"After that it would be necessary to search California."
"Poor Dick," she interrupted with compassion, smoothing his beard. "You are really losing your old cleverness. Search California! Can't you see yet the wonderful 'cuteness of this man, Endicott? He settled all that before he wrote the letter to Anne Dillon, saying that her son was coming home. He found out the career of Arthur Dillon in California. If he found that runaway he sent him off to Australia with a lump of money, to keep out of sight for twenty years. Did the scamp need much persuading? I reckon not. He had been doing it for nothing ten years. Or, perhaps the boy was dead: then he had only to make the proper connections with his history up to the time of his death. Or he may have disappeared forever, and that made the matter all the simpler for Endicott. Oh, you're not clever, Dick," and she kissed him to sweeten the bitterness of the opinion.
"I'm not convinced," he said cheerfully. "Then tell me what to do."
"I don't know myself. Endicott took his money with him. Where does Arthur Dillon keep his money? How did it get there? Where was it kept before that? How is he spending it just now? Does he talk in his sleep? Are there any mementoes of his past in his private boxes? Could he be surprised into admissions of his real character by some trick, such as bringing him face to face on a sudden with Sonia? Wouldn't that be worth seeing? Just like the end of a drama. You know the marks on Endicott's body, birthmarks and the like ... are they on Dillon's body? The boy that ran away must have had some marks.... Judy Haskell would know ... are they on Endicott's body?"
"You've got the map of the business in that pretty head perfect," said Curran in mock admiration. "But don't you see, my pet, that if this man is as clever as you would have him he has already seen to these things? He has removed the birthmarks and peculiarities of Horace, and adopted those of Arthur? You'll find it a tangled business the deeper you dive into it."
"Well, it's your business to dive deeper than the tangle," she answered crossly. "If I had your practice——"
"You would leave me miles behind, of course. Here's the way I would reason about this thing: Horace Endicott is now known as Arthur Dillon; he has left no track by which Endicott can be traced to his present locality; but there must be a very poor connection between the Dillon at home and the real Dillon in California, in Australia, or in his grave; if we can trace the real Arthur Dillon then we take away the foundations of his counterfeit. Do you see? I say a trip to California and a clean examination there, after we have done our best here to pick flaws in the position of the gentleman who has been so cruel to my pet. He must get his punishment for that, I swear."
"Ah, there's the rub," she whimpered in her childish way. "I hate him, and I love him. He's the finest fellow in the world. He has the strength of ten. See how he fought the battles of the Irish against his own. One minute I could tear him like a wolf, and now I could let him tear me to pieces. You are fond of him too, Dick."
"I would follow him to the end of the world, through fire and flood and fighting," said the detective with feeling. "He loves Ireland, he loves and pities our poor people, he is spending his money for them. But I could kill him just the same for his cruelty to you. He's a hard man, Colette."
"Now I know what you are trying to do," she said sharply. "You think you can frighten me by telling me what I know already. Well, you can't."