The Lost Heir

"Well, Colonel Bulstrode," Hilda said, smiling, "if it is not contrary to your convictions, we will go upstairs and have a cup of tea. No doubt there is something to be said for the old days, but there is a good deal to be said on the other side of the question, too."

When they went upstairs Dr. Leeds sat down by Netta.

"I am afraid that you blame me for what I did, Dr. Leeds," she said timidly.

"No, I do not blame you at all for doing it, but I do think that you ought to have consulted us all before undertaking it. Your intention was a noble one, but the risk that you ran was so great that certainly I should not have felt justified in allowing you to undertake it, had I had any voice in the matter."

"But I cannot see that it was dangerous," the girl said. "He could not have knocked me down and beaten me, even if he had caught me with my eye at the peep-hole. He could only have called up Johnstone and denounced me as an eavesdropper, and at the worst I should only have been turned straight out of the house."

"I do not think that that would have been at all his course of action. I believe, on the contrary, that although he would have spoken angrily to you, he would have said nothing to the lodging-house keeper. He would have at once guessed that you had not taken all this trouble merely to gratify a silly curiosity, but would have been sure that you had been employed as a spy. What he would have done I do not know, but he would certainly have had you watched as you watched him, and he would, in his conversation with his confederates, have dropped clews that would have sent us all off on wild-goose chases. I don't think that he would have ventured on getting you removed, for he would have known that he would have been suspected of foul play at once by those who had employed you. I hope you will give me a promise that you will never undertake any plan without consulting Miss Covington and myself. You can hardly realize what anxiety I have suffered while you have been away."

"I will promise willingly, Dr. Leeds. I did not think anything of the danger, and do not believe even now there was any; but I do think that Hilda would not have heard of my going as a servant, and that you would not have approved of it. Still, as I saw no harm in it myself, I thought that for once I would act upon my own ideas."

"There are circumstances under which no one need disapprove of a lady acting as a servant," he said quietly. "If a family misfortune has happened, and she has to earn her own living, I think that there are many who would be far happier in the position of a servant in a good family, than as an ill-paid and over-worked governess. The one is at least her own mistress, to a large extent, as long as she does her work properly; the other can never call her time her own. In your case, certainly, the kind object with which you undertook the task was a full justification of it, had you not been matching yourself against an unscrupulous villain, who, had he detected your disguise, would have practically hesitated at nothing to rid himself of you. It happened, too, in this case you were one of the few persons who could have succeeded; for, as you say, it would have been next to impossible for anyone unpossessed of your peculiar faculty to have overheard a conversation, doubtless conducted in a somewhat low voice, through such a hole as you made."

"Then you don't think any worse of me for it?"

"You need not be afraid of that," he said quietly. "My opinion is already so fixed on that subject that I doubt if anything you could do would shake it."

Then he got up and walked across to where the others were chatting together.

"Now, are we to have another council?" Hilda asked.

"I think not," Dr. Leeds said; "it seems to me that the matter requires a great deal of thinking over before we decide, and fortunately, as the man went down to Tilbury only two days ago, he is not likely to repeat his visit for another month at least, possibly for another three months. Men like that do not give away chances, and he would probably pay for three months' board for the child at a time, so as to avoid having to make the journey oftener, however confident he might be that he was not watched."

"I agree with you, Dr. Leeds," Mr. Pettigrew said. "It would never do to make a false step."

"Still," Hilda urged, "surely there cannot be any need to wait for his going down again. A sharp detective might find out a good deal. He could inquire whether there was anyone at Tilbury who let out traps. Probably nothing beyond a gig or a pony-cart could be obtained there. He would, of course, hire it for a drive to some place within three or four miles, and while it was got ready would casually ask if it was often let; he might possibly hear of someone who came down from town – a bagman, perhaps, who hired it occasionally for calling upon his customers in the villages round."

"I think that that is a capital suggestion," Mr. Pettigrew said. "I don't see why, while we are thinking over the best way to proceed, we should not get these inquiries made. They might be of some assistance to us. I will send a man down to-morrow or next day. As you say, it may give us something to go upon."

Netta went down two days later to Reading. She had the box labeled to Oxford, and took a third-class ticket for herself. She had a suspicion that a man who was lolling on a seat on the platform looked closely at her, and she saw him afterwards saunter away towards the luggage office. When the train came in her box was put into the van, and she got out at the next station and returned by the first train to London, feeling satisfied that she would never hear anything more of the box.

The next day a detective called who had been engaged earlier in the search for Walter and had frequently seen Hilda.

"Mr. Pettigrew said, Miss Covington, that I had better come to you and tell you exactly what I have done. I went down to Tilbury yesterday. I took with me one or two cases made up like a traveler's samples, and I presently found that the man at the public house by the water had a pony-trap which he let. I went over to him and said that I wanted it for the day.

"'How far are you going?' he asked.

"'I am going to Stanford,' I said; 'then by a crossroad by Laindon to Hornchurch and back.'

"'It is rather a long round for one day,' he said.

"''Tis a long round,' I said. 'Well, maybe I might sleep at Hornchurch, and go on to Upminster.'

"'You will have to pay a deposit of a couple of pounds,' he said, 'unless you like to take a boy.'

"I said I preferred driving myself, and that it was less weight for the pony. 'I suppose you often let it out?' I remarked.

"'Pretty often,' he said; 'you see, there is no way of getting about beyond this. It would pay me to keep a better trap if it wasn't that commercials generally work this country in their own vehicles, and take the road from Barking through Dagenham, or else from Brentwood or Chelmsford or one of the other Great Eastern stations. There is one in your line comes occasionally; he goes by the same route you are taking, and always has the trap to himself. He travels for some spirit firm, I think; he always brings down a couple of cases of bottles.'

"'That is my line too,' I said. 'He hasn't been here lately, I hope?'

"'Well, yes, he was here three or four days ago; he is a pretty liberal chap with his samples, I should say, for he always comes back with his cases empty.' Of course I hired the pony and trap. I drove through New Tilbury, Low Street, and Stanford. I put up there for three or four hours. At each place I went to all the public houses, and as I marked the liquors cheap I got several orders. I asked at every place had anyone in my line been round lately, and they all said no, and nobody had noticed the pony cart; but of course that did not prove that he might not have driven through there."

"You did not make any inquiries about a missing child?"

"No, Miss Covington. Mr. Pettigrew particularly told me that I was not to make any inquiries whatever."

"Yes, that is what we agreed upon, Bassett; we don't want to run the slightest risk of their suspecting that we are inquiring in that direction. My own idea is that you could do no harm if you went round several times, just as you did yesterday; and perhaps it would be better for you not to start from the same place, but to hire a vehicle and drive round the country, stopping at all the villages, and apparently trying to get orders for spirits or tobacco. That idea of yours is an excellent one, because your inquiry whether another man had been along in the same trade would seem natural. You might say everywhere that you had heard of his going round there, but that it did not look much like business driving a rickety little trap with a pony not worth fifty shillings. At any village public houses at which he stopped they could hardly help noticing it, and if you heard that he had put up there for an hour or two, it would certainly be something to go upon, and a search round there might lead to a result. However, do not go until you hear again from me. I will talk it over with Mr. Pettigrew, and see what he thinks of it."

"It certainly seems to me that we might light upon a clew that way, Miss Covington, and if he were to happen to hear that another man in the same line had been there asking questions about him, it would seem natural enough, because of course a commercial would like to know what line another in the same branch was following, and how he was doing. Then I will wait your further orders. There would be sure to be traps to be hired at Barking or Rainham, and if there are not, I could get one at Bromley. Indeed, as I should want it for a day or two, it would be just as well to get it there as farther east, and I should be likely to get a better-looking turnout. In little places a man with a good turnout is more likely to do business than one who looks second-rate altogether. It seems a sort of credit to the place; and they would give him orders where they would not to a man who made no sort of show. I should say, miss, that as I shall be going over the ground more than once, it would be best to send on the goods I get orders for; they don't amount to very much, and I should get about the same price that I gave for them. I know a clerk in the firm whose liquors I took down. I told him that I was going down in that part of Essex, and asked if they would give me a commission on anything that I could sell. They said 'yes' willingly enough, and the clerk said I was a respectable man who could be trusted; and so it will cost nothing, and will open the way for my making another call. Of course when I am known there I can ask questions more freely, sit in the bar-parlor, smoke a cigar with the landlord, and so on."

"I think that is an excellent idea. Well, at any rate you shall hear in the course of a day or two."

Miss Purcell had gone on quietly with her knitting and uttered no remarks while the man was present. Immediately he had left, she said, "I think, Netta, that we shall gradually get at it."

"Yes, I think so; that man seems really a sharp fellow. I had quite lost all faith in detectives, but I see that when they have really got something to go upon, they know how to follow it up."

Hilda wrote a long letter to Mr. Pettigrew, and received three words in answer: "By all means." So Bassett was written to and told to continue his career as a commercial traveler, but to abstain altogether, for the present, from any questions about the boy.

Ten days later Mr. Pettigrew forwarded a letter that he had received from Bassett, which was as follows:

"Sir: I have to report that I have for the last fortnight been engaged in driving about the country in accordance with Miss Covington's instructions. The only place where I can ascertain that the pony and cart from Tilbury was noticed about that time was at Stanford. My inquiries there before had failed, but after dining at the inn, I went out into the yard behind, and asked the helper whether the same trap that I drove over in from Tilbury had been there since.

"'Not since you were here last,' he said; 'at least if it was you as drove the pony over somewhere about three weeks ago. I did not see you then, I was doing a job over at the cowhouse. That pony aint been here since then, though he was here two days before. The man put him up for three or four hours, and hired a horse from the landlord to ride over to Billericay. He must have gone cross country, I should say, by the mud on its legs. However, he tipped me a bob, so I cleaned it up and said nothing to master; but the horse was all in a lather and must have been taken along at a hunting pace all the way.' Waiting further orders,

"I remain,"Yours respectfully,"H. Bassett."

Mr. Pettigrew came down himself in the evening.

"Well, Miss Covington, I think that the scent is getting warm. Now is the time that you must be very cautious. I think we may take it that the child is somewhere within ten or twelve miles of Stanford, north or east of it. The man was away for over three hours, and he rode fast. It's not likely that the horse was anything out of the way. However, allowing for half an hour's stay somewhere, I think we may take twelve miles as the limit. Still, a circle of twelve miles' radius covers a very large area. I have been looking up the map since that man set about inquiring down there. Twelve miles would include the whole of the marshes as far as Leigh. It goes up to Brentwood, Billericay, Downham, and touches Rayleigh; and in that semicircle would be some sixty or seventy villages, large and small."

"I have been looking at the map too, Mr. Pettigrew, and it does not seem to me at all likely that he would go near the places that you first mentioned; they are quite close to the Great Eastern Railway, by which he would have traveled, instead of going round such an enormous detour by Tilbury and Stanford."

"One would think so, my dear, certainly; but, you see, a man having the least idea that he was watched, which I admit we have no reason for believing that this fellow has, would naturally choose a very circuitous route. However, I think that we need hardly try so far to the north, to begin with; I should say that the area of our search need go no farther north than Downham, and that between a line running west from that place and the river the child is most likely to be hidden."

"I should say, Mr. Pettigrew, that the detective might engage four or five fellows who could act separately in villages on each of the roads running from Stanford east or northeast. The villages should be at least two miles away from Stanford, because he might start by one road and then turn off by another. But in two miles he would probably settle down on the road he was going to follow and we should, therefore, get the general direction of Walter's hiding place. Then, as soon as he passed, the watcher should follow him on foot till he met him coming back. If he did meet him, he would know that at any rate he had been farther; if he did not meet him, he would know that he had turned off somewhere between him and the village that he had passed. Netta and I have been talking the matter over, and it seems to us that this would be the best plan, and that it would be as well, also, to have a man to watch at Tilbury Station; because he may possibly choose some entirely different route the next time he comes, and the men in the villages, not knowing that he had come down at all, might be kept there for a month waiting for his next visit."

"You and your friend have certainly put your heads together to good purpose," the old lawyer said, "and I do not see any better plan than you suggest. You had better have Bassett down here, and give him your instructions yourself."

"Yes, Mr. Pettigrew; and I shall be glad if you will write a line to him to-night, for in three days it will be a month since this man last went down, or at any rate since we know that he went down. Of course, it may be three months before he goes again, and if he does not come in four or five days the men must be recalled; for although each of them could stop in a village for a day or two under the pretense of finding work in the neighborhood, they certainly could not stop for a month."

"Very well, I leave you a free hand in the matter, altogether, Miss Covington; for frankly I acknowledge that you are vastly more likely to ferret the thing out than I am."

CHAPTER XXI.

A BOX AT THE OPERA

"I tell you what it is, Simcoe," Harrison said two months later, "this affair of yours is getting to be a good deal more troublesome than I bargained for. It all looked simple enough; one only had to pick up a child, drive him in a cab across London, then down in a trap to Pitsea, hand him over to a man I knew would take good care of him, and take the payments for him when they became due, which would be no trouble, as I had to see the man occasionally on my own business. Of course I expected that there would be a big hue and cry for him, but I had no fear whatever of his being found. Then I managed through another man to get that body from the workhouse undertaker, and you managed the rest easily enough; but I tell you that the matter is getting a good deal hotter than I ever thought it would.

"I told you that I had been followed several times after leaving your place, and one morning when I went out early I saw footmarks, showing that someone had been walking round my house and trying to look in at the windows. I have a strong suspicion that I have been followed to my office, and I know that someone got in there one day at my dinner hour. I know, because I always fasten a piece of thread, so that if the door is opened it breaks it. There is nothing there that anyone could make anything of, but it is just as well to know if anyone has been prying about. The woman of the house was sure that she had not been in there, nor had she let anyone in; so the lock must have been picked. Of course anyone is liable to have his office robbed when he is out and it is empty; but nothing was taken, and if a common thief had found nothing else he would probably have made off with my dress suit, which would have brought him a sov. in a second-hand clothes shop.

"You know I have an excessive objection to being watched. I have had nothing on hand lately, at any rate nothing that has come off, but I might have had, you know. Well, yesterday I was going down to see my man in the marshes, and to tell him that likely enough I should bring something down to him next week. I got out of the train at Tilbury, and, as you know, there are not a dozen houses anywhere near the station. Now, I have a habit of keeping my eyes open, and I saw a man sitting on an old boat. What called my attention particularly to him was that he was turned half round watching the entrance to the station as I came out. You can always tell whether a man is watching for someone, or whether he is merely looking generally in that direction, and this man was certainly watching for someone. The instant his eye fell upon me he turned round and stared at the river. The path to the public house lay just behind him. Now, it would be natural that hearing a footstep a man doing nothing would look round and perhaps say a word – ask the time, or something of that sort. Well, he didn't turn round. Now, it is my habit, and a very useful one, always to carry a glass of about the size of a folded letter in my pocket. Instead of going on to the public house I turned off from the path and walked away from the river. When I had got some little distance I took out my glass, and still walking along, I held it up so that I could see in it what was going on behind. The man was standing up, watching me. I put the glass in my pocket and dropped my handkerchief. I stooped down to pick it up, of course partly turning as I did so, and saw that he had instantly dropped into a sitting position again, with his back to me.

"That was good enough. I turned, cut across the fields, went straight back to the station and took the next ferry-boat to Gravesend, and came back that way. It is quite clear to me that not only is this girl on the track still, but the chase is getting to be a very hot one, and that not only are they watching you, but they are watching me, and have in some way or other, though how, I cannot guess, found out that I go down to Tilbury, and have accordingly sent a man down to follow me. Now, I tell you frankly, I will have no more to do with the matter – that is to say, as far as going down on your business. As I have told you, I have always managed my own affairs so well that the police and I have no acquaintance whatever; and I am not going to be spied upon and followed and have the 'tecs upon my track about an affair in which I have no interest at all, except that, you having stood by my brother, I was glad to do you any service I could. But this is getting serious. I don't like it. I have told you I have business with the man, and get things off abroad through him that I should have great trouble in getting rid of in any other way; but unless in quite exceptional cases, these things are so small that they could be hidden away for months without much risk of their being found, however sharp the hunt after them might be. As I am in no way pressed for money I can afford to wait, though I own that I like to get the things off my hands as soon as I can, and as I considered that I ran practically no risk in going down with them into Essex, I never kept them at my house. However, for a time I must do so. I must tell you that when I am going down I always write beforehand and make an appointment for him to have his barge at the wharf at Pitsea, and I send my letter addressed to him: 'Mr. William Nibson, barge Mary Ann, care of Mr. Scholey, Spotted Horse, Pitsea.' You had better write to him in future. You need not put anything inside the envelope except notes for twenty-five pounds, and the words, 'For the child's keep for six months.' I need not say that you had better disguise your writing, both on the envelope and on the inside, and it is best that you should get your notes from some bookmaker on a race-course. You tell me you often go to races now and do a little betting. They are not the sort of men who take the numbers of the notes they pay out, and it would be next to impossible for them to be traced to you."

"Thank you, Harrison; you have behaved like a true pal to me, and I am ever so much obliged to you. I quite see what you mean, and indeed it is as much for my interest as yours that you should not go down there any more. Confound that girl Covington! I am sure she is the moving spirit of it all. I always felt uneasy about her from the first, and was sure that if there was any trouble it would come from her. I wonder how the deuce she ever found out that you went down to Tilbury."

"That beats me too, Simcoe. As you may guess, I am always most cautious about it, and always take a very roundabout way of going to the station."

"I have been uneasy ever since that girl at our place left so suddenly. A fortnight afterwards we found that there was a hole bored through the doorpost. Of course it might have been bored before I went there; but in that case it is curious that it was never noticed before. I cannot help thinking that she did it."

"Yes, you told me; but you said that you tried the experiment, and found that when your man and his wife were talking there in a loud voice, and you had your ear at the hole, you could not catch a single word."

"Yes, that was certainly so. I could hear them talking, but I could not make out a word of their conversation. Still it is evident that somebody has been trying to hear. I cannot help thinking that it was that girl, though both Johnstone and his wife spoke very highly of her. Certainly the story she told them was true to a certain extent, for when they sent the box down to Reading I sent a man down there to watch, and she called to fetch it, and my man found out that she labeled it 'Oxford,' and took it away with her on the down train. As he had no directions to follow her farther he came back. After we found the hole I sent him down again; but he never came upon her traces, though he inquired at every village near Oxford."

"She may have been put there as a spy," the other said; "but as it is evident that she couldn't hear through that hole, it is clear that she could not have done them any good. That is, I suppose, why they called her off; so the puzzle still remains how they got on my track at Tilbury. I should like to have a good look at this Covington girl. I can admire a clever wench, even when she is working against me."