“Um!” he said, musingly.  “Both bearded.”

“Yes, they both wore beards—­full beards,” assented Mr. Quarterpage.  “And you see, they weren’t so much alike.  But Maitland was a much darker man than Chamberlayne, and he had brown eyes, while Chamberlayne’s were rather a bright blue.”

“The removal of a beard makes a great difference,” remarked Spargo.  He looked at the photograph of Maitland in the group, comparing it with that of Marbury which he had taken from his pocket.  “And twenty years makes a difference, too,” he added musingly.

“To some people twenty years makes a vast difference, sir,” said the old gentleman.  “To others it makes none—­I haven’t changed much, they tell me, during the past twenty years.  But I’ve known men change—­age, almost beyond recognition!—­in five years.  It depends, sir, on what they go through.”

Spargo suddenly laid aside the photographs, put his hands in his pockets, and looked steadfastly at Mr. Quarterpage.

“Look here!” he said.  “I’m going to tell you what I’m after, Mr. Quarterpage.  I’m sure you’ve heard all about what’s known as the Middle Temple Murder—­the Marbury case?”

“Yes, I’ve read of it,” replied Mr. Quarterpage.

“Have you read the accounts of it in my paper, the Watchman?” asked Spargo.

Mr. Quarterpage shook his head.

“I’ve only read one newspaper, sir, since I was a young man,” he replied.  “I take the Times, sir—­we always took it, aye, even in the days when newspapers were taxed.”

“Very good,” said Spargo.  “But perhaps I can tell you a little more than you’ve read, for I’ve been working up that case ever since the body of the man known as John Marbury was found.  Now, if you’ll just give me your attention, I’ll tell you the whole story from that moment until—­now.”

And Spargo, briefly, succinctly, re-told the story of the Marbury case from the first instant of his own connection with it until the discovery of the silver ticket, and Mr. Quarterpage listened in rapt attention, nodding his head from time to time as the younger man made his points.

“And now, Mr. Quarterpage,” concluded Spargo, “this is the point I’ve come to.  I believe that the man who came to the Anglo-Orient Hotel as John Marbury and who was undoubtedly murdered in Middle Temple Lane that night, was John Maitland—­I haven’t a doubt about it after learning what you tell me about the silver ticket.  I’ve found out a great deal that’s valuable here, and I think I’m getting nearer to a solution of the mystery.  That is, of course, to find out who murdered John Maitland, or Marbury.  What you have told me about the Chamberlayne affair has led me to think this—­there may have been people, or a person, in London, who was anxious to get Marbury, as we’ll call him, out of the way, and who somehow encountered him that night—­anxious to silence him, I mean, because of the Chamberlayne affair.  And I wondered, as there is so much mystery about him, and as he won’t give any account of himself, if this man Aylmore was really Chamberlayne.  Yes, I wondered that!  But Aylmore’s a tall, finely-built man, quite six feet in height, and his beard, though it’s now getting grizzled, has been very dark, and Chamberlayne, you say, was a medium-sized, fair man, with blue eyes.”