ch 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."

The Major nodded once more, and said with brevity:

"Same man!"

Saxham seemed always to have known that the man was the same man. The
tense muscles of his face told nothing. Bingo added:

"--But the wrong and injury done to you by Bough amount to little compared
with the wrong and injury inflicted upon Mrs. Saxham! That---- Good Lord!
what's the matter?"

For Saxham, with a madman's face, had leapt to his feet, knocking over his
chair, and stuttered with foam on his blue lips:

"What wrong? What injury? What--what are you hinting at?----"

"Hinting!" The astonishment in the Major's round light blue eyes was so
palpably genuine that the crazy flame died out of the Doctor's, and his
clenched hand dropped. "I didn't hint. I referred to the murder of your
wife's adopted mother by this Bough, or Van Busch, that's all!"

"I beg your pardon, Major!" Saxham picked up his chair and sat down on it,
inwardly cursing his lack of self-control. "My nerves have been giving
trouble of late."

Going by the evidence of the haggard face and fever-bright eyes, the
Doctor looked like that--uncommonly like that! And the big Major,
remembering Alderman Brooker's revelation, wondered, as he screwed at the
stiff, blunt ends of his sandy moustache, whether Saxham might not have
reverted to the old vice? "Bad for the girl he's married if he has!" he
thought, even as he said:

"Overworked. Get away for a bit. Nothin' like relievin' the tension, don't
you know? Norway in June, or the Higher Austrian Tyrol. Make up your mind
and go!"

"I have made up my mind," Saxham answered, smiling bitterly, as he
remembered the little phial with the yellow label that lay beside the
whisky-flask in the drawer beneath his hand. "I shall go very soon now!"

"But not immediately?"

"Not immediately." There was something strange, almost exalted, in the
look that accompanied the words. Saxham added: "If you could give me an
approximate date as regards the finding of that--needle in the haystack of
South Africa, it would--facilitate my departure more than you can guess!"

"Would it, by George!" Bingo slipped the thumb and forefinger of the
useful hand into his waistcoat-pocket