“And of course, he joined you in these agreeable pursuits, the card-sharping, the plucking of young pigeons, even although they did not give full scope for the exercise of his superior talents.” “That is so, mister, and in a minute I’m coming to what you want to know. I take it, you’ve been making a lot of inquiries, but up to the present you haven’t been able to prove definitely he is the criminal you believe him to be. That goes without saying. If you could have got that information yourself, you wouldn’t chuck away seven hundred pounds on me.” The Colonial, when he could keep off the drink, was evidently a clear thinker. With great modesty he had spoken of himself as a dull and plodding fellow, but Grewgus did not consider him as dull as he pretended to be. Probably intemperance had stood in his way: prevented him from being a successful crook and reduced him to his present position of subsisting on Stormont’s bounty. “Well, the game wasn’t fast enough for him; the profits out of this petty kind of roguery were too small for a man of his ambitious nature and expensive tastes. Three or four times he launched out on things of his own--things that the others were too timid or too slow-witted to join in. And the last one brought him to grief.” Grewgus leaned forward in an attitude of expectation. At last he was going to get something definite about the apparently prosperous owner of Effington Hall. “It was rather a neat little bit of forgery. He had laid his plans well too, thought it all out very carefully, almost succeeded in fixing the guilt upon another chap, a perfectly honest man.” “As big a scandal as that, eh?” was the detective’s surprised comment. Newcombe indulged in a sardonic laugh. “Stormont wasn’t the sort of man to think of anybody but himself. As long as he could swim he didn’t care who sank. An innocent man sacrificed didn’t weigh heavily on his conscience. But clever as he was, the police just went one better. The other fellow’s innocence was proved and the guilt clearly fastened on the right person. I forgot to tell you that when he began to launch out on these dangerous _coups_ he changed his name from Stormont to Manvers. Under the name of Manvers he was convicted and sentenced to a pretty tidy term of imprisonment. Now, I’ve kept all the papers describing the trial and evidence. I shan’t give them up, of course; but if you give me your solemn word of honour to return them to me, I’ll lend them to you to make copies of.” “Thanks very much; I’ll take them away with me when I leave. Does the name of Stormont occur in them?” “Yes, they discovered he had been passing under the two, but they inclined to the belief that Manvers was the real one, and as Manvers he was convicted. Of course his old pals knew better.” “And what became of him after he came out of prison?”