"My half-brother. How did you know that? How did you know he was blackmailing me?" Grell spoke tensely.
"Oh, simply enough. The likeness was one thing, and a hint I got from Ivan that he was a relative confirmed me in an opinion I had already formed by another fact—which I observed when I saw you at Dalehurst—that you had a similar walk. You will remember, I asked you if he was a relative, but you would not answer. The supposition that you were being blackmailed was borne out by inquiries made for us by Pinkerton's, which proved that Goldenburg had visited you several times and that he was always in funds after
he left you, however low he might be before. I think it is a fair inference."
"Quite fair." Grell's face was a little drawn, but he spoke quietly. "You are quite correct, Mr. Foyle. As you know so much, there can be little harm in enlightening you on that part of the story. I take it that you treat it as confidential."
"Unless it becomes necessary to use it for official purposes, as evidence or otherwise," said Thornton before the superintendent could reply. "We cannot give an absolute pledge."
CHAPTER LII
"Very well; I am content with that." The prisoner nursed his chin in his cupped hands and stared unseeingly at the distempered walls. "It began years ago, on a little farm in New Hampshire. That was my father's place. He died when I was six or seven, and my mother married again. The man was the father of Harry Goldenburg. I was eight years old when Harry was born. Four years later, my mother died, and when I was sixteen I ran away from home. You will know something of my career since then: the newspapers have repeated it often enough—office-boy, journalist, traveller, stockbroker, politician. I was still young when I became a fairly well-known man. In the meantime I had not seen nor heard anything of my brother except that he had left the village when my stepfather died.
"In Vienna some years ago I became intimate with Lola Rachael—the woman you know as the Princess Petrovska. She was a dancer then and had hosts of admirers among the young men about town. As a matter of plain fact, I believe she was employed by the Russian Government for its own purposes. But of that I was never certain. Anyway she entangled me. And I believe she really had an affection for me. It was during that time that I was fool enough to write her letters—letters which she kept.