"Colonel, do you remember how you gave it as your opinion that Dimsdale had been strangled by a Thug?"
"Ah!" said Towton drily, "the same idea strikes you also, I see. Well, Diabella may have something to do with the matter. I asked you to see me in order that we might thresh it out. Now that I know you are Nemo I am all the better pleased, as your professional knowledge may link this and that together."
"This and that?"
"Bond Street and Hampstead," said the Colonel impatiently; "that is, you may see a connecting link between this beastly nigger attempting to strangle me and the actual strangulation of poor Dimsdale in his library."
"I can't see the link," said Vernon thoughtfully. "Diabella knows nothing about Dimsdale."
"On the contrary, she knows a great deal. By the way, didn't you tell me that Dimsdale was being blackmailed by that confounded Spider?"
"Yes." Vernon stared and wondered why the question was asked. "He had a secret, which The Spider learned, and intended to tell it to me after the capture of the beast. But The Spider killed him, and so----" Vernon shrugged.
"I wonder if what Diabella told was the secret," muttered Towton, stroking his chin. "Did Dimsdale ever give you to understand that his secret, whatever it might have been, was a disgraceful one?"
"On the contrary, he said that he didn't mind any one knowing what it was," said Vernon promptly; "only he added that The Spider had embroidered actual facts and so might make things hot for him were the added facts to become known to the world at large."
Towton nodded. "I thought so."