"Why should I tell you?"

"If you have no answer it may go badly with you at the trial."

The young man winced.

"Well, I will tell you," he said. "Why should I not? And yet

I hate to think of this old scandal gaining a new lease of life.

Did you ever hear of Dawson and Neligan?"

I could see from Hopkins's face that he never had; but Holmes

was keenly interested.

"You mean the West-country bankers," said he. "They failed

for a million, ruined half the county families of Cornwall,

and Neligan disappeared."

"Exactly. Neligan was my father."

At last we were getting something positive, and yet it seemed

26.01.2007