr. Criedir. "He put them in his right-hand breast
+pocket, and he locked up his old box, and went off swinging it in his
+left hand."
+
+Spargo went away down Fleet Street, seeing nobody. He muttered to
+himself, and he was still muttering when he got into his room at the
+office. And what he muttered was the same thing, repeated over and over
+again:
+
+"Six hours--six hours--six hours! Those six hours!"
+
+Next morning the _Watchman_ came out with four leaded columns of
+up-to-date news about the Marbury Case, and right across the top of the
+four ran a heavy double line of great capitals, black and staring:--
+
+WHO SAW JOHN MARBURY BETWEEN 3.15 P.M. AND 9.15 P.M. ON THE DAY
+PRECEDING HIS MURDER?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TEN
+
+THE LEATHER BOX
+
+
+Whether Spargo was sanguine enough to expect that his staring headline
+would bring him information of the sort he wanted was a secret which he
+kept to himself. That a good many thousands of human beings must have
+set eyes on John Marbury between the hours which Spargo set forth in
+that headline was certain; the problem was--What particular owner or
+owners of a pair or of many pairs of those eyes would remember him? Why
+should they remember him? Walters and his wife had reason to remember
+him; Criedir had reason to remember him; so had Myerst; so had William
+Webster. But between a quarter past three, when he left the London and
+Universal Safe Deposit, and a quarter past nine, when he sat down by
+Webster's side in the lobby of the House of Commons, nobody seemed to
+have any recollection of him except Mr. Fiskie, the hatter, and he only
+remembered him faintly, and because Marbury had bought a fashionable
+cloth cap at his shop. At any rate, by noon of that day, nobody had
+come forward with any recollection of him. He must have gone West from
+seeing Myerst, because he bought his cap at Fiskie's; he must
+eventually have gone South-West, because he turned up at Westminster.
+But where else did he go? What did he do? To whom did he speak? No
+answer came to these questions.
+
+"That shows," observed young Mr. Ronald Breton, lazing an hour away in
+Spargo's room at the _Watchman_ at that particular hour which is
+neither noon nor afternoon, wherein even busy men do nothing, "that
+shows how a chap can go about London as if he were merely an ant that
+had strayed into another ant-heap than his own. Nobody notices."
+
+"You'd better go and read up a little elementary entomology, Breton,"
+said Spargo. "I don't know much about it myself, but I've a pretty good
+idea that when an ant walks into the highways and byways of a colony to
+which he doesn't belong he doesn't survive his intrusion by many
+seconds."
+
+"Well, you know what I mean," said Breton. "London's an ant-heap, isn't
+it? One human ant more or less doesn't count. This man Marbury must
+have gone about a pretty tidy lot during those six hours. He'd ride on
+a 'bus--almost certain. He'd get into a taxi-cab--I think that's much
+more certain, because it would be a novelty to him. He'd want some
+tea--anyway, he'd be sure to want a drink, and he'd turn in somewhere
+to get one or the other. He'd buy things in shops--these Colonials
+always do. He'd go somewhere to get his dinner. He'd--but what's the
+use of enumeration in this case?"
+
+"A mere piling up of platitudes," answered Spargo.
+
+"What I mean is," continued Breton, "that piles of people must have
+seen him, and yet it's now hours and hours since your paper came out
+this morning, and nobody's come forward to tell anything. And when you
+come to think of it, why should they? Who'd remember an ordinary man in
+a grey tweed suit?"
+
+"'An ordinary man in a grey tweed suit,'" repeated Spargo. "Good line.
+You haven't any copyright in it, remember. It would make a good
+cross-heading."
+
+Breton laughed. "You're a queer chap, Spargo," he said. "Seriously, do
+you think you're getting any nearer anything?"
+
+"I'm getting nearer something with everything that's done," Spargo
+answered. "You can't start on a business like this without evolving
+something out of it, you know."
+
+"Well," said Breton, "to me there's not so much mystery in it. Mr.
+Aylmore's explained the reason why my address was found on the body;
+Criedir, the stamp-man, has explained--"
+
+Spargo suddenly looked up.
+
+"What?" he said sharply.
+
+"Why, the reason of Marbury's being found where he was found," replied
+Breton. "Of course, I see it all! Marbury was mooning around Fleet
+Street; he slipped into Middle Temple Lane, late as it was, just to see
+where old Cardlestone hangs out, and he was set upon and done for. The
+thing's plain to me. The only thing now is to find who did it."
+
+"Yes, that's it," agreed Spargo. "That's it." He turned over the leaves
+of the diary which lay on his desk. "By the by," he said, looking up
+with some interest, "the adjourned inquest is at eleven o'clock
+tomorrow morning. Are you going?"
+
+"I shall certainly go," answered Breton. "What's more, I'm going to
+take Miss Aylmore and her sister. As the gruesome details were over at
+the first sitting, and as there'll be nothing but this new evidence
+tomorrow, and as they've never been in a coroner's court----"
+
+"Mr. Aylmore'll be the principal witness tomorrow," interrupted Spargo.
+"I suppose he'll be able to tell a lot more than he told--me."
+
+Breton shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"I don't see that there's much more to tell," he said. "But," he added,
+with a sly laugh, "I suppose you want some more good copy, eh?"
+
+Spargo glanced at his watch, rose, and picked up his hat. "I'll tell
+you what I want," he said. "I want to know who John Marbury was. That
+would make good copy. Who he was--twenty--twenty-five--forty years ago.
+Eh?"
+
+"And you think Mr. Aylmore can tell?" asked Breton.
+
+"Mr. Aylmore," answered Spargo as they walked towards the door, "is the
+only person I have met so far who has admitted that he knew John
+Marbury in the--past. But he didn't tell me--much. Perhaps he'll tell
+the coroner and his jury--more. Now, I'm off Breton--I've an
+appointment."
+
+And leaving Breton to find his own way out, Spargo hurried away, jumped
+into a taxi-cab and speeded to the London and Universal Safe Deposit.
+At the corner of its building he found Rathbury awaiting him.
+
+"Well?" said Spargo, as he sprang out: "How is it?"
+
+"It's all right," answered Rathbury. "You can be present: I got the
+necessary permission. As there are no relations known, there'll only be
+one or two officials and you, and the Safe Deposit people, and myself.
+Come on--it's about time."
+
+"It sounds," observed Spargo, "like an exhumation."
+
+Rathbury laughed. "Well, we're certainly going to dig up a dead man's
+secrets," he said. "At least, we may be going to do so. In my opinion,
+Mr. Spargo, we'll find some clue in this leather box."
+
+Spargo made no answer. They entered the office, to be shown into a room
+where were already assembled Mr. Myerst, a gentleman who turned out to
+be the chairman of the company, and the officials of whom Rathbury had
+spoken. And in another moment Spargo heard the chairman explaining that
+the company possessed duplicate keys to all safes, and that the proper
+authorization having been received from the proper authorities, those
+present would now proceed to the safe recently tenanted by the late Mr.
+John Marbury, and take from it the property which he himself had
+deposited there, a small leather box, which they would afterwards bring
+to that room and cause to be opened in each other's presence.
+
+It seemed to Spargo that there was an unending unlocking of bolts and
+bars before he and his fellow-processionists came to the safe so
+recently rented by the late Mr. John Marbury, now undoubtedly deceased.
+And at first sight of it, he saw that it was so small an affair that it
+seemed ludicrous to imagine that it could contain anything of any
+importance. In fact, it looked to be no more than a plain wooden
+locker, one amongst many in a small strong room: it reminded Spargo
+irresistibly of the locker in which, in his school days, he had kept
+his personal belongings and the jam tarts, sausage rolls, and hardbake
+smuggled in from the tuck-shop. Marbury's name had been newly painted
+upon it; the paint was scarcely dry. But when the wooden door--the
+front door, as it were, of this temple of mystery, had been solemnly
+opened by the chairman, a formidable door of steel was revealed, and
+expectation still leapt in the bosoms of the beholders.
+
+"The duplicate key, Mr. Myerst, if you please," commanded the chairman,
+"the duplicate key!"
+
+Myerst, who was fully as solemn as his principal, produced a
+curious-looking key: the chairman lifted his hand as if he were about
+to christen a battleship: the steel door swung slowly back. And there,
+in a two-foot square cavity, lay the leather box.
+
+It struck Spargo as they filed back to the secretary's room that the
+procession became more funereal-like than ever. First walked the
+chairman, abreast with the high official, who had brought the necessary
+authorization from the all-powerful quarter; then came Myerst carrying
+the box: followed two other gentlemen, both legal lights, charged with
+watching official and police interests; Rathbury and Spargo brought up
+the rear. He whispered something of his notions to the detective;
+Rathbury nodded a comprehensive understanding.
+
+"Let's hope we're going to see--something!" he said.
+
+In the secretary's room a man waited who touched his forelock
+respectfully as the heads of the procession entered. Myerst set the box
+on the table: the man made a musical jingle of keys: the other members
+of the procession gathered round.
+
+"As we naturally possess no key to this box," announced the chairman in
+grave tones, "it becomes our duty to employ professional assistance in
+opening it. Jobson!"
+
+He waved a hand, and the man of the keys stepped forward with alacrity.
+He examined the lock of the box with a knowing eye; it was easy to see
+that he was anxious to fall upon it. While he considered matters,
+Spargo looked at the box. It was pretty much what it had been described
+to him as being; a small, square box of old cow-hide, very strongly
+made, much worn and tarnished, fitted with a handle projecting from the
+lid, and having the appearance of having been hidden away somewhere for
+many a long day.
+
+There was a click, a spring: Jobson stepped back.
+
+"That's it, if you please, sir," he said.
+
+The chairman motioned to the high official.
+
+"If you would be good enough to open the box, sir," he said. "Our duty
+is now concluded."
+
+As the high official laid his hand on the lid the other men gathered
+round with craning necks and expectant eyes. The lid was lifted:
+somebody sighed deeply. And Spargo pushed his own head and eyes nearer.
+
+The box was empty!
+
+Empty, as anything that can be empty is empty! thought Spargo: there
+was literally nothing in it. They were all staring into the interior of
+a plain, time-worn little receptacle, lined out with old-fashioned
+chintz stuff, such as our Mid-Victorian fore-fathers were familiar
+with, and containing--nothing.
+
+"God bless my soul!" exclaimed the chairman. "This is--dear me!--why,
+there is nothing in the box!"
+
+"That," remarked the high official, drily, "appears to be obvious."
+
+The chairman looked at the secretary.
+
+"I understood the box was valuable, Mr. Myerst," he said, with the
+half-injured air of a man who considers himself to have been robbed of
+an exceptionally fine treat. "Valuable!"
+
+Myerst coughed.
+
+"I can only repeat what I have already said, Sir Benjamin," he
+answered. "The--er late Mr. Marbury spoke of the deposit as being of
+great value to him; he never permitted it out of his hand until he
+placed it in the safe. He appeared to regard it as of the greatest
+value."
+
+"But we understand from the evidence of Mr. Criedir, given to the
+_Watchman_ newspaper, that it was full of papers and--and other
+articles," said the chairman. "Criedir saw papers in it about an hour
+before it was brought here."
+
+Myerst spread out his hands.
+
+"I can only repeat what I have said, Sir Benjamin," he answered. "I
+know nothing more."
+
+"But why should a man deposit an empty box?" began the chairman. "I--"
+
+The high official interposed.
+
+"That the box is empty is certain," he observed. "Did you ever handle
+it yourself, Mr. Myerst?"
+
+Myerst smiled in a superior fashion.
+
+"I have already observed, sir, that from the time the deceased entered
+this room until the moment he placed the box in the safe which he
+rented, the box was never out of his hands," he replied.
+
+Then there was silence. At last the high official turned to the
+chairman.
+
+"Very well," he said. "We've made the enquiry. Rathbury, take the box
+away with you and lock it up at the Yard."
+
+So Spargo went out with Rathbury and the box; and saw excellent, if
+mystifying, material for the article which had already become the daily
+feature of his paper.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER ELEVEN
+
+MR. AYLMORE IS QUESTIONED
+
+
+It seemed to Spargo as he sat listening to the proceedings at the
+adjourned inquest next day that the whole story of what was now
+world-famous as the Middle Temple Murder Case was being reiterated
+before him for the thousandth time. There was not a detail of the story
+with which he had not become familiar to fulness. The first proceeding
+before the coroner had been of a merely formal nature; these were
+thorough and exhaustive; the representative of the Crown and twelve
+good men and true of the City of London were there to hear and to find
+out and to arrive at a conclusion as to how the man known as John
+Marbury came by his death. And although he knew all about it, Spargo
+found himself tabulating the evidence in a professional manner, and
+noting how each successive witness contributed, as it were, a chapter
+to the story. The story itself ran quite easily, naturally,
+consecutively--you could make it in sections. And Spargo, sitting
+merely to listen, made them:
+
+1. The Temple porter and Constable Driscoll proved the finding of the
+body.
+
+2. The police surgeon testified as to the cause of death--the man had
+been struck down from behind by a blow, a terrible blow--from some
+heavy instrument, and had died immediately.
+
+3. The police and the mortuary officials proved that when the body was
+examined nothing was found in the clothing but the now famous scrap of
+grey paper.
+
+4. Rathbury proved that by means of the dead man's new fashionable
+cloth cap, bought at Fiskie's well-known shop in the West-End, he
+traced Marbury to the Anglo-Orient Hotel in the Waterloo District.
+
+5. Mr. and Mrs. Walters gave evidence of the arrival of Marbury at the
+Anglo-Orient Hotel, and of his doings while he was in and about there.
+
+6. The purser of the ss. _Wambarino_ proved that Marbury sailed from
+Melbourne to Southampton on that ship, excited no remark, behaved
+himself like any other well-regulated passenger, and left the
+_Wambarino_ at Southampton early in the morning of what was to be the
+last day of his life in just the ordinary manner.
+
+7. Mr. Criedir gave evidence of his rencontre with Marbury in the
+matter of the stamps.
+
+8. Mr. Myerst told of Marbury's visit to the Safe Deposit, and further
+proved that the box which he placed there proved, on official
+examination, to be empty.
+
+9. William Webster re-told the story of his encounter with Marbury in
+one of the vestibules of the House of Commons, and of his witnessing
+the meeting between him and the gentleman whom he (Webster) now knew to
+be Mr. Aylmore, a Member of Parliament.
+
+All this led up to the appearance of Mr. Aylmore, M.P., in the
+witness-box. And Spargo knew and felt that it was that appearance for
+which the crowded court was waiting. Thanks to his own vivid and
+realistic specials in the _Watchman_, everybody there had already
+become well and thoroughly acquainted with the mass of evidence
+represented by the nine witnesses who had been in the box before Mr.
+Aylmore entered it. They were familiar, too, with the facts which Mr.
+Aylmore had permitted Spargo to print after the interview at the club,
+which Ronald Breton arranged. Why, then, the extraordinary interest
+which the Member of Parliament's appearance aroused? For everybody was
+extraordinarily interested; from the Coroner downwards to the last man
+who had managed to squeeze himself into the last available inch of the
+public gallery, all who were there wanted to hear and see the man who
+met Marbury under such dramatic circumstances, and who went to his
+hotel with him, hobnobbed with him, gave him advice, walked out of the
+hotel with him for a stroll from which Marbury never returned. Spargo
+knew well why the interest was so keen--everybody knew that Aylmore was
+the only man who could tell the court anything really pertinent about
+Marbury; who he was, what he was after; what his life had been.
+
+He looked round the court as the Member of Parliament entered the
+witness-box--a tall, handsome, perfectly-groomed man, whose beard was
+only slightly tinged with grey, whose figure was as erect as a
+well-drilled soldier's, who carried about him an air of conscious
+power. Aylmore's two daughters sat at a little distance away, opposite
+Spargo, with Ronald Breton in attendance upon them; Spargo had
+encountered their glance as they entered the court, and they had given
+him a friendly nod and smile. He had watched them from time to time; it
+was plain to him that they regarded the whole affair as a novel sort of
+entertainment; they might have been idlers in some Eastern bazaar,
+listening to the unfolding of many tales from the professional
+tale-tellers. Now, as their father entered the box, Spargo looked at
+them again; he saw nothing more than a little heightening of colour in
+their cheeks, a little brightening of their eyes.
+
+"All that they feel," he thought, "is a bit of extra excitement at the
+idea that their father is mixed up in this delightful mystery. Um!
+Well--now how much is he mixed up?"
+
+And he turned to the witness-box and from that moment never took his
+eyes off the man who now stood in it. For Spargo had ideas about the
+witness which he was anxious to develop.
+
+The folk who expected something immediately sensational in Mr.
+Aylmore's evidence were disappointed. Aylmore, having been sworn, and
+asked a question or two by the Coroner, requested permission to tell,
+in his own way, what he knew of the dead man and of this sad affair;
+and having received that permission, he went on in a calm,
+unimpassioned manner to repeat precisely what he had told Spargo. It
+sounded a very plain, ordinary story. He had known Marbury many years
+ago. He had lost sight of him for--oh, quite twenty years. He had met
+him accidentally in one of the vestibules of the House of Commons on
+the evening preceding the murder. Marbury had asked his advice. Having
+no particular duty, and willing to do an old acquaintance a good turn,
+he had gone back to the Anglo-Orient Hotel with Marbury, had remained
+awhile with him in his room, examining his Australian diamonds, and had
+afterwards gone out with him. He had given him the advice he wanted;
+they had strolled across Waterloo Bridge; shortly afterwards they had
+parted. That was all he knew.
+
+The court, the public, Spargo, everybody there, knew all this already.
+It had been in print, under a big headline, in the _Watchman_. Aylmore
+had now told it again; having told it, he seemed to consider that his
+next step was to leave the box and the court, and after a perfunctory
+question or two from the Coroner and the foreman of the jury he made a
+motion as if to step down. But Spargo, who had been aware since the
+beginning of the enquiry of the presence of a certain eminent counsel
+who represented the Treasury, cocked his eye in that gentleman's
+direction, and was not surprised to see him rise in his well-known,
+apparently indifferent fashion, fix his monocle in his right eye, and
+glance at the tall figure in the witness-box.
+
+"The fun is going to begin," muttered Spargo.
+
+The Treasury representative looked from Aylmore to the Coroner and made
+a jerky bow; from the Coroner to Aylmore and straightened himself. He
+looked like a man who is going to ask indifferent questions about the
+state of the weather, or how Smith's wife was last time you heard of
+her, or if stocks are likely to rise or fall. But Spargo had heard this
+man before, and he knew many signs of his in voice and manner and
+glance.
+
+"I want to ask you a few questions, Mr. Aylmore, about your
+acquaintanceship with the dead man. It was an acquaintanceship of some
+time ago?" began the suave, seemingly careless voice.
+
+"A considerable time ago," answered Aylmore.
+
+"How long--roughly speaking?"
+
+"I should say from twenty to twenty-two or three years."
+
+"Never saw him during that time until you met accidentally in the way
+you have described to us?"
+
+"Never."
+
+"Ever heard from him?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Ever heard of him?"
+
+"No."
+
+"But when you met, you knew each other at once?"
+
+"Well--almost at once."
+
+"Almost at once. Then, I take it, you were very well known to each
+other twenty or twenty-two years ago?"
+
+"We were--yes, well known to each other."
+
+"Close friends?"
+
+"I said we were acquaintances."
+
+"Acquaintances. What was his name when you knew him at that time?"
+
+"His name? It was--Marbury."
+
+"Marbury--the same name. Where did you know him?"
+
+"I--oh, here in London."
+
+"What was he?"
+
+"Do you mean--what was his occupation?"
+
+"What was his occupation?"
+
+"I believe he was concerned in financial matters."
+
+"Concerned in financial matters. Had you dealings with him?"
+
+"Well, yes--on occasions."
+
+"What was his business address in London?"
+
+"I can't remember that."
+
+"What was his private address?"
+
+"That I never knew."
+
+"Where did you transact your business with him?"
+
+"Well, we met, now and then."
+
+"Where? What place, office, resort?"
+
+"I can't remember particular places. Sometimes--in the City."
+
+"In the City. Where in the City? Mansion House, or Lombard Street, or
+St. Paul's Churchyard, or the Old Bailey, or where?"
+
+"I have recollections of meeting him outside the Stock Exchange."
+
+"Oh! Was he a member of that institution?"
+
+"Not that I know of."
+
+"Were you?"
+
+"Certainly not!"
+
+"What were the dealings that you had with him?"
+
+"Financial dealings--small ones."
+
+"How long did your acquaintanceship with him last--what period did it
+extend over?"
+
+"I should say about six months to nine months."
+
+"No more?"
+
+"Certainly no more."
+
+"It was quite a slight acquaintanceship, then?"
+
+"Oh, quite!"
+
+"And yet, after losing sight of this merely slight acquaintance for
+over twenty years, you, on meeting him, take great interest in him?"
+
+"Well, I was willing to do him a good turn, I was interested in what he
+told me the other evening."
+
+"I see. Now you will not object to my asking you a personal question or
+two. You are a public man, and the facts about the lives of public men
+are more or less public property. You are represented in this work of
+popular reference as coming to this country in 1902, from Argentina,
+where you made a considerable fortune. You have told us, however, that
+you were in London, acquainted with Marbury, about the years, say 1890
+to 1892. Did you then leave England soon after knowing Marbury?"
+
+"I did. I left England in 1891 or 1892--I am not sure which."
+
+"We are wanting to be very sure about this matter, Mr. Aylmore. We want
+to solve the important question--who is, who was John Marbury, and how
+did he come by his death? You seem to be the only available person who
+knows anything about him. What was your business before you left
+England?"
+
+"I was interested in financial affairs."
+
+"Like Marbury. Where did you carry on your business?"
+
+"In London, of course."
+
+"At what address?"
+
+For some moments Aylmore had been growing more and more restive. His
+brow had flushed; his moustache had begun to twitch. And now he squared
+his shoulders and faced his questioner defiantly.
+
+"I resent these questions about my private affairs!" he snapped out.
+
+"Possibly. But I must put them. I repeat my last question."
+
+"And I refuse to answer it."
+
+"Then I ask you another. Where did you live in London at the time you
+are telling us of, when you knew John Marbury?"
+
+"I refuse to answer that question also!"
+
+The Treasury Counsel sat down and looked at the Coroner.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWELVE
+
+THE NEW WITNESS
+
+
+The voice of the Coroner, bland, suave, deprecating, broke the silence.
+He was addressing the witness.
+
+"I am sure, Mr. Aylmore," he said, "there is no wish to trouble you
+with unnecessary questions. But we are here to get at the truth of this
+matter of John Marbury's death, and as you are the only witness we have
+had who knew him personally--"
+
+Aylmore turned impatiently to the Coroner.
+
+"I have every wish to respect your authority, sir!" he exclaimed. "And
+I have told you all that I know of Marbury and of what happened when I
+met him the other evening. But I resent being questioned on my private
+affairs of twenty years ago--I very much resent it! Any question that
+is really pertinent I will answer, but I will not answer questions that
+seem to me wholly foreign to the scope of this enquiry."
+
+The Treasury Counsel rose again. His manner had become of the quietest,
+and Spargo again became keenly attentive.
+
+"Perhaps I can put a question or two to Mr. Aylmore which will not
+yield him offence," he remarked drily. He turned once more to the
+witness, regarding him as if with interest. "Can you tell us of any
+person now living who knew Marbury in London at the time under
+discussion--twenty to twenty-two or three years ago?" he asked.
+
+Aylmore shook his head angrily.
+
+"No, I can't,'' he replied.
+
+"And yet you and he must have had several business acquaintances at
+that time who knew you both!"
+
+"Possibly--at that time. But when I returned to England my business and
+my life lay in different directions to those of that time. I don't know
+of anybody who knew Marbury then--anybody."
+
+The Counsel turned to a clerk who sat behind him, whispered to him;
+Spargo saw the clerk make a sidelong motion of his head towards the
+door of the court. The Counsel looked again at the witness.
+
+"One more question. You told the court a little time since that you
+parted with Marbury on the evening preceding his death at the end of
+Waterloo Bridge--at, I think you said, a quarter to twelve."
+
+"About that time."
+
+"And at that place?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"That is all I want to ask you, Mr. Aylmore--just now," said the
+Counsel. He turned to the Coroner. "I am going to ask you, sir, at this
+point to call a witness who has volunteered certain evidence to the
+police authorities this morning. That evidence is of a very important
+nature, and I think that this is the stage at which it ought to be
+given to you and the jury. If you would be pleased to direct that David
+Lyell be called--"
+
+Spargo turned instinctively to the door, having seen the clerk who had
+sat behind the Treasury Counsel make his way there. There came into
+view, ushered by the clerk, a smart-looking, alert, self-confident
+young man, evidently a Scotsman, who, on the name of David Lyell being
+called, stepped jauntily and readily into the place which the member of
+Parliament just vacated. He took the oath--Scotch fashion--with the
+same readiness and turned easily to the Treasury Counsel. And Spargo,
+glancing quickly round, saw that the court was breathless with
+anticipation, and that its anticipation was that the new witness was
+going to tell something which related to the evidence just given by
+Aylmore.
+
+"Your name is David Lyell?"
+
+"That is my name, sir."
+
+"And you reside at 23, Cumbrae Side, Kilmarnock, Scotland?"
+
+"I do."
+
+"What are you, Mr. Lyell?"
+
+"Traveller, sir, for the firm of Messrs. Stevenson, Robertson & Soutar,
+distillers, of Kilmarnock."
+
+"Your duties take you, I think, over to Paris occasionally?"
+
+"They do--once every six weeks I go to Paris."
+
+"On the evening of June 21st last were you in London on your way to
+Paris?"
+
+"I was."
+
+"I believe you stayed at De Keyser's Hotel, at the Blackfriars end of
+the Embankment?"
+
+"I did--it's handy for the continental trains."
+
+"About half-past eleven, or a little later, that evening, did you go
+along the Embankment, on the Temple Gardens side, for a walk?"
+
+"I did, sir. I'm a bad sleeper, and it's a habit of mine to take a walk
+of half an hour or so last thing before I go to bed."
+
+"How far did you walk?"
+
+"As far as Waterloo Bridge."
+
+"Always on the Temple side?"
+
+"Just so, sir--straight along on that side."
+
+"Very good. When you got close to Waterloo Bridge, did you meet anybody
+you knew?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Mr. Aylmore, the Member of Parliament."
+
+Spargo could not avoid a glance at the two sisters. The elder's head
+was averted; the younger was staring at the witness steadily. And
+Breton was nervously tapping his fingers on the crown of his shining
+silk hat.
+
+"Mr. Aylmore, the Member of Parliament," repeated the Counsel's suave,
+clear tones. "Oh! And how did you come to recognize Mr. Aylmore, Member
+of Parliament?"
+
+"Well, sir, in this way. At home, I'm the secretary of our Liberal Ward
+Club, and last year we had a demonstration, and it fell to me to
+arrange with the principal speakers. I got Mr. Aylmore to come and
+speak, and naturally I met him several times, in London and in
+Scotland."
+
+"So that you knew him quite well?"
+
+"Oh yes, sir."
+
+"Do you see him now, Mr. Lyell?"
+
+Lyell smiled and half turned in the box.
+
+"Why, of course!" he answered. "There is Mr. Aylmore."
+
+"There is Mr. Aylmore. Very good. Now we go on. You met Mr. Aylmore
+close to Waterloo Bridge? How close?"
+
+"Well, sir, to be exact, Mr. Aylmore came down the steps from the
+bridge on to the Embankment."
+
+"Alone?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Who was with him?"
+
+"A man, sir."
+
+"Did you know the man?"
+
+"No. But seeing who he was with. I took a good look at him. I haven't
+forgotten his face."
+
+"You haven't forgotten his face. Mr. Lyell--has anything recalled that
+face to you within this last day or two?"
+
+"Yes, sir, indeed!"
+
+"What?"
+
+"The picture of the man they say was murdered--John Marbury."
+
+"You're sure of that?"
+
+"I'm as certain, sir, as that my name's what it is."
+
+"It is your belief that Mr. Aylmore, when you met him, was accompanied
+by the man who, according to the photographs, was John Marbury?"
+
+"It is, sir!"
+
+"Very well. Now, having seen Mr. Aylmore and his companion, what did
+you do?"
+
+"Oh, I just turned and walked after them."
+
+"You walked after them? They were going eastward, then?"
+
+"They were walking by the way I'd come."
+
+"You followed them eastward?"
+
+"I did--I was going back to the hotel, you see."
+
+"What were they doing?"
+
+"Talking uncommonly earnestly, sir."
+
+"How far did you follow them?"
+
+"I followed them until they came to the Embankment lodge of Middle
+Temple Lane, sir."
+
+"And then?"
+
+"Why, sir, they turned in there, and I went straight on to De Keyser's,
+and to my bed."
+
+There was a deeper silence in court at that moment than at any other
+period of the long day, and it grew still deeper when the quiet, keen
+voice put the next question.
+
+"You swear on your oath that you saw Mr. Aylmore take his companion
+into the Temple by the Embankment entrance of Middle Temple Lane on the
+occasion in question?"
+
+"I do! I could swear no other, sir."
+
+"Can you tell us, as near as possible, what time that would be?"
+
+"Yes. It was, to a minute or so, about five minutes past twelve."
+
+The Treasury Counsel nodded to the Coroner, and the Coroner, after a
+whispered conference with the foreman of the jury, looked at the
+witness.
+
+"You have only just given this information to the police, I
+understand?" he said.
+
+"Yes, sir. I have been in Paris, and in Amiens, and I only returned by
+this morning's boat. As soon as I had read all the news in the
+papers--the English papers--and seen the dead man's photographs I
+determined to tell the police what I knew, and I went to New Scotland
+Yard as soon as I got to London this morning."
+
+Nobody else wanted to ask Mr. David Lyell any questions, and he stepped
+down. And Mr. Aylmore suddenly came forward again, seeking the
+Coroner's attention.
+
+"May I be allowed to make an explanation, sir?" he began. "I--"
+
+But the Treasury Counsel was on his feet, this time stern and
+implacable. "I would point out, sir, that you have had Mr. Aylmore in
+the box, and that he was not then at all ready to give explanations, or
+even to answer questions," he said. "And before you allow him to make
+any explanation now, I ask you to hear another witness whom I wish to
+interpose at this stage. That witness is----"
+
+Mr. Aylmore turned almost angrily to the Coroner.
+
+"After the evidence of the last witness, I think I have a right to be
+heard at once!" he said with emphasis. "As matters stand at present, it
+looks as if I had trifled, sir, with you and the jury, whereas if I am
+allowed to make an explanation--"
+
+"I must respectfully ask that before Mr. Aylmore is allowed to make any
+explanation, the witness I have referred to is heard," said the
+Treasury Counsel sternly. "There are weighty reasons."
+
+"I am afraid you must wait a little, Mr. Aylmore, if you wish to give
+an explanation," said the Coroner. He turned to the Counsel. "Who is
+this other witness?" he asked.
+
+Aylmore stepped back. And Spargo noticed that the younger of his two
+daughters was staring at him with an anxious expression. There was no
+distrust of her father in her face; she was anxious. She, too, slowly
+turned to the next witness. This man was the porter of the Embankment
+lodge of Middle Temple Lane. The Treasury Counsel put a straight
+question to him at once.
+
+"You see that gentleman," he said, pointing to Aylmore. "Do you know
+him as an inmate of the Temple?"
+
+The man stared at Aylmore, evidently confused.
+
+"Why, certainly, sir!" he answered. "Quite well, sir."
+
+"Very good. And now--what name do you know him by?"
+
+The man grew evidently more bewildered.
+
+"Name, sir. Why, Mr. Anderson, sir!" he replied. "Mr. Anderson!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THIRTEEN
+
+UNDER SUSPICION
+
+
+A distinct, uncontrollable murmur of surprise ran round the packed
+court as this man in the witness-box gave this answer. It signified
+many things--that there were people present who had expected some such
+dramatic development; that there were others present who had not; that
+the answer itself was only a prelude to further developments. And
+Spargo, looking narrowly about him, saw that the answer had aroused
+different feelings in Aylmore's two daughters. The elder one had
+dropped her face until it was quite hidden; the younger was sitting
+bolt upright, staring at her father in utter and genuine bewilderment.
+And for the first time, Aylmore made no response to her.
+
+But the course of things was going steadily forward. There was no
+stopping the Treasury Counsel now; he was going to get at some truth in
+his own merciless fashion. He had exchanged one glance with the
+Coroner, had whispered a word to the solicitor who sat close by him,
+and now he turned again to the witness.
+
+"So you know that gentleman--make sure now--as Mr. Anderson, an inmate
+of the Temple?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"You don't know him by any other name?"
+
+"No, sir, I don't."
+
+"How long have you known him by that name?"
+
+"I should say two or three years, sir."
+
+"See him go in and out regularly?"
+
+"No, sir--not regularly."
+
+"How often, then?"
+
+"Now and then, sir--perhaps once a week."
+
+"Tell us what you know of Mr. Anderson's goings-in-and-out."
+
+"Well, sir, I might see him two nights running; then I mightn't see him
+again for perhaps a week or two. Irregular, as you might say, sir."
+
+"You say 'nights.' Do I understand that you never see Mr. Anderson
+except at night?"
+
+"Yes, sir. I've never seen him except at night. Always about the same
+time, sir."
+
+"What time?"
+
+"Just about midnight, sir."
+
+"Very well. Do you remember the midnight of June 21st-22nd?"
+
+"I do, sir."
+
+"Did you see Mr. Anderson enter then?"
+
+"Yes, sir, just after twelve."
+
+"Was he alone?"
+
+"No, sir; there was another gentleman with him."
+
+"Remember anything about that other gentleman?"
+
+"Nothing, sir, except that I noticed as they walked through, that the
+other gentleman had grey clothes on."
+
+"Had grey clothes on. You didn't see his face?"
+
+"Not to remember it, sir. I don't remember anything but what I've told
+you, sir."
+
+"That is that the other gentleman wore a grey suit. Where did Mr.
+Anderson and this gentleman in the grey suit go when they'd passed
+through?"
+
+"Straight up the Lane, sir."
+
+"Do you know where Mr. Anderson's rooms in the Temple are?"
+
+"Not exactly, sir, but I understood in Fountain Court."
+
+"Now, on that night in question, did Mr. Anderson leave again by your
+lodge?"
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"You heard of the discovery of the body of a dead man in Middle Temple
+Lane next morning?"
+
+"I did, sir."
+
+"Did you connect that man with the gentleman in the grey suit?"
+
+"No, sir, I didn't. It never occurred to me. A lot of the gentlemen who
+live in the Temple bring friends in late of nights; I never gave the
+matter any particular thought."
+
+"Never mentioned it to anybody until now, when you were sent for to
+come here?"
+
+"No, sir, never, to anybody."
+
+"And you have never known the gentleman standing there as anybody but
+Mr. Anderson?"
+
+"No, sir, never heard any other name but Anderson."
+
+The Coroner glanced at the Counsel.
+
+"I think this may be a convenient opportunity for Mr. Aylmore to give
+the explanation he offered a few minutes ago," he said. "Do you suggest
+anything?"
+
+"I suggest, sir, that if Mr. Aylmore desires to give any explanation he
+should return to the witness-box and submit himself to examination
+again on his oath," replied the Counsel. "The matter is in your hands."
+
+The Coroner turned to Aylmore.
+
+"Do you object to that?" he asked.
+
+Aylmore stepped boldly forward and into the box.
+
+"I object to nothing," he said in clear tones, "except to being asked
+to reply to questions about matters of the past which have not and
+cannot have anything to do with this case. Ask me what questions you
+like, arising out of the evidence of the last two witnesses, and I will
+answer them so far as I see myself justified in doing so. Ask me
+questions about matters of twenty years ago, and I shall answer them or
+not as I see fit. And I may as well say that I will take all the
+consequences of my silence or my speech."
+
+The Treasury Counsel rose again.
+
+"Very well, Mr. Aylmore," he said. "I will put certain questions to
+you. You heard the evidence of David Lyell?"
+
+"I did."
+
+"Was that quite true as regards yourself?"
+
+"Quite true--absolutely true."
+
+"And you heard that of the last witness. Was that also true!"
+
+"Equally true."
+
+"Then you admit that the evidence you gave this morning, before these
+witnesses came on the scene, was not true?"
+
+"No, I do not! Most emphatically I do not. It was true."
+
+"True? You told me, on oath, that you parted from John Marbury on
+Waterloo Bridge!"
+
+"Pardon me, I said nothing of the sort. I said that from the
+Anglo-Orient Hotel we strolled across Waterloo Bridge, and that shortly
+afterwards we parted--I did not say where we parted. I see there is a
+shorthand writer here who is taking everything down--ask him if that is
+not exactly what I said?"
+
+A reference to the stenographer proved Aylmore to be right, and the
+Treasury Counsel showed plain annoyance.
+
+"Well, at any rate, you so phrased your answer that nine persons out of
+ten would have understood that you parted from Marbury in the open
+streets after crossing Waterloo Bridge," he said. "Now--?"
+
+Aylmore smiled.
+
+"I am not responsible for the understanding of nine people out of ten
+any more than I am for your understanding," he said, with a sneer. "I
+said what I now repeat--Marbury and I walked across Waterloo Bridge,
+and shortly afterwards we parted. I told you the truth."
+
+"Indeed! Perhaps you will continue to tell us the truth. Since you have
+admitted that the evidence of the last two witnesses is absolutely
+correct, perhaps you will tell us exactly where you and Marbury did
+part?"
+
+"I will--willingly. We parted at the door of my chambers in Fountain
+Court."
+
+"Then--to reiterate--it was you who took Marbury into the Temple that
+night?"
+
+"It was certainly I who took Marbury into the Temple that night."
+
+There was another murmur amongst the crowded benches. Here at any rate
+was fact--solid, substantial fact. And Spargo began to see a possible
+course of events which he had not anticipated.
+
+"That is a candid admission, Mr. Aylmore. I suppose you see a certain
+danger to yourself in making it."
+
+"I need not say whether I do or I do not. I have made it."
+
+"Very good. Why did you not make it before?"
+
+"For my own reasons. I told you as much as I considered necessary for
+the purpose of this enquiry. I have virtually altered nothing now. I
+asked to be allowed to make a statement, to give an explanation, as
+soon as Mr. Lyell had left this box: I was not allowed to do so. I am
+willing to make it now."
+
+"Make it then."
+
+"It is simply this," said Aylmore, turning to the Coroner. "I have
+found it convenient, during the past three years, to rent a simple set
+of chambers in the Temple, where I could occasionally--very
+occasionally, as a rule--go late at night. I also found it convenient,
+for my own reasons--with which, I think, no one has anything to do--to
+rent those chambers under the name of Mr. Anderson. It was to my
+chambers that Marbury accompanied me for a few moments on the midnight
+with which we are dealing. He was not in them more than five minutes at
+the very outside: I parted from him at my outer door, and I understood
+that he would leave the Temple by the way we had entered and would
+drive or walk straight back to his hotel. That is the whole truth. I
+wish to add that I ought perhaps to have told all this at first. I had
+reasons for not doing so. I told what I considered necessary, that I
+parted from Marbury, leaving him well and alive, soon after midnight."
+
+"What reasons were or are they which prevented you from telling all
+this at first?" asked the Treasury Counsel.
+
+"Reasons which are private to me."
+
+"Will you tell them to the court?"
+
+"No!"
+
+"Then will you tell us why Marbury went with you to the chambers in
+Fountain Court which you tenant under the name of Anderson?"
+
+"Yes. To fetch a document which I had in my keeping, and had kept for
+him for twenty years or more."
+
+"A document of importance?"
+
+"Of very great importance."
+
+"He would have it on him when he was--as we believe he was--murdered
+and robbed?"
+
+"He had it on him when he left me."
+
+"Will you tell us what it was?"
+
+"Certainly not!"
+
+"In fact, you won't tell us any more than you choose to tell?"
+
+"I have told you all I can tell of the events of that night."
+
+"Then I am going to ask you a very pertinent question. Is it not a fact
+that you know a great deal more about John Marbury than you have told
+this court?"
+
+"That I shall not answer."
+
+"Is it not a fact that you could, if you would, tell this court more
+about John Marbury and your acquaintanceship with him twenty years
+ago?"
+
+"I also decline to answer that."
+
+The Treasury Counsel made a little movement of his shoulders and turned
+to the Coroner.
+
+"I should suggest, sir, that you adjourn this enquiry," he said
+quietly.
+
+"For a week," assented the Coroner, turning to the jury.
+
+The crowd surged out of the court, chattering, murmuring, exclaiming--
+spectators, witnesses, jurymen, reporters, legal folk, police folk, all
+mixed up together. And Spargo, elbowing his own way out, and busily
+reckoning up the value of the new complexions put on everything by the
+day's work, suddenly felt a hand laid on his arm. Turning he found
+himself gazing at Jessie Aylmore.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER FOURTEEN
+
+THE SILVER TICKET
+
+
+With a sudden instinct of protection, Spargo quickly drew the girl
+aside from the struggling crowd, and within a moment had led her into a
+quiet by-street. He looked down at her as she stood recovering her
+breath.
+
+"Yes?" he said quietly.
+
+Jessie Aylmore looked up at him, smiling faintly.
+
+"I want to speak to you," she said. "I must speak to you."
+
+"Yes," said Spargo. "But--the others? Your sister?--Breton?"
+
+"I left them on purpose to speak to you," she answered. "They knew I
+did. I am well accustomed to looking after myself."
+
+Spargo moved down the by-street, motioning his companion to move with
+him.
+
+"Tea," he said, "is what you want. I know a queer, old-fashioned place
+close by here where you can get the best China tea in London. Come and
+have some."
+
+Jessie Aylmore smiled and followed her guide obediently. And Spargo
+said nothing, marching stolidly along with his thumbs in his waistcoat
+pockets, his fingers playing soundless tunes outside, until he had
+installed himself and his companion in a quiet nook in the old
+tea-house he had told her of, and had given an order for tea and hot
+tea-cakes to a waitress who evidently knew him. Then he turned to her.
+
+"You want," he said, "to talk to me about your father."
+
+"Yes," she answered. "I do."
+
+"Why?" asked Spargo.
+
+The girl gave him a searching look.
+
+"Ronald Breton says you're the man who's written all those special
+articles in the _Watchman_ about the Marbury case," she answered. "Are
+you?"
+
+"I am," said Spargo.
+
+"Then you're a man of great influence," she went on. "You can stir the
+public mind. Mr. Spargo--what are you going to write about my father
+and today's proceedings?"
+
+Spargo signed to her to pour out the tea which had just arrived. He
+seized, without ceremony, upon a piece of the hot buttered tea-cake,
+and bit a great lump out of it.
+
+"Frankly," he mumbled, speaking with his mouth full, "frankly, I don't
+know. I don't know--yet. But I'll tell you this--it's best to be
+candid--I shouldn't allow myself to be prejudiced or biassed in making
+up my conclusions by anything that you may say to me. Understand?"
+
+Jessie Aylmore took a sudden liking to Spargo because of the
+unconventionality and brusqueness of his manners.
+
+"I'm not wanting to prejudice or bias you," she said. "All I want is
+that you should be very sure before you say--anything."
+
+"I'll be sure," said Spargo. "Don't bother. Is the tea all right?"
+
+"Beautiful!" she answered, with a smile that made Spargo look at her
+again. "Delightful! Mr. Spargo, tell me!--what did you think
+about--about what has just happened?"
+
+Spargo, regardless of the fact that his fingers were liberally
+ornamented with butter, lifted a hand and rubbed his always untidy
+hair. Then he ate more tea-cake and gulped more tea.
+
+"Look here!" he said suddenly. "I'm no great hand at talking. I can
+write pretty decently when I've a good story to tell, but I don't talk
+an awful lot, because I never can express what I mean unless I've got a
+pen in my hand. Frankly, I find it hard to tell you what I think. When
+I write my article this evening, I'll get all these things marshalled
+in proper form, and I shall write clearly about 'em. But I'll tell you
+one thing I do think--I wish your father had made a clean breast of
+things to me at first, when he gave me that interview, or had told
+everything when he first went into that box."
+
+"Why?" she asked.
+
+"Because he's now set up an atmosphere of doubt and suspicion around
+himself. People'll think--Heaven knows what they'll think! They already
+know that he knows more about Marbury than he'll tell, that--"
+
+"But does he?" she interrupted quickly. "Do you think he does?"
+
+"Yes!" replied Spargo, with emphasis. "I do. A lot more! If he had only
+been explicit at first--however, he wasn't. Now it's done. As things
+stand--look here, does it strike you that your father is in a very
+serious position?"
+
+"Serious?" she exclaimed.
+
+"Dangerous! Here's the fact--he's admitted that he took Marbury to his
+rooms in the Temple that midnight. Well, next morning Marbury's found
+robbed and murdered in an entry, not fifty yards off!"
+
+"Does anybody suppose that my father would murder him for the sake of
+robbing him of whatever he had on him?" she laughed scornfully. "My
+father is a very wealthy man, Mr. Spargo."
+
+"May be," answered Spargo. "But millionaires have been known to murder
+men who held secrets."
+
+"Secrets!" she exclaimed.
+
+"Have some more tea," said Spargo, nodding at the teapot. "Look
+here--this way it is. The theory that people--some people--will build
+up (I won't say that it hasn't suggested itself to me) is
+this:--There's some mystery about the relationship, acquaintanceship,
+connection, call it what you like, of your father and Marbury twenty
+odd years ago. Must be. There's some mystery about your father's life,
+twenty odd years ago. Must be--or else he'd have answered those
+questions. Very well. 'Ha, ha!' says the general public. 'Now we have
+it!' 'Marbury,' says the general public, 'was a man who had a hold on
+Aylmore. He turned up. Aylmore trapped him into the Temple, killed him
+to preserve his own secret, and robbed him of all he had on him as a
+blind.' Eh?"
+
+"You think--people will say that?" she exclaimed.
+
+"Cock-sure! They're saying it. Heard half a dozen of 'em say it, in
+more or less elegant fashion as I came out of that court. Of course,
+they'll say it. Why, what else could they say?"
+
+For a moment Jessie Aylmore sat looking silently into her tea-cup. Then
+she turned her eyes on Spargo, who immediately manifested a new
+interest in what remained of the tea-cakes.
+
+"Is that what you're going to say in your article tonight?" she asked,
+quietly.
+
+"No!" replied Spargo, promptly. "It isn't. I'm going to sit on the
+fence tonight. Besides, the case is _sub judice_. All I'm going to do
+is to tell, in my way, what took place at the inquest."
+
+The girl impulsively put her hand across the table and laid it on
+Spargo's big fist.
+
+"Is it what you think?" she asked in a low voice.
+
+"Honour bright, no!" exclaimed Spargo. "It isn't--it isn't! I don't
+think it. I think there's a most extraordinary mystery at the bottom of
+Marbury's death, and I think your father knows an enormous lot about
+Marbury that he won't tell, but I'm certain sure that he neither killed
+Marbury nor knows anything whatever about his death. And as I'm out to
+clear this mystery up, and mean to do it, nothing'll make me more glad
+than to clear your father. I say, do have some more tea-cake? We'll
+have fresh ones--and fresh tea."
+
+"No, thank you," she said smiling. "And thank you for what you've just
+said. I'm going now, Mr. Spargo. You've done me good."
+
+"Oh, rot!" exclaimed Spargo. "Nothing--nothing! I've just told you what
+I'm thinking. You must go?..."
+
+He saw her into a taxi-cab presently, and when she had gone stood
+vacantly staring after the cab until a hand clapped him smartly on the
+shoulder. Turning, he found Rathbury grinning at him.
+
+"All right, Mr. Spargo, I saw you!" he said. "Well, it's a pleasant
+change to squire young ladies after being all day in that court. Look
+here, are you going to start your writing just now?"
+
+"I'm not going to start my writing as you call it, until after I've
+dined at seven o'clock and given myself time to digest my modest
+dinner," answered Spargo. "What is it?"
+
+"Come back with me and have another look at that blessed leather box,"
+said Rathbury. "I've got it in my room, and I'd like to examine it for
+myself. Come on!"
+
+"The thing's empty," said Spargo.
+
+"There might be a false bottom in it," remarked Rathbury. "One never
+knows. Here, jump into this!"
+
+He pushed Spargo into a passing taxi-cab, and following, bade the
+driver go straight to the Yard. Arrived there, he locked Spargo and
+himself into the drab-visaged room in which the journalist had seen
+him before.
+
+"What d'ye think of today's doings, Spargo?" he asked, as he proceeded
+to unlock a cupboard.
+
+"I think," said Spargo, "that some of you fellows must have had your
+ears set to tingling."
+
+"That's so," assented Rathbury. "Of course, the next thing'll be to
+find out all about the Mr. Aylmore of twenty years since. When a man
+won't tell you where he lived twenty years ago, what he was exactly
+doing, what his precise relationship with another man was--why, then,
+you've just got to find out, eh? Oh, some of our fellows are at work on
+the life history of Stephen Aylmore, Esq., M.P., already--you bet!
+Well, now, Spargo, here's the famous box."
+
+The detective brought the old leather case out of the cupboard in which
+he had been searching, and placed it on his desk. Spargo threw back the
+lid and looked inside, measuring the inner capacity against the
+exterior lines.
+
+"No false bottom in that, Rathbury," he said. "There's just the outer
+leather case, and the inner lining, of this old bed-hanging stuff, and
+that's all. There's no room for any false bottom or anything of that
+sort, d'you see?"
+
+Rathbury also sized up the box's capacity.
+
+"Looks like it," he said disappointedly. "Well, what about the lid,
+then? I remember there was an old box like this in my grandmother's
+farmhouse, where I was reared--there was a pocket in the lid. Let's see
+if there's anything of the sort here?"
+
+He threw the lid back and began to poke about the lining of it with the
+tips of his fingers, and presently he turned to his companion with a
+sharp exclamation.
+
+"By George, Spargo!" he said. "I don't know about any pocket, but
+there's something under this lining. Feels like--here, you feel.
+There--and there."
+
+Spargo put a finger on the places indicated.
+
+"Yes, that's so," he agreed. "Feels like two cards--a large and a small
+one. And the small one's harder than the other. Better cut that lining
+out, Rathbury."
+
+"That," remarked Rathbury, producing a pen-knife, "is just what I'm
+going to do. We'll cut along this seam."
+
+He ripped the lining carefully open along the upper part of the lining
+of the lid, and looking into the pocket thus made, drew out two objects
+which he dropped on his blotting pad.
+
+"A child's photograph," he said, glancing at one of them. "But what on
+earth is that?"
+
+The object to which he pointed was a small, oblong piece of thin,
+much-worn silver, about the size of a railway ticket. On one side of it
+was what seemed to be a heraldic device or coat-of-arms, almost
+obliterated by rubbing; on the other, similarly worn down by friction,
+was the figure of a horse.
+
+"That's a curious object," remarked Spargo, picking it up. "I never saw
+anything like that before. What can it be?"
+
+"Don't know--I never saw anything of the sort either," said Rathbury.
+"Some old token, I should say. Now this photo. Ah--you see, the
+photographer's name and address have been torn away or broken
+off--there's nothing left but just two letters of what's apparently
+been the name of the town--see. Er--that's all there is. Portrait of a
+baby, eh?"
+
+Spargo gave, what might have been called in anybody else but him, a
+casual glance at the baby's portrait. He picked up the silver ticket
+again and turned it over and over.
+
+"Look here, Rathbury," he said. "Let me take this silver thing. I know
+where I can find out what it is. At least, I think I do.''
+
+"All right," agreed the detective, "but take the greatest care of it,
+and don't tell a soul that we found it in this box, you know. No
+connection with the Marbury case, Spargo, remember."
+
+"Oh, all right," said Spargo. "Trust me."
+
+He put the silver ticket in his pocket, and went back to the office,
+wondering about this singular find. And when he had written his article
+that evening, and seen a proof of it, Spargo went into Fleet Street
+intent on seeking peculiar information.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER FIFTEEN
+
+MARKET MILCASTER
+
+
+The haunt of well-informed men which Spargo had in view when he turned
+out of the _Watchman_ office lay well hidden from ordinary sight and
+knowledge in one of those Fleet Street courts the like of which is not
+elsewhere in the world. Only certain folk knew of it. It was, of
+course, a club; otherwise it would not have been what it was. It is the
+simplest thing in life, in England, at any rate, to form a club of
+congenial spirits. You get so many of your choice friends and
+acquaintances to gather round you; you register yourselves under a name
+of your own choosing; you take a house and furnish it according to your
+means and your taste: you comply with the very easy letter of the law,
+and there you are. Keep within that easy letter, and you can do what
+you please on your own premises. It is much more agreeable to have a
+small paradise of your own of this description than to lounge about
+Fleet Street bars.
+
+The particular club to which Spargo bent his steps was called the
+Octoneumenoi. Who evolved this extraordinary combination of Latin and
+Greek was a dark mystery: there it was, however, on a tiny brass plate
+you once reached the portals. The portals were gained by devious ways.
+You turned out of Fleet Street by an alley so narrow that it seemed as
+if you might suddenly find yourself squeezed between the ancient walls.
+Then you suddenly dived down another alley and found yourself in a
+small court, with high walls around you and a smell of printer's ink in
+your nose and a whirring of printing presses in your ears. You made
+another dive into a dark entry, much encumbered by bales of paper,
+crates of printing material, jars of printing ink; after falling over a
+few of these you struck an ancient flight of stairs and went up past
+various landings, always travelling in a state of gloom and fear. After
+a lot of twisting and turning you came to the very top of the house and
+found it heavily curtained off. You lifted a curtain and found yourself
+in a small entresol, somewhat artistically painted--the whole and sole
+work of an artistic member who came one day with a formidable array of
+lumber and paint-pots and worked his will on the ancient wood. Then you
+saw the brass plate and its fearful name, and beneath it the formal
+legal notice that this club was duly registered and so on, and if you
+were a member you went in, and if you weren't a member you tinkled an
+electric bell and asked to see a member--if you knew one.
+
+Spargo was not a member, but he knew many members, and he tinkled the
+bell, and asked the boy who answered it for Mr. Starkey. Mr. Starkey, a
+young gentleman with the biceps of a prize-fighter and a head of curly
+hair that would have done credit to Antinous, came forth in due course
+and shook Spargo by the hand until his teeth rattled.
+
+"Had we known you were coming," said Mr. Starkey, "we'd have had a
+brass band on the stairs."
+
+"I want to come in," remarked Spargo.
+
+"Sure!" said Mr. Starkey. "That's what you've come for."
+
+"Well, stand out of the way, then, and let's get in," said Spargo.
+"Look here," he continued when they had penetrated into a small
+vestibule, "doesn't old Crowfoot turn in here about this time every
+night?"
+
+"Every night as true as the clock, my son Spargo, Crowfoot puts his
+nose in at precisely eleven, having by that time finished that daily
+column wherein he informs a section of the populace as to the prospects
+of their spotting a winner tomorrow," answered Mr. Starkey. "It's five
+minutes to his hour now. Come in and drink till he comes. Want him?"
+
+"A word with him," answered Spargo. "A mere word--or two."
+
+He followed Starkey into a room which was so filled with smoke and
+sound that for a moment it was impossible to either see or hear. But
+the smoke was gradually making itself into a canopy, and beneath the
+canopy Spargo made out various groups of men of all ages, sitting
+around small tables, smoking and drinking, and all talking as if the
+great object of their lives was to get as many words as possible out of
+their mouths in the shortest possible time. In the further corner was a
+small bar; Starkey pulled Spargo up to it.
+
+"Name it, my son," commanded Starkey. "Try the Octoneumenoi very extra
+special. Two of 'em, Dick. Come to beg to be a member, Spargo?"
+
+"I'll think about being a member of this ante-room of the infernal
+regions when you start a ventilating fan and provide members with a
+route-map of the way from Fleet Street," answered Spargo, taking his
+glass. "Phew!--what an atmosphere!"
+
+"We're considering a ventilating fan," said Starkey. "I'm on the house
+committee now, and I brought that very matter up at our last meeting.
+But Templeson, of the _Bulletin_--you know Templeson--he says what we
+want is a wine-cooler to stand under that sideboard--says no club is
+proper without a wine-cooler, and that he knows a chap--second-hand
+dealer, don't you know--what has a beauty to dispose of in old
+Sheffield plate. Now, if you were on our house committee, Spargo, old
+man, would you go in for the wine-cooler or the ventilating fan? You
+see--"
+
+"There is Crowfoot," said Spargo. "Shout him over here, Starkey, before
+anybody else collars him."
+
+Through the door by which Spargo had entered a few minutes previously
+came a man who stood for a moment blinking at the smoke and the lights.
+He was a tall, elderly man with a figure and bearing of a soldier; a
+big, sweeping moustache stood well out against a square-cut jaw and
+beneath a prominent nose; a pair of keen blue eyes looked out from
+beneath a tousled mass of crinkled hair. He wore neither hat nor cap;
+his attire was a carelessly put on Norfolk suit of brown tweed; he
+looked half-unkempt, half-groomed. But knotted at the collar of his
+flannel shirt were the colours of one of the most famous and exclusive
+cricket clubs in the world, and everybody knew that in his day their
+wearer had been a mighty figure in the public eye.
+
+"Hi, Crowfoot!" shouted Starkey above the din and babel. "Crowfoot,
+Crowfoot! Come over here, there's a chap dying to see you!"
+
+"Yes, that's the way to get him, isn't it?" said Spargo. "Here, I'll
+get him myself."
+
+He went across the room and accosted the old sporting journalist.
+
+"I want a quiet word with you," he said. "This place is like a
+pandemonium."
+
+Crowfoot led the way into a side alcove and ordered a drink.
+
+"Always is, this time," he said, yawning. "But it's companionable. What
+is it, Spargo?"
+
+Spargo took a pull at the glass which he had carried with him. "I
+should say," he said, "that you know as much about sporting matters as
+any man writing about 'em?"
+
+"Well, I think you might say it with truth," answered Crowfoot.
+
+"And old sporting matters?" said Spargo.
+
+"Yes, and old sporting matters," replied the other with a sudden flash
+of the eye. "Not that they greatly interest the modern generation, you
+know."
+
+"Well, there's something that's interesting me greatly just now,
+anyway," said Spargo. "And I believe it's got to do with old sporting
+affairs. And I came to you for information about it, believing you to
+be the only man I know of that could tell anything."
+
+"Yes--what is it?" asked Crowfoot.
+
+Spargo drew out an envelope, and took from it the carefully-wrapped-up
+silver ticket. He took off the wrappings and laid the ticket on
+Crowfoot's outstretched palm.
+
+"Can you tell me what that is?" he asked.
+
+Another sudden flash came into the old sportsman's eyes--he eagerly
+turned the silver ticket over.
+
+"God bless my soul!" he exclaimed. "Where did you get this?"
+
+"Never mind, just now," replied Spargo. "You know what it is?"
+
+"Certainly I know what it is! But--Gad! I've not seen one of these
+things for Lord knows how many years. It makes me feel something like a
+young 'un again!" said Crowfoot. "Quite a young 'un!"
+
+"But what is it?" asked Spargo.
+
+Crowfoot turned the ticket over, showing the side on which the heraldic
+device was almost worn away.
+
+"It's one of the original silver stand tickets of the old racecourse at
+Market Milcaster," answered Crowfoot. "That's what it is. One of the
+old original silver stand tickets. There are the arms of Market
+Milcaster, you see, nearly worn away by much rubbing. There, on the
+obverse, is the figure of a running horse. Oh, yes, that's what it is!
+Bless me!--most interesting."
+
+"Where's Market Milcaster?" enquired Spargo. "Don't know it."
+
+"Market Milcaster," replied Crowfoot, still turning the silver ticket
+over and over, "is what the topographers call a decayed town in
+Elmshire. It has steadily decayed since the river that led to it got
+gradually silted up. There used to be a famous race-meeting there in
+June every year. It's nearly forty years since that meeting fell
+through. I went to it often when I was a lad--often!"
+
+"And you say that's a ticket for the stand?" asked Spargo.
+
+"This is one of fifty silver tickets, or passes, or whatever you like
+to call 'em, which were given by the race committee to fifty burgesses
+of the town," answered Crowfoot. "It was, I remember, considered a
+great privilege to possess a silver ticket. It admitted its
+possessor--for life, mind you!--to the stand, the paddocks, the ring,
+anywhere. It also gave him a place at the annual race-dinner. Where on
+earth did you get this, Spargo?"
+
+Spargo took the ticket and carefully re-wrapped it, this time putting
+it in his purse.
+
+"I'm awfully obliged to you, Crowfoot," he said, "The fact is, I can't
+tell you where I got it just now, but I'll promise you that I will tell
+you, and all about it, too, as soon as my tongue's free to do so."
+
+"Some mystery, eh?" suggested Crowfoot.
+
+"Considerable," answered Spargo. "Don't mention to anyone that I showed
+it to you. You shall know everything eventually."
+
+"Oh, all right, my boy, all right!" said Crowfoot. "Odd how things turn
+up, isn't it? Now, I'll wager anything that there aren't half a dozen
+of these old things outside Market Milcaster itself. As I said, there
+were only fifty, and they were all in possession of burgesses. They
+were so much thought of that they were taken great care of. I've been
+in Market Milcaster myself since the races were given up, and I've seen
+these tickets carefully framed and hung over mantelpieces--oh, yes!"
+
+Spargo caught at a notion.
+
+"How do you get to Market Milcaster?" he asked.
+
+"Paddington," replied Crowfoot. "It's a goodish way."
+
+"I wonder," said Spargo, "if there's any old sporting man there who
+could remember--things. Anything about this ticket, for instance?"
+
+"Old sporting man!" exclaimed Crowfoot. "Egad!--but no, he must be
+dead--anyhow, if he isn't dead, he must be a veritable patriarch. Old
+Ben Quarterpage, he was an auctioneer in the town, and a rare
+sportsman."
+
+"I may go down there," said Spargo. "I'll see if he's alive."
+
+"Then, if you do go down," suggested Crowfoot, "go to the old 'Yellow
+Dragon' in the High Street, a fine old place. Quarterpage's place of
+business and his private house were exactly opposite the 'Dragon.' But
+I'm afraid you'll find him dead--it's five and twenty years since I was
+in Market Milcaster, and he was an old bird then. Let's see, now. If
+Old Ben Quarterpage is alive, Spargo, he'll be ninety years of age!"
+
+"Well, I've known men of ninety who were spry enough, even in my bit of
+experience," said Spargo. "I know one--now--my own grandfather. Well,
+the best of thanks, Crowfoot, and I'll tell you all about it some day."
+
+"Have another drink?" suggested Crowfoot.
+
+But Spargo excused himself. He was going back to the office, he said;
+he still had something to do. And he got himself away from the
+Octoneumenoi, in spite of Starkey, who wished to start a general debate
+on the wisest way of expending the club's ready money balance, and went
+back to the _Watchman_, and there he sought the presence of the editor,
+and in spite of the fact that it was the busiest hour of the night, saw
+him and remained closeted with him for the extraordinary space of ten
+minutes. And after that Spargo went home and fell into bed.
+
+But next morning, bright and early, he was on the departure platform at
+Paddington, suit-case in hand, and ticket in pocket for Market
+Milcaster, and in the course of that afternoon he found himself in an
+old-fashioned bedroom looking out on Market Milcaster High Street. And
+there, right opposite him, he saw an ancient house, old brick,
+ivy-covered, with an office at its side, over the door of which was the
+name, _Benjamin Quarterpage_.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER SIXTEEN
+
+THE "YELLOW DRAGON"
+
+
+Spargo, changing his clothes, washing away the dust of his journey, in
+that old-fashioned lavender-scented bedroom, busied his mind in
+further speculations on his plan of campaign in Market Milcaster. He
+had no particularly clear plan. The one thing he was certain of was
+that in the old leather box which the man whom he knew as John Marbury
+had deposited with the London and Universal Safe Deposit Company, he
+and Rathbury had discovered one of the old silver tickets of Market
+Milcaster racecourse, and that he, Spargo, had come to Market
+Milcaster, with the full approval of his editor, in an endeavour to
+trace it. How was he going to set about this difficult task?
+
+"The first thing," said Spargo to himself as he tied a new tie, "is to
+have a look round. That'll be no long job."
+
+For he had already seen as he approached the town, and as he drove from
+the station to the "Yellow Dragon" Hotel, that Market Milcaster was a
+very small place. It chiefly consisted of one long, wide
+thoroughfare--the High Street--with smaller streets leading from it on
+either side. In the High Street seemed to be everything that the town
+could show--the ancient parish church, the town hall, the market cross,
+the principal houses and shops, the bridge, beneath which ran the river
+whereon ships had once come up to the town before its mouth, four miles
+away, became impassably silted up. It was a bright, clean, little town,
+but there were few signs of trade in it, and Spargo had been quick to
+notice that in the "Yellow Dragon," a big, rambling old hostelry,
+reminiscent of the old coaching days, there seemed to be little doing.
+He had eaten a bit of lunch in the coffee-room immediately on his
+arrival; the coffee-room was big enough to accommodate a hundred and
+fifty people, but beyond himself, an old gentleman and his daughter,
+evidently tourists, two young men talking golf, a man who looked like
+an artist, and an unmistakable honeymooning couple, there was no one in
+it. There was little traffic in the wide street beneath Spargo's
+windows; little passage of people to and fro on the sidewalks; here a
+countryman drove a lazy cow as lazily along; there a farmer in his
+light cart sat idly chatting with an aproned tradesman, who had come
+out of his shop to talk to him. Over everything lay the quiet of the
+sunlight of the summer afternoon, and through the open windows stole a
+faint, sweet scent of the new-mown hay lying in the meadows outside the
+old houses.
+
+"A veritable Sleepy Hollow," mused Spargo. "Let's go down and see if
+there's anybody to talk to. Great Scott!--to think that I was in the
+poisonous atmosphere of the Octoneumenoi only sixteen hours ago!"
+
+Spargo, after losing himself in various corridors and passages, finally
+landed in the wide, stone-paved hall of the old hotel, and with a sure
+instinct turned into the bar-parlour which he had noticed when he
+entered the place. This was a roomy, comfortable, bow-windowed
+apartment, looking out upon the High Street, and was furnished and
+ornamented with the usual appurtenances of country-town hotels. There
+were old chairs and tables and sideboards and cupboards, which had
+certainly been made a century before, and seemed likely to endure for a
+century or two longer; there were old prints of the road and the chase,
+and an old oil-painting or two of red-faced gentlemen in pink coats;
+there were foxes' masks on the wall, and a monster pike in a glass case
+on a side-table; there were ancient candlesticks on the mantelpiece and
+an antique snuff-box set between them. Also there was a small,
+old-fashioned bar in a corner of the room, and a new-fashioned young
+woman seated behind it, who was yawning over a piece of fancy
+needlework, and looked at Spargo when he entered as Andromeda may have
+looked at Perseus when he made arrival at her rock. And Spargo,
+treating himself to a suitable drink and choosing a cigar to accompany
+it, noted the look, and dropped into the nearest chair.
+
+"This," he remarked, eyeing the damsel with enquiry, "appears to me to
+be a very quiet place."
+
+"Quiet!" exclaimed the lady. "Quiet?"
+
+"That," continued Spargo, "is precisely what I observed. Quiet. I see
+that you agree with me. You expressed your agreement with two shades of
+emphasis, the surprised and the scornful. We may conclude, thus far,
+that the place is undoubtedly quiet."
+
+The damsel looked at Spargo as if she considered him in the light of a
+new specimen, and picking up her needlework she quitted the bar and
+coming out into the room took a chair near his own.
+
+"It makes you thankful to see a funeral go by here," she remarked.
+"It's about all that one ever does see."
+
+"Are there many?" asked Spargo. "Do the inhabitants die much of
+inanition?"
+
+The damsel gave Spargo another critical inspection.
+
+"Oh, you're joking!" she said. "It's well you can. Nothing ever happens
+here. This place is a back number."
+
+"Even the back numbers make pleasant reading at times," murmured
+Spargo. "And the backwaters of life are refreshing. Nothing doing in
+this town, then?" he added in a louder voice.
+
+"Nothing!" replied his companion. "It's fast asleep. I came here from
+Birmingham, and I didn't know what I was coming to. In Birmingham you
+see as many people in ten minutes as you see here in ten months."
+
+"Ah!" said Spargo. "What you are suffering from is dulness. You must
+have an antidote."
+
+"Dulness!" exclaimed the damsel. "That's the right word for Market
+Milcaster. There's just a few regular old customers drop in here of a
+morning, between eleven and one. A stray caller looks in--perhaps
+during the afternoon. Then, at night, a lot of old fogies sit
+round that end of the room and talk about old times. Old times,
+indeed!--what they want in Market Milcaster is new times."
+
+Spargo pricked up his ears.
+
+"Well, but it's rather interesting to hear old fogies talk about old
+times," he said. "I love it!"
+
+"Then you can get as much of it as ever you want here," remarked the
+barmaid. "Look in tonight any time after eight o'clock, and if you
+don't know more about the history of Market Milcaster by ten than you
+did when you sat down, you must be deaf. There are some old gentlemen
+drop in here every night, regular as clockwork, who seem to feel that
+they couldn't go to bed unless they've told each other stories about
+old days which I should think they've heard a thousand times already!"
+
+"Very old men?" asked Spargo.
+
+"Methuselahs," replied the lady. "There's old Mr. Quarterpage, across
+the way there, the auctioneer, though he doesn't do any business
+now--they say he's ninety, though I'm sure you wouldn't take him for
+more than seventy. And there's Mr. Lummis, further down the
+street--he's eighty-one. And Mr. Skene, and Mr. Kaye--they're regular
+patriarchs. I've sat here and listened to them till I believe I could
+write a history of Market Milcaster since the year One."
+
+"I can conceive of that as a pleasant and profitable occupation," said
+Spargo.
+
+He chatted a while longer in a fashion calculated to cheer the
+barmaid's spirits, after which he went out and strolled around the town
+until seven o'clock, the "Dragon's" hour for dinner. There were no more
+people in the big coffee-room than there had been at lunch and Spargo
+was glad, when his solitary meal was over, to escape to the
+bar-parlour, where he took his coffee in a corner near to that sacred
+part in which the old townsmen had been reported to him to sit.
+
+"And mind you don't sit in one of their chairs," said the barmaid,
+warningly. "They all have their own special chairs and their special
+pipes there on that rack, and I suppose the ceiling would fall in if
+anybody touched pipe or chair. But you're all right there, and you'll
+hear all they've got to say."
+
+To Spargo, who had never seen anything of the sort before, and who,
+twenty-four hours previously, would have believed the thing impossible,
+the proceedings of that evening in the bar-parlour of the "Yellow
+Dragon" at Market Milcaster were like a sudden transference to the
+eighteenth century. Precisely as the clock struck eight and a bell
+began to toll somewhere in the recesses of the High Street, an old
+gentleman walked in, and the barmaid, catching Spargo's eye, gave him a
+glance which showed that the play was about to begin.
+
+"Good evening, Mr. Kaye," said the barmaid. "You're first tonight."
+
+"Evening," said Mr. Kaye and took a seat, scowled around him, and
+became silent. He was a tall, lank old gentleman, clad in rusty black
+clothes, with a pointed collar sticking up on both sides of his fringe
+of grey whisker and a voluminous black neckcloth folded several times
+round his neck, and by the expression of his countenance was inclined
+to look on life severely. "Nobody been in yet?" asked Mr. Kaye. "No,
+but here's Mr. Lummis and Mr. Skene," replied the barmaid.
+
+Two more old gentlemen entered the bar-parlour. Of these, one was a
+little, dapper-figured man, clad in clothes of an eminently sporting
+cut, and of very loud pattern; he sported a bright blue necktie, a
+flower in his lapel, and a tall white hat, which he wore at a rakish
+angle. The other was a big, portly, bearded man with a Falstaffian
+swagger and a rakish eye, who chaffed the barmaid as he entered, and
+gave her a good-humoured chuck under the chin as he passed her. These
+two also sank into chairs which seemed to have been specially designed
+to meet them, and the stout man slapped the arms of his as familiarly
+as he had greeted the barmaid. He looked at his two cronies.
+
+"Well?" he said, "Here's three of us. And there's a symposium."
+
+"Wait a bit, wait a bit," said the dapper little man. "Grandpa'll be
+here in a minute. We'll start fair."
+
+The barmaid glanced out of the window.
+
+"There's Mr. Quarterpage coming across the street now," she announced.
+"Shall I put the things on the table?"
+
+"Aye, put them on, my dear, put them on!" commanded the fat man. "Have
+all in readiness."
+
+The barmaid thereupon placed a round table before the sacred chairs,
+set out upon it a fine old punch-bowl and the various ingredients for
+making punch, a box of cigars, and an old leaden tobacco-box, and she
+had just completed this interesting prelude to the evening's discourse
+when the door opened again and in walked one of the most remarkable old
+men Spargo had ever seen. And by this time, knowing that this was the
+venerable Mr. Benjamin Quarterpage, of whom Crowfoot had told him, he
+took good stock of the newcomer as he took his place amongst his
+friends, who on their part received him with ebullitions of delight
+which were positively boyish.
+
+Mr. Quarterpage was a youthful buck of ninety--a middle-sized,
+sturdily-built man, straight as a dart, still active of limb,
+clear-eyed, and strong of voice. His clean-shaven old countenance was
+ruddy as a sun-warmed pippin; his hair was still only silvered; his
+hand was steady as a rock. His clothes of buff-coloured whipcord were
+smart and jaunty, his neckerchief as gay as if he had been going to a
+fair. It seemed to Spargo that Mr. Quarterpage had a pretty long lease
+of life before him even at his age.
+
+Spargo, in his corner, sat fascinated while the old gentlemen began
+their symposium. Another, making five, came in and joined them--the
+five had the end of the bar-parlour to themselves. Mr. Quarterpage made
+the punch with all due solemnity and ceremony; when it was ladled out
+each man lighted his pipe or took a cigar, and the tongues began to
+wag. Other folk came and went; the old gentlemen were oblivious of
+anything but their own talk. Now and then a young gentleman of the town
+dropped in to take his modest half-pint of bitter beer and to dally in
+the presence of the barmaid; such looked with awe at the patriarchs: as
+for the patriarchs themselves they were lost in the past.
+
+Spargo began to understand what the damsel behind the bar meant when
+she said that she believed she could write a history of Market
+Milcaster since the year One. After discussing the weather, the local
+events of the day, and various personal matters, the old fellows got to
+reminiscences of the past, telling tale after tale, recalling incident
+upon incident of long years before. At last they turned to memories of
+racing days at Market Milcaster. And at that Spargo determined on a
+bold stroke. Now was the time to get some information. Taking the
+silver ticket from his purse, he laid it, the heraldic device
+uppermost, on the palm of his hand, and approaching the group with a
+polite bow, said quietly:
+
+"Gentlemen, can any of you tell me anything about that?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
+
+MR. QUARTERPAGE HARKS BACK
+
+
+If Spargo had upset the old gentlemen's bowl of punch--the second of
+the evening--or had dropped an infernal machine in their midst, he
+could scarcely have produced a more startling effect than that wrought
+upon them by his sudden production of the silver ticket. Their babble
+of conversation died out; one of them dropped his pipe; another took
+his cigar out of his mouth as if he had suddenly discovered that he was
+sucking a stick of poison; all lifted astonished faces to the
+interrupter, staring from him to the shining object exhibited in his
+outstretched palm, from it back to him. And at last Mr. Quarterpage, to
+whom Spargo had more particularly addressed himself, spoke, pointing
+with great _empressement_ to the ticket.
+
+"Young gentleman!" he said, in accents that seemed to Spargo to tremble
+a little, "young gentleman, where did you get that?"
+
+"You know what it is, then?" asked Spargo, willing to dally a little
+with the matter. "You recognize it?"
+
+"Know it! Recognize it!" exclaimed Mr. Quarterpage. "Yes, and so does
+every gentleman present. And it is just because I see you are a
+stranger to this town that I ask you where you got it. Not, I think,
+young gentleman, in this town."
+
+"No," replied Spargo. "Certainly not in this town. How should I get it
+in this town if I'm a stranger?"
+
+"Quite true, quite true!" murmured Mr. Quarterpage. "I cannot conceive
+how any person in the town who is in possession of one of those--what
+shall we call them--heirlooms?--yes, heirlooms of antiquity, could
+possibly be base enough to part with it. Therefore, I ask again--Where
+did you get that, young gentleman?"
+
+"Before I tell you that," answered Spargo, who, in answer to a silent
+sign from the fat man had drawn a chair amongst them, "perhaps you will
+tell me exactly what this is? I see it to be a bit of old, polished,
+much worn silver, having on the obverse the arms or heraldic bearings
+of somebody or something; on the reverse the figure of a running horse.
+But--what is it?"
+
+The five old men all glanced at each other and made simultaneous
+grunts. Then Mr. Quarterpage spoke.
+
+"It is one of the original fifty burgess tickets of Market Milcaster,
+young sir, which gave its holder special and greatly valued privileges
+in respect to attendance at our once famous race-meeting, now
+unfortunately a thing of the past," he added. "Fifty--aye,
+forty!--years ago, to be in possession of one of those tickets
+was--was--"
+
+"A grand thing!" said one of the old gentlemen.
+
+"Mr. Lummis is right," said Mr. Quarterpage. "It was a grand thing--a
+very grand thing. Those tickets, sir, were treasured--are treasured.
+And yet you, a stranger, show us one! You got it, sir--"
+
+Spargo saw that it was now necessary to cut matters short.
+
+"I found this ticket--under mysterious circumstances--in London," he
+answered. "I want to trace it. I want to know who its original owner
+was. That is why I have come to Market Milcaster."
+
+Mr. Quarterpage slowly looked round the circle of faces.
+
+"Wonderful!" he said. "Wonderful! He found this ticket--one of our
+famous fifty--in London, and under mysterious circumstances. He wants
+to trace it--he wants to know to whom it belonged! That is why he has
+come to Market Milcaster. Most extraordinary! Gentlemen, I appeal to
+you if this is not the most extraordinary event that has happened in
+Market Milcaster for--I don't know how many years?"
+
+There was a general murmur of assent, and Spargo found everybody
+looking at him as if he had just announced that he had come to buy the
+whole town.
+
+"But--why?" he asked, showing great surprise. "Why?"
+
+"Why?" exclaimed Mr. Quarterpage. "Why? He asks--why? Because, young
+gentleman, it is the greatest surprise to me, and to these friends of
+mine, too, every man jack of 'em, to hear that any one of our fifty
+tickets ever passed out of the possession of any of the fifty families
+to whom they belonged! And unless I am vastly, greatly, most
+unexplainably mistaken, young sir, you are not a member of any Market
+Milcaster family."
+
+"No, I'm not," admitted Spargo. And he was going to add that until the
+previous evening he had never even heard of Market Milcaster, but he
+wisely refrained. "No, I'm certainly not," he added.
+
+Mr. Quarterpage waved his long pipe.
+
+"I believe," he said, "I believe that if the evening were not drawing
+to a close--it is already within a few minutes of our departure, young
+gentleman--I believe, I say, that if I had time, I could, from memory,
+give the names of the fifty families who held those tickets when the
+race-meeting came to an end. I believe I could!"
+
+"I'm sure you could!" asserted the little man in the loud suit. "Never
+was such a memory as yours, never!"
+
+"Especially for anything relating to the old racing matters," said the
+fat man. "Mr. Quarterpage is a walking encyclopaedia."
+
+"My memory is good," said Mr. Quarterpage. "It's the greatest blessing
+I have in my declining years. Yes, I am sure I could do that, with a
+little thought. And what's more, nearly every one of those fifty
+families is still in the town, or if not in the town, close by it, or
+if not close by it, I know where they are. Therefore, I cannot make out
+how this young gentleman--from London, did you say, sir?"
+
+"From London," answered Spargo.
+
+"This young gentleman from London comes to be in possession of one of
+our tickets," continued Mr. Quarterpage. "It is--wonderful! But I tell
+you what, young gentleman from London, if you will do me the honour to
+breakfast with me in the morning, sir, I will show you my racing books
+and papers and we will speedily discover who the original holder of
+that ticket was. My name, sir, is Quarterpage--Benjamin
+Quarterpage--and I reside at the ivy-covered house exactly opposite
+this inn, and my breakfast hour is nine o'clock sharp, and I shall bid
+you heartily welcome!"
+
+Spargo made his best bow.
+
+"Sir," he said, "I am greatly obliged by your kind invitation, and I
+shall consider it an honour to wait upon you to the moment."
+
+Accordingly, at five minutes to nine next morning, Spargo found himself
+in an old-fashioned parlour, looking out upon a delightful garden, gay
+with summer flowers, and being introduced by Mr. Quarterpage, Senior,
+to Mr. Quarterpage, Junior--a pleasant gentleman of sixty, always
+referred to by his father as something quite juvenile--and to Miss
+Quarterpage, a young-old lady of something a little less elderly than
+her brother, and to a breakfast table bounteously spread with all the
+choice fare of the season. Mr. Quarterpage, Senior, was as fresh and
+rosy as a cherub; it was a revelation to Spargo to encounter so old a
+man who was still in possession of such life and spirits, and of such a
+vigorous and healthy appetite.
+
+Naturally, the talk over the breakfast table ran on Spargo's possession
+of the old silver ticket, upon which subject it was evident Mr.
+Quarterpage was still exercising his intellect. And Spargo, who had
+judged it well to enlighten his host as to who he was, and had
+exhibited a letter with which the editor of the _Watchman_ had
+furnished him, told how in the exercise of his journalistic duties he
+had discovered the ticket in the lining of an old box. But he made no
+mention of the Marbury matter, being anxious to see first whither Mr.
+Quarterpage's revelations would lead him.
+
+"You have no idea, Mr. Spargo," said the old gentleman, when, breakfast
+over, he and Spargo were closeted together in a little library in which
+were abundant evidences of the host's taste in sporting matters; "you
+have no idea of the value which was attached to the possession of one
+of those silver tickets. There is mine, as you see, securely framed and
+just as securely fastened to the wall. Those fifty silver tickets, my
+dear sir, were made when our old race-meeting was initiated, in the
+year 1781. They were made in the town by a local silversmith, whose
+great-great-grandson still carries on the business. The fifty were
+distributed amongst the fifty leading burgesses of the town to be kept
+in their families for ever--nobody ever anticipated in those days that
+our race-meeting would ever be discontinued. The ticket carried great
+privileges. It made its holder, and all members of his family, male and
+female, free of the stands, rings, and paddocks. It gave the holder
+himself and his eldest son, if of age, the right to a seat at our grand
+race banquet--at which, I may tell you, Mr. Spargo, Royalty itself has
+been present in the good old days. Consequently, as you see, to be the
+holder of a silver ticket was to be somebody."
+
+"And when the race-meeting fell through?" asked Spargo. "What then?"
+
+"Then, of course, the families who held the tickets looked upon them as
+heirlooms, to be taken great care of," replied Mr. Quarterpage. "They
+were dealt with as I dealt with mine--framed on velvet, and hung up--or
+locked away: I am sure that anybody who had one took the greatest care
+of it. Now, I said last night, over there at the 'Dragon,' that I could
+repeat the names of all the families who held these tickets. So I can.
+But here"--the old gentleman drew out a drawer and produced from it a
+parchment-bound book which he handled with great reverence--"here is a
+little volume of my own handwriting--memoranda relating to Market
+Milcaster Races--in which is a list of the original holders, together
+with another list showing who held the tickets when the races were
+given up. I make bold to say, Mr. Spargo, that by going through the
+second list, I could trace every ticket--except the one you have in
+your purse."
+
+"Every one?" said Spargo, in some surprise.
+
+"Every one! For as I told you," continued Mr. Quarterpage, "the
+families are either in the town (we're a conservative people here in
+Market Milcaster and we don't move far afield) or they're just outside
+the town, or they're not far away. I can't conceive how the ticket you
+have--and it's genuine enough--could ever get out of possession of one
+of these families, and--"
+
+"Perhaps," suggested Spargo, "it never has been out of possession. I
+told you it was found in the lining of a box--that box belonged to a
+dead man."
+
+"A dead man!" exclaimed Mr. Quarterpage. "A dead man! Who could--ah!
+Perhaps--perhaps I have an idea. Yes!--an idea. I remember something
+now that I had never thought of."
+
+The old gentleman unfastened the clasp of his parchment-bound book, and
+turned over its pages until he came to one whereon was a list of names.
+He pointed this out to Spargo.
+
+"There is the list of holders of the silver tickets at the time the
+race-meetings came to an end," he said. "If you were acquainted with
+this town you would know that those are the names of our best-known
+inhabitants--all, of course, burgesses. There's mine, you
+see--Quarterpage. There's Lummis, there's Kaye, there's Skene, there's
+Templeby--the gentlemen you saw last night. All good old town names.
+They all are--on this list. I know every family mentioned. The holders
+of that time are many of them dead; but their successors have the
+tickets. Yes--and now that I think of it, there's only one man who held
+a ticket when this list was made about whom I don't know anything--at
+least, anything recent. The ticket, Mr. Spargo, which you've found must
+have been his. But I thought--I thought somebody else had it!"
+
+"And this man, sir? Who was he?" asked Spargo, intuitively conscious
+that he was coming to news. "Is his name there?"
+
+The old man ran the tip of his finger down the list of names.
+
+"There it is!" he said. "John Maitland."
+
+Spargo bent over the fine writing.
+
+"Yes, John Maitland," he observed. "And who was John Maitland?"
+
+Mr. Quarterpage shook his head. He turned to another of the many
+drawers in an ancient bureau, and began to search amongst a mass of old
+newspapers, carefully sorted into small bundles and tied up.
+
+"If you had lived in Market Milcaster one-and-twenty years ago, Mr.
+Spargo," he said, "you would have known who John Maitland was. For some
+time, sir, he was the best-known man in the place--aye, and in this
+corner of the world. But--aye, here it is--the newspaper of October
+5th, 1891. Now, Mr. Spargo, you'll find in this old newspaper who John
+Maitland was, and all about him. Now, I'll tell you what to do. I've
+just got to go into my office for an hour to talk the day's business
+over with my son--you take this newspaper out into the garden there
+with one of these cigars, and read what'll you find in it, and when
+you've read that we'll have some more talk."
+
+Spargo carried the old newspaper into the sunlit garden.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
+
+AN OLD NEWSPAPER
+
+
+As soon as Spargo unfolded the paper he saw what he wanted on the
+middle page, headed in two lines of big capitals. He lighted a cigar
+and settled down to read.
+
+"MARKET MILCASTER QUARTER SESSIONS
+
+"TRIAL OF JOHN MAITLAND
+
+"The Quarter Sessions for the Borough of Market Milcaster were held on
+Wednesday last, October 3rd, 1891, in the Town Hall, before the
+Recorder, Henry John Campernowne, Esq., K.C., who was accompanied on
+the bench by the Worshipful the Mayor of Market Milcaster (Alderman
+Pettiford), the Vicar of Market Milcaster (the Rev. P.B. Clabberton,
+M.A., R.D.), Alderman Banks, J.P., Alderman Peters, J.P., Sir Gervais
+Racton, J.P., Colonel Fludgate, J.P., Captain Murrill, J.P., and other
+magistrates and gentlemen. There was a crowded attendance of the
+public in anticipation of the trial of John Maitland, ex-manager of
+the Market Milcaster Bank, and the reserved portions of the Court were
+filled with the _elite_ of the town and neighbourhood, including a
+considerable number of ladies who manifested the greatest interest in
+the proceedings.
+
+"The Recorder, in charging the Grand Jury, said he regretted that the
+very pleasant and gratifying experience which had been his upon the
+occasion of his last two official visits to Market Milcaster--he
+referred to the fact that on both those occasions his friend the
+Worshipful Mayor had been able to present him with a pair of white
+gloves--was not to be repeated on the present occasion. It would be
+their sad and regrettable lot to have before them a fellow-townsman
+whose family had for generations occupied a foremost position in the
+life of the borough. That fellow-townsman was charged with one of the
+most serious offences known to a commercial nation like ours: the
+offence of embezzling the moneys of the bank of which he had for many
+years been the trusted manager, and with which he had been connected
+all his life since his school days. He understood that the prisoner
+who would shortly be put before the court on his trial was about to
+plead guilty, and there would accordingly be no need for him to direct
+the gentlemen of the Grand Jury on this matter--what he had to say
+respecting the gravity and even enormity of the offence he would
+reserve. The Recorder then addressed himself to the Grand Jury on the
+merits of two minor cases, which came before the court at a later
+period of the morning, after which they retired, and having formally
+returned a true bill against the prisoner, and a petty jury, chosen
+from well-known burgesses of the town having been duly sworn.
+
+"JOHN MAITLAND, aged 42, bank manager, of the Bank House, High Street,
+Market Milcaster, was formally charged with embezzling, on April 23rd,
+1891, the sum of L4,875 10_s_. 6_d_., the moneys of his employers,
+the Market Milcaster Banking Company Ltd., and converting the same to
+his own use. The prisoner, who appeared to feel his position most
+acutely, and who looked very pale and much worn, was represented by
+Mr. Charles Doolittle, the well-known barrister of Kingshaven; Mr.
+Stephens, K.C., appeared on behalf of the prosecution.
+
+"Maitland, upon being charged, pleaded guilty.
+
+"Mr. Stephens, K.C., addressing the Recorder, said that without any
+desire to unduly press upon the prisoner, who, he ventured to think,
+had taken a very wise course in pleading guilty to that particular
+count in the indictment with which he stood charged, he felt bound,
+in the interests of justice, to set forth to the Court some
+particulars of the defalcations which had arisen through the
+prisoner's much lamented dishonesty. He proposed to offer a clear and
+succinct account of the matter. The prisoner, John Maitland, was the
+last of an old Market Milcaster family--he was, in fact, he believed,
+with the exception of his own infant son, the very last of the race.
+His father had been manager of the bank before him. Maitland himself
+had entered the service of the bank at the age of eighteen, when he
+left the local Grammar School; he succeeded his father as manager at
+the age of thirty-two; he had therefore occupied this highest position
+of trust for ten years. His directors had the fullest confidence in
+him; they relied on his honesty and his honour; they gave him
+discretionary powers such as no bank-manager, probably, ever enjoyed
+or held before. In fact, he was so trusted that he was, to all
+intents and purposes, the Market Milcaster Banking Company; in other
+words he was allowed full control over everything, and given full
+licence to do what he liked. Whether the directors were wise in
+extending such liberty to even the most trusted servant, it was not
+for him (Mr. Stephens) to say; it was some consolation, under the
+circumstances, to know that the loss would fall upon the directors,
+inasmuch as they themselves held nearly the whole of the shares. But
+he had to speak of the loss--of the serious defalcations which
+Maitland had committed. The prisoner had wisely pleaded guilty to the
+first count of the indictment. But there were no less than seventeen
+counts in the indictment. He had pleaded guilty to embezzling a sum of
+L4,875 odd. But the total amount of the defalcations, comprised in the
+seventeen counts, was no less--it seemed a most amazing sum!--than
+L221,573 8_s_. 6_d_.! There was the fact--the banking company had been
+robbed of over two hundred thousand pounds by the prisoner in the dock
+before a mere accident, the most trifling chance, had revealed to the
+astounded directors that he was robbing them at all. And the most
+serious feature of the whole case was that not one penny of this money
+had been, or ever could be, recovered. He believed that the prisoner's
+learned counsel was about to urge upon the Court that the prisoner
+himself had been tricked and deceived by another man, unfortunately
+not before the Court--a man, he understood, also well known in Market
+Milcaster, who was now dead, and therefore could not be called, but
+whether he was so tricked or deceived was no excuse for his clever and
+wholesale robbing of his employers. He had thought it necessary to put
+these facts--which would not be denied--before the Court, in order
+that it might be known how heavy the defalcations really had been, and
+that they should be considered in dealing with the prisoner.
+
+"The Recorder asked if there was no possibility of recovering any part
+of the vast sum concerned.
+
+"Mr. Stephens replied that they were informed that there was not the
+remotest chance--the money, it was said by prisoner and those acting
+on his behalf, had utterly vanished with the death of the man to whom
+he had just made reference.
+
+"Mr. Doolittle, on behalf of the prisoner, craved to address a few
+words to the Court in mitigation of sentence. He thanked Mr. Stephens
+for the considerate and eminently dispassionate manner in which he had
+outlined the main facts of the case. He had no desire to minimize the
+prisoner's guilt. But, on prisoner's behalf, he desired to tell the
+true story as to how these things came to be. Until as recently as
+three years previously the prisoner had never made the slightest
+deviation from the straight path of integrity. Unfortunately for him,
+and, he believed, for some others in Market Milcaster, there came to
+the town three years before the present proceedings, a man named
+Chamberlayne, who commenced business in the High Street as a
+stock-and-share broker. A man of good address and the most plausible
+manners, Chamberlayne attracted a good many people--amongst them his
+unfortunate client. It was matter of common knowledge that
+Chamberlayne had induced numerous persons in Market Milcaster to
+enter into financial transactions with him; it was matter of common
+repute that those transactions had not always turned out well for
+Chamberlayne's clients. Unhappily for himself, Maitland had great
+faith in Chamberlayne. He had begun to have transactions with him in a
+large way; they had gone on and on in a large way until he was
+involved to vast amounts. Believing thoroughly in Chamberlayne and
+his methods, he had entrusted him with very large sums of money.
+
+"The Recorder interrupted Mr. Doolittle at this point to ask if he was
+to understand that Mr. Doolittle was referring to the prisoner's own
+money.
+
+"Mr. Doolittle replied that he was afraid the large sums he referred
+to were the property of the bank. But the prisoner had such belief in
+Chamberlayne that he firmly anticipated that all would be well, and
+that these sums would be repaid, and that a vast profit would result
+from their use.
+
+"The Recorder remarked that he supposed the prisoner intended to put
+the profit into his own pockets.
+
+"Mr. Doolittle said at any rate the prisoner assured him that of the
+two hundred and twenty thousand pounds which was in question,
+Chamberlayne had had the immediate handling of at least two hundred
+thousand, and he, the prisoner, had not the ghost of a notion as to
+what Chamberlayne had done with it. Unfortunately for everybody, for
+the bank, for some other people, and especially for his unhappy
+client, Chamberlayne died, very suddenly, just as these proceedings
+were instituted, and so far it had been absolutely impossible to trace
+anything of the moneys concerned. He had died under mysterious
+circumstances, and there was just as much mystery about his affairs.
+
+"The Recorder observed that he was still waiting to hear what Mr.
+Doolittle had to urge in mitigation of any sentence he, the Recorder,
+might think fit to pass.
+
+"Mr. Doolittle said that he would trouble the Court with as few
+remarks as possible. All that he could urge on behalf of the
+unfortunate man in the dock was that until three years ago he had
+borne a most exemplary character, and had never committed a dishonest
+action. It had been his misfortune, his folly, to allow a plausible
+man to persuade him to these acts of dishonesty. That man had been
+called to another account, and the prisoner was left to bear the
+consequences of his association with him. It seemed as if
+Chamberlayne had made away with the money for his own purposes, and it
+might be that it would yet be recovered. He would only ask the Court
+to remember the prisoner's antecedents and his previous good conduct,
+and to bear in mind that whatever his near future might be he was, in
+a commercial sense, ruined for life.
+
+"The Recorder, in passing sentence, said that he had not heard a
+single word of valid excuse for Maitland's conduct. Such dishonesty
+must be punished in the most severe fashion, and the prisoner must go
+to penal servitude for ten years.
+
+"Maitland, who heard the sentence unmoved, was removed from the town
+later in the day to the county jail at Saxchester."
+
+Spargo read all this swiftly; then went over it again, noting certain
+points in it. At last he folded up the newspaper and turned to the
+house--to see old Quarterpage beckoning to him from the library window.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER NINETEEN
+
+THE CHAMBERLAYNE STORY
+
+
+"I perceive, sir," said Mr. Quarterpage, as Spargo entered the library,
+"that you have read the account of the Maitland trial."
+
+"Twice," replied Spargo.
+
+"And you have come to the conclusion that--but what conclusion have you
+come to?" asked Mr. Quarterpage.
+
+"That the silver ticket in my purse was Maitland's property," said
+Spargo, who was not going to give all his conclusions at once.
+
+"Just so," agreed the old gentleman. "I think so--I can't think
+anything else. But I was under the impression that I could have
+accounted for that ticket, just as I am sure I can account for the
+other forty-nine."
+
+"Yes--and how?" asked Spargo.
+
+Mr. Quarterpage turned to a corner cupboard and in silence produced a
+decanter and two curiously-shaped old wine-glasses. He carefully
+polished the glasses with a cloth which he took from a drawer, and set
+glasses and decanter on a table in the window, motioning Spargo to take
+a chair in proximity thereto. He himself pulled up his own elbow-chair.
+
+"We'll take a glass of my old brown sherry," he said. "Though I say it
+as shouldn't, as the saying goes, I don't think you could find better
+brown sherry than that from Land's End to Berwick-upon-Tweed, Mr.
+Spargo--no, nor further north either, where they used to have good
+taste in liquor in my young days! Well, here's your good health, sir,
+and I'll tell you about Maitland."
+
+"I'm curious," said Spargo. "And about more than Maitland. I want to
+know about a lot of things arising out of that newspaper report. I want
+to know something about the man referred to so much--the stockbroker,
+Chamberlayne."
+
+"Just so," observed Mr. Quarterpage, smiling. "I thought that would
+touch your sense of the inquisitive. But Maitland first. Now, when
+Maitland went to prison, he left behind him a child, a boy, just then
+about two years old. The child's mother was dead. Her sister, a Miss
+Baylis, appeared on the scene--Maitland had married his wife from a
+distance--and took possession of the child and of Maitland's personal
+effects. He had been made bankrupt while he was awaiting his trial, and
+all his household goods were sold. But this Miss Baylis took some small
+personal things, and I always believed that she took the silver ticket.
+And she may have done, for anything I know to the contrary. Anyway, she
+took the child away, and there was an end of the Maitland family in
+Market Milcaster. Maitland, of course, was in due procedure of things
+removed to Dartmoor, and there he served his term. There were people
+who were very anxious to get hold of him when he came out--the bank
+people, for they believed that he knew more about the disposition of
+that money than he'd ever told, and they wanted to induce him to tell
+what they hoped he knew--between ourselves, Mr. Spargo, they were going
+to make it worth his while to tell."
+
+Spargo tapped the newspaper, which he had retained while the old
+gentleman talked.
+
+"Then they didn't believe what his counsel said--that Chamberlayne got
+all the money?" he asked.
+
+Mr. Quarterpage laughed.
+
+"No--nor anybody else!" he answered. "There was a strong idea in the
+town--you'll see why afterwards--that it was all a put-up job, and
+that Maitland cheerfully underwent his punishment knowing that there
+was a nice fortune waiting for him when he came out. And as I say, the
+bank people meant to get hold of him. But though they sent a special
+agent to meet him on his release, they never did get hold of him. Some
+mistake arose--when Maitland was released, he got clear away. Nobody's
+ever heard a word of him from that day to this. Unless Miss Baylis
+has."
+
+"Where does this Miss Baylis live?" asked Spargo.
+
+"Well, I don't know," replied Mr. Quarterpage. "She did live in
+Brighton when she took the child away, and her address was known, and I
+have it somewhere. But when the bank people sought her out after
+Maitland's release, she, too, had clean disappeared, and all efforts to
+trace her failed. In fact, according to the folks who lived near her in
+Brighton, she'd completely disappeared, with the child, five years
+before. So there wasn't a clue to Maitland. He served his time--made a
+model prisoner--they did find that much out!--earned the maximum
+remission, was released, and vanished. And for that very reason there's
+a theory about him in this very town to this very day!"
+
+"What?" asked Spargo.
+
+"This. That he's now living comfortably, luxuriously abroad on what he
+got from the bank," replied Mr. Quarterpage. "They say that the
+sister-in-law was in at the game; that when she disappeared with the
+child, she went abroad somewhere and made a home ready for Maitland,
+and that he went off to them as soon as he came out. Do you see?"
+
+"I suppose that was possible," said Spargo.
+
+"Quite possible, sir. But now," continued the old gentleman,
+replenishing the glasses, "now we come on to the Chamberlayne story.
+It's a good deal more to do with the Maitland story than appears at
+first sight, I'll tell it to you and you can form your own conclusions.
+Chamberlayne was a man who came to Market Milcaster--I don't know from
+where--in 1886--five years before the Maitland smash-up. He was then
+about Maitland's age--a man of thirty-seven or eight. He came as clerk
+to old Mr. Vallas, the rope and twine manufacturer: Vallas's place is
+still there, at the bottom of the High Street, near the river, though
+old Vallas is dead. He was a smart, cute, pushing chap, this
+Chamberlayne; he made himself indispensable to old Vallas, and old
+Vallas paid him a rare good salary. He settled down in the town, and he
+married a town girl, one of the Corkindales, the saddlers, when he'd
+been here three years. Unfortunately she died in childbirth within a
+year of their marriage. It was very soon after that that Chamberlayne
+threw up his post at Vallas's, and started business as a stock-and-share
+broker. He'd been a saving man; he'd got a nice bit of money with
+his wife; he always let it be known that he had money of his own, and
+he started in a good way. He was a man of the most plausible manners:
+he'd have coaxed butter out of a dog's throat if he'd wanted to. The
+moneyed men of the town believed in him--I believed in him myself, Mr.
+Spargo--I'd many a transaction with him, and I never lost aught by
+him--on the contrary, he did very well for me. He did well for most of
+his clients--there were, of course, ups and downs, but on the whole he
+satisfied his clients uncommonly well. But, naturally, nobody ever knew
+what was going on between him and Maitland."
+
+"I gather from this report," said Spargo, "that everything came out
+suddenly--unexpectedly?"
+
+"That was so, sir," replied Mr. Quarterpage. "Sudden? Unexpected? Aye,
+as a crack of thunder on a fine winter's day. Nobody had the ghost of a
+notion that anything was wrong. John Maitland was much respected in the
+town; much thought of by everybody; well known to everybody. I can
+assure you, Mr. Spargo, that it was no pleasant thing to have to sit on
+that grand jury as I did--I was its foreman, sir,--and hear a man
+sentenced that you'd regarded as a bosom friend. But there it was!"
+
+"How was the thing discovered?" asked Spargo, anxious to get at facts.
+
+"In this way," replied Mr. Quarterpage. "The Market Milcaster Bank is
+in reality almost entirely the property of two old families in the
+town, the Gutchbys and the Hostables. Owing to the death of his father,
+a young Hostable, fresh from college, came into the business. He was a
+shrewd, keen young fellow; he got some suspicion, somehow, about
+Maitland, and he insisted on the other partners consenting to a special
+investigation, and on their making it suddenly. And Maitland was caught
+before he had a chance. But we're talking about Chamberlayne."
+
+"Yes, about Chamberlayne," agreed Spargo.
+
+"Well, now, Maitland was arrested one evening," continued Mr.
+Quarterpage. "Of course, the news of his arrest ran through the town
+like wild-fire. Everybody was astonished; he was at that time--aye, and
+had been for years--a churchwarden at the Parish Church, and I don't
+think there could have been more surprise if we'd heard that the Vicar
+had been arrested for bigamy. In a little town like this, news is all
+over the place in a few minutes. Of course, Chamberlayne would hear
+that news like everybody else. But it was remembered, and often
+remarked upon afterwards, that from the moment of Maitland's arrest
+nobody in Market Milcaster ever had speech with Chamberlayne again.
+After his wife's death he'd taken to spending an hour or so of an
+evening across there at the 'Dragon,' where you saw me and my friends
+last night, but on that night he didn't go to the 'Dragon.' And next
+morning he caught the eight o'clock train to London. He happened to
+remark to the stationmaster as he got into the train that he expected
+to be back late that night, and that he should have a tiring day of it.
+But Chamberlayne didn't come back that night, Mr. Spargo. He didn't
+come back to Market Milcaster for four days, and when he did come back
+it was in a coffin!"
+
+"Dead?" exclaimed Spargo. "That was sudden!"
+
+"Very sudden," agreed Mr. Quarterpage. "Yes, sir, he came back in his
+coffin, did Chamberlayne. On the very evening on which he'd spoken of
+being back, there came a telegram here to say that he'd died very
+suddenly at the Cosmopolitan Hotel. That telegram came to his
+brother-in-law, Corkindale, the saddler--you'll find him down the
+street, opposite the Town Hall. It was sent to Corkindale by a nephew
+of Chamberlayne's, another Chamberlayne, Stephen, who lived in London,
+and was understood to be on the Stock Exchange there. I saw that
+telegram, Mr. Spargo, and it was a long one. It said that Chamberlayne
+had had a sudden seizure, and though a doctor had been got to him he'd
+died shortly afterwards. Now, as Chamberlayne had his nephew and
+friends in London, his brother-in-law, Tom Corkindale, didn't feel that
+there was any necessity for him to go up to town, so he just sent off a
+wire to Stephen Chamberlayne asking if there was aught he could do. And
+next morning came another wire from Stephen saying that no inquest
+would be necessary, as the doctor had been present and able to certify
+the cause of death, and would Corkindale make all arrangements for the
+funeral two days later. You see, Chamberlayne had bought a vault in our
+cemetery when he buried his wife, so naturally they wished to bury him
+in it, with her."
+
+Spargo nodded. He was beginning to imagine all sorts of things and
+theories; he was taking everything in.
+
+"Well," continued Mr. Quarterpage, "on the second day after that, they
+brought Chamberlayne's body down. Three of 'em came with it--Stephen
+Chamberlayne, the doctor who'd been called in, and a solicitor.
+Everything was done according to proper form and usage. As Chamberlayne
+had been well known in the town, a good number of townsfolk met the
+body at the station and followed it to the cemetery. Of course, many of
+us who had been clients of Chamberlayne's were anxious to know how he
+had come to such a sudden end. According to Stephen Chamberlayne's
+account, our Chamberlayne had wired to him and to his solicitor to meet
+him at the Cosmopolitan to do some business. They were awaiting him
+there when he arrived, and they had lunch together. After that, they
+got to their business in a private room. Towards the end of the
+afternoon, Chamberlayne was taken suddenly ill, and though they got a
+doctor to him at once, he died before evening. The doctor said he'd a
+diseased heart. Anyhow, he was able to certify the cause of his death,
+so there was no inquest and they buried him, as I have told you."
+
+The old gentleman paused and, taking a sip at his sherry, smiled at
+some reminiscence which occurred to him.
+
+"Well," he said, presently going on, "of course, on that came all the
+Maitland revelations, and Maitland vowed and declared that Chamberlayne
+had not only had nearly all the money, but that he was absolutely
+certain that most of it was in his hands in hard cash. But
+Chamberlayne, Mr. Spargo, had left practically nothing. All that could
+be traced was about three or four thousand pounds. He'd left everything
+to his nephew, Stephen. There wasn't a trace, a clue to the vast sums
+with which Maitland had entrusted him. And then people began to talk,
+and they said what some of them say to this very day!"
+
+"What's that?" asked Spargo.
+
+Mr. Quarterpage leaned forward and tapped his guest on the arm.
+
+"That Chamberlayne never did die, and that that coffin was weighted
+with lead!" he answered.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY
+
+MAITLAND _ALIAS_ MARBURY
+
+
+This remarkable declaration awoke such a new conception of matters in
+Spargo's mind, aroused such infinitely new possibilities in his
+imagination, that for a full moment he sat silently staring at his
+informant, who chuckled with quiet enjoyment at his visitor's surprise.
+
+"Do you mean to tell me," said Spargo at last, "that there are people
+in this town who still believe that the coffin in your cemetery which
+is said to contain Chamberlayne's body contains--lead?"
+
+"Lots of 'em, my dear sir!" replied Mr. Quarterpage. "Lots of 'em! Go
+out in the street and ask the first six men you meet, and I'll go
+bail that four out of the six believe it."
+
+"Then why, in the sacred name of common sense did no one ever take
+steps to make certain?" asked Spargo. "Why didn't they get an order for
+exhumation?"
+
+"Because it was nobody's particular business to do so," answered Mr.
+Quarterpage. "You don't know country-town life, my dear sir. In towns
+like Market Milcaster folks talk and gossip a great deal, but they're
+always slow to do anything. It's a case of who'll start first--of
+initiative. And if they see it's going to cost anything--then they'll
+have nothing to do with it."
+
+"But--the bank people?" suggested Spargo.
+
+Mr. Quarterpage shook his head.
+
+"They're amongst the lot who believe that Chamberlayne did die," he
+said. "They're very old-fashioned, conservative-minded people, the
+Gutchbys and the Hostables, and they accepted the version of the
+nephew, and the doctor, and the solicitor. But now I'll tell you
+something about those three. There was a man here in the town, a
+gentleman of your own profession, who came to edit that paper you've
+got on your knee. He got interested in this Chamberlayne case, and he
+began to make enquiries with the idea of getting hold of some
+good--what do you call it?"
+
+"I suppose he'd call it 'copy,'" said Spargo.
+
+"'Copy'--that was his term," agreed Mr. Quarterpage. "Well, he took the
+trouble to go to London to ask some quiet questions of the nephew,
+Stephen. That was just twelve months after Chamberlayne had been
+buried. But he found that Stephen Chamberlayne had left England--months
+before. Gone, they said, to one of the colonies, but they didn't know
+which. And the solicitor had also gone. And the doctor--couldn't be
+traced, no, sir, not even through the Medical Register. What do you
+think of all that, Mr. Spargo?"
+
+"I think," answered Spargo, "that Market Milcaster folk are
+considerably slow. I should have had that death and burial enquired
+into. The whole thing looks to me like a conspiracy."
+
+"Well, sir, it was, as I say, nobody's business," said Mr. Quarterpage.
+"The newspaper gentleman tried to stir up interest in it, but it was no
+good, and very soon afterwards he left. And there it is."
+
+"Mr. Quarterpage," said Spargo, "what's your own honest opinion?"
+
+The old gentleman smiled.
+
+"Ah!" he said. "I've often wondered, Mr. Spargo, if I really have an
+opinion on that point. I think that what I probably feel about the
+whole affair is that there was a good deal of mystery attaching to it.
+But we seem, sir, to have gone a long way from the question of that old
+silver ticket which you've got in your purse. Now----"
+
+"No!" said Spargo, interrupting his host with an accompanying wag of
+his forefinger. "No! I think we're coming nearer to it. Now you've
+given me a great deal of your time, Mr. Quarterpage, and told me a lot,
+and, first of all, before I tell you a lot, I'm going to show you
+something."
+
+And Spargo took out of his pocket-book a carefully-mounted photograph
+of John Marbury--the original of the process-picture which he had had
+made for the _Watchman_. He handed it over.
+
+"Do you recognize that photograph as that of anybody you know?" he
+asked. "Look at it well and closely."
+
+Mr. Quarterpage put on a special pair of spectacles and studied the
+photograph from several points of view.
+
+"No, sir," he said at last with a shake of the head. "I don't recognize
+it at all."
+
+"Can't see in it any resemblance to any man you've ever known?" asked
+Spargo.
+
+"No, sir, none!" replied Mr. Quarterpage. "None whatever."
+
+"Very well," said Spargo, laying the photograph on the table between
+them. "Now, then, I want you to tell me what John Maitland was like
+when you knew him. Also, I want you to describe Chamberlayne as he was
+when he died, or was supposed to die. You remember them, of course,
+quite well?"
+
+Mr. Quarterpage got up and moved to the door.
+
+"I can do better than that," he said. "I can show you photographs of
+both men as they were just before Maitland's trial. I have a photograph
+of a small group of Market Milcaster notabilities which was taken at a
+municipal garden-party; Maitland and Chamberlayne are both in it. It's
+been put away in a cabinet in my drawing-room for many a long year, and
+I've no doubt it's as fresh as when it was taken."
+
+He left the room and presently returned with a large mounted photograph
+which he laid on the table before his visitor.
+
+"There you are, sir," he said. "Quite fresh, you see--it must be
+getting on to twenty years since that was taken out of the drawer that
+it's been kept in. Now, that's Maitland. And that's Chamberlayne."
+
+Spargo found himself looking at a group of men who stood against an
+ivy-covered wall in the stiff attitudes in which photographers arrange
+masses of sitters. He fixed his attention on the two figures indicated
+by Mr. Quarterpage, and saw two medium-heighted, rather sturdily-built
+men about whom there was nothing very specially noticeable.
+
+"Um!" he said, musingly. "Both bearded."
+
+"Yes, they both wore beards--full beards," assented Mr. Quarterpage.
+"And you see, they weren't so much alike. But Maitland was a much
+darker man than Chamberlayne, and he had brown eyes, while
+Chamberlayne's were rather a bright blue."
+
+"The removal of a beard makes a great difference," remarked Spargo. He
+looked at the photograph of Maitland in the group, comparing it with
+that of Marbury which he had taken from his pocket. "And twenty years
+makes a difference, too," he added musingly.
+
+"To some people twenty years makes a vast difference, sir," said the
+old gentleman. "To others it makes none--I haven't changed much, they
+tell me, during the past twenty years. But I've known men change--age,
+almost beyond recognition!--in five years. It depends, sir, on what
+they go through."
+
+Spargo suddenly laid aside the photographs, put his hands in his
+pockets, and looked steadfastly at Mr. Quarterpage.
+
+"Look here!" he said. "I'm going to tell you what I'm after, Mr.
+Quarterpage. I'm sure you've heard all about what's known as the Middle
+Temple Murder--the Marbury case?"
+
+"Yes, I've read of it," replied Mr. Quarterpage.
+
+"Have you read the accounts of it in my paper, the _Watchman_?" asked
+Spargo.
+
+Mr. Quarterpage shook his head.
+
+"I've only read one newspaper, sir, since I was a young man," he
+replied. "I take the _Times_, sir--we always took it, aye, even in the
+days when newspapers were taxed."
+
+"Very good," said Spargo. "But perhaps I can tell you a little more
+than you've read, for I've been working up that case ever since the
+body of the man known as John Marbury was found. Now, if you'll just
+give me your attention, I'll tell you the whole story from that moment
+until--now."
+
+And Spargo, briefly, succinctly, re-told the story of the Marbury case
+from the first instant of his own connection with it until the
+discovery of the silver ticket, and Mr. Quarterpage listened in rapt
+attention, nodding his head from time to time as the younger man made
+his points.
+
+"And now, Mr. Quarterpage," concluded Spargo, "this is the point I've
+come to. I believe that the man who came to the Anglo-Orient Hotel as
+John Marbury and who was undoubtedly murdered in Middle Temple Lane
+that night, was John Maitland--I haven't a doubt about it after
+learning what you tell me about the silver ticket. I've found out a
+great deal that's valuable here, and I think I'm getting nearer to a
+solution of the mystery. That is, of course, to find out who murdered
+John Maitland, or Marbury. What you have told me about the Chamberlayne
+affair has led me to think this--there may have been people, or a
+person, in London, who was anxious to get Marbury, as we'll call him,
+out of the way, and who somehow encountered him that night--anxious to
+silence him, I mean, because of the Chamberlayne affair. And I
+wondered, as there is so much mystery about him, and as he won't give
+any account of himself, if this man Aylmore was really Chamberlayne.
+Yes, I wondered that! But Aylmore's a tall, finely-built man, quite six
+feet in height, and his beard, though it's now getting grizzled, has
+been very dark, and Chamberlayne, you say, was a medium-sized, fair
+man, with blue eyes."
+
+"That's so, sir," assented Mr. Quarterpage. "Yes, a middling-sized man,
+and fair--very fair. Deary me, Mr. Spargo!--this is a revelation. And
+you really think, sir, that John Maitland and John Marbury are one and
+the same person?"
+
+"I'm sure of it, now," said Spargo. "I see it in this way. Maitland, on
+his release, went out to Australia, and there he stopped. At last he
+comes back, evidently well-to-do. He's murdered the very day of his
+arrival. Aylmore is the only man who knows anything of him--Aylmore
+won't tell all he knows; that's flat. But Aylmore's admitted that he
+knew him at some vague date, say from twenty-one to twenty-two or three
+years ago. Now, where did Aylmore know him? He says in London. That's a
+vague term. He won't say where--he won't say anything definite--he
+won't even say what he, Aylmore, himself was in those days. Do you
+recollect anything of anybody like Aylmore coming here to see Maitland,
+Mr. Quarterpage?"
+
+"I don't," answered Mr. Quarterpage. "Maitland was a very quiet,
+retiring fellow, sir: he was about the quietest man in the town. I
+never remember that he had visitors; certainly I've no recollection of
+such a friend of his as this Aylmore, from your description of him,
+would be at that time."
+
+"Did Maitland go up to London much in those days?" asked Spargo.
+
+Mr. Quarterpage laughed.
+
+"Well, now, to show you what a good memory I have," he said, "I'll tell
+you of something that occurred across there at the 'Dragon' only a few
+months before the Maitland affair came out. There were some of us in
+there one evening, and, for a rare thing, Maitland came in with
+Chamberlayne. Chamberlayne happened to remark that he was going up to
+town next day--he was always to and fro--and we got talking about
+London. And Maitland said in course of conversation, that he believed
+he was about the only man of his age in England--and, of course, he
+meant of his class and means--who'd never even seen London! And I don't
+think he ever went there between that time and his trial: in fact, I'm
+sure he didn't, for if he had, I should have heard of it."
+
+"Well, that's queer," remarked Spargo. "It's very queer. For I'm
+certain Maitland and Marbury are one and the same person. My theory
+about that old leather box is that Maitland had that carefully planted
+before his arrest; that he dug it up when he came put of Dartmoor; that
+he took it off to Australia with him; that he brought it back with him;
+and that, of course, the silver ticket and the photograph had been in
+it all these years. Now----"
+
+At that moment the door of the library was opened, and a parlourmaid
+looked in at her master.
+
+"There's the boots from the 'Dragon' at the front door, sir," she said.
+"He's brought two telegrams across from there for Mr. Spargo, thinking
+he might like to have them at once."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
+
+ARRESTED
+
+
+Spargo hurried out to the hall, took the two telegrams from the boots
+of the "Dragon," and, tearing open the envelopes, read the messages
+hastily. He went back to Mr. Quarterpage.
+
+"Here's important news," he said as he closed the library door and
+resumed his seat. "I'll read these telegrams to you, sir, and then we
+can discuss them in the light of what we've been talking about this
+morning. The first is from our office. I told you we sent over to
+Australia for a full report about Marbury at the place he said he
+hailed from--Coolumbidgee. That report's just reached the _Watchman_,
+and they've wired it on to me. It's from the chief of police at
+Coolumbidgee to the editor of the _Watchman_, London:--
+
+"John Marbury came to Coolumbidgee in the winter of 1898-9. He was
+unaccompanied. He appeared to be in possession of fairly considerable
+means and bought a share in a small sheep-farm from its proprietor,
+Andrew Robertson, who is still here, and who says that Marbury never
+told him anything about himself except that he had emigrated for health
+reasons and was a widower. He mentioned that he had had a son who was
+dead, and was now without relations. He lived a very quiet, steady life
+on the sheep-farm, never leaving it for many years. About six months
+ago, however, he paid a visit to Melbourne, and on returning told
+Robertson that he had decided to return to England in consequence of
+some news he had received, and must therefore sell his share in the
+farm. Robertson bought it from him for three thousand pounds, and
+Marbury shortly afterwards left for Melbourne. From what we could
+gather, Robertson thinks Marbury was probably in command of five or six
+thousand when he left Coolumbidgee. He told Robertson that he had met a
+man in Melbourne who had given him news that surprised him, but did not
+say what news. He had in his possession when he left Robertson exactly
+the luggage he brought with him when he came--a stout portmanteau and a
+small, square leather box. There are no effects of his left behind at
+Coolumbidgee."
+
+"That's all," said Spargo, laying the first of the telegrams on the
+table. "And it seems to me to signify a good deal. But now here's more
+startling news. This is from Rathbury, the Scotland Yard detective that
+I told you of, Mr. Quarterpage--he promised, you know, to keep me
+posted in what went on in my absence. Here's what he says:
+
+"Fresh evidence tending to incriminate Aylmore has come to hand.
+Authorities have decided to arrest him on suspicion. You'd better hurry
+back if you want material for to-morrow's paper."
+
+Spargo threw that telegram down, too, waited while the old gentleman
+glanced at both of them with evident curiosity, and then jumped up.
+
+"Well, I shall have to go, Mr. Quarterpage," he said. "I looked the
+trains out this morning so as to be in readiness. I can catch the 1.20
+to Paddington--that'll get me in before half-past four. I've an hour
+yet. Now, there's another man I want to see in Market Milcaster. That's
+the photographer--or a photographer. You remember I told you of the
+photograph found with the silver ticket? Well, I'm calculating that
+that photograph was taken here, and I want to see the man who took
+it--if he's alive and I can find him."
+
+Mr. Quarterpage rose and put on his hat.
+
+"There's only one photographer in this town, sir," he said, "and he's
+been here for a good many years--Cooper. I'll take you to him--it's
+only a few doors away."
+
+Spargo wasted no time in letting the photographer know what he wanted.
+He put a direct question to Mr. Cooper--an elderly man.
+
+"Do you remember taking a photograph of the child of John Maitland, the
+bank manager, some twenty or twenty-one years ago?" he asked, after Mr.
+Quarterpage had introduced him as a gentleman from London who wanted to
+ask a few questions.
+
+"Quite well, sir," replied Mr. Cooper. "As well as if it had been
+yesterday."
+
+"Do you still happen to have a copy of it?" asked Spargo.
+
+But Mr. Cooper had already turned to a row of file albums. He took down
+one labelled 1891, and began to search its pages. In a minute or two he
+laid it on his table before his callers.
+
+"There you are, sir," he said. "That's the child!"
+
+Spargo gave one glance at the photograph and turned to Mr. Quarterpage.
+"Just as I thought," he said. "That's the same photograph we found in
+the leather box with the silver ticket. I'm obliged to you, Mr. Cooper.
+Now, there's just one more question I want to ask. Did you ever supply
+any further copies of this photograph to anybody after the Maitland
+affair?--that is; after the family had left the town?"
+
+"Yes," replied the photographer. "I supplied half a dozen copies to
+Miss Baylis, the child's aunt, who, as a matter of fact, brought him
+here to be photographed. And I can give you her address, too," he
+continued, beginning to turn over another old file. "I have it
+somewhere."
+
+Mr. Quarterpage nudged Spargo.
+
+"That's something I couldn't have done!" he remarked. "As I told you,
+she'd disappeared from Brighton when enquiries were made after
+Maitland's release."
+
+"Here you are," said Mr. Cooper. "I sent six copies of that photograph
+to Miss Baylis in April, 1895. Her address was then 6, Chichester
+Square, Bayswater, W."
+
+Spargo rapidly wrote this address down, thanked the photographer for
+his courtesy, and went out with Mr. Quarterpage. In the street he
+turned to the old gentleman with a smile.
+
+"Well, I don't think there's much doubt about that!" he exclaimed.
+"Maitland and Marbury are the same man, Mr. Quarterpage. I'm as certain
+of that as that I see your Town Hall there."
+
+"And what will you do next, sir?" enquired Mr. Quarterpage.
+
+"Thank you--as I do--for all your kindness and assistance, and get off
+to town by this 1.20," replied Spargo. "And I shan't fail to let you
+know how things go on."
+
+"One moment," said the old gentleman, as Spargo was hurrying away, "do
+you think this Mr. Aylmore really murdered Maitland?"
+
+"No!" answered Spargo with emphasis. "I don't! And I think we've got a
+good deal to do before we find out who did."
+
+Spargo purposely let the Marbury case drop out of his mind during his
+journey to town. He ate a hearty lunch in the train and talked with his
+neighbours; it was a relief to let his mind and attention turn to
+something else than the theme which had occupied it unceasingly for so
+many days. But at Reading the newspaper boys were shouting the news of
+the arrest of a Member of Parliament, and Spargo, glancing out of the
+window, caught sight of a newspaper placard:
+
+  THE MARBURY MURDER CASE
+  ARREST OF MR. AYLMORE
+
+He snatched a paper from a boy as the train moved out and, unfolding
+it, found a mere announcement in the space reserved for stop-press
+news:
+
+"Mr. Stephen Aylmore, M.P., was arrested at two o'clock this afternoon,
+on his way to the House of Commons, on a charge of being concerned in
+the murder of John Marbury in Middle Temple Lane on the night of June
+21st last. It is understood he will be brought up at Bow Street at ten
+o'clock tomorrow morning."
+
+Spargo hurried to New Scotland Yard as soon as he reached Paddington.
+He met Rathbury coming away from his room. At sight of him, the
+detective turned back.
+
+"Well, so there you are!" he said. "I suppose you've heard the news?"
+
+Spargo nodded as he dropped into a chair.
+
+"What led to it?" he asked abruptly. "There must have been something."
+
+"There was something," he replied. "The thing--stick, bludgeon,
+whatever you like to call it, some foreign article--with which Marbury
+was struck down was found last night."
+
+"Well?" asked Spargo.
+
+"It was proved to be Aylmore's property," answered Rathbury. "It was a
+South American curio that he had in his rooms in Fountain Court."
+
+"Where was it found?" asked Spargo.
+
+Rathbury laughed.
+
+"He was a clumsy fellow who did it, whether he was Aylmore or whoever
+he was!" he replied. "Do you know, it had been dropped into a
+sewer-trap in Middle Temple Lane--actually! Perhaps the murderer
+thought it would be washed out into the Thames and float away. But, of
+course, it was bound to come to light. A sewer man found it yesterday
+evening, and it was quickly recognized by the woman who cleans up for
+Aylmore as having been in his rooms ever since she knew them."
+
+"What does Aylmore say about it?" asked Spargo. "I suppose he's said
+something?"
+
+"Says that the bludgeon is certainly his, and that he brought
+it from South America with him," announced Rathbury; "but that
+he doesn't remember seeing it in his rooms for some time, and thinks
+that it was stolen from them."
+
+"Um!" said Spargo, musingly. "But--how do you know that was the thing
+that Marbury was struck down with?"
+
+Rathbury smiled grimly.
+
+"There's some of his hair on it--mixed with blood," he answered. "No
+doubt about that. Well--anything come of your jaunt westward?"
+
+"Yes," replied Spargo. "Lots!"
+
+"Good?" asked Rathbury.
+
+"Extra good. I've found out who Marbury really was."
+
+"No! Really?"
+
+"No doubt, to my mind. I'm certain of it."
+
+Rathbury sat down at his desk, watching Spargo with rapt attention.
+
+"And who was he?" he asked.
+
+"John Maitland, once of Market Milcaster," replied Spargo. "Ex-bank
+manager. Also ex-convict."
+
+"Ex-convict!"
+
+"Ex-convict. He was sentenced, at Market Milcaster Quarter Sessions, in
+autumn, 1891, to ten years' penal servitude, for embezzling the bank's
+money, to the tune of over two hundred thousand pounds. Served his term
+at Dartmoor. Went to Australia as soon, or soon after, he came out.
+That's who Marbury was--Maitland. Dead--certain!"
+
+Rathbury still stared at his caller.
+
+"Go on!" he said. "Tell all about it, Spargo. Let's hear every detail.
+I'll tell you all I know after. But what I know's nothing to that."
+
+Spargo told him the whole story of his adventures at Market Milcaster,
+and the detective listened with rapt attention.
+
+"Yes," he said at the end. "Yes--I don't think there's much doubt about
+that. Well, that clears up a lot, doesn't it?"
+
+Spargo yawned.
+
+"Yes, a whole slate full is wiped off there," he said. "I haven't so
+much interest in Marbury, or Maitland now. My interest is all in
+Aylmore."
+
+Rathbury nodded.
+
+"Yes," he said. "The thing to find out is--who is Aylmore, or who was
+he, twenty years ago?"
+
+"Your people haven't found anything out, then?" asked Spargo.
+
+"Nothing beyond the irreproachable history of Mr. Aylmore since he
+returned to this country, a very rich man, some ten years since,"
+answered Rathbury, smiling. "They've no previous dates to go on. What
+are you going to do next, Spargo?"
+
+"Seek out that Miss Baylis," replied Spargo.
+
+"You think you could get something there?" asked Rathbury.
+
+"Look here!" said Spargo. "I don't believe for a second Aylmore killed
+Marbury. I believe I shall get at the truth by following up what I call
+the Maitland trail. This Miss Baylis must know something--if she's
+alive. Well, now I'm going to report at the office. Keep in touch with
+me, Rathbury."
+
+He went on then to the _Watchman_ office, and as he got out of his
+taxi-cab at its door, another cab came up and set down Mr. Aylmore's
+daughters.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
+
+THE BLANK PAST
+
+
+Jessie Aylmore came forward to meet Spargo with ready confidence; the
+elder girl hung back diffidently.
+
+"May we speak to you?" said Jessie. "We have come on purpose to speak
+to you. Evelyn didn't want to come, but I made her come."
+
+Spargo shook hands silently with Evelyn Aylmore and motioned them both
+to follow him. He took them straight upstairs to his room and bestowed
+them in his easiest chairs before he addressed them.
+
+"I've only just got back to town," he said abruptly. "I was sorry to
+hear the news about your father. That's what's brought you here, of
+course. But--I'm afraid I can't do much."
+
+"I told you that we had no right to trouble Mr. Spargo, Jessie," said
+Evelyn Aylmore. "What can he do to help us?"
+
+Jessie shook her head impatiently.
+
+"The _Watchman's_ about the most powerful paper in London, isn't it?"
+she said. "And isn't Mr. Spargo writing all these articles about the
+Marbury case? Mr. Spargo, you must help us!"
+
+Spargo sat down at his desk and began turning over the letters and
+papers which had accumulated during his absence.
+
+"To be absolutely frank with you," he said, presently, "I don't see how
+anybody's going to help, so long as your father keeps up that mystery
+about the past."
+
+"That," said Evelyn, quietly, "is exactly what Ronald says, Jessie. But
+we can't make our father speak, Mr. Spargo. That he is as innocent as
+we are of this terrible crime we are certain, and we don't know why he
+wouldn't answer the questions put to him at the inquest. And--we know
+no more than you know or anyone knows, and though I have begged my
+father to speak, he won't say a word. We saw his danger: Ronald--Mr.
+Breton--told us, and we implored him to tell everything he knew about
+Mr. Marbury. But so far he has simply laughed at the idea that he had
+anything to do with the murder, or could be arrested for it, and
+now----"
+
+"And now he's locked up," said Spargo in his usual matter-of-fact
+fashion. "Well, there are people who have to be saved from themselves,
+you know. Perhaps you'll have to save your father from the consequences
+of his own--shall we say obstinacy? Now, look here, between ourselves,
+how much do you know about your father's--past?"
+
+The two sisters looked at each other and then at Spargo.
+
+"Nothing," said the elder.
+
+"Absolutely nothing!" said the younger.
+
+"Answer a few plain questions," said Spargo. "I'm not going to print
+your replies, nor make use of them in any way: I'm only asking the
+questions with a desire to help you. Have you any relations in
+England?"
+
+"None that we know of," replied Evelyn.
+
+"Nobody you could go to for information about the past?" asked Spargo.
+
+"No--nobody!"
+
+Spargo drummed his fingers on his blotting-pad. He was thinking hard.
+
+"How old is your father?" he asked suddenly.
+
+"He was fifty-nine a few weeks ago," answered Evelyn.
+
+"And how old are you, and how old is your sister?" demanded Spargo.
+
+"I am twenty, and Jessie is nearly nineteen."
+
+"Where were you born?"
+
+"Both of us at San Gregorio, which is in the San Jose province of
+Argentina, north of Monte Video."
+
+"Your father was in business there?"
+
+"He was in business in the export trade, Mr. Spargo. There's no secret
+about that. He exported all sorts of things to England and to
+France--skins, hides, wools, dried salts, fruit. That's how he made his
+money."
+
+"You don't know how long he'd been there when you were born?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Was he married when he went out there?"
+
+"No, he wasn't. We do know that. He's told us the circumstances of his
+marriage, because they were romantic. When he sailed from England to
+Buenos Ayres, he met on the steamer a young lady who, he said, was like
+himself, relationless and nearly friendless. She was going out to
+Argentina as a governess. She and my father fell in love with each
+other, and they were married in Buenos Ayres soon after the steamer
+arrived."
+
+"And your mother is dead?"
+
+"My mother died before we came to England. I was eight years old, and
+Jessie six, then."
+
+"And you came to England--how long after that?"
+
+"Two years."
+
+"So that you've been in England ten years. And you know nothing
+whatever of your father's past beyond what you've told me?"
+
+"Nothing--absolutely nothing."
+
+"Never heard him talk of--you see, according to your account, your
+father was a man of getting on to forty when he went out to Argentina.
+He must have had a career of some sort in this country. Have you never
+heard him speak of his boyhood? Did he never talk of old times, or that
+sort of thing?"
+
+"I never remember hearing my father speak of any period antecedent to
+his marriage," replied Evelyn.
+
+"I once asked him a question about his childhood." said Jessie. "He
+answered that his early days had not been very happy ones, and that he
+had done his best to forget them. So I never asked him anything again."
+
+"So that it really comes to this," remarked Spargo. "You know nothing
+whatever about your father, his family, his fortunes, his life, beyond
+what you yourselves have observed since you were able to observe?
+That's about it, isn't it?"
+
+"I should say that that is exactly it," answered Evelyn.
+
+"Just so," said Spargo. "And therefore, as I told your sister the other
+day, the public will say that your father has some dark secret behind
+him, and that Marbury had possession of it, and that your father killed
+him in order to silence him. That isn't my view. I not only believe
+your father to be absolutely innocent, but I believe that he knows no
+more than a child unborn of Marbury's murder, and I'm doing my best to
+find out who that murderer was. By the by, since you'll see all about
+it in tomorrow morning's _Watchman_, I may as well tell you that I've
+found out who Marbury really was. He----"
+
+At this moment Spargo's door was opened and in walked Ronald Breton. He
+shook his head at sight of the two sisters.
+
+"I thought I should find you here," he said. "Jessie said she was
+coming to see you, Spargo. I don't know what good you can do--I don't
+see what good the most powerful newspaper in the world can do. My
+God!--everything's about as black as ever it can be. Mr. Aylmore--I've
+just come away from him; his solicitor, Stratton, and I have been with
+him for an hour--is obstinate as ever--he will not tell more than he
+has told. Whatever good can you do, Spargo, when he won't speak about
+that knowledge of Marbury which he must have?"
+
+"Oh, well!" said Spargo. "Perhaps we can give him some information
+about Marbury. Mr. Aylmore has forgotten that it's not such a difficult
+thing to rake up the past as he seems to think it is. For example, as I
+was just telling these young ladies, I myself have discovered who
+Marbury really was."
+
+Breton started.
+
+"You have? Without doubt?" he exclaimed.
+
+"Without reasonable doubt. Marbury was an ex-convict."
+
+Spargo watched the effect of this sudden announcement. The two girls
+showed no sign of astonishment or of unusual curiosity; they received
+the news with as much unconcern as if Spargo had told them that Marbury
+was a famous musician. But Ronald Breton started, and it seemed to
+Spargo that he saw a sense of suspicion dawn in his eyes.
+
+"Marbury--an ex-convict!" he exclaimed. "You mean that?"
+
+"Read your _Watchman_ in the morning," said Spargo. "You'll find the
+whole story there--I'm going to write it tonight when you people have
+gone. It'll make good reading."
+
+Evelyn and Jessie Aylmore took Spargo's hint and went away, Spargo
+seeing them to the door with another assurance of his belief in their
+father's innocence and his determination to hunt down the real
+criminal. Ronald Breton went down with them to the street and saw them
+into a cab, but in another minute he was back in Spargo's room as
+Spargo had expected. He shut the door carefully behind him and turned
+to Spargo with an eager face.
+
+"I say, Spargo, is that really so?" he asked. "About Marbury being an
+ex-convict?"
+
+"That's so, Breton. I've no more doubt about it than I have that I see
+you. Marbury was in reality one John Maitland, a bank manager, of
+Market Milcaster, who got ten years' penal servitude in 1891 for
+embezzlement."
+
+"In 1891? Why--that's just about the time that Aylmore says he knew
+him!"
+
+"Exactly. And--it just strikes me," said Spargo, sitting down at his
+desk and making a hurried note, "it just strikes me--didn't Aylmore say
+he knew Marbury in London?"
+
+"Certainly," replied Breton. "In London."
+
+"Um!" mused Spargo. "That's queer, because Maitland had never been in
+London up to the time of his going to Dartmoor, whatever he may have
+done when he came out of Dartmoor, and, of course, Aylmore had gone to
+South America long before that. Look here, Breton," he continued,
+aloud, "have you access to Aylmore? Will you, can you, see him before
+he's brought up at Bow Street tomorrow?"
+
+"Yes," answered Breton. "I can see him with his solicitor."
+
+"Then listen," said Spargo. "Tomorrow morning you'll find the whole
+story of how I proved Marbury's identity with Maitland in the
+_Watchman_. Read it as early as you can; get an interview with Aylmore
+as early as you can; make him read it, every word, before he's brought
+up. Beg him if he values his own safety and his daughters' peace of
+mind to throw away all that foolish reserve, and to tell all he knows
+about Maitland twenty years ago. He should have done that at first.
+Why, I was asking his daughters some questions before you came in--they
+know absolutely nothing of their father's history previous to the time
+when they began to understand things! Don't you see that Aylmore's
+career, previous to his return to England, is a blank past!"
+
+"I know--I know!" said Breton. "Yes--although I've gone there a great
+deal, I never heard Aylmore speak of anything earlier than his
+Argentine experiences. And yet, he must have been getting on when he
+went out there."
+
+"Thirty-seven or eight, at least," remarked Spargo. "Well, Aylmore's
+more or less of a public man, and no public man can keep his life
+hidden nowadays. By the by, how did you get to know the Aylmores?"
+
+"My guardian, Mr. Elphick, and I met them in Switzerland," answered
+Breton. "We kept up the acquaintance after our return."
+
+"Mr. Elphick still interesting himself in the Marbury case?" asked
+Spargo.
+
+"Very much so. And so is old Cardlestone, at the foot of whose stairs
+the thing came off. I dined with them last night and they talked of
+little else," said Breton.
+
+"And their theory--"
+
+"Oh, still the murder for the sake of robbery!" replied Breton. "Old
+Cardlestone is furious that such a thing could have happened at his
+very door. He says that there ought to be a thorough enquiry into every
+tenant of the Temple."
+
+"Longish business that," observed Spargo. "Well, run away now,
+Breton--I must write."
+
+"Shall you be at Bow Street tomorrow morning?" asked Breton as he moved
+to the door. "It's to be at ten-thirty."
+
+"No, I shan't!" replied Spargo. "It'll only be a remand, and I know
+already just as much as I should hear there. I've got something much
+more important to do. But you'll remember what I asked of you--get
+Aylmore to read my story in the _Watchman_, and beg him to speak out
+and tell all he knows--all!"
+
+And when Breton had gone, Spargo again murmured those last words: "All
+he knows--all!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
+
+MISS BAYLIS
+
+
+Next day, a little before noon, Spargo found himself in one of those
+pretentious yet dismal Bayswater squares, which are almost entirely
+given up to the trade, calling, or occupation of the lodging and
+boarding-house keeper. They are very pretentious, those squares, with
+their many-storied houses, their stuccoed frontages, and their
+pilastered and balconied doorways; innocent country folk, coming into
+them from the neighbouring station of Paddington, take them to be the
+residences of the dukes and earls who, of course, live nowhere else but
+in London. They are further encouraged in this belief by the fact that
+young male persons in evening dress are often seen at the doorways in
+more or less elegant attitudes. These, of course, are taken by the
+country folk to be young lords enjoying the air of Bayswater, but
+others, more knowing, are aware that they are Swiss or German waiters
+whose linen might be cleaner.
+
+Spargo gauged the character of the house at which he called as soon as
+the door was opened to him. There was the usual smell of eggs and
+bacon, of fish and chops; the usual mixed and ancient collection of
+overcoats, wraps, and sticks in the hall; the usual sort of parlourmaid
+to answer the bell. And presently, in answer to his enquiries, there
+was the usual type of landlady confronting him, a more than middle-aged
+person who desired to look younger, and made attempts in the way of
+false hair, teeth, and a little rouge, and who wore that somewhat air
+and smile which in its wearer--under these circumstances--always means
+that she is considering whether you will be able to cheat her or
+whether she will be able to see you.
+
+"You wish to see Miss Baylis?" said this person, examining Spargo
+closely. "Miss Baylis does not often see anybody."
+
+"I hope," said Spargo politely, "that Miss Baylis is not an invalid?"
+
+"No, she's not an invalid," replied the landlady; "but she's not as
+young as she was, and she's an objection to strangers. Is it anything I
+can tell her?"
+
+"No," said Spargo. "But you can, if you please, take her a message from
+me. Will you kindly give her my card, and tell her that I wish to ask
+her a question about John Maitland of Market Milcaster, and that I
+should be much obliged if she would give me a few minutes."
+
+"Perhaps you will sit down," said the landlady. She led Spargo into a
+room which opened out upon a garden; in it two or three old ladies,
+evidently inmates, were sitting. The landlady left Spargo to sit with
+them and to amuse himself by watching them knit or sew or read the
+papers, and he wondered if they always did these things every day, and
+if they would go on doing them until a day would come when they would
+do them no more, and he was beginning to feel very dreary when the door
+opened and a woman entered whom Spargo, after one sharp glance at her,
+decided to be a person who was undoubtedly out of the common. And as
+she slowly walked across the room towards him he let his first glance
+lengthen into a look of steady inspection.
+
+The woman whom Spargo thus narrowly inspected was of very remarkable
+appearance. She was almost masculine; she stood nearly six feet in
+height; she was of a masculine gait and tread, and spare, muscular, and
+athletic. What at once struck Spargo about her face was the strange
+contrast between her dark eyes and her white hair; the hair, worn in
+abundant coils round a well-shaped head, was of the most snowy
+whiteness; the eyes of a real coal-blackness, as were also the eyebrows
+above them. The features were well-cut and of a striking firmness; the
+jaw square and determined. And Spargo's first thought on taking all
+this in was that Miss Baylis seemed to have been fitted by Nature to be
+a prison wardress, or the matron of a hospital, or the governess of an
+unruly girl, and he began to wonder if he would ever manage to extract
+anything out of those firmly-locked lips.
+
+Miss Baylis, on her part, looked Spargo over as if she was half-minded
+to order him to instant execution. And Spargo was so impressed by her
+that he made a profound bow and found a difficulty in finding his
+tongue.
+
+"Mr. Spargo?" she said in a deep voice which seemed peculiarly suited
+to her. "Of, I see, the _Watchman_? You wish to speak to me?"
+
+Spargo again bowed in silence. She signed him to the window near which
+they were standing.
+
+"Open the casement, if you please," she commanded him. "We will walk in
+the garden. This is not private."
+
+Spargo obediently obeyed her orders; she swept through the opened
+window and he followed her. It was not until they had reached the
+bottom of the garden that she spoke again.
+
+"I understand that you desire to ask me some question about John
+Maitland, of Market Milcaster?" she said. "Before you put it. I must
+ask you a question. Do you wish any reply I may give you for
+publication?"
+
+"Not without your permission," replied Spargo. "I should not think of
+publishing anything you may tell me except with your express
+permission."
+
+She looked at him gloomily, seemed to gather an impression of his good
+faith, and nodded her head.
+
+"In that case," she said, "what do you want to ask?"
+
+"I have lately had reason for making certain enquiries about John
+Maitland," answered Spargo. "I suppose you read the newspapers and
+possibly the _Watchman_, Miss Baylis?"
+
+But Miss Baylis shook her head.
+
+"I read no newspapers," she said. "I have no interest in the affairs of
+the world. I have work which occupies all my time: I give my whole
+devotion to it."
+
+"Then you have not recently heard of what is known as the Marbury
+case--a case of a man who was found murdered?" asked Spargo.
+
+"I have not," she answered. "I am not likely to hear such things."
+
+Spargo suddenly realized that the power of the Press is not quite as
+great nor as far-reaching as very young journalists hold it to be, and
+that there actually are, even in London, people who can live quite
+cheerfully without a newspaper. He concealed his astonishment and went
+on.
+
+"Well," he said, "I believe that the murdered man, known to the police
+as John Marbury, was, in reality, your brother-in-law, John Maitland.
+In fact, Miss Baylis, I'm absolutely certain of it!"
+
+He made this declaration with some emphasis, and looked at his stern
+companion to see how she was impressed. But Miss Baylis showed no sign
+of being impressed.
+
+"I can quite believe that, Mr. Spargo," she said coldly. "It is no
+surprise to me that John Maitland should come to such an end. He was a
+thoroughly bad and unprincipled man, who brought the most terrible
+disgrace on those who were, unfortunately, connected with him. He was
+likely to die a bad man's death."
+
+"I may ask you a few questions about him?" suggested Spargo in his most
+insinuating manner.
+
+"You may, so long as you do not drag my name into the papers," she
+replied. "But pray, how do you know that I have the sad shame of being
+John Maitland's sister-in-law?"
+
+"I found that out at Market Milcaster," said Spargo. "The photographer
+told me--Cooper."
+
+"Ah!" she exclaimed.
+
+"The questions I want to ask are very simple," said Spargo. "But your
+answers may materially help me. You remember Maitland going to prison,
+of course?"
+
+Miss Baylis laughed--a laugh of scorn.
+
+"Could I ever forget it?" she exclaimed.
+
+"Did you ever visit him in prison?" asked Spargo.
+
+"Visit him in prison!" she said indignantly. "Visits in prison are to
+be paid to those who deserve them, who are repentant; not to scoundrels
+who are hardened in their sin!"
+
+"All right. Did you ever see him after he left prison?"
+
+"I saw him, for he forced himself upon me--I could not help myself. He
+was in my presence before I was aware that he had even been released."
+
+"What did he come for?" asked Spargo.
+
+"To ask for his son--who had been in my charge," she replied.
+
+"That's a thing I want to know about," said Spargo. "Do you know what a
+certain lot of people in Market Milcaster say to this day, Miss
+Baylis?--they say that you were in at the game with Maitland; that you
+had a lot of the money placed in your charge; that when Maitland went
+to prison, you took the child away, first to Brighton, then
+abroad--disappeared with him--and that you made a home ready for
+Maitland when he came out. That's what's said by some people in Market
+Milcaster."
+
+Miss Baylis's stern lips curled.
+
+"People in Market Milcaster!" she exclaimed. "All the people I ever
+knew in Market Milcaster had about as many brains between them as that
+cat on the wall there. As for making a home for John Maitland, I would
+have seen him die in the gutter, of absolute want, before I would have
+given him a crust of dry bread!"
+
+"You appear to have a terrible dislike of this man," observed Spargo,
+astonished at her vehemence.
+
+"I had--and I have," she answered. "He tricked my sister into a
+marriage with him when he knew that she would rather have married an
+honest man who worshipped her; he treated her with quiet, infernal
+cruelty; he robbed her and me of the small fortunes our father left
+us."
+
+"Ah!" said Spargo. "Well, so you say Maitland came to you, when he came
+out of prison, to ask for his boy. Did he take the boy?"
+
+"No--the boy was dead."
+
+"Dead, eh? Then I suppose Maitland did not stop long with you?"
+
+Miss Baylis laughed her scornful laugh.
+
+"I showed him the door!" she said.
+
+"Well, did he tell you that he was going to Australia?" enquired
+Spargo.
+
+"I should not have listened to anything that he told me, Mr. Spargo,"
+she answered.
+
+"Then, in short," said Spargo, "you never heard of him again?"
+
+"I never heard of him again," she declared passionately, "and I only
+hope that what you tell me is true, and that Marbury really was
+Maitland!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
+
+MOTHER GUTCH
+
+
+Spargo, having exhausted the list of questions which he had thought out
+on his way to Bayswater, was about to take his leave of Miss Baylis,
+when a new idea suddenly occurred to him, and he turned back to that
+formidable lady.
+
+"I've just thought of something else," he said. "I told you that I'm
+certain Marbury was Maitland, and that he came to a sad end--murdered."
+
+"And I've told you," she replied scornfully, "that in my opinion no end
+could be too bad for him."
+
+"Just so--I understand you," said Spargo. "But I didn't tell you that
+he was not only murdered but robbed--robbed of probably a good deal.
+There's good reason to believe that he had securities, bank notes,
+loose diamonds, and other things on him to the value of a large amount.
+He'd several thousand pounds when he left Coolumbidgee, in New South
+Wales, where he'd lived quietly for some years."
+
+Miss Baylis smiled sourly.
+
+"What's all this to me?" she asked.
+
+"Possibly nothing. But you see, that money, those securities, may be
+recovered. And as the boy you speak of is dead, there surely must be
+somebody who's entitled to the lot. It's worth having, Miss Baylis, and
+there's strong belief on the part of the police that it will turn up."
+
+This was a bit of ingenious bluff on the part of Spargo; he watched its
+effect with keen eyes. But Miss Baylis was adamant, and she looked as
+scornful as ever.
+
+"I say again what's all that to me?" she exclaimed.
+
+"Well, but hadn't the dead boy any relatives on his father's side?"
+asked Spargo. "I know you're his aunt on the mother's side, and as
+you're indifferent perhaps, I can find some on the other side. It's
+very easy to find all these things out, you know."
+
+Miss Baylis, who had begun to stalk back to the house in gloomy and
+majestic fashion, and had let Spargo see plainly that this part of the
+interview was distasteful to her, suddenly paused in her stride and
+glared at the young journalist.
+
+"Easy to find all these things out?" she repeated.
+
+Spargo caught, or fancied he caught, a note of anxiety in her tone. He
+was quick to turn his fancy to practical purpose.
+
+"Oh, easy enough!" he said. "I could find out all about Maitland's
+family through that boy. Quite, quite easily!"
+
+Miss Baylis had stopped now, and stood glaring at him. "How?" she
+demanded.
+
+"I'll tell you," said Spargo with cheerful alacrity. "It is, of course,
+the easiest thing in the world to trace all about his short life. I
+suppose I can find the register of his birth at Market Milcaster, and
+you, of course, will tell me where he died. By the by, when did he die,
+Miss Baylis?"
+
+But Miss Baylis was going on again to the house.
+
+"I shall tell you nothing more," she said angrily. "I've told you too
+much already, and I believe all you're here for is to get some news for
+your paper. But I will, at any rate tell you this--when Maitland went
+to prison his child would have been defenceless but for me; he'd have
+had to go to the workhouse but for me; he hadn't a single relation in
+the world but me, on either father's or mother's side. And even at my
+age, old woman as I am, I'd rather beg my bread in the street, I'd
+rather starve and die, than touch a penny piece that had come from John
+Maitland! That's all."
+
+Then without further word, without offering to show Spargo the way out,
+she marched in at the open window and disappeared. And Spargo, knowing
+no other way, was about to follow her when he heard a sudden rustling
+sound in the shadow by which they had stood, and the next moment a
+queer, cracked, horrible voice, suggesting all sorts of things, said
+distinctly and yet in a whisper:
+
+"Young man!"
+
+Spargo turned and stared at the privet hedge behind him. It was thick
+and bushy, and in its full summer green, but it seemed to him that he
+saw a nondescript shape behind. "Who's there?" he demanded. "Somebody
+listening?"
+
+There was a curious cackle of laughter from behind the hedge; then the
+cracked, husky voice spoke again.
+
+"Young man, don't you move or look as if you were talking to anybody.
+Do you know where the 'King of Madagascar' public-house is in this
+quarter of the town, young man?"
+
+"No!" answered Spargo. "Certainly not!"
+
+"Well, anybody'll tell you when you get outside, young man," continued
+the queer voice of the unseen person. "Go there, and wait at the corner
+by the 'King of Madagascar,' and I'll come there to you at the end of
+half an hour. Then I'll tell you something, young man--I'll tell you
+something. Now run away, young man, run away to the 'King of
+Madagascar'--I'm coming!"
+
+The voice ended in low, horrible cachinnation which made Spargo feel
+queer. But he was young enough to be in love with adventure, and he
+immediately turned on his heel without so much as a glance at the
+privet hedge, and went across the garden and through the house, and let
+himself out at the door. And at the next corner of the square he met a
+policeman and asked him if he knew where the "King of Madagascar" was.
+
+"First to the right, second to the left," answered the policeman
+tersely. "You can't miss it anywhere round there--it's a landmark."
+
+And Spargo found the landmark--a great, square-built tavern--easily,
+and he waited at a corner of it wondering what he was going to see, and
+intensely curious about the owner of the queer voice, with all its
+suggestions of he knew not what. And suddenly there came up to him an
+old woman and leered at him in a fashion that made him suddenly realize
+how dreadful old age may be.
+
+Spargo had never seen such an old woman as this in his life. She was
+dressed respectably, better than respectably. Her gown was good; her
+bonnet was smart; her smaller fittings were good. But her face was
+evil; it showed unmistakable signs of a long devotion to the bottle;
+the old eyes leered and ogled, the old lips were wicked. Spargo felt a
+sense of disgust almost amounting to nausea, but he was going to hear
+what the old harridan had to say and he tried not to look what he felt.
+
+"Well?" he said, almost roughly. "Well?"
+
+"Well, young man, there you are," said his new acquaintance. "Let us go
+inside, young man; there's a quiet little place where a lady can sit
+and take her drop of gin--I'll show you. And if you're good to me, I'll
+tell you something about that cat that you were talking to just now.
+But you'll give me a little matter to put in my pocket, young man? Old
+ladies like me have a right to buy little comforts, you know, little
+comforts."
+
+Spargo followed this extraordinary person into a small parlour within;
+the attendant who came in response to a ring showed no astonishment at
+her presence; he also seemed to know exactly what she required, which
+was a certain brand of gin, sweetened, and warm. And Spargo watched her
+curiously as with shaking hand she pushed up the veil which hid little
+of her wicked old face, and lifted the glass to her mouth with a zest
+which was not thirst but pure greed of liquor. Almost instantly he saw
+a new light steal into her eyes, and she laughed in a voice that grew
+clearer with every sound she made.
+
+"Ah, young man!" she said with a confidential nudge of the elbow that
+made Spargo long to get up and fly. "I wanted that! It's done me good.
+When I've finished that, you'll pay for another for me--and perhaps
+another? They'll do me still more good. And you'll give me a little
+matter of money, won't you, young man?"
+
+"Not till I know what I'm giving it for," replied Spargo.
+
+"You'll be giving it because I'm going to tell you that if it's made
+worth my while I can tell you, or somebody that sent you, more about
+Jane Baylis than anybody in the world. I'm not going to tell you that
+now, young man--I'm sure you don't carry in your pocket what I shall
+want for my secret, not you, by the look of you! I'm only going to show
+you that I have the secret. Eh?"
+
+"Who are you?" asked Spargo.
+
+The woman leered and chuckled. "What are you going to give me, young
+man?" she asked.
+
+Spargo put his fingers in his pocket and pulled out two
+half-sovereigns.
+
+"Look here," he said, showing his companion the coins, "if you can tell
+me anything of importance you shall have these. But no trifling, now.
+And no wasting of time. If you have anything to tell, out with it!"
+
+The woman stretched out a trembling, claw-like hand.
+
+"But let me hold one of those, young man!" she implored. "Let me hold
+one of the beautiful bits of gold. I shall tell you all the better if I
+hold one of them. Let me--there's a good young gentleman."
+
+Spargo gave her one of the coins, and resigned himself to his fate,
+whatever it might be.
+
+"You won't get the other unless you tell something," he said. "Who are
+you, anyway?"
+
+The woman, who had begun mumbling and chuckling over the
+half-sovereign, grinned horribly.
+
+"At the boarding-house yonder, young man, they call me Mother Gutch,"
+she answered; "but my proper name is Mrs. Sabina Gutch, and once upon a
+time I was a good-looking young woman. And when my husband died I went
+to Jane Baylis as housekeeper, and when she retired from that and came
+to live in that boarding-house where we live now, she was forced to
+bring me with her and to keep me. Why had she to do that, young man?"
+
+"Heaven knows!" answered Spargo.
+
+"Because I've got a hold on her, young man--I've got a secret of hers,"
+continued Mother Gutch. "She'd be scared to death if she knew I'd been
+behind that hedge and had heard what she said to you, and she'd be more
+than scared if she knew that you and I were here, talking. But she's
+grown hard and near with me, and she won't give me a penny to get a
+drop of anything with, and an old woman like me has a right to her
+little comforts, and if you'll buy the secret, young man, I'll split on
+her, there and then, when you pay the money."
+
+"Before I talk about buying any secret," said Spargo, "you'll have to
+prove to me that you've a secret to sell that's worth my buying."
+
+"And I will prove it!" said Mother Gutch with sudden fierceness. "Touch
+the bell, and let me have another glass, and then I'll tell you. Now,"
+she went on, more quietly--Spargo noticed that the more she drank, the
+more rational she became, and that her nerves seemed to gain strength
+and her whole appearance to be improved--"now, you came to her to find
+out about her brother-in-law, Maitland, that went to prison, didn't
+you?"
+
+"Well?" demanded Spargo.
+
+"And about that boy of his?" she continued.
+
+"You heard all that was said," answered Spargo. "I'm waiting to hear
+what you have to say."
+
+But Mother Gutch was resolute in having her own way. She continued her
+questions:
+
+"And she told you that Maitland came and asked for the boy, and that
+she told him the boy was dead, didn't she?" she went on.
+
+"Well?" said Spargo despairingly. "She did. What then?"
+
+Mother Gutch took an appreciative pull at her glass and smiled
+knowingly. "What then?" she chuckled. "All lies, young man, the boy
+isn't dead--any more than I am. And my secret is--"
+
+"Well?" demanded Spargo impatiently. "What is it?"
+
+"This!" answered Mother Gutch, digging her companion in the ribs, "I
+know what she did with him!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
+
+REVELATIONS
+
+
+Spargo turned on his disreputable and dissolute companion with all his
+journalistic energies and instincts roused. He had not been sure, since
+entering the "King of Madagascar," that he was going to hear anything
+material to the Middle Temple Murder; he had more than once feared that
+this old gin-drinking harridan was deceiving him, for the purpose of
+extracting drink and money from him. But now, at the mere prospect of
+getting important information from her, he forgot all about Mother
+Gutch's unfortunate propensities, evil eyes, and sodden face; he only
+saw in her somebody who could tell him something. He turned on her
+eagerly.
+
+"You say that John Maitland's son didn't die!" he exclaimed.
+
+"The boy did not die," replied Mother Gutch.
+
+"And that you know where he is?" asked Spargo.
+
+Mother Gutch shook her head.
+
+"I didn't say that I know where he is, young man," she replied. "I said
+I knew what she did with him."
+
+"What, then?" demanded Spargo.
+
+Mother Gutch drew herself up in a vast assumption of dignity, and
+favoured Spargo with a look.
+
+"That's the secret, young man," she said. "I'm willing to sell that
+secret, but not for two half-sovereigns and two or three drops of cold
+gin. If Maitland left all that money you told Jane Baylis of, when I
+was listening to you from behind the hedge, my secret's worth
+something."
+
+Spargo suddenly remembered his bit of bluff to Miss Baylis. Here was an
+unexpected result of it.
+
+"Nobody but me can help you to trace Maitland's boy," continued Mother
+Gutch, "and I shall expect to be paid accordingly. That's plain
+language, young man."
+
+Spargo considered the situation in silence for a minute or two. Could
+this wretched, bibulous old woman really be in possession of a secret
+which would lead to the solving of the mystery of the Middle Temple
+Murder? Well, it would be a fine thing for the _Watchman_ if the
+clearing up of everything came through one of its men. And the
+_Watchman_ was noted for being generous even to extravagance in laying
+out money on all sorts of objects: it had spent money like water on
+much less serious matters than this.
+
+"How much do you want for your secret?" he suddenly asked, turning to
+his companion.
+
+Mother Gutch began to smooth out a pleat in her gown. It was really
+wonderful to Spargo to find how very sober and normal this old harridan
+had become; he did not understand that her nerves had been all a-quiver
+and on edge when he first met her, and that a resort to her favourite
+form of alcohol in liberal quantity had calmed and quickened them;
+secretly he was regarding her with astonishment as the most
+extraordinary old person he had ever met, and he was almost afraid of
+her as he waited for her decision. At last Mother Gutch spoke.
+
+"Well, young man," she said, "having considered matters, and having a
+right to look well to myself, I think that what I should prefer to have
+would be one of those annuities. A nice, comfortable annuity, paid
+weekly--none of your monthlies or quarterlies, but regular and
+punctual, every Saturday morning. Or Monday morning, as was convenient
+to the parties concerned--but punctual and regular. I know a good many
+ladies in my sphere of life as enjoys annuities, and it's a great
+comfort to have 'em paid weekly."
+
+It occurred to Spargo that Mrs. Gutch would probably get rid of her
+weekly dole on the day it was paid, whether that day happened to be
+Monday or Saturday, but that, after all, was no concern of his, so he
+came back to first principles.
+
+"Even now you haven't said how much," he remarked.
+
+"Three pound a week," replied Mother Gutch. "And cheap, too!"
+
+Spargo thought hard for two minutes. The secret might--might!--lead to
+something big. This wretched old woman would probably drink herself to
+death within a year or two. Anyhow, a few hundreds of pounds was
+nothing to the _Watchman_. He glanced at his watch. At that hour--for
+the next hour--the great man of the _Watchman_ would be at the office.
+He jumped to his feet, suddenly resolved and alert.
+
+"Here, I'll take you to see my principals," he said. "We'll run along
+in a taxi-cab."
+
+"With all the pleasure in the world, young man," replied Mother Gutch;
+"when you've given me that other half-sovereign. As for principals, I'd
+far rather talk business with masters than with men--though I mean no
+disrespect to you." Spargo, feeling that he was in for it, handed over
+the second half-sovereign, and busied himself in ordering a taxi-cab.
+But when that came round he had to wait while Mrs. Gutch consumed a
+third glass of gin and purchased a flask of the same beverage to put in
+her pocket. At last he got her off, and in due course to the _Watchman_
+office, where the hall-porter and the messenger boys stared at her in
+amazement, well used as they were to seeing strange folk, and he got
+her to his own room, and locked her in, and then he sought the presence
+of the mighty.
+
+What Spargo said to his editor and to the great man who controlled the
+fortunes and workings of the _Watchman_ he never knew. It was probably
+fortunate for him that they were both thoroughly conversant with the
+facts of the Middle Temple Murder, and saw that there might be an
+advantage in securing the revelations of which Spargo had got the
+conditional promise. At any rate, they accompanied Spargo to his room,
+intent on seeing, hearing and bargaining with the lady he had locked up
+there.
+
+Spargo's room smelt heavily of unsweetened gin, but Mother Gutch was
+soberer than ever. She insisted upon being introduced to proprietor and
+editor in due and proper form, and in discussing terms with them before
+going into any further particulars. The editor was all for temporizing
+with her until something could be done to find out what likelihood of
+truth there was in her, but the proprietor, after sizing her up in his
+own shrewd fashion, took his two companions out of the room.
+
+"We'll hear what the old woman has to say on her own terms," he said.
+"She may have something to tell that is really of the greatest
+importance in this case: she certainly has something to tell. And, as
+Spargo says, she'll probably drink herself to death in about as short a
+time as possible. Come back--let's hear her story." So they returned to
+the gin-scented atmosphere, and a formal document was drawn out by
+which the proprietor of the _Watchman_ bound himself to pay Mrs. Gutch
+the sum of three pounds a week for life (Mrs. Gutch insisting on the
+insertion of the words "every Saturday morning, punctual and regular")
+and then Mrs. Gutch was invited to tell her tale. And Mrs. Gutch
+settled herself to do so, and Spargo prepared to take it down, word for
+word.
+
+"Which the story, as that young man called it, is not so long as a
+monkey's tail nor so short as a Manx cat's, gentlemen," said Mrs.
+Gutch; "but full of meat as an egg. Now, you see, when that Maitland
+affair at Market Milcaster came off, I was housekeeper to Miss Jane
+Baylis at Brighton. She kept a boarding-house there, in Kemp Town, and
+close to the sea-front, and a very good thing she made out of it, and
+had saved a nice bit, and having, like her sister, Mrs. Maitland, had a
+little fortune left her by her father, as was at one time a publican
+here in London, she had a good lump of money. And all that money was in
+this here Maitland's hands, every penny. I very well remember the day
+when the news came about that affair of Maitland robbing the bank. Miss
+Baylis, she was like a mad thing when she saw it in the paper, and
+before she'd seen it an hour she was off to Market Milcaster. I went up
+to the station with her, and she told me then before she got in the
+train that Maitland had all her fortune and her savings, and her
+sister's, his wife's, too, and that she feared all would be lost."
+
+"Mrs. Maitland was then dead," observed Spargo without looking up from
+his writing-block.
+
+"She was, young man, and a good thing, too," continued Mrs. Gutch.
+"Well, away went Miss Baylis, and no more did I hear or see for nearly
+a week, and then back she comes, and brings a little boy with
+her--which was Maitland's. And she told me that night that she'd lost
+every penny she had in the world, and that her sister's money, what
+ought to have been the child's, was gone, too, and she said her say
+about Maitland. However, she saw well to that child; nobody could have
+seen better. And very soon after, when Maitland was sent to prison for
+ten years, her and me talked about things. 'What's the use,' says I to
+her, 'of your letting yourself get so fond of that child, and looking
+after it as you do, and educating it, and so on?' I says. 'Why not?'
+says she. 'Tisn't yours,' I says, 'you haven't no right to it,' I says.
+'As soon as ever its father comes out,' says I,' he'll come and claim
+it, and you can't do nothing to stop him.' Well, gentlemen, if you'll
+believe me, never did I see a woman look as she did when I says all
+that. And she up and swore that Maitland should never see or touch the
+child again--not under no circumstances whatever."
+
+Mrs. Gutch paused to take a little refreshment from her pocket-flask,
+with an apologetic remark as to the state of her heart. She resumed,
+presently, apparently refreshed.
+
+"Well, gentlemen, that notion, about Maitland's taking the child away
+from her seemed to get on her mind, and she used to talk to me at times
+about it, always saying the same thing--that Maitland should never have
+him. And one day she told me she was going to London to see lawyers
+about it, and she went, and she came back, seeming more satisfied, and
+a day or two afterwards, there came a gentleman who looked like a
+lawyer, and he stopped a day or two, and he came again and again, until
+one day she came to me, and she says, 'You don't know who that
+gentleman is that's come so much lately?' she says. 'Not I,' I says,
+'unless he's after you.' 'After me!' she says, tossing her head:
+'That's the gentleman that ought to have married my poor sister if that
+scoundrel Maitland hadn't tricked her into throwing him over!' 'You
+don't say so!' I says. 'Then by rights he ought to have been the
+child's pa!' 'He's going to be a father to the boy,' she says. 'He's
+going to take him and educate him in the highest fashion, and make a
+gentleman of him,' she says, 'for his mother's sake.' 'Mercy on us!'
+says I. 'What'll Maitland say when he comes for him?' 'Maitland'll
+never come for him,' she says, 'for I'm going to leave here, and the
+boy'll be gone before then. This is all being done,' she says, 'so that
+the child'll never know his father's shame--he'll never know who his
+father was.' And true enough, the boy was taken away, but Maitland came
+before she'd gone, and she told him the child was dead, and I never see
+a man so cut up. However, it wasn't no concern of mine. And so there's
+so much of the secret, gentlemen, and I would like to know if I ain't
+giving good value."
+
+"Very good," said the proprietor. "Go on." But Spargo intervened.
+
+"Did you ever hear the name of the gentleman who took the boy away?" he
+asked.
+
+"Yes, I did," replied Mrs. Gutch. "Of course I did. Which it was
+Elphick."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
+
+STILL SILENT
+
+
+Spargo dropped his pen on the desk before him with a sharp clatter that
+made Mrs. Gutch jump. A steady devotion to the bottle had made her
+nerves to be none of the strongest, and she looked at the startler of
+them with angry malevolence.
+
+"Don't do that again, young man!" she exclaimed sharply. "I can't
+a-bear to be jumped out of my skin, and it's bad manners. I observed
+that the gentleman's name was Elphick."
+
+Spargo contrived to get in a glance at his proprietor and his editor--a
+glance which came near to being a wink.
+
+"Just so--Elphick," he said. "A law gentleman I think you said, Mrs.
+Gutch?"
+
+"I said," answered Mrs. Gutch, "as how he looked like a lawyer
+gentleman. And since you're so particular, young man, though I wasn't
+addressing you but your principals, he was a lawyer gentleman. One of
+the sort that wears wigs and gowns--ain't I seen his picture in Jane
+Baylis's room at the boarding-house where you saw her this morning?"
+
+"Elderly man?" asked Spargo.
+
+"Elderly he will be now," replied the informant; "but when he took the
+boy away he was a middle-aged man. About his age," she added, pointing
+to the editor in a fashion which made that worthy man wince and the
+proprietor desire to laugh unconsumedly; "and not so very unlike him
+neither, being one as had no hair on his face."
+
+"Ah!" said Spargo. "And where did this Mr. Elphick take the boy, Mrs.
+Gutch?"
+
+But Mrs. Gutch shook her head.
+
+"Ain't no idea," she said. "He took him. Then, as I told you, Maitland
+came, and Jane Baylis told him that the boy was dead. And after that
+she never even told me anything about the boy. She kept a tight tongue.
+Once or twice I asked her, and she says, 'Never you mind,' she says;
+'he's all right for life, if he lives to be as old as Methusalem.' And
+she never said more, and I never said more. But," continued Mrs. Gutch,
+whose pocket-flask was empty, and who began to wipe tears away, "she's
+treated me hard has Jane Baylis, never allowing me a little comfort
+such as a lady of my age should have, and when I hears the two of you
+a-talking this morning the other side of that privet hedge, thinks I,
+'Now's the time to have my knife into you, my fine madam!' And I hope I
+done it."
+
+Spargo looked at the editor and the proprietor, nodding his head
+slightly. He meant them to understand that he had got all he wanted
+from Mother Gutch.
+
+"What are you going to do, Mrs. Gutch, when you leave here?" he asked.
+"You shall be driven straight back to Bayswater, if you like."
+
+"Which I shall be obliged for, young man," said Mrs. Gutch, "and
+likewise for the first week of the annuity, and will call every
+Saturday for the same at eleven punctual, or can be posted to me on a
+Friday, whichever is agreeable to you gentlemen. And having my first
+week in my purse, and being driven to Bayswater, I shall take my boxes
+and go to a friend of mine where I shall be hearty welcome, shaking the
+dust of my feet off against Jane Baylis and where I've been living with
+her."
+
+"Yes, but, Mrs. Gutch," said Spargo, with some anxiety, "if you go back
+there tonight, you'll be very careful not to tell Miss Baylis that
+you've been here and told us all this?"
+
+Mrs. Gutch rose, dignified and composed.
+
+"Young man," she said, "you mean well, but you ain't used to dealing
+with ladies. I can keep my tongue as still as anybody when I like. I
+wouldn't tell Jane Baylis my affairs--my new affairs, gentlemen, thanks
+to you--not for two annuities, paid twice a week!"
+
+"Take Mrs. Gutch downstairs, Spargo, and see her all right, and then
+come to my room," said the editor. "And don't you forget, Mrs.
+Gutch--keep a quiet tongue in your head--no more talk--or there'll be
+no annuities on Saturday mornings."
+
+So Spargo took Mother Gutch to the cashier's department and paid her
+her first week's money, and he got her a taxi-cab, and paid for it, and
+saw her depart, and then he went to the editor's room, strangely
+thoughtful. The editor and the proprietor were talking, but they
+stopped when Spargo entered and looked at him eagerly. "I think we've
+done it," said Spargo quietly.
+
+"What, precisely, have we found out?" asked the editor.
+
+"A great deal more than I'd anticipated," answered Spargo, "and I don't
+know what fields it doesn't open out. If you look back, you'll remember
+that the only thing found on Marbury's body was a scrap of grey paper
+on which was a name and address--Ronald Breton, King's Bench Walk."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Breton is a young barrister. Also he writes a bit--I have accepted two
+or three articles of his for our literary page."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Further, he is engaged to Miss Aylmore, the eldest daughter of
+Aylmore, the Member of Parliament who has been charged at Bow Street
+today with the murder of Marbury."
+
+"I know. Well, what then, Spargo?"
+
+"But the most important matter," continued Spargo, speaking very
+deliberately, "is this--that is, taking that old woman's statement to
+be true, as I personally believe it is--that Breton, as he has told me
+himself (I have seen a good deal of him) was brought up by a guardian.
+That guardian is Mr. Septimus Elphick, the barrister."
+
+The proprietor and the editor looked at each other. Their faces wore
+the expression of men thinking on the same lines and arriving at the
+same conclusion. And the proprietor suddenly turned on Spargo with a
+sharp interrogation: "You think then----"
+
+Spargo nodded.
+
+"I think that Mr. Septimus Elphick is the Elphick, and that Breton is
+the young Maitland of whom Mrs. Gutch has been talking," he answered.
+
+The editor got up, thrust his hands in his pockets, and began to pace
+the room.
+
+"If that's so," he said, "if that's so, the mystery deepens. What do
+you propose to do, Spargo?"
+
+"I think," said Spargo, slowly, "I think that without telling him
+anything of what we have learnt, I should like to see young Breton and
+get an introduction from him to Mr. Elphick. I can make a good excuse
+for wanting an interview with him. If you will leave it in my hands--"
+
+"Yes, yes!" said the proprietor, waving a hand. "Leave it entirely in
+Spargo's hands."
+
+"Keep me informed," said the editor. "Do what you think. It strikes me
+you're on the track."
+
+Spargo left their presence, and going back to his own room, still
+faintly redolent of the personality of Mrs. Gutch, got hold of the
+reporter who had been present at Bow Street when Aylmore was brought up
+that morning. There was nothing new; the authorities had merely asked
+for another remand. So far as the reporter knew, Aylmore had said
+nothing fresh to anybody.
+
+Spargo went round to the Temple and up to Ronald Breton's chambers. He
+found the young barrister just preparing to leave, and looking
+unusually grave and thoughtful. At sight of Spargo he turned back from
+his outer door, beckoned the journalist to follow him, and led him into
+an inner room.
+
+"I say, Spargo!" he said, as he motioned his visitor to take a chair.
+"This is becoming something more than serious. You know what you told
+me to do yesterday as regards Aylmore?"
+
+"To get him to tell all?--Yes," said Spargo.
+
+Breton shook his head.
+
+"Stratton--his solicitor, you know--and I saw him this morning before
+the police-court proceedings," he continued. "I told him of my talk
+with you; I even went as far as to tell him that his daughters had been
+to the _Watchman_ office. Stratton and I both begged him to take your
+advice and tell all, everything, no matter at what cost to his private
+feelings. We pointed out to him the serious nature of the evidence
+against him; how he had damaged himself by not telling the whole truth
+at once; how he had certainly done a great deal to excite suspicion
+against himself; how, as the evidence stands at present, any jury could
+scarcely do less than convict him. And it was all no good, Spargo!"
+
+"He won't say anything?"
+
+"He'll say no more. He was adamant. 'I told the entire truth in respect
+to my dealings with Marbury on the night he met his death at the
+inquest,' he said, over and over again, 'and I shall say nothing
+further on any consideration. If the law likes to hang an innocent man
+on such evidence as that, let it!' And he persisted in that until we
+left him. Spargo, I don't know what's to be done."
+
+"And nothing happened at the police-court?"
+
+"Nothing--another remand. Stratton and I saw Aylmore again before he
+was removed. He left us with a sort of sardonic remark--'If you all
+want to prove me innocent,' he said, 'find the guilty man.'"
+
+"Well, there was a tremendous lot of common sense in that," said
+Spargo.
+
+"Yes, of course, but how, how, how is it going to be done?" exclaimed
+Breton. "Are you any nearer--is Rathbury any nearer? Is there the
+slightest clue that will fasten the guilt on anybody else?"
+
+Spargo gave no answer to these questions. He remained silent a while,
+apparently thinking.
+
+"Was Rathbury in court?" he suddenly asked.
+
+"He was," replied Breton. "He was there with two or three other men who
+I suppose were detectives, and seemed to be greatly interested in
+Aylmore."
+
+"If I don't see Rathbury tonight I'll see him in the morning," said
+Spargo. He rose as if to go, but after lingering a moment, sat down
+again. "Look here," he continued, "I don't know how this thing stands
+in law, but would it be a very weak case against Aylmore if the
+prosecution couldn't show some motive for his killing Marbury?"
+
+Breton smiled.
+
+"There's no necessity to prove motive in murder," he said. "But I'll
+tell you what, Spargo--if the prosecution can show that Aylmore had a
+motive for getting rid of Marbury, if they could prove that it was to
+Aylmore's advantage to silence him--why, then, I don't think he's a
+chance."
+
+"I see. But so far no motive, no reason for his killing Marbury has
+been shown."
+
+"I know of none."
+
+Spargo rose and moved to the door.
+
+"Well, I'm off," he said. Then, as if he suddenly recollected
+something, he turned back. "Oh, by the by," he said, "isn't your
+guardian, Mr. Elphick, a big authority on philately?"
+
+"One of the biggest. Awful enthusiast."
+
+"Do you think he'd tell me a bit about those Australian stamps which
+Marbury showed to Criedir, the dealer?"
+
+"Certain, he would--delighted. Here"--and Breton scribbled a few words
+on a card--"there's his address and a word from me. I'll tell you when
+you can always find him in, five nights out of seven--at nine o'clock,
+after he's dined. I'd go with you tonight, but I must go to Aylmore's.
+The two girls are in terrible trouble."
+
+"Give them a message from me," said Spargo as they went out together.
+"Tell them to keep up their hearts and their courage."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
+
+MR. ELPHICK'S CHAMBERS
+
+
+Spargo went round again to the Temple that night at nine o'clock,
+asking himself over and over again two questions--the first, how much
+does Elphick know? the second, how much shall I tell him?
+
+The old house in the Temple to which he repaired and in which many a
+generation of old fogies had lived since the days of Queen Anne, was
+full of stairs and passages, and as Spargo had forgotten to get the
+exact number of the set of chambers he wanted, he was obliged to wander
+about in what was a deserted building. So wandering, he suddenly heard
+steps, firm, decisive steps coming up a staircase which he himself had
+just climbed. He looked over the banisters down into the hollow
+beneath. And there, marching up resolutely, was the figure of a tall,
+veiled woman, and Spargo suddenly realized, with a sharp quickening of
+his pulses, that for the second time that day he was beneath one roof
+with Miss Baylis.
+
+Spargo's mind acted quickly. Knowing what he now knew, from his
+extraordinary dealings with Mother Gutch, he had no doubt whatever that
+Miss Baylis had come to see Mr. Elphick--come, of course, to tell Mr.
+Elphick that he, Spargo, had visited her that morning, and that he was
+on the track of the Maitland secret history. He had never thought of it
+before, for he had been busily engaged since the departure of Mother
+Gutch; but, naturally, Miss Baylis and Mr. Elphick would keep in
+communication with each other. At any rate, here she was, and her
+destination was, surely, Elphick's chambers. And the question for him,
+Spargo, was--what to do?
+
+What Spargo did was to remain in absolute silence, motionless, tense,
+where he was on the stair, and to trust to the chance that the woman
+did not look up. But Miss Baylis neither looked up nor down: she
+reached a landing, turned along a corridor with decision, and marched
+forward. A moment later Spargo heard a sharp double knock on a door: a
+moment after that he heard a door heavily shut; he knew then that Miss
+Baylis had sought and gained admittance--somewhere.
+
+To find out precisely where that somewhere was drew Spargo down to the
+landing which Miss Baylis had just left. There was no one about--he had
+not, in fact, seen a soul since he entered the building. Accordingly he
+went along the corridor into which he had seen Miss Baylis turn. He
+knew that all the doors in that house were double ones, and that the
+outer oak in each was solid and substantial enough to be sound proof.
+Yet, as men will under such circumstances, he walked softly; he said to
+himself, smiling at the thought, that he would be sure to start if
+somebody suddenly opened a door on him. But no hand opened any door,
+and at last he came to the end of the corridor and found himself
+confronting a small board on which was painted in white letters on a
+black ground, Mr. Elphick's Chambers.
+
+Having satisfied himself as to his exact whereabouts, Spargo drew back
+as quietly as he had come. There was a window half-way along the
+corridor from which, he had noticed as he came along, one could catch a
+glimpse of the Embankment and the Thames; to this he withdrew, and
+leaning on the sill looked out and considered matters. Should he go
+and--if he could gain admittance--beard these two conspirators? Should
+he wait until the woman came out and let her see that he was on the
+track? Should he hide again until she went, and then see Elphick alone?
+
+In the end Spargo did none of these things immediately. He let things
+slide for the moment. He lighted a cigarette and stared at the river
+and the brown sails, and the buildings across on the Surrey side. Ten
+minutes went by--twenty minutes--nothing happened. Then, as half-past
+nine struck from all the neighbouring clocks, Spargo flung away a
+second cigarette, marched straight down the corridor and knocked boldly
+at Mr. Elphick's door.
+
+Greatly to Spargo's surprise, the door was opened before there was any
+necessity to knock again. And there, calmly confronting him, a
+benevolent, yet somewhat deprecating expression on his spectacled and
+placid face, stood Mr. Elphick, a smoking cap on his head, a tasseled
+smoking jacket over his dress shirt, and a short pipe in his hand.
+
+Spargo was taken aback: Mr. Elphick apparently was not. He held the
+door well open, and motioned the journalist to enter.
+
+"Come in, Mr. Spargo," he said. "I was expecting you. Walk forward into
+my sitting-room."
+
+Spargo, much astonished at this reception, passed through an ante-room
+into a handsomely furnished apartment full of books and pictures. In
+spite of the fact that it was still very little past midsummer there
+was a cheery fire in the grate, and on a table set near a roomy
+arm-chair was set such creature comforts as a spirit-case, a syphon, a
+tumbler, and a novel--from which things Spargo argued that Mr. Elphick
+had been taking his ease since his dinner. But in another armchair on
+the opposite side of the hearth was the forbidding figure of Miss
+Baylis, blacker, gloomier, more mysterious than ever. She neither spoke
+nor moved when Spargo entered: she did not even look at him. And Spargo
+stood staring at her until Mr. Elphick, having closed his doors,
+touched him on the elbow, and motioned him courteously to a seat.
+
+"Yes, I was expecting you, Mr. Spargo," he said, as he resumed his own
+chair. "I have been expecting you at any time, ever since you took up
+your investigation of the Marbury affair, in some of the earlier stages
+of which you saw me, you will remember, at the mortuary. But since Miss
+Baylis told me, twenty minutes ago, that you had been to her this
+morning I felt sure that it would not be more than a few hours before
+you would come to me."
+
+"Why, Mr. Elphick, should you suppose that I should come to you at
+all?" asked Spargo, now in full possession of his wits.
+
+"Because I felt sure that you would leave no stone unturned, no corner
+unexplored," replied Mr. Elphick. "The curiosity of the modern pressman
+is insatiable."
+
+Spargo stiffened.
+
+"I have no curiosity, Mr. Elphick," he said. "I am charged by my paper
+to investigate the circumstances of the death of the man who was found
+in Middle Temple Lane, and, if possible, to track his murderer,
+and----"
+
+Mr. Elphick laughed slightly and waved his hand.
+
+"My good young gentleman!" he said. "You exaggerate your own
+importance. I don't approve of modern journalism nor of its methods. In
+your own case you have got hold of some absurd notion that the man John
+Marbury was in reality one John Maitland, once of Market Milcaster, and
+you have been trying to frighten Miss Baylis here into----"
+
+Spargo suddenly rose from his chair. There was a certain temper in him
+which, when once roused, led him to straight hitting, and it was roused
+now. He looked the old barrister full in the face.
+
+"Mr. Elphick," he said, "you are evidently unaware of all that I know.
+So I will tell you what I will do. I will go back to my office, and I
+will write down what I do know, and give the true and absolute proofs
+of what I know, and, if you will trouble yourself to read the
+_Watchman_ tomorrow morning, then you, too, will know."
+
+"Dear me--dear me!" said Mr. Elphick, banteringly. "We are so used to
+ultra-sensational stories from the _Watchman_ that--but I am a curious
+and inquisitive old man, my good young sir, so perhaps you will tell me
+in a word what it is you do know, eh?"
+
+Spargo reflected for a second. Then he bent forward across the table
+and looked the old barrister straight in the face.
+
+"Yes," he said quietly. "I will tell you what I know beyond doubt. I
+know that the man murdered under the name of John Marbury was, without
+doubt, John Maitland, of Market Milcaster, and that Ronald Breton is
+his son, whom you took from that woman!"
+
+If Spargo had desired a complete revenge for the cavalier fashion in
+which Mr. Elphick had treated it he could not have been afforded a more
+ample one than that offered to him by the old barrister's reception of
+this news. Mr. Elphick's face not only fell, but changed; his
+expression of almost sneering contempt was transformed to one clearly
+resembling abject terror; he dropped his pipe, fell back in his chair,
+recovered himself, gripped the chair's arms, and stared at Spargo as if
+the young man had suddenly announced to him that in another minute he
+must be led to instant execution. And Spargo, quick to see his
+advantage, followed it up.
+
+"That is what I know, Mr. Elphick, and if I choose, all the world shall
+know it tomorrow morning!" he said firmly. "Ronald Breton is the son of
+the murdered man, and Ronald Breton is engaged to be married to the
+daughter of the man charged with the murder. Do you hear that? It is
+not matter of suspicion, or of idea, or of conjecture, it is
+fact--fact!"
+
+Mr. Elphick slowly turned his face to Miss Baylis. He gasped out a few
+words.
+
+"You--did--not--tell--me--this!"
+
+Then Spargo, turning to the woman, saw that she, too, was white to the
+lips and as frightened as the man.
+
+"I--didn't know!" she muttered. "He didn't tell me. He only told me
+this morning what--what I've told you."
+
+Spargo picked up his hat.
+
+"Good-night, Mr. Elphick," he said.
+
+But before he could reach the door the old barrister had leapt from his
+chair and seized him with trembling hands. Spargo turned and looked at
+him. He knew then that for some reason or other he had given Mr.
+Septimus Elphick a thoroughly bad fright.
+
+"Well?" he growled.
+
+"My dear young gentleman!" implored Mr. Elphick. "Don't go! I'll--I'll
+do anything for you if you won't go away to print that. I'll--I'll give
+you a thousand pounds!"
+
+Spargo shook him off.
+
+"That's enough!" he snarled. "Now, I am off! What, you'd try to bribe
+me?"
+
+Mr. Elphick wrung his hands.
+
+"I didn't mean that--indeed I didn't!" he almost wailed. "I--I don't
+know what I meant. Stay, young gentleman, stay a little, and let
+us--let us talk. Let me have a word with you--as many words as you
+please. I implore you!"
+
+Spargo made a fine pretence of hesitation.
+
+"If I stay," he said, at last, "it will only be on the strict condition
+that you answer--and answer truly--whatever questions I like to ask
+you. Otherwise----"
+
+He made another move to the door, and again Mr. Elphick laid beseeching
+hands on him.
+
+"Stay!" he said. "I'll answer anything you like!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
+
+OF PROVED IDENTITY
+
+
+Spargo sat down again in the chair which he had just left, and looked
+at the two people upon whom his startling announcement had produced
+such a curious effect. And he recognized as he looked at them that,
+while they were both frightened, they were frightened in different
+ways. Miss Baylis had already recovered her composure; she now sat
+sombre and stern as ever, returning Spargo's look with something of
+indifferent defiance; he thought he could see that in her mind a
+certain fear was battling with a certain amount of wonder that he had
+discovered the secret. It seemed to him that so far as she was
+concerned the secret had come to an end; it was as if she said in so
+many words that now the secret was out he might do his worst.
+
+But upon Mr. Septimus Elphick the effect was very different. He was
+still trembling from excitement; he groaned as he sank into his chair
+and the hand with which he poured out a glass of spirits shook; the
+glass rattled against his teeth when he raised it to his lips. The
+half-contemptuous fashion of his reception of Spargo had now wholly
+disappeared; he was a man who had received a shock, and a bad one. And
+Spargo, watching him keenly, said to himself: This man knows a great
+deal more than, a great deal beyond, the mere fact that Marbury was
+Maitland, and that Ronald Breton is in reality Maitland's son; he knows
+something which he never wanted anybody to know, which he firmly
+believed it impossible anybody ever could know. It was as if he had
+buried something deep, deep down in the lowest depths, and was as
+astounded as he was frightened to find that it had been at last flung
+up to the broad light of day.
+
+"I shall wait," suddenly said Spargo, "until you are composed, Mr.
+Elphick. I have no wish to distress you. But I see, of course, that the
+truths which I have told you are of a sort that cause you
+considerable--shall we say fear?"
+
+Elphick took another stiff pull at his liquor. His hand had grown
+steadier, and the colour was coming back to his face.
+
+"If you will let me explain," he said. "If you will hear what was done
+for the boy's sake--eh?"
+
+"That," answered Spargo, "is precisely what I wish. I can tell you
+this--I am the last man in the world to wish harm of any sort to Mr.
+Breton."
+
+Miss Baylis relieved her feelings with a scornful sniff. "He says
+that!" she exclaimed, addressing the ceiling. "He says that, knowing
+that he means to tell the world in his rag of a paper that Ronald
+Breton, on whom every care has been lavished, is the son of a
+scoundrel, an ex-convict, a----"
+
+Elphick lifted his hand.
+
+"Hush--hush!" he said imploringly. "Mr. Spargo means well, I am sure--I
+am convinced. If Mr. Spargo will hear me----"
+
+But before Spargo could reply, a loud insistent knocking came at the
+outer door. Elphick started nervously, but presently he moved across
+the room, walking as if he had received a blow, and opened the door. A
+boy's voice penetrated into the sitting-room.
+
+"If you please, sir, is Mr. Spargo, of the _Watchman_, here? He left
+this address in case he was wanted."
+
+Spargo recognized the voice as that of one of the office messenger
+boys, and jumping up, went to the door.
+
+"What is it, Rawlins?" he asked.
+
+"Will you please come back to the office, sir, at once? There's Mr.
+Rathbury there and says he must see you instantly."
+
+"All right," answered Spargo. "I'm coming just now."
+
+He motioned the lad away, and turned to Elphick.
+
+"I shall have to go," he said. "I may be kept. Now, Mr. Elphick, can I
+come to see you tomorrow morning?"
+
+"Yes, yes, tomorrow morning!" replied Elphick eagerly. "Tomorrow
+morning, certainly. At eleven--eleven o'clock. That will do?"
+
+"I shall be here at eleven," said Spargo. "Eleven sharp."
+
+He was moving away when Elphick caught him by the sleeve.
+
+"A word--just a word!" he said. "You--you have not told the--the
+boy--Ronald--of what you know? You haven't?"
+
+"I haven't," replied Spargo.
+
+Elphick tightened his grip on Spargo's sleeve. He looked into his face
+beseechingly.
+
+"Promise me--promise me, Mr. Spargo, that you won't tell him until you
+have seen me in the morning!" he implored. "I beg you to promise me
+this."
+
+Spargo hesitated, considering matters.
+
+"Very well--I promise," he said.
+
+"And you won't print it?" continued Elphick, still clinging to him.
+"Say you won't print it tonight?"
+
+"I shall not print it tonight," answered Spargo. "That's certain."
+
+Elphick released his grip on the young man's arm.
+
+"Come--at eleven tomorrow morning," he said, and drew back and closed
+the door.
+
+Spargo ran quickly to the office and hurried up to his own room. And
+there, calmly seated in an easy-chair, smoking a cigar, and reading an
+evening newspaper, was Rathbury, unconcerned and outwardly as
+imperturbable as ever. He greeted Spargo with a careless nod and a
+smile.
+
+"Well," he said, "how's things?"
+
+Spargo, half-breathless, dropped into his desk-chair.
+
+"You didn't come here to tell me that," he said.
+
+Rathbury laughed.
+
+"No," he said, throwing the newspaper aside, "I didn't. I came to tell
+you my latest. You're at full liberty to stick it into your paper
+tonight: it may just as well be known."
+
+"Well?" said Spargo.
+
+Rathbury took his cigar out of his lips and yawned.
+
+"Aylmore's identified," he said lazily.
+
+Spargo sat up, sharply.
+
+"Identified!"
+
+"Identified, my son. Beyond doubt."
+
+"But as whom--as what?" exclaimed Spargo.
+
+Rathbury laughed.
+
+"He's an old lag--an ex-convict. Served his time partly at Dartmoor.
+That, of course, is where he met Maitland or Marbury. D'ye see? Clear
+as noontide now, Spargo."
+
+Spargo sat drumming his fingers on the desk before him. His eyes were
+fixed on a map of London that hung on the opposite wall; his ears heard
+the throbbing of the printing-machines far below. But what he really
+saw was the faces of the two girls; what he really heard was the voices
+of two girls ...
+
+"Clear as noontide--as noontide," repeated Rathbury with great
+cheerfulness.
+
+Spargo came back to the earth of plain and brutal fact.
+
+"What's clear as noontide?" he asked sharply.
+
+"What? Why, the whole thing! Motive--everything," answered Rathbury.
+"Don't you see, Maitland and Aylmore (his real name is Ainsworth, by
+the by) meet at Dartmoor, probably, or, rather, certainly, just before
+Aylmore's release. Aylmore goes abroad, makes money, in time comes
+back, starts new career, gets into Parliament, becomes big man. In
+time, Maitland, who, after his time, has also gone abroad, also comes
+back. The two meet. Maitland probably tries to blackmail Aylmore or
+threatens to let folk know that the flourishing Mr. Aylmore, M.P., is
+an ex-convict. Result--Aylmore lures him to the Temple and quiets him.
+Pooh!--the whole thing's clear as noontide, as I say. As--noontide!"
+
+Spargo drummed his fingers again.
+
+"How?" he asked quietly. "How came Aylmore to be identified?"
+
+"My work," said Rathbury proudly. "My work, my son. You see, I thought
+a lot. And especially after we'd found out that Marbury was Maitland."
+
+"You mean after I'd found out," remarked Spargo.
+
+Rathbury waved his cigar.
+
+"Well, well, it's all the same," he said. "You help me, and I help you,
+eh? Well, as I say, I thought a considerable lot. I thought--now, where
+did Maitland, or Marbury, know or meet Aylmore twenty or twenty-two
+years ago? Not in London, because we knew Maitland never was in
+London--at any rate, before his trial, and we haven't the least proof
+that he was in London after. And why won't Aylmore tell? Clearly
+because it must have been in some undesirable place. And then, all of a
+sudden, it flashed on me in a moment of--what do you writing fellows
+call those moments, Spargo?"
+
+"Inspiration, I should think," said Spargo. "Direct inspiration."
+
+"That's it. In a moment of direct inspiration, it flashed on me--why,
+twenty years ago, Maitland was in Dartmoor--they must have met there!
+And so, we got some old warders who'd been there at that time to come
+to town, and we gave 'em opportunities to see Aylmore and to study him.
+Of course, he's twenty years older, and he's grown a beard, but they
+began to recall him, and then one man remembered that if he was the man
+they thought he'd a certain birth-mark. And--he has!"
+
+"Does Aylmore know that he's been identified?" asked Spargo.
+
+Rathbury pitched his cigar into the fireplace and laughed.
+
+"Know!" he said scornfully. "Know? He's admitted it. What was the use
+of standing out against proof like that. He admitted it tonight in my
+presence. Oh, he knows all right!"
+
+"And what did he say?"
+
+Rathbury laughed contemptuously.
+
+"Say? Oh, not much. Pretty much what he said about this affair--that
+when he was convicted the time before he was an innocent man. He's
+certainly a good hand at playing the innocent game."
+
+"And of what was he convicted?"
+
+"Oh, of course, we know all about it--now. As soon as we found out who
+he really was, we had all the particulars turned up. Aylmore, or
+Ainsworth (Stephen Ainsworth his name really is) was a man who ran a
+sort of what they call a Mutual Benefit Society in a town right away up
+in the North--Cloudhampton--some thirty years ago. He was nominally
+secretary, but it was really his own affair. It was patronized by the
+working classes--Cloudhampton's a purely artisan population--and they
+stuck a lot of their brass, as they call it, in it. Then suddenly
+it came to smash, and there was nothing. He--Ainsworth, or
+Aylmore--pleaded that he was robbed and duped by another man, but the
+court didn't believe him, and he got seven years. Plain story you see,
+Spargo, when it all comes out, eh?"
+
+"All stories are quite plain--when they come out," observed Spargo.
+"And he kept silence now, I suppose, because he didn't want his
+daughters to know about his past?"
+
+"Just so," agreed Rathbury. "And I don't know that I blame him. He
+thought, of course, that he'd go scot-free over this Marbury affair.
+But he made his mistake in the initial stages, my boy--oh, yes!"
+
+Spargo got up from his desk and walked around his room for a few
+minutes, Rathbury meanwhile finding and lighting another cigar. At last
+Spargo came back and clapped a hand on the detective's shoulder.
+
+"Look here, Rathbury!" he said. "It's very evident that you're now
+going on the lines that Aylmore did murder Marbury. Eh?"
+
+Rathbury looked up. His face showed astonishment.
+
+"After evidence like that!" he exclaimed. "Why, of course. There's the
+motive, my son, the motive!"
+
+Spargo laughed.
+
+"Rathbury!" he said. "Aylmore no more murdered Marbury than you did!"
+
+The detective got up and put on his hat.
+
+"Oh!" he said. "Perhaps you know who did, then?"
+
+"I shall know in a few days," answered Spargo.
+
+Rathbury stared wonderingly at him. Then he suddenly walked to the
+door. "Good-night!" he said gruffly.
+
+"Good-night, Rathbury," replied Spargo and sat down at his desk.
+
+But that night Spargo wrote nothing for the _Watchman_. All he wrote
+was a short telegram addressed to Aylmore's daughters. There were only
+three words on it--_Have no fear._
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
+
+THE CLOSED DOORS
+
+
+Alone of all the London morning newspapers, the _Watchman_ appeared
+next day destitute of sensationalism in respect to the Middle Temple
+Murder. The other daily journals published more or less vivid accounts
+of the identification of Mr. Stephen Aylmore, M.P. for the Brookminster
+Division, as the _ci-devant_ Stephen Ainsworth, ex-convict, once upon a
+time founder and secretary of the Hearth and Home Mutual Benefit
+Society, the headquarters of which had been at Cloudhampton, in
+Daleshire; the fall of which had involved thousands of honest working
+folk in terrible distress if not in absolute ruin. Most of them had
+raked up Ainsworth's past to considerable journalistic purpose: it had
+been an easy matter to turn up old files, to recount the fall of the
+Hearth and Home, to tell anew the story of the privations of the humble
+investors whose small hoards had gone in the crash; it had been easy,
+too, to set out again the history of Ainsworth's arrest, trial, and
+fate. There was plenty of romance in the story: it was that of a man
+who by his financial ability had built up a great industrial insurance
+society; had--as was alleged--converted the large sums entrusted to him
+to his own purposes; had been detected and punished; had disappeared,
+after his punishment, so effectually that no one knew where he had
+gone; had come back, comparatively a few years later, under another
+name, a very rich man, and had entered Parliament and been, in a modest
+way, a public character without any of those who knew him in his new
+career suspecting that he had once worn a dress liberally ornamented
+with the broad arrow. Fine copy, excellent copy: some of the morning
+newspapers made a couple of columns of it.
+
+But the _Watchman_, up to then easily ahead of all its contemporaries
+in keeping the public informed of all the latest news in connection
+with the Marbury affair, contented itself with a brief announcement.
+For after Rathbury had left him, Spargo had sought his proprietor and
+his editor, and had sat long in consultation with them, and the result
+of their talk had been that all the _Watchman_ thought fit to tell its
+readers next morning was contained in a curt paragraph:
+
+"We understand that Mr. Stephen Aylmore, M.P., who is charged with the
+murder of John Marbury, or Maitland, in the Temple on June 21st last,
+was yesterday afternoon identified by certain officials as Stephen
+Ainsworth, who was sentenced to a term of penal servitude in connection
+with the Hearth and Home Mutual Benefit Society funds nearly thirty
+years ago."
+
+Coming down to Fleet Street that morning, Spargo, strolling jauntily
+along the front of the Law Courts, encountered a fellow-journalist, a
+man on an opposition newspaper, who grinned at him in a fashion which
+indicated derision.
+
+"Left behind a bit, that rag of yours, this morning, Spargo, my boy!"
+he remarked elegantly. "Why, you've missed one of the finest
+opportunities I ever heard of in connection with that Aylmore affair. A
+miserable paragraph!--why, I worked off a column and a half in ours!
+What were you doing last night, old man?"
+
+"Sleeping," said Spargo and went by with a nod. "Sleeping!"
+
+He left the other staring at him, and crossed the road to Middle Temple
+Lane. It was just on the stroke of eleven as he walked up the stairs to
+Mr. Elphick's chambers; precisely eleven as he knocked at the outer
+door. It is seldom that outer doors are closed in the Temple at that
+hour, but Elphick's door was closed fast enough. The night before it
+had been promptly opened, but there was no response to Spargo's first
+knock, nor to his second, nor to his third. And half-unconsciously he
+murmured aloud: "Elphick's door is closed!"
+
+It never occurred to Spargo to knock again: instinct told him that
+Elphick's door was closed because Elphick was not there; closed because
+Elphick was not going to keep the appointment. He turned and walked
+slowly back along the corridor. And just as he reached the head of the
+stairs Ronald Breton, pale and anxious, came running up them, and at
+sight of Spargo paused, staring questioningly at him. As if with a
+mutual sympathy the two young men shook hands.
+
+"I'm glad you didn't print more than those two or three lines in the
+_Watchman_ this morning," said Breton. "It was--considerate. As for the
+other papers!--Aylmore assured me last night, Spargo, that though he
+did serve that term at Dartmoor he was innocent enough! He was
+scapegoat for another man who disappeared."
+
+Then, as Spargo merely nodded, he added, awkwardly:
+
+"And I'm obliged to you, too, old chap, for sending that wire to the
+two girls last night--it was good of you. They want all the comfort
+they can get, poor things! But--what are you doing here, Spargo?"
+
+Spargo leant against the head of the stairs and folded his hands.
+
+"I came here," he said, "to keep an appointment with Mr. Elphick--an
+appointment which he made when I called on him, as you suggested, at
+nine o'clock. The appointment--a most important one--was for eleven
+o'clock."
+
+Breton glanced at his watch.
+
+"Come on, then," he said. "It's well past that now, and my guardian's a
+very martinet in the matter of punctuality."
+
+But Spargo did not move. Instead, he shook his head, regarding Breton
+with troubled eyes.
+
+"So am I," he answered. "I was trained to it. Your guardian isn't
+there, Breton."
+
+"Not there? If he made an appointment for eleven? Nonsense--I never
+knew him miss an appointment!"
+
+"I knocked three times--three separate times," answered Spargo.
+
+"You should have knocked half a dozen times--he may have overslept
+himself. He sits up late--he and old Cardlestone often sit up half the
+night, talking stamps or playing piquet," said Breton. "Come on--you'll
+see!"
+
+Spargo shook his head again.
+
+"He's not there, Breton," he said. "He's gone!"
+
+Breton stared at the journalist as if he had just announced that he had
+seen Mr. Septimus Elphick riding down Fleet Street on a dromedary. He
+seized Spargo's elbow.
+
+"Come on!" he said. "I have a key to Mr. Elphick's door, so that I can
+go in and out as I like. I'll soon show you whether he's gone or not."
+
+Spargo followed the young barrister down the corridor.
+
+"All the same," he said meditatively as Breton fitted a key to the
+latch, "he's not there, Breton. He's--off!"
+
+"Good heavens, man, I don't know what you're talking about!" exclaimed
+Breton, opening the door and walking into the lobby. "Off! Where on
+earth should he be off to, when he's made an appointment with you for
+eleven, and--Hullo!"
+
+He had opened the door of the room in which Spargo had met Elphick and
+Miss Baylis the night before, and was walking in when he pulled himself
+up on the threshold with a sharp exclamation.
+
+"Good God!" he cried. "What--what's all this?"
+
+Spargo quietly looked over Breton's shoulder. It needed but one quick
+glance to show him that much had happened in that quiet room since he
+had quitted it the night before. There stood the easy-chair in which he
+had left Elphick; there, close by it, but pushed aside, as if by a
+hurried hand, was the little table with its spirit case, its syphon,
+its glass, in which stale liquid still stood; there was the novel,
+turned face downwards; there, upon the novel, was Elphick's pipe. But
+the rest of the room was in dire confusion. The drawers of a bureau had
+been pulled open and never put back; papers of all descriptions, old
+legal-looking documents, old letters, littered the centre-table and
+the floor; in one corner of the room a black japanned box had been
+opened, its contents strewn about, and the lid left yawning. And in the
+grate, and all over the fender there were masses of burned and charred
+paper; it was only too evident that the occupant of the chambers,
+wherever he might have disappeared to, had spent some time before his
+disappearance in destroying a considerable heap of documents and
+papers, and in such haste that he had not troubled to put matters
+straight before he went.
+
+Breton stared at this scene for a moment in utter consternation. Then
+he made one step towards an inner door, and Spargo followed him.
+Together they entered an inner room--a sleeping apartment. There was no
+one in it, but there were evidences that Elphick had just as hastily
+packed a bag as he had destroyed his papers. The clothes which Spargo
+had seen him wearing the previous evening were flung here, there,
+everywhere: the gorgeous smoking-jacket was tossed unceremoniously in
+one corner, a dress-shirt, in the bosom of which valuable studs still
+glistened, in another. One or two suitcases lay about, as if they had
+been examined and discarded in favour of something more portable; here,
+too, drawers, revealing stocks of linen and underclothing, had been
+torn open and left open; open, too, swung the door of a wardrobe,
+revealing a quantity of expensive clothing. And Spargo, looking around
+him, seemed to see all that had happened--the hasty, almost frantic
+search for and tearing up and burning of papers; the hurried change of
+clothing, of packing necessaries into a bag that could be carried, and
+then the flight the getting away, the----
+
+"What on earth does all this mean?" exclaimed Breton. "What is it,
+Spargo?"
+
+"I mean exactly what I told you," answered Spargo. "He's off! Off!"
+
+"Off! But why off? What--my guardian!--as quiet an old gentleman as
+there is in the Temple--off!" cried Breton. "For what reason, eh? It
+isn't--good God, Spargo, it isn't because of anything you said to him
+last night!"
+
+"I should say it is precisely because of something that I said to him
+last night," replied Spargo. "I was a fool ever to let him out of my
+sight."
+
+Breton turned on his companion and gasped.
+
+"Out--of--your--sight!" he exclaimed. "Why--why--you don't mean to say
+that Mr. Elphick has anything to do with this Marbury affair? For God's
+sake, Spargo----"
+
+Spargo laid a hand on the young barrister's shoulder.
+
+"I'm afraid you'll have to hear a good deal, Breton," he said. "I was
+going to talk to you today in any case. You see----"
+
+Before Spargo could say more a woman, bearing the implements which
+denote the charwoman's profession, entered the room and immediately
+cried out at what she saw. Breton turned on her almost savagely.
+
+"Here, you!" he said. "Have you seen anything of Mr. Elphick this
+morning?"
+
+The charwoman rolled her eyes and lifted her hands.
+
+"Me, sir! Not a sign of him, sir. Which I never comes here much before
+half-past eleven, sir, Mr. Elphick being then gone out to his
+breakfast. I see him yesterday morning, sir, which he was then in his
+usual state of good health, sir, if any thing's the matter with him
+now. No, sir, I ain't seen nothing of him."
+
+Breton let out another exclamation of impatience.
+
+"You'd better leave all this," he said. "Mr. Elphick's evidently gone
+away in a hurry, and you mustn't touch anything here until he comes
+back. I'm going to lock up the chambers: if you've a key of them give
+it to me."
+
+The charwoman handed over a key, gave another astonished look at the
+rooms, and vanished, muttering, and Breton turned to Spargo.
+
+"What do you say?" he demanded. "I must hear--a good deal! Out with it,
+then, man, for Heaven's sake."
+
+But Spargo shook his head.
+
+"Not now, Breton," he answered. "Presently, I tell you, for Miss
+Aylmore's sake, and your own, the first thing to do is to get on your
+guardian's track. We must--must, I say!--and at once."
+
+Breton stood staring at Spargo for a moment as if he could not credit
+his own senses. Then he suddenly motioned Spargo out of the room.
+
+"Come on!" he said. "I know who'll know where he is, if anybody does."
+
+"Who, then?" asked Spargo, as they hurried out.
+
+"Cardlestone," answered Breton, grimly. "Cardlestone!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THIRTY
+
+REVELATION
+
+
+There was as much bright sunshine that morning in Middle Temple Lane as
+ever manages to get into it, and some of it was shining in the entry
+into which Spargo and Breton presently hurried. Full of haste as he was
+Breton paused at the foot of the stair. He looked down at the floor and
+at the wall at its side.
+
+"Wasn't it there?" he said in a low voice, pointing at the place he
+looked at. "Wasn't it there, Spargo, just there, that Marbury, or,
+rather, Maitland, was found?"
+
+"It was just there," answered Spargo.
+
+"You saw him?"
+
+"I saw him."
+
+"Soon--afterwards?"
+
+"Immediately after he was found. You know all that, Breton. Why do you
+ask now?"
+
+Breton, who was still staring at the place on which he had fixed his
+eyes on walking into the entry, shook his head.
+
+"Don't know," he answered. "I--but come on--let's see if old
+Cardlestone can tell us anything."
+
+There was another charwoman, armed with pails and buckets, outside
+Cardlestone's door, into which she was just fitting a key. It was
+evident to Spargo that she knew Breton, for she smiled at him as she
+opened the door.
+
+"I don't think Mr. Cardlestone'll be in, sir," she said. "He's
+generally gone out to breakfast at this time--him and Mr. Elphick goes
+together."
+
+"Just see," said Breton. "I want to see him if he is in." The charwoman
+entered the chambers and immediately screamed.
+
+"Quite so," remarked Spargo. "That's what I expected to hear.
+Cardlestone, you see, Breton, is also--off!"
+
+Breton made no reply. He rushed after the charwoman, with Spargo in
+close attendance.
+
+"Good God--another!" groaned Breton.
+
+If the confusion in Elphick's rooms had been bad, that in Cardlestone's
+chambers was worse. Here again all the features of the previous scene
+were repeated--drawers had been torn open, papers thrown about; the
+hearth was choked with light ashes; everything was at sixes and sevens.
+An open door leading into an inner room showed that Cardlestone, like
+Elphick, had hastily packed a bag; like Elphick had changed his
+clothes, and had thrown his discarded garments anywhere, into any
+corner. Spargo began to realize what had taken place--Elphick, having
+made his own preparations for flight, had come to Cardlestone, and had
+expedited him, and they had fled together. But--why?
+
+The charwoman sat down in the nearest chair and began to moan and sob;
+Breton strode forward, across the heaps of papers and miscellaneous
+objects tossed aside in that hurried search and clearing up, into the
+inner room. And Spargo, looking about him, suddenly caught sight of
+something lying on the floor at which he made a sharp clutch. He had
+just secured it and hurried it into his pocket when Breton came back.
+
+"I don't know what all this means, Spargo," he said, almost wearily. "I
+suppose you do. Look here," he went on, turning to the charwoman, "stop
+that row--that'll do no good, you know. I suppose Mr. Cardlestone's
+gone away in a hurry. You'd better--what had she better do, Spargo?"
+
+"Leave things exactly as they are, lock up the chambers, and as you're
+a friend of Mr. Cardlestone's give you the key," answered Spargo, with
+a significant glance. "Do that, now, and let's go--I've something to
+do." Once outside, with the startled charwoman gone away, Spargo turned
+to Breton.
+
+"I'll tell you all I know, presently, Breton," he said. "In the
+meantime, I want to find out if the lodge porter saw Mr. Elphick or Mr.
+Cardlestone leave. I must know where they've gone--if I can only find
+out. I don't suppose they went on foot."
+
+"All right," responded Breton, gloomily. "We'll go and ask. But this is
+all beyond me. You don't mean to say----"
+
+"Wait a while," answered Spargo. "One thing at once," he continued, as
+they walked up Middle Temple Lane. "This is the first thing. You ask
+the porter if he's seen anything of either of them--he knows you."
+
+The porter, duly interrogated, responded with alacrity.
+
+"Anything of Mr. Elphick this morning, Mr. Breton?" he answered.
+"Certainly, sir. I got a taxi for Mr. Elphick and Mr. Cardlestone early
+this morning--soon after seven. Mr. Elphick said they were going to
+Paris, and they'd breakfast at Charing Cross before the train left."
+
+"Say when they'd be back?" asked Breton, with an assumption of entire
+carelessness.
+
+"No, sir, Mr. Elphick didn't," answered the porter. "But I should say
+they wouldn't be long because they'd only got small suit-cases with
+them--such as they'd put a day or two's things in, sir."
+
+"All right," said Breton. He turned away towards Spargo who had already
+moved off. "What next?" he asked. "Charing Cross, I suppose!"
+
+Spargo smiled and shook his head.
+
+"No," he answered. "I've no use for Charing Cross. They haven't gone to
+Paris. That was all a blind. For the present let's go back to your
+chambers. Then I'll talk to you."
+
+Once within Breton's inner room, with the door closed upon them, Spargo
+dropped into an easy-chair and looked at the young barrister with
+earnest attention.
+
+"Breton!" he said. "I believe we're coming in sight of land. You want
+to save your prospective father-in-law, don't you?"
+
+"Of course!" growled Breton. "That goes without saying. But----"
+
+"But you may have to make some sacrifices in order to do it," said
+Spargo. "You see----"
+
+"Sacrifices!" exclaimed Breton. "What----"
+
+"You may have to sacrifice some ideas--you may find that you'll not be
+able to think as well of some people in the future as you have thought
+of them in the past. For instance--Mr. Elphick."
+
+Breton's face grew dark.
+
+"Speak plainly, Spargo!" he said. "It's best with me."
+
+"Very well," replied Spargo. "Mr. Elphick, then, is in some way
+connected with this affair."
+
+"You mean the--murder?"
+
+"I mean the murder. So is Cardlestone. Of that I'm now dead certain.
+And that's why they're off. I startled Elphick last night. It's evident
+that he immediately communicated with Cardlestone, and that they made a
+rapid exit. Why?"
+
+"Why? That's what I'm asking you! Why? Why? Why?"
+
+"Because they're afraid of something coming out. And being afraid,
+their first instinct is to--run. They've run at the first alarm.
+Foolish--but instinctive."
+
+Breton, who had flung himself into the elbow-chair at his desk, jumped
+to his feet and thumped his blotting-pad.
+
+"Spargo!" he exclaimed. "Are you telling me that you accuse my guardian
+and his friend, Mr. Cardlestone. of being--murderers?"
+
+"Nothing of the sort. I am accusing Mr. Elphick and Mr. Cardlestone of
+knowing more about the murder than they care to tell or want to tell. I
+am also accusing them, and especially your guardian, of knowing all
+about Maitland, alias Marbury. I made him confess last night that he
+knew this dead man to be John Maitland."
+
+"You did!"
+
+"I did. And now, Breton, since it's got to come out, we'll have the
+truth. Pull yourself together--get your nerves ready, for you'll have
+to stand a shock or two. But I know what I'm talking about--I can prove
+every word I'm going to say to you. And first let me ask you a few
+questions. Do you know anything about your parentage?"
+
+"Nothing--beyond what Mr. Elphick has told me."
+
+"And what was that?"
+
+"That my parents were old friends of his, who died young, leaving me
+unprovided for, and that he took me up and looked after me."
+
+"And he's never given you any documentary evidence of any sort to prove
+the truth of that story?"
+
+"Never! I never questioned his statement. Why should I?"
+
+"You never remember anything of your childhood--I mean of any person
+who was particularly near you in your childhood?"
+
+"I remember the people who brought me up from the time I was three
+years old. And I have just a faint, shadowy recollection of some woman,
+a tall, dark woman, I think, before that."
+
+"Miss Baylis," said Spargo to himself. "All right, Breton," he went on
+aloud. "I'm going to tell you the truth. I'll tell it to you straight
+out and give you all the explanations afterwards. Your real name is not
+Breton at all. Your real name is Maitland, and you're the only child of
+the man who was found murdered at the foot of Cardlestone's staircase!"
+
+Spargo had been wondering how Breton would take this, and he gazed at
+him with some anxiety as he got out the last words. What would he
+do?--what would he say?--what----
+
+Breton sat down quietly at his desk and looked Spargo hard between the
+eyes.
+
+"Prove that to me, Spargo," he said, in hard, matter-of-fact tones.
+"Prove it to me, every word. Every word, Spargo!"
+
+Spargo nodded.
+
+"I will--every word," he answered. "It's the right thing. Listen,
+then."
+
+It was a quarter to twelve, Spargo noticed, throwing a glance at the
+clock outside, as he began his story; it was past one when he brought
+it to an end. And all that time Breton listened with the keenest
+attention, only asking a question now and then; now and then making a
+brief note on a sheet of paper which he had drawn to him.
+
+"That's all," said Spargo at last.
+
+"It's plenty," observed Breton laconically.
+
+He sat staring at his notes for a moment; then he looked up at Spargo.
+"What do you really think?" he asked.
+
+"About--what?" said Spargo.
+
+"This flight of Elphick's and Cardlestone's."
+
+"I think, as I said, that they knew something which they think may be
+forced upon them. I never saw a man in a greater fright than that I saw
+Elphick in last night. And it's evident that Cardlestone shares in that
+fright, or they wouldn't have gone off in this way together."
+
+"Do you think they know anything of the actual murder?"
+
+Spargo shook his head.
+
+"I don't know. Probably. They know something. And--look here!"
+
+Spargo put his hand in his breast pocket and drew something out which
+he handed to Breton, who gazed at it curiously.
+
+"What's this?" he demanded. "Stamps?"
+
+"That, from the description of Criedir, the stamp-dealer, is a sheet of
+those rare Australian stamps which Maitland had on him--carried on him.
+I picked it up just now in Cardlestone's room, when you were looking
+into his bedroom."
+
+"But that, after all, proves nothing. Those mayn't be the identical
+stamps. And whether they are or not----"
+
+"What are the probabilities?" interrupted Spargo sharply. "I believe
+that those are the stamps which Maitland--your father!--had on him,
+and I want to know how they came to be in Cardlestone's rooms.
+And I will know."
+
+Breton handed the stamps back.
+
+"But the general thing, Spargo?" he said. "If they didn't murder--I
+can't realize the thing yet!--my father----"
+
+"If they didn't murder your father, they know who did!" exclaimed
+Spargo. "Now, then, it's time for more action. Let Elphick and
+Cardlestone alone for the moment--they'll be tracked easily enough. I
+want to tackle something else for the moment. How do you get an
+authority from the Government to open a grave?"
+
+"Order from the Home Secretary, which will have to be obtained by
+showing the very strongest reasons why it should be made."
+
+"Good! We'll give the reasons. I want to have a grave opened."
+
+"A grave opened! Whose grave?"
+
+"The grave of the man Chamberlayne at Market Milcaster," replied
+Spargo.
+
+Breton started.
+
+"His? In Heaven's name, why?" he demanded.
+
+Spargo laughed as he got up.
+
+"Because I believe it's empty," he answered. "Because I believe that
+Chamberlayne is alive, and that his other name is--Cardlestone!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
+
+THE PENITENT WINDOW-CLEANER
+
+
+That afternoon Spargo had another of his momentous interviews with his
+proprietor and his editor. The first result was that all three drove to
+the offices of the legal gentleman who catered for the _Watchman_ when
+it wanted any law, and that things were put in shape for an immediate
+application to the Home Office for permission to open the Chamberlayne
+grave at Market Milcaster; the second was that on the following morning
+there appeared in the _Watchman_ a notice which set half the mouths of
+London a-watering. That notice; penned by Spargo, ran as follows:--
+
+"ONE THOUSAND POUNDS REWARD.
+
+"WHEREAS, on some date within the past twelve months, there was
+stolen, abstracted, or taken from the chambers in Fountain Court,
+Temple, occupied by Mr. Stephen Aylmore, M.P., under the name of Mr.
+Anderson, a walking-stick, or stout staff, of foreign make, and of
+curious workmanship, which stick was probably used in the murder of
+John Marbury, or Maitland, in Middle Temple Lane, on the night of
+June 21-22 last, and is now in the hands of the police:
+
+"This is to give notice that the Proprietor of the _Watchman_
+newspaper will pay the above-mentioned reward (ONE THOUSAND POUNDS
+STERLING) at once and in cash to whosoever will prove that he or she
+stole, abstracted, or took away the said stick from the said chambers,
+and will further give full information as to his or her disposal of
+the same, and the Proprietor of the _Watchman_ moreover engages to
+treat any revelation affecting the said stick in the most strictly
+private and confidential manner, and to abstain from using it in any
+way detrimental to the informant, who should call at the _Watchman_
+office, and ask for Mr. Frank Spargo at any time between eleven and
+one o'clock midday, and seven and eleven o'clock in the evening."
+
+"And you really expect to get some information through that?" asked
+Breton, who came into Spargo's room about noon on the day on which the
+promising announcement came out. "You really do?"
+
+"Before today is out," said Spargo confidently. "There is more magic in
+a thousand-pound reward than you fancy, Breton. I'll have the history
+of that stick before midnight."
+
+"How are you to tell that you won't be imposed upon?" suggested Breton.
+"Anybody can say that he or she stole the stick."
+
+"Whoever comes here with any tale of a stick will have to prove to me
+how he or she got the stick and what was done with the stick," said
+Spargo. "I haven't the least doubt that that stick was stolen or taken
+away from Aylmore's rooms in Fountain Court, and that it got into the
+hands of--"
+
+"Yes, of whom?"
+
+"That's what I want to know in some fashion. I've an idea, already. But
+I can afford to wait for definite information. I know one thing--when I
+get that information--as I shall--we shall be a long way on the road
+towards establishing Aylmore's innocence."
+
+Breton made no remark upon this. He was looking at Spargo with a
+meditative expression.
+
+"Spargo," he said, suddenly, "do you think you'll get that order for
+the opening of the grave at Market Milcaster?"
+
+"I was talking to the solicitors over the 'phone just now," answered
+Spargo. "They've every confidence about it. In fact, it's possible it
+may be made this afternoon. In that case, the opening will be made
+early tomorrow morning."
+
+"Shall you go?" asked Breton.
+
+"Certainly. And you can go with me, if you like. Better keep in touch
+with us all day in case we hear. You ought to be there--you're
+concerned."
+
+"I should like to go--I will go," said Breton. "And if that grave
+proves to be--empty--I'll--I'll tell you something."
+
+Spargo looked up with sharp instinct.
+
+"You'll tell me something? Something? What?"
+
+"Never mind--wait until we see if that coffin contains a dead body or
+lead and sawdust. If there's no body there----"
+
+At that moment one of the senior messenger boys came in and approached
+Spargo. His countenance, usually subdued to an official stolidity,
+showed signs of something very like excitement.
+
+"There's a man downstairs asking for you, Mr. Spargo," he said. "He's
+been hanging about a bit, sir,--seems very shy about coming up. He
+won't say what he wants, and he won't fill up a form, sir. Says all he
+wants is a word or two with you."
+
+"Bring him up at once!" commanded Spargo. He turned to Breton when the
+boy had gone. "There!" he said, laughing. "This is the man about the
+stick--you see if it isn't."
+
+"You're such a cock-sure chap, Spargo," said Breton. "You're always
+going on a straight line."
+
+"Trying to, you mean," retorted Spargo. "Well, stop here, and hear what
+this chap has to say: it'll no doubt be amusing."
+
+The messenger boy, deeply conscious that he was ushering into Spargo's
+room an individual who might shortly carry away a thousand pounds of
+good _Watchman_ money in his pocket, opened the door and introduced a
+shy and self-conscious young man, whose nervousness was painfully
+apparent to everybody and deeply felt by himself. He halted on the
+threshold, looking round the comfortably-furnished room, and at the two
+well-dressed young men which it framed as if he feared to enter on a
+scene of such grandeur.
+
+"Come in, come in!" said Spargo, rising and pointing to an easy-chair
+at the side of his desk. "Take a seat. You've called about that reward,
+of course."
+
+The man in the chair eyed the two of them cautiously, and not without
+suspicion. He cleared his throat with a palpable effort.
+
+"Of course," he said. "It's all on the strict private. Name of Edward
+Mollison, sir."
+
+"And where do you live, and what do you do?" asked Spargo.
+
+"You might put it down Rowton House, Whitechapel," answered Edward
+Mollison. "Leastways, that's where I generally hang out when I can
+afford it. And--window-cleaner. Leastways, I was window cleaning
+when--when----"
+
+"When you came in contact with the stick we've been advertising about,"
+suggested Spargo. "Just so. Well, Mollison--what about the stick?"
+
+Mollison looked round at the door, and then at the windows, and then at
+Breton.
+
+"There ain't no danger of me being got into trouble along of that
+stick?" he asked. "'Cause if there is, I ain't a-going to say a
+word--no, not for no thousand pounds! Me never having been in no
+trouble of any sort, guv'nor--though a poor man."
+
+"Not the slightest danger in the world, Mollison," replied Spargo. "Not
+the least. All you've got to do is to tell the truth--and prove that it
+is the truth. So it was you who took that queer-looking stick out of
+Mr. Aylmore's rooms in Fountain Court, was it?"
+
+Mollison appeared to find this direct question soothing to his
+feelings. He smiled weakly.
+
+"It was cert'nly me as took it, sir," he said. "Not that I meant to
+pinch it--not me! And, as you might say, I didn't take it, when all's
+said and done. It was--put on me."
+
+"Put on you, was it?" said Spargo. "That's interesting. And how was it
+put on you?"
+
+Mollison grinned again and rubbed his chin.
+
+"It was this here way," he answered. "You see, I was working at that
+time--near on to nine months since, it is--for the Universal Daylight
+Window Cleaning Company, and I used to clean a many windows here and
+there in the Temple, and them windows at Mr. Aylmore's--only I knew
+them as Mr. Anderson's--among 'em. And I was there one morning, early
+it was, when the charwoman she says to me, 'I wish you'd take these two
+or three hearthrugs,' she says, 'and give 'em a good beating,' she
+says. And me being always a ready one to oblige, 'All right!' I says,
+and takes 'em. 'Here's something to wallop 'em with,' she says, and
+pulls that there old stick out of a lot that was in a stand in a corner
+of the lobby. And that's how I came to handle it, sir."
+
+"I see," said Spargo. "A good explanation. And when you had beaten the
+hearthrugs--what then?"
+
+Mollison smiled his weak smile again.
+
+"Well, sir, I looked at that there stick and I see it was something
+uncommon," he answered. "And I thinks--'Well, this Mr. Anderson, he's
+got a bundle of sticks and walking canes up there--he'll never miss this
+old thing,' I thinks. And so I left it in a corner when I'd done
+beating the rugs, and when I went away with my things I took it with
+me."
+
+"You took it with you?" said Spargo. "Just so. To keep as a curiosity,
+I suppose?"
+
+Mollison's weak smile turned to one of cunning. He was obviously losing
+his nervousness; the sound of his own voice and the reception of his
+news was imparting confidence to him.
+
+"Not half!" he answered. "You see, guv'nor, there was an old cove as I
+knew in the Temple there as is, or was, 'cause I ain't been there
+since, a collector of antikities, like, and I'd sold him a queer old
+thing, time and again. And, of course, I had him in my eye when I took
+the stick away--see?"
+
+"I see. And you took the stick to him?"
+
+"I took it there and then," replied Mollison. "Pitched him a tale, I
+did, about it having been brought from foreign parts by Uncle
+Simon--which I never had no Uncle Simon. Made out it was a rare
+curiosity--which it might ha' been one, for all I know."
+
+"Exactly. And the old cove took a fancy to it, eh?"
+
+"Bought it there and then," answered Mollison, with something very like
+a wink.
+
+"Ah! Bought it there and then. And how much did he give you for it?"
+asked Spargo. "Something handsome, I hope?"
+
+"Couple o' quid," replied Mollison. "Me not wishing to part with a
+family heirloom for less."
+
+"Just so. And do you happen to be able to tell me the old cove's name
+and his address, Mollison?" asked Spargo.
+
+"I do, sir. Which they've painted on his entry--the fifth or sixth as
+you go down Middle Temple Lane," answered Mollison. "Mr. Nicholas
+Cardlestone, first floor up the staircase."
+
+Spargo rose from his seat without as much as a look at Breton.
+
+"Come this way, Mollison," he said. "We'll go and see about your little
+reward. Excuse me, Breton."
+
+Breton kicked his heels in solitude for half an hour. Then Spargo came
+back.
+
+"There--that's one matter settled, Breton," he said. "Now for the next.
+The Home Secretary's made the order for the opening of the grave at
+Market Milcaster. I'm going down there at once, and I suppose you're
+coming. And remember, if that grave's empty----"
+
+"If that grave's empty," said Breton, "I'll tell you--a good deal."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
+
+THE CONTENTS OF THE COFFIN
+
+
+There travelled down together to Market Milcaster late that afternoon,
+Spargo, Breton, the officials from the Home Office, entrusted with the
+order for the opening of the Chamberlayne grave, and a solicitor acting
+on behalf of the proprietor of the _Watchman_. It was late in the
+evening when they reached the little town, but Spargo, having looked in
+at the parlour of the "Yellow Dragon" and ascertained that Mr.
+Quarterpage had only just gone home, took Breton across the street to
+the old gentleman's house. Mr. Quarterpage himself came to the door,
+and recognized Spargo immediately. Nothing would satisfy him but that
+the two should go in; his family, he said, had just retired, but he
+himself was going to take a final nightcap and a cigar, and they must
+share it.
+
+"For a few minutes only then, Mr. Quarterpage," said Spargo as they
+followed the old man into his dining-room. "We have to be up at
+daybreak. And--possibly--you, too, would like to be up just as early."
+
+Mr. Quarterpage looked an enquiry over the top of a decanter which he
+was handling.
+
+"At daybreak?" he exclaimed.
+
+"The fact is," said Spargo, "that grave of Chamberlayne's is going to
+be opened at daybreak. We have managed to get an order from the Home
+Secretary for the exhumation of Chamberlayne's body: the officials in
+charge of it have come down in the same train with us; we're all
+staying across there at the 'Dragon.' The officials have gone to make
+the proper arrangements with your authorities. It will be at daybreak,
+or as near it as can conveniently be managed. And I suppose, now that
+you know of it, you'll be there?"
+
+"God bless me!" exclaimed Mr. Quarterpage. "You've really done that!
+Well, well, so we shall know the truth at last, after all these years.
+You're a very wonderful young man, Mr. Spargo, upon my word. And this
+other young gentleman?"
+
+Spargo looked at Breton, who had already given him permission to speak.
+"Mr. Quarterpage," he said, "this young gentleman is, without doubt,
+John Maitland's son. He's the young barrister, Mr. Ronald Breton, that
+I told you of, but there's no doubt about his parentage. And I'm sure
+you'll shake hands with him and wish him well."
+
+Mr. Quarterpage set down decanter and glass and hastened to give Breton
+his hand.
+
+"My dear young sir!" he exclaimed. "That I will indeed! And as to
+wishing you well--ah, I never wished anything but well to your poor
+father. He was led away, sir, led away by Chamberlayne. God bless me,
+what a night of surprises! Why, Mr. Spargo, supposing that coffin is
+found empty--what then?"
+
+"Then," answered Spargo, "then I think we shall be able to put our
+hands on the man who is supposed to be in it."
+
+"You think my father was worked upon by this man Chamberlayne, sir?"
+observed Breton a few minutes later when they had all sat down round
+Mr. Quarterpage's hospitable hearth. "You think he was unduly
+influenced by him?"
+
+Mr. Quarterpage shook his head sadly.
+
+"Chamberlayne, my dear young sir," he answered. "Chamberlayne was a
+plausible and a clever fellow. Nobody knew anything about him until he
+came to this town, and yet before he had been here very long he had
+contrived to ingratiate himself with everybody--of course, to his own
+advantage. I firmly believe that he twisted your father round his
+little finger. As I told Mr. Spargo there when he was making his
+enquiries of me a short while back, it would never have been any
+surprise to me to hear--definitely, I mean, young gentlemen--that all
+this money that was in question went into Chamberlayne's pockets. Dear
+me--dear me!--and you really believe that Chamberlayne is actually
+alive, Mr. Spargo?"
+
+Spargo pulled out his watch. "We shall all know whether he was buried
+in that grave before another six hours are over, Mr. Quarterpage," he
+said.
+
+He might well have spoken of four hours instead of six, for it was then
+nearly midnight, and before three o'clock Spargo and Breton, with the
+other men who had accompanied them from London were out of the "Yellow
+Dragon" and on their way to the cemetery just outside the little town.
+Over the hills to the eastward the grey dawn was slowly breaking: the
+long stretch of marshland which lies between Market Milcaster and the
+sea was white with fog: on the cypresses and acacias of the cemetery
+hung veils and webs of gossamer: everything around them was quiet as
+the dead folk who lay beneath their feet. And the people actively
+concerned went quietly to work, and those who could do nothing but
+watch stood around in silence.
+
+"In all my long life of over ninety years," whispered old Quarterpage,
+who had met them at the cemetery gates, looking fresh and brisk in
+spite of his shortened rest, "I have never seen this done before. It
+seems a strange, strange thing to interfere with a dead man's last
+resting-place--a dreadful thing."
+
+"If there is a dead man there," said Spargo.
+
+He himself was mainly curious about the details of this exhumation; he
+had no scruples, sentimental or otherwise, about the breaking in upon
+the dead. He watched all that was done. The men employed by the local
+authorities, instructed over-night, had fenced in the grave with
+canvas; the proceedings were accordingly conducted in strict privacy; a
+man was posted to keep away any very early passersby, who might be
+attracted by the unusual proceedings. At first there was nothing to do
+but wait, and Spargo occupied himself by reflecting that every spadeful
+of earth thrown out of that grave was bringing him nearer to the truth;
+he had an unconquerable intuition that the truth of at any rate one
+phase of the Marbury case was going to be revealed to them. If the
+coffin to which they were digging down contained a body, and that the
+body of the stockbroker, Chamberlayne, then a good deal of his,
+Spargo's, latest theory, would be dissolved to nothingness. But if that
+coffin contained no body at all, then--"
+
+"They're down to it!" whispered Breton.
+
+Presently they all went and looked down into the grave. The workmen had
+uncovered the coffin preparatory to lifting it to the surface; one of
+them was brushing the earth away from the name-plate. And in the now
+strong light they could all read the lettering on it.
+
+  JAMES CARTWRIGHT CHAMBERLAYNE
+  Born 1852
+  Died 1891
+
+Spargo turned away as the men began to lift the coffin out of the
+grave.
+
+"We shall know now!" he whispered to Breton. "And yet--what is it we
+shall know if----"
+
+"If what?" said Breton. "If--what?"
+
+But Spargo shook his head. This was one of the great moments he had
+lately been working for, and the issues were tremendous.
+
+"Now for it!" said the _Watchman's_ solicitor in an undertone. "Come,
+Mr. Spargo, now we shall see."
+
+They all gathered round the coffin, set on low trestles at the
+graveside, as the workmen silently went to work on the screws. The
+screws were rusted in their sockets; they grated as the men slowly
+worked them out. It seemed to Spargo that each man grew slower and
+slower in his movements; he felt that he himself was getting fidgety.
+Then he heard a voice of authority.
+
+"Lift the lid off!"
+
+A man at the head of the coffin, a man at the foot suddenly and swiftly
+raised the lid: the men gathered round craned their necks with a quick
+movement.
+
+Sawdust!
+
+The coffin was packed to the brim with sawdust, tightly pressed down.
+The surface lay smooth, undisturbed, levelled as some hand had levelled
+it long years before. They were not in the presence of death, but of
+deceit.
+
+Somebody laughed faintly. The sound of the laughter broke the spell.
+The chief official present looked round him with a smile.
+
+"It is evident that there were good grounds for suspicion," he
+remarked. "Here is no dead body, gentlemen. See if anything lies
+beneath the sawdust," he added, turning to the workmen. "Turn it out!"
+
+The workmen began to scoop out the sawdust with their hands; one of
+them, evidently desirous of making sure that no body was in the coffin,
+thrust down his fingers at various places along its length. He, too,
+laughed.
+
+"The coffin's weighted with lead!" he remarked. "See!"
+
+And tearing the sawdust aside, he showed those around him that at three
+intervals bars of lead had been tightly wedged into the coffin where
+the head, the middle, and the feet of a corpse would have rested.
+
+"Done it cleverly," he remarked, looking round. "You see how these
+weights have been adjusted. When a body's laid out in a coffin, you
+know, all the weight's in the end where the head and trunk rest. Here
+you see the heaviest bar of lead is in the middle; the lightest at the
+feet. Clever!"
+
+"Clear out all the sawdust," said some one. "Let's see if there's
+anything else."
+
+There was something else. At the bottom of the coffin two bundles of
+papers, tied up with pink tape. The legal gentlemen present immediately
+manifested great interest in these. So did Spargo, who, pulling Breton
+along with him, forced his way to where the officials from the Home
+Office and the solicitor sent by the _Watchman_ were hastily examining
+their discoveries.
+
+The first bundle of papers opened evidently related to transactions at
+Market Milcaster: Spargo caught glimpses of names that were familiar to
+him, Mr. Quarterpage's amongst them. He was not at all astonished to
+see these things. But he was something more than astonished when, on
+the second parcel being opened, a quantity of papers relating to
+Cloudhampton and the Hearth and Home Mutual Benefit Society were
+revealed. He gave a hasty glance at these and drew Breton aside.
+
+"It strikes me we've found a good deal more than we ever bargained
+for!" he exclaimed. "Didn't Aylmore say that the real culprit at
+Cloudhampton was another man--his clerk or something of that sort?"
+
+"He did," agreed Breton. "He insists on it."
+
+"Then this fellow Chamberlayne must have been the man," said Spargo.
+"He came to Market Milcaster from the north. What'll be done with those
+papers?" he asked, turning to the officials.
+
+"We are going to seal them up at once, and take them to London,"
+replied the principal person in authority. "They will be quite safe,
+Mr. Spargo; have no fear. We don't know what they may reveal."
+
+"You don't, indeed!" said Spargo. "But I may as well tell you that I
+have a strong belief that they'll reveal a good deal that nobody dreams
+of, so take the greatest care of them."
+
+Then, without waiting for further talk with any one, Spargo hurried
+Breton out of the cemetery. At the gate, he seized him by the arm.
+
+"Now, then, Breton!" he commanded. "Out with it!"
+
+"With what?"
+
+"You promised to tell me something--a great deal, you said--if we found
+that coffin empty. It is empty. Come on--quick!"
+
+"All right. I believe I know where Elphick and Cardlestone can be
+found. That's all."
+
+"All! It's enough. Where, then, in heaven's name?"
+
+"Elphick has a queer little place where he and Cardlestone sometimes go
+fishing--right away up in one of the wildest parts of the Yorkshire
+moors. I expect they've gone there. Nobody knows even their names
+there--they could go and lie quiet there for--ages."
+
+"Do you know the way to it?"
+
+"I do--I've been there."
+
+Spargo motioned him to hurry.
+
+"Come on, then," he said. "We're going there by the very first train
+out of this. I know the train, too--we've just time to snatch a
+mouthful of breakfast and to send a wire to the _Watchman_, and then
+we'll be off. Yorkshire!--Gad, Breton, that's over three hundred miles
+away!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
+
+FORESTALLED
+
+
+Travelling all that long summer day, first from the south-west of
+England to the Midlands, then from the Midlands to the north, Spargo
+and Breton came late at night to Hawes' Junction, on the border of
+Yorkshire and Westmoreland, and saw rising all around them in the
+half-darkness the mighty bulks of the great fells which rise amongst
+that wild and lonely stretch of land. At that hour of the night and
+amidst that weird silence, broken only by the murmur of some adjacent
+waterfall the scene was impressive and suggestive; it seemed to Spargo
+as if London were a million miles away, and the rush and bustle of
+human life a thing of another planet. Here and there in the valleys he
+saw a light, but such lights were few and far between; even as he
+looked some of them twinkled and went out. It was evident that he and
+Breton were presently to be alone with the night.
+
+"How far?" he asked Breton as they walked away from the station.
+
+"We'd better discuss matters," answered Breton. "The place is in a
+narrow valley called Fossdale, some six or seven miles away across
+these fells, and as wild a walk as any lover of such things could wish
+for. It's half-past nine now, Spargo: I reckon it will take us a good
+two and a half hours, if not more, to do it. Now, the question is--Do
+we go straight there, or do we put up for the night? There's an inn
+here at this junction: there's the Moor Cock Inn a mile or so along the
+road which we must take before we turn off to the moorland and the
+fells. It's going to be a black night--look at those masses of black
+cloud gathering there!--and possibly a wet one, and we've no
+waterproofs. But it's for you to say--I'm game for whatever you like."
+
+"Do you know the way?" asked Spargo.
+
+"I've been the way. In the daytime I could go straight ahead. I
+remember all the landmarks. Even in the darkness I believe I can find
+my way. But it's rough walking."
+
+"We'll go straight there," said Spargo. "Every minute's precious.
+But--can we get a mouthful of bread and cheese and a glass of ale
+first?"
+
+"Good idea! We'll call in at the 'Moor Cock.' Now then, while we're on
+this firm road, step it out lively."
+
+The "Moor Cock" was almost deserted at that hour: there was scarcely a
+soul in it when the two travellers turned in to its dimly-lighted
+parlour. The landlord, bringing the desired refreshment, looked hard at
+Breton.
+
+"Come our way again then, sir?" he remarked with a sudden grin of
+recognition.
+
+"Ah, you remember me?" said Breton.
+
+"I call in mind when you came here with the two old gents last year,"
+replied the landlord. "I hear they're here again--Tom Summers was
+coming across that way this morning, and said he'd seen 'em at the
+little cottage. Going to join 'em, I reckon, sir?"
+
+Breton kicked Spargo under the table.
+
+"Yes, we're going to have a day or two with them," he answered. "Just
+to get a breath of your moorland air."
+
+"Well, you'll have a roughish walk over there tonight, gentlemen," said
+the landlord. "There's going to be a storm. And it's a stiffish way to
+make out at this time o'night."
+
+"Oh, we'll manage," said Breton, nonchalantly. "I know the way, and
+we're not afraid of a wet skin."
+
+The landlord laughed, and sitting down on his long settle folded his
+arms and scratched his elbows.
+
+"There was a gentleman--London gentleman by his tongue--came in here
+this afternoon, and asked the way to Fossdale," he observed. "He'll be
+there long since--he'd have daylight for his walk. Happen he's one of
+your party?--he asked where the old gentlemen's little cottage was."
+
+Again Spargo felt his shin kicked and made no sign. "One of their
+friends, perhaps," answered Breton. "What was he like?"
+
+The landlord ruminated. He was not good at description and was
+conscious of the fact.
+
+"Well, a darkish, serious-faced gentleman," he said. "Stranger
+hereabouts, at all events. Wore a grey suit--something like your
+friend's there. Yes--he took some bread and cheese with him when he
+heard what a long way it was."
+
+"Wise man," remarked Breton. He hastily finished his own bread and
+cheese, and drank off the rest of his pint of ale. "Come on," he said,
+"let's be stepping."
+
+Outside, in the almost tangible darkness, Breton clutched Spargo's arm.
+"Who's the man?" he said. "Can you think, Spargo?"
+
+"Can't" answered Spargo. "I was trying to, while that chap was talking.
+But--it's somebody that's got in before us. Not Rathbury, anyhow--he's
+not serious-faced. Heavens, Breton, however are you going to find your
+way in this darkness?"
+
+"You'll see presently. We follow the road a little. Then we turn up the
+fell side there. On the top, if the night clears a bit, we ought to see
+Great Shunnor Fell and Lovely Seat--they're both well over two thousand
+feet, and they stand up well. We want to make for a point clear between
+them. But I warn you, Spargo, it's stiff going!"
+
+"Go ahead!" said Spargo. "It's the first time in my life I ever did
+anything of this sort, but we're going on if it takes us all night. I
+couldn't sleep in any bed now that I've heard there's somebody ahead of
+us. Go first, old chap, and I'll follow."
+
+Breton went steadily forward along the road. That was easy work, but
+when he turned off and began to thread his way up the fell-side by what
+was obviously no more than a sheep-track, Spargo's troubles began. It
+seemed to him that he was walking as in a nightmare; all that he saw
+was magnified and heightened; the darkening sky above; the faint
+outlines of the towering hills; the gaunt spectres of fir and pine; the
+figure of Breton forging stolidly and surely ahead. Now the ground was
+soft and spongy under his feet; now it was stony and rugged; more than
+once he caught an ankle in the wire-like heather and tripped, bruising
+his knees. And in the end he resigned himself to keeping his eye on
+Breton, outlined against the sky, and following doggedly in his
+footsteps.
+
+"Was there no other way than this?" he asked after a long interval of
+silence. "Do you mean to say those two--Elphick and Cardlestone--would
+take this way?"
+
+"There is another way--down the valley, by Thwaite Bridge and Hardraw,"
+answered Breton, "but it's miles and miles round. This is a straight
+cut across country, and in daylight it's a delightful walk. But at
+night--Gad!--here's the rain, Spargo!"
+
+The rain came down as it does in that part of the world, with a
+suddenness that was as fierce as it was heavy. The whole of the grey
+night was blotted out; Spargo was only conscious that he stood in a
+vast solitude and was being gradually drowned. But Breton, whose sight
+was keener, and who had more knowledge of the situation dragged his
+companion into the shelter of a group of rocks. He laughed a little as
+they huddled closely together.
+
+"This is a different sort of thing to pursuing detective work in Fleet
+Street, Spargo," he said. "You would come on, you know."
+
+"I'm going on if we go through cataracts and floods," answered Spargo.
+"I might have been induced to stop at the 'Moor Cock' overnight if we
+hadn't heard of that chap in front. If he's after those two he's
+somebody who knows something. What I can't make out is--who he can be."
+
+"Nor I," said Breton. "I can't think of anybody who knows of this
+retreat. But--has it ever struck you, Spargo, that somebody beside
+yourself may have been investigating?"
+
+"Possible," replied Spargo. "One never knows. I only wish we'd been a
+few hours earlier. For I wanted to have the first word with those two."
+
+The rain ceased as suddenly as it had come. Just as suddenly the
+heavens cleared. And going forward to the top of the ridge which they
+were then crossing, Breton pointed an arm to something shining far away
+below them.
+
+"You see that?" he said. "That's a sheet of water lying between us and
+Cotterdale. We leave that on our right hand, climb the fell beyond it,
+drop down into Cotterdale, cross two more ranges of fell, and come down
+into Fossdale under Lovely Seat. There's a good two hours and a half
+stiff pull yet, Spargo. Think you can stick it?"
+
+Spargo set his teeth.
+
+"Go on!" he said.
+
+Up hill, down dale, now up to his ankles in peaty ground, now tearing
+his shins, now bruising his knees, Spargo, yearning for the London
+lights, the well-paved London streets, the convenient taxi-cab, even
+the humble omnibus, plodded forward after his guide. It seemed to him
+that they had walked for ages and had traversed a whole continent of
+mountains and valley when at last Breton, halting on the summit of a
+wind-swept ridge, laid one hand on his companion's shoulder and pointed
+downward with the other.
+
+"There!" he said. "There!"
+
+Spargo looked ahead into the night. Far away, at what seemed to him to
+be a considerable distance, he saw the faint, very faint glimmer of a
+light--a mere spark of a light.
+
+"That's the cottage," said Breton, "Late as it is, you see, they're up.
+And here's the roughest bit of the journey. It'll take me all my time
+to find the track across this moor, Spargo, so step carefully after
+me--there are bogs and holes hereabouts."
+
+Another hour had gone by ere the two came to the cottage. Sometimes the
+guiding light had vanished, blotted out by intervening rises in the
+ground; always, when they saw it again, they were slowly drawing nearer
+to it. And now when they were at last close to it, Spargo realized that
+he found himself in one of the loneliest places he had ever been
+capable of imagining--so lonely and desolate a spot he had certainly
+never seen. In the dim light he could see a narrow, crawling stream,
+making its way down over rocks and stones from the high ground of Great
+Shunnor Fell. Opposite to the place at which they stood, on the edge of
+the moorland, a horseshoe like formation of ground was backed by a ring
+of fir and pine; beneath this protecting fringe of trees stood a small
+building of grey stone which looked as if it had been originally built
+by some shepherd as a pen for the moorland sheep. It was of no more
+than one storey in height, but of some length; a considerable part of
+it was hidden by shrubs and brushwood. And from one uncurtained,
+blindless window the light of a lamp shone boldly into the fading
+darkness without.
+
+Breton pulled up on the edge of the crawling stream.
+
+"We've got to get across there, Spargo," he said. "But as we're already
+soaked to the knee it doesn't matter about getting another wetting.
+Have you any idea how long we've been walking?"
+
+"Hours--days--years!" replied Spargo.
+
+"I should say quite four hours," said Breton. "In that case, it's well
+past two o'clock, and the light will be breaking in another hour or so.
+Now, once across this stream, what shall we do?"
+
+"What have we come to do? Go to the cottage, of course!"
+
+"Wait a bit. No need to startle them. By the fact they've got a light,
+I take it that they're up. Look there!"
+
+As he spoke, a figure crossed the window passing between it and the
+light.
+
+"That's not Elphick, nor yet Cardlestone," said Spargo. "They're
+medium-heighted men. That's a tallish man."
+
+"Then it's the man the landlord of the 'Moor Cock' told us about," said
+Breton. "Now, look here--I know every inch of this place. When we're
+across let me go up to the cottage, and I'll take an observation
+through that window and see who's inside. Come on."
+
+He led Spargo across the stream at a place where a succession of
+boulders made a natural bridge, and bidding him keep quiet, went up the
+bank to the cottage. Spargo, watching him, saw him make his way past
+the shrubs and undergrowth until he came to a great bush which stood
+between the lighted window and the projecting porch of the cottage. He
+lingered in the shadow of this bush but for a short moment; then came
+swiftly and noiselessly back to his companion. His hand fell on
+Spargo's arm with a clutch of nervous excitement.
+
+"Spargo!" he whispered. "Who on earth do you think the other man is?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
+
+THE WHIP HAND
+
+
+Spargo, almost irritable from desire to get at close grips with the
+objects of his long journey, shook off Breton's hand with a growl of
+resentment.
+
+"And how on earth can I waste time guessing?" he exclaimed. "Who is
+he?"
+
+Breton laughed softly.
+
+"Steady, Spargo, steady!" he said. "It's Myerst--the Safe Deposit man.
+Myerst!"
+
+Spargo started as if something had bitten him.
+
+"Myerst!" he almost shouted. "Myerst! Good Lord!--why did I never think
+of him? Myerst! Then----"
+
+"I don't know why you should have thought of him," said Breton.
+"But--he's there."
+
+Spargo took a step towards the cottage: Breton pulled him back.
+
+"Wait!" he said. "We've got to discuss this. I'd better tell you what
+they're doing."
+
+"What are they doing, then?" demanded Spargo impatiently.
+
+"Well," answered Breton. "They're going through a quantity of papers.
+The two old gentlemen look very ill and very miserable. Myerst is
+evidently laying down the law to them in some fashion or other. I've
+formed a notion, Spargo."
+
+"What notion?"
+
+"Myerst is in possession of whatever secret they have, and he's
+followed them down here to blackmail them. That's my notion."
+
+Spargo thought awhile, pacing up and down the river bank.
+
+"I daresay you're right," he said. "Now, what's to be done?"
+
+Breton, too, considered matters.
+
+"I wish," he said at last, "I wish we could get in there and overhear
+what's going on. But that's impossible--I know that cottage. The only
+thing we can do is this--we must catch Myerst unawares. He's here for
+no good. Look here!"
+
+And reaching round to his hip-pocket Breton drew out a Browning
+revolver and wagged it in his hand with a smile.
+
+"That's a useful thing to have, Spargo," he remarked. "I slipped it
+into my pocket the other day, wondering why on earth I did it. Now
+it'll come in handy. For anything we know Myerst may be armed."
+
+"Well?" said Spargo.
+
+"Come up to the cottage. If things turn out as I think they will,
+Myerst, when he's got what he wants, will be off. Now, you shall get
+where I did just now, behind that bush, and I'll station myself in the
+doorway. You can report to me, and when Myerst comes out I'll cover
+him. Come on, Spargo; it's beginning to get light already."
+
+Breton cautiously led the way along the river bank, making use of such
+cover as the willows and alders afforded. Together, he and Spargo made
+their way to the front of the cottage. Arrived at the door, Breton
+posted himself in the porch, motioning to Spargo to creep in behind the
+bushes and to look through the window. And Spargo noiselessly followed
+his directions and slightly parting the branches which concealed him
+looked in through the uncurtained glass.
+
+The interior into which he looked was rough and comfortless in the
+extreme. There were the bare accessories of a moorland cottage; rough
+chairs and tables, plastered walls, a fishing rod or two piled in a
+corner; some food set out on a side table. At the table in the middle
+of the floor the three men sat. Cardlestone's face was in the shadow;
+Myerst had his back to the window; old Elphick bending over the table
+was laboriously writing with shaking fingers. And Spargo twisted his
+head round to his companion.
+
+"Elphick," he said, "is writing a cheque. Myerst has another cheque in
+his hand. Be ready!--when he gets that second cheque I guess he'll be
+off."
+
+Breton smiled grimly and nodded. A moment later Spargo whispered again.
+
+"Look out, Breton! He's coming."
+
+Breton drew back into the angle of the porch; Spargo quitted his
+protecting bush and took the other angle. The door opened. And they
+heard Myerst's voice, threatening, commanding in tone.
+
+"Now, remember all I've said! And don't you forget--I've the whip hand
+of both of you--the whip hand!"
+
+Then Myerst turned and stepped out into the grey light--to find himself
+confronted by an athletic young man who held the muzzle of an ugly
+revolver within two inches of the bridge of his nose and in a
+remarkably firm and steady grip. Another glance showed him the figure
+of a second business-like looking young man at his side, whose attitude
+showed a desire to grapple with him.
+
+"Good-morning, Mr. Myerst," said Breton with cold and ironic
+politeness. "We are glad to meet you so unexpectedly. And--I must
+trouble you to put up your hands. Quick!"
+
+Myerst made one hurried movement of his right hand towards his hip, but
+a sudden growl from Breton made him shift it just as quickly above his
+head, whither the left followed it. Breton laughed softly.
+
+"That's wise, Mr. Myerst," he said, keeping his revolver steadily
+pointed at his prisoner's nose. "Discretion will certainly be the
+better part of your valour on this occasion. Spargo--may I trouble you
+to see what Mr. Myerst carries in his pockets? Go through them
+carefully. Not for papers or documents--just now. We can leave that
+matter--we've plenty of time. See if he's got a weapon of any sort on
+him, Spargo--that's the important thing."
+
+Considering that Spargo had never gone through the experience of
+searching a man before, he made sharp and creditable work of seeing
+what the prisoner carried. And he forthwith drew out and exhibited a
+revolver, while Myerst, finding his tongue, cursed them both, heartily
+and with profusion.
+
+"Excellent!" said Breton, laughing again. "Sure he's got nothing else
+on him that's dangerous, Spargo? All right. Now, Mr. Myerst, right
+about face! Walk into the cottage, hands up, and remember there are two
+revolvers behind your back. March!"
+
+Myerst obeyed this peremptory order with more curses. The three walked
+into the cottage. Breton kept his eye on his captive; Spargo gave a
+glance at the two old men. Cardlestone, white and shaking, was lying
+back in his chair; Elphick, scarcely less alarmed, had risen, and was
+coming forward with trembling limbs.
+
+"Wait a moment," said Breton, soothingly. "Don't alarm yourself. We'll
+deal with Mr. Myerst here first. Now, Myerst, my man, sit down in that
+chair--it's the heaviest the place affords. Into it, now! Spargo, you
+see that coil of rope there. Tie Myerst up--hand and foot--to that
+chair. And tie him well. All the knots to be double, Spargo, and behind
+him."
+
+Myerst suddenly laughed. "You damned young bully!" he exclaimed. "If
+you put a rope round me, you're only putting ropes round the necks of
+these two old villains. Mark that, my fine fellows!"
+
+"We'll see about that later," answered Breton. He kept Myerst covered
+while Spargo made play with the rope. "Don't be afraid of hurting him,
+Spargo," he said. "Tie him well and strong. He won't shift that chair
+in a hurry."
+
+Spargo spliced his man to the chair in a fashion that would have done
+credit to a sailor. He left Myerst literally unable to move either hand
+or foot, and Myerst cursed him from crown to heel for his pains.
+"That'll do," said Breton at last. He dropped his revolver into his
+pocket and turned to the two old men. Elphick averted his eyes and sank
+into a chair in the darkest corner of the room: old Cardlestone shook
+as with palsy and muttered words which the two young men could not
+catch. "Guardian," continued Breton, "don't be frightened! And don't
+you be frightened, either, Mr. Cardlestone. There's nothing to be
+afraid of, just yet, whatever there may be later on. It seems to me
+that Mr. Spargo and I came just in time. Now, guardian, what was this
+fellow after?"
+
+Old Elphick lifted his head and shook it; he was plainly on the verge
+of tears; as for Cardlestone, it was evident that his nerve was
+completely gone. And Breton pointed Spargo to an old corner cupboard.
+
+"Spargo," he said, "I'm pretty sure you'll find whisky in there. Give
+them both a stiff dose: they've broken up. Now, guardian," he
+continued, when Spargo had carried out this order, "what was he after?
+Shall I suggest it? Was it--blackmail?"
+
+Cardlestone began to whimper; Elphick nodded his head. "Yes, yes!" he
+muttered. "Blackmail! That was it--blackmail. He--he got
+money--papers--from us. They're on him."
+
+Breton turned on the captive with a look of contempt.
+
+"I thought as much, Mr. Myerst," he said. "Spargo, let's see what he
+has on him."
+
+Spargo began to search the prisoner's pockets. He laid out everything
+on the table as he found it. It was plain that Myerst had contemplated
+some sort of flight or a long, long journey. There was a quantity of
+loose gold; a number of bank-notes of the more easily negotiated
+denominations; various foreign securities, realizable in Paris. And
+there was an open cheque, signed by Cardlestone for ten thousand
+pounds, and another, with Elphick's name at the foot, also open, for
+half that amount. Breton examined all these matters as Spargo handed
+them out. He turned to old Elphick.
+
+"Guardian," he said, "why have you or Mr. Cardlestone given this man
+these cheques and securities? What hold has he on you?"
+
+Old Cardlestone began to whimper afresh; Elphick turned a troubled face
+on his ward.
+
+"He--he threatened to accuse us of the murder of Marbury!" he faltered.
+"We--we didn't see that we had a chance."
+
+"What does he know of the murder of Marbury and of you in connection
+with it?" demanded Breton. "Come--tell me the truth now."
+
+"He's been investigating--so he says," answered Elphick. "He lives in
+that house in Middle Temple Lane, you know, in the top-floor rooms
+above Cardlestone's. And--and he says he's the fullest evidence against
+Cardlestone--and against me as an accessory after the fact."
+
+"And--it's a lie?" asked Breton.
+
+"A lie!" answered Elphick. "Of course, it's a lie. But--he's so clever
+that--that----"
+
+"That you don't know how you could prove it otherwise," said Breton.
+"Ah! And so this fellow lives over Mr. Cardlestone there, does he? That
+may account for a good many things. Now we must have the police here."
+He sat down at the table and drew the writing materials to him. "Look
+here, Spargo," he continued. "I'm going to write a note to the
+superintendent of police at Hawes--there's a farm half a mile from here
+where I can get a man to ride down to Hawes with the note. Now, if you
+want to send a wire to the _Watchman_, draft it out, and he'll take it
+with him."
+
+Elphick began to move in his corner.
+
+"Must the police come?" he said. "Must----"
+
+"The police must come," answered Breton firmly. "Go ahead with your
+wire, Spargo, while I write this note."
+
+Three quarters of an hour later, when Breton came back from the farm,
+he sat down at Elphick's side and laid his hand on the old man's.
+
+"Now, guardian," he said, quietly, "you've got to tell us the truth."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
+
+MYERST EXPLAINS
+
+
+It had been apparent to Spargo, from the moment of his entering the
+cottage, that the two old men were suffering badly from shock and
+fright: Cardlestone still sat in his corner shivering and trembling; he
+looked incapable of explaining anything; Elphick was scarcely more
+fitted to speak. And when Breton issued his peremptory invitation to
+his guardian to tell the truth, Spargo intervened.
+
+"Far better leave him alone, Breton," he said in a low voice. "Don't
+you see the old chap's done up? They're both done up. We don't know
+what they've gone through with this fellow before we came, and it's
+certain they've had no sleep. Leave it all till later--after all, we've
+found them and we've found him." He jerked his thumb over his shoulder
+in Myerst's direction, and Breton involuntarily followed the movement.
+He caught the prisoner's eye, and Myerst laughed.
+
+"I daresay you two young men think yourselves very clever," he said
+sneeringly. "Don't you, now?"
+
+"We've been clever enough to catch you, anyway," retorted Breton. "And
+now we've got you we'll keep you till the police can relieve us of
+you."
+
+"Oh!" said Myerst, with another sneering laugh. "And on what charge do
+you propose to hand me over to the police? It strikes me you'll have
+some difficulty in formulating one, Mr. Breton."
+
+"Well see about that later," said Breton. "You've extorted money by
+menaces from these gentlemen, at any rate."
+
+"Have I? How do you know they didn't entrust me with these cheques as
+their agent?" exclaimed Myerst. "Answer me that! Or, rather, let them
+answer if they dare. Here you, Cardlestone, you Elphick--didn't you
+give me these cheques as your agent? Speak up now, and quick!"
+
+Spargo, watching the two old men, saw them both quiver at the sound of
+Myerst's voice; Cardlestone indeed, began to whimper softly.
+
+"Look here, Breton," he said, whispering, "this scoundrel's got some
+hold on these two old chaps--they're frightened to death of him. Leave
+them alone: it would be best for them if they could get some rest. Hold
+your tongue, you!" he added aloud, turning to Myerst. "When we want you
+to speak we'll tell you."
+
+But Myerst laughed again.
+
+"All very high and mighty, Mr. Spargo of the _Watchman_!" he sneered.
+"You're another of the cock-sure lot. And you're very clever, but not
+clever enough. Now, look here! Supposing--"
+
+Spargo turned his back on him. He went over to old Cardlestone and felt
+his hands. And he turned to Breton with a look of concern.
+
+"I say!" he exclaimed. "He's more than frightened--he's ill! What's to
+be done?"
+
+"I asked the police to bring a doctor along with them," answered
+Breton. "In the meantime, let's put him to bed--there are beds in that
+inner room. We'll get him to bed and give him something hot to
+drink--that's all I can think of for the present."
+
+Between them they managed to get Cardlestone to his bed, and Spargo,
+with a happy thought, boiled water on the rusty stove and put hot
+bottles to his feet. When that was done they persuaded Elphick to lie
+down in the inner room. Presently both old men fell asleep, and then
+Breton and Spargo suddenly realized that they themselves were hungry
+and wet and weary.
+
+"There ought to be food in the cupboard," said Breton, beginning to
+rummage. "They've generally had a good stock of tinned things. Here we
+are, Spargo--these are tongues and sardines. Make some hot coffee while
+I open one of these tins."
+
+The prisoner watched the preparations for a rough and ready breakfast
+with eyes that eventually began to glisten.
+
+"I may remind you that I'm hungry, too," he said as Spargo set the
+coffee on the table. "And you've no right to starve me, even if you've
+the physical ability to keep me tied up. Give me something to eat, if
+you please."
+
+"You shan't starve," said Breton, carelessly. He cut an ample supply of
+bread and meat, filled a cup with coffee and placed cup and plate
+before Myerst. "Untie his right arm, Spargo," he continued. "I think we
+can give him that liberty. We've got his revolver, anyhow."
+
+For a while the three men ate and drank in silence. At last Myerst
+pushed his plate away. He looked scrutinizingly at his two captors.
+"Look here!" he said. "You think you know a lot about all this affair,
+Spargo, but there's only one person who knows all about it. That's me!"
+
+"We're taking that for granted," said Spargo. "We guessed as much when
+we found you here. You'll have ample opportunity for explanation, you
+know, later on."
+
+"I'll explain now, if you care to hear," said Myerst with another of
+his cynical laughs. "And if I do, I'll tell you the truth. I know
+you've got an idea in your heads that isn't favourable to me, but
+you're utterly wrong, whatever you may think. Look here!--I'll make you
+a fair offer. There are some cigars in my case there--give me one, and
+mix me a drink of that whisky--a good 'un--and I'll tell you what I
+know about this matter. Come on!--anything's better than sitting here
+doing nothing."
+
+The two young men looked at each other. Then Breton nodded. "Let him
+talk if he likes," he said. "We're not bound to believe him. And we may
+hear something that's true. Give him his cigar and his drink."
+
+Myerst took a stiff pull at the contents of the tumbler which Spargo
+presently set before him. He laughed as he inhaled the first fumes of
+his cigar.
+
+"As it happens, you'll hear nothing but the truth," he observed. "Now
+that things are as they are, there's no reason why I shouldn't tell the
+truth. The fact is, I've nothing to fear. You can't give me in charge,
+for it so happens that I've got a power of attorney from these two old
+chaps inside there to act for them in regard to the money they
+entrusted me with. It's in an inside pocket of that letter-case, and if
+you look at it, Breton, you'll see it's in order. I'm not even going to
+dare you to interfere with or destroy it--you're a barrister, and
+you'll respect the law. But that's a fact--and if anybody's got a case
+against anybody, I have against you two for assault and illegal
+detention. But I'm not a vindictive man, and----"
+
+Breton took up Myerst's letter-case and examined its contents. And
+presently he turned to Spargo.
+
+"He's right!" he whispered. "This is quite in order." He turned to
+Myerst. "All the same," he said, addressing him, "we shan't release
+you, because we believe you're concerned in the murder of John Marbury.
+We're justified in holding you on that account."
+
+"All right, my young friend," said Myerst. "Have your own stupid way.
+But I said I'd tell you the plain truth. Well, the plain truth is that
+I know no more of the absolute murder of your father than I know of
+what is going on in Timbuctoo at this moment! I do not know who killed
+John Maitland. That's a fact! It may have been the old man in there
+who's already at his own last gasp, or it mayn't. I tell you I don't
+know--though, like you, Spargo, I've tried hard to find out. That's the
+truth--I do not know."
+
+"You expect us to believe that?" exclaimed Breton incredulously.
+
+"Believe it or not, as you like--it's the truth," answered Myerst.
+"Now, look here--I said nobody knew as much of this affair as I know,
+and that's true also. And here's the truth of what I know. The old man
+in that room, whom you know as Nicholas Cardlestone, is in reality
+Chamberlayne, the stockbroker, of Market Milcaster, whose name was so
+freely mentioned when your father was tried there. That's another
+fact!"
+
+"How," asked Breton, sternly, "can you prove it? How do you know it?"
+
+"Because," replied Myerst, with a cunning grin, "I helped to carry out
+his mock death and burial--I was a solicitor in those days, and my name
+was--something else. There were three of us at it: Chamberlayne's
+nephew; a doctor of no reputation; and myself. We carried it out very
+cleverly, and Chamberlayne gave us five thousand pounds apiece for our
+trouble. It was not the first time that I had helped him and been well
+paid for my help. The first time was in connection with the
+Cloudhampton Hearth and Home Mutual Benefit Society affair--Aylmore, or
+Ainsworth, was as innocent as a child in that!--Chamberlayne was the
+man at the back. But, unfortunately, Chamberlayne didn't profit--he
+lost all he got by it, pretty quick. That was why be transferred his
+abilities to Market Milcaster."
+
+"You can prove all this, I suppose?" remarked Spargo.
+
+"Every word--every letter! But about the Market Milcaster affair: Your
+father, Breton, was right in what he said about Chamberlayne having all
+the money that was got from the bank. He had--and he engineered that
+mock death and funeral so that he could disappear, and he paid us who
+helped him generously, as I've told you. The thing couldn't have been
+better done. When it was done, the nephew disappeared; the doctor
+disappeared; Chamberlayne disappeared. I had bad luck--to tell you the
+truth, I was struck off the rolls for a technical offence. So I changed
+my name and became Mr. Myerst, and eventually what I am now. And it was
+not until three years ago that I found Chamberlayne. I found him in
+this way: After I became secretary to the Safe Deposit Company, I took
+chambers in the Temple, above Cardlestone's. And I speedily found out
+who he was. Instead of going abroad, the old fox--though he was a
+comparatively young 'un, then!--had shaved off his beard, settled down
+in the Temple and given himself up to his two hobbies, collecting
+curiosities and stamps. There he'd lived quietly all these years, and
+nobody had ever recognized or suspected him. Indeed, I don't see how
+they could; he lived such a quiet, secluded life, with his collections,
+his old port, and his little whims and fads. But--I knew him!"
+
+"And you doubtless profited by your recognition," suggested Breton.
+
+"I certainly did. He was glad to pay me a nice sum every quarter to
+hold my tongue," replied Myerst, "and I was glad to take it and,
+naturally, I gained a considerable knowledge of him. He had only one
+friend--Mr. Elphick, in there. Now, I'll tell you about him."
+
+"Only if you are going to speak respectfully of him," said Breton
+sternly.
+
+"I've no reason to do otherwise. Elphick is the man who ought to have
+married your mother. When things turned out as they did, Elphick took
+you and brought you up as he has done, so that you should never know of
+your father's disgrace. Elphick never knew until last night that
+Cardlestone is Chamberlayne. Even the biggest scoundrels have
+friends--Elphick's very fond of Cardlestone. He----"
+
+Spargo turned sharply on Myerst.
+
+"You say Elphick didn't know until last night!" he exclaimed. "Why,
+then, this running away? What were they running from?"
+
+"I have no more notion than you have, Spargo," replied Myerst. "I tell
+you one or other of them knows something that I don't. Elphick, I
+gather, took fright from you, and went to Cardlestone--then they both
+vanished. It may be that Cardlestone did kill Maitland--I don't know.
+But I'll tell you what I know about the actual murder--for I do know a
+good deal about it, though, as I say, I don't know who killed Maitland.
+Now, first, you know all that about Maitland's having papers and
+valuables and gold on him? Very well--I've got all that. The whole lot
+is locked up--safely--and I'm willing to hand it over to you, Breton,
+when we go back to town, and the necessary proof is given--as it will
+be--that you're Maitland's son."
+
+Myerst paused to see the effect of this announcement, and laughed when
+he saw the blank astonishment which stole over his hearers' faces.
+
+"And still more," he continued, "I've got all the contents of that
+leather box which Maitland deposited with me--that's safely locked up,
+too, and at your disposal. I took possession of that the day after the
+murder. Then, for purposes of my own, I went to Scotland Yard, as
+Spargo there is aware. You see, I was playing a game--and it required
+some ingenuity."
+
+"A game!" exclaimed Breton. "Good heavens--what game?"
+
+"I never knew until I had possession of all these things that Marbury
+was Maitland of Market Milcaster," answered Myerst. "When I did know
+then I began to put things together and to pursue my own line,
+independent of everybody. I tell you I had all Maitland's papers and
+possessions, by that time--except one thing. That packet of Australian
+stamps. And--I found out that those stamps were in the hands
+of--Cardlestone!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
+
+THE FINAL TELEGRAM
+
+
+Myerst paused, to take a pull at his glass, and to look at the two
+amazed listeners with a smile of conscious triumph.
+
+"In the hands of Cardlestone," he repeated. "Now, what did I argue from
+that? Why, of course, that Maitland had been to Cardlestone's rooms
+that night. Wasn't he found lying dead at the foot of Cardlestone's
+stairs? Aye--but who found him? Not the porter--not the police--not
+you, Master Spargo, with all your cleverness. The man who found
+Maitland lying dead there that night was--I!"
+
+In the silence that followed, Spargo, who had been making notes of what
+Myerst said, suddenly dropped his pencil and thrusting his hands in his
+pockets sat bolt upright with a look which Breton, who was watching him
+seriously, could not make out. It was the look of a man whose ideas and
+conceptions are being rudely upset. And Myerst, too, saw it and he
+laughed, more sneeringly than ever.
+
+"That's one for you, Spargo!" he said. "That surprises you--that makes
+you think. Now what do you think?--if one may ask."
+
+"I think," said Spargo, "that you are either a consummate liar, or that
+this mystery is bigger than before."
+
+"I can lie when it's necessary," retorted Myerst. "Just now it isn't
+necessary. I'm telling you the plain truth: there's no reason why I
+shouldn't. As I've said before, although you two young bullies have
+tied me up in this fashion, you can't do anything against me. I've a
+power of attorney from those two old men in there, and that's enough to
+satisfy anybody as to my possession of their cheques and securities.
+I've the whip hand of you, my sons, in all ways. And that's why I'm
+telling you the truth--to amuse myself during this period of waiting.
+The plain truth, my sons!"
+
+"In pursuance of which," observed Breton, drily, "I think you mentioned
+that you were the first person to find my father lying dead?"
+
+"I was. That is--as far as I can gather. I'll tell you all about it. As
+I said, I live over Cardlestone. That night I came home very late--it
+was well past one o'clock. There was nobody about--as a matter of fact,
+no one has residential chambers in that building but Cardlestone and
+myself. I found the body of a man lying in the entry. I struck a match
+and immediately recognized my visitor of the afternoon--John Marbury.
+Now, although I was so late in going home, I was as sober as a man can
+be, and I think pretty quickly at all times. I thought at double extra
+speed just then. And the first thing I did was to strip the body of
+every article it had on it--money, papers, everything. All these things
+are safely locked up--they've never been tracked. Next day, using my
+facilities as secretary to the Safe Deposit Company, I secured the
+things in that box. Then I found out who the dead man really was. And
+then I deliberately set to work to throw dust in the eyes of the police
+and of the newspapers, and particularly in the eyes of young Master
+Spargo there. I had an object."
+
+"What?" asked Breton.
+
+"What! Knowing all I did, I firmly believed that Marbury, or, rather,
+Maitland, had been murdered by either Cardlestone or Elphick. I put it
+to myself in this way, and my opinion was strengthened as you, Spargo,
+inserted news in your paper--Maitland, finding himself in the vicinity
+of Cardlestone after leaving Aylmore's rooms that night, turned into
+our building, perhaps just to see where Cardlestone lived. He met
+Cardlestone accidentally, or he perhaps met Cardlestone and Elphick
+together--they recognized each other. Maitland probably threatened to
+expose Cardlestone, or, rather, Chamberlayne--nobody, of course, could
+know what happened, but my theory was that Chamberlayne killed him.
+There, at any rate, was the fact that Maitland was found murdered at
+Chamberlayne's very threshold. And, in the course of a few days, I
+proved, to my own positive satisfaction, by getting access to
+Chamberlayne's rooms in his absence that Maitland had been there, had
+been in those rooms. For I found there, in Chamberlayne's desk, the
+rare Australian stamps of which Criedir told at the inquest. That was
+proof positive."
+
+Spargo looked at Breton. They knew what Myerst did not know--that the
+stamps of which he spoke were lying in Spargo's breast pocket, where
+they had lain since he had picked them up from the litter and confusion
+of Chamberlayne's floor.
+
+"Why," asked Breton, after a pause, "why did you never accuse
+Cardlestone, or Chamberlayne, of the murder?"
+
+"I did! I have accused him a score of times--and Elphick, too," replied
+Myerst with emphasis. "Not at first, mind you--I never let Chamberlayne
+know that I ever suspected him for some time. I had my own game to
+play. But at last--not so many days ago--I did. I accused them both.
+That's how I got the whip hand of them. They began to be afraid--by
+that time Elphick had got to know all about Cardlestone's past as
+Chamberlayne. And as I tell you, Elphick's fond of Cardlestone. It's
+queer, but he is. He--wants to shield him."
+
+"What did they say when you accused them?" asked Breton. "Let's keep to
+that point--never mind their feelings for one another."
+
+"Just so, but that feeling's a lot more to do with this mystery than
+you think, my young friend," said Myerst. "What did they say, you ask?
+Why, they strenuously denied it, Cardlestone swore solemnly to me that
+he had no part or lot in the murder of Maitland. So did Elphick.
+But--they know something about the murder. If those two old men can't
+tell you definitely who actually struck John Maitland down, I'm certain
+that they have a very clear idea in their minds as to who really did!
+They--"
+
+A sudden sharp cry from the inner room interrupted Myerst. Breton and
+Spargo started to their feet and made for the door. But before they
+could reach it Elphick came out, white and shaking.
+
+"He's gone!" he exclaimed in quavering accents. "My old friend's
+gone--he's dead! I was--asleep. I woke suddenly and looked at him.
+He----"
+
+Spargo forced the old man into a chair and gave him some whisky; Breton
+passed quickly into the inner room; only to come back shaking his head.
+
+"He's dead," he said. "He evidently died in his sleep."
+
+"Then his secret's gone with him," remarked Myerst, calmly. "And now we
+shall never know if he did kill John Maitland or if he didn't. So
+that's done with!"
+
+Old Elphick suddenly sat up in his chair, pushing Spargo fiercely away
+from his side.
+
+"He didn't kill John Maitland!" he cried angrily, attempting to shake
+his fist at Myerst. "Whoever says he killed Maitland lies. He was as
+innocent as I am. You've tortured and tormented him to his death with
+that charge, as you're torturing me--among you. I tell you he'd nothing
+to do with John Maitland's death--nothing!"
+
+Myerst laughed.
+
+"Who had, then?" he said.
+
+"Hold your tongue!" commanded Breton, turning angrily on him. He sat
+down by Elphick's side and laid his hand soothingly on the old man's
+arm.
+
+"Guardian," he said, "why don't you tell what you know? Don't be afraid
+of that fellow there--he's safe enough. Tell Spargo and me what you
+know of the matter. Remember, nothing can hurt Cardlestone, or
+Chamberlayne, or whoever he is or was, now."
+
+Elphick sat for a moment shaking his head. He allowed Spargo to give
+him another drink; he lifted his head and looked at the two young men
+with something of an appeal.
+
+"I'm badly shaken," he said. "I've suffered much lately--I've learnt
+things that I didn't know. Perhaps I ought to have spoken before, but I
+was afraid for--for him. He was a good friend, Cardlestone, whatever
+else he may have been--a good friend. And--I don't know any more than
+what happened that night."
+
+"Tell us what happened that night," said Breton.
+
+"Well, that night I went round, as I often did, to play piquet with
+Cardlestone. That was about ten o'clock. About eleven Jane Baylis came
+to Cardlestone's--she'd been to my rooms to find me--wanted to see me
+particularly--and she'd come on there, knowing where I should be.
+Cardlestone would make her have a glass of wine and a biscuit; she sat
+down and we all talked. Then, about, I should think, a quarter to
+twelve, a knock came at Cardlestone's door--his outer door was open,
+and of course anybody outside could see lights within. Cardlestone went
+to the door: we heard a man's voice enquire for him by name; then the
+voice added that Criedir, the stamp dealer, had advised him to call on
+Mr. Cardlestone to show him some rare Australian stamps, and that
+seeing a light under his door he had knocked. Cardlestone asked him
+in--he came in. That was the man we saw next day at the mortuary. Upon
+my honour, we didn't know him, either that night or next day!"
+
+"What happened when he came in?" asked Breton.
+
+"Cardlestone asked him to sit down: he offered and gave him a drink.
+The man said Criedir had given him Cardlestone's address, and that he'd
+been with a friend at some rooms in Fountain Court, and as he was
+passing our building he'd just looked to make sure where Cardlestone
+lived, and as he'd noticed a light he'd made bold to knock. He and
+Cardlestone began to examine the stamps. Jane Baylis said good-night,
+and she and I left Cardlestone and the man together."
+
+"No one had recognized him?" said Breton.
+
+"No one! Remember, I only once or twice saw Maitland in all my life.
+The others certainly did not recognize him. At least, I never knew that
+they did--if they did."
+
+"Tell us," said Spargo, joining in for the first time, "tell us what
+you and Miss Baylis did?"
+
+"At the foot of the stairs Jane Baylis suddenly said she'd forgotten
+something in Cardlestone's lobby. As she was going out in to Fleet
+Street, and I was going down Middle Temple Lane to turn off to my own
+rooms we said good-night. She went back upstairs. And I went home. And
+upon my soul and honour that's all I know!"
+
+Spargo suddenly leapt to his feet. He snatched at his cap--a sodden and
+bedraggled headgear which he had thrown down when they entered the
+cottage.
+
+"That's enough!" he almost shouted. "I've got it--at last!
+Breton--where's the nearest telegraph office? Hawes? Straight down this
+valley? Then, here's for it! Look after things till I'm back, or, when
+the police come, join me there. I shall catch the first train to town,
+anyhow, after wiring."
+
+"But--what are you after, Spargo?" exclaimed Breton. "Stop! What on
+earth----"
+
+But Spargo had closed the door and was running for all he was worth
+down the valley. Three quarters of an hour later he startled a quiet
+and peaceful telegraphist by darting, breathless and dirty, into a
+sleepy country post office, snatching a telegraph form and scribbling
+down a message in shaky handwriting:--
+
+  _Rathbury, New Scotland Yard, London._
+  _Arrest Jane Baylis at once for murder of John Maitland._
+  _Coming straight to town with full evidence._
+
+  _Frank Spargo_.
+
+Then Spargo dropped on the office bench, and while the wondering
+operator set the wires ticking, strove to get his breath, utterly spent
+in his mad race across the heather. And when it was got he set out
+again--to find the station.
+
+Some days later, Spargo, having seen Stephen Aylmore walk out of the
+Bow Street dock, cleared of the charge against him, and in a fair way
+of being cleared of the affair of twenty years before, found himself in
+a very quiet corner of the Court holding the hand of Jessie Aylmore,
+who, he discovered, was saying things to him which he scarcely
+comprehended. There was nobody near them and the girl spoke freely and
+warmly.
+
+"But you will come--you will come today--and be properly thanked," she
+said. "You will--won't you?"
+
+Spargo allowed himself to retain possession of the hand. Also he took a
+straight look into Jessie Aylmore's eyes.
+
+"I don't want thanks," he said. "It was all a lot of luck. And if I
+come--today--it will be to see--just you!"
+
+Jessie Aylmore looked down at the two hands.
+
+"I think," she whispered, "I think that is what I really meant!"
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Middle Temple Murder, by J.S. Fletcher
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MIDDLE TEMPLE MURDER ***
+
+***** This file should be named 10373.txt or 10373.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/3/7/10373/
+
+Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Linda Cantoni and PG Distributed
+Proofreaders
+
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
+https://gutenberg.org/license).
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS," WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation web page at https://www.pglaf.org.
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
+https://pglaf.org/fundraising.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
+809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
+page at https://pglaf.org
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit https://pglaf.org
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including including checks, online payments and credit card
+donations.  To donate, please visit: https://pglaf.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+Each eBook is in a subdirectory of the same number as the eBook's
+eBook number, often in several formats including plain vanilla ASCII,
+compressed (zipped), HTML and others.
+
+Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks replace the old file and take over
+the old filename and etext number.  The replaced older file is renamed.
+VERSIONS based on separate sources are treated as new eBooks receiving
+new filenames and etext numbers.
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     https://www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
+
+EBooks posted prior to November 2003, with eBook numbers BELOW #10000,
+are filed in directories based on their release date.  If you want to
+download any of these eBooks directly, rather than using the regular
+search system you may utilize the following addresses and just
+download by the etext year.
+
+     http://www.ibiblio.org/gutenberg/etext06
+
+    (Or /etext 05, 04, 03, 02, 01, 00, 99,
+     98, 97, 96, 95, 94, 93, 92, 92, 91 or 90)
+
+EBooks posted since November 2003, with etext numbers OVER #10000, are
+filed in a different way.  The year of a release date is no longer part
+of the directory path.  The path is based on the etext number (which is
+identical to the filename).  The path to the file is made up of single
+digits corresponding to all but the last digit in the filename.  For
+example an eBook of filename 10234 would be found at:
+
+     https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/2/3/10234
+
+or filename 24689 would be found at:
+     https://www.gutenberg.org/2/4/6/8/24689
+
+An alternative method of locating eBooks:
+     https://www.gutenberg.org/GUTINDEX.ALL
+
+
diff --git a/old/old/10373.zip b/old/old/10373.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..8a6b29c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/old/10373.zip