indifferent perhaps, I can find some on the other side. It's
very easy to find all these things out, you know."

Miss Baylis, who had begun to stalk back to the house in gloomy and
majestic fashion, and had let Spargo see plainly that this part of the
interview was distasteful to her, suddenly paused in her stride and
glared at the young journalist.

"Easy to find all these things out?" she repeated.

Spargo caught, or fancied he caught, a note of anxiety in her tone. He
was quick to turn his fancy to practical purpose.

"Oh, easy enough!" he said. "I could find out all about Maitland's
family through that boy. Quite, quite easily!"

Miss Baylis had stopped now, and stood glaring at him. "How?" she
demanded.

"I'll tell you," said Spargo with cheerful alacrity. "It is, of course,
the easiest thing in the world to trace all about his short life. I
suppose I can find the register of his birth at Market Milcaster, and
you, of course, will tell me where he died. By the by, when did he die,
Miss Baylis?"

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.