CHAPTER XX.
A DINNER PARTY.
It was the first time that anyone had dined at the house in Hyde ParkGardens since General Mathieson's death, and it seemed strange to Hildawhen Mr. Pettigrew, at her request, faced her at the table. Thegentlemen had all arrived within a minute or two of each other, and noword had been said by Hilda as to the subject about which she hadspecially asked them there. The table was well lighted and bright withflowers, and the lawyer and Colonel Bulstrode were both somewhatsurprised at the cheerful tone in which Hilda began to talk as soon asthey sat down. It was, however, eight months since the house was firstshut up, and though all had sincerely regretted the General's death, itwas an old story now, and they were relieved to find that it wasevidently not Hilda's intention to recall the past.
During dinner the talk went on as usual, and it was not until theservants had left the room that Hilda said:
"Now, Mr. Pettigrew, I have no doubt that both you and Colonel Bulstrodeare wondering what the matter of importance about which I asked you tocome here can be. It is rather a long story, so instead of goingupstairs we will stop here. My news is great news. We havediscovered--at least my friend Miss Purcell has discovered--that withoutdoubt Walter is alive and well."
An exclamation of surprise broke from Mr. Pettigrew and the Colonel.
"By gad, that is great news indeed!" the latter exclaimed; "and Icongratulate you most heartily. I had quite given up all hope myself,and although I would have fought that fellow to the last, I never hadany real doubt in my mind that the child they fished out of the canalwas General's Mathieson's grandson."
"You astonish me indeed," Mr. Pettigrew said. "I own that, while I wasable to swear that I did not recognize him, yet as a reasonable man Ifelt that the evidence was overpowering the other way. Though I wouldnot dash your hopes by saying so, it appeared to me certain that, sooneror later, the courts would decide that the provisions of the will mustbe carried out. And so you discovered this, Miss Netta? May we ask howyou did it?"
"Netta wanted her share in the matter to remain a secret, Mr. Pettigrew;but I told her that was out of the question, and that it was quitenecessary that you and Colonel Bulstrode should know the precise facts,for that, as a lawyer, you could not take any action or decide upon anycourse to be pursued unless you knew the exact circumstances of thecase. However, she asked me, as she has given me the whole particulars,to tell the story for her. When I have done she will answer anyquestions you may like to ask."
Hilda then repeated, almost word for word, the story Netta had told her.Mr. Pettigrew and the Colonel several times broke in with exclamationsof surprise as she went on. Dr. Leeds sat grave and thoughtful.
"Splendidly done!" Colonel Bulstrode exclaimed when she brought herstory to an end. "It was a magnificent idea, and it must have needed noend of pluck to carry it out as you did. But how, by looking at afellow's mouth through a hole, you knew what he said beats mealtogether."
"That part was very simple, Colonel Bulstrode," Netta said quietly. "Ilearned it by a new system that they have in Germany, and was myself ateacher in the institution. You may not know, perhaps, that I amstone-deaf."
"You are not joking, Miss Purcell; are you?" the Colonel said, lookingat her earnestly. "Why, I have talked to you a dozen times and it neverstruck me that you were in the slightest degree deaf."
"I am absolutely so, as Miss Covington will tell you, and Mr. Pettigrewknows it also. Fortunately I did not lose my hearing until I was sixyears old, and I had not altogether lost the habit of speaking when Iwent out to Germany, three years later. Had I been born deaf and dumb Icould have learned to understand what was said perfectly, but shouldnever have spoken in a natural voice."
"Well, it is wonderful altogether, and I should not have believed it ifa stranger had told me. However, the great thing at present is that youhave found out that the child is alive. We ought not to be long inlaying hands on him now, Pettigrew, eh?"
"I hope not, Colonel; but you must not be too sanguine about that; wehave evidently very crafty scoundrels to deal with. Still, now that wefeel sure that the child is alive and well, the matter is acomparatively straightforward one, and we can afford to work and waitpatiently. Tilbury is only a bit of a village, but beyond that stretchgreat marshes--in fact, all South Essex as far as the mouths of therivers Crouch, Blackwater, and Coln. He would say, 'I went down toTilbury,' because Tilbury is the terminus of the railway. Possibly hemay have crossed to Gravesend; possibly he may have gone inland toUpminster or some other village lying in that district; or he may havedriven down as far as Foulness, which, so far as anybody knows anythingabout it, might be the end of the world. Therefore, there is a wide areato be searched."
"But he can be followed when he goes down again, Mr. Pettigrew?"
"Of course, my dear, that is what must be done, though there is noreason why we should not set about inquiries at once. But, you see, itis not so easy to follow a man about country roads as it is in thestreets of London. No doubt he must drive or ride, unless, indeed,Walter is within two or three miles of the station, and you may be surethat if he sees a trap coming after him he will not go near the placewhere the child is. Possibly, again, he may not go near the place atall, but may meet someone who takes the money for the child's keep. Itmay be a bargeman who sails round to Harwich or somewhere along thesouth coast. It may be the steward of a steamer that goes regularlybackwards and forwards to France.
"I don't want to dishearten you, my dear," he broke off, as he saw howHilda's face fell as he went on, "but, you see, we have not commonrogues to deal with; their whole proceedings have shown an exceptionalamount of coolness and determination. Although I own that I can seenothing absolutely suspicious in the way that last will was drawn up andsigned, still I have never been able to divest my mind of an idea thatthere is something radically wrong about it. But putting aside thestrange death of your uncle, we have the cunning way in which the boywas stolen, the complete success with which our search was baffled, thedaring attempt to prove his death by what we now know must have been thesubstitution of the body of some other child of the same age dressed inhis clothes. All this shows how carefully every detail must have beenthought out, and we must assume that equal care will be shown to preventour recovering the boy. Were they to suspect that they had been tracedto Tilbury, and were watched there, or that any inquiries were beingmade in the neighborhood, you may be sure that Walter would be at onceremoved some distance away, or possibly sent abroad, perhaps toAustralia or the States. There could be no difficulty about that. Thereare hundreds of emigrants going out every week with their families, whowould jump at the offer of a hundred pounds for adopting a child, andonce away it would be next to impossible ever to come upon his traces.So, you see, we shall need to exercise the most extreme caution in oursearches."
"I see, Mr. Pettigrew," Hilda said quietly, "that the difficulties arefar greater than I ever dreamt of. It seemed to me that when we hadfound out that Walter was alive and well, and that Tilbury was, so tospeak, the starting place of our search, it would be an easy matter tofind him. Now I see that, except for the knowledge that he is alive, weare nearly as far off as ever."
"I think Mr. Pettigrew is rather making the worst of things, MissCovington," Dr. Leeds said, speaking for the first time. "No doubt thedifficulties are considerable, but I think we have good heads on ourside too, as Miss Purcell has proved, and I feel confident that, nowthat we have learned as much as we have done, we shall be successful inthe end."
"My opinion," Colonel Bulstrode said, "is that we ought to give thesetwo fellows in custody as rogues, vagabonds, and kidnapers. Then thepolice will set to work to find out their antecedents, and at leastwhile they are shut up they can do no harm. Gad, sir, we should makeshort work of them in India."
"I am afraid that that would hardly do, Colonel Bulstrode," Mr.Pettigrew said mildly. "We have practically nothing to go upon; we haveno evidence that a magistrate would entertain for a moment. The menwould be dischar
ged at once, and we should no doubt be served the nextmorning with a writ for at least ten thousand pounds' damages, and, whatis more, they would get them; and you may be very sure that you wouldnever find the child."
"Then it is shameful that it should be so," the Colonel said warmly;"why, I served three years as a police officer in India, and when I gotnews that a dacoit, for instance, was hiding in a jungle near a village,down I would go, with a couple of dozen of men, surround the place, andmake every man and woman a prisoner. Then the police would examine them,and let me tell you that they have pretty rough ways of finding out asecret. Of course I knew nothing about it, and asked no questions, butyou may be sure that it was not long before they made someone open hismouth. Hanging up a man by his thumbs, for instance, freshens his memorywonderfully. You may say that this thorough way of getting at things isnot according to modern ideas. I don't care a fig for modern ideas, and,as far as that goes, neither do the natives of India. My object is tofind out the author of certain crimes; the villagers' object is toshield him. If they are obstinate, they bring it on themselves; thecriminal is caught, and justice is satisfied. What is the use of policeif they are not to catch criminals? I have no patience with the maudlinnonsense that prevails in this country, that a criminal should haveevery chance of escape. He is warned not to say anything that wouldincriminate himself, material evidence is not admitted, his wife mayn'tbe questioned. Why, it is downright sickening, sir. The so-called spiritof fairness is all on the side of the criminal, and it seems to me thatour whole procedure, instead of being directed to punish criminals, iscalculated to enable them to escape from punishment. The whole thing iswrong, sir--radically wrong." And Colonel Bulstrode wiped his heatedforehead with a huge Indian silk handkerchief. Hilda laughed, Nettasmiled, and Mr. Pettigrew's eyes twinkled.
"There is a good deal in what you say, Colonel Bulstrode, though Icannot go with you in the matter of hanging men up by their thumbs."
"Why, sir," broke in Colonel, "what is it? Their own native princeswould have stretched them over a charcoal fire until they got the truthout of them."
"So, possibly, would our own forefathers, Colonel."
"Humph! They had a lot more common sense in those days than they havenow, Mr. Pettigrew. There was no sentimentality about them; they wereshort and sharp in their measures. They were men, sir--men. They dranklike men, and they fought like men; there was sterling stuff in them;they didn't weaken their bodies by drinking slops, or their minds byreading newspapers."
"Well, Colonel Bulstrode," Hilda said, smiling, "if it is not contraryto your convictions, we will go upstairs and have a cup of tea. No doubtthere is something to be said for the old days, but there is a good dealto be said on the other side of the question, too."
When they went upstairs Dr. Leeds sat down by Netta.
"I am afraid that you blame me for what I did, Dr. Leeds," she saidtimidly.
"No, I do not blame you at all for doing it, but I do think that youought to have consulted us all before undertaking it. Your intention wasa noble one, but the risk that you ran was so great that certainly Ishould not have felt justified in allowing you to undertake it, had Ihad any voice in the matter."
"But I cannot see that it was dangerous," the girl said. "He could nothave knocked me down and beaten me, even if he had caught me with my eyeat the peep-hole. He could only have called up Johnstone and denouncedme as an eavesdropper, and at the worst I should only have been turnedstraight out of the house."
"I do not think that that would have been at all his course of action. Ibelieve, on the contrary, that although he would have spoken angrily toyou, he would have said nothing to the lodging-house keeper. He wouldhave at once guessed that you had not taken all this trouble merely togratify a silly curiosity, but would have been sure that you had beenemployed as a spy. What he would have done I do not know, but he wouldcertainly have had you watched as you watched him, and he would, in hisconversation with his confederates, have dropped clews that would havesent us all off on wild-goose chases. I don't think that he would haveventured on getting you removed, for he would have known that he wouldhave been suspected of foul play at once by those who had employed you.I hope you will give me a promise that you will never undertake any planwithout consulting Miss Covington and myself. You can hardly realizewhat anxiety I have suffered while you have been away."
"I will promise willingly, Dr. Leeds. I did not think anything of thedanger, and do not believe even now there was any; but I do think thatHilda would not have heard of my going as a servant, and that you wouldnot have approved of it. Still, as I saw no harm in it myself, I thoughtthat for once I would act upon my own ideas."
"There are circumstances under which no one need disapprove of a ladyacting as a servant," he said quietly. "If a family misfortune hashappened, and she has to earn her own living, I think that there aremany who would be far happier in the position of a servant in a goodfamily, than as an ill-paid and over-worked governess. The one is atleast her own mistress, to a large extent, as long as she does her workproperly; the other can never call her time her own. In your case,certainly, the kind object with which you undertook the task was a fulljustification of it, had you not been matching yourself against anunscrupulous villain, who, had he detected your disguise, would havepractically hesitated at nothing to rid himself of you. It happened,too, in this case you were one of the few persons who could havesucceeded; for, as you say, it would have been next to impossible foranyone unpossessed of your peculiar faculty to have overheard aconversation, doubtless conducted in a somewhat low voice, through sucha hole as you made."
"Then you don't think any worse of me for it?"
"You need not be afraid of that," he said quietly. "My opinion isalready so fixed on that subject that I doubt if anything you could dowould shake it."
Then he got up and walked across to where the others were chattingtogether.
"Now, are we to have another council?" Hilda asked.
"I think not," Dr. Leeds said; "it seems to me that the matter requiresa great deal of thinking over before we decide, and fortunately, as theman went down to Tilbury only two days ago, he is not likely to repeathis visit for another month at least, possibly for another three months.Men like that do not give away chances, and he would probably pay forthree months' board for the child at a time, so as to avoid having tomake the journey oftener, however confident he might be that he was notwatched."
"I agree with you, Dr. Leeds," Mr. Pettigrew said. "It would never do tomake a false step."
"Still," Hilda urged, "surely there cannot be any need to wait for hisgoing down again. A sharp detective might find out a good deal. He couldinquire whether there was anyone at Tilbury who let out traps. Probablynothing beyond a gig or a pony-cart could be obtained there. He would,of course, hire it for a drive to some place within three or four miles,and while it was got ready would casually ask if it was often let; hemight possibly hear of someone who came down from town--a bagman,perhaps, who hired it occasionally for calling upon his customers in thevillages round."
"I think that that is a capital suggestion," Mr. Pettigrew said. "Idon't see why, while we are thinking over the best way to proceed, weshould not get these inquiries made. They might be of some assistance tous. I will send a man down to-morrow or next day. As you say, it maygive us something to go upon."
Netta went down two days later to Reading. She had the box labeled toOxford, and took a third-class ticket for herself. She had a suspicionthat a man who was lolling on a seat on the platform looked closely ather, and she saw him afterwards saunter away towards the luggage office.When the train came in her box was put into the van, and she got out atthe next station and returned by the first train to London, feelingsatisfied that she would never hear anything more of the box.
The next day a detective called who had been engaged earlier in thesearch for Walter and had frequently seen Hilda.
"Mr. Pettigrew said, Miss Covington, that I had better come to you andtell you exa
ctly what I have done. I went down to Tilbury yesterday. Itook with me one or two cases made up like a traveler's samples, and Ipresently found that the man at the public house by the water had apony-trap which he let. I went over to him and said that I wanted it forthe day.
"'How far are you going?' he asked.
"'I am going to Stanford,' I said; 'then by a crossroad by Laindon toHornchurch and back.'
"'It is rather a long round for one day,' he said.
"''Tis a long round,' I said. 'Well, maybe I might sleep at Hornchurch,and go on to Upminster.'
"'You will have to pay a deposit of a couple of pounds,' he said,'unless you like to take a boy.'
"I said I preferred driving myself, and that it was less weight for thepony. 'I suppose you often let it out?' I remarked.
"'Pretty often,' he said; 'you see, there is no way of getting aboutbeyond this. It would pay me to keep a better trap if it wasn't thatcommercials generally work this country in their own vehicles, and takethe road from Barking through Dagenham, or else from Brentwood orChelmsford or one of the other Great Eastern stations. There is one inyour line comes occasionally; he goes by the same route you are taking,and always has the trap to himself. He travels for some spirit firm, Ithink; he always brings down a couple of cases of bottles.'
"'That is my line too,' I said. 'He hasn't been here lately, I hope?'
"'Well, yes, he was here three or four days ago; he is a pretty liberalchap with his samples, I should say, for he always comes back with hiscases empty.' Of course I hired the pony and trap. I drove through NewTilbury, Low Street, and Stanford. I put up there for three or fourhours. At each place I went to all the public houses, and as I markedthe liquors cheap I got several orders. I asked at every place hadanyone in my line been round lately, and they all said no, and nobodyhad noticed the pony cart; but of course that did not prove that hemight not have driven through there."
"You did not make any inquiries about a missing child?"
"No, Miss Covington. Mr. Pettigrew particularly told me that I was notto make any inquiries whatever."
"Yes, that is what we agreed upon, Bassett; we don't want to run theslightest risk of their suspecting that we are inquiring in thatdirection. My own idea is that you could do no harm if you went roundseveral times, just as you did yesterday; and perhaps it would be betterfor you not to start from the same place, but to hire a vehicle anddrive round the country, stopping at all the villages, and apparentlytrying to get orders for spirits or tobacco. That idea of yours is anexcellent one, because your inquiry whether another man had been alongin the same trade would seem natural. You might say everywhere that youhad heard of his going round there, but that it did not look much likebusiness driving a rickety little trap with a pony not worth fiftyshillings. At any village public houses at which he stopped they couldhardly help noticing it, and if you heard that he had put up there foran hour or two, it would certainly be something to go upon, and a searchround there might lead to a result. However, do not go until you hearagain from me. I will talk it over with Mr. Pettigrew, and see what hethinks of it."
"It certainly seems to me that we might light upon a clew that way, MissCovington, and if he were to happen to hear that another man in the sameline had been there asking questions about him, it would seem naturalenough, because of course a commercial would like to know what lineanother in the same branch was following, and how he was doing. Then Iwill wait your further orders. There would be sure to be traps to behired at Barking or Rainham, and if there are not, I could get one atBromley. Indeed, as I should want it for a day or two, it would be justas well to get it there as farther east, and I should be likely to get abetter-looking turnout. In little places a man with a good turnout ismore likely to do business than one who looks second-rate altogether. Itseems a sort of credit to the place; and they would give him orderswhere they would not to a man who made no sort of show. I should say,miss, that as I shall be going over the ground more than once, it wouldbe best to send on the goods I get orders for; they don't amount to verymuch, and I should get about the same price that I gave for them. I knowa clerk in the firm whose liquors I took down. I told him that I wasgoing down in that part of Essex, and asked if they would give me acommission on anything that I could sell. They said 'yes' willinglyenough, and the clerk said I was a respectable man who could be trusted;and so it will cost nothing, and will open the way for my making anothercall. Of course when I am known there I can ask questions more freely,sit in the bar-parlor, smoke a cigar with the landlord, and so on."
"I think that is an excellent idea. Well, at any rate you shall hear inthe course of a day or two."
Miss Purcell had gone on quietly with her knitting and uttered noremarks while the man was present. Immediately he had left, she said, "Ithink, Netta, that we shall gradually get at it."
"Yes, I think so; that man seems really a sharp fellow. I had quite lostall faith in detectives, but I see that when they have really gotsomething to go upon, they know how to follow it up."
Hilda wrote a long letter to Mr. Pettigrew, and received three words inanswer: "By all means." So Bassett was written to and told to continuehis career as a commercial traveler, but to abstain altogether, for thepresent, from any questions about the boy.
Ten days later Mr. Pettigrew forwarded a letter that he had receivedfrom Bassett, which was as follows:
"SIR: I have to report that I have for the last fortnight been engaged in driving about the country in accordance with Miss Covington's instructions. The only place where I can ascertain that the pony and cart from Tilbury was noticed about that time was at Stanford. My inquiries there before had failed, but after dining at the inn, I went out into the yard behind, and asked the helper whether the same trap that I drove over in from Tilbury had been there since.
"'Not since you were here last,' he said; 'at least if it was you as drove the pony over somewhere about three weeks ago. I did not see you then, I was doing a job over at the cowhouse. That pony aint been here since then, though he was here two days before. The man put him up for three or four hours, and hired a horse from the landlord to ride over to Billericay. He must have gone cross country, I should say, by the mud on its legs. However, he tipped me a bob, so I cleaned it up and said nothing to master; but the horse was all in a lather and must have been taken along at a hunting pace all the way.' Waiting further orders,
"I remain, "Yours respectfully, "H. BASSETT."
Mr. Pettigrew came down himself in the evening.
"Well, Miss Covington, I think that the scent is getting warm. Now isthe time that you must be very cautious. I think we may take it that thechild is somewhere within ten or twelve miles of Stanford, north or eastof it. The man was away for over three hours, and he rode fast. It's notlikely that the horse was anything out of the way. However, allowing forhalf an hour's stay somewhere, I think we may take twelve miles as thelimit. Still, a circle of twelve miles' radius covers a very large area.I have been looking up the map since that man set about inquiring downthere. Twelve miles would include the whole of the marshes as far asLeigh. It goes up to Brentwood, Billericay, Downham, and touchesRayleigh; and in that semicircle would be some sixty or seventyvillages, large and small."
"I have been looking at the map too, Mr. Pettigrew, and it does not seemto me at all likely that he would go near the places that you firstmentioned; they are quite close to the Great Eastern Railway, by whichhe would have traveled, instead of going round such an enormous detourby Tilbury and Stanford."
"One would think so, my dear, certainly; but, you see, a man having theleast idea that he was watched, which I admit we have no reason forbelieving that this fellow has, would naturally choose a very circuitousroute. However, I think that we need hardly try so far to the north, tobegin with; I should say that the area of our search need go no farthernorth than Downham, and that between a line running west from that placeand the river the child is
most likely to be hidden."
"I should say, Mr. Pettigrew, that the detective might engage four orfive fellows who could act separately in villages on each of the roadsrunning from Stanford east or northeast. The villages should be at leasttwo miles away from Stanford, because he might start by one road andthen turn off by another. But in two miles he would probably settle downon the road he was going to follow and we should, therefore, get thegeneral direction of Walter's hiding place. Then, as soon as he passed,the watcher should follow him on foot till he met him coming back. If hedid meet him, he would know that at any rate he had been farther; if hedid not meet him, he would know that he had turned off somewhere betweenhim and the village that he had passed. Netta and I have been talkingthe matter over, and it seems to us that this would be the best plan,and that it would be as well, also, to have a man to watch at TilburyStation; because he may possibly choose some entirely different routethe next time he comes, and the men in the villages, not knowing that hehad come down at all, might be kept there for a month waiting for hisnext visit."
"You and your friend have certainly put your heads together to goodpurpose," the old lawyer said, "and I do not see any better plan thanyou suggest. You had better have Bassett down here, and give him yourinstructions yourself."
"Yes, Mr. Pettigrew; and I shall be glad if you will write a line to himto-night, for in three days it will be a month since this man last wentdown, or at any rate since we know that he went down. Of course, it maybe three months before he goes again, and if he does not come in four orfive days the men must be recalled; for although each of them could stopin a village for a day or two under the pretense of finding work in theneighborhood, they certainly could not stop for a month."
"Very well, I leave you a free hand in the matter, altogether, MissCovington; for frankly I acknowledge that you are vastly more likely toferret the thing out than I am."