A FRESH CLEW.
"Just the verdict that I expected," Mr. Pettigrew said, as he and the
ladies issued from the courthouse.
"I suppose that it is for the best, Mr. Pettigrew, but it seems hard,
when we could have said so much, to be obliged to hold our tongues
altogether."
"No doubt you will have an opportunity later on, Miss Covington. Our
tongues are tied until we can obtain some sort of proof to go upon. We
cannot go into court with merely suspicions; we must get facts. All we
have done at present is to obtain some sort of foundation on which to
work; but facts we shall, I hope, get ere long from what we may discover
of this fellow's movements. He is likely to be less careful now that it
has been decided that Walter is dead. He is doubtless well aware of the
fact that trustees have a year given them before proceeding to carry out
the provisions of a will, and, therefore, for that time he will keep
quiet. At the end of the year his solicitor will write us a courteous
letter, asking when we shall be in a position to distribute the estate
in accordance with the provisions of the will. We shall reply that we
are not in a position to do so. Then, after a time, will come letters of
a more and more peremptory character, and at last a notice that they are
about to apply to the courts for an order for us to act upon the
provisions of the will. About two years after the General's death the
matter will probably come on. I may say that I have already sent checks
to all the small legatees."
"Thank you, I was aware of that, because Tom Roberts came to me
yesterday with his check for two hundred pounds," and said, "Look here,
Miss Covington; you said you meant to keep me on just the same as in the
General's time, so this won't be of any use to me, and I should like to
spend it in any way that you think best to find out what has become of
Master Walter.' Of course I told him that the money could not be spent
in that way, and that the work that he was doing was of far greater use
than ten times that sum would be."
"I will send you your check to-morrow, Miss Covington. The sum we have
paid to the people who have been searching, and all other expenses that
may be incurred, will, of course, come out of the estate. You have not
as yet settled, I suppose, as to your future plans?"
"No, except that I shall certainly keep on the house in Hyde Park
Gardens for the present. It is, of course, ridiculously large for me,
but I don't want the trouble of making a move until I make one
permanently, and shall therefore stay here until this matter is finally
cleared up. Miss Purcell has most kindly consented to remain as my
chaperon, and her plans and those of her niece will depend upon mine."
They had sent away their carriage when they entered the court, and they
walked quietly home, Mr. Pettigrew returning at once to his office. The
next morning Tom Roberts accosted Hilda as she entered the breakfast
room, with a face that showed he had news.
"We have traced him down to one of his places at last, miss. I said to
Andrew, 'We must keep a special sharp look out to-night, for like
enough, now that the inquest is over, he will be going to talk over the
matter with his pals.' Well, miss, last night, at half-past nine, out he
comes. He wasn't in evening dress, for although, as usual, he had a
topcoat on, he had light trousers and walking boots. He did not turn the
usual way, but went up into Piccadilly. We followed him. I kept close
behind him, and Andrew at a distance, so that he should not notice us
together. At the Circus he hailed a cab, and as he got in I heard him
say to the driver, 'King's Cross Station.' As soon as he had gone off
Andrew and I jumped into another cab, and told the man to drive to the
same place, and that we would give him a shilling extra if he drove
sharp.
"He did drive sharp, and I felt sure that we had got there before our
man. I stopped outside the entrance, Andrew went inside. In five minutes
he arrived, paid the driver his fare, and went in. I had agreed to wait
two or three minutes outside, while Andrew was to be at the ticket
office to see where he booked for. I was just going in when, to my
surprise, out the man came again and walked briskly away. I ran in and
fetched Andrew, and off we went after him. He hadn't more than a
minute's start, and we were nearly up to him by the time he had got down
to the main road. We kept behind him until we saw him go up Pentonville
Hill, then Andrew went on ahead of him and I followed. We agreed that if
he looked back, suspicious, I should drop behind. Andrew, when he once
got ahead, was to keep about the same distance in front of him, so as to
be able to drop behind and take it up instead of me, while I was to
cross over the road if I thought that he had discovered I was following
him.
"However, it did not seem to strike him that anyone was watching him,
and he walked on briskly until he came to a small house standing by
itself, and as he turned in we were in time to see that the door was
opened to him by a man. Andrew and I consulted. I went in at the gate,
took my shoes off, and went round the house. There was only a light in
one room, which looked as if there were no servants. The curtains were
pulled together inside, and I could see nothing of what was going on. He
stopped there for an hour and a half, then came out again, hailed a cab
halfway down the hill, and drove off. Andrew and I had compared watches,
and he had gone back to Jermyn Street, so that we should be able to know
by the time the chap arrived whether he had gone anywhere else on his
way back. When I joined him I found that the man must have driven
straight to the Circus and then got out, for he walked in just twenty
minutes after I had seen him start."
"That is good news indeed, Roberts. We will go and see Mr. Pettigrew
directly after breakfast. Please order the carriage to be round at a
quarter to ten."
Netta was as pleased as her friend when she heard that a step had been
made at last.
"I am sick of this inaction," she said, "and want to be doing something
towards getting to the bottom of the affair. I do hope that we shall
find some way in which I can be useful."
"I have no doubt at all that you will be very useful when we get fairly
on the track. I expect that this will lead to something."
After Tom Roberts had repeated his story to Mr. Pettigrew, Hilda said:
"I brought Roberts with me, Mr. Pettigrew, that he might tell the story
in his own way. It seems to me that the best thing now would be to
employ a private detective to find out who the man is who lives in Rose
Cottage. This would be out of the line of Tom Roberts and Colonel
Bulstrode's servant altogether. They would not know how to set about
making inquiries, whereas a detective would be at home at such work."
"I quite agree with you," the lawyer said. "To make inquiries without
exciting suspicion requires training and practice. An injudicious
question might lead to this man being warned that inquiries were being
made about him and might ruin the matter altogether. Of course your two
men will still keep up their watch. It may be that we shall find it is
of more use to follow the track of this man than the other. But you must
not be too sanguine; the man at Rose Cottage may be an old acquaintance
of Simcoe. Well, my dear," he went on, in answer to a decided shake of
the head on Hilda's part, "you must call the man by the only name that
he is known by, although it may not belong to him. I grant that the
manner in which he drove into King's Cross station and then walked out
on foot would seem to show that he was anxious to throw anyone who
might be watching him off the scent, and that the visit was, so to
speak, a clandestine one. But it may relate to an entirely different
matter; for this man may be, for aught we know, an adept in crime, and
may be in league with many other doubtful characters."
"It may be so, Mr. Pettigrew, but we will hope not."
"Very well, my dear," the lawyer said. "I will send for a trustworthy
man at once, and set him to work collecting information regarding the
occupant of the cottage. And now I have a point upon which I wish to ask
your opinion. I have this morning received a letter from this man's
solicitor, asking if we intend to undertake the funeral of the body
which the coroner's jury have found to be that of Walter Rivington; and
announcing that, if we do not, his client will himself have it carried
out."
"What do you think, Mr. Pettigrew?" Hilda said hesitatingly. "We may be
wrong, you know, and it may be Walter's body."
"I have been thinking it over," the lawyer replied, "and I must say it
is my opinion that, as we have all stated our conviction that it is not,
we should only stultify ourselves if we now undertook the funeral and
put a stone, with his name on, over the grave. If we should at any time
become convinced that we have been wrong, we can apply for a faculty to
remove the coffin to the family vault down in Warwickshire."
"If we could do that I should not mind," Hilda said; "but even the
possibility of Walter being buried by the man who we firmly believe was
the cause of his death is terrible."
"Yes, I can quite understand your feelings, but I think that it is
necessary that the family should make a protest against its being
supposed that they recognize the child, by declining to undertake the
funeral. No protest could well be stronger."
"If you think that, Mr. Pettigrew, we certainly had best stand aside
and let that poor child be buried by this man."
Two days later they were driving in the Row. It was Hilda's first
appearance there since the General's death, and, after talking it over
with Netta, she now appeared there in order to show that she was
perfectly convinced that the child which had been found in the canal was
not her little cousin. The details of the proceedings of the coroner's
court had, of course, been read by all her friends, and her appearance
in the park would be the best proof that she could give that the family
were absolutely convinced that the body was not that of Walter.
Miss Purcell and Netta were with her. The latter had on, as usual, a
thick veil. This she always wore when driving through any locality where
she might meet John Simcoe.
"That is the man," Hilda said to her in a sharp tone; "the farther of
those two leaning on the rail the other side of the road."
As Hilda fixed her eyes on the man she saw him give a sudden movement.
Then he said to the man next to him:
"Do you see that girl in deep mourning? It is that little vixen, Hilda
Covington. Confound her, she is at the bottom of all this trouble, and I
believe she would give ten thousand out of her own pocket to checkmate
me."
The carriage was opposite to them now. Hilda looked straight in front of
her, while Netta, who was sitting with her back to the horses, took up
the watch.
"She would have to be sharp indeed to do that," the other man said. "So
far everything has gone without a hitch, and I don't see a single weak
point in your case. The most troublesome part has been got over."
And now some carriages going the other way cut off the view, and Netta
could read no further. She drew a long breath as Hilda's eyes turned
towards her.
"What did you read?" the latter asked.
Netta repeated what she had caught, and then Hilda took up the
conversation.
"It is quite evident that this man, whoever he is, is an accomplice. He
is a gentlemanly-looking man, and I fancy that he sat in the stalls near
to us one evening this spring. However, it is quite clear that he is a
confederate of Simcoe. Just repeat his words over again. They were in
answer to his remark that I would give ten thousand pounds to be able to
checkmate him."
Netta repeated the answer of Simcoe's companion.
"You see, Netta, there is something to find out that would checkmate
him; that is quite evident. He thinks that I cannot find it out. It must
be, I should think, that Walter is kept in hiding somewhere. It could
not mean that he had killed my uncle, for he would hardly tell that to
anyone, and so put himself in their power."
"It may mean that you cannot find out that he is not John Simcoe," Netta
suggested.
"Possibly; but he cannot know we suspect that."
"It might be about the last will, Hilda."
The latter shook her head.
"We have never thought that there could be anything wrong about it. The
will was drawn up by Colonel Bulstrode's lawyers, and they knew my uncle
by sight; besides, all the legacies were exactly the same as in the
other will, the signature and the written instructions were in his
handwriting, and he signed it in the solicitor's office in the presence
of two of their clerks. No, I don't think he can possibly mean that. It
must be either Walter's abduction or that he is not John Simcoe, and I
should say that the former is much the more likely. You see, he had no
need of an accomplice in the matter of getting evidence as to identity,
whereas he did need an accomplice in the carrying off of Walter. I
should say that he is far too clever a man to let anyone into any of his
secrets, unless he needed his assistance. I wonder who the man with him
can be. He is dressed in good style, and I have certainly met him
somewhere. I believe, as I said, it was at the opera. I should have
thought that a man of that class is the last Simcoe would choose as a
confederate."
Miss Purcell looked from one to the other as they talked. She had by
this time been taken completely into their confidence, but had refused
absolutely to believe that a man could be guilty of such wickedness as
that which they suspected. On their return home they found a letter
awaiting them from Mr. Pettigrew:
"MY DEAR MISS COVINGTON [it ran]: My detective has not yet finished
his inquiries, but has at least discovered that the proprietor of
Rose Cottage, for they say that the place belongs to him, is
somewhat of a mystery to his neighbors. He lives there entirely
alone. He goes out regularly in a morning, it is supposed to some
occupation in the City. No tradesmen ever call at the door; it is
supposed that he brings home something for his breakfast and cooks
it for himself, and that he dines in the City and makes himself a
cup of tea in the evening, or else that he goes out after dark.
Sometimes, of summer evenings, he has been seen to go out just at
twilight, dressed in full evening costume--that is to say, it is
supposed so, for he wore a light overcoat--but certainly a white
necktie, black trousers, and patent leather boots. Of course, in
all this there is nothing in itself absolutely suspicious. A man
engaged in the City would naturally enough take his meals there,
and may prefer to do everything for himself to having the bother of
servants. Also, if his means permit it, he may like to go to
theaters or places of amusement, or may go out to visit business
friends. I have, of course, directed the detective to follow him to
town and find out what is his business, and where employed. I will
let you know result to-morrow."
The next day brought the letter.
"The man's name is William Barens. He has a small office on the
third floor of a house of business in Great St. Helens, and on the
doorway below his name is the word 'accountant,' The housekeeper
knows nothing about him, except that he has occupied the room for
the last twelve years, and that he is a gentleman who gives no
trouble. He always puts his papers away at night in his safe, so
that his table can be properly dusted. She knows that he has
clients, as several times, when he has been away for his dinner
hour, she has been asked when he would return. He is a well-spoken
gentleman, though not as particular about his dress as some; but
liberal with his money, and gives her as handsome a tip at
Christmas as some people who have three or four rooms, and, no
doubt, think themselves much finer people. This certainly does not
amount to much. By the way, the old woman said that she knew he was
employed by several tradesmen in the neighborhood to keep their
books for them."
Two days later there was another communication:
"MY DEAR MISS COVINGTON: My man has taken a step which I should
certainly have forbidden, had he told me beforehand of his
intention. He watched the man go out, and then, having previously
provided himself with instruments for picking locks, he opened the
door and went in. On the table were several heavy ledgers and
account books, all bearing the names of tradesmen in the
neighborhood, with several files of accounts, bills, and invoices.
These fully bore out what the woman had told him. Besides the
chairs, table, and safe, the only other articles of furniture in
the room were an office washing stand and a large closet. In the
latter were a dress suit and boots, and a suit of fashionable
walking clothes, so that it is evident that he often changed there
instead of going home. I am sorry to say that all this throws no
further light upon the man's pursuits, and had it not been for
Simcoe's visit to him, it would be safe to say that he is a
hard-working accountant, in a somewhat humble, but perhaps
well-paying line; that he is a trifle eccentric in his habits, and
prefers living a cheap, solitary life at home, while spending his
money freely in the character of a man about town in the evening. I
cannot say that the prospect in this direction seems hopeful. I
have told my man that for the present we shall not require his
services further."
"It does not seem very satisfactory, certainly," Hilda said with a sigh;
"I am afraid that we shall have to keep on watching Simcoe. I wish I
could peep into his room as this detective did into that of the
Pentonville man."
"I don't suppose that you would find anything there, Hilda; he is not
the sort of man to keep a memorandum book, jotting down all his own
doings."
"No," Hilda said with a laugh; "still, one always thinks that one can
find something."
Had Hilda Covington had her wish and looked into John Simcoe's room that
morning, she would certainly have derived some satisfaction from the
sight. He had finished his breakfast before opening a letter that lay
beside him.
"What a plague the old woman is with her letters! I told her that I
hated correspondence, but she persists in writing every month or so,
though she never gets any reply except, 'My dear Aunt: Thanks for your
letter. I am glad to hear that you are well.--Your affectionate nephew.'
Well, I suppose I must read it through."
He glanced over the first page, but on turning to the second his eye
became arrested, and he read carefully, frowning deeply as he did so.
Then he turned back and read it again. The passage was as follows:
"I had quite an interesting little episode a day or two after I
last wrote. A young lady--she said her name was Barcum, and that
she was an artist--came in and asked if I would take her in as a
lodger. She was a total stranger to the place, and had come down
for her health, and said that some tradesman had recommended her to
come here, saying that, as a single lady, I might be glad to
accommodate her. Of course I told her that I did not take lodgers.
She got up to go, when she nearly fainted, and I could not do less
than offer her a cup of tea. Then we got very chatty, and as I saw
that she was really too weak to go about town looking for lodgings,
I invited her to stay a day or two with me, she being quite a lady
and a very pleasant-spoken one. She accepted, and a pleasanter
companion I never had. Naturally I mentioned your name, and told
her what adventures you had gone through, and how kind you were.
She was greatly interested, and often asked questions about you,
and I do think that she almost fell in love with you from my
description. She left suddenly on receipt of a letter that called
her up to town, saying that she would return; but I have not heard
from her since, and I am greatly afraid that the poor child must be
seriously ill. She was a pretty and intelligent-looking girl, with
dark eyes and hair, and I should say that when in good health she
must be very bright. Of course, she may have changed her mind about
coming down. I am sure she would have written if she had been
well."
"Confound the old gossip!" John Simcoe said angrily, as he threw the
letter down. "I wonder what this means, and who this girl can be? It is
clear enough that, whoever she is, she was sent down there to make
inquiries about me. It is that girl Covington's doing, I have no doubt,
though it was not the minx herself, for the description does not tally
at all. She has light brown hair and grayish sort of eyes. There is one
comfort, she would learn nothing to my disadvantage from the old woman,
nor, I believe, from anyone at Stowmarket. In fact, she would only get
more and more confirmation of my story. I have no fear upon that score,
but the thing shows how that girl is working on my track. As for the
lawyer, he is an old fool; and if it hadn't been for her I would bet a
hundred to one that he would never have entertained any suspicion that
all was not right. It is her doing all through, and this is a piece of
it. Of course she could have no suspicion that I was not John Simcoe,
but I suppose she wanted to learn if there was any dark spot in my
history--whether I had ever been suspected of robbing a bank, or had
been expelled from school for thieving, or something of that sort. I
begin to be downright afraid of her. She had a way of looking through
me, when I was telling my best stories to the General, that always put
me out. She disliked me from the first, though I am sure I tried in
every way to be pleasant to her. I felt from the day I first saw her
that she was an enemy, and that if any trouble ever did come it would be
through her. I have no doubt she is moving heaven and earth to find
Walter; but that she will never do, for Harrison is as true as steel,
and he is the only man who could put them on the right track. Moreover,
I have as much pull over him as he has over me. He has never had a doubt
about my being John Simcoe; he doesn't know about the other affair, but
only that Walter stood between me and the estate, and he was quite ready
to lend me a hand to manage to get him out of the way. So in that
business he is in it as deep as I am, while I know of a score of schemes
he has been engaged in, any one of which would send him abroad for life.
I expect those inquiries were made at Stowmarket to endeavor to find out
whether any child had been sent down there. If so, Miss Covington is not
so sharp as I took her to be. Stowmarket would be the very last place
where a man, having relations and friends there, would send a child whom
he wished to keep concealed. Still it is annoying, confoundedly
annoying; and it shows that these people, that is to say Hilda
Covington, are pushing their inquiries in every direction, likely or
unlikely.
"The only comfort is, the more closely they search the sooner they will
come to the conclusion that the boy is not to be found. I believe that,
though they declared they did not recognize the body, they had no real
doubt about it, and they only said so because if they had admitted it,
the trustees would have had no excuse for not carrying out the
provisions of the will. That text the girl had the impudence to quote
to me looked as if she believed the body was Walter's, and that I had
killed him, though it may be that she only said it to drive me to
bringing the whole business into court, by bringing an action against
her for libel; but I am not such a fool as to do that. Just at present
there is a lot of public feeling excited by the circumstances of the
child's loss and the finding of the body, and even if I got a verdict I
fancy that the jury would be all on the girl's side, and give me such
trifling damages that the verdict would do me more harm than good. No,
our game clearly is to let the matter rest until it has died out of the
public mind. Then we shall apply formally for the trustees to be called
upon to act. No doubt they will give us a great deal of trouble, but
Comfrey says that he thinks that the order must be granted at last,
though possibly it may be withheld, as far as the estate is concerned,
for some years. At any rate I ought to get the ten thousand at once, as
the question whether the boy is alive or dead cannot affect that in the
slightest."