Not till a fortnight had gone by did Nell hear from Mr. Piljoy. Then he wrote as follows:--
"Dear Miss Baynard,--Before parting from you last I told you that on getting back home I would lose no time in minutely questioning my clerk Tew with regard to all that passed between Mr. Cortelyon and himself at the signing of the will. As you may remember, the chief point that wanted clearing up was whether there was any possibility of the unsigned will having been substituted for the signed one during the two or three minutes Andry Luce was absent from the room. Tew is positive no such substitution took place. His words are: 'The signed will was never out of my keeping from the moment the witnesses left the room till Andry Luce's return, when, by Mr. Cortelyon's direction, I gave the will to him to be enclosed and sealed up.' So we remain just as wise as we were before.
"I believe I told you that, for a little while to come, I thought it would be advisable to remain quiescent in the affair while awaiting the first move on the part of Mrs. Bullivant's solicitors, provided they thought it advisable to move at all. Well, a couple of days ago I was waited upon by Mr. Cotwell, the junior partner in a firm of Lanchester lawyers. He met me in a by no means hostile spirit, the main object of his visit being to obtain my permission to put to Tew the very question I had put to him already. Of course Tew could only give Mr. Cotwell the same answer that he had given me, and, so far as Mrs. Bullivant was concerned, there was no satisfaction to be got out of that.
"Cotwell and I had a long confabulation before he left. From certain hints he let fall, I judge that Mrs. B. has not scrupled to give expression to her belief that she was designedly tricked by Mr. C.--that of set purpose he caused the signed will to be burnt and left the unsigned one in existence; all which is an absolute contradiction of what Tew is prepared to swear to. But what strange beliefs will not a disappointed woman cherish, more especially when she sees cause for imagining that she has been hoodwinked into the bargain!
"After all, it seems to be very doubtful whether Mrs. B. will go to law. In my opinion it would be sheer madness on her part to do so, and I have very little doubt that, privately, Cotwell thinks the same, only, of course, he is bound to bark at the bidding of his client; but when it comes to biting--we shall see.
"At any rate, I shall wait no longer, but at once proceed to take the necessary steps for legalizing the rights of the youthful heir, as if no such person as Mrs. B. were in existence.
"Will you be good enough to inform me at your convenience under whose care the child is now living, and where he may be found, provided, of course, that his present address is known to you?"
Nell's reply was sent by the next post. It was on a Friday morning that Mr. Piljoy's letter came to hand, and had she not been suffering from a cold which had reduced her voice to a mere whisper, she would have set out for London within a few hours of her receipt of it. But, although she was hungering to see the child, a delay of a few days would not matter greatly, and doubtless she would be well enough to travel (it was a matter of between two hundred and fifty and three hundred miles, and all by coach) by the following Tuesday or Wednesday at the latest.
Tuesday morning came, and found Nell's few preparations made. Her impatience would brook no further delay. Places for herself and her maid had been secured in the London coach, which passed through Tuxford shortly after midday. But a surprise was in store for her.
p157"Evan has been missing since yesterday."
The postman's time for arriving at Stanbrook was ten o'clock or thereabouts. This morning he brought a letter for Miss Baynard, which she knew by the address, before opening it, to be from Mrs. Mardin. One of those intuitions which come to us we know not how or whence whispered to her that it was a bringer of ill tidings. Her fingers trembled as she opened it. All it had to tell was told in little more than a dozen words:--
"Evan has been missing since yesterday, and cannot be found anywhere. Come at once.
"Harriet Mardin."
Never had the journey to London seemed so long and tedious to Nell as it did on this occasion. From the coach office she drove to Lady Carradine's, where, although she had not advised her ladyship of her coming, she knew that she was sure of a welcome. Half an hour later she was on her way to Chelsea.
Mrs. Mardin received her with a burst of tears; indeed, the good soul had done little else than cry since the child had been missed. Her story did not take long in the telling.
It was a fine afternoon, and Evan had been playing, as he was often allowed to do, with some neighbors' children in a field not more than a couple of hundred yards from the house. Mrs. Mardin had been on the point of going to call him in to tea, when one of his playmates came to tell her that Evan had gone off with a tall, dark gentleman, who went up to him in the field, and, telling him that "a pretty lady" had sent for him, led him away to a carriage which was waiting in the lane close by, into which they both got and were at once driven away. From the first Mrs. Mardin had felt convinced in her own mind that the boy had been abducted by means of a ruse, and that there was no intention of bringing him back.
Then she went on to inform Nell that she had not only written to her, but to Mr. Dare as well, who fortunately happened to be in town, and had lost no time in making his appearance at Lawn Cottage. Further, when told that Miss Baynard had been communicated with, and in all likelihood would come as fast as the coach could bring her after her receipt of the news, he had at once hired a room at an inn in the neighborhood, thinking that she might perhaps like to see him and consult with him in the matter as soon as possible after her arrival.
At the mention of Dare's name the wild-rose tints in Nell's cheeks deepened till they glowed like those of a damask rose, and the thought of so soon seeing him again sent a rush of happiness to her heart, and caused her to tingle from head to foot with a flush of gladness which yet had in it a touch of apprehension. It might be a fact that her strength had failed her in her struggle against fate, and that her heart had secretly capitulated, but the secret was her own and should never pass her lips. Her conqueror should never know that he had conquered; on that point she was resolved. And yet in the midst of her happiness she trembled at the thought of meeting Dare again. Was it because she had a fear of betraying herself in her own despite, or was it because she was conscious that she had to guard against a traitor who had betrayed her once already?
A question which Mrs. Mardin put to her did not tend to reassure her:
"Shall I send word to Mr. Dare that you are here, Miss, and that you would like to see him?"
She was still hesitating over her reply when there came a ring at the bell. "Why, that must be him!" exclaimed the widow; and so it proved to be. He had been watching for Nell's arrival, had seen her come, and, after waiting half-an-hour, had followed her to the cottage. But of all this he said nothing.
Nell strung herself up, and met him without any show of embarrassment, but not without a touch of heightened color. Dare was as easy, cool, and as much master of himself as he always was. The only difference that any one who knew him well might have marked in him was that his eyes to-day were more than ordinarily brilliant. When he had shaken hands with Nell he sat down in the chair just vacated by Mrs. Mardin.
Nell had not forgotten the return of the mask and all that was implied thereby, and as her eyes met Dare's she could not help saying to herself, "Does he still know me simply as Miss Baynard of Stanbrook, or has he discovered in me the amateur highwayman to whom on a certain occasion he behaved with such signal kindness?" But it was a question she was no nearer being able to answer to-day than she had been the first time she asked it.
Dare plunged at oncein medias res, like a man who has a matter in hand in dealing with which there must be neither delay nor hesitancy. Before his coming Nell had felt utterly helpless in the affair; she had neither known what to do, nor what even to suggest; but she had not been long in his company before she felt, figuratively speaking, as if a strong arm had been put round her from which she drew both comfort and support. His mere presence braced and strengthened her like a tonic.
"This is a very strange piece of business, Miss Baynard, which has brought you and me together again," he began. "I presume that Mrs. Mardin has made you acquainted with such scanty particulars as are known to her. That the case is one of abduction there can, I think, be very little doubt, if any at all. I saw the notice of Mr. Cortelyon's death in theTimes. Presumably the stolen boy is his grandfather's heir. But doubtless you are in a position to inform me whether such is or is not the case."
"That Evan is his grandfather's heir is due to a singular and wholly inexplicable circumstance, the nature of which it may be as well that I should explain to you."
With that Nell went on to relate to him the story of the will as already known to the reader. He was intensely interested in the recital. When she had come to an end he remained for some moments lost in thought.
Then he said: "So far as I can see at present, there is only one person who would have any motive for spiriting away the boy. That person is Mrs. Bullivant, and the motive--revenge. But to revenge oneself on an innocent child! It seems too mean and cowardly, for belief. Happily, Miss Baynard, you have seen but little of the darker side of human nature. Mean and cowardly actions are far more common than such as you have any notion of; but, if my supposition has any truth in it, the case we are now considering will go far to widen your knowledge of such things. With your permission, I will go at once to Bow Street and report the circumstances of the abduction, so far as they are known to us, to the authorities there, but without any mention of Mrs. Bullivant's name, leaving them to take whatever steps may seem advisable. As regards Mrs. Bullivant, I purpose making certain private inquiries on my own account, the result of which I will communicate to you as early as possible. Meanwhile, I would suggest that it would be as well for you to write to Mr. Piljoy informing him of the disappearance of the child, as also that the case has been reported to the proper authorities. Finally, it may be advisable that for the present my name should be kept in the background."
And so, after a little further talk they parted, with an agreement to meet again at Lawn Cottage next day. A hackney coach was fetched, and Dare saw Miss Baynard into it. She had been startled by his announcement that he was about to go personally to Bow Street. Such a proceeding on his part seemed to her the very acme of recklessness. One would have thought it was the last place in the world at which "Captain Nightshade" would have cared to show his face. She could not help admiring him for his daring, but, all the same, she felt that she should breathe more freely when she knew that he had gone and come in safety.
One may be sure there was no failure of appointment next day on the part of either of our young people.
After Nell had informed Dare that the letter to Mr. Piljoy had been duly written and dispatched, and he had given her a brief account of his visit to Bow Street--where he had left a full description of the missing child, compiled with information furnished by Mrs. Mardin--there seemed little more to say or do. Of a certain task he had set before himself, and of a certain journey he meant to undertake, Dare deemed it best not to enter into any details. All he gave Miss Baynard to understand was, that nothing should be left undone on his part in his endeavor to trace the abducted heir.
But Nell felt strongly that the time had come for a clear understanding on both sides. Their masks had been seen through, their disguise penetrated. Each of them had played a double part within the other's knowledge, and yet each had pretended to ignore the fact. The day of make-believe was at an end.
She saw clearly that if any reference was to be made to their first meeting, it must come from herself. Dare, she felt sure, would never as much as hint at a circumstance, her silence about which could only lead him to conclude that she was determined to ignore it. Further than that, she wanted to set herself straight with him--to explain the motives which led to her assumption for one night only of therôleof a "gentleman of the road." She could no longer rest satisfied with the consciousness that any action of hers should remain in his eyes under the shadow of ambiguity or suspicion.
That she had managed so far not to betray her other and far sweeter secret she felt pretty well assured, and the knowledge comforted her exceedingly; for, while determined to brush aside all the cobwebs that had hitherto existed between them, she was equally as determined that of that hidden flower which perfumed and made beautiful the garden of her heart he should know nothing whatever.
"You and I, Mr. Dare, had met on one occasion before our first meeting under this roof," began Nell, turning her large hazel eyes, with a sort of grave questioning in them, full upon him.
It was not often that Dare was taken by surprise, but he certainly was just now. His swarthy cheeks flushed with a color that was rare to them; but it did not take him longer than half a dozen seconds to recover himself. With a low bow, he said, "It is not for me to dispute any statement Miss Baynard may choose to make."
"My reason for referring to the occasion in question is because I am desirous of explaining under what circumstances I was led to embark on that hare-brained adventure."
"Pardon me, but is any such explanation needed? Certainly it is not by me. Such an impertinence is what I never dreamed of. Why go into a matter which now belongs wholly to the past?"
"For my own satisfaction, if for nothing else."
Again Dare gravely inclined his head. It was evident Miss Baynard was determined to have her own way, although probably she had nothing more to tell him than he either knew or guessed already.
"On the occasion of our first meeting of all," resumed Nell, "I believe I remarked to you that the object of my escapade was, not to despoil some innocent traveller of his purse, but to obtain possession of a will which I knew to be in the keeping of a certain person who, on his way home, travelling by post-chaise, was bound to pass the place where I was lying in wait for him."
"So much I gathered from what you told me."
"The will in question was the one I spoke to you about yesterday, by the provisions of which my uncle disinherited his grandson in favor of the son of the woman between whom and himself there was no relationship whatever. I thought then, as I think still, that the will was a most unjust and iniquitous one and I determined, if it were anyhow possible to do so, to get possession of it and destroy it. How ignominiously I failed in the attempt you know already."
"All this I understood from what you were good enough to tell me yesterday. That served to throw a clear light on whatever had seemed dark before."
"When I ventured on my rash attempt, which, so fortunately for all concerned, proved unsuccessful, my uncle had been given up by his doctors, and I had every reason for believing that he could not possibly live to make another will. As for the moral aspect of the affair, I think perhaps that the less I say on that score the better. I was carried away by a flame of indignation, which, so to speak, swept me off my feet, thrusting all considerations of prudence, as well as of right or wrong, into the background, blinding my moral sense for the time being, and leaving room in my mind for nothing save a burning desire, at whatever cost, to get the will into my hands. But Fate defeated my purpose, and the end I aimed at was brought about by far different means."
Miss Baynard had relieved her mind, and one usually derives a sense of comfort from being able to do that. She had put herself straight with Dare; there was no longer any question between them of a dual personality. He knew that in him she had recognized the Captain Nightshade of her adventure, and he had heard from her own lips, if there was any satisfaction in that, what he most likely knew or guessed before, that she was the masquerader in male attire who had played such an unheroic part on that occasion.
But one confidence often tends to beget another, and now, strange to say. Geoffrey Dare felt strongly impelled to crave Miss Baynard's patience for a little while in order that he might make clear to her under what stress of circumstances he had been driven to take to the King's highway.
Miss Baynard raised no objections to listening to anything he might have to tell her. Did not Desdemona "seriously incline" to the Moor of Venice, the while he told the tale of his adventures by sea and land, and why should not she do the same?
"What I have to tell you is in the main a record of faults and follies," began Dare when leave had been given him, "but I will make my narrative as brief as possible. Let me start by remarking that I have good blood in my veins, and can trace back my ancestry in a direct line for upwards of two hundred years. It was my misfortune to lose both my parents long before I was out of my teens. On coming of age I succeeded to a fortune of forty thousand pounds, the accumulated income of my minority. Thereupon I at once plunged into all the gayeties and temptations of town life, showering my guineas right and left with lavish hands, as if they could never come to an end. Cards, dice, and the turf helped me in turn on the downward road. I had no one to counsel or warn me. The person who had filled the post of guardian to me from the date of my father's death was himself a broken man of pleasure, who encouraged rather than restrained me in the road I was treading, and had no scruple about dipping his hand into my purse whenever he had been more than usually unlucky at the tables.
"Then by and by I fell in love, or what at that time I believed to be love. But I know now, and have long known, that I was drawn to Miss Tighe as in the fable we read how hapless mariners were drawn to the sirens of the deep--because they had not enough will-power to resist their wiles. However, I was infatuated, and--which was all she cared about, for she was a compound of greed and selfishness--I lavished jewelry and presents upon her as if I could not do enough to make patent my folly. Thus it came to pass that my twenty-fourth birthday found my fortune reduced to a very few thousands. The end came shortly after with the elopement of Miss Tighe with the man whom (next to Dick Cortelyon) I had accounted my dearest friend.
"I was still staggering from this blow when another of my 'dear friends,' by means of a forged cheque, contrived to defraud me of the poor wreck of my fortune, save a few paltry hundreds, before putting the Atlantic between himself and me.
"It was not till ruin stared me in the face, and I knew not which way to turn, that I took to the 'road'--as many a broken-down spendthrift of as good birth as I has done before me. But it is some slight salve to my conscience to know that I have never eased any man of his purse who was not well able to bear the loss, that I have never despoiled one of the opposite sex, and that I have never failed to distribute among the poor more than half of all I have taken from the rich."
He ceased, and for some moments neither of them broke the silence. His eyes had been fixed on the window as he told his tale, and he still kept them turned away from his companion. He was now softly tapping his teeth with the nails of one hand.
It was wrong, it was very wrong, and Nell admitted it to be such, but, do what she would, she could not blame him. The man, by his own admission, was a highwayman, a "minion of the moon"; of course the fact had long been known to her, but it had never been so clearly brought home to her before to-day, and yet all she could do was to pity him! Oh, it was shameful! And besides, we all know how close pity is akin to something else. She tried to despise herself, and to feel enraged with herself, but could not.
But they could not sit mum forever. It was her turn to speak. Something she must say--but what?
"The dangers and perils of the kind of life you have been speaking of are many and great." Her words faltered a little in her own despite. "Why not give it up, Mr. Dare? Why not try to find some other and more reputable way of making a living? How I wish you would! How I wish----"
"Pardon me, Miss Baynard, but Ihavegiven it up." He spoke with a certain abruptness, and as he did so he turned his black eyes full upon her. "Captain Nightshade's last adventure on the road was the one in which you yourself were so singularly mixed up. From that night he resolved to turn over a fresh leaf. For one short hour he had come under an influence powerful enough and sweet enough to make a new man of him. The resolve then made has never been broken."
He spoke with an emphasis which left no room for mistake as to his meaning. Nell's eyes sank before the half-veiled passion which had suddenly leapt to life in his. Face and throat flushed a lovely color. It was all she could do not to betray that she was a-tremble in every limb.
"I am very, very glad, Mr. Dare, to hear that you have seen your way to a changed mode of life." Was it Miss Baynard who spoke or some one else? What was this strange new feeling of timidity, almost of shrinking, which had seized upon her? She might have been the veriest bread-and-butter miss fresh from school. Never had she despised herself more heartily than at that moment.
"I have told you, Miss Baynard, that I left London a broken man," resumed Dare after a pause. "I had, however, my mother's jewelry still untouched, but, no other resource being now left me, I was compelled to let it go. A little later the sum of four hundred pounds reached me anonymously, with a letter stating that it was 'conscience money' returned by a dying man, it having been won from my father twenty years before by cheating at cards. That it came as a veritable godsend I need hardly tell you."
"And yet, if I would have let you, you would still have gone on paying for Evan's maintenance."
"I had promised my dead friend that I would care for the boy as if he were my own, and, had you not come between me and him, it was a promise I was resolved to keep at every cost. I had already decided on my plans for the future, and when I left England I should have taken the boy with me."
"When you left England, Mr. Dare?"
"I have some relations settled in Virginia who have more than once pressed me to go out to them. It was, and remains, my intention to settle there, and there to lay the foundations of a new life, very different from the old one. Now I shall have to go alone. But first I shall see this business through of my missing godson."
Why did Nell's heart sink so unaccountably at this statement of Dare's intentions? What did it matter where he might choose to make his future home? Whatever he might secretly be to her, she was nothing to him, and it was out of the question that she ever could be. She knew, and she made no attempt to disguise the fact from herself, that when he sailed away from England he would take her heart with him. But what then? Of how many women was it not the lot to give away their hearts in secret, and to go through life hopeless of a return? nay, in many cases without the man to whom it was given knowing that he had such a thing in his keeping? Her case would be merely one more added to the number.
Nell was to return to Stanbrook on the morrow, and before she and Dare parted it was arranged that he should communicate with her there as soon as he had any tidings of the missing child, and that the Bow Street authorities on their part should do the same.
There was one point with regard to which Nell wished that Dare had seen fit to enlighten her, and that was as to the nature of the relationship between himself and the mysterious Mr. Ellerslie of Rockmount, for that a relationship of some sort existed between them she now felt more convinced than ever. She had seen Mr. Ellerslie but once, and that merely for an hour by candlelight, and, while conscious of a strange illusive likeness on his part to some one, more especially about the eyes, she had been unable to recall to mind who that some one was. She knew now, and had known for some time, that the original of the shadowy likeness was none other than Geoffrey Dare. But no mention of Mr. Ellerslie's name had escaped the latter's lips, and it was certainly not her place to question him.
There was one more point as to which her curiosity seemed doomed to remain equally unsatisfied. She was still ignorant whether she was indebted for the return of her mask to Mr. Ellerslie or to Geoffrey Dare.
It may or may not be remembered by the reader that in an early chapter of this veracious history mention was made of a certain Sir Peter Warrendale, and of his unavailing pursuit of his runaway niece and her lover when on their way to Gretna Green. It was also told how, on his return journey, he was stopped by a highwayman, whom, under the title of "Colonel Delnay," he had met before under rather peculiar circumstances, and was politely relieved of his purse, snuff-box, and other trifles.
No one need have wished for a worse character than that borne by Sir Peter Warrendale for a score miles round Whatton Ferris. His private life would not bear examination; as a landlord he was mean and close-fisted to a degree, and in his magisterial capacity he was never known to temper mercy with justice, but always to make a point of inflicting the maximum penalty allowed by law on any poor wretch who might have the misfortune to be haled before him.
Notwithstanding his irascibility of temper and the bluster in which he indulged when in pursuit of his runaway niece, Sir Peter was an arrant poltroon at heart, and into such a fright did he fall when his chaise was stopped by the sham Colonel Delnay that, happening to have his snuff-box in his hand, he proffered it on the impulse of the moment, together with his purse, if only his life might be spared.
The box was studded with brilliants, and Dare--for he was the "gentleman of the road"--being well aware of the mean and avaricious nature of the man, and how the loss of it would grieve him to the soul, took it, with the intention of returning it anonymously after the lapse of a few weeks. But when, about a month later, he caused certain inquiries to be made with a view to the restitution of the box, he found that Scrope Hall was shut up, and that Sir Peter and his family had taken their departure for Bath, and from thence were expected to go to town. Then, somewhat later, came the news that Scrope Hall was to let and that the baronet had taken up his permanent residence in London.
It may here be noted that it was Captain Nightshade's invariable practice to limit his attentions to hard cash and bank-notes--to the purse of the well-to-do traveller by chaise or coach, and the plethoric money-bag of the wealthy landowner on its way to or from the local bank. Watches, snuff-boxes, rings, and other trinkets he put politely aside as "unconsidered trifles" with which he did not choose to concern himself.
Dare at the time troubled himself no further about Sir Peter's snuff-box, but when he next went to London he took it with him, with the intention of ascertaining Sir Peter's address and forwarding it to him by a trusty messenger. But it was found that Sir Peter was on the Continent, and when Dare went back to the North the box went with him.
Once more he had brought the box to town, hoping on this occasion to be able to rid himself of it. But before he had an opportunity of doing so, the news of Evan's abduction reached him, and he at once hurried off to Chelsea, and for the next two or three days his time and thoughts were taken up with far more important matters than the baronet's snuff-box. Meanwhile, with the carelessness, hardly removed from recklessness, that was characteristic of him, he carried the box about with him in his waistcoat pocket.
Now, it so happened that in the course of the forenoon of the day following that of his second interview with Miss Baynard, as he was taking a short cut to his lodgings through one of the narrow and not over savory lanes which divided Holborn from the Strand, he came on a crowd of people gathered round a man who had fallen down in a fit, either real or simulated. Dare had pushed his way steadily, through the crowd and had got some yards beyond it, when some instinct, so to call it, caused him to clap his hand to his waistcoat. Sir Peter's jeweled snuff-box was gone!
For Geoffrey Dare such an experience was certainly a novel one. No sooner did he realize his loss than he broke into a cynical but not unamused laugh. "Confound the rogue's impudence!" he exclaimed half aloud. "Where were his eyes that he failed to recognize a gentleman of his own kidney? It is to be feared that he will find himself landed at Tyburn one of these days."
He was still standing with his hand pressed to his empty pocket, and staring at the fluctuating crowd, when a hand was laid on his shoulder and a voice said in his ear: "What's the matter, Mr. Dare? You look as if you had just lost something."
Dare, turning, recognized the speaker for John Tipway, a famous Bow Street runner, whose acquaintance he had made a couple of days before when reporting the abduction of the young heir.
"That's exactly what I have done," replied Dare.
"Pocket picked, eh?"
Dare nodded.
"Anything of consequence?"
"A very valuable snuff-box."
"Ah-ha! A noted neighborhood this for petty larceny. Hardly a worse anywhere. But come along with me to the office--I'm on my way there--and lodge a description of the missing property. Who knows but we may be able to recover it for you from the pawnbroker's or somewhere else."
Dare hesitated, and well he might, considering under what circumstances the box had come into his possession. But in the company of Mr. Tipway to have hesitated over a matter of that sort would have tended to provoke suspicion, and that was what he could not afford to do. So he accompanied the runner to Bow Street--not without a certain relish for the comedy of the situation--and there furnished a description of the stolen box, leaving an address, that of a humble lodging in a back street in Bloomsbury, at which any tidings of it might be communicated to him.
By that night's coach he started for the North in order to take up the quest to which he had vowed himself.
About a fortnight later the snuff-box was found in the possession of a swell-mobsman who had been arrested for another offence.
Now, it so fell out that Sir Peter Warrendale, who was much put about by the loss of his box--although he had himself almost thrust it into the hands of the self-styled Colonel Delnay--not only because it was intrinsically valuable, but because it was a cherished heirloom, had, on his arrival in town some weeks after his encounter with the highwayman, given a description of it at Bow Street, on the faint chance that it might turn up at one of the London pawnshops, or in some other fashion. A peculiarity of the box was that it had a false bottom, a fact which Dare had failed to discover. But it was a feature which Sir Peter, in his account of the box, had not forgotten to specify, so that the Bow Street official, who happened to be blessed with a good memory, found himself in possession of an article which was claimed by two different owners and was stated to have been stolen from both!
Sir Peter Warrendale was communicated with, and at once identified the box as his property, and explained the mystery of the false bottom, under which layperdua miniature of his great-grandmother when a beauty of eighteen.
The question that now put itself was by what means had the box come into Dare's possession? It was a question which only himself could answer. So a messenger was sent to his lodgings with a request that he would go to Bow Street and identify the box. But Dare was not there, and all the information his landlady could supply was that he had gone into the country and that the date of his return was uncertain.
Accordingly, a message was left requesting his presence at Bow Street immediately upon his return to town. Meanwhile the snuff-box remained in the hands of the authorities.
Mr. Geoffrey Dare alighted from the London coach at Tuxford, a small market-town some half dozen miles from Uplands.
Next morning he set about making certain inquiries, which resulted in his ascertaining that Uplands was now empty and to let, and that Mrs. Bullivant had transferred herself and her belongings to a much smaller house, known as Homecroft, about twenty miles away on the other side of the country. The nearest town to Homecroft was Broxham, a place of some twelve thousand inhabitants, and thither Dare lost no time in betaking himself.
After breakfast next morning he hired a horse and started for a long ride. When he got back in the early evening he had learnt a good deal more about Homecroft than he knew when he set out. Whether the particulars thus gathered by him would prove of any after use it was too early to determine: in point of fact, he had not yet decided upon his course of action. The subject was one which needed careful consideration if a fiasco were to be avoided, and just then he was turning it over and over in his mind.
Next day was Broxham horse and cattle fair, and from early morn till late at night the little town was a busy scene in which business and pleasure were strangely commingled. Dare was a lover of horseflesh, and he found much to interest him in a casual way as he strolled idly about the fair, mentally chewing over the question of what his next step ought to be in the undertaking to which he had bound himself.
In those days even more than now a horse fair acted as a sure magnet for bringing together a small crowd of gypsies, and certainly there was no lack of them on this occasion at Broxham.
Dare had come across a couple of their encampments while riding out the day before, but it was not till to-day when, as he stood on the fringe of the crowd, listening to the chaffering and bargaining, but thinking of other things, a smiling, black-eyed, ruddy-lippedchisidled up to him and asked him to cross her hand with a bit of silver, that of a sudden an idea came to him which seemed to open up a way out of the difficulty with which he had been perplexing his brain ever since he left London.
If Dare crossed the girl's hand with a piece of silver, it was not with the view of having his fortune told. Drawing her further apart from the crowd, he stood in earnest talk with her for several minutes, nor did they part till they had come to a mutual understanding. Dare's last words to the girl were, "Tell your father that he may expect to see me at dusk to-morrow."
Dare was not unacquainted with Romany life and Romany ways. As a lad of seventeen he had once spent a month ofvie intimeat one of their encampments, and the knowledge then acquired by him he hoped to be able to turn to good account on the present occasion.
Not till the sun had dipped below the horizon did he set out next afternoon to walk the couple of miles or more which would bring him to a certain furze-lined hollow among the moors, where a number of gypsies whom the fair had brought into the neighborhood had made their temporary home. He had got about half-way, and was on the point of turning off the high-road--which was here unfenced and open to the moors on both sides--at a place previously described to him, when he was suddenly confronted by a man who started up from behind a thick clump of brambles. Dare came to a halt, and for a few moments the two stood measuring each other in silence.
The stranger, an unmistakable gypsy, was the first to speak: "You are thegorgiothat had something to say to my daughter yesterday at the fair?"
"I am."
"And you want her, with my leave, to do something for you for which you are willing to pay us in good red gold?"
"You could not have put the case in fewer words."
"Well, here we are, with only the rising moon and our own shadows for company. We could not have a better chance for saying what is to be said."
Nothing could have suited Dare's purpose better.
Thegryengro, or horse-dealer, proceeded to charge and light his pipe, while Dare refreshed himself with a copious pinch of snuff. Then, by the light of the young moon, as they slowly paced the soft turf to and fro, the latter went on to unfold his wishes:
"About a mile on the other side of Broxham there stands in its own grounds a small country house, the name of which is Homecroft. After remaining empty for a long time, it has now found a tenant in the person of Mrs. Bullivant, whose husband died a few years ago, and whose one child, a boy of five or six, is at present from home, most probably on a visit to his grandfather, Lord Cossington. Now, although her own child is away, I have strong reasons for believing that Mrs. Bullivant has another child, who has been stolen away from his friends, hidden in the house, whose presence there is only known to therawniherself and two or three of her domestics. So, what I want to have found out for me is, whether there is, or is not, such a child as the one I speak of under the roof of Homecroft, and the first question is, whether your daughter can obtain that information for me without arousing any suspicion on the part of Mrs. Bullivant or any of her people."
To this the gypsy, whose name was Enoch Bosworth, replied that he had very little doubt his daughter Rosilla could manage to obtain the required information if time were allowed her, and she was allowed to go to work in her own way in the affair. Dare did not care how she went to work, so long as she got him the needed particulars. It then became a question of terms between the two men, and these having been satisfactorily arranged, they parted, with an agreement to meet again at the same hour and place four evenings later.
Although Dare kept his appointment to the minute, he found thegryengroand his daughter waiting for him, and it soon appeared that Rosilla had indeed made good use of her time. She was already in a position to assure him that his belief in the presence of a strange child at Homecroft was amply justified. Such a child was there, a boy, with regard to whom none of the domestics knew anything--neither his name, where he came from, the connection between him and the mistress of Homecroft, or, in point of fact, why he was there at all. A middle-aged woman who had been in Mrs. Bullivant's service for a number of years, was his sole attendant, and none of the other servants were ever allowed to speak to him--not that much chance of doing so was given them, a couple of rooms having been set apart for the boy and the woman, into which they were forbidden to penetrate.
All this information the artful Rosilla, in the exercise of her calling as a fortune-teller, had succeeded in worming out of Mrs. Bullivant's maid, a girl of the name of Moggy Dredge, who, for some reason or other, had conceived a violent dislike for her mistress--an admission of which Dare did not fail to see the importance.
He must contrive an interview with the girl Dredge, and this Rosilla was commissioned to arrange for. If Mrs. Bullivant's maid would name her own time and place for meeting a certain gentleman, name unknown, and there answer a few questions he would put to her having no reference to herself or her own business, she would find her pocket the richer by a couple of guineas.
Rosilla at once undertook to do her best to arrange the meeting in question, which took place a couple evenings later at a solitary spot a little way outside the palings of the Homecroft grounds.
The gypsy-girl, of her own accord, went a little way apart out of hearing while thegorgioand the lady's-maid said what they had to say to each other.
Even before she quite comprehended what it was Dare wanted her to do, Moggy did not hesitate to confess that, in her own words, she hated her mistress "worse than poison," and that because of the latter's treatment of her, and of the insults she saw fit to heap upon her. In reply to this, Dare very naturally asked her why she did not leave Mrs. Bullivant and go into service elsewhere. Thereupon Moggy burst out crying, and, after sobbing quietly for a little while, confided to Dare that she had had a "misfortune," and had thereby forfeited her character, and that it was Mrs. Bullivant's knowledge of this fact which enabled her to trample on the unhappy girl in the way she did.
Moggy could tell Dare little more about the strange child than he had already learnt from Rosilla. Nor had he expected that she would be able to do so. What he had now to arrange for was the future, and he did not part from the girl till she had given him her promise to furnish him daily with a written report of everything she could hear or gather having reference to the child. This report she was to place each day after nightfall in the hollow of a certain tree, whence it would be fetched by Rosilla, who would play the part of messenger between her and Dare. Later, there would be three more guineas for her, and she confessed that she was badly in need of money to help to pay for the keep of her child.
Moggy kept her promise, and night after night Dare received at the hands of the gypsy-girl her brief and half-illegible reports, the writing of which caused her many groans, and was the cause of much perturbation of spirit. But it was not till ten days had gone by that she found anything of consequence to communicate. Then, indeed, her news was of a sufficiently startling kind.
It had been arranged, Moggy wrote, that Mrs. Balchin, the child's attendant, together with her husband, who was Mrs. Bullivant's coachman, were to start next evening for Liverpool on their way to America, the report being that, by the death of a relative in the States, they had come in for a small fortune, which, however, could not be paid over to them without their presence on the spot. But it was not till Dare had got nearly to the end of Moggy's ill-spelt effusion--he was painfully deciphering it in his room at the inn by the light of a solitary candle--that of a sudden he sat up and gave vent to a low whistle. The child, the mysterious child, about whom none of the servants at Homecraft knew anything, was to accompany the Balchins on their long journey--a journey, in those days, infinitely more formidable than it is now.
The little party of three were to leave Homecraft in Mrs. Bullivant's carriage at half-past eight p.m., so as to reach Tuxford in time to catch the night coach bound for the south.
Dare sat for some time staring at the letter, but without seeing it, when he had succeeded in mastering its contents. What step ought he to take next? was the question he was revolving in his brain, and for some time no satisfactory answer was forthcoming.
Of course, all along he had been without any absolute certainty that the child in question was young Evan Cortelyon. Morally sure he might be, but that was hardly foundation enough on which to base any action of a definite kind. If he were to go to Piljoy and state his conviction in the matter, what could the lawyer do? At present no evidence was available conclusive enough to justify an application for a warrant, especially against a person of the social standing of the Hon. Mrs. Bullivant. And yet, if the child were really Evan (as to which he felt no sort of doubt in his own mind), then must he be rescued at every cost.
For a full hour he sat with bent brows, excogitating one scheme after another, only to reject each in turn, till he had worked round to the notion which had struck him first of all, but which he had put temporarily aside till he had satisfied himself that no other plan was equally feasible.
At length he rose abruptly and pushed back his chair, "'Tis the only way," he said aloud. "'Twas the first notion that came to me, and if I had only had the sense to embrace it there and then, I might have saved myself all this useless muddling of my brains. A year ago--nay, far later than that--I should not have hesitated a moment; but now----! What has come over me? What strange change has been at work within me? Is that a conundrum very hard to crack, Geoff, my boy? It may be true, after all, that the moon is made of green cheese."