Page:Fletcher - The Middle Temple Murder (Knopf, 1919).djvu/215

 You remember Maitland going to prison, of course?"

Miss Baylis laughed—a laugh of scorn.

"Could I ever forget it?" she exclaimed.

"Did you ever visit him in prison?" asked Spargo.

"Visit him in prison!" she said indignantly. "Visits in prison are to be paid to those who deserve them, who are repentant; not to scoundrels who are hardened in their sin!"

"All right. Did you ever see him after he left prison?"

"I saw him, for he forced himself upon me—I could not help myself. He was in my presence before I was aware that he had even been released."

"What did he come for?" asked Spargo.

"To ask for his son—who had been in my charge," she replied.

"That's a thing I want to know about," said Spargo. "Do you know what a certain lot of people in Market Milcaster say to this day. Miss Baylis?—they say that you were in at the game with Maitland; that you had a lot of the money placed in your charge; that when Maitland went to prison, you took the child away, first to Brighton, then abroad—disappeared with him—and that you made a home ready for Maitland when he came out. That's what's said by some people in Market Milcaster."

Miss Baylis's stern lips curled.

"People in Market Milcaster!" she exclaimed. "All the people I ever knew in Market Milcaster had about as many brains between them as that cat on the wall there. As for making a home for John Maitland, I