The Middle Temple Murder J. S. Fletcher (the reading strategies book .txt) 📖

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.”

XXVI 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 boardinghouse 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.

“Ain’t no idea,” she said. “He took him. Then, as I told you, Maitland came, and Jane Baylis told him that the boy was dead. And after that she never even told me anything about the boy. She kept a tight tongue. Once or twice I asked her, and she says, ‘Never you mind,’ she says; ‘he’s all right for life, if he lives to be as old as Methusalem.’ And she never said more, and I never said more. But,” continued Mrs. Gutch, whose pocket-flask was empty, and who began to wipe tears away, “she’s treated me hard has Jane Baylis, never allowing me a little comfort such as a lady of my age should have, and when I hears the two of you a-talking this morning the other side of that privet hedge, thinks I, ‘Now’s the time to have my knife into you, my fine madam!’ And I hope I done it.”

Spargo looked at the editor and the proprietor, nodding his head slightly. He meant them to understand that he had got all he wanted from Mother Gutch.

“What are you going to do, Mrs. Gutch, when you leave here?” he asked. “You shall be driven straight back to Bayswater, if you like.”

“Which I shall be obliged for, young man,” said Mrs. Gutch, “and likewise for the first week of the annuity, and will call every Saturday for the same at eleven punctual, or can be posted to me on a Friday, whichever is agreeable to you gentlemen. And having my first week in my purse, and being driven to Bayswater, I shall take my boxes and go to a friend of mine where I shall be hearty welcome, shaking the dust of my feet off against Jane Baylis and where I’ve been living with her.”

“Yes, but, Mrs. Gutch,” said Spargo, with some anxiety, “if you go back there tonight, you’ll be very careful not to tell Miss Baylis that you’ve been here and told us all this?”

Mrs. Gutch rose, dignified and composed.

“Young man,” she said, “you mean well, but you ain’t used to dealing with ladies. I can keep my tongue as still as anybody when I like. I wouldn’t tell Jane Baylis my affairs⁠—my new affairs, gentlemen, thanks to you⁠—not for two annuities, paid twice a week!”

“Take Mrs. Gutch downstairs, Spargo, and see her all right, and then come to my room,” said the editor. “And don’t you forget, Mrs. Gutch⁠—keep a quiet tongue in your head⁠—no more talk⁠—or there’ll be no annuities on Saturday mornings.”

So Spargo took Mother Gutch to the cashier’s department and paid her her first week’s money, and he got her a taxicab, and paid for it, and saw her depart, and then he went to the editor’s room, strangely thoughtful. The editor and the proprietor were talking, but they stopped when Spargo entered and looked at him eagerly. “I think we’ve done it,” said Spargo quietly.

“What, precisely, have we found out?” asked the editor.

“A great deal more than I’d anticipated,” answered Spargo, “and I don’t know what fields it doesn’t open out. If you look back, you’ll remember that the only thing found on Marbury’s body was a scrap of grey paper on which was a name and address⁠—Ronald Breton, King’s Bench Walk.”

“Well?”

“Breton is a young barrister. Also he writes a bit⁠—I have accepted two or three articles of his for our literary page.”

“Well?”

“Further, he is engaged to Miss Aylmore, the eldest daughter of Aylmore, the Member of Parliament who has been charged at Bow Street today with the murder of Marbury.”

“I know. Well, what then, Spargo?”

“But the most important matter,” continued Spargo, speaking very deliberately, “is this⁠—that is, taking that old woman’s statement to be true, as I personally believe it is⁠—that Breton, as he has told me himself (I have seen a good deal of him) was brought up by a guardian. That guardian is Mr. Septimus Elphick, the barrister.”

The proprietor and the editor looked at each other. Their faces wore the expression of