Mrs Hartshorne's lawyers had their offices in one of the most palatial
and dingy of that, whilom palatial, and now most dingy, collection of
houses, which it would be sheer lunacy to christen a street,--yclept
Bedford Row--that favourite abiding place and Mecca of the gentlemen of
the "sheepskin" persuasion. The proprietress of The Poplars was one of
the richest clients of the firm, who had for years done business for the
family before the dowager's incorporation in it; but still it does not
follow that Messrs. Trump, Sequence, and Co. got over many fees and
costs from that long-headed lady. She employed them as a matter of
course, for they had all the Hartshorne papers, but they got very little
money out of her, or from the estate, since Roger Hartshorne, the old
squire, died.
It was to these gentlemen that Miss Kingscott was introduced on coming
up to London to fulfil the mission with which she had been entrusted.
It was good to see how the eyes of both partners glistened on hearing
that, at last, some business was to be done for the Sussex dowager.
Miss Kingscott related the particulars.
Mr Trump at first was surprised, but being of a keen, energetic turn of
mind, he quickly determined how to act.
Having examined and cross-examined Miss Kingscott with regard to the
dress and appearance of the girl, and so on--although he himself had
frequently seen Susan too--he at once drew up the form of an
advertisement for the lost girl, offering a reward of fifty pounds for
her recovery.
He then rang his bell for one of the clerks in the outer office; and a
grizzled old man, old but alert, with his hair standing on end, like a
porcupine's quills, at once obeyed the summons.
"Here, Smiffens," said Mr Trump, giving him the paper he had just
written, "copy that advertisement; take down copies to the morning
papers, and have it inserted at once. By the way," he added, as
Smiffens bustled out of the room, "take a copy, too, to the printers,
and have five hundred handbills struck off for the police. Wait for
them till they're done, and take them down to the central office. I'm
just going down to Scotland Yard myself, and will tell them to expect
the bills. Be sharp, mind! there's no time to lose."
As soon as the clerk had gone, Mr Trump turned to the governess who had
been waiting all this time.
"Now, I'm at your service, Miss Kingscott," he said. "I shall be happy
to accompany you down to Hartwood if you are going back at once." Miss
Kingscott signified that that was her intention. "You won't mind my
stopping at the police-station, will you? I want to pick a sharp
detective there, whom I know, and get him to go down with us."
"Oh, dear no!" said Miss Kingscott; and after a very trifling delay,
Miss Kingscott, the lawyer, and John Bounce, special detective, of
Scotland Yard, were in the coupe of a first-class carriage, and rattling
down at express speed to Hartwood.
Arrived there, they managed to secure one of those extraordinary cabs or
flys that are to be met with at country places, and which, I believe,
are derelict London carriages that are thrown away by their former
owners as worn out and useless: and after a short time they got to The
Poplars, just as the doctor and the dowager, worn out with waiting,
began to feel tired of the unusual pleasure of each other's company.
Matters having been explained over again, the detective, John Bounce,
was set to work; and he, with that look of mystic preparation which the
craft glory in, asked at once to be shown over the house. He examined
every hole and corner as if he thought Susan had been purposely stowed
away by the members of the family. When he was satisfied with an
inspection of the house and garden, giving especial care to examining
the various locks and appurtenances of the gates, he appeared to think
profoundly for a short time, when he asked to be shown the clothes which
Susan had left behind her. These gave him immense gratification, for he
turned them over and over again, giving vent to sundry Lord Burleigh's
shakings of the head, and portentous "humphs," as if he had the whole
thing in his mind's eye.
Detectives, my dear sir, or madam, are not by any means such sharp
personages as writers of fiction generally love to depict. There are
some especially "cute" members of the force I don't for a moment deny;
but as a class their knowledge and acquirements are fearfully
exaggerated. Indeed, I must be so severe as to call them at once,
humbugs; but they deceive themselves quite as greatly and as often as
they deceive the public, and are by no means so sharp as the malefactors
they are set to catch. I think a clergyman I once knew would have made
a far better detective than a good many real _mouchoirs_ I have come
across. He had the gift of at once divining at the truth, investigating
the morality and ethics of his parishioners which not one detective in a
hundred possesses. They put on a great deal of mystery, and appear to
"know all about it," but they are really much more shallow conjurers
than Herr Frickell when, turning up the sleeves of his coat and his
snow-white wristbands and calling his audience's attention to the theory
that there is "no preparation, gentlemen! no preparation," at once
proceeds to smuggle eggs up his sleeves with a "Hi, Presto! Begone!"
The detective placed great emphasis on the fact that Susan had taken
Miss Kingscott's dress and bonnet with her. "Putting two and two
together," as he said, he delivered himself of the oracular assertion,
that she "must have gone off somewhere," which, of course, no one else
would have dreamt of but the dowager, who observed snappishly that she
could have told him that before, and advised him to try and find out
where the girl had gone to, as that was what he had been employed for.
Whereupon, John Bounce appeared all at once to wake up to the notion
that he would have to go somewhere else to look for the missing girl.
He asked if they had enquired about her at the nearest railway station,
and was told they had; and on being further told that another station,
Bigglethorpe, was also not far from The Poplars, he said she might have
gone there, which was also perfectly feasible to the meanest
comprehension.
At Bigglethorpe they found out that the station-master remembered a
tall, dark gentleman getting out on the previous day, and coming back
shortly afterwards with a lady. He thought it was the same, because now
he remembered the gentleman had left his bag there, and had taken it,
and gone off in the next up-train. On the detective's telling him to
"Take care!" and mentioning that he was a policeman, which he generally
found to have an awe-inspiring influence on the _gamins_ of London, the
station-master said he could not tell him any more, not if he were
"twenty detectives, and the Lord Mayor into the bargain, all rolled into
one." He recollected a gentleman getting out there, he thought, and
coming back again, and going up to London, and he believed he had a lady
with him, but he would not be sure. It was "no use a pestering him with
any more questions, for he had his own business to attend to about the
traffic returns." He did not know who the gentleman was, nor the lady,
and he "had not seen them afore or since, and didn't want to see 'em
either, for that matter." There the enquiry ended, for the detective
was at fault; and that is all they found out about Susan, after
searching for days about the neighbourhood in every direction.
Nothing could be done now but to wait and see what effect the
advertisements and handbills would have in discovering her whereabouts.
So Mr Trump and the detective had to go back to London as unsuccessful
as when they had gone down; while Doctor Jolly and the old lady and Tom,
who were all greatly grieved at the disappearance of the girl, could but
wonder what had become of her. The only thing they had learnt for a
certainty was that she was not in the county; and they could only hope
that a good providence would watch over her, and bring her back to them
safe: in the interim the police in the metropolis, with their wits
sharpened by the reward offered, were doing all they could to ferret her
out in London. And thus a month passed by.
During all this time, Messrs. Trump, Sequence, and Co. had been fairly
worried out of their wits, day and night, with false reports about the
finding of Susan. More than a hundred persons had come to their offices
brimful of the intelligence that they had secured the fugitive, and had
seen her at all sorts of unheard of places; but the persons whom they
thought to be Susan turned out to be totally unlike her in every
particular. Mr Trump was for ever going with the police to inspect the
bodies of drowned persons; and yet no trace was found of the missing
girl, and he at last began to hope devoutly that she would be found
soon, whether dead or alive he did not care which, for he was bothered
to death about the matter. Indeed, he would have cheerfully given a
handsome sum to have "washed his hands," as he often said to Sequence,
who had a peculiar, parrot-like habit of repeating Trump's words after
him, as if affirmatively, "of the whole affair." To which Sequence
would nod his head, and respond sagaciously, "Certainly, of the whole
affair."
When Markworth, therefore, after the search had lasted a month, walked
into the office one morning just after his interview with the Jew,
Solomonson, and told Mr Trump, who had accosted him graciously,
thinking he was a new client, that he came about the advertisement for
the lost girl, Mr Trump was wroth and slightly snappy.
"I hope to goodness you've really found her, and not come here with any
cock and bull story like the rest of 'em."
"I think you'll find," said Markworth, taking out the marriage
certificate which he had brought with him, the advertisement, and a
photographic likeness which he had had taken at Havre, "when you look at
these, that I've found the girl, and am entitled to the reward you have
offered."
"This is Susan, sure enough; but," he observed, "where's it taken?
Havre? Havre? How the devil did she get there?"
"I took her there," answered Markworth, in the most cool and collected
manner, according to his wont; "and if you'll look at this certificate
here you'll see that I had a perfect right to do so. She is my wife!"
"Whew!" whistled Mr Trump, through his closed teeth. "Your wife! Why,
the girl's insane!"
"That's where you make the mistake, my dear sir! She's no more insane
than you are. Her people ought to have told you that, for although she
had been previously a little `foolish,' perhaps, they saw her
improvement of late; and she had the sense, at all events, to run away
with me and get married, and that's no proof of her insanity."
"I don't know about that," said Mr Trump, "I don't know about that. I
remember now, the old doctor said that she had been more intelligent
before she disappeared, but he did not tell me that Susan Hartshorne was
quite right in her mind, and I won't believe it. Do you know Mr --, I
beg your pardon, I did not catch your name."
"Markworth, Allynne Markworth," said that gentleman.
"Thank you! Well then, Mr Allynne Markworth, do you know that that
girl has a large fortune, and it is a very serious offence in the eyes
of the law to abduct, and enter into a false contract of marriage with a
girl of feeble intellect like that?"
"I am perfectly aware of the facts as you state them, my dear sir.
Allow me to congratulate you on your legal presence of mind and
abilities," said Markworth, as calmly as ever. "I knew she had a
fortune, but you will have to prove she was _non compos mentis_, I
believe that's your term for it, when I married her. The girl was of
age, my dear sir. Look at that marriage certificate, and see for
yourself. She was of legal age on the very day before we were married.
There! you see the date of the certificate, 28th August, 1867."
"Well, well, whether she was of age or not you can be prosecuted under
an indictment for a conspiracy to obtain the money of a person of
unsound mind, under the pretence of going through a marriage ceremony
with a person who, in the eye of the law, could not make a binding
contract!"
"Precisely, my dear sir!" said the other, coolly, Mr Sequence, of
course, taking no part in the conversation. "Precisely, but you see you
will have to prove, in the first place, that the girl was of unsound
mind; and in the second, to prove conspiracy you will have to implicate
two or more persons. You see, I too, know the law, Mr Trump: allow me
to inform you that I alone was concerned in the affair, how will you
prove your conspiracy?"
The lawyer looked fairly baffled. "The girl's found at all events, and
that's one trouble saved," he said to himself.
Markworth resumed after a moment's pause, "You see, my dear sir, the
girl was of age, she was unhappy at home, she ran away with me and
married me: the whole thing lies in a nutshell. I wasn't to blame; and,
of course, as she has property, I shall take very good care to assert my
rights as her husband. But that's an after consideration. You are
quite satisfied that the girl is found, I suppose?" said Markworth,
after detailing how Susan had met him on the day of her disappearance,
taken train with him at Bigglethorpe Station (corroborated as the lawyer
remembered, by his and the detective's enquiries on the day they went
down to Hartwood), from whence they had come up to London, and then gone
to Havre. The marriage certificate and photograph were also convincing
proofs of his statement.
"Yes," said Mr Trump, "I suppose you have the girl; but it's a very
queer case."
"My address is _Numero Sept_, _Rue Montmartre_, Havre, where you can see
Mrs Markworth yourself: now I'll thank you to hand over that fifty
pounds you offered as a reward for any information about her."
"By George!" said the lawyer, "you're a cool hand, and no mistake!" He
could not gainsay Markworth's statement, however; so, unlocking his cash
box, and taking out five ten pound notes, he handed them to him
reluctantly. "There they are, and much good may they do you!" said Mr
Trump, ruefully--He felt just as if he had been the victim of a
practical joke.
Markworth, after counting them over carefully, pocketed the notes with
the utmost _sang froid_. "I suppose you will inform Mrs Hartshorne of
her daughter's marriage?"
"Of course, sir, of course! I shall make it my business to go down
there myself at once."
"Aye, do, my dear sir! and get all those unpleasant details over. I'm
myself going down to-morrow, and should not like to be bothered in
having to make any explanation."
"You'll get as much as you want," said Mr Trump, significantly, "when
you come across the old lady." And Mr Trump bethought him, with
ill-concealed satisfaction, of the reception with which Markworth would
probably meet; it would be a sort of tit-for-tat, or _quid pro quo_, for
the "sell" he had just been made a victim of, in having to hand over
that fifty pounds to the very man who had caused all the worry of
Susan's disappearance. "You won't get any money out of her," he
thought.
"I shall instruct my solicitors," said Markworth, as he turned to leave
the room, after making the first move of his game of chess, "to
substantiate my marriage, which can be easily done, and claim my wife's
fortune."
"You had better," said Mr Trump, savagely; "you won't get it, my dear
sir, without a fight, I can tell you!"
"Ha--um! _we_ will see," said Markworth, putting on his hat. "Good
morning, gentlemen--good morning!" and he went out.
"Morning!" grunted Mr Trump, feeling as if he had undergone a defeat;
and "Morning," echoed Mr Sequence, who had been listening carefully all
the time, without putting in a word. He had the whole conversation,
however, stored up in his brain for the future use of the firm.
Volume 2, Chapter V.