“Oh, well!” said Spargo.  “Perhaps we can give him some information about Marbury.  Mr. Aylmore has forgotten that it’s not such a difficult thing to rake up the past as he seems to think it is.  For example, as I was just telling these young ladies, I myself have discovered who Marbury really was.”

Breton started.

“You have?  Without doubt?” he exclaimed.

“Without reasonable doubt.  Marbury was an ex-convict.”

Spargo watched the effect of this sudden announcement.  The two girls showed no sign of astonishment or of unusual curiosity; they received the news with as much unconcern as if Spargo had told them that Marbury was a famous musician.  But Ronald Breton started, and it seemed to Spargo that he saw a sense of suspicion dawn in his eyes.

“Marbury—­an ex-convict!” he exclaimed.  “You mean that?”

“Read your Watchman in the morning,” said Spargo.  “You’ll find the whole story there—­I’m going to write it tonight when you people have gone.  It’ll make good reading.”

Evelyn and Jessie Aylmore took Spargo’s hint and went away, Spargo seeing them to the door with another assurance of his belief in their father’s innocence and his determination to hunt down the real criminal.  Ronald Breton went down with them to the street and saw them into a cab, but in another minute he was back in Spargo’s room as Spargo had expected.  He shut the door carefully behind him and turned to Spargo with an eager face.

“I say, Spargo, is that really so?” he asked.  “About Marbury being an ex-convict?”

“That’s so, Breton.  I’ve no more doubt about it than I have that I see you.  Marbury was in reality one John Maitland, a bank manager, of Market Milcaster, who got ten years’ penal servitude in 1891 for embezzlement.”

“In 1891?  Why—­that’s just about the time that Aylmore says he knew him!”

“Exactly.  And—­it just strikes me,” said Spargo, sitting down at his desk and making a hurried note, “it just strikes me—­didn’t Aylmore say he knew Marbury in London?”

“Certainly,” replied Breton.  “In London.”

“Um!” mused Spargo.  “That’s queer, because Maitland had never been in London up to the time of his going to Dartmoor, whatever he may have done when he came out of Dartmoor, and, of course, Aylmore had gone to South America long before that.  Look here, Breton,” he continued, aloud, “have you access to Aylmore?  Will you, can you, see him before he’s brought up at Bow Street tomorrow?”

“Yes,” answered Breton.  “I can see him with his solicitor.”

“Then listen,” said Spargo.  “Tomorrow morning you’ll find the whole story of how I proved Marbury’s identity with Maitland in the Watchman.  Read it as early as you can; get an interview with Aylmore as early as you can; make him read it, every word, before he’s brought up.  Beg him if he values his own safety and his daughters’ peace of mind to throw away all that foolish reserve, and to tell all he knows about Maitland twenty years ago.  He should have done that at first.  Why, I was asking his daughters some questions before you came in—­they know absolutely nothing of their father’s history previous to the time when they began to understand things!  Don’t you see that Aylmore’s career, previous to his return to England, is a blank past!”