“I’ve only just got back to town,” he said abruptly.  “I was sorry to hear the news about your father.  That’s what’s brought you here, of course.  But—­I’m afraid I can’t do much.”

“I told you that we had no right to trouble Mr. Spargo, Jessie,” said Evelyn Aylmore.  “What can he do to help us?”

Jessie shook her head impatiently.

“The Watchman’s about the most powerful paper in London, isn’t it?” she said.  “And isn’t Mr. Spargo writing all these articles about the Marbury case?  Mr. Spargo, you must help us!”

Spargo sat down at his desk and began turning over the letters and papers which had accumulated during his absence.

“To be absolutely frank with you,” he said, presently, “I don’t see how anybody’s going to help, so long as your father keeps up that mystery about the past.”

“That,” said Evelyn, quietly, “is exactly what Ronald says, Jessie.  But we can’t make our father speak, Mr. Spargo.  That he is as innocent as we are of this terrible crime we are certain, and we don’t know why he wouldn’t answer the questions put to him at the inquest.  And—­we know no more than you know or anyone knows, and though I have begged my father to speak, he won’t say a word.  We saw his danger:  Ronald—­Mr. Breton—­told us, and we implored him to tell everything he knew about Mr. Marbury.  But so far he has simply laughed at the idea that he had anything to do with the murder, or could be arrested for it, and now——­”

“And now he’s locked up,” said Spargo in his usual matter-of-fact fashion.  “Well, there are people who have to be saved from themselves, you know.  Perhaps you’ll have to save your father from the consequences of his own—­shall we say obstinacy?  Now, look here, between ourselves, how much do you know about your father’s—­past?”

The two sisters looked at each other and then at Spargo.

“Nothing,” said the elder.

“Absolutely nothing!” said the younger.

“Answer a few plain questions,” said Spargo.  “I’m not going to print your replies, nor make use of them in any way:  I’m only asking the questions with a desire to help you.  Have you any relations in England?”

“None that we know of,” replied Evelyn.

“Nobody you could go to for information about the past?” asked Spargo.

“No—­nobody!”

Spargo drummed his fingers on his blotting-pad.  He was thinking hard.

“How old is your father?” he asked suddenly.

“He was fifty-nine a few weeks ago,” answered Evelyn.

“And how old are you, and how old is your sister?” demanded Spargo.

“I am twenty, and Jessie is nearly nineteen.”

“Where were you born?”

“Both of us at San Gregorio, which is in the San Jose province of Argentina, north of Monte Video.”

“Your father was in business there?”

“He was in business in the export trade, Mr. Spargo.  There’s no secret about that.  He exported all sorts of things to England and to France—­skins, hides, wools, dried salts, fruit.  That’s how he made his money.”