“Then they didn’t believe what his counsel said—­that Chamberlayne got all the money?” he asked.

Mr. Quarterpage laughed.

“No—­nor anybody else!” he answered.  “There was a strong idea in the town—­you’ll see why afterwards—­that it was all a put-up job, and that Maitland cheerfully underwent his punishment knowing that there was a nice fortune waiting for him when he came out.  And as I say, the bank people meant to get hold of him.  But though they sent a special agent to meet him on his release, they never did get hold of him.  Some mistake arose—­when Maitland was released, he got clear away.  Nobody’s ever heard a word of him from that day to this.  Unless Miss Baylis has.”

“Where does this Miss Baylis live?” asked Spargo.

“Well, I don’t know,” replied Mr. Quarterpage.  “She did live in Brighton when she took the child away, and her address was known, and I have it somewhere.  But when the bank people sought her out after Maitland’s release, she, too, had clean disappeared, and all efforts to trace her failed.  In fact, according to the folks who lived near her in Brighton, she’d completely disappeared, with the child, five years before.  So there wasn’t a clue to Maitland.  He served his time—­made a model prisoner—­they did find that much out!—­earned the maximum remission, was released, and vanished.  And for that very reason there’s a theory about him in this very town to this very day!”

“What?” asked Spargo.

“This.  That he’s now living comfortably, luxuriously abroad on what he got from the bank,” replied Mr. Quarterpage.  “They say that the sister-in-law was in at the game; that when she disappeared with the child, she went abroad somewhere and made a home ready for Maitland, and that he went off to them as soon as he came out.  Do you see?”

“I suppose that was possible,” said Spargo.

“Quite possible, sir.  But now,” continued the old gentleman, replenishing the glasses, “now we come on to the Chamberlayne story.  It’s a good deal more to do with the Maitland story than appears at first sight, I’ll tell it to you and you can form your own conclusions.  Chamberlayne was a man who came to Market Milcaster—­I don’t know from where—­in 1886—­five years before the Maitland smash-up.  He was then about Maitland’s age—­a man of thirty-seven or eight.  He came as clerk to old Mr. Vallas, the rope and twine manufacturer:  Vallas’s place is still there, at the bottom of the High Street, near the river, though old Vallas is dead.  He was a smart, cute, pushing chap, this Chamberlayne; he made himself indispensable to old Vallas, and old Vallas paid him a rare good salary.  He settled down in the town, and he married a town girl, one of the Corkindales, the saddlers, when he’d been here three years.  Unfortunately she died in childbirth within a year of their marriage.  It was very soon after that that Chamberlayne threw up his post at Vallas’s, and started business