be a father to the boy,' she says. 'He's
going to take him and educate him in the highest fashion, and make a
gentleman of him,' she says, 'for his mother's sake.' 'Mercy on us!'
says I. 'What'll Maitland say when he comes for him?' 'Maitland'll
never come for him,' she says, 'for I'm going to leave here, and the
boy'll be gone before then. This is all being done,' she says, 'so that
the child'll never know his father's shame--he'll never know who his
father was.' And true enough, the boy was taken away, but Maitland came
before she'd gone, and she told him the child was dead, and I never see
a man so cut up. However, it wasn't no concern of mine. And so there's
so much of the secret, gentlemen, and I would like to know if I ain't
giving good value."

"Very good," said the proprietor. "Go on." But Spargo intervened.

"Did you ever hear the name of the gentleman who took the boy away?" he
asked.

"Yes, I did," replied Mrs. Gutch. "Of course I did. Which it was
Elphick."

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

STILL SILENT

Spargo dropped his pen on the desk before him with a sharp clatter that
made Mrs. Gutch jump. A steady devotion to the bottle had made her
nerves to be none of the strongest, and she looked at the startler of
them with angry malevolence.

"Don't do that again, young man!" she exclaimed sharply. "I can't
a-bear to be jumped out of my skin, and it's bad manners. I observed
that the gentleman's name was Elphick."

Spargo contrived to get in a glance at his proprietor and his editor--a
glance which came near to being a wink.

"Just so--Elphick," he said. "A law gentleman I think you said, Mrs.
Gutch?"

"I said," answered Mrs. Gutch, "as how he looked like a lawyer
gentleman. And since you're so particular, young man, though I wasn't
addressing you but your principals, he was a lawyer gentleman. One of
the sort that wears wigs and gowns--ain't I seen his picture in Jane
Baylis's room at the boarding-house where you saw her this morning?"

"Elderly man?" asked Spargo.

"Elderly he will be now," replied the informant; "but when he took the
boy away he was a middle-aged man. About his age," she added, pointing
to the editor in a fashion which made that worthy man wince and the
proprietor desire to laugh unconsumedly; "and not so very unlike him
neither, being one as had no hair on his face."

"Ah!" said Spargo. "And where did this Mr. Elphick take the boy, Mrs.
Gutch?"

But Mrs. Gutch shook her head.