“He knows his name was Baxter originally, but he wouldn’t connect his mother with Mrs. Draycott. He thinks she died before he came to me with his father. I never tried to conceal his parentage from him; in fact, I’ve done my best to keep the memory of his father alive as he was before he let himself go to pieces. Fortunately the little chap was too young to notice much in those days. No, it was his mother I was afraid of. She’d got no legal claim on the boy, but I knew her. She was a greedy woman where money was concerned and an infernally clever one. Even when Draycott was alive she was eternally hard up and there was very little she’d stick at to raise money. I never saw her again, as I said, but I kept track of her and, from what I heard, I’m pretty certain that, if she’d known where to find the boy, she’d have put the screw on me, little as I should have been able to give her. She knew I’d do a good deal to prevent her from getting at him. She was an attractive woman and a good enough actress to make a very pretty and affecting scene if she’d chosen to look him up and play the fond mother. She’d have got round him, I’ve no doubt, and she knew I couldn’t afford to risk that. That was why I changed his name and I was very careful not to talk openly of where he was. You must remember that she detested me and, apart from the money, she was quite capable of going and worrying the boy out of sheer spite.” “She wouldn’t descend to blackmail, surely,” protested Fayre. He had disliked Mrs. Draycott and everything that he had since heard of her had been to her discredit, but he found it difficult to believe that a sister of Miss Allen should have sunk low enough for blackmail. “I know what you’re thinking,” said Gregg shrewdly. “She came of good stock and was brought up according to the traditions of her class, but, believe me, when a woman’s once started on the downward slope she gets pretty callous about what she does. I give you my word that, bad as the shock of finding her dead was, it had less effect on me that night than the discovery that she was Miss Allen’s sister. I realized then, for the first time, the sort of people she had sprung from and I came very near to giving myself away, I was so surprised. Oddly enough, in spite of the name, I had never connected them with each other.” “You say you kept an eye on Mrs. Draycott. Does that mean that you were in touch with any of her associates? I don’t mind telling you that we’re still at sea as to the motive of the crime.”