He came by the information by having, at the request of the late Mr. Dimsdale, searched into Maunders' private life some months previously. The old ex-police-commissioner, seeing that his daughter was infatuated with the young man, hoped to learn something to his discredit, and so asked Vernon--whom he knew already as Nemo--to make an examination. Of course, Vernon did not guess at the time that Mr. Dimsdale wished to find something to the discredit of an undesirable suitor, and merely thought that the old man was anxious to learn if Maunders was a fit husband for his daughter. In fact, Vernon believed that he was doing his old schoolfellow a good turn in probing his life. He certainly learned that Maunders owed nothing and always settled his debts scrupulously--presumably on money allowed by Mrs. Bedge; so he presented his report to Dimsdale with the remark that Maunders, at all events, was an honest man. Now the case assumed a different aspect with Mrs. Bedge's confession of poverty--a confession which was supported as true by her anxiety to become Ida's paid companion. Since Maunders paid his debts and lived like a millionaire in embryo, how did he manage to fill his purse? Lady Corsoon had provided a very reasonable reply to this serious question. He was The Spider. "But, hang him, he's not clever enough," muttered Vernon, rising to pace the narrow confines of his office at this point of his meditations. "He's cunning and smart and observant and unscrupulous. But The Spider is a genius and manages his affairs in a far-seeing way, which does not suggest Maunders. Conny is shallow in many ways, and for the present would sacrifice the future. No, The Spider never does that. He waits and plans and arranges his operations in such a way that he can never be captured. No, feasible though it seems, I can't see Constantine as that master-criminal."