He had not searched long before he came upon a small package of newspaper cuttings, bound about by a rubber band. He read them at first without interest, and then without comprehension. There was one cutting, however, which had been clipped from its context, which seemed to tell the whole story of the rest. It ran:
“When Cartwright stood up for sentence he did not seem to be greatly troubled by his serious position. As the words ‘twenty years’ passed Mr. Justice Maxell’s lips, he fell back as if he had been shot. Then, springing to the edge of the dock, he hurled an epithet at his lordship. Some of his business associates suggest that the learned judge was a partner of Cartwright’s—an astonishing and most improper suggestion to make. In view of the statement that the prisoner made before the trial, when suggestions had been made in a newspaper that the judge had been connected with him in business years before, and remembering that Cartwright’s statement was to the effect that he had had no business transactions with the judge, it seems as though the outburst was made in a fit of spleen at the severity of the sentence. Sir John Maxell, after the case, took the unusual step of informing a Press representative that he intended placing his affairs in the hands of a committee for investigation, and had invited the Attorney-General to appoint that committee. ‘I insist upon this being done,’ he said, ‘because after the prisoner’s accusation I should not feel comfortable until an impartial committee had examined my affairs.’ It is understood that after the investigation the learned judge intends retiring from the Bench.”
Timothy gasped. So that was the explanation. That was why Maxell had written to him, that was why he made no reference at all to his father, but to this disreputable cousin of his. Slowly he returned the package to its envelope, dropped it into his trunk and pushed the trunk under the bed.
And that was the secret of Cousin Cartwright’s disappearance. He might have guessed it; he might even have known had he troubled to look at these papers.
He sat on the bed, his hands clasping his knees. It was not a pleasant reflection that he had a relative, and a relative moreover after whom he was named, serving what might be a life sentence in a convict establishment. But what made him think of the matter to-night?
“Mr. Anderson! Timothy!”
Timothy looked round with a start. The man whose face was framed in the open window might have been forty, fifty or sixty. It was a face heavily seamed and sparsely bearded—a hollow-eyed, hungry face, but those eyes burnt like fire. Timothy jumped up.
“Hullo!” he said. “Who are you ‘Timothying’?”
“You don’t know me, eh?” the man laughed unpleasantly. “Can I come in?”
“Yes, you can come in,” said Timothy.