THE SECOND BLOW.
Three days after this conversation, the amateur detective on his
first job arrived in London with the midday train from Birmingham.
He was in a state of happiness and triumph almost superhuman. For
he brought with him, as he believed, the conclusion of the matter.
Alone, single-handed, he had discovered the plot; the proofs were in
his hands. He was on his way to compel the guilty to submission, to
subdue the proud, to send the rich empty away. Poetical justice would
be done; his half-brother would be restored to his fraternal arms; and
Molly would be free.
I say there was no happier man than this poor credulous Richard to
be found anywhere than in that third-class carriage. He wanted no
paper to read; he sat in a kind of cloud of glorious congratulations.
Everything was proved; there was but one step possible--that of
surrender absolute.
Two letters preceded his arrival.
One was for Molly. "Expect me to-morrow evening," he said. "I bring
great news; but do not say anything to Alice. The news should be still
greater than what I have to tell you."
The other was for Lady Woodroffe.
"MADAM" (he wrote)
"I have to inform you that I have made a discovery closely
connected with you. The discovery is (1) that the only son
of the late Sir Humphrey Woodroffe, the first baronet, died
at Birmingham, on February 5th, 1874, and is buried there;
and (2) that he died at the Great Midland Hotel, where your
name is entered as being on that day accompanied by an
Indian ayah and a child. There is a note to the effect that
the child died the same night. The child is entered in the
register as born on December the 2nd, 1872. I observe in
the Peerage that the present baronet was born on that day.
"I propose to call upon you to-morrow afternoon at about
three o'clock, in the hope of obtaining an interview with
you on this subject.
"I remain, madam, your obedient servant,
"RICHARD WOODROFFE."
Now you understand why Richard Woodroffe came to town in so buoyant
and jubilant a mood. He saw himself received with shame and confusion
by a fallen enemy. He saw himself playing, for the first time in his
life, a part requiring great dignity--that of the conqueror. He would
be chivalrous towards this sinner; he would utter no reproach: to lay
his proofs before her, to receive her surrender, would be enough.
Richard was not a revengeful person; wrongs he forgot; injuries he
forgave. At the same time, he would have been more than human if he
had not contemplated, with some kind of satisfaction, the reduction of
the second baronet to his true level, which would leave him with no
more pride and no more superiority.
Alas! He was not prepared for what awaited him. Had he asked himself
what kind of woman he should meet, he would have imagined a person
broken down by the discovery of her guilt; throwing herself at his
feet, ready to confess everything--a woman with whom he would be the
conqueror. That the tables would be turned upon him, he never even
thought possible. Who would? He had discovered that the real heir to
the name and title of Sir Humphrey Woodroffe had actually died at
Birmingham twenty-four years ago. Who, then, was the present so-called
Sir Humphrey?
"Thou art the woman!" "Alas! alas! I am the woman."
This was the pretty dialogue of conquest and confession which he
fondly imagined.
What happened?
At the hour of three he called and sent in his card.
He was taken upstairs to the drawing-room, where a lady of august
presence and severe aspect, who struck an unexpected terror into
him at the outset, was sitting at a table with a secretary. This
severe person put up her glasses curiously, and icily motioned him
to wait, while she went on dictating to the secretary. When she had
finished--which took several minutes--she dismissed her assistant
and turned to her visitor, who was still standing, hat in hand,
already disconcerted by this contemptuous treatment, and expectant of
unpleasantness.
She pushed back her chair and took a paper from the table.
"You sent me a letter yesterday, Mr. Woodroffe."
"I did," he said huskily. Then, with a feeling of being
cross-examined, he cleared his throat and tried to assume an attitude
of dignity.
"This is the letter, I believe. Read it, to make sure."
"That is the letter."
"Oh! And you are come, I suppose, to talk over the matter, to see
what you can make out of it. Well, sir, I have taken advice upon
this letter. I was advised to have the door shut in your face; I was
advised to send you to my lawyers; but I am not afraid, even of the
black-mailer. I resolved to see you. Now, sir, you may sit down, if
you like." Richard sank into a chair, his cheeks flaming. "Go on,
then," she added impatiently. "Don't waste my time. Explain this
letter, sir, instantly."
She rapped the table sharply with a paper-knife. The triumphant
detective jumped.
"I can--I can explain it." The poor young man felt all his confidence
slipping away from him. For it looked as if she was actually going to
brazen it out--a contingency that had not occurred to him.
"One moment, Mr. Woodroffe. I am the more inclined to give you an
opportunity to explain personally, because I hear that my son has
already met you. I can hardly say, made your acquaintance--met
you--and that you are, or pretend to be--it matters nothing--a distant
cousin of his. And now, sir, having said so much, I am prepared to
listen."
"I can give you the whole story, Lady Woodroffe."
"_The_ whole story? _A_ whole story, you mean. Call things by their
right names. But go on. Do not occupy my time needlessly, and do not
be tedious."
"I will do neither, I assure you." He plucked up some courage,
thinking of his proofs, but not much. "I even think I shall interest
you. First of all, then: my father, who was a comedian playing under
the name of Anthony, which was his Christian name, married, as his
first wife, a London girl. My father was not a man of principle, I am
sorry to say. After a time, he deserted his wife, and left her alone
with her child in the streets of Birmingham--Birmingham," he repeated.
Lady Woodroffe winced. It might have been his fancy, but she certainly
seemed to wince at the mention of that great city. She sat upright,
with hands crossed; her face was pale, her eyes were hard, though she
still smiled.
"Go on, sir," she said; "left his wife in Birmingham. I dare say I
shall understand presently what this means."
"This was twenty-four or twenty-five years ago. The deserted wife
could not believe that she had lost his affection; but she knew that
the child's presence annoyed him. That fact, perhaps, influenced
her. There was also the certainty of the workhouse before her for
the child; she was therefore easily persuaded to consent to an
arrangement, by means of some doctor of the place, to give her child
into the charge of a lady who had lost her own, and was willing to
adopt another. She did this in ignorance of the lady's name."
"Did she never learn the lady's name?" The question was a mistake.
Lady Woodroffe perceived her mistake, and set her lips tighter.
"Never. She had no means of finding out. She went after her husband,
and followed him from place to place, till she finally caught him
in some town of a Western State. Here, as soon as she appeared on
the scene, he divorced her for alleged incompatibility of temper.
Afterwards he married again. I am the son of the second marriage."
"Yes. This is, no doubt, an interesting story. But I am not, really,
interested in your--your pedigree," she sighed. "Oh, do go on, man!
Why do you come here with it?"
"It is the beginning of the story which ends with that letter of mine."
"You promised, Mr. Woodroffe"--she smiled icily, and her eyes remained
hard--"that you would neither bore me nor waste my time. Are you sure
that you are keeping your word?"
"Quite sure. I go back to the story. I concluded from the story as it
was told me, that the lady's child had died in Birmingham--in some
hotel, probably----"
"One moment. May I guess that your object is, apparently, to find this
person who bought or took charge of the child?"
"It is on behalf of the mother, who is now in England. Above all
things, she desires to find her child. That is natural, is it not?"
"Perfectly natural. Let us hope that she may succeed. Now go on, Mr.
Woodroffe. Of course, a woman who would sell her child does not
deserve to get it back again."
Perhaps the last remark was also a mistake. At least it showed temper.
"Perhaps not. This woman, Mrs. Haveril, however, who is married to an
extremely wealthy American----"
"Haveril! Can it be the millionaire person whom my son met--with
you--at Sir Robert Steele's house?"
"That is the lady."
"Indeed! I always tell my son that he should be more careful of his
company. Well, go on."
Richard smiled. The insolence of the observation did not hurt him
in the least. It lessened the power of the presence, and gave him
confidence.
"This lady," he continued, "fancies or discerns an extraordinary
resemblance to her husband, my father--and to myself--in your son,
Lady Woodroffe. The resemblance is very striking. He has most
undoubtedly my father's face, the same colour of his hair--his figure
even more strongly, it is said, than myself. Yet I am considered like
him."
"And because there is this resemblance, she imagined----"
"Hardly imagined. She dreamed----"
"Dreamed! What have I to do with her dreams? Well, she has only to
ascertain the real parentage of Sir Humphrey--my son. Oh, I have your
letter in my mind! Sir Humphrey, you said, the second baronet. We
shall come to your letter presently."
"One would think----"
"Has she any other reason to go upon besides the resemblance?"
By this time it was evident that she understood exactly what was meant.
"She had, until yesterday, no other reason. Yet, from one or two
simple facts that I have discovered--they are in my letter--I am
certain that she is right."
"Indeed! Do you understand, Mr. Woodroffe, the exact meaning of those
words, 'that she is right.' Then what is my son?"
"He would be no longer your son. He would be her son."
"Then what am I?"
"That, Lady Woodroffe, is not for me to say."
"I promised to give you an audience. Therefore go on."
"Since there was no kind of proof of this imagining--or this dream--I
thought that I would go down to Birmingham to search the registers."
"You are a detective, or a private and secret inquirer?"
"No; I am acting only for this lady."
"She is a millionairess. I hope she pays you well. But the facts--the
facts. And you found----"
"A great deal more than I hoped. The facts which I set forth in my
letter."
"An entry in the register, purporting to record the death of my son,
and an entry in a hotel-book, giving my name,--that is all!"
"Is it not enough? The child was about the same age as the one
adopted. There are not many children of that age who die every
week--even in Birmingham. Again, if the child died in Birmingham at
all, it must have been at a hotel. There are not many children of the
same age likely to die in the same week in a Birmingham hotel. I had
the register of deaths searched, and found--what I told you. Copies
have been taken. I went to the hotel nearest the station, and had the
visitors' book searched. I found--what I told you. Copies have been
taken."
"Very good. What next?"
"I sent you that letter, and I came to hear what you say about it."
"What should I say about it?"
"Who is this young man who calls himself the second baronet?"
"He is my son."
"Then who is the child that died?"
"How am I to tell? You must ask some one else."
"And who was the Lady Woodroffe who came to the hotel?"
"How do I know? You must ask some one else."
"Oh!"
He might have considered this attitude as possible at least. But he
had not. His face expressed bewilderment and surprise.
"You actually suggest to me--to _me_, of all people in the
world!--that I, actually I myself, a woman of my position, bought a
child in place of a dead child! That is your meaning, is it not, sir?"
"Certainly it is," he answered with creditable valour. "I know you did
it! There's no way out of it but to confess!"
"Why, you miserable little counter-jumper!"
Dick stepped back in some alarm, because it looked as if she were
going to box his ears. She was quite capable of it, indeed, and but
for the guilty conscience that held her back, she would have done
it. As it was, her wrath was not feigned. It maddened her to think
that this man should so easily discover a whole half of the thing she
thought concealed for ever.
"You wretched little counter-jumper!" she repeated, with reginal
gesture, tall and commanding--taller than poor Richard, and, dear me!
how much more commanding! "And you pretend a trumpery resemblance!
Why, my son is half a foot taller than you! My son's father was a
gentleman, and his face and manners show it. Yours---- But your face
and manners show what he was. Leave the house, sir!" Dick dropped his
hat in his surprise. "If you think to black-mail me, you are mistaken.
Leave the house! If you dare to speak of this again, it shall be to my
lawyers."
Richard picked up his hat. The action is a trifle, but it completed
his discomfiture.
"No; stay a moment. Understand quite clearly, that you can make any
use of these entries that you please. But you may as well understand
that I have never been in Birmingham in my life; that persons in my
position act and move among a surrounding troop of servants, to speak
nothing of friends and relations. That the heirs of persons like Sir
Humphrey do not die and get buried unknown to their friends--perhaps
you have not thought of all this."
He heard this statement with open mouth. He was struck dumb.
"Understand at once, make your principal--who is she? the rich
person--understand that I have never been in Birmingham in my life;
and that every hour of my life can be accounted for."
"Who was that child, then?"
"Find out, if you can. It has nothing to do with me. If, twenty years
ago, some woman chose, for purposes of her own, to personate the wife
of Sir Humphrey--who was then in Scotland--while Sir Humphrey was on
his way home from India, do you think I am going to inquire or trouble
my head about her impudence?"
Richard murmured something indistinct. He did not know what to say.
How could this majestic woman have done such a thing? Yet who else
could have done it?
Lady Woodroffe sat down again. "I have been wrong," she said, "in
getting angry over this matter. Perhaps you are not, after all, a
black-mailer."
"Indeed, I am not."
"I have heard my son," she said, in a softer voice, "speak of you, Mr.
Woodroffe. But I must warn you that any attempt to bring this charge
will be met by my solicitors. One word more. Miss Hilarie Woodroffe
has also, I believe, taken some interest in you. I would suggest, Mr.
Woodroffe, that it would be foolish to throw away the only respectable
connections you possess in a wild-goose chase, which can lead to
nothing except ignoble pay from a woman who, by your own confession,
threw away her own child or sold it to a stranger. Now you can go,
sir." She did not ring the bell for the servant. She pointed, and
turned back to her desk. "Have the goodness to shut the door behind
you."
It was with greatly lowered spirits that Richard walked down those
stairs and out of the door.