A LETTER FROM ABROAD.
Three days later, when Hilda returned from a drive, she found that Dr.
Leeds was in the drawing room with Miss Purcell and Netta, whose face at
once told what had happened.
"I have asked the question at last, Miss Covington," Dr. Leeds said,
coming forward to shake hands, "and Netta has consented to be my wife."
"I am heartily glad. That you would ask her I knew from what you told
me; and although I knew nothing of her thoughts in the matter, I felt
sure that she would hardly say no. Netta, darling, I am glad. Long ago I
thought and hoped that this would come about. It seemed to me that it
would be such a happy thing."
"Auntie said just the same thing," Netta said, smiling through her
tears, as Hilda embraced her. "As you both knew, you ought to have given
me some little hint; then I should not have been taken quite by
surprise. I might have pretended that I did not quite know my own mind,
and ask for time to think it over, instead of surrendering at once."
"But you did make a condition, Netta," Dr. Leeds laughed.
"Not a condition--a request, if you like, but certainly not a
condition."
"Netta said that her heart was greatly set on the work she had always
looked forward to, and she hoped that I should let her do something in
that way still. Of course I have heard you both talk over that institute
a score of times, and I was as much impressed as yourselves with the
enormous boon that it would be. I should be sorry indeed that the plan
should be given up. I need hardly say that in the half hour we have had
together we did not go deeply into it, but we will have a general
council about it, as soon as we can get down to plain matter of fact.
Netta can talk it over with you, and I can talk it over with her; and
then we can hold a meeting, with Miss Purcell as president of the
committee."
But matters were not finally settled until the ladies were established
at Holmwood with Walter, and Dr. Leeds came down for a short holiday of
two or three days. Then the arrangements were made to the satisfaction
of all parties. A large house, standing in grounds of considerable
extent, was to be taken in the suburbs of London, Netta was to be lady
superintendent, her aunt assisting in the domestic arrangements. Miss
Purcell insisted that her savings should be used for furnishing the
house. Hilda was to put in as a loan, for the others would receive it in
no other way, five thousand pounds for working capital. She determined
to take a house near the institute, so that she could run in and out and
assist Netta in teaching. Dr. Leeds was to drive up every morning to
Harley Street, where his work was over by two o'clock, except when he
had to attend consultations. No arrangements would be necessary about
the house, as this was the residence of his partner, and he only had his
own set of rooms there. He was steadily making his way, and to his
surprise already found that the report in the papers of his successful
diagnosis of the cause of General Mathieson's death had resulted in a
considerable addition to his practice, as a number of people consulted
him on obscure, and in many cases fanciful, maladies, in which they had
come to entertain the idea that they were suffering from the effects of
poison.
Now that she was going to assist at the institution and had no intention
of entering society again in London, Hilda had no longer any objection
to the power she had acquired being known, and, when questioned on the
subject of the trial, made no secret of the manner in which she had
made the discovery at the opera, and mentioned that she was going to
assist in an institution that was about to be established for teaching
the system by which she had benefited to deaf children.
The matter excited considerable interest in medical circles, and by the
time that the institution was ready the number of applicants was greater
than could be entertained. By this time Dr. Leeds and Netta were
married. The engagement was a short one, and the wedding took place
within two months of their going down into the country with Hilda. Being
anxious that as many as possible should participate in the benefits of
the system, the doors of the institute were at once opened to outdoor
pupils, who were boarded in the neighborhood. Six of Netta's pupils in
Hanover were brought over as teachers, and a few weeks from its being
opened the institution was in full swing. As Dr. Leeds wished that no
profit whatever be made by the undertaking, in which desire he was
cordially joined by his wife and Hilda, the charges were extremely low,
except in the case of children of wealthy parents, the surplus in their
case being devoted to taking in, free of payment, children of the poor.
Before Netta's marriage the interest in the Mathieson case was revived
by the appearance of a letter in the principal London papers. All search
for the man who had assisted Sanderson in the abduction of the child had
been fruitless. He had probably taken steps to receive information of
how matters were going on in court, and long before an officer arrived
at Rose Cottage with a warrant for his arrest he had left, and the
police had failed to find any trace of his subsequent movements. The
letter bore the simple heading, "United States," and ran as follows:
"To the Editor.
"SIR: I scarcely know why I write this letter, but I suppose even
an habitual criminal does not care to remain under an unjust
suspicion. I acknowledge that I come under that category, and that
my life has been spent in crime, although never once has suspicion
attached to me, until I became mixed up in the Simcoe-Mathieson
affair. I wish to state solemnly that I was absolutely ignorant
that the name John Simcoe was an assumed one. That was the name he
gave me when I first knew him, and I believed that he was, as he
represented, the man who had saved General Mathieson's life from a
tiger. That he had subsequently lived a rough life in the South
Seas I was aware, for he came to me with a message sent by a
brother of mine when at the point of death. The man had been a chum
of his out there and had gallantly carried him off when he had
received the wound from which he subsequently died, in a fight with
a large body of natives. I have absolute assurance that this was
true, for my brother would never have sent anyone to me except
under altogether extraordinary circumstances. The man called on me
when he first returned to England, but I saw little of him for the
first two years, and then he came to me and said that he had looked
up General Mathieson, and that the General had taken to him, and
put him down in his will for ten thousand pounds. He said that
General Mathieson was worth a hundred thousand, and that he had
planned to get the whole. Not being in any way squeamish, I agreed
at once to help him in any way in my power.
"His plan briefly was that he should obtain a fresh will,
appointing him sole heir to the General's estate in the event of a
boy of six or seven years old dying before he came of age. He had
somehow obtained a copy of the General's will, and had notes in the
General's handwriting. There were two things to be done, first that
he should get instructions for the draft of the will drawn up in
precise imitation of the General's handwriting, containing all the
provisions of the former will, except that he was made heir in
place of Miss Covington in the event of his grandson's death. There
are a dozen men in London who can imitate handwriting so as to
defy detection, and I introduced him to one of them, who drew up
the instructions. Then I introduced him to a man who is the
cleverest I know--and I know most of them--at getting up disguises.
"He had already ascertained that the General had on one occasion
been for a minute or two in the offices of Messrs. Halstead &
James. They would, therefore, have a vague, and only a vague,
remembrance of him. He had obtained a photograph of the General,
who was about his own height and figure, and although there was no
facial resemblance, the man, by the aid of this photograph,
converted him into a likeness of the General that would pass with
anyone who had seen him but once casually. So disguised, he went to
the offices of these solicitors, told a plausible story, and gave
them the written instructions. In the meantime he had been
practicing the General's signature, and being a good penman had got
to imitate it so accurately that I doubt if any expert would have
suspected the forgery. The lawyers were completely deceived, and he
had only to go there again three days later, in the same disguise,
and sign the will.
"So much for that. Then came the General's seizure. I most solemnly
declare that I had no shadow of suspicion that it was not a natural
fit, and that if I had had such a suspicion I should have chucked
the whole thing over at once, for though, as I have said, an
habitual criminal, that is to say, one who plans and directs what
may be called sensational robberies, I have always insisted that
the men who have worked under me should go unprovided with arms of
any kind, and in no case in which I have been concerned has a drop
of blood been shed. As to the carrying off of the boy, it was
entirely managed by me. I had agents, men on whom I could rely, as
a word of mine would have sent them to penal servitude for life. We
knew that suspicion would fall upon Simcoe, and that it was
important that he should be able to account for every hour of his
time. Therefore, on the day the child was carried away he went down
to Stowmarket, while I managed the affair and took the child down
to the place where he was hidden in the Essex marshes. It was I
also who made the arrangements by which the body of the child about
the same age, who had died in the workhouse, was placed in the
canal in some of the clothes the missing heir had worn when taken
away. I owe it to myself to say that in all this there was no
question of payment between this man and myself. I am well off, and
I acted simply to oblige a man who had stood by the side of my
brother to death. Whether his name was Simcoe or Sanderson mattered
nothing to me; I should have aided him just the same. But I did
believe that it was Simcoe, and that, having risked his life to
save that of General Mathieson, he had as good a right as another
to his inheritance. He never hinted to me that it would be a good
thing if the child was got rid of altogether. He knew well enough
that if he had done so I would not only have had nothing to do with
it, but that I would have taken steps to have put a stop to his
game altogether. Now I have only to add that, having fairly stated
the part that I bore in this affair, I have nothing more to say,
except that I have now retired from business altogether, and that
this is the last that the world will hear of William Sanderson's
accomplice."
For four or five years Hilda Covington devoted much of her time to
assisting Netta Leeds in her work, but at the end of that time she
married. Her husband was a widower, whose wife had died in her first
confinement. His name was Desmond. He sold out of the army, and Hilda
never had reason to regret that she had played the part of a gypsy woman
at Lady Moulton's fete.
Walter grew up strong and healthy, and is one of the most popular men of
his county. His early love for the water developed, and he served his
time as a midshipman in one of Her Majesty's ships, and passed as a
lieutenant. He then retired from the service and bought a fine yacht,
which he himself commanded. His friends were never able to understand
why he allowed his nominal skipper, William Nibson, to take his wife on
board, and gave up two cabins for their accommodation. The barge
_Walter_ passed into the hands of Joshua, who, for many years, sailed
her most successfully. He is now an elderly man, and his four sons are
skippers of as many fine barges, all his own property.
THE END.
[Illustration]
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