“Well, sir, it was, as I say, nobody’s business,” said Mr. Quarterpage.  “The newspaper gentleman tried to stir up interest in it, but it was no good, and very soon afterwards he left.  And there it is.”

“Mr. Quarterpage,” said Spargo, “what’s your own honest opinion?”

The old gentleman smiled.

“Ah!” he said.  “I’ve often wondered, Mr. Spargo, if I really have an opinion on that point.  I think that what I probably feel about the whole affair is that there was a good deal of mystery attaching to it.  But we seem, sir, to have gone a long way from the question of that old silver ticket which you’ve got in your purse.  Now——­”

“No!” said Spargo, interrupting his host with an accompanying wag of his forefinger.  “No!  I think we’re coming nearer to it.  Now you’ve given me a great deal of your time, Mr. Quarterpage, and told me a lot, and, first of all, before I tell you a lot, I’m going to show you something.”

And Spargo took out of his pocket-book a carefully-mounted photograph of John Marbury—­the original of the process-picture which he had had made for the Watchman.  He handed it over.

“Do you recognize that photograph as that of anybody you know?” he asked.  “Look at it well and closely.”

Mr. Quarterpage put on a special pair of spectacles and studied the photograph from several points of view.

“No, sir,” he said at last with a shake of the head.  “I don’t recognize it at all.”

“Can’t see in it any resemblance to any man you’ve ever known?” asked Spargo.

“No, sir, none!” replied Mr. Quarterpage.  “None whatever.”

“Very well,” said Spargo, laying the photograph on the table between them.  “Now, then, I want you to tell me what John Maitland was like when you knew him.  Also, I want you to describe Chamberlayne as he was when he died, or was supposed to die.  You remember them, of course, quite well?”

Mr. Quarterpage got up and moved to the door.

“I can do better than that,” he said.  “I can show you photographs of both men as they were just before Maitland’s trial.  I have a photograph of a small group of Market Milcaster notabilities which was taken at a municipal garden-party; Maitland and Chamberlayne are both in it.  It’s been put away in a cabinet in my drawing-room for many a long year, and I’ve no doubt it’s as fresh as when it was taken.”

He left the room and presently returned with a large mounted photograph which he laid on the table before his visitor.

“There you are, sir,” he said.  “Quite fresh, you see—­it must be getting on to twenty years since that was taken out of the drawer that it’s been kept in.  Now, that’s Maitland.  And that’s Chamberlayne.”

Spargo found himself looking at a group of men who stood against an ivy-covered wall in the stiff attitudes in which photographers arrange masses of sitters.  He fixed his attention on the two figures indicated by Mr. Quarterpage, and saw two medium-heighted, rather sturdily-built men about whom there was nothing very specially noticeable.