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.
