"By the _Miramar_, so the police declare. A Spanish tramp, going down the Moroquin coast and stopping first at Tangier." "He's gone to kill two birds with one stone," said Despard. "And you are pursuing?" "Naturally," said Aylmer, in a very matter-of-fact voice. "And your leave home--Scotland--cub hunting?" "That goes, of course. Possibly, if ten weeks is insufficient, my secretaryship goes. Perhaps, old chap, even my commission." Despard got up with a startled jerk. "What's that?" he cried fiercely. "What's that?" Aylmer's hand made a deprecative motion. "My duty's plain, isn't it?" he asked. "No!" retorted Despard. "If these old women of Commissioners have no more sense than to direct you to keep important books in a simple bookcase in your quarters--" "Oh, the book?" interrupted Aylmer, placidly. "Of course, there's the book." Despard halted, hesitated, and looked at his friend with curiosity. "You mean the contents of it? You can't help them getting known?" Aylmer nodded. "We must recognize the fact that they are known by whoever buys them, or whoever hired Landon to steal them." "Then why worry; why pursue, why start on this wild-goose chase?" He pointed to the great bruise on Aylmer's forehead. "It's outrageous, with that on you. It's probably dangerous." For a moment Aylmer was silent. He stood looking at Despard, and his eyes seemed to express a sort of speculative criticism. "Landon is my cousin," he said at last, as if he put the keystone to an argumentative arch. "What of it?" For the second time Aylmer hesitated before he spoke. "It seems to me," he said slowly, "that in this part of the world I am responsible for the good name which he is smirching. He has gone to Tangier--not only to save his skin. He has gone to commence a campaign of terrorization against the Van Arlens. Merely as an Aylmer I have to pit my hand against his, merely to clear our name and to do my duty. And there is more than that. Since Landon, for moral purposes, is dead, I consider that morally, and very possibly legally, I am the child's guardian. To keep my trust I have to safeguard the child from his father." Despard tapped his fingers doubtfully upon the mantelpiece. "And the Van Arlens?" he questioned. There were tones in his voice which made Aylmer pause over his portmanteau. "The Van Arlens? I am, of course, going to them direct." Despard hesitated. "You can't work with them," he said at last. "They won't accept your help." A flicker of emotion, first of pain and then of purpose, gleamed in Aylmer's eyes. "But they may need it," he answered. He looked at Despard searchingly. "And why not?" he went on. "What have they against me except my name?" "You don't know what it has come to mean to them, in eight years," said Despard, quietly.