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Updated: May 8, 2025
There was a general murmur of assent, and Spargo found everybody looking at him as if he had just announced that he had come to buy the whole town. "But why?" he asked, showing great surprise. "Why?" "Why?" exclaimed Mr. Quarterpage. "Why? He asks why?
He won't say where he won't say anything definite he won't even say what he, Aylmore, himself was in those days. Do you recollect anything of anybody like Aylmore coming here to see Maitland, Mr. Quarterpage?" "I don't," answered Mr. Quarterpage. "Maitland was a very quiet, retiring fellow, sir: he was about the quietest man in the town.
"That's so, sir," assented Mr. Quarterpage. "Yes, a middling-sized man, and fair very fair. Deary me, Mr. Spargo! this is a revelation. And you really think, sir, that John Maitland and John Marbury are one and the same person?" "I'm sure of it, now," said Spargo. "I see it in this way. Maitland, on his release, went out to Australia, and there he stopped.
It's a case of who'll start first of initiative. And if they see it's going to cost anything then they'll have nothing to do with it." "But the bank people?" suggested Spargo. Mr. Quarterpage shook his head. "They're amongst the lot who believe that Chamberlayne did die," he said.
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. "Um!" he said, musingly. "Both bearded."
"Then why, in the sacred name of common sense did no one ever take steps to make certain?" asked Spargo. "Why didn't they get an order for exhumation?" "Because it was nobody's particular business to do so," answered Mr. Quarterpage. "You don't know country-town life, my dear sir. In towns like Market Milcaster folks talk and gossip a great deal, but they're always slow to do anything.
Quarterpage leaned forward and tapped his guest on the arm. "That Chamberlayne never did die, and that that coffin was weighted with lead!" he answered.
"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.
"I supplied half a dozen copies to Miss Baylis, the child's aunt, who, as a matter of fact, brought him here to be photographed. And I can give you her address, too," he continued, beginning to turn over another old file. "I have it somewhere." Mr. Quarterpage nudged Spargo. "That's something I couldn't have done!" he remarked.
"Then, of course, the families who held the tickets looked upon them as heirlooms, to be taken great care of," replied Mr. Quarterpage. "They were dealt with as I dealt with mine framed on velvet, and hung up or locked away: I am sure that anybody who had one took the greatest care of it.
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