d wealth will
reflect credit on his humble origin. When the papers learn the story--"

"Confound the papers!" interrupted Garvington fretfully. "I sincerely
hope that they won't make too great a fuss over the business."

The little man's hope was vain, as he might have guessed that it would
be, for when the news became known in Fleet Street, the newspapers were
only too glad to discover an original sensation for the dead season.
Every day journalists and special correspondents were sent down in such
numbers that the platform of Wanbury Railway Station was crowded with
them. As the town--it was the chief town of Hengishire--was five miles
away from the village of Garvington, every possible kind of vehicle was
used to reach the scene of the crime, and The Manor became a rendezvous
for all the morbid people, both in the neighborhood and out of it. The
reporters in particular poked and pried all over the place, passing from
the great house to the village, and thence to the gypsy camp on the
borders of Abbot's Wood. From one person and another they learned facts,
which were published with such fanciful additions that they read like
fiction. On the authority of Mother Cockleshell--who was not averse to
earning a few shillings--a kind of Gil Blas tale was put into print, and
the wanderings of Ishmael Hearne were set forth in the picturesque style
of a picarooning romance. But of the time when the adventurous gypsy
assumed his Gentile name, the Romany could tell nothing, for obvious
reasons. Until the truth became known, because of the man's tragic and
unforeseen death, those in the camp were not aware that he was a Gorgio
millionaire. But where the story of Mother Cockleshell left off, that of
Mark Silver began, for the secretary had been connected with his
employer almost from the days of Hearne's first exploits as Pine in
London. And Silver--who also charged for the blended fact and fiction
which he supplied--freely related all he knew.

"Hearne came to London and called himself Hubert Pine," he stated
frankly, and not hesitating to confess his own lowly origin. "We met
when I was starving as a toymaker in Whitechapel. I invented some penny
toys, which Pine put on the market for me. They were successful and he
made money. I am bound to confess that he paid me tolerably well,
although he certainly took the lion's share. With the money he made in
this way, he speculated in South African shares, and, as the boom was
then on,