The little man’s hope was vain, as he might have guessed that it would be, for when the news became known in Fleet Street, the newspapers were only too glad to discover an original sensation for the dead season.  Every day journalists and special correspondents were sent down in such numbers that the platform of Wanbury Railway Station was crowded with them.  As the town—­it was the chief town of Hengishire—­was five miles away from the village of Garvington, every possible kind of vehicle was used to reach the scene of the crime, and The Manor became a rendezvous for all the morbid people, both in the neighborhood and out of it.  The reporters in particular poked and pried all over the place, passing from the great house to the village, and thence to the gypsy camp on the borders of Abbot’s Wood.  From one person and another they learned facts, which were published with such fanciful additions that they read like fiction.  On the authority of Mother Cockleshell—­who was not averse to earning a few shillings—­a kind of Gil Blas tale was put into print, and the wanderings of Ishmael Hearne were set forth in the picturesque style of a picarooning romance.  But of the time when the adventurous gypsy assumed his Gentile name, the Romany could tell nothing, for obvious reasons.  Until the truth became known, because of the man’s tragic and unforeseen death, those in the camp were not aware that he was a Gorgio millionaire.  But where the story of Mother Cockleshell left off, that of Mark Silver began, for the secretary had been connected with his employer almost from the days of Hearne’s first exploits as Pine in London.  And Silver—­who also charged for the blended fact and fiction which he supplied—­freely related all he knew.

“Hearne came to London and called himself Hubert Pine,” he stated frankly, and not hesitating to confess his own lowly origin.  “We met when I was starving as a toymaker in Whitechapel.  I invented some penny toys, which Pine put on the market for me.  They were successful and he made money.  I am bound to confess that he paid me tolerably well, although he certainly took the lion’s share.  With the money he made in this way, he speculated in South African shares, and, as the boom was then on, he simply coined gold.  Everything he touched turned into cash, and however deeply he plunged into the money market, he always came out top in the end.  By turning over his money and re-investing it, and by fresh speculations, he became a millionaire in a wonderfully short space of time.  Then he made me his secretary and afterwards took up politics.  The Government gave him a knighthood for services rendered to his party, and he became a well-known figure in the world of finance.  He married Lady Agnes Lambert, and—­and—­that’s all.”

“You were aware that he was a gypsy, Mr. Silver?” asked the reporter.