"Ah, it's him I'm coming to," significantly resumed Mr. Butterby. "It seems that Winter never went after him at all. In the panic of finding old Teague had died, and that no quarter was to be expected from Johnson (as it wasn't then) he took a false name, put on false hair and whiskers, and stole quietly off by the train on Sunday afternoon, carrying a shirt or two in a blue bag. It was to Helstonleigh he went, Mr. Bede Greatorex, and he called himself Godfrey Pitman."
Bede Greatorex started from his seat. Up to that period he had been perfectly calm; interested of course, but as if in something that did not concern him.
"Yes, sir, Godfrey Pitman. The same that was in Mrs. Jones's house at the time of Mr. Ollivera's death; the man that Helstonleigh made so much mystery of; who was, so to say, accused of the murder. And Godfrey Pitman, sir, or George Winter, whichever you may please to call him, is one and the same with your managing clerk Mr. Brown!"
"No!" shouted Bede Greatorex.
"I say YES, sir. The very selfsame man."
Bede Greatorex, looking forward in a kind of wild manner, over Mr. Butterby's head against the opposite wall, seemed to be revolving within him various speculations connected with the disclosure.
"Why Brown has always--" He brought the words to a sudden standstill. "Brown has always unpleasantly puzzled me," had been on the tip of his tongue. But he let the words die away unspoken, and a sickly hue overspread his features. Taking his eyes from the wall and turning them on the fire, he sat as before, his brow pressed on his fingers, quite silent, after the manner of a man who is dreaming.
"I see the disagreeable doubt that is working within you, Mr. Bede Greatorex," remarked the observant detective, upon whom not a sign was lost. "You are ready to say now it was Pitman did that there deed at Helstonleigh.
"How did you find out all this about him?" asked Bede Greatorex.
"Well, I got a clue accidental. Don't mind saying so. I was about some business lately for a gentleman in Birmingham, named Foster, and in a packet of letters he put into my hand to look over, I found a note from George Winter, written from your office this past summer. It was just one of them curious chances that don't happen often; for Foster had no notion that the letter was there, thought he had destroyed it. It was but a line or two, and them of no moment, but it showed me that Mr. Brown and George Winter was the same man, and I soon wormed out his identity with Godfrey Pitman."