“I shall be here at eleven,” said Spargo.  “Eleven sharp.”

He was moving away when Elphick caught him by the sleeve.

“A word—­just a word!” he said.  “You—­you have not told the—­the boy—­Ronald—­of what you know?  You haven’t?”

“I haven’t,” replied Spargo.

Elphick tightened his grip on Spargo’s sleeve.  He looked into his face beseechingly.

“Promise me—­promise me, Mr. Spargo, that you won’t tell him until you have seen me in the morning!” he implored.  “I beg you to promise me this.”

Spargo hesitated, considering matters.

“Very well—­I promise,” he said.

“And you won’t print it?” continued Elphick, still clinging to him.  “Say you won’t print it tonight?”

“I shall not print it tonight,” answered Spargo.  “That’s certain.”

Elphick released his grip on the young man’s arm.

“Come—­at eleven tomorrow morning,” he said, and drew back and closed the door.

Spargo ran quickly to the office and hurried up to his own room.  And there, calmly seated in an easy-chair, smoking a cigar, and reading an evening newspaper, was Rathbury, unconcerned and outwardly as imperturbable as ever.  He greeted Spargo with a careless nod and a smile.

“Well,” he said, “how’s things?”

Spargo, half-breathless, dropped into his desk-chair.

“You didn’t come here to tell me that,” he said.

Rathbury laughed.

“No,” he said, throwing 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.