I see by what right
you come here and ask questions."

"Pardon my abruptness," said the detective. "I am searching for a young
man who disappeared some years ago, and his friends are still hunting
for him, still anxious, so that they follow the most absurd clues. I am
forced to ask this question of all sorts of people, only to get the
answer which you have given. I trust you will pardon me for my
presumption for the sake of people who are suffering."

His speech warned her that she had heard her son's name for the first
time, that she stood on the verge of exposure; and her heart failed her,
she felt that her voice would break if she ventured to speak, her knees
give way if she resented this man's manner by leaving the room. Yet the
weakness was only for a moment, and when it passed a wild curiosity to
hear something of that past which had been a sealed book to her, to know
the real personality of Arthur Dillon, burned her like a flame, and
steadied her nerves. For two years she had been resenting his secrecy,
not understanding his reasons. He was guarding against the very
situation of this moment.

"Horace Endicott," she repeated with interest. "There is no one of that
name in my little circle, and I have never heard the name before. Who
was he? And how did he come to be lost?"

And she rose to indicate that his reply must be brief.

Curran told with eloquence of the disappearance and the long search, and
gave a history of Endicott's life in nice detail, pleased with the
unaffected interest of this severe but elegant woman. As he spoke his
eye took in every mark of feeling, every gesture, every expression. Her
self-command, if she knew Horace Endicott, remained perfect; if she knew
him not, her manner seemed natural.

"God pity his poor people," was her fervent comment as she took her seat
again. "I was angry with you at first, sir," looking at his card, "and
of a mind to send you away for what looked like impertinence. But it's I
would be only too glad to give you help if I could. I never even heard
the young man's name. And it puzzles me, why you should come to me."

"For this reason, Mrs. Dillon," he said with sincere disgust. "The
people who are hunting for Horace Endicott think that Arthur Dillon is
the man; or to put it in another way, that you were deceived when you
welcomed back your son from California. Horace Endicott and not Arthur
Dillon returned."

"My God!" cried she, and sat staring at him; the