Paynter's,
and Henry G. Surface, political arch-traitor, ex-convict, and falsest of
false friends, were one and the same man.
The truth had been instantly plain to Queed when the name had blazed up
at him from the envelope on the floor. It was as though Fate herself had
tossed that envelope under his eyes, as the answer to all his
questionings. Not an instant's doubt had troubled him; and now a score
of memories were marshaling themselves before him to show that his first
flashing certainty had been sound. As for the book, it was clearly from
the library of the old man's youth, kept and hidden away for some
reason, when nearly everything else had been destroyed. Between the
musty pages the accusing letter had lain forgotten for thirty years,
waiting for this moment.
He turned and glanced once at the silent figure, huddled back in the
chair with covered eyes; the unhappy old man whom nobody had ever
trusted without regretting it. _Henry G. Surface_--whose name was a
synonym for those traits and things which honest men of all peoples and
climes have always hated most, treachery, perfidy, base betrayal of
trust, shameful dishonesty--who had crowded the word _infamy_ from the
popular lexicon of politics with the keener, more biting epithet,
_Surfaceism_.
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