“Mr. Chilford is waiting for you in the library, sir,” she said. “I told him I didn’t know how long you’d be out, but he said he must wait.” Blick pulled Mr. Fransemmery’s sleeve as they entered the hall. “Not a word about the automatic pistol!” he whispered. “Don’t want that to get out at all, yet. Look here—Chilford mightn’t want my presence; shall I go?” “No; come in,” said Mr. Fransemmery. “I want you to come in. I’ll tell him that you know all about this Hilson business. Ah, Chilford!” he went on, as they entered the library, where the solicitor, evidently full of thought, sat staring at the fire. “I know what’s brought you here—I expected it! You’ve had Margaret Hilson to see you—she’d tell you she’d seen me already. Well, Mr. Blick is fully conversant with her story, so——” Chilford looked from one to the other. “Something more than Margaret Hilson’s story brought me here, Fransemmery,” he answered. “I’ve seen her, of course—she called on me late this afternoon. I didn’t know what to think of her story, exactly, as long as it was just hers, unsupported. But since seven o’clock, this evening, I’ve known it to be true—in every detail!” “You have?” exclaimed Mr. Fransemmery. “How now?” Chilford waved a hand towards the window from which, had it not been night and the blinds drawn, they would have looked across the park to Markenmore Court. “The successor to the title and estates is down there!” he said. “A boy of six!—quite unaware of what he’s come into!” Mr. Fransemmery glanced at Blick, and saw that what he himself was thinking about was also in the detective’s thoughts—the question raised by Mrs. Braxfield as to marriage or no marriage. “You’re sure, then, of his right?” he said, turning to Chilford. “But—how has he turned up? This is something unexpected, isn’t it?” “Hadn’t the ghost of a notion that any such development would occur,” answered Chilford. “Nobody ever suggested to me that Guy Markenmore had been married—I always understood that he never had! And when that woman, Margaret Hilson, came to me this evening, just after I’d returned from my office, with the story she’d already told you, I was more than a little amazed. But I know her for a decent, respectable woman, not at all likely to invent fairy-tales, nor, for that matter, to tell what she didn’t believe to be true, and when I’d heard her, I began to think there might be, well, something in it. And do you know, Fransemmery, she hadn’t left my house half an hour when there drove up from Selcaster railway station a well-known London solicitor, Quillamane, of Bedford Row, who brought with him a lady and a small boy, and a story agreeing entirely with that which I’d just listened to. What’s more,” concluded Chilford, with a dry laugh and a wink at Mr. Fransemmery, “he brought full documentary proofs of all that he had to tell. Pooh!—the thing’s quite clear. There’s a Sir Guy Markenmore in Markenmore Court tonight!—and he’s six years old!”