NETTA VISITS STOWMARKET.
"Well, Netta," Hilda said, after Dr. Leeds had left them, "I suppose you
will not in future laugh at my instincts. I only wish that they had been
stronger. I wish I had told my dear uncle that I disliked the man so
thoroughly that I was sure there was something wrong with him, and
implored him not to become very intimate with him. If I had told him how
strongly I felt on the subject, although, of course, he could have left
or given him any sum that he chose, I do think it would have had some
influence with him. No doubt he would have laughed at what he would have
called my suspicious nature, but I think he would not have become so
friendly with the man; but, of course, I never thought of this. Oh,
Netta! my heart seems broken at the thought that my dear uncle, the
kindest of men, should have been murdered by a man towards whom his
thoughts were so kindly that he appointed him his heir in the event of
Walter's death. If he had left him double the sum he did, and had
directed that in case of Walter's death the property should go to
hospitals, the child might now have been safe in the house. It is
heartbreaking to think of."
"Well, dear," Netta said, "we have our work before us. I say 'we'
because, although he was no relation to me, I loved him from the first,
when he came over with the news of your father's death. Had I been his
niece as well as you, he could not have treated me more kindly than he
did when I was staying with you last year, and during the last four
months that I have been with you. One could see, even in the state he
was in, how kind his nature was, and his very helplessness added to
one's affection for him. I quite meant what I said, for until this
matter is cleared up, and until this crime, if crime it really is, is
brought to light, I will stay here, and be your helper, however the long
the time may be. There are two of us, and I do not think that either of
us are fools, and we ought to be a match for one man. There is one thing
we have, that is a man on whom we can rely. I do not mean Dr. Leeds; I
regard him as our director. I mean Tom Roberts; he would have given his
life, I am sure, for his master, and I feel confident that he will carry
out any instructions we may give him to the letter."
"I am sure he will, Netta. Do you think we ought to tell him our
suspicions?"
"I should do so unhesitatingly, Hilda. I am sure he will be ready to go
through fire and water to avenge his master's death. As aunt is out I
think it will be as well to take him into our confidence at once."
Hilda said nothing, but got up and rang the bell. When the footman
entered she said, "Tell Roberts that I want to speak to him." When the
man came up she went on, "We are quite sure, Tom, that you were most
thoroughly devoted to your master, and that you would do anything in
your power to get to the bottom of the events that have brought about
his death and the carrying off of his grandson."
"That I would, miss; there is not anything that I would not do if you
would only set me about it."
"Well, Roberts, I am about to take you into our confidence, relying
implicitly upon your silence and on your aid."
"You can do that, miss, safely enough. There is nothing now that I can
do for my master; but as for Master Walter, I would walk to China if I
thought that there was a chance of finding him there."
"In the first place you must remember, Roberts, that we are acting only
upon suspicion; we have only that to go upon, and our object must be to
find some proofs to justify those suspicions."
"I understand, miss; you have got an idea, and you want to see if it is
right?"
"We ourselves have little doubt of it, Roberts. Now please sit down and
listen to me, and don't interrupt me till I have finished."
Then she related the grounds that she had for suspicion that the
General's death and Walter's abduction were both the work of John
Simcoe, and also her own theory that this man was not the person who had
saved the General's life. In spite of her warning not to interrupt, Tom
Roberts' exclamations of fury were frequent and strongly worded.
"Well, miss!" he exclaimed, when she had finished and his tongue was
untied, "I did not think that there was such a villain upon the face of
the earth. Why, if I had suspected this I would have killed him, if I
had been hung for it a week after. And to think that he regular took me
in! He had always a cheerful word for me, if I happened to open the door
for him. 'How are you, Tom?' he would say, 'hearty as usual?' and he
would slip a crown into my hand to drink his health. I always keep an
account of tips that I receive, and the first thing I do will be to add
them up and see how much I have had from him, and I will hand it over to
a charity. One don't like setting out to help to bring a man to the
gallus when you have got his money in your pocket. I must have been a
fool, miss, not to have kept a better watch, but I never thought ill of
the man. It seemed to me that he had been a soldier. Sometimes when he
was talking with me he would come out with barrack-room sayings, and
though he never said that he had served, nor the General neither, I
thought that he must have done so. He had a sort of way of carrying his
shoulders which you don't often see among men who have not learned the
goose-step. I will wait, miss, with your permission, until I have got
rid of that money, and then if you say to me, 'Go to that man's rooms
and take him by the throat and squeeze the truth out of him,' I am ready
to do it."
"We shall not require such prompt measures as that, Tom; we must go
about our work carefully and quietly, and I fear that it will be a very
long time before we are able to collect facts that we can act upon. We
have not decided yet how to begin. I may tell you that the only other
person who shares our suspicions is Dr. Leeds. We think it best that
even Miss Purcell should know nothing about them. It would only cause
her great anxiety, and the matter will, therefore, be kept a close
secret among our four selves. In a few days our plans will probably be
complete, and I think that your share in the business will be to watch
every movement of this man and to ascertain who are his associates; many
of them, no doubt, are club men, who, of course, will be above
suspicion, but it is certain that he must have had accomplices in the
abduction of the child. Whether he visits them or they visit him, is a
point to find out. There is little chance of their calling during
daylight, and it is in the evening that you will have to keep a close
eye on him and ascertain who his visitors are."
"All right, miss, I wish he did not know me by sight; but I expect that
I can get some sort of a disguise so that he won't recognize me."
"I don't think that there will be any difficulty about that. Of course
we are not going to rely only upon you; Miss Purcell and myself are both
going to devote ourselves to the search."
"We will run him down between us, miss, never fear. It cannot be meant
that such a fellow as this should not be found out in his villainy. I
wish that there was something more for me to do. I know several old
soldiers like myself, who would join me willingly enough, and we might
between us carry him off and keep him shut up somewhere, just as he is
doing Master Walter, until he makes a clean breast of it. It is
wonderful what the cells and bread and water will do to take a fellow's
spirit down. It is bad enough when one knows how long one has got to
bear it; but to know that there is no end to it until you choose to
speak would get the truth out of Old Nick, begging your pardon for
naming him."
"Well, we shall see, Roberts. That would certainly be a last resource,
and I fear that it would not be so effectual as you think. If he told us
that if he did not pay his usual visit to the boy it would be absolutely
certain we should never see him alive again, we should not dare retain
him."
"Well, miss, whatever you decide on I will do. I have lost as a good
master as ever a man had, and there is nothing that I would not do to
bring that fellow to justice."
The girls waited impatiently for the next visit of Dr. Leeds. It was
four days before he came.
"I hoped to have been here before," he said, "but I have been so busy
that it has not been possible for me to manage it. Of course this
business has always been in my mind, and it seems to me that the first
step to be taken is to endeavor to ascertain whether this fellow is
really, as you believe, Miss Covington, an impostor. Have you ever heard
him say in what part of the country he formerly resided?"
"Yes; he lived at Stowmarket. I know that some months ago he introduced
to uncle a gentleman who was manager at a bank there, and had known him
from boyhood. He was up for a few days staying with him."
"That is certainly rather against your surmise, Miss Covington; however,
it is as well to clear that matter up before we attempt anything else."
"I will go down and make inquiries, doctor," Netta said quietly. "I am
half a head shorter than Hilda, and altogether different in face;
therefore, if he learns that any inquiries have been made, he will be
sure that whoever made them was not Hilda."
"We might send down a detective, Miss Purcell."
"No; I want to be useful," she said, "and I flatter myself that I shall
be able to do quite as well as a detective. We could hardly take a
detective into our confidence in a matter of this kind, and not knowing
everything, he might miss points that would give us a clew to the truth.
I will start to-morrow. I shall tell my aunt that I am going away for a
day or two to follow up some clew we have obtained that may lead to
Walter's discovery. In a week you shall know whether this man is really
what he claims to be."
"Very well, Miss Purcell; then we will leave this matter in your hands."
"By the way, doctor," Hilda Covington said, "we have taken Roberts into
our confidence. We know that we can rely upon his discretion implicitly,
and it seemed to us that we must have somebody we can trust absolutely
to watch this man."
"I don't think that you could have done better," he said. "I was going
to suggest that it would be well to obtain his assistance. From what I
have heard, very few of these private detectives can be absolutely
relied upon. I do not mean that they are necessarily rogues, who would
take money from both sides, but that, if after trying for some time they
consider the matter hopeless, they will go on running up expenses and
making charges when they have in reality given up the search. What do
you propose that he shall do?"
"I should say that, in the first place, he should watch every evening
the house where Simcoe lives, and follow up everyone who comes out and
ascertain who they are. No doubt the great majority of them will be
clubmen, but it is likely that he will be occasionally visited by some
of his confederates."
"I think that is an excellent plan. He will, of course, also follow him
when he goes out, for it is much more likely that he will visit these
fellows than that they should come to him. In a case like this he would
assuredly use every precaution, and would scarcely let them know who he
is and where he resides."
"No doubt that is so, doctor, and it would make Roberts' work all the
easier, for even if they came to the man's lodgings he might be away,
following up the track of someone who had called before him."
Netta returned at the end of four days.
"I have not succeeded," she said, in answer to Hilda's inquiring look as
she came in. "The man is certainly well known at Stowmarket as John
Simcoe; but that does not prove that he is the man, and just as he
deceived your uncle he may have deceived the people down there. Now I
will go upstairs and take off my things, and then give you a full
account of my proceedings.
"My first step," she began on her return, "was, of course, to find out
what members of the Simcoe family lived there. After engaging a room at
the hotel, which I can assure you was the most unpleasant part of the
business, for they seemed to be altogether unaccustomed to the arrival
of young ladies unattended, I went into the town. It is not much of a
place, and after making some little purchases and inquiring at several
places, I heard of a maiden lady of that name. The woman who told me of
her was communicative. 'She has just had a great piece of luck,' she
said. 'About ten months back a nephew, whom everyone had supposed to
have been lost at sea, came home with a great fortune, and they say that
he has behaved most handsomely to her. She has always bought her Berlin
wool and such things here, and she has spent three or four times as much
since he came home as she did before, and I know from a neighbor, of
whom she is a customer, that the yards and yards of flannel that she
buys for making up into petticoats for poor children is wonderful. Do
you know her, miss?' I said that I did not know her personally, but that
some friends of mine, knowing that I was going to Stowmarket, had asked
me to inquire if Miss Simcoe was still alive. I said casually that I
might call and see her, and so got her address.
"I then went to call upon her. She lives in a little place called Myrtle
Cottage. I had been a good deal puzzled as to what story I should tell
her. I thought at first of giving myself out as the sister of the young
lady to whom her nephew was paying his addresses; and as we knew
nothing of him except that he was wealthy, and as he had mentioned that
he had an aunt at Stowmarket, and as I was coming down there, I had been
asked to make inquiries about him. But I thought this might render her
so indignant that I should get nothing from her. I thought, therefore, I
had better get all she knew voluntarily; so I went to the house,
knocked, and asked whether Miss Simcoe was in. I was shown by a little
maid into the parlor, a funny, little, old-fashioned room. Presently
Miss Simcoe herself came in. She was just the sort of woman I had
pictured--a kindly-looking, little old maid.
"'I do not know whether I have done wrong, Miss Simcoe,' I said, 'but I
am a stranger here, and having over-worked myself at a picture from
which I hope great things, I have been recommended country air; and a
friend told me that Stowmarket was a pretty, quiet, country town, just
the place for an over-worked Londoner to gain health in, so I came down
and made some inquiries for a single lady who would perhaps take me in
and give me a comfortable home for two or three months. Your name has
been mentioned to me as being just the lady I am seeking."
"'You have been misinformed,' she said, a little primly. 'I do not say
that a few months back I might not have been willing to have entertained
such an offer, but my circumstances have changed since then, and now I
should not think for a moment of doing so.'
"Rising from my seat with a tired air, I said that I was much obliged to
her, but I was very sorry she could not take me in, as I was sure that I
should be very comfortable; however, as she could not, of course there
was an end of it.
"'Sit down, my dear,' the old lady said. 'I see that you are tired and
worn out; my servant shall get you a cup of tea. You see,' she went on,
as I murmured my thanks and sat down, 'I cannot very well do what you
ask. As I said, a few months ago I should certainly have been very glad
to have had a young lady like yourself to stay with me for a time; I
think that when a lady gets to my age a little youthful companionship
does her good. Besides, I do not mind saying that my means were somewhat
straitened, and that a little additional money would have been a great
help to me; but everything was changed by the arrival of a nephew of
mine. Perhaps you may have heard his name; he is a rich man, and I
believe goes out a great deal, and belongs to clubs and so on.'
"I said that I had not heard of him, for I knew nothing about society,
nor the sort of men who frequented clubs.
"'No, of course not, my dear,' she said. 'Well, he had been away for
twenty years, and everyone thought he was dead. He sailed away in some
ship that was never heard of again, and you may guess my surprise when
he walked in here and called me aunt.'
"'You must have been indeed surprised, Miss Simcoe,' I said; 'it must
have been quite a shock to you. And did you know him at once?'
"'Oh, dear, no! He had been traveling about the world, you see, for a
very long time, and naturally in twenty years he was very much changed;
but of course I soon knew him when he began to talk.'
"'You recognized his voice, I suppose?' I suggested.
"'No, my dear, no. Of course his voice had changed, just as his
appearance had done. He had been what he called knocking about, among
all sorts of horrible savages, eating and drinking all kinds of queer
things; it made my blood run cold to listen to him. But I never asked
any questions about these things; I was afraid he might say that when he
was among the cannibals he used to eat human flesh, and I don't think
that I could like a man who had done that, even though he was my
nephew.'
"'Did he go out quite as a boy, Miss Simcoe?' I asked.
"'Oh, no! He was twenty-four, I think, when he went abroad. He had a
situation in the bank here. I know that the manager thought very highly
of him, and, indeed, he was everywhere well spoken of. My brother
Joshua--his father, you know--died, and he came in for two or three
thousand pounds. He had always had a great fancy for travel, and so,
instead of looking out for some nice girl and settling down, he threw up
his situation and started on his travels.'
"'Had his memory been affected by the hot suns and the hardships that he
had gone through?' I asked.
"'Oh, dear! not at all. He recognized everyone almost whom he had known.
Of course he was a good deal more changed than they were.'
"'They did not recognize him any more than you did?'
"'Not at first,' she said. 'When a man is believed to have been dead for
twenty years, his face does not occur to old friends when they meet an
apparent stranger.'
"'That is quite natural,' I agreed. 'What a pleasure it must have been
to him to talk over old times and old friends!'
"'Indeed it was, my dear. He enjoyed it so much that for three days he
would not move out of the house. Dear me! what pleasant talks we had.'
"'And you say, Miss Simcoe, that his coming has quite altered your
position?'
"'Yes, indeed. The very first thing he said after coming into the house
was that he had come home resolved to make me and my sister Maria
thoroughly comfortable. Poor Maria died some years ago, but of course he
did not know it. Then he said that he should allow me fifty pounds a
year for life.'
"'That was very kind and nice indeed, Miss Simcoe,' I said.
"By this time, seeing that my sympathy was with her, her heart opened
altogether to me, and she said that she felt sure that her nephew would
not like it were she to take in a lodger, and might indeed consider it a
hint that he might have been more liberal than he was. But she invited
me to stay three days with her while I was looking about for suitable
lodgings. I found that her house was a regular rendezvous for the
tabbies of the neighborhood. Every afternoon there were some four or
five of them there. Some brought work, others came in undisguisedly to
gossip. Many of these had known John Simcoe in his younger days, and by
careless questioning I elicited the fact that no one would have
recognized him had it not been for Miss Simcoe having told them of his
arrival.
"The manager of the bank I rather shrank from an encounter with, but I
managed to obtain from Miss Simcoe a letter her nephew had written to
her when he was away from home a short time before he left England, and
also one written by him since his return. So far as I could see, there
was not the slightest resemblance between them.
"I thought that I might possibly get at someone less likely to be on his
guard than the bank manager, and she happened to mention as an
interesting fact that one of the clerks who had entered the bank a lad
of seventeen, only a month or two before her nephew left, was now
married to the daughter of one of her gossips. I said that her story had
so deeply interested me that I should be glad to make his acquaintance.
"He came with his wife the evening before I left. He was very chatty and
pleasant, and while there was a general conversation going on among the
others, I said to him that I was a great student of handwriting, and I
flattered myself that I could tell a man's character from his
handwriting; but I owned that I had been quite disconcerted by two
letters which Miss Simcoe was kind enough to show me from her nephew,
one written before he left the bank, the other dated three or four
months ago.
"'I cannot see the slightest resemblance between the two,' I said, 'and
do not remember any instance which has come under my knowledge of the
handwriting of any man or woman changing so completely in the course of
twenty years. The one is a methodical, business sort of writing, showing
marks of steady purpose, regularity of habits, and a kindly disposition.
I won't give you my opinion of the other, but the impression that was
left upon my mind was far from favorable.'
"'Yes, there has been an extraordinary change,' he agreed. 'I can
recollect the former one perfectly, for I saw him sign scores of letters
and documents, and if he had had an account standing at the bank now I
should without question honor a check so signed. No doubt the great
difference is accounted for by the life that Mr. Simcoe has led. He told
me himself that for years, at one time, he had never taken a pen in
hand, and that he had almost forgotten how to write; and that his
fingers had grown so clumsy pulling at ropes, rowing an oar, digging for
gold, and opening oysters for pearls, that they had become all thumbs,
and he wrote no better than a schoolboy.'
"'But that is not the case, Mr. Askill,' I said; 'the writing is still
clerkly in character, and does not at all answer to his own
description.'
"'I noticed that myself, and so did our chief. He showed me a letter
that he had received from Simcoe, asking him to run up for a few days to
stay with him in London. He showed it to me with the remark that in all
his experience he had never seen so great and complete a change in the
handwriting of any man as in that of Mr. Simcoe since he left the bank.
He considered it striking proof how completely a man's handwriting
depends upon his surroundings. He turned up an old ledger containing
many entries in Simcoe's handwriting, and we both agreed that we could
not see a single point of resemblance.'
"'Thank you,' I said; 'I am glad to find that my failure to recognize
the two handwritings as being those of the same man has been shared by
two gentlemen who are, like myself in a humble way, experts at
handwriting.'
"The next morning I got your letter, written after I had sent you the
address, and told Miss Simcoe that I was unexpectedly called back to
town, but that it was quite probable that I should ere long be down
again, when I would arrange with one or other of the people of whom she
had kindly spoken to me. That is all I have been able to learn, Hilda."
"But it seems to me that you have learned an immense deal, Netta. You
have managed it most admirably."
"At any rate, I have got as much as I expected, if not more; I have
learned that no one recognized this man Simcoe on his first arrival in
his native town, and it was only when this old lady had spread the news
abroad, and had told the tale of his generosity to her, and so prepared
the way for him, that he was more or less recognized; she having no
shadow of doubt but that he was her long-lost nephew. In the three days
that he stopped with her he had no doubt learned from the dear old
gossip almost every fact connected with his boyhood, the men he was most
intimate with, the positions they held, and I doubt not some of the
escapades in which they might have taken part together; so that he was
thoroughly well primed before he met them. Besides, no doubt they were
more anxious to hear tales of adventure than to talk of the past, and
his course must have been a very easy one.
"Miss Simcoe said that he spent money like a prince, and gave a dinner
to all his old friends, at which every dainty appeared, and the
champagne flowed like water. We may take it as certain that none of his
guests ever entertained the slightest doubt that their host was the man
he pretended to be. There could seem to them no conceivable reason why a
stranger should come down, settle an income upon Miss Simcoe, and spend
his money liberally among all his former acquaintances, if he were any
other man than John Simcoe.
"Lastly, we have the handwriting. The man seems to have laid his plans
marvelously well, and to have provided against every unforeseen
contingency; yet undoubtedly he must have altogether overlooked the
question of handwriting, although his declaration that he had almost
forgotten how to use his pen was an ingenious one, and I might have
accepted it myself if he had written in the rough, scrambling character
you would expect under the circumstances. But his handwriting, although
in some places he had evidently tried to write roughly, on the whole is
certainly that of a man accustomed at one time of his life to clerkly
work, and yet differing as widely as the poles from the handwriting of
Simcoe, both in the bank ledger and in the letter to his aunt.
"I think, Hilda, that although the matter cannot be decided, it
certainly points to your theory that this man is not the John Simcoe who
left Stowmarket twenty years ago. He attempted, and I think very
cleverly, to establish his identity by a visit to Stowmarket, and no
doubt did so to everyone's perfect satisfaction; but when we come to go
into the thing step by step, we see that everything he did might have
been done by anyone who happened to have a close resemblance to John
Simcoe in figure and some slight resemblance in face, after listening
for three days to Miss Simcoe's gossip."