CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
OF PROVED IDENTITY
Spargo sat down again in the chair which he had just left, and lookedat the two people upon whom his startling announcement had producedsuch a curious effect. And he recognized as he looked at them that,while they were both frightened, they were frightened in differentways. Miss Baylis had already recovered her composure; she now satsombre and stern as ever, returning Spargo's look with something ofindifferent defiance; he thought he could see that in her mind acertain fear was battling with a certain amount of wonder that he haddiscovered the secret. It seemed to him that so far as she wasconcerned the secret had come to an end; it was as if she said in somany words that now the secret was out he might do his worst.
But upon Mr. Septimus Elphick the effect was very different. He wasstill trembling from excitement; he groaned as he sank into his chairand the hand with which he poured out a glass of spirits shook; theglass rattled against his teeth when he raised it to his lips. Thehalf-contemptuous fashion of his reception of Spargo had now whollydisappeared; he was a man who had received a shock, and a bad one. AndSpargo, watching him keenly, said to himself: This man knows a greatdeal more than, a great deal beyond, the mere fact that Marbury wasMaitland, and that Ronald Breton is in reality Maitland's son; he knowssomething which he never wanted anybody to know, which he firmlybelieved it impossible anybody ever could know. It was as if he hadburied something deep, deep down in the lowest depths, and was asastounded as he was frightened to find that it had been at last flungup 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 thetruths which I have told you are of a sort that cause youconsiderable--shall we say fear?"
Elphick took another stiff pull at his liquor. His hand had grownsteadier, and the colour was coming back to his face.
"If you will let me explain," he said. "If you will hear what was donefor the boy's sake--eh?"
"That," answered Spargo, "is precisely what I wish. I can tell youthis--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 saysthat!" she exclaimed, addressing the ceiling. "He says that, knowingthat he means to tell the world in his rag of a paper that RonaldBreton, on whom every care has been lavished, is the son of ascoundrel, an ex-convict, a----"
Elphick lifted his hand.
"Hush--hush!" he said imploringly. "Mr. Spargo means well, I am sure--Iam convinced. If Mr. Spargo will hear me----"
But before Spargo could reply, a loud insistent knocking came at theouter door. Elphick started nervously, but presently he moved acrossthe room, walking as if he had received a blow, and opened the door. Aboy's voice penetrated into the sitting-room.
"If you please, sir, is Mr. Spargo, of the _Watchman_, here? He leftthis address in case he was wanted."
Spargo recognized the voice as that of one of the office messengerboys, 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 Icome to see you tomorrow morning?"
"Yes, yes, tomorrow morning!" replied Elphick eagerly. "Tomorrowmorning, 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--theboy--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 facebeseechingly.
"Promise me--promise me, Mr. Spargo, that you won't tell him until youhave seen me in the morning!" he implored. "I beg you to promise methis."
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 closedthe door.
Spargo ran quickly to the office and hurried up to his own room. Andthere, calmly seated in an easy-chair, smoking a cigar, and reading anevening newspaper, was Rathbury, unconcerned and outwardly asimperturbable as ever. He greeted Spargo with a careless nod and asmile.
"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 tellyou my latest. You're at full liberty to stick it into your papertonight: 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? Clearas noontide now, Spargo."
Spargo sat drumming his fingers on the desk before him. His eyes werefixed on a map of London that hung on the opposite wall; his ears heardthe throbbing of the printing-machines far below. But what he reallysaw was the faces of the two girls; what he really heard was the voicesof two girls ...
"Clear as noontide--as noontide," repeated Rathbury with greatcheerfulness.
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, bythe by) meet at Dartmoor, probably, or, rather, certainly, just beforeAylmore's release. Aylmore goes abroad, makes money, in time comesback, starts new career, gets into Parliament, becomes big man. Intime, Maitland, who, after his time, has also gone abroad, also comesback. The two meet. Maitland probably tries to blackmail Aylmore orthreatens to let folk know that the flourishing Mr. Aylmore, M.P., isan 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 thoughta 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, wheredid Maitland, or Marbury, know or meet Aylmore twenty or twenty-twoyears ago? Not in London, because we knew Maitland never was inLondon--at any rate, before his trial, and we haven't the least proofthat he was in London after. And why won't Aylmore tell? Clearlybecause it must have been in some undesirable place. And then, all of asudden, it flashed on me in a moment of--what do you writing fellowscall 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 cometo 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 theybegan to recall him, and then one man remembered that if he was the manthey 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 useof standing out against proof like that. He admitted it tonight in mypresence. 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--thatwhen he was convicted the time before he was an innocent man. He'scertainly 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 whohe really was, we had all the particulars turned up. Aylmore, orAinsworth (Stephen Ainsworth his name really is) was a man who ran asort of what they call a Mutual Benefit Society in a town right away upin the North--Cloudhampton--some thirty years ago. He was nominallysecretary, but it was really his own affair. It was patronized by theworking classes--Cloudhampton's a purely artisan population--and theystuck a lot of their brass, as they call it, in it. Then suddenlyit came to smash, and there was nothing. He--Ainsworth, orAylmore--pleaded that he was robbed and duped by another man, but thecourt 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 hisdaughters to know about his past?"
"Just so," agreed Rathbury. "And I don't know that I blame him. Hethought, 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 fewminutes, Rathbury meanwhile finding and lighting another cigar. At lastSpargo came back and clapped a hand on the detective's shoulder.
"Look here, Rathbury!" he said. "It's very evident that you're nowgoing 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 themotive, 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 thedoor. "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 wrotewas a short telegram addressed to Aylmore's daughters. There were onlythree words on it--_Have no fear._