"What is the news?" asked Sir George, looking up.
"I can tell you all the news that I know," said T. B., "and a great deal that I do not know, but only surmise."
"Let us hear the facts first and the romance afterwards," growled Sir George, leaning back in his chair.
"Fact one," said T. B. drawing up a chair to the table, and ticking off his fact on the first finger of his hand, "is that Gregory Farrington is alive. The man whose body was picked up in the Thames is undoubtedly the gentleman who was shot in the raid upon the Custom House. The inference is, that Gregory was the second party in the raid, and that the attempt to secure the trunk of the admirable Dr. Goldworthy was carefully conceived. The box apparently contained a diary which gave away Gregory to one who had it in her power to do him an immense amount of harm."
"You refer to Lady Constance Dex?" asked the chief, interestedly.
T. B. nodded.
"That is the lady," he said. "Evidently Farrington has played it pretty low down upon her; was responsible for the death of her lover, and, moreover, for a great deal of her unhappiness. Farrington was the man who told George Doughton about some scandal of her youth, and Doughton, that high-spirited man, went straight off to Africa without communicating with the lady or discovering how far she was guilty in the matter. The documents in the box would, I surmise, prove this to Lady Dex's satisfaction, and Farrington, who was well informed through his agents on the Coast, would have every reason for preventing these letters getting into the hands of a woman who would be remorseless in her vengeance."
"Is that fact established?" asked the chief.
"Pretty well," said T. B.