CHAPTER XXII.
NEARING THE GOAL.
"I suppose Miss Netta is in bed?" Hilda asked, as she entered the house.
"Yes, miss; she and Miss Purcell went to their rooms soon after teno'clock."
Hilda ran upstairs to Netta's room.
"Are you awake, Netta?" she asked, as she opened the door.
"Well, I think I was asleep, Hilda; I didn't intend to go off, for Imade sure that you would come in for a chat, as usual, when you gotback; but I think I must have dozed off."
"Well, if you had been so sound asleep that I had had to violently wakeyou up, I should have done so. I have had my chance, Netta. Simcoe andhis friend were in a box opposite to ours, and I have learned whereWalter is."
"That is news indeed," Netta exclaimed, leaping up; "that is worth beingawakened a hundred times for. Please hand me my dressing-gown. Now letus sit down and talk it over comfortably."
Hilda then repeated the whole conversation that she had overheard.
"Splendid!" Netta exclaimed, clapping her hands; "and that man wasright, dear, in feeling uncomfortable when your glasses were fixed onhis face, though he little guessed what reason he had for the feeling.Well, it is worth all the four years you spent with us to have learnedto read people's words from their lips. I always said that you were mybest pupil, and you have proved it so now. What is to be done next?"
"We shall need a general council for that!" Hilda laughed. "We must donothing rash now that success seems so close; a false move might spoileverything."
"Yes, we shall have to be very careful. This bargeman may not live nearthere at all; though no doubt he goes there pretty often, as letters aresent there for him. Besides, Simcoe may have someone stationed there tofind out whether any inquiries have been made for a missing child."
"Yes, I see that we shall have to be very careful, Netta, and we mustnot spoil our chances by being over hasty."
They talked for upwards of an hour, and then went to their beds. Thenext morning Roberts took a note to Dr. Leeds. It contained only a fewlines from Hilda:
"MY DEAR DR. LEEDS: We have found a most important clew, and are going to have a consultation, at which, of course, we want you to be present. Could you manage to be at Mr. Pettigrew's office at three o'clock? If so, on hearing from you, I will send to him to make an appointment."
The answer came back:
"I congratulate you heartily, and will meet you at three o'clock at Pettigrew's office."
A note was at once sent off to the lawyer's to make the appointment, andthe girls arrived with Miss Purcell two or three minutes before thehour, and were at once shown into Mr. Pettigrew's room, where Mr. Farmerimmediately joined them.
"I will wait a minute or two before I begin," Hilda said. "I have askedDr. Leeds to join us here. He has been so very kind throughout the wholematter that we thought it was only fair that he should be here."
"Certainly, I thoroughly agree with you. I never thought that terriblesuspicion of his well founded, but he certainly took immense pains incollecting information of all sorts about these native poisons, andsince then has shown the greatest desire to assist in any way."
A minute later Dr. Leeds was shown in.
"Now, Miss Covington," Mr. Farmer said, "we are ready to hear yourcommunication."
Hilda then related what she had learned at the opera.
"Really, Miss Covington," Mr. Farmer continued, "it is a thousand pitiesthat you and your friend cannot utilize your singular accomplishment inthe detective line. You ought to make a fortune by it. I have, ofcourse, heard from my partner of the education that you had in Germany,and of your having acquired some new system by which you can understandwhat people are saying by watching their lips, but I certainly had noconception that it could be carried to such an extent as you have justproved it can. It is like gaining a new sense. Now I suppose you havecome to us for advice as to what had best be done next."
"That is it, Mr. Farmer. It is quite evident to us that we must beextremely careful, for if these people suspect that we are so far ontheir track, they might remove Walter at once, and we might never beable to light upon a clew again."
"Yes, I see that. Of course, if we were absolutely in a position toprove that this child has been kept down near Pitsea with theircognizance we could arrest them at once; but, unfortunately, in thewords you heard there was no mention of the child, and at present wehave nothing but a series of small circumstantial facts to adduce. Youbelieve, Mr. Pettigrew tells me, that the man who calls himself JohnSimcoe is an impostor who has no right to the name, and that GeneralMathieson was under a complete delusion when he made that extraordinarywill. You believe that, or at any rate you have a suspicion that, havinggot the General to make the will, he administered some unknown drug thatfinally caused his death. You believe that, as this child alone stoodbetween him and the inheritance, he had him carried off with theassistance of the other man. You believe that the body the coroner'sjury decided to be that of Walter Rivington was not his, and that thechild himself is being kept out of the way somewhere in Essex, and youbelieve that the conversation that you most singularly overheard relatedto him.
"But, unfortunately, all these beliefs are unsupported by a single legalfact, and I doubt very much whether any magistrate would issue a warrantfor these men's arrest upon your story being laid before him. Even ifthey were arrested, some confederate might hasten down to Pitsea andcarry the child off; and, indeed, Pitsea may only be the meeting-placeof these conspirators, and the child may be at Limehouse or at Chatham,or at any other place frequented by barges. Therefore we must for thepresent give up all idea of seizing these men. Any researches at Pitseaitself are clearly attended by danger, and yet I see no other way ofproceeding."
"It seems," Dr. Leeds said, "that this other man, who appears to haveacted as Simcoe's agent throughout the affair, took the alarm the otherday, and instead of taking a trap as usual from Tilbury, returned to thestation, took the ferry across to Gravesend, and then, as we suppose,came up to town again, told Simcoe that he found he was watched, andthat Simcoe must himself take the matter up. Evidently, by what MissCovington overheard, he had instructed him where and how to communicatewith this bargeman, or in case of necessity to find him. I should thinkthat the first step would be to withdraw the men now on watch, for it ispossible that they may also send down men to places in the locality ofPitsea. In point of fact, your men have been instructed to make no suchinquiries, but only to endeavor to trace where Simcoe's agent drives to.Still, I think it would be as well to withdraw them at once, as they cando no further good."
Mr. Pettigrew nodded.
"I know nothing of Pitsea," the doctor went on, "but I do know HoleHaven. When I was walking the hospital, three or four of us had a littlesailing-boat, and used to go out from Saturday until Monday morning.Hole Haven was generally the limit of our excursions. It is a snuglittle harbor for small boats, and there is a comfortable old-fashionedlittle inn there, where we used to sleep. The coastguards were allsociable fellows, ready to chat with strangers and not averse to a smalltip. Of course the same men will not be there now, nor would it be verysafe to ask questions of them; for no doubt they are on friendly termswith the men on the barges which go up and down the creek. I might,however, learn something from them of the ways of these men, and Ishould think that, on giving my card to the petty officer in charge, Icould safely question him. I don't suppose that he would know where thisman Nibson has his headquarters. If he lives at Rochester, or Chatham,or at Limehouse, or Shadwell, he certainly would not know him; but if helives at Pitsea he might know him. I fancy they keep a pretty sharplookout on the barges. I know that the coastguard told me that there wasstill a good deal of smuggling carried on in the marshes between Leighand Thames Haven. I fancy, from what he said, that the Leigh fishermenthink it no harm to run a few pounds of tobacco or a keg of spirit froma passing ship, and, indeed, as there are so many vessels that go ashoreon the sands below, and as they a
re generally engaged in unloading themor helping them to get off, they have considerable facilities that way.At any rate, as an old frequenter of the place and as knowing thelandlord--that is to say if there has been no change there--no suspicioncould fall upon me of going down there in reference to your affair.To-day is Friday. On Sunday morning, early, I will run down toGravesend, hire a boat there, and will sail down to Hole Haven. It willbe an outing for me, and a pleasant one; and at least I can be doing noharm."
"Thank you very much indeed, Dr. Leeds," Hilda said warmly; "that is asplendid idea."
On Sunday evening Dr. Leeds called at Hyde Park Gardens to report hisday's work.
"I think that my news is eminently satisfactory. I saw the petty officerin command of the coastguard station, and he willingly gave me all theinformation in his power. He knew the bargee, Bill Nibson. He is up anddown the creek, he says, once and sometimes twice a week. He has got alittle bit of a farm and a house on the bank of the creek a mile and ahalf on this side of Pitsea. They watch him pretty closely, as they doall the men who use the creek; there is not one of them who does notcarry on a bit of smuggling if he gets the chance.
"'I thought that was almost given up,' I said. 'Oh, no; it is carriedon,' he replied, 'on a much smaller scale than it used to be, but thereis plenty of it, and I should say that there is more done that way onthe Thames than anywhere else. In the first place, Dutch, German, andFrench craft coming up the channels after dark can have no difficultywhatever in transferring tobacco and spirits into barges orfishing-boats. I need hardly say it is not ships of any size that carryon this sort of business, but small vessels, such as billy-boys andcraft of that sort. They carry their regular cargoes, and probably neverbring more than a few hundredweight of tobacco and a dozen or so kegs ofspirits. It is doubtful whether their owners know anything of what isbeing done, and I should say that it is generally a sort of speculationon the part of the skipper and men. On this side the trade is no doubtin the hands of men who either work a single barge or fishing-boat oftheir own, or who certainly work it without the least suspicion on thepart of the owners.
"'The thing is so easily arranged. A man before he starts from Ostend orHamburg, or the mouth of the Seine, sends a line to his friends here, atRochester or Limehouse or Leigh, "Shall sail to-night. Expect to come upthe south channel on Monday evening." The bargeman or fisherman runsdown at the time arranged, and five or six miles below the Nore bringsup and shows a light. He knows that the craft he expects will not be upbefore that time, for if the wind was extremely favorable, and they madethe run quicker than they expected, they would bring up in Margate Roadstill the time appointed. If they didn't arrive that night, they would doso the next, and the barge would lay there and wait for them, or thefishermen would go into Sheerness or Leigh and come out again the nextnight.
"'You might wonder how a barge could waste twenty-four or forty-eighthours without being called to account by its owners, but there arebarges which will anchor up for two or three days under the pretensethat the weather is bad, but really from sheer laziness.
"'That is one way the stuff comes into the country, and, so far as I cansee, there is no way whatever of stopping it. The difficulty, of course,is with the landing, and even that is not great. When the tide turns torun out there are scores, I may say hundreds, of barges anchored betweenChatham and Gravesend. They generally anchor close in shore, and itwould require twenty times the number of coastguards there are betweenChatham and Gravesend on one side, and Foulness and Tilbury on theother, to watch the whole of them and to see that boats do not comeashore.
"'A few strokes and they are there. One man will wait in the boat whilethe other goes up onto the bank to see that all is clear. If it is, thethings are carried up at once. Probably the barge has put up some flagthat is understood by friends ashore; they are there to meet it, and inhalf an hour the kegs are either stowed away in lonely farmhouses orsunk in some of the deep ditches, and there they will remain until theycan be fished up and sent off in a cart loaded with hay or something ofthat sort. You may take it that among the marshes on the banks of theMedway and Thames there is a pretty good deal done in the way ofsmuggling still. We keep a very close eye upon all the barges that comeup here, but it is very seldom that we make any catch. One cannot seizea barge like the _Mary Ann_, that is the boat belonging to Nibson, withperhaps sixty tons of manure or cement or bricks, and unload it withoutsome specific information that would justify our doing so. Indeed, wehardly could unload it unless we took it out into the Thames and threwthe contents overboard. We could not carry it up this steep, stone-facedbank, and higher up there are very few places where a barge could liealongside the bank to be unloaded. We suspect Nibson of doing somethingthat way, but we have never been able to catch him at it. We havesearched his place suddenly three or four times, but never foundanything suspicious.'
"'May I ask what family the man has?' I said.
"He shook his head. 'There is his wife--I have seen her once or twice onboard the barge as it has come in and out--and there is a boy, who helpshim on the barge--I don't know whether he is his son or not. I have noidea whether he has any family, but I have never seen a child on thebarge.'
"All this seemed to be fairly satisfactory. I told him that we suspectedthat a stolen child was kept in Nibson's house, and asked him whetherone of his men off duty would, at any time, go with me in a boat andpoint out the house. He said that there would be no difficulty aboutthat. My idea, Miss Covington, was that it would be by far the best planfor us to go down with a pretty strong party--that is to say, two orthree men--and to go from Gravesend in a boat, arriving at Hole Haven ateleven or twelve o'clock at night. I should write beforehand to thecoastguard officer, asking him to have a man in readiness to guide us,and then row up to the house. In that way we should avoid all chance ofa warning being sent on ahead from Pitsea, or from any other place wherethey might have men on watch.
"I mentioned this to the officer, and he said, 'Well, I don't see howyou could break into the man's house. If the child is not there youmight find yourself in a very awkward position, and if Nibson himselfhappened to be at home he would be perfectly justified in usingfirearms.' I said of course that was a point I must consider. It isindeed a point on which we must take Mr. Pettigrew's opinion. Butprobably we shall have to lay an information before the nearestmagistrate, though I think myself that if we were to take the officerinto our confidence--and he seemed to me a bluff, hearty fellow--hewould take a lot of interest in the matter, and might stretch a point,and send three or four men down after dark to search the place again forsmuggled goods. You see, he has strong suspicions of the man, and hassearched his place more than once. Then, when they were about it, wecould enter and seize Walter. Should there be a mistake altogether, andthe child not be found there, we could give the officer a writtenundertaking to hold him free in the very unlikely event of the fellowmaking a fuss about his house being entered."
The next morning Hilda again drove up with Netta to see Mr. Pettigrew.
"We must be careful, my dear; we must be very careful," he said. "If weobtain a search warrant, it can only be executed during the day, andeven if the coastguards were to make a raid upon the place, we, ascivilians, would not have any right to enter the house. I don't like theidea of this night business--indeed, I do not see why it should not bemanaged by day. Apparently, from what Dr. Leeds said, this Hole Haven isa place where little sailing-boats often go in. I don't know much ofthese matters, but probably in some cases gentlemen are accompanied byladies, and no doubt sometimes these boats go up the creeks. Now, theremust be good-sized boats that could be hired at Gravesend, with menaccustomed to sailing them, and I can see no reason why we should not godown in a party. I should certainly wish to be there myself, and thinkColonel Bulstrode should be there. You might bring your two men, and getan information laid before an Essex magistrate and obtain a warrant tosearch this man's place for a child supposed to be hidden there. By theway, I have a client who is an Essex
magistrate; he lives nearBillericay. I will have an information drawn out, and will go myselfwith it and see him; it is only about five miles to drive from BrentwoodStation. If I sent a clerk down, there might be some difficulty,whereas, when I personally explain the circumstances to him, he will, Iam sure, grant it. At the same time I will arrange with him that two ofthe county constabulary shall be at this place, Hole Haven, at the timewe arrive there, and shall accompany us to execute the warrant. Let mesee," and he turned to his engagement book, "there is no very specialmatter on for to-morrow, and I am sure that Mr. Farmer will see to thelittle matters that there are in my department. By the way, it was ayear yesterday since the General's death, and we have this morning beenserved with a notice to show cause why we should not proceed at once todistribute the various legacies under his will. I don't think thatrefers to the bequest of the estates, though, of course, it may do so,but to the ten thousand pounds to which Simcoe is clearly entitled. Ofcourse, we should appear by counsel in any case; but with Walter in ourhands we can bring him to his knees at once, and he will have to waitsome time before he touches the money. We cannot prevent his havingthat. He may get five years for abducting the child, but that does notaffect his claim to the money."
"Unless, Mr. Pettigrew, we could prove that he is not John Simcoe."
"Certainly, my dear," the lawyer said, with an indulgent smile. "Yourother theories have turned out very successful, I am bound to admit; butfor this you have not a shadow of evidence, while he could produce adozen respectable witnesses in his favor. However, we need not troubleourselves about that now. As to the abduction of the child, while ourevidence is pretty clear against the other man, we have only the factagainst Simcoe that he was a constant associate of his, and had animmense interest in the child being lost. The other man seems to haveacted as his intermediary all through, and so far as we actually know,Simcoe has never seen the child since he was taken away. Of course, ifWalter can prove to the contrary, the case is clear against him; butwithout this it is only circumstantial, though I fancy that the jurywould be pretty sure to convict. And now, how about the boat? Who willundertake that? We are rather busy at present, and could scarcely sparea clerk to go down."
"We will look after that, Mr. Pettigrew; it is only an hour's run toGravesend, and it will be an amusement for us. We will take Roberts downwith us. What day shall we fix it for?"
"Well, my dear, the sooner the better. I shall get the warrantto-morrow, and there is no reason why the constable should not be atHole Haven the next day, at, say, two in the afternoon. So if you godown to-morrow and arrange for a boat, the matter may as well be carriedout at once, especially as I know that you are burning with anxiety toget the child back. Of course this rascal of a bargeman must bearrested."
"I should think that would depend partly on how he has treated Walter,"Hilda said. "I don't suppose he knows who he is, or anything of thecircumstances of the case; he is simply paid so much to take charge ofhim. If he has behaved cruelly to him it is of course right that heshould be punished; but if he has been kind to him I don't see why heshould not be let off. Besides, we may want him as a witness against theothers."
"Well, there is something in that. Of course we might, if he werearrested, allow him to turn Queen's evidence, but there is always acertain feeling against this class of witness. However, we needn'tdiscuss that now. I suppose that we ought to allow an hour and a half ortwo hours to get to this place from Gravesend, but you can find that outwhen you hire the boat. Of course, it will depend a good deal on whichway the tide is. By the way, you had better look to that at once; for ifit is not somewhere near high tide when we get to Hole Haven there maynot be water enough to row up the creek."
He called in one of the clerks, and told him to go out to get him analmanac with a tide-table.
"I want to know when it will be high water the day after to-morrow atGravesend," he said.
"I can tell you that at once, sir. When I came across Waterloo Bridgethis morning at a quarter to nine the tide was running in. I should saythat it was about half-flood, and would be high about twelve o'clock. Sothat it will be high about half-past one o'clock on Wednesday. It isabout three-quarters of an hour earlier at Gravesend. I don't knowwhether that is near enough for you, sir?"
"Yes, that is near enough, thank you. So, you see," he went on after theclerk had left the room, "the tide will be just about high when you getto Gravesend, and you will get there in about an hour, I should say. Idon't know exactly how far this place is, but I should say seven oreight miles; and with a sail, or, if the wind is contrary, a couple ofoars, you will not be much above an hour, and I should think that therewill be still plenty of water in the creek. You had better see ColonelBulstrode. As joint trustee he should certainly be there."
They drove at once to the Colonel's and found him in. He had not heardof the discovery Hilda had made, and was greatly excited at the prospectof so soon recovering Walter, and bringing, as he said, "the rascals tobook."
The next morning they went down with Roberts to Gravesend, to engage alarge and roomy boat with two watermen for their trip. Just as they wereentering Hyde Park Gardens, on their return, a man passed them. Robertslooked hard at him, and then said, "If you don't want me any more now,miss, I should like to speak to that man; he is an old fellow-soldier."
"Certainly, Roberts. I shall not want you again for some time."
Roberts hurried after the man. "Sergeant Nichol," he said, as he came upto him, "it is years since I saw you last."
"I remember your face, if I do not remember your name," the man said.
"I am Tom Roberts. I was in your company, you know, before you went ontothe staff."
"I remember you now, Roberts," and the two shook hands heartily. "Whatare you doing now? If I remember right, you went as servant to GeneralMathieson when you got your discharge."
"Yes; you see, I had been his orderly for two or three years before, andwhen I got my discharge with my pension, I told him that I should liketo stop with him if he would take me. I was with him out there for fiveyears after; then I came home, and was with him until his death, and amstill in the service of his niece, Miss Covington, one of the youngladies I was with just now. And what are you doing?"
"I am collector for a firm in the City. It is an easy berth, and with mypension I am as comfortable as a man can wish to be."
So they chatted for half an hour, and when they parted Roberts receiveda hearty invitation to look in at the other's place at Kilburn.
"Both my boys are in the army," he said, "and likely to get on well. Myeldest girl is married, my youngest is at home with her mother andmyself; they will be pleased to see you too. The missus enjoys a gossipabout India, and is always glad to welcome any old comrade of mine."