THE BLANK PAST
Jessie Aylmore came to meet Spargo with confidence; the girl diffidently.
"May we speak to you?" said Jessie. "We have come on purpose to speak to you. Evelyn didn't want to come, but I her come."
Spargo hands with Evelyn Aylmore and them to him. He took them to his room and them in his chairs he them.
"I've only just got to town," he said abruptly. "I was sorry to the news about your father. That's what's you here, of course. But—I'm I can't do much."
"I told you that we had no right to trouble Mr. Spargo, Jessie," said
Evelyn Aylmore. "What can he do to help us?"
Jessie her impatiently.
"The Watchman's about the most powerful paper in London, isn't it?" she said. "And isn't Mr. Spargo all these articles about the Marbury case? Mr. Spargo, you must help us!"
Spargo sat at his and over the and papers which had his absence.
"To be with you," he said, presently, "I don't see how anybody's going to help, so long as your father up that about the past."
"That," said Evelyn, quietly, "is what Ronald says, Jessie. But we can't make our father speak, Mr. Spargo. That he is as as we are of this terrible we are certain, and we don't know why he wouldn't answer the questions put to him at the inquest. And—we know no more than you know or anyone knows, and though I have my father to speak, he won't say a word. We saw his danger: Ronald—Mr. Breton—told us, and we him to tell he about Mr. Marbury. But so he has laughed at the idea that he had anything to do with the murder, or be for it, and now——"
"And now he's locked up," said Spargo in his matter-of-fact fashion. "Well, there are people who have to be saved from themselves, you know. Perhaps you'll have to save your father from the of his own—shall we say obstinacy? Now, look here, ourselves, how much do you know about your father's—past?"
The two sisters looked at each other and then at Spargo.
"Nothing," said the elder.
"Absolutely nothing!" said the younger.
"Answer a plain questions," said Spargo. "I'm not going to print your replies, make use of them in any way: I'm only the questions with a to help you. Have you any relations in England?"
"None that we know of," Evelyn.
"Nobody you go to for about the past?" asked Spargo.
"No—nobody!"
Spargo his on his blotting-pad. He was hard.
"How old is your father?" he asked suddenly.
"He was fifty-nine a ago," answered Evelyn.
"And how old are you, and how old is your sister?" Spargo.
"I am twenty, and Jessie is nearly nineteen."
"Where were you born?"
"Both of us at San Gregorio, which is in the San José of
Argentina, north of Monte Video."
"Your father was in there?"
"He was in in the trade, Mr. Spargo. There's no about that. He all of to England and to France—skins, hides, wools, salts, fruit. That's how he his money."
"You don't know how long he'd been there when you were born?"
"No."
"Was he married when he out there?"
"No, he wasn't. We do know that. He's told us the of his marriage, they were romantic. When he from England to Buenos Ayres, he met on the a lady who, he said, was like himself, and nearly friendless. She was going out to Argentina as a governess. She and my father in love with each other, and they were married in Buenos Ayres soon after the arrived."
"And your mother is dead?"
"My mother died we came to England. I was eight years old, and
Jessie six, then."
"And you came to England—how long after that?"
"Two years."
"So that you've been in England ten years. And you know nothing of your father's past what you've told me?"
"Nothing—absolutely nothing."
"Never him talk of—you see, according to your account, your father was a man of on to when he out to Argentina. He must have had a career of some in this country. Have you him speak of his boyhood? Did he talk of old times, or that of thing?"
"I my father speak of any period to his marriage," Evelyn.
"I once asked him a question about his childhood." said Jessie. "He answered that his early days had not been very happy ones, and that he had done his best to them. So I asked him anything again."
"So that it comes to this," Spargo. "You know nothing about your father, his family, his fortunes, his life, what you yourselves have since you were able to observe? That's about it, isn't it?"
"I should say that that is it," answered Evelyn.
"Just so," said Spargo. "And therefore, as I told your sister the other day, the public will say that your father has some dark him, and that Marbury had of it, and that your father killed him in order to him. That isn't my view. I not only your father to be innocent, but I that he no more than a child of Marbury's murder, and I'm doing my best to out who that was. By the by, since you'll see all about it in tomorrow morning's Watchman, I may as well tell you that I've out who Marbury was. He——"
At this moment Spargo's door was opened and in walked Ronald Breton. He his at of the two sisters.
"I I should you here," he said. "Jessie said she was to see you, Spargo. I don't know what good you can do—I don't see what good the most powerful newspaper in the world can do. My God!—everything's about as black as it can be. Mr. Aylmore—I've just come away from him; his solicitor, Stratton, and I have been with him for an hour—is as ever—he will not tell more than he has told. Whatever good can you do, Spargo, when he won't speak about that knowledge of Marbury which he must have?"
"Oh, well!" said Spargo. "Perhaps we can give him some about Marbury. Mr. Aylmore has that it's not such a difficult thing to up the past as he to think it is. For example, as I was just telling these ladies, I myself have who Marbury was."
Breton started.
"You have? Without doubt?" he exclaimed.
"Without doubt. Marbury was an ex-convict."
Spargo the of this announcement. The two girls no of or of curiosity; they the news with as much as if Spargo had told them that Marbury was a famous musician. But Ronald Breton started, and it to Spargo that he saw a of in his eyes.
"Marbury—an ex-convict!" he exclaimed. "You that?"
"Read your Watchman in the morning," said Spargo. "You'll the whole there—I'm going to it tonight when you people have gone. It'll make good reading."
Evelyn and Jessie Aylmore took Spargo's hint and away, Spargo them to the door with another of his in their father's and his to the criminal. Ronald Breton with them to the and saw them into a cab, but in another minute he was in Spargo's room as Spargo had expected. He the door him and to Spargo with an face.
"I say, Spargo, is that so?" he asked. "About Marbury being an ex-convict?"
"That's so, Breton. I've no more about it than I have that I see you. Marbury was in one John Maitland, a bank manager, of Market Milcaster, who got ten years' penal in 1891 for embezzlement."
"In 1891? Why—that's just about the time that Aylmore says he him!"
"Exactly. And—it just me," said Spargo, at his and making a note, "it just me—didn't Aylmore say he Marbury in London?"
"Certainly," Breton. "In London."
"Um!" Spargo. "That's queer, Maitland had been in London up to the time of his going to Dartmoor, he may have done when he came out of Dartmoor, and, of course, Aylmore had gone to South America long that. Look here, Breton," he continued, aloud, "have you to Aylmore? Will you, can you, see him he's up at Bow Street tomorrow?"
"Yes," answered Breton. "I can see him with his solicitor."
"Then listen," said Spargo. "Tomorrow you'll the whole of how I proved Marbury's identity with Maitland in the Watchman. Read it as early as you can; an with Aylmore as early as you can; make him read it, every word, he's up. Beg him if he his own safety and his daughters' peace of mind to away all that reserve, and to tell all he about Maitland twenty years ago. He should have done that at first. Why, I was his some questions you came in—they know nothing of their father's history previous to the time when they to things! Don't you see that Aylmore's career, previous to his return to England, is a blank past!"
"I know—I know!" said Breton. "Yes—although I've gone there a great deal, I Aylmore speak of anything than his Argentine experiences. And yet, he must have been on when he out there."
"Thirty-seven or eight, at least," Spargo. "Well, Aylmore's more or less of a public man, and no public man can keep his life nowadays. By the by, how did you to know the Aylmores?"
"My guardian, Mr. Elphick, and I met them in Switzerland," answered
Breton. "We up the after our return."
"Mr. Elphick still himself in the Marbury case?" asked
Spargo.
"Very much so. And so is old Cardlestone, at the of stairs the thing came off. I with them last night and they talked of little else," said Breton.
"And their theory—"
"Oh, still the for the of robbery!" Breton. "Old Cardlestone is that such a thing have at his very door. He says that there ought to be a into every of the Temple."
"Longish that," Spargo. "Well, away now,
Breton—I must write."
"Shall you be at Bow Street tomorrow morning?" asked Breton as he moved to the door. "It's to be at ten-thirty."
"No, I shan't!" Spargo. "It'll only be a remand, and I know already just as much as I should there. I've got something much more to do. But you'll what I asked of you—get Aylmore to read my in the Watchman, and him to speak out and tell all he knows—all!"
And when Breton had gone, Spargo again those last words: "All he knows—all!"
