The Middle Temple Murder - J. S. Fletcher (reading women .TXT) 📗

importance. I don’t approve of modern journalism nor of its methods. In your own case you have got hold of some absurd notion that the man John Marbury was in reality one John Maitland, once of Market Milcaster, and you have been trying to frighten Miss Baylis here into⁠—”

Spargo suddenly rose from his chair. There was a certain temper in him which, when once roused, led him to straight hitting, and it was roused now. He looked the old barrister full in the face.

“Mr. Elphick,” he said, “you are evidently unaware of all that I know. So I will tell you what I will do. I will go back to my office, and I will write down what I do know, and give the true and absolute proofs of what I know, and, if you will trouble yourself to read the Watchman tomorrow morning, then you, too, will know.”

“Dear me⁠—dear me!” said Mr. Elphick, banteringly. “We are so used to ultra-sensational stories from the Watchman that⁠—but I am a curious and inquisitive old man, my good young sir, so perhaps you will tell me in a word what it is you do know, eh?”

Spargo reflected for a second. Then he bent forward across the table and looked the old barrister straight in the face.

“Yes,” he said quietly. “I will tell you what I know beyond doubt. I know that the man murdered under the name of John Marbury was, without doubt, John Maitland, of Market Milcaster, and that Ronald Breton is his son, whom you took from that woman!”

If Spargo had desired a complete revenge for the cavalier fashion in which Mr. Elphick had treated it he could not have been afforded a more ample one than that offered to him by the old barrister’s reception of this news. Mr. Elphick’s face not only fell, but changed; his expression of almost sneering contempt was transformed to one clearly resembling abject terror; he dropped his pipe, fell back in his chair, recovered himself, gripped the chair’s arms, and stared at Spargo as if the young man had suddenly announced to him that in another minute he must be led to instant execution. And Spargo, quick to see his advantage, followed it up.

“That is what I know, Mr. Elphick, and if I choose, all the world shall know it tomorrow morning!” he said firmly. “Ronald Breton is the son of the murdered man, and Ronald Breton is engaged to be married to the daughter of the man charged with the murder. Do you hear that? It is not matter of suspicion, or of idea, or of conjecture, it is fact⁠—fact!”

Mr. Elphick slowly turned his face to Miss Baylis. He gasped out a few words.

“You⁠—did⁠—not⁠—tell⁠—me⁠—this!”

Then Spargo, turning to the woman, saw that she, too, was white to the lips and as frightened as the man.

“I⁠—didn’t know!” she muttered. “He didn’t tell me. He only told me this morning what⁠—what I’ve told you.”

Spargo picked up his hat.

“Good night, Mr. Elphick,” he said.

But before he could reach the door the old barrister had leapt from his chair and seized him with trembling hands. Spargo turned and looked at him. He knew then that for some reason or other he had given Mr. Septimus Elphick a thoroughly bad fright.

“Well?” he growled.

“My dear young gentleman!” implored Mr. Elphick. “Don’t go! I’ll⁠—I’ll do anything for you if you won’t go away to print that. I’ll⁠—I’ll give you a thousand pounds!”

Spargo shook him off.

“That’s enough!” he snarled. “Now, I am off! What, you’d try to bribe me?”

Mr. Elphick wrung his hands.

“I didn’t mean that⁠—indeed I didn’t!” he almost wailed. “I⁠—I don’t know what I meant. Stay, young gentleman, stay a little, and let us⁠—let us talk. Let me have a word with you⁠—as many words as you please. I implore you!”

Spargo made a fine pretence of hesitation.

“If I stay,” he said, at last, “it will only be on the strict condition that you answer⁠—and answer truly⁠—whatever questions I like to ask you. Otherwise⁠—”

He made another move to the door, and again Mr. Elphick laid beseeching hands on him.

“Stay!” he said. “I’ll answer anything you like!”

XXVIII Of Proved Identity

Spargo sat down again in the chair which he had just left, and looked at the two people upon whom his startling announcement had produced such a curious effect. And he recognized as he looked at them that, while they were both frightened, they were frightened in different ways. Miss Baylis had already recovered her composure; she now sat sombre and stern as ever, returning Spargo’s look with something of indifferent defiance; he thought he could see that in her mind a certain fear was battling with a certain amount of wonder that he had discovered the secret. It seemed to him that so far as she was concerned the secret had come to an end; it was as if she said in so many words that now the secret was out he might do his worst.

But upon Mr. Septimus Elphick the effect was very different. He was still trembling from excitement; he groaned as he sank into his chair and the hand with which he poured out a glass of spirits shook; the glass rattled against his teeth when he raised it to his lips. The half-contemptuous fashion of his reception of Spargo had now wholly disappeared; he was a man who had received a shock, and a bad one. And Spargo, watching him keenly, said to himself: This man knows a great deal more than, a great deal beyond, the mere fact that Marbury was Maitland, and that Ronald Breton is in reality Maitland’s son; he knows something which he never wanted anybody to know, which he firmly believed it impossible anybody ever could know. It was as if he had buried something deep, deep down in the lowest depths, and was as astounded as he was frightened to find that it had been at last flung up to the broad light of day.

“I shall wait,” suddenly said Spargo, “until you are composed, Mr. Elphick.