LXIV
There was a silence in the consulting-room, only broken by street noises filtered thin by walls and curtains, and the ticking of the Sheraton grandfather clock, and the breathing of two people. Saxham glanced at Major Bingo with eyes that seemed to have been bleached of colour, and laid the second calligraphic specimen beside the first, and took up No. 3, and read in the same large nourishing round hand:
"W. Bough,
"Free State Hotel,
"50 m. from Driepoort,
"Orange Free State."
After that the silence was intense. The clock ticked, and the faint, far-off street noises came through the intervening screens, but only one of the men in the room seemed to be breathing. At last Saxham's grey lips moved. He said in a horrible clicking whisper:
"Van Busch and Bough are—one?"
Major Wrynche's large face nodded in the affirmative. But it was as expressionless as the grandfather clock's.
"One man!—and that's what I may call the pith of my verbal Despatch for you!"
Saxham said with hard composure:
"Van Busch is a Dutch surname that, as you say, is common in South Africa. With the name of Bough, as the Chief is aware, I have—associations. It was, in fact, one of the many aliases used by the witness for Regina in an Old Bailey case in which I was concerned nearly seven years ago."