the newspaper aside, "I didn't. I came to tell
you my latest. You're at full liberty to stick it into your paper
tonight: it may just as well be known."

"Well?" said Spargo.

Rathbury took his cigar out of his lips and yawned.

"Aylmore's identified," he said lazily.

Spargo sat up, sharply.

"Identified!"

"Identified, my son. Beyond doubt."

"But as whom--as what?" exclaimed Spargo.

Rathbury laughed.

"He's an old lag--an ex-convict. Served his time partly at Dartmoor.
That, of course, is where he met Maitland or Marbury. D'ye see? Clear
as noontide now, Spargo."

Spargo sat drumming his fingers on the desk before him. His eyes were
fixed on a map of London that hung on the opposite wall; his ears heard
the throbbing of the printing-machines far below. But what he really
saw was the faces of the two girls; what he really heard was the voices
of two girls ...

"Clear as noontide--as noontide," repeated Rathbury with great
cheerfulness.

Spargo came back to the earth of plain and brutal fact.

"What's clear as noontide?" he asked sharply.

"What? Why, the whole thing! Motive--everything," answered Rathbury.
"Don't you see, Maitland and Aylmore (his real name is Ainsworth, by
the by) meet at Dartmoor, probably, or, rather, certainly, just before
Aylmore's release. Aylmore goes abroad, makes money, in time comes
back, starts new career, gets into Parliament, becomes big man. In
time, Maitland, who, after his time, has also gone abroad, also comes
back. The two meet. Maitland probably tries to blackmail Aylmore or
threatens to let folk know that the flourishing Mr. Aylmore, M.P., is
an ex-convict. Result--Aylmore lures him to the Temple and quiets him.
Pooh!--the whole thing's clear as noontide, as I say. As--noontide!"

Spargo drummed his fingers again.

"How?" he asked quietly. "How came Aylmore to be identified?"

"My work," said Rathbury proudly. "My work, my son. You see, I thought
a lot. And especially after we'd found out that Marbury was Maitland."

"You mean after I'd found out," remarked Spargo.

Rathbury waved his cigar.

"Well, well, it's all the same," he said. "You help me, and I help you,
eh? Well, as I say, I thought a considerable lot. I thought--now, where
did Maitland, or Marbury, know or meet Aylmore twenty or twenty-two
years ago? Not in London, because we knew Maitland never was in
London--at any rate, before his trial, and we haven't the least proof
that he was in London