'No; through a third person. My young master has implored his father not to write to him direct.'
'This go-between, as we may call him, is the third person in the secret? Who is he?'
'That I dare not tell you!'
'Mr. Sanderson, it would be much better for your master and his son that you should be more open with me. These half-confidences are misleading. Has the son made any suggestion regarding his release?'
'Oh yes, but not the suggestion I have put before you. His latest letter was to the effect that within six months or so there is to be an election for governor. He proposes that a large sum of money shall be used to influence this election so that a man pledged to pardon him may sit in the governor's chair.'
'I see. And this sum of money is to be paid to the third person you referred to?'
'Yes.'
'May I take it that this third person is the one to whom various sums have been paid during the last five years in order to bribe the governor to pardon the young man?'
Sanderson hesitated a moment before answering; in fact, he appeared so torn between inclination and duty; anxious to give me whatever information I deemed necessary, yet hemmed in by the instructions with which his master had limited him, that at last I waved my hand and said:—
'You need not reply, Mr. Sanderson. That third party is the crux of the situation. I strongly suspect him of blackmail. If you would but name him, and allow me to lure him to these rooms, I possess a little private prison of my own into which I could thrust him, and I venture to say that before he had passed a week in darkness, on bread and water, we should have the truth about this business.'