“That’s a thing I want to know about,” said Spargo. “Do you know what a certain lot of people in Market Milcaster say to this day, Miss Baylis?—they say that you were in at the game with Maitland; that you had a lot of the money placed in your charge; that when Maitland went to prison, you took the child away, first to Brighton, then abroad—disappeared with him—and that you made a home ready for Maitland when he came out. That’s what’s said by some people in Market Milcaster.” Miss Baylis’s stern lips curled. “People in Market Milcaster!” she exclaimed. “All the people I ever knew in Market Milcaster had about as many brains between them as that cat on the wall there. As for making a home for John Maitland, I would have seen him die in the gutter, of absolute want, before I would have given him a crust of dry bread!” “You appear to have a terrible dislike of this man,” observed Spargo, astonished at her vehemence. “I had—and I have,” she answered. “He tricked my sister into a marriage with him when he knew that she would rather have married an honest man who worshipped her; he treated her with quiet, infernal cruelty; he robbed her and me of the small fortunes our father left us.” “Ah!” said Spargo. “Well, so you say Maitland came to you, when he came out of prison, to ask for his boy. Did he take the boy?” “No—the boy was dead.” “Dead, eh? Then I suppose Maitland did not stop long with you?” Miss Baylis laughed her scornful laugh. “I showed him the door!” she said. “Well, did he tell you that he was going to Australia?” enquired Spargo. “I should not have listened to anything that he told me, Mr. Spargo,” she answered. “Then, in short,” said Spargo, “you never heard of him again?” “I never heard of him again,” she declared passionately, “and I only hope that what you tell me is true, and that Marbury really was Maitland!” CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR MOTHER GUTCH Spargo, having exhausted the list of questions which he had thought out on his way to Bayswater, was about to take his leave of Miss Baylis, when a new idea suddenly occurred to him, and he turned back to that formidable lady. “I’ve just thought of something else,” he said. “I told you that I’m certain Marbury was Maitland, and that he came to a sad end—murdered.” “And I’ve told you,” she replied scornfully, “that in my opinion no end could be too bad for him.” “Just so—I understand you,” said Spargo. “But I didn’t tell you that he was not only murdered but robbed—robbed of probably a good deal. There’s good reason to believe that he had securities, bank notes, loose diamonds, and other things on him to the value of a large amount. He’d several thousand pounds when he left Coolumbidgee, in New South Wales, where he’d lived quietly for some years.” Miss Baylis smiled sourly. “What’s all this to me?” she asked.