"No, my children," Alice replied. It was two days later. They were sympathetic children; they would feel for one. "I am not afraid to tell you what troubles me day and night. I am not afraid, but I am ashamed."
"You need not be ashamed," said Molly, stoutly. "Whatever you did must have been well done."
Alice sighed. "I wish I could think so. Sit down, one on each side of me, and I will tell you. Take my hand, Molly dear."
She was lying on a couch. In these days she was troubled with her heart, and lay down a good deal. So lying, with closed eyes, she had the courage to tell her story—the whole of it—suppressing nothing: the terrible sale of her child. She told them all.
"My child was taken away," she concluded. "It was the choice of that for him, or the workhouse. My people would do nothing for me. Partly they were poor—you know them, Molly—and some of them were Methodists, and serious. So I thought of the child's welfare; and I thought I should find my husband with the money, and so—and so——"
"You let him go." Molly finished the sentence.
"I have never known a day's peace since—never a day nor a night without self-reproach. We've prospered—oh, how we've prospered! everything we touch turns to gold! And not a single day of happiness has ever dawned for me, because I meet the reproachful eyes of my boy everywhere!"
"But you gave him to a lady who would treat him well."
"The doctor promised for her. But how am I to know that she has treated him well? If I could only find out where he is! And then came that dream!"
"What dream?"
"It came three times, by which I know that it is a true dream. Three times! Each time as vivid and plain as I see you two. I was sick; I thought I was dying, but I wasn't. And I know, now, that I shall not die without seeing my boy. That I know because, in the dream, some one, I don't know who, pointed to England, and said, 'Go over now—this very year—this fall, and you shall find your boy. If you wait longer, you will never find him.' That was a strange dream to come three times running, wasn't it?"
"Strange. Yes; a very strange dream."
"So we came. John will do anything I ask him. We shall lose—I don't know how much—by coming away. But he came with me. We've been here three weeks. Now listen. First, I found out, by accident, the doctor who took my child away. To be sure, he says he knows nothing more about him, but it is a first step; and now I've found my husband's second son,—that is a second step. And both byaccident, that is, both providential. What shall I find next?"
"I think," said Molly, with profound sagacity, "that you should give Dick a free hand, and tell him to search about. You don't know how wise Dick is. He gets his wisdom by tramping at night. Let him think for you, dear. You want some one to think for you."
Mrs. Haveril turned to Dick. "Can you help me, Dick?"
He rose slowly, and began to walk about the room. "Can I? Well, I could try. But I confess the thing seems difficult. It's a new line for me, the detective line. Four and twenty years ago. We don't know who took the child—where she took the child; whether it is still living; whether the lady who took it is living. We want to find the clue."
"Dick," said Molly, "if we had a clue, we shouldn't want your assistance. Find one for us."
He sat down at the piano. "Ideas come this way often." He played a few chords and got up. "Not this morning. Well, let us see. The doctor says he doesn't know. If he doesn't, who can? Who else was there? An Indian ayah. Where is that woman? No mark on the child? No. Nothing put up with the clothes? A rattle. Ah! People don't keep rattles. And a paper with his Christian name. People don't keep such papers. And so the child disappears. How shall we find him after all these years? Have you anything to suggest? Do you suspect anybody in the whole wide world?"
"No. There's only the young man I met at thedoctor's. He's so wonderfully like your father, and like you, too. But they say he's the son of some great man. He's bigger than you, Dick. Your mother was a little woman, I should say."
"She was slight, like most American women."
"This young man is tall. Your father was a personable man; and he's big—much like my family. Dick, when I first saw him, my heart went out to him. I thought, 'Oh, my boy must be like you, tall and handsome!'"
"Would it not be better, dear lady, to make up your mind to forget the whole thing? Consider, it is so long ago."
"I would if I could. But I can't. No, Dick, I can never forget it."
"Force yourself to think about something else. It seems so desperately hopeless."
She shook her head. "When you play, my thoughts go out after him, whether I will or not. I am sitting with my son somewhere, or walking with him, or talking with him. I dream of him at night. Perhaps he is dead—because I dream of him so much. But I cannot think of him as dead. Oh, Dick, if you could find my son for me!"
"My dear lady, I will do what I can."
"You must think," said Molly, "morning, noon, and night, about nothing else. Consult your violin; you may whisper it into the piano-case."
"Yes, yes—meantime. It's no use going to see the doctor. He says he doesn't know. But if he called upon the woman at her hotel, he must have inquired for her by name."
"He did not. She came to him."
"Her own child was dead. Did she come to the place before the child died, or after?"
"I cannot tell you."
"Who else was concerned? Let us consider. An Indian ayah. Now, one doesn't bury a child and adopt another child without other people knowing it. You can't do it—servants must know. Perhaps the child was substituted. That has been done, I believe. But servants must know the secret. Then there are the undertakers who buried the child; the place where it is buried. If we knew the name of the child, I believe it would be easy, after all, to trace it. Then there is the place where the child died; it isn't often that a child dies in a hotel. There are the doctors who attended the child—they might remember the case. If we only knew the name of the child! Without that, we are powerless."
"I told you, Dick," said Molly, "that we want you to find the clue. If we knew the name of the child, we could go on quite easily without you."
"Very likely," he continued.
"There was no concealment; it was an open adoption known to everybody concerned, who were only three people."
"Then, why did the lady conceal her name?"
"She was probably anxious that the child should not know his relations at all. Perhaps, Dick, if you were to go away and think for a bit," Molly insisted.
"Oh yes; presently! Meantime there is one very simple way. Will you spend some money?"
"John will let you spend as much as you please."
"Very well, then." He sat down and took pen and paper. "The most simple way is to advertise. Let the world know what you want. Offer a reward. Same as for a lost dog. What do you think of this?—
"'Whereas, in the month of February, 1874, a child was adopted by a lady unknown in the city of Birmingham, the mother of the child will be most grateful to the lady who adopted it, if she will send her name and address to—' What shall we say? 'R. W., care of the hall porter, Dumfries Flats.'
"'Whereas, in the month of February, 1874, a child was adopted by a lady unknown in the city of Birmingham, the mother of the child will be most grateful to the lady who adopted it, if she will send her name and address to—' What shall we say? 'R. W., care of the hall porter, Dumfries Flats.'
I will receive the letters."
"But the reward?"
"I am coming to that, Molly.
"'In case of the lady's death, a reward of £100 will be paid for such information as will enable the child, now a young man of twenty-six, if he is living, to be identified. Nothing will be given for any information except such as is capable of proof. No persons will be received, and no verbal communications will be heard.'
"'In case of the lady's death, a reward of £100 will be paid for such information as will enable the child, now a young man of twenty-six, if he is living, to be identified. Nothing will be given for any information except such as is capable of proof. No persons will be received, and no verbal communications will be heard.'
There, Molly, what do you think of that?"
It might have been observed that neither then, nor afterwards, did Richard consult Mrs. Haveril. He took the conduct of the case into his own hands and Molly's.
"Dick! I knew you were awfully clever. I think it a splendid way!"
As if such a thing as an advertisement was entirely novel and previously unknown.
"Yes," said Dick, contemplating the document with pride, "I flatter myself that it is a good idea. Looks well on paper, doesn't it?" He held it at arm's length to catch the noontide sun. "'Whereas'—there'sa legal 'note,' as they say, about it. Well, now, Molly, let us see how this will work. If the adoption was real, somebody must know of it—whether the lady is living or dead. Then we shall get a reply in a day or two——"
"In a day or two! Alice! Think of that!"
"If it was a substitution, we shall get no reply from the lady; but then, we may expect that other people know about it—servants and such. Then the reward comes in."
"Oh, isn't he clever, Alice? In a week—at least—you shall have your boy."
"Now I go," Dick concluded, with one more admiring glance at the paper before he folded it up, "and put the advertisement in the leading papers all over the country, and keep it going for a week, unless we hear something. Let us live in hope meantime."
Sir Robert read the advertisement over his breakfast. "Ah!" he said. "She has found an adviser; she means business; she will spend money. What is the good? She can just prove nothing. I am the master of the situation."
Yet there remained an uneasiness. For, although he was the master of the situation, it might be at the cost of declaring—or swearing in a court—that he still knew nothing as to the name and position and residence of the lady.
Lady Woodroffe read the advertisement as well. One of her secretaries pointed it out to her as an interesting item in the day's news. She read it; she held the paper before her face to hide a guilty pallor;her heart sank low: the dreadful thing was already in the papers. Soon, perhaps, it would appear again, with her name attached to it.
Next morning a letter was received by the advertiser. It enclosed the advertisement, cut out of a paper, with these words, "You need not advertise any more. The child has been dead for twenty years."
"Now"—Richard read the letter twice before he began to think about it—"what does this mean? If it was adoption, why not come forward? If it was substitution, then the child may be dead or he may not. I don't think he is, for my part. I believe it is a try-on to make us give over. We shall not give over, dear madam."
He continued the advertisement, therefore, for another week. Yet there came no more letters and no discovery.
"Oh, Dick, and I have been waiting day after day!"
"We must change the advertisement. The anonymous letter proves pretty clearly that there is reason for concealment. Else, why did not the writer sign her name? It was in a lady's handwriting—not a servant's. The adoption, therefore, to put it kindly, was not generally known. Let us alter the advertisement. We will now put in a few more details. We will leave the mother out; and we will no longer address the lady."
In consequence of this resolution, the following advertisement appeared next day:—
"Whereas, in the month of February, 1874, in the city of Birmingham, a child, adopted by a lady to take the place of her own, recently dead, was taken to the railway station; wasthere delivered to the lady and carried to London;—a reward of TWO THOUSAND GUINEAS will be given to any person who will give such information as may lead to the discovery and identity of the child. Nothing will be given for proffered information which does not lead to such discovery and identity. No advance will be made for expenses of travelling, or any other expenses. And no person will be received who offers verbal information. Address, by writing only, to R. W., care of the Hall porter, Dumfries Flats."
"Whereas, in the month of February, 1874, in the city of Birmingham, a child, adopted by a lady to take the place of her own, recently dead, was taken to the railway station; wasthere delivered to the lady and carried to London;—a reward of TWO THOUSAND GUINEAS will be given to any person who will give such information as may lead to the discovery and identity of the child. Nothing will be given for proffered information which does not lead to such discovery and identity. No advance will be made for expenses of travelling, or any other expenses. And no person will be received who offers verbal information. Address, by writing only, to R. W., care of the Hall porter, Dumfries Flats."
I dare say that many of my readers will remember the interest—nay, the racket—created by the appearance of this strange series of advertisements, which were never explained. The mystery is still referred to as an illustration of romance in upper circles. Some of the American papers quoted it as another proof of the profligacy of an aristocracy, concluding that it was the substitution of a gutter child for the Scion of a Baronial Stock.
This time there were shoals of answers. They came by hundreds; they came from all parts of the country. One would think that adoption by purchase was a recognized form of creating heirs to an estate. One railway porter wrote from Birmingham, stating that he remembered the affair perfectly well, because the lady gave him sixpence; that he saw the lady into the carriage, carrying the baby, which was dressed in white clothes with a woollen thing over its face; that on receipt of travelling money, and a trifle of £5 on account, he would run up to London and identify the baby. Another person conveyed the startling intelligence that she herself was the mother of the child; that she could tell by whom it was adopted. "My child," she said, "is now a belted earl.But my conscience upbraids me. Better a crust with the reward, than the pricks of a guilty conscience."
A third wrote with the warmth of a man of the world. Did the advertiser believe that he was such a juggins as to give away the story without making sure of the reward? If so—— But the writer preferred to think that he was dealing with a man of honour as well as a man of business—therefore he would propose a sure and certain plan. There must be in delicate affairs a certain amount of confidence on both sides. The writer knew the whole history, which was curious and valuable, and concerned certain noble houses; he had the proofs in his hands: he was prepared to send up the story, with the proofs, which nobody could question after once reading them, by return of post. But there must be some show of confidence on both sides. For himself, he was ready to confide in their promise to pay the reward. Let them confide to some extent in him. A mere trifle would do—the twentieth part of the reward—say a hundred pounds. Let the advertiser send this sum to him in registered letter, care of the Dog and Duck, Aston Terrace, Birmingham, in ten-pound notes, and by return post would follow the proofs.
Or if, as might happen—the writer thought it best in such matters to be extremely prudent—the advertiser did not trust this plan, he had a brother in a respectable way in a coffee-house and lodgings for single men, Kingsland Road. Let the money be deposited in his hands, to be held until the proofs and vouchers had been received. Nothing could be fairer than the proposal.
And so on. And so on. Richard greatly enjoyed these letters. Human faces, he said, may differ; legs are long or short; eyes are straight or skew; but the human mind, when two thousand pounds are involved, is apparently always the same. Meantime, which was disappointing, he was not a bit advanced in his inquiry.
Sir Robert read this advertisement as well. "She is well advised," he said. "She's going the right way to work. They calculate that servants know, and they offer a big reward. If that doesn't fetch them, there'll be a bigger. But it's no good—it's no good. Nobody knows what I know."
He thought it best, however, to reassure Lady Woodroffe.
"I hoped," he said, "that we should have no further occasion to speak about a certain transaction. I suppose, however, that you have heard of certain advertisements?"
"I have. Do you think——?"
"I do not think. Nay, I am certain. Lady Woodroffe, remember that there is only one person who knows the two women engaged in that transaction. I stood between them. I am not going to bring them together unless you desire me to do so. I came to say this, in case you should be in the least degree uneasy."
"Thank you, Sir Robert," she answered humbly. She trusted in that square-jawed, beetle-browed man; yet she was humiliated. "I certainly confide in you."
He got up. "Then I will waste your time nolonger. You are always at work—I see and read and hear—always at work—good works—good works."
Her lips parted, but she was silent. Did he mean a reflection on the one work that had not been quite so good? But he was gone.
The advertisement was repeated in all the papers. England, Scotland, Ireland, the Colonies, knew about this adoption, and the anxiety of the mother to recover her son.
At this stage of the investigation, the subject began to be generally talked about. The newspapers had leading articles on the general subject of adoption. It was an opportunity for the display of classical scholarship; of mediæval scholarship; of historical scholarship; cases of pretence, of substitution, are not uncommon. There are noble houses about which things are whispered—things which must not be bruited abroad. The subject of adoption, open or concealed, proved fertile and fruitful to the leader-writer. One man, for instance, projected himself in imagination into the situation, and speculated on the effect which would be produced on a young man of culture and fine feeling, of finding out, at five and twenty, that he belonged to quite another family, with quite another set of traditions, prejudices, and ideas. Thus a young man born in the purple, or near it; brought up in great respect for birth, connections, and family history, with a strong prejudice in favour of an aristocratic caste; suddenly discovers that his people belong to the lowest grade of those who can call themselves of the middle class, and that he has no kind of connection with the folk to whom he hasalways believed himself attached. What would be the effect upon an educated and a sensitive mind? What would be the effect upon his affections? How would he regard his new mother—probably a vulgar old woman—or his new brothers and sisters—probably preposterous in their vulgarity? What effect would the discovery have upon his views of life? What upon his politics? What upon his opinions as to small trade, and the mean and undignified and sordid employments by which the bulk of mankind have to live?
At dinner-tables people talked about this mysterious adoption. What could it mean? Why did not the lady come forward? Was it, as some of the papers argued, clearly a case of fraudulent substitution? If not, why did she not come forward? She was dead, perhaps. If so, why did not some one else come forward? If, however, it really was a case of substitution, then the position was intelligible. For instance, the case quoted the day before yesterday by theDaily News; that was, surely, a similar case. And so on; all the speakers wise with the knowledge derived from yesterday's paper. Are we sufficiently grateful to our daily papers and our leader-writers, for providing us with subjects of conversation?
The subject was handled with great vigour one night at Lady Woodroffe's own table. Sir Robert was present; he argued, with ability, that there was no reason to suppose any deception at all; that in his view, the lady had adopted the child, and had resolved to bring up the child in complete ignorance of its relatives, who were presumably of the lowliersort; that she had seen no reason to take her servants into her confidence, or her friends; and that she now saw no reason to let the young man learn who his real relations were. And he drew a really admirable sketch of the disgust with which the young man would receive his new cousins. Lady Woodroffe, while this agreeable discussion was continued, sat at the head of her table, calm, pale, and collected.
Then there appeared a third advertisement. It was just like the second, except that it now raised the reward to ten thousand guineas. It also included the fact that the child had been received at the Birmingham station by an Indian ayah.
This advertisement caused searchings of heart in all houses where there had been at any time an Indian ayah. The suggestion in every one of these houses was that a child had died, and another had been substituted. The matter was discussed in the servants' hall at Lady Woodroffe's. The butler had been in service with Sir Humphrey and his household for thirty years.
"I came home," he said, "from India with Sir Humphrey. We came to this house. My lady and theayah—she that died six or seven years ago—were already here with the child—now Sir Humphrey."
"Did you know the child again?"
"Know the child? I'd know Sir Humphrey's child anywhere. Why, I saw him every day till he was six months old. A lovely child he was, with his light hair and his blue eyes."
"Did my lady come from Birmingham?"
"What would my lady be doing at Birmingham?She came straight through from Scotland from her noble pa, Lord Dunedin. The ayah told us so."
The page, who was listening, resigned, with a sigh, the prospect of getting that reward of ten thousand guineas.
Lady Woodroffe, upstairs, read the third advertisement, and grew faint and sick with fear.
Sir Robert read the advertisement. "Very good," he said. "Very good indeed. But if there had been any one who knew anything at all, there would have been an answer to the offer of two thousand pounds. Let them offer a million, if they like."
"Dick," said Molly, "it seemed very clever at first. But, you see, nothing has come of it."
"On the contrary, something has come of it. Mind you, the whole world is talking about the case. If it was a genuine adoption, the unknown woman would certainly have come forward."
"Why?"
"Because there could be no reason for concealment. As it is, she remains silent. Why? Because there has been substitution instead of adoption. She has put forward another baby in the place and in the name of the dead child."
"How can you prove that?"
"I don't know, Molly. I believe I have missed my vocation. I am a sleuth-hound. Give me a clue; put me on the scent, and let me rip."
His face hardened; his features grew sharper; his eyes keener; he bent his neck forward; he was nolonger the musician; he was the bloodhound looking for the scent. The acting instinct in him made him while he spoke adapt his face and his expression to the new part he played. To look the part is, if you consider, essential.
The advertisements produced no answer except from persons hoping to make money by the case—such as the railway porter, who could swear to the baby, the lady who was really the mother, or the detective who wanted a good long-staying job. There seemed no hope or help from the advertisement. Well, then, what next?
By this time Richard Woodroffe, though never before engaged upon this kind of business, found himself so much interested in the subject that he could think of nothing else. He occupied himself with putting the case into a statement, which he kept altering. He carried himself back in imagination to the transference of the baby; he saw the doctor taking it from the mother and giving it to an ayah in the railway station. And there he stopped.
His friend Sir Robert was the doctor—his friend Sir Robert, who knew all the theatrical and show folk, as well as the royal princes and the dukes and illustrious folk. Well, he knew this physician well enough to be certain that a secret was as safe behind those steady, deep-set eyes as with any father confessor. That square chin did not belong to a garruloustemper, that big brain was a treasury of family secrets; he knew where all the skeletons were kept; this was only one of a thousand secrets; his patients told him everything—that was, of course, because he was a specialist in nervous disorders, which have a good deal to do with family and personal secrets. Fortunately, personal secrets are not family secrets.
There is a deep-seated prejudice against the upper ten thousand in the matter of family secrets. They are supposed to possess a large number of these awkward chronicles, and they are all supposed to be scandals. Aristocratic circles are supposed to be very much exposed to the danger of catching a family secret, a disease which is contagious, and is passed on from one family to another with surprising readiness. They are supposed also to be continually engaged in hushing up, hiding away, sending accomplices and servants cognizant of certain transactions to America and the Antipodes, even dropping them into dungeons. They are believed to be always trying to forget the last scandal but one, while they are destroying the proofs of the last scandal. For my own part, while admitting the contagion of the disorder, I would submit that an earl is no more liable to it than an alderman, a baron no more than a butcher. Middle-class families are always either going up or going down. With those which are going up there is an immense quantity of things to be forgotten. We wipe out with a sponge a deplorable great-aunt, we look the other way when we pass her grave; we agree to forget a whole family of cousins; we do not wish ourselves to beremembered more than, say, thirty years back; we desire that no inquiry, other than general, shall be made into our origins. In a word—if we may compress so great a discovery in a single sentence—the middle class—the great middle class—backbone, legs, brain, and tongue, as we all know, of the country—the class to which we all, or nearly all, belong—is really the home and haunt of the family secret.
This secret, however, was not in the ordinary run—not those which excitable actresses pour into the ears of physicians. Moreover, if the theory was true, it was a secret, Richard reflected, as much of the doctor's as of the lady's. And, again, since adoption became substitution, although the young doctor may have assisted in the former, the old doctor might not be anxious for the story to get about now that it meant the latter.
Here, however, were the facts as related by Alice herself.
An unknown lady, according to the doctor's statement, called upon him and stated that she was anxious to adopt a child in place of her own, which she had just lost by death.
This was early in February, 1874.
The lady stated further that she wanted a child about fifteen months of age, light-haired, blue-eyed.
(The child she adopted was thirteen months of age.)
(Did the child die in Birmingham? As the lady was apparently passing through, did the child die at a hotel?)
Dr. Steele called upon Alice, then in great povertyand distress, and asked her if she would let the child be adopted, or whether she would suffer it to go into the workhouse. She chose the former alternative, and accepted the sum of fifty pounds for her child.
The money was paid in five-pound notes. She did not know the numbers.
There were no marks on the child by which he might be identified.
On the child's clothes, before giving him up, the mother pinned a paper, giving his Christian name—Humphrey.
He was the son of Anthony Woodroffe. In the Woodroffe family there was always a Humphrey.
Nothing else, nothing else—no clue, no suggestion, or hint, or opening anywhere, except resemblance. The strange likeness of this young man Humphrey to himself haunted Dick; he looked at himself in the glass. Any one could see that his features, his hair, his eyes, were those of Humphrey. Differences there were—in stature, in expression, in carriage. Dick was as elastic and springy as the other was measured and slow of gait. As for that other resemblance, said by Alice to be even more marked—that between Humphrey and Anthony Woodroffe, the actor, John Anthony—it was even more remarkable. These resemblances one may look for in sons and in brothers, but not in cousins separated by five hundred years. Another point which he kept to himself was the resemblance which he found in Humphrey to Alice, his mother by theory. It was not the same kind of resemblance as the other—features, face, head, all were different; it was that resemblance whichreminds—a resemblance not defined in words, but unmistakable. And all day long and all night Dick saw this resemblance.
He put down the points—
He went to the British Museum and consulted "Debrett." He took the trouble to go there because he did not possess the volume, and none of his friends had ever heard of it. There he read, as the doctor had read a few weeks before, that the present holder of the Woodroffe baronetcy was Humphrey Arundale, second baronet, son of the late Sir Humphrey, etc., born on December the 2nd, 1872.
There was nothing much to be got out of that little paragraph. But, as Dick read it again and again, the letters began to shift themselves. It is astonishing how letters can, by a little shifting, convey a very different meaning. This is what he read now—
"Woodroffe, Humphrey, falsely calling himself second baronet, and son of the late Sir Humphrey, really son of one John Anthony Woodroffe, distantcousin of Sir Humphrey, vocalist, comedian, and vagabond, by Alice, daughter of Tom, Dick, or Harry Pennefather, engaged in small trade, of Hackney; born in 1873, sold by his mother in February, 1874, through the agency of Sir Robert Steele, M.D., F.R.S., Ex-President of the Royal College of Physicians, now of Harley Street, to Lilias, Lady Woodroffe, daughter of the Earl of Dunedin, who passed him off as her own child.
"Collateral branches—Richard, son of the late John Anthony Woodroffe, by Bethia, his second wife, after he had divorced and deserted the above mentioned Alice, October 14, 1875; unmarried, has no club, musician, singer, comedian, vagabond."
He put back the volume. "It's a very remarkable Red Book," he said; "nobody knows how they get at these facts. Now, I, for my part, don't seem able to get at the truth, however much I try; and there 'Debrett' has it in print, for all the world to read."
He then looked up the same work twelve years before. He found under the name of Woodroffe the fact that Sir Humphrey the elder retired from active service, and returned to England early in February, 1874.
"The old man came home, then," he said, "at the very time when the adoption was negotiated. At that very time. How does that bear on the case? Well, if his own child died, there was perhaps time to get another to take its place before he got home."
Now, Dick in a small way was a story-teller; he was in request by those who knew him because he told stories very well, and also because he toldvery few, and would only work when he could capture an idea, and when a story came of its own accord; he was the author of one or two comediettas; further, he had been on the stage, and had played many parts. From this variegated experience he understood the value of drawing your conclusion first, and putting together your proofs afterwards: perhaps the proofs might fail to arrive; but the conclusion would remain. Geometry wants to build up proofs and arrive at a conclusion which one would not otherwise guess. Who could possibly imagine that the square on the side opposite the right angle is equal to the sum of the squares on the sides containing the right angle? Not even the sharpest woman ever created would arrive at such a conclusion without proofs. In law also, chiefly because men are mostly liars, exact proof is demanded—proof arrived at by painfully picking the truth out of the lies. This young man, for his part, partly because he was a story-teller and a dramatist, partly because he was a musician, found it the best and readiest method to jump at the truth first, and to prove it afterwards. He arrived at this conclusion, which perfectly satisfied him, without any reason, like a kangaroo, by a jump. In fact, he took two jumps.
It is always a great help in cases requiring thought and argument and construction—because every good case is like a story in requiring construction—to consult the feminine mind; if you are interested in the owner, or tenant, of a certain mind, it makes the consultation all the better. Richard Woodroffe consulted Molly every day. By talking over thecase again and again, and by looking at it in company, one becomes more critical and at the same time clearer in one's views. There were, as you know, many reasons why Richard should consult this young lady, apart from her undoubted intelligence.
"Why, Molly," he asked—"why—I put it to your feminine perceptions—why was this good lady so profoundly moved by the mere sight of the fellow? She wasn't moved by the sight of me. Yet I am exactly like him, I believe. It was at the theatre. She was in a private box; he was one of a line of Johnnies in the stalls. She was so much affected that she had to leave the house. She met him again at Steele's dinner. She was affected in the same way. Why? She is presumed never to have seen the fellow before; she certainly has not seen him for twenty-four years. Why, I ask, was she so much affected? She tells me that the sight of him always affects her in exactly the same way—with the same mysterious yearning and longing and with a sadness indescribable.
"Wait a minute. Hear me out. Is it his resemblance to a certain man—her first husband? But again, I am like him, and she does not yearn after me a bit. What can it be except an unknown sense—the maternal instinct—which is awakened in her? What is it but his own identity, which she alone can understand—with her child?"
"Dick," said Molly, "it's a tremendous jump. Yet, of course——"
"Of course. I knew you would agree with me. The intuitions—the conclusions—the insight of womenare beyond everything. Molly, it is a blessed thing that you are retained in this case. The sight of you is to me a daily refresher; the look of you is a heavy fee; and the voice of you is an encouragement. Stand by me, Molly—and I will pull this half-brother of mine down from that bad eminence and ask him, when he stands beside me, with an entirely new and most distinguished company of cousins, how he feels, and what has become of his superiority. You shall introduce him to the pew-opener, and I will present him to the draper."
Again, there was the second jump. "I ask you that, Molly. Do you imagine that the doctor is really and truly as ignorant as he would have us believe, of the lady's name? He knows Lady Woodroffe; he asks her son to dinner. To be sure, he knows half the world. If he attended the dead child, of course he would have known her name. But I suppose he did not. If so, since the lady came to him immediately after the death, he might have consulted the registers, to find what children of that age had died during a certain week in Birmingham—if the child did die there, of which we are not certain. Even in a great city like Birmingham there are not many children of that age dying every day; very few dying in hotels; and very few children indeed belonging to visitors and strangers. Molly mine—if the doctor did not know, the doctor might have known. Is that so? Deny it if you can."
"I suppose so, Dick, though really I don't see what you are driving at."
"Very well, then. We go on. Why did the doctorgo out of his way to invite Humphrey to meet his true mother? Now, I know Dr. Steele. He's an awfully good fellow—charitable and good-natured; he'll do anything for a man; but he's a man of science, and he's always watching and thinking and putting things together. I've heard him talk about heredity, and what a man gets from his ancestors. Now, I'm quite certain, Molly—without any proof—I don't want any proof. Hang your hard-and-fast matter-of-fact evidence! I am quite certain, I say, that Steele invited Humphrey and his mother and myself in order to look at us all and watch differences and likenesses. You see, the case may be a beautiful illustration of hereditary qualities. Here is a young man separated from his own people from infancy. There can be no imitation; and now, after twenty years and more, the man of science can contemplate the son, brought up in a most aristocratic and superior atmosphere; the mother, who has always remained in much the same condition except for money; and another son, who has been brought up like his father, a vagabond and a wanderer—with a fiddle. It was a lovely chance for him. I saw him looking at us all dinner-time; in the evening, when I was playing, I saw him, under his bushy eyebrows, looking from Humphrey to his mother. I wondered why. Now I know. The doctor, Molly, is an accomplice."
"An accomplice! Oh! And a man in that position!"
"An accomplice after the act, not before it. My theory is this: Dr. Steele met the lady after he came to town. How he managed to raise himself fromthe cheap general practitioner to a leading London physician, one doesn't know. It's like stepping from thirty shillings a week to being a star at fifty pounds; no one knows how it's done. Do you think Lady Woodroffe was useful in talking about him? If I wrote a story, I should make the doctor dog the lady's footsteps and coerce her into advancing him. But this isn't a story. However, I take it that he met her, recognized her, and that they agreed that nothing was to be said about this little transaction of the past. Then, of course, when Alice turned up unexpectedly, and asked where the child was to be seen, there was nothing to do except to hold up his hands and protest that he knew nothing about the child."
"But all this is guess-work, Dick."
"Yes. I am afraid we have nothing before us but guess-work. Unless we get some facts to go upon. Look here. A woman is standing on one side of a high wall; another woman is on the other side of the wall. There is a door in the wall; Sir Robert keeps the key of that door in his pocket. There is only one key, and he has it. Unless he consents to unlock the door, those two women can never meet. And so my half-brother will remain upon his eminence."
They fell into a gloomy silence.
Dick broke it. "Molly, what about our good friend, the mother of this interesting changeling?"
"She is strangely comforted by the reflection that the matter is in your hands. Dick, you have found favour in her sight and in her husband's."
"Good, so far."
"And she is firmly persuaded that you will bring the truth to light. She still clings to her dream, you know."
"Does she talk about Humphrey? Was she taken with him?"
"She says little. She lies down and shuts her eyes. Then she is thinking of him. She likes me to play, so that she may think about him. When we drive out, I am sure she is looking for him in the crowd. If he were to call, she would tell him everything. And I am certain that she dreams of heaping upon him all that a young man can possibly desire as soon as she gets him back."
"I hope the poor soul will not meet with disappointment. But I fear, Molly—I fear." He relapsed into his gloomy silence. "I hold the two ends of the chain in my hands, but I cannot connect the ends. I might go to Steele and show him what I suspect. He would only laugh at me. He laughs like the Sphynx, sometimes. If I went to Lady Woodroffe, I should be handed over to her solicitors, and by them conducted to the High Court of Justice; I should hear plain speaking from the Judge on the subject of defamation of character. Everybody would believe that I was a black-mailer. I should be called upon to pay large sums of money as damages; and I should have to go through the Court of Bankruptcy."
The mind of this inquirer had never before been exercised upon any matter more knotty than the presentation of a simple plot, or the difficulty ofgetting people off the stage. Sometimes, in moments of depression, he even doubted his own conclusions—a condition of mind fatal to all discovery, because it is quite certain that the eye of faith first perceives what the slow piecing together of facts afterwards proves. You must perceive the truth, somehow, first before you can prove it. Perhaps it is not the truth which is at first discerned. In that case, the seeker after truth has at least an imaginary object by which to direct his steps. It may lead him wrong; on the other hand, it may help him to recover the clue which will lead him straight to the heart of things. In a word, one wants a theory to assist all research in things of science or in things of practice.
"Dick," said Molly, "about those registers."
"What about them?"
"Why, that the doctor might have found the name of the child by simply looking into the registers."
"If the child, that is to say, died in Birmingham."
"Yes—if it died in Birmingham. Well, then, Dick—if the doctor could search those registers——" She stopped for a moment. They always do it on the stage, to heighten the effect.
"Well, Molly?"
"Why can't you?"
Dick sat down suddenly, knocked over by the shock of this suggestion.
"Good Heavens, Molly! Oh the depth and the height and the spring and the leap of woman's wit! Why can't I? why can't I? Molly, I am a log, and a lump, and a lout. I deserve that you should takemy half-brother. No—not that! Good-bye, good-bye, incomparable shepherdess!" He raised her hand and kissed it. "I fly—I hasten—on the wings of the wind—to Birmingham—the city of Hidden Truth—to read the Revelations of the Register."
Hilarie sat alone in the deep recesses of the western porch of the old church. Although it was November, this sheltered porch was still warm; the swallows that make the summer, and their friends the swifts, were gone; the leaves which still clung to the trees were red and brown and yellow; the grass which clothed the graves no longer waved under the breeze with light and shade and sunshine; none of the old bedesmen were walking the churchyard; even the children in the school were silent over their work, as if singing only belonged to summer; and the wind whistled mournfully in the branches of the yew. Her face, always so calm and restful to others, was troubled and disturbed as she sat by herself.
She held two letters in her hand. One of them was open. She had already read it twice; now she read it a third time. It was from Molly, and it ran as follows:—