"I don't know," Copplestone replied wearily. "He may be."
"James Layton is very well known to us," the inspector said slowly. "He is a charitable fanatic, who does more good in the East End than all the Royally Patronized Associations put together. But how in the world did he come to know Miss Manderson?"
"She never mentioned him to me," Copplestone stated. "I had not heard of him until he burst into this house to-night."
The inspector made several notes.
"He has educated and trained as his assistant a particularly wild specimen of a coster girl, who is madly in love with him...." He closed his note-book with a snap. "You say the words he used were that rather than allow Miss Manderson to become engaged to you, he would tear her to pieces with his own hands, and utterly destroy her?"
"So they told me," Copplestone answered heavily. "I was not in the room. I refused to see him."
"And he left quite quietly?"
"Yes."
"Did Miss Manderson show any particular fear of the threat?"
"She was very much upset, and fainted when she came into the room. I should have sent for the police at once, but she begged me not to, and insisted that he didn't mean what he said. I wish to God I hadn't listened."