Spargo, much astonished at this reception, passed through an ante-room into a handsomely furnished apartment full of books and pictures. In spite of the fact that it was still very little past midsummer there was a cheery fire in the grate, and on a table set near a roomy arm-chair was set such creature comforts as a spirit-case, a syphon, a tumbler, and a novel—from which things Spargo argued that Mr. Elphick had been taking his ease since his dinner. But in another armchair on the opposite side of the hearth was the forbidding figure of Miss Baylis, blacker, gloomier, more mysterious than ever. She neither spoke nor moved when Spargo entered: she did not even look at him. And Spargo stood staring at her until Mr. Elphick, having closed his doors, touched him on the elbow, and motioned him courteously to a seat. “Yes, I was expecting you, Mr. Spargo,” he said, as he resumed his own chair. “I have been expecting you at any time, ever since you took up your investigation of the Marbury affair, in some of the earlier stages of which you saw me, you will remember, at the mortuary. But since Miss Baylis told me, twenty minutes ago, that you had been to her this morning I felt sure that it would not be more than a few hours before you would come to me.” “Why, Mr. Elphick, should you suppose that I should come to you at all?” asked Spargo, now in full possession of his wits. “Because I felt sure that you would leave no stone unturned, no corner unexplored,” replied Mr. Elphick. “The curiosity of the modern pressman is insatiable.” Spargo stiffened. “I have no curiosity, Mr. Elphick,” he said. “I am charged by my paper to investigate the circumstances of the death of the man who was found in Middle Temple Lane, and, if possible, to track his murderer, and——” Mr. Elphick laughed slightly and waved his hand. “My good young gentleman!” he said. “You exaggerate your own importance. I don’t approve of modern journalism nor of its methods. In your own case you have got hold of some absurd notion that the man John Marbury was in reality one John Maitland, once of Market Milcaster, and you have been trying to frighten Miss Baylis here into——” Spargo suddenly rose from his chair. There was a certain temper in him which, when once roused, led him to straight hitting, and it was roused now. He looked the old barrister full in the face. “Mr. Elphick,” he said, “you are evidently unaware of all that I know. So I will tell you what I will do. I will go back to my office, and I will write down what I do know, and give the true and absolute proofs of what I know, and, if you will trouble yourself to read the _Watchman_ tomorrow morning, then you, too, will know.” “Dear me—dear me!” said Mr. Elphick, banteringly. “We are so used to ultra-sensational stories from the _Watchman_ that—but I am a curious and inquisitive old man, my good young sir, so perhaps you will tell me in a word what it is you do know, eh?”