That evening Mr. Slippen's boy presented himself at Captain Hampton's lodgings with a note. It contained only the words 'Dear sir,—Our man uses the "White Horse," Frogmore Street, Islington. I await your instructions before moving further in the matter.'
'Well, youngster, what is your name?' Captain Hampton asked, as he put the note on the table beside him.
'Jacob Wrigley,' the lad replied promptly.
'Here is half-a-crown for yourself, Jacob.'
'Thank you, sir,' the boy said, as he took it up with a duck of the head and slipped it into his pocket.
'Your office hours seem to be long, Jacob; that is, if you have been there since I saw you this morning.'
'No, sir, I ain't a-been there since one o'clock, not till an hour ago. I have been down at Greenwich, keeping my eye on a party there. I got done there at six o'clock, and as the governor had said "Come round and tell me what you have found out, I shall be in up to nine o'clock," round I went in course. The governor and me don't have no regular hours. Some chaps wouldn't like that, but it doesn't matter to me, 'cause I sleeps there.'
'Sleep where, Jacob?'
'In where you see me. The things is stowed away in that cupboard in the corner, and I get on first-rate. It is a good place, especially in winter. I lays the blankits down in front of the fire, and keeps it going all night sometimes.'
'But haven't you got any place of your own to go to, Jacob?'
The boy shook his head. 'I was brought up in a wan, I was,' the boy said. 'I hooked it one day, two years ago, 'cause they knocked me about so. I pretty nigh starved at first, but one day I saw a chap prigging an old gent's ticker. The old one shouted just as he got off; I was on the look-out and as the chap came along I chucked myself down in front of him and down he came. I grabbed him, and afore he could shake me off a lot of chaps got hold of him and held him till a peeler came up. They did not find the watch on him, but I had seen him as he ran pass something to a chap he ran close to and pretty nigh knocked down. I gave my evidence at the police court. The governor happened to be there, and arter it was over and the chaps had got six months, and the beak had said I gave my evidence very well, and gave me five bob out of the poor box, he came up to me and said, "You are a smart young fellow. Do you want a job?" I said I just did, and so he took me on; that is how it came about, you see. The only thing I don't like is, he makes me go to a night school. He says I shan't never do no good unless I can get to read and write; so I does it, but I hates it bitter.'
'He is quite right, Jacob. You stick to it; it will come easier as you get on.'
'Yes, I know I wants it, for letters and that sort of thing, but it is bitter hard. I would rather stand opposite a house all day in winter than I would sit for an hour trying to make my pen go where I wants it to. It allus will go the other way, and the drops of ink will come out awful. Good night, sir.'
'Good night, lad. Tell Mr. Slippen when you see him that I shall probably be round to-morrow or next day.'
On the following morning Captain Hampton called early at Chester Square. Mr. Hawtrey and Dorothy had just finished breakfast. Mrs. Daintree, as was her custom after being out late the night before, had taken hers in bed.
'I have good news so far. I have discovered, or rather Slippen has, where Truscott is to be found. He frequents a public-house called the White Horse, Frogmore Street, Islington.'
'That is good news indeed, Ned,' Mr. Hawtrey said warmly, as he shook hands with him. As he turned to Dorothy, he saw with surprise that she had turned suddenly pale, and that her hands shook as she put down the cup.
'You are pleased, are you not, Dorothy?' he asked in surprise.
The girl hesitated. 'Yes,' she said, 'of course, I am pleased in one way, but not in another. It frightens me to think that the man may be brought up, and that I may have to give evidence; it is horrid being talked about, but it would be much worse to stand up to be stared at, and to have it all put in the papers.'
'Pooh, pooh, my dear, your evidence will be very simple,' her father said. 'You will only have to tell that you received the first of these letters, that you know nothing of the man, and that his assertion that he has letters of yours is utterly false.'
'Yes, father, but I have noticed that in all trials of this sort they ask such numberless questions, and that they always manage somehow to put the witnesses into a false light. They will say, "How do you know that he has no letters of yours? Do you mean to tell this court that you have never written any letters?" And when I have said I have never written any letters that I should object to having read out in court they will insinuate that I am telling a lie, and that I have done all sorts of dreadful things; and though they will not be able to prove a word of it, I shall know, as I go out, that half the people will believe that I have. I shall hate it, and I am sure that Algernon will hate it even more.'
'Well, Algernon has no one but himself to thank for its having come to this pass,' Mr. Hawtrey said sharply. 'It was his interference, and his going down to Scotland Yard, that caused that paragraph to appear in the paper. If he had left the matter alone nothing whatever would have been heard about it outside our circle. I like Halliburn, but I must say that at present nothing would give me more satisfaction than to hear that he had gone for a month upon the Continent, for he comes round here every afternoon, and worries and fusses over the matter until he upsets you and fills me with an almost irresistible desire to seize him by the shoulders and turn him out of the room.'
'He is a little trying, father,' Dorothy admitted, 'but of course he does not like it.'
'Nor do any of us. It is a hundred times worse for you than it is for him, and yet—But there, let us change the subject. What is it you were saying, Ned? Oh yes, you have heard where Truscott lives.'
'Not exactly where he lives, but the public-house where he is to be met with, and in his case it comes to pretty well the same thing. I had nothing to do with finding it out. The man Slippen took it in hand, and in a few hours did more than I had done in three weeks. He sent a fellow down to Windsor, to some betting men he knew, and sent me word in the evening. It was rather mortifying, I must confess, and I feel as if I had been taken down several pegs in my own estimation.'
'And what is to be done next, father?' Dorothy asked anxiously.
'Ah, that is the point we shall have to talk over, my dear. At present we have not a thread of evidence to connect him with the affair. We must, in the first place, bring it home to him. Afterwards, we will see whether we must have him arrested and charged in court, or whether we can frighten him into making a confession. I am very much afraid that, after all that has been said about it, there will be nothing for it but a public prosecution; however, there will be time to think of that afterwards.' Captain Hampton saw Dorothy go pale again, and mentally resolved that he would do all in his power to save her from the ordeal from which she evidently shrank. He was a little surprised at her nervousness, for as a child she had been absolutely fearless, but he supposed that the worry, and perhaps the fidgeting of Halliburn had shaken her somewhat, as, indeed, was natural enough. 'You are going round to see this detective, I suppose?' Mr. Hawtrey asked.
'Yes, I came in on my way for instructions. Slippen will no doubt propose that a sharp watch shall be kept over his movements, and I suppose that there can be no doubt that is the right thing to be done.'
'I should say so, certainly.'
'That, at least, Miss Hawtrey, will commit us to nothing afterwards, and I trust even yet we may find some way of avoiding the unpleasantness you feared.'
'I may as well go with you, Ned,' Mr. Hawtrey said; 'I have nothing particular to do this morning; a walk will do me good. I am getting bilious and out of sorts with all this worry, and would give a good round sum to be quietly down in Lincolnshire again. Dorothy evidently feels it a good deal more than I should have thought she would,' he went on as they left the house.
'It is a horribly annoying sort of thing to happen to anyone, Mr. Hawtrey; because it is so desperately difficult to meet anonymous slander of this sort, and of course her engagement makes it so much the worse for her.'
'Yes, that is the rub, Ned. I am not at all pleased with the fellow; he seems to think of nothing but the manner in which it affects himself. I have had, once or twice, as much as I could do not to let out at him. I had it on the tip of my tongue to say, "Confound it, sir! What the deuce do I care for you or your family? The ancestors through whom you got your title were doubtless respectable enough, and as far as I know, may, two or three generations back, have been washer-women, when our people had already held their estates hundreds of years." Of course, Dorothy takes his part, but my own belief is that it is he who is worrying her, quite as much as the scandal itself.
'Dorothy is not marrying for a title; she refused a higher one than his last autumn. I don't say that his being a lord might not have influenced her to some extent; I suppose all girls have vanity enough to like to carry off a man whom scores of others will envy her for, but I don't think that went very far with her. I believe that, as far as she knew of him, she liked him for himself; not, I suppose, in any desperate sort of way, but as a pleasant, gentlemanly sort of fellow of whom everyone spoke well, and whom she esteemed and thought she could be very happy with. She has no occasion to marry for money; of course my estate is, as I dare say you know, entailed, and will go to my cousin, Jack Hawtrey, who is a sporting parson down in Somersetshire—a good fellow, with a large family; but there will be plenty for her from her mother, besides my unentailed property.
'I cannot help thinking that Halliburn's worrying, and the very evident fact that he thinks more of the scandal as affecting his future wife than of her feelings in the matter, may have shown her that she had over-estimated him, and that although he may be a very respectable and well-behaved young nobleman, he is a selfish and shallow-minded fellow after all. Dorothy may say nothing now, but she is not the sort of girl to forgive that sort of thing, and I don't mind saying it to you, as an old friend, Ned, that I should not be at all surprised if, when once this affair is thoroughly cleared up, she throws Halliburn over altogether.'
Captain Hampton made no reply, but had his companion turned to look at him he could hardly have avoided noticing that the expression on his face expressed anything but sympathy with the tone of irritation in which he had himself spoken.
Mr. Slippen was in when they arrived at Clifford's Inn. The door was opened by him when they knocked, a proof that the boy was not at his post.
'Come in, Captain Hampton; I fancied that you would be down here.'
'This is Mr. Hawtrey, Mr. Slippen,' said Ned, as they followed him into his room; 'he thought he would like to talk over with you the plan of campaign.'
'I am glad you have come, sir; it is always more satisfactory to meet one's principal in matters of this kind; there is less chance of any mistake being made. It is surprising sometimes to find, after one is half through one's work, that one has been proceeding under an entirely false impression. One may think, for example, that one's client is bent upon carrying a matter out to the bitter end, and will not hear of anything of a compromise, and then one discovers that he is perfectly ready to condone everything, and to make every sacrifice to avoid publicity. Of course, if one had known that in the first place, it would have immensely facilitated matters.'
'I should be very glad to avoid publicity myself,' Mr. Hawtrey said, 'but unfortunately the matter has gone so far that I do not see how it can possibly be avoided.'
Mr. Slippen shook his head.
'I don't see, myself, at present,' he agreed, 'how the scandal is to be set at rest, except by the prosecution of its author—that is to say, if we can get evidence enough to prosecute him. Of course, if we had such evidence it would be easy enough to force him into making a complete retractation; but, if we did, such a retractation would hardly be satisfactory, as, supposing it were published, people would say, "How are we to know that this letter is written by the fellow who wrote the others? If it is the man, how is it that he is not prosecuted for it?" Certainly there would be a strong suspicion that he had been bought off.'
'I see that myself,' Mr. Hawtrey agreed. 'I don't see any other way of clearing the matter up except by putting him in the dock, though I would give a great deal to avoid it. My daughter is extremely averse to the idea of the publicity attending such an affair, and especially to having to appear as a witness, which is not surprising when one knows the outrageous licence given to counsel in our days to cross-examine witnesses.'
Captain Hampton noticed the sudden keen glance shot at his client from Mr. Slippen's eyes, followed by a series of almost imperceptible little nods, and was seized with a sudden and fierce desire to make a violent assault upon the unconscious detective.
'At any rate,' Mr. Hawtrey continued, 'I see nothing at present but to let the matter go on, and for you to obtain, if possible, some decisive proof of the man's connection with these letters. So far we have really only the most shadowy grounds for our suspicion against him.'
Again Mr. Slippen nodded, this time more openly and decisively.
'Quite the most shadowy, Mr. Hawtrey. I am far from saying that he may not be the man, but beyond his having, as I understand, a grievance of very many years' duration against yourself there is really nothing whatever to connect him with the affair.'
'Nothing, Mr. Slippen. It is, in fact, simply because there is no one else against whom we have even such slight grounds as this to go upon, that we suspect this fellow of being the author of these rascally communications.'
'You will understand, Mr. Hawtrey, that being employed by you I consider it my duty to let you know exactly the light in which the matter strikes me. Of course, I do not know the man as you do, but from what I have learnt from Captain Hampton he seems to be an unprincipled blackguard; a man who has been concerned in various shady transactions on the turf, and who has come down to the rank of the lowest class of betting men; a fellow who pays his bets when he has made a winning book on a race and is a welsher when he loses.
'Of course, it may be that such a man is of so vindictive a nature that he may have taken all this trouble simply to annoy you, but I cannot help thinking that if he had embarked upon it he would have played his hand so as not only to annoy but to extort money to cease that annoyance. Now the writer of these letters has certainly not done that. Had he had any idea of extorting money he would have sent some sort of private intimation to you, by means of a cautiously worded letter, to the effect that an arrangement could be made by which the thing could be put a stop to. You have received no such missive; therefore, if this man is the author he is simply a malicious scoundrel, and not, in this instance at any rate, a clever rogue, as I should certainly have expected to find him from his antecedents.'
'That is to say, you do not think he is the man?'
'Yes, I think it comes almost to that, Mr. Hawtrey. I do not know him, and, of course, he may be the man, but I own that I shall be a good deal surprised if I find that he is so. Still, in the absence of any other clue whatever, I propose to follow this up. It will be something at least to clear it out of the way and to have done with it. I shall detail my boy to watch the public-house till the man comes to it, and then to find out where he lives and what are his habits; to follow his footsteps and take note of every place where he posts a letter. We shall get, at any rate, negative evidence that way. If, for instance, a letter is posted in the south of London, and we know that on that day the man never went out of Islington, I think that it will be very strong proof that he has nothing to do with the matter. Of course the reverse would not be so convincing the other way; but if we had the coincidence, three or four times repeated, of the letter bearing the mark of a district in which he had dropped one into the post, we should feel that we were a long way towards proving his connection with the affair.'
'Quite so,' Mr. Hawtrey agreed; 'that will, as you say, either go far to confirm our suspicions, or will altogether clear the ground so far as he is concerned, and we must then look for a clue in some other direction altogether.'
That afternoon Captain Hampton, having nothing to do, made his way up to Islington. The lad was not to be put on the watch until the next morning, and he thought that he might see this man at the public-house he frequented, and perhaps glean something from any conversation he might have with the men he met there. After some inquiry as to the direction of Frogmore Street, he turned up the Liverpool Road, and had gone but a few hundred yards when his eye fell on a couple engaged in earnest conversation on the raised walk, on the opposite side of the street. He paused abruptly in his stride. One was unquestionably the man for whom he was seeking. He was better dressed than when he had seen him before, and had more the air of a gentleman, but there could be no question as to his identity. The other was as unmistakably Dorothy Hawtrey.
There was no question of an accidental likeness; it was the girl herself, and he recognised the dress as one he had seen her wear. Turning sharply on his heel he turned down a bye street, and came out into Upper Street. There were too many people here for him to think; he passed on, walking in the road at the edge of the pavement, to the Angel, and then turned down the comparatively quiet pavement of Pentonville Hill.
What could it mean? He could see but one solution, and yet he refused to accept it. To believe it was to believe Dorothy Hawtrey to be guilty of deception and lying. Was it possible that, after all, this man could have possessed letters of hers, and that she had been driven at last to meet him and redeem them? He remembered her pallor when she had heard that morning that this fellow's whereabouts had been discovered, and how she had urged that no steps should be taken against him. It had all seemed natural then; it seemed equally natural now under this new light—and yet he refused to believe it. So he told himself over and over again. That he had seen her in conversation with Truscott was undeniable; of that, at least, he was certain, but equally certain was it to him that there must be some other explanation of the meeting than that which had at first struck him. What could that explanation be? No answer occurred to him; he could hit upon no hypothesis consistent with her denial of any knowledge whatever of the writer of these letters.
He was at the bottom of the hill now; disregarding the hails of various cabmen, he crossed the road and made his way down through the squares. It was better to be walking than sitting still. He scarcely noticed where he was going, and was almost surprised when he found himself in Jermyn Street. He went upstairs, lighted a cigar, and sat down.
'What is coming to me?' he said to himself. 'I am generally pretty good at guessing riddles, and there must be some explanation of this mystery, if I can but hit upon it.'
But after thinking for another hour, the only alternative to the first idea that had occurred to him was that Dorothy, in her horror of the idea of a public trial and of being forced to appear in the witness box, had taken the desperate resolution to find this man herself, at the address he had mentioned to her and her father, to bribe him to desist from his persecution of her, and to warn him that unless he moved away at once the police would be on his track.
It was all so unlike the high-spirited child he had known, and the girl as he had believed her still to be, that it was difficult to credit that she would allow herself to be driven to take such a step as this, in order to escape what seemed to him a minor unpleasantness.
Still, as he told himself, there were men of tried bravery in many respects who were moral cowards, and it might well be that, though generally fearless, Dorothy might have a nervous shrinking from the thought of standing up in a crowded court, exposed to an inquisition that in many cases was almost a martyrdom. It was an awful mistake to have made. If the scoundrel had been bribed into silence now, he would be all the more certain to recommence his persecution later on, and after having once met with and paid him for his silence how could she refuse to do so when another demand was made?
One thing seemed to Ned Hampton unquestionable. He must maintain an absolute silence as to what he had seen—the harm was done now and could not be undone. He was certain that she had not noticed him, and could never suspect that he had her secret. As for himself there was nothing for him now but to stand aside altogether. Filled as he was with the deepest pity for Dorothy, he was powerless to help her. When the next trouble came it was her husband who would have to stand beside her, and to whom, sooner or later, she would have to own the false step she had taken.
He felt that at any rate it was out of the question that he should see her again at present. It was fortunate that he had retired from the investigation in favour of Mr. Slippen, and could therefore run away for a bit without seeming to have deserted Mr. Hawtrey. He had thought about hiring a yacht, and this would serve as a pretext for him to run down to Ryde. He could easily put away a fortnight between that town, Cowes, Southampton, and Portsmouth. As to the yacht he had no real intention now of looking for one. He must wait for a while and see what happened next. He was sure to meet men he knew at Southsea, and anything was better than staying in London.
He accordingly at once wrote a note to Mr. Hawtrey, saying that it would be some time before Slippen obtained such evidence against Truscott as would put them in a position to bring it home to him, and that as he could not be of any use for a time he had resolved to run down for a week to Southsea, and look round the various yards in search of a yacht of about the size he wanted, for a cruise of six weeks or two months, with the option of taking her up the Mediterranean through the winter. Then he wrote several letters of excuse to houses where he had engagements, and started the next morning by the first train for Portsmouth. He was a fortnight absent, and on his return called on Mr. Hawtrey at an hour when he knew that he was not likely to meet Dorothy.
'So you are back again, Ned? Your note took me quite by surprise, for you had said nothing as to your going away when I met you early in the day.'
'No, sir, it was a sort of sudden inspiration. I was sick of London, and had had a very dull time of it going about to races for three weeks before; so I thought that I would have a complete change, made up my mind at once, packed my portmanteau, and was off. Have you had any news from Slippen?'
'None. He has written to me two or three times; his last note came this morning, saying that his boy has been watching the public-house ever since, and that the man has certainly not been there. The boy is a sharp fellow and found that the fellow had called in there on the very day before he began his watch, and he also discovered by bribing a postman where he had lodged, but upon going there found he had given up his room on the same day he had last been at the public-house, and had left no address, nor had the people of the house the slightest idea where he had gone. I suppose the fellow took fright at the publicity there had been about the affair; at any rate, no more of those letters have come since. That is certainly a comfort, but it looks as if we were never going to get to the bottom of the mystery. Of course, it is extremely annoying, but I suppose we shall live it down. Halliburn offered a reward of a hundred pounds for the discovery of Truscott's, or as he calls him Marvel's, address. That was a week ago, and he has received no answer as yet, which is certainly a fresh proof that the fellow was the author of the letters. If not, he himself would have turned up and claimed the reward.'
'That is not quite certain, Mr. Hawtrey. He has doubtless been concerned in many other shady transactions, and may think he is wanted for some other affair altogether.'
'You are right, that may be so; I did not think of that. Still, it is strange the offer of a reward has brought no news of him. He must be well known to numbers of men who would sell their own father for a hundred pounds.'
'If he is really alarmed he may have changed his name, and gone to some part of the country where he is altogether unknown, or he may have crossed the Channel to some of the French or Belgian ports. There is a lot of betting carried on from that side, and he may manage to live there as he has lived here—by fleecing fools.'
Two days later, Hampton met the Hawtreys at a dinner-party. Dorothy was looking pale and languid, but at times she roused herself and talked with almost feverish gaiety. Lord Halliburn was there; he was sitting next to Dorothy, and seemed silent and preoccupied, and looked, Hampton thought, vexed when she had one of her fits of talking. When they had rejoined the ladies after dinner Hampton was chatting with the lady he had taken down, and who was an old friend of his family.
'Is it not awfully sad, this affair of Miss Hawtrey's?' she said. 'It is evidently preying on her health. I never saw anybody more changed in the course of a few weeks. Of course, everyone who knows her is quite certain that there is no foundation whatever for these wicked libels about her. Still, naturally, people who don't know her think that there must be something in it, and she must know, wherever she goes, that people are talking about it. It is terrible! I do not know what I should do were she a daughter of mine.'
'Yes, it is a most painful position; there does not seem any method by which these anonymous libels can be met and answered. The most scandalous part of the business is that any notice of a thing of this sort should get into the papers. The form in which it was noticed rendered it impossible to obtain redress of any kind; the statements contained as to the annoyance caused by these letters, and as to the nature of their contents, were accurate, and Mr. Hawtrey is therefore unable to take any steps against them. I have known Miss Hawtrey from the time that she was a little child; as you are aware they are my greatest friends, and I assure you that one's powerlessness in these days to take any step to right a wrong of this sort, makes me wish I had lived at any time save in the middle of the nineteenth century. A hundred years ago one would have called out the editor or proprietor, or whatever he calls himself, of a paper that published this thing, and shot him like a dog; four hundred years ago one would have sent him a formal challenge to do battle in the lists; if one had lived in Italy a couple of centuries back, and had adopted the customs of the country, one would have had him removed by a stab in the back by a bravo—not a manner that commends itself to me I own, but which, as against a man whose journal exists by attacking reputations is, I should consider, perfectly legitimate.'
'But he is not the chief offender in the case, Captain Hampton.'
'I don't know. The anonymous libeller could really have done no harm had it not been that there were organs that were ready to inform the world of his attacks upon this lady; the letters could have been burnt and none been any the wiser, and in time the annoyance would have ceased.'
'Do you think the author of these things will ever be found out?'
'I should hardly think so. It is clearly the outcome of malice on the part of some man or woman who has either a grudge against Mr. Hawtrey, his daughter, or Lord Halliburn, or of some one interested in breaking off Miss Hawtrey's engagement.'
'I don't think Lord Halliburn has behaved nicely in the matter,' Mrs. Dean said. 'If he had shown himself perfectly indifferent to the affair from the first, people would never have talked so much. It is his palpable annoyance that has more than confirmed these gossiping rumours.'
'Between ourselves, Mrs. Dean, although I should not at all mind his knowing it, my opinion is, that Halliburn is a cad.'
Mrs. Dean laughed. 'It is next door to blasphemy to speak in society of a peer as a cad, Captain Hampton; still, I am not at all sure that you are wrong. But I must be going; my husband has been making signs to me for the last ten minutes.'
Captain Hampton had spoken harshly of Lord Halliburn, but then he was scarcely able to appreciate the difficulties of the young nobleman. Lord Halliburn was in many respects a model peer. His talents were more than respectable, his life was irreproachable, he was wealthy and yet not a spendthrift. The title was of recent creation, his father being the first holder of the earldom, having been raised to that rank for his political services to the Whig party, just as his grandfather, a wealthy manufacturer, had been rewarded for the bestowal of a park, a public library, and other benefactions to his native town, by a baronetcy. And yet Lord Halliburn supported his position as worthily as if the earldom had come down in an unbroken line from the days of the Henrys, and was held up as an example to less tranquil and studious spirits.
He had scarcely been popular at Eton, for he avoided both the river and the playing fields, and was one of a set who kept aloof from the rest, talked together upon politics, philosophy, and poetry, held mildly democratic opinions as to the improvement of the existing state of things, were particular about their dress, and subdued in their talk. That they were looked upon with something like contempt by those who regarded a place in the eight or the eleven as conferring the proudest distinction that could be aimed at, they regarded not only with complacency, but almost with pride, and privately considered themselves to belong to a far higher order than these rough athletes. At college, his mode of life was but little altered. He belonged to a small coterie who lived apart from the rest, held academic discussions in each others' rooms upon many abstruse subjects, were familiar with Kant, regarded the German thinkers with respectful admiration, quoted John Stuart Mill and Spencer as the masters of English thought, were mildly enthusiastic over Carlyle and Ruskin, and had leanings towards Comte and Swedenborg.
It was only at the Union that Lord Everington, as he then was, came in contact with those outside his own set, and here he quite held his own, for he was a neat and polished speaker, never diverging into flights of fancy, but precise as to his facts and close in his reasoning. His speeches were always listened to with attention, and though far from being one of the most popular, he was regarded as being one of the cleverest and most promising debaters at the Union. Just as he was leaving college a terrible blow fell upon him, for at the sudden death of his father, he succeeded to the title. To some men the loss would not have been without its consolations. To him it meant the destruction of the scheme on which he had laid out his life. He had intended to enter Parliament as soon as possible, and had sufficient confidence in himself to feel sure that he should succeed in political life, and would ere many years become an Under-Secretary, and in due course of time a member of the Cabinet.
Now all this prospect seemed shattered. In the Peers he would have but slight opportunity of distinguishing himself, and would simply be the Earl of Halliburn, and nothing more. It was, however, to his credit that even in the dull atmosphere of the Gilded Chamber he had, to some extent, made his mark. He studied diligently every question that came up, and, while clever enough not to bore the House by long speeches, he came, ere long, to be considered a very well-informed and useful young member of it, and had now the honour of being Under-Secretary for the Colonies. It was a recognition of his work that he enjoyed keenly, although he felt bitterly how few were his opportunities in comparison to what they would have been had his chief been in the Peers and he in the Commons.
As it was, his fellow peers evinced no curiosity whatever in regard to colonial matters, and it was of rare occurrence that any question was asked upon the affairs of which he had charge. Nevertheless, it was a great step. It brought him within the official circle, and more than once the mastery of the subject shown in his answers had won for him a few words of warm commendation from the Leader of the House.
Then came, as he now thought it, the unfortunate idea of marriage. It would add to his weight, he had considered. As a bachelor his house in Park Lane, his place in the country, and his wealth, were but of slight advantage to him, but, as his chief one day hinted to him, he would be able to be of far more use to his party were he in a position to entertain largely.
'We are rather behindhand in that respect, Halliburn. Four-fifths of the good houses are Tory. These things count for a good deal. You may say that it is absurd that it should be so, but that does not alter the fact that it gratifies the wives and daughters of the country members to have such houses open to them. You have plenty of money, and you don't throw it away, so that you can afford to do things well. If I were you, I should certainly look out for a wife.
'She need not be a politician. She need not even belong to one of our families. Whatever her people's politics she will naturally, as your wife, come in time to take your views; and besides, there is no harm, rather the reverse, in keeping up a connection with that side. You must see as well as I do that the time is fast coming when there will be a considerable change in politics. Even now we are far nearer, upon all important points, to the Tories than we are to these Radical fellows who at present vote with us, but who in time will want to control us. The Tories have come much nearer to us, and we to them. Already we are scarcely in a majority on our own side of the house, and it will not be many years before we shall have to concede the demand to give a large share of ministerial appointments to Radicals. We shall then perceive that we must choose between becoming the followers of men whose ways and politics we hate, or the allies of men of our own stamp, whose way of looking at things differs but very little from our own. Therefore, I should say it would be just as well for you to choose a wife from their ranks as from your own.'
Lord Halliburn had, as was his custom, thought the matter over coolly and carefully, and had come to the conclusion that it would be well for him to marry. He was by no means blind to the fact that there would be no great difficulty in his doing so. He was not unobservant of the frequency of invitations to houses where there were daughters of marriageable age, and had often smiled quietly at the innocent manœuvres upon the part both of mothers and daughters. He had, however, never seriously given the matter a thought, being rather of opinion that a wife would interfere with his work, would compel him to take a more prominent part in society, and would expect him to devote a considerable proportion of his time to her. Now that the matter was placed before him in another light, he saw that there was a good deal to be said on the other side. The fact that the suggestion came from his chief was not without weight, and he decided accordingly to marry.
He proceeded about the matter in the same methodical manner in which he carried out the other work of his life, and was not very long in deciding in favour of Miss Hawtrey. She was one of the belles of the season, and, as was no secret, had refused two or three excellent offers. There would, therefore, be a certainéclatin carrying her off. She belonged to an old county family. Her father, although a Conservative, had taken no prominent part in politics, and his daughter would no doubt soon prove amenable to his own opinions and wishes. Above all, she would make a charming hostess. Having once made up his mind, he set to work seriously, and soon became interested in it to a degree that surprised him.
To his rank and his position in the Ministry he speedily found that she was absolutely indifferent, and was as ready to dance and laugh with an impecunious younger son as with himself. This indifference stimulated his efforts, and as a man, as well as a peer and politician, he was gratified when he received an affirmative reply to his proposal. His chief himself congratulated him upon his engagement, and he knew that he was an object of envy to many, for in addition to being a belle, Miss Hawtrey was also an heiress, and for a short time he was highly gratified at the course of events. It was thus he felt cruelly hard when, within a fortnight of his engagement, this unpleasant affair took place.
It seemed intolerable to him that the lady whom he had chosen should be the subject of these libellous attacks. He did not for an instant doubt that she was, as she said, wholly ignorant of the author of these letters, and that there was nothing whatever on which these demands for money could be based. Still, the business was none the less annoying, and in his irritation he had taken the step that had unfortunately resulted in the matter becoming public. He was angry with himself; angry, although he could have given no reason for the feeling, with Dorothy; very angry with society in general, for entertaining the slightest suspicion of the lady whom he had selected to be his wife. That such suspicion should, even in the vaguest manner, exist, was in itself wholly at variance with his object in entering upon matrimony. The wife of the Earl of Halliburn should not be spoken of except in terms of admiration; that the finger of suspicion should be pointed at her was intolerable.
His house might even be shunned, instead of the entry there being so exclusive as to be eagerly sought for. Of course, it was not her fault, and it should make no difference as to his course. Still, the affair was, he freely owned, annoying in the extreme. He had had but few troubles, and bore this badly. The belief that the clerks in his office were talking of his affairs kept him in a state of constant irritation, and he fancied that even the impassive door-keeper smiled furtively as he passed him on his way in and out. Being in the habit of attaching a good deal of importance to his personality he believed that anything that affected him was a matter of much interest to the world at large, and that it occupied the thoughts of other people almost as much as it did his own. For the first time he felt that there were some advantages in a seat in the Upper House. In that grave, and for the most part scanty, gathering of men, generally much older than himself, he could feel that his troubles elicited but little more than a passing remark, and, indeed, the only sign of their knowledge of them that even his irritated self-love could detect was a slightly added warmth and kindness on the part of two or three of his leaders.
With the younger men it was different. 'I never thought much of that fellow Halliburn,' said Frank Delancey, who had been in his form at Eton, and was now, like himself, an under secretary, but in the Commons. 'I never believe in fellows who moon their time away instead of going in for the water or fields, and Halliburn is showing now that he is not of good stuff. He has not got the cotton out of his veins yet. Of course, it is not pleasant for a girl you are engaged to, to be talked about; but a man with any pluck and honour would not show it as he does. Instead of going about looking bright and pleasant, as if such a paltry accusation was too contemptible to give him a moment's thought, he gives himself the airs of Hamlet when he begins to suspect his uncle, and walks about looking as irritable as a bear with a sore head. He hasn't even the decency to behave like a gentleman when he is with her, I hear. Young Vaux, of the Foreign Office, told me yesterday that he met them both at dinner the day before, and the fellow looked downright cross, instead of being, as he ought to have been, more courteous and devoted than usual. I fancy that you will hear that it is broken off before long. I don't think Dorothy Hawtrey is the sort of girl to stand any nonsense.'
'No, I quite agree with you, Delancey,' his companion—Fitzhurst, member for an Irish constituency—said. 'Still, I should say it would last until this blows over. As long as the engagement goes on it is in itself a sort of proof that everything is all right, and that these reports are but a parcel of lies. The girl would feel that if she broke it off fresh stories would get about, and that half the people would say that it was his doing and that the stories were true, after all.'
'I will bet you a fiver that it does not come off, Tom.'
'No, I would not take that, but I would not mind betting evens that it lasts three months.'
'Well, I will go five pounds even with you, and I will take five to one, if you like, that it does not last another month.'
'No, I will take the even bet, but not the other. There is no saying what developments may turn up.'
But Dorothy had even before this offered to release Lord Halliburn from the engagement; he had refused the offer with vehemence, declaring himself absolutely unaffected by the story, and, indeed, taking an injured tone and accusing her of doubting his love for her.
'I am not doubting your love, Algernon,' she replied, 'but it is impossible for me to avoid seeing that the matter is a great annoyance to you, and that it is troubling you very much. You have several times spoken quite crossly to me, and I am not in the habit of being spoken crossly to. My father is naturally quite as annoyed as you are, but as he believes, as you do, that the accusations are entirely false, he is not in any way vexed with me.'
'Nor am I, Dorothy; not in the slightest degree, though I own that the knowledge that people are talking about us does irritate me; but certainly I did not mean to speak crossly to you, and am very sorry if I did so.'
And so the matter had dropped, but Dorothy had none the less felt that at a time when Halliburn ought to have been kinder than usual, and to have helped her to show a brave front in the face of these rumours, he had added to instead of lightening her troubles.
One morning at breakfast Dorothy gave an exclamation of surprise upon opening one of her letters.
'What is it, my dear?'
'I don't understand it, father. Here is a letter from Gilliat, saying he would be obliged if I will hand over to an assistant who will call for it to-day, whichever of the two diamond tiaras I may have decided not to retain, as he expects a customer this afternoon whom it might suit. I don't know what he means. Of course I have not been choosing any jewels. I should not think of such a thing without consulting you, even if I had had money enough in my pocket to indulge in such adornments.'
She handed the letter to her father.
'It must be some mistake,' he said, after glancing it through; 'the letter must have been meant for some one else. It must be some stupid blunder on the part of a clerk. We will go round there together after breakfast. I have not bought you anything of the sort yet, dear, and was not intending to do so until the time came nearer; indeed, I had intended to get your mother's diamonds re-set for you. Of course, I should have gone to Gilliat's, as we have always dealt with his firm.'
After breakfast they drove to Bond Street.
'I want to see Mr. Gilliat himself, if he is in,' Mr. Hawtrey said.
Mr. Gilliat was in.
'My daughter has received a letter which is evidently meant for some one else, Mr. Gilliat. It is about two diamond tiaras, which, it seems, somebody has taken in order to choose one of them. Of course it was not intended for her.'
Gilliat took the letter, glanced at it, and then at Dorothy. 'I do not quite understand,' he said doubtfully.
'Not understand?' Mr. Hawtrey repeated with some irritation. 'Do you mean to say that Miss Hawtrey has been supplied with two diamond tiaras?'
'Would you mind stepping into my room behind, Mr. Hawtrey?' the jeweller replied, leading the way into an inner room. As he closed the door his eye met Dorothy's with a look of inquiry, as if asking for instructions. Hers expressed nothing but surprise. 'Am I to understand, Mr. Hawtrey,' he asked gravely, after a pause, 'that Miss Hawtrey denies having received the tiaras?'
'Certainly you are,' Mr. Hawtrey said hotly, 'she knows nothing whatever about them.'
The jeweller pressed his lips tightly together, thought for a moment, and then touched a bell on the table. An assistant entered. 'Ask Mr. Williams to step here for a moment.'
The principal assistant entered: 'Mr. Williams, do you remember on what day it was that Miss Hawtrey selected the two tiaras?'
'It was about three weeks ago, sir; I cannot tell you the exact day without consulting the sales book.'
'Do so at once, if you please.'
Mr. Williams went out and returned in a moment with the book.
'It was the 15th of last month, sir—July.'
'You served her yourself, I think, Mr. Williams, or, rather, perhaps you assisted me in doing so?'
'Certainly, sir.'
'What was the value of the tiaras, Mr. Williams?'
'One was twelve hundred, the other was twelve hundred and fifty, sir.'
'She took them away herself?'
'Certainly, sir; I offered to place them in the carriage for her, but she said it was a few doors up the street, and she would take them herself.'
'You have not a shadow of doubt about the facts, Mr. Williams?'
'None whatever, sir,' the assistant said, in some surprise.
'You know Miss Hawtrey well by sight?'
'Certainly, sir; she has been here many times, both by herself, for repairs or alterations to her watch or jewellery, and with other ladies.'
'Thank you, Mr. Williams, that will do at present.'
The door closed and the jeweller turned to his customers.
Mr. Hawtrey looked confounded, his daughter bewildered.
'I do not understand it,' she said. 'I have not been here, Mr. Gilliat, since the beginning of May, when I came to you about replacing a pearl that had become discoloured in my necklace.'
'I remember that visit perfectly, Miss Hawtrey,' the jeweller said gravely, 'but I must confirm what my assistant has said. Allow me to recall to you that, in the first place, you told me that in view of an approaching event you required a tiara of diamonds, and of course, having heard of your engagement to Lord Halliburn, I understood your allusion, and came in here with you, and had the honour of showing you five or six tiaras. Of these you selected two, and said that you should like to show them to Mr. Hawtrey before choosing. I offered to send an assistant with them, but you said that your carriage was standing a few doors off and that you would rather take them yourself. Our firm having had the honour of serving Mr. Hawtrey and his family for several generations, and knowing you perfectly, I had, of course, no hesitation in complying with your request. I may say, as an evidence of the exactness of my memory, that Miss Hawtrey was dressed exactly as she is at present. I had, of course, an opportunity of noticing her dress as she was examining the goods. She had on that blue walking dress with small red spots, and the bonnet with blue feathers with red tips.'
'Will you give me the hour as well as the day at which you say my daughter called here?' Mr. Hawtrey said sternly.
'My own impression is that it was about three o'clock,' the jeweller said, after a moment's thought.
'Will you call your assistant and ask him?'
Mr. Williams being summoned said that he had no distinct recollection as to the precise time, but that it was certainly somewhat early in the afternoon. He had returned from lunch about two, and it was not for some little time after that that Miss Hawtrey called; he should say it was between three and half past three.
'That will be near enough,' Mr. Hawtrey said. 'You shall hear from me again shortly, Mr. Gilliat; I know that I can rely upon you to say nothing in the meantime to anyone on the subject.'
'Certainly, Mr. Hawtrey.'
'Now, Dorothy, let us be going.'
Dorothy at the moment was unable to follow her father; she had sunk down in a chair, pale and trembling; her look of intense surprise had given way to one of alarm and horror, and it was not until she had drunk some water that the jeweller brought her, that she recovered sufficiently to take her father's arm and walk through the shop to the carriage.
'Well, Dorothy,' Mr. Hawtrey said, as they drove off, 'what does all this mean?'
'I have not the least idea, father; I am utterly bewildered.'
'You still say that you did not go to the shop—that you did not examine those tiaras and choose two of them?'
'Of course I say so, father. I have never been in the shop since I went about that pearl. Surely, father, you cannot suspect me of having stolen those things.'
'I am the last man in the world to suspect you of anything dishonourable, Dorothy, but this evidence is staggering. Here are two men ready to swear to the whole particulars of the incident. They are both sufficiently acquainted with your appearance to be able to recognise you readily. They can even swear to your dress. That you should do such a thing seems to be incredible and impossible, but what am I to think? You could not have done such a thing in your senses; it would be the act of a madwoman, especially to go to a shop where you are so well known.'
'But why should I have done it, father? I could not have worn them without being detected at once.'
'You could not have worn them,' her father agreed, 'but they might have been turned into money had you great occasion for it.'
Dorothy started.
'Do you mean, father—oh, surely, you never can mean that I could have stolen those things to turn them into money in order to satisfy the man who has been writing those letters?'
'No, my dear. I don't mean that myself, but that is certainly what anyone who did not know you would say. There, don't cry so, child,' for Dorothy was sobbing hysterically now; 'do not let us talk any more until we get home. We have got the day and hour at which you were supposed to have been at Gilliat's. Perhaps we may be able to prove that you were engaged somewhere else, and that it was impossible you could have been at Gilliat's about that time.'
Nothing more was said until they reached home.
'You had better come into my study, Dorothy; we shall not be disturbed there. Now, dear,' he said, 'let us have the matter out. I can only say this, that if you again give me your assurance that you are absolutely ignorant of all this, and that you never went to Gilliat's on the day they say you did, I shall accept your assurance as implicitly as I did before; but before you speak, remember, dear, what that entails. These people are prepared to swear to you, and will, of course, take steps to obtain payment for these things. If such steps are taken the whole matter will be gone into to the bottom. Remember everything depends on your frankness. It will be terribly painful for you to acknowledge that, after all, you had got into some entanglement, and that you did in a moment of madness take these things in order to free yourself from it. It would be terribly painful for me to hear this, but upon hearing it I should of course take steps to raise this twenty-five hundred pounds, for at present I do not happen to have so much at my bankers, and to settle Gilliat's claim. But even painful as this would be it would be a thousand times better than to have all this gone into in public. On the other hand, if you still assure me that you know nothing of it I must refuse to pay the money, both because to do so would be to admit that you took the things, and because, in the second place, whoever has taken these tiaras—for that some one has done so we cannot doubt—may again personate you and involve us in fresh trouble and difficulties.'
'I did not do it, father; indeed I did not do it. I have had no entanglement; I was in no need of money; I have never been near Gilliat's shop, unless, indeed, I was altogether out of my mind and did it in a state of unconsciousness, which I cannot think for a moment. I have worried over this until I hardly knew what I was doing, but I never could have gone to that shop and done as they say without having a remembrance of it. Why, the last place I should choose if I had ever thought of stealing would be a place where I was perfectly known. Indeed, father, I am altogether innocent. I cannot account for it, not in the least, but I am sure that I had nothing to do with it.'
'Then, my dear, I will not doubt you for another moment,' Mr. Hawtrey said, kissing her tenderly. 'Now we just stand in the same position as we did in regard to the other affair; we have got to find out all about it. In the first place, get your book of engagements, and let us see what you were doing on the afternoon of the 15th.'
Dorothy went out of the room and soon returned with a pocket book.
'Not satisfactory, I can see,' Mr. Hawtrey said, as he glanced at her face.
'No, father; here it is, you see—"Lunch with Mrs. Milford;" nothing else. I remember about that afternoon now. I drove in the carriage to Mrs. Milford's, and had lunch at half-past one; there was one other lady there. Mrs. Milford had tickets for a concert, at St. James's Hall I think it was, but I am not sure about that. I had a headache, and would not go with them; and, besides, I had some shopping to do. I got out of her brougham in Hanover Square. I went into Bond Street certainly, and I got some gloves and scent; then I went into Cocks' and looked through the new music and chose one or two pieces, then I went into the French Gallery. Mrs. Milford had been talking about it at lunch, so I thought I would drop in. There were very few people there, so I sauntered round and sat down and looked at those I liked best. It was quiet and pleasant. I must have been in there a long time. When I came out I took a cab and drove straight home. It was six o'clock when I got back, and I remember I went straight up to my room and had a cup of tea there, then I took off my gown and my maid combed my hair, as it was time for me to dress for dinner. My head was aching a good deal and it did me good. We dined at the Livingstones' that evening.'
'It is unfortunate, certainly, Dorothy. I had hoped we might have been able to have fixed you somewhere that would have proved conclusively that you could not possibly have been at Gilliat's that afternoon. As it is, your recollections do not help us at all, for your time from somewhere about three till six is practically unaccounted for. The people you bought the gloves and scent from could prove that you were there, but you probably would not have been many minutes in their shop. Cocks' may remember that you were there a quarter of an hour or so.'
'I think I was there half-an-hour, father.'
'Well, say half-an-hour; the rest of the time you were really in the picture gallery, but it is scarcely likely that, even if the man who took your money at the door or the attendant inside noticed you sufficiently to swear to your face, they would be able to fix the day, still less have noticed how long you stayed. At any rate it is clear that it would be possible for you to have done all you say you did that afternoon and still to have spared time for that visit to Gilliat's.'
'I see that it is all terrible, father, but what can it all mean?'
'That is more than I can understand, Dorothy. At present we are face to face with what seems to me two impossibilities. I mean looking at them from an outsider's point of view. The one is that these shopmen should have taken any one else for you when they are so well acquainted with your face, and are able to swear even to the dress. No less difficult is it to believe that did you require money so urgently that you were ready to commit a crime to obtain it, you would go to the people to whom you were perfectly well known, and so destroy every hope and even every possibility of the crime passing undetected. One theory is as difficult to believe as the other. Those letters were a mystery, but this affair is infinitely more puzzling. I really do not know what to do. I must take advice in the matter, of course. I would rather pay the money five times over than permit it to become public, but who is to know what form this strange persecution is to take next?'
'Do you think there is any connection between this and the other, father?'
Mr. Hawtrey shook his head. 'I do not see the most remote connection between the two things. But there may be; who can say?'
'I would rather face it out,' Dorothy said, passionately. 'I would rather be imprisoned as a thief than go on as I have been doing for the last six weeks; anything would be better. Even if you were to pay the money the story might get about somehow, just as the other did. Then the fact that you paid it would be looked upon as a proof that I had taken the diamonds. Who will you consult, father?'
'My lawyers would be the proper people to consult, undoubtedly; but they were quite useless before, and this is wholly out of their line, I think. I will take a hansom and go across to Jermyn Street, and see if I can find Ned Hampton in. I have great faith in his judgment, and no one could be kinder than he has been in the matter. You don't mind my speaking to him?'
'Oh, no, father. I would rather that you should speak to him than to any one.'
Captain Hampton was in and listened in silent consternation to Mr. Hawtrey's story, and for a long time made no answer to the question.
'I can make neither head nor tail of it, Ned. What do you think?'
At first sight it seemed to him that this story explained the meeting he had seen opposite the Agricultural Hall. She had either turned the diamonds into money or had handed them over to this man to buy his silence. Then his faith in Dorothy rose again. It was absolutely absurd to suppose for a moment that she should have thus committed a crime which must be certainly brought home to her, and which would ruin her far more than any revelations this man might make could do.
'It is an extraordinary story, Mr. Hawtrey,' he said, at last; 'even putting our knowledge of your daughter's character out of the question, is it possible to believe that any young lady possessed of ordinary shrewdness would go to a place where she was well known, and, have acted in the way that she is reported to have done?'
'It would certainly seem incredible, Ned, but here are two or three people prepared to swear that she did do so, and that they identified her by her dress as well as by herself.'
'We must look at the matter in every light, Mr. Hawtrey; however confident you may feel of her innocence, we must look at it from the light in which other people will regard it. They will say, of course, that Miss Hawtrey had urgent need of money for some purpose or other, and will naturally suppose that reason to be her desire to silence the author of those letters. They will say, that although she would of course know that the bill would be sent in to her father, she would be sure that he would rather pay the money than betray her sin to the world.'
'I quite see that,' Mr. Hawtrey agreed, 'but if she had been driven to desperation by this fellow, why did she not come direct to me in the first place, instead of committing a theft to drive me to pay, when she might be pretty sure in some way or other the facts would leak out, and do her infinitely more harm with the world than any indiscretion committed years ago could do? Besides, had she done it for this purpose, would she not have carried through that course of action, and when the bill came in have implored me to pay it without question, and so save her from disgrace and ruin?'
'That certainly is so,' Captain Hampton said, as his face brightened visibly; 'the more one thinks of it the more mysterious the affair seems. I should like to think it all over quietly. I suppose you will not go out this evening?'
'Certainly not. There will be no more going out until this mystery has been cleared up. It has been hard enough for Dorothy to bear up over her last trouble, but it would be out of the question for her to go into society with this terrible thing hanging over her.'
'Then I will come round about nine o'clock. I shall have had time to think it over before that.'
Captain Hampton's cogitations came to nothing. He walked up and down his little room until the lodger in the parlour below went out in despair to his club. He tried the effect of an hour's stroll in the least frequented part of Kensington Gardens. He drove to Mr. Slippen's to inquire if any clue had been obtained as to Truscott's movements. He ate a solitary dinner at his lodgings and smoked an enormous quantity of tobacco, but could see no clue whatever to the mystery. The meeting he had witnessed was to him a piece of evidence far more damning than that of the jeweller and his assistants. If she could explain that, the other matter might be got over, though he could not see how. If she could not explain it, it was evident that he had nothing to do but to advise her father to settle the business at any cost.
At nine o'clock Captain Hampton called at Chester Square and was shown into the drawing-room, from which, as previously arranged, Mr. Hawtrey had dismissed Mrs. Daintree, telling her that he had some private matters to discuss with Ned Hampton.
Mrs. Daintree had retired tearfully, saying that for her part she preferred hearing nothing about this painful matter—meaning that of the letters, for she was ignorant of the later development.
Dorothy looked flushed and feverish. Her eyes were large and brilliant, and there was a restlessness in her manner as she shook hands with her old friend.
'Well, Ned,' she asked, with an attempt at playfulness, 'what is your verdict—guilty or not guilty?'
'You need not ask me, Dorothy. Even the evidence of my own eyes would scarcely avail to convince me against your word.' Then he turned to her father. 'I have done nothing but think the matter over since you left me, and I can see but one solution—an utterly improbable one, I admit—but I will not tell you what it is until I have spoken to Miss Hawtrey. Would you mind my putting a question or two to her alone?'
'Certainly not, Ned,' said Mr. Hawtrey, rising.
But Dorothy exclaimed: 'No, no, father, I will not have it so. I don't know what Captain Hampton is going to ask me, but nothing that he can ask me nor my answers could I wish you not to hear. Please sit down again. There shall be no mysteries between us, at any rate.'
'Perhaps it is best so,' Captain Hampton agreed, though he felt the ring of pain in the girl's voice at what she believed to be a sign that he doubted her. 'I am willing, as I said just now, to disbelieve the evidence of my own eyes on your word. I am determined to believe you innocent. It is impossible for me to do otherwise. But there is one matter I want cleared up. On the fifteenth of last month—that is the day on which these things were missed—I saw a lady so exactly like you in face and in dress that I should under any other circumstances be prepared to swear to her, speaking to the man Truscott, in the Liverpool Road, Islington. This was at about half-past four in the afternoon.'
A look of blank wonderment passed across Dorothy's face as he spoke, and then changed into one of indignation.
'I was never in Islington in my life, Captain Hampton; I never heard the name of Liverpool Road that I know of. I have never seen this man, Truscott, since that day at Epsom. And you have believed this? You believe that I would meet this man alone, for the purpose, I suppose, of bribing him to silence? I have been mistaken in you altogether, Captain Hampton. I thought you were a friend.'
'Stop, Dorothy,' her father said, authoritatively, as with her head erect she walked towards the door, 'you must listen to this; it is altogether too important to be treated in this way. We must hear what Captain Hampton really saw, and he will tell us why he did not mention the fact to me before. Sit down, my dear. Now, Captain Hampton, please tell it to us again.'
Ned Hampton repeated his story, and then went on,
'You know I went suddenly out of town, Mr. Hawtrey. That I had been mistaken never once occurred to me. Up to that time I had never for an instant doubted your daughter's assertions that she knew nothing as to any letters in the possession of Truscott. That morning, as you may remember, I mentioned before you the name of the place where he was to be found, and when, as I thought, I saw her with him, it certainly appeared to me possible that after the dread Miss Hawtrey expressed of appearing in a public court to prosecute him, she might, in a moment of weakness, have gone off to see the man, to warn him of the consequences that would ensue if he continued to persecute her, and to tell him that unless he moved he would in a few hours be in custody. I thought such an action altogether foreign to her nature, but I own that it never for a moment occurred to me to doubt the evidence of my own eyes, especially as the person was dressed exactly as your daughter had been when I saw her that morning. That the person I saw was not her I am now quite ready to admit. In that case it is morally certain that the person who took away those jewels was also not her; and this strengthens the idea I had before conceived, and which seemed, as I told you, a most improbable one, namely, that there is another person who so closely resembles your daughter that she might be mistaken for her, and, if so, this person is acting with the man Truscott. Should this conjecture be the true one it explains what has hitherto been so mysterious. The letters were designed to injure your daughter in public estimation, and to prepare the way for this extraordinary robbery, which would enrich Truscott as well as gratify his revenge. What do you think, Mr. Hawtrey?'
'The idea is too new for me to grasp it altogether, Ned. Until now there seemed no possible explanation of the mystery. This, certainly, strange and improbable as it is, does afford a solution.'
'Well, father, I will leave you to talk it over,' Dorothy said, rising again, 'unless Captain Hampton has seen me anywhere else and wishes to question me about that also. And I think, father, that it will be much better in future to put the matter altogether into the hands of a lawyer; it would be his business to do his best for me whether he thought me innocent or guilty. At any rate, it is more pleasant to be suspected by people you know nothing about, than by those you thought were your friends.' Then without waiting for an answer she swept from the room.
'No use stopping her now,' her father said, shrugging his shoulders; 'it is not often that I have known Dorothy fairly out of temper from the time she was a child, but when she is it is better to let her cool down and come round of herself.'
'It will be a long time before she comes round as far as I am concerned,' Captain Hampton said. 'I am not surprised that she should be indignant that I should have suspected her for a moment, but I don't see how I could have helped it. I saw her, or someone as much like her as if it was herself in a looking-glass, talking to this man Truscott, the very day when we had for the first time found out where we were likely to lay hands on him. What could anyone suppose? I did not think for a moment that she had done anything really wrong, or even, after what she had said, that he could hold letters of any importance; but she had evidently so great a dread of publicity that, as I say, it did strike me she had gone to meet him in order to warn him, and perhaps to get back any trumpery letters he might have had, stolen from her or from some one else. I did think this up to the time when you told me of this affair at the jeweller's. That seemed so utterly and wholly impossible that I became convinced there must be some entirely different solution, if we could but hit upon it, and the only idea that occurred to me was that of there being some one else exactly like her, and that this person, whoever she is, has been used by Truscott both to injure your daughter and to obtain plunder.'
'I don't see how you could have helped suspecting as you did, when you saw Truscott speaking with some one whom you did not doubt being Dorothy. Had I been in your place and witnessed that meeting, it seems to me that I must have doubted her myself. Though I am her father, I own that I did doubt her for a moment this morning when I heard the story at Gilliat's; but let us leave that alone for a moment, Ned; the pressing question is, what am I to do?'
'I will give no opinion,' Captain Hampton said firmly; 'that must be a question for you and Miss Hawtrey to decide. If my conjecture is right, and this man, Truscott, and some woman closely resembling your daughter are working to obtain plunder on the strength of that likeness, you may be sure that this successfulcoupthey have made will only be the first of a series. On the other hand, you have not a shadow of evidence to adduce against Gilliat's claim; there is simply her assertion against that of two or three other people, and if he sues you, as, of course, he will if you do not pay, it seems to me certain that a jury would give the verdict against you—unless, of course, we can put this other woman and Truscott into the dock. Should such a verdict be given, although some might have their doubts as to this extraordinary story, the public in general would conclude that Miss Hawtrey was a thief and a liar. There is no doubt that your daughter's advice is the one to be followed, and if I were you I would go to Charles Levine, the first thing in the morning, lay the whole case before him, and put yourself in his hands.'
'I will do so, Ned. Should I mention to him that you saw her, as you thought, with Truscott?'
'That must be as you think fit, sir. I don't think I should do so unless it were absolutely necessary. He does not know your daughter as we do, and would infallibly put the worst construction upon it. I should confine myself to the story of the letters and the jewels, stating that you believe there is a connection between them, and that, as you implicitly believe Miss Hawtrey's word, the only conclusion you can possibly come to is that the person who visited Gilliat's was some adventuress bearing a strong resemblance to her, and trading on that resemblance.'
'But how about the dress, Ned?'
'If it was, as I take it, a preconceived plot, carefully prepared, one can readily conceive that Miss Hawtrey's movements had been watched and that a dress and bonnet closely resembling hers had been got in readiness.'
'It is an ugly business, Ned,' Mr. Hawtrey said, irritably. 'You and I believe Dorothy to be innocent, but the more one looks at it the more one sees how difficult it will be to persuade other people that she is so. However, I will see Levine in the morning. He has had more difficult cases in his hands than any man living.'