But Miss Baylis was going on again to the house.

“I shall tell you nothing more,” she said angrily.  “I’ve told you too much already, and I believe all you’re here for is to get some news for your paper.  But I will, at any rate tell you this—­when Maitland went to prison his child would have been defenceless but for me; he’d have had to go to the workhouse but for me; he hadn’t a single relation in the world but me, on either father’s or mother’s side.  And even at my age, old woman as I am, I’d rather beg my bread in the street, I’d rather starve and die, than touch a penny piece that had come from John Maitland!  That’s all.”

Then without further word, without offering to show Spargo the way out, she marched in at the open window and disappeared.  And Spargo, knowing no other way, was about to follow her when he heard a sudden rustling sound in the shadow by which they had stood, and the next moment a queer, cracked, horrible voice, suggesting all sorts of things, said distinctly and yet in a whisper: 

“Young man!”

Spargo turned and stared at the privet hedge behind him.  It was thick and bushy, and in its full summer green, but it seemed to him that he saw a nondescript shape behind.  “Who’s there?” he demanded.  “Somebody listening?”

There was a curious cackle of laughter from behind the hedge; then the cracked, husky voice spoke again.

“Young man, don’t you move or look as if you were talking to anybody.  Do you know where the ‘King of Madagascar’ public-house is in this quarter of the town, young man?”

“No!” answered Spargo.  “Certainly not!”

“Well, anybody’ll tell you when you get outside, young man,” continued the queer voice of the unseen person.  “Go there, and wait at the corner by the ‘King of Madagascar,’ and I’ll come there to you at the end of half an hour.  Then I’ll tell you something, young man—­I’ll tell you something.  Now run away, young man, run away to the ’King of Madagascar’—­I’m coming!”

The voice ended in low, horrible cachinnation which made Spargo feel queer.  But he was young enough to be in love with adventure, and he immediately turned on his heel without so much as a glance at the privet hedge, and went across the garden and through the house, and let himself out at the door.  And at the next corner of the square he met a policeman and asked him if he knew where the “King of Madagascar” was.

“First to the right, second to the left,” answered the policeman tersely.  “You can’t miss it anywhere round there—­it’s a landmark.”

And Spargo found the landmark—­a great, square-built tavern—­easily, and he waited at a corner of it wondering what he was going to see, and intensely curious about the owner of the queer voice, with all its suggestions of he knew not what.  And suddenly there came up to him an old woman and leered at him in a fashion that made him suddenly realize how dreadful old age may be.