“It does that, sor, an’ nivir more than claned twice by Rafferty since me own father (rest his soul!) lift ut here. ’Tis no bad clock, as Mr. Rewse himsilf said oft an’ again; an’ I always kape ut by the Town Hall toime. But as I was sayin’, Mr. Main came back an’ gave me the toime; thin he wint sthraight to his house, an’ no more av him I saw till may be half afther three.”
“And then?”
“An’ thin, sor, he came across in a sad takin’, wid a letther. ‘Take ut,’ sez he, ‘an’ have ut posted at Cullanin by the first that can get there. Mr. Rewse has the sickness on him awful bad,’ he sez, ‘an’ ye must not be near the place or ye’ll take ut. I have him to bed, an’ his clothes I shall burn behin’ the cottage,’ sez he, ‘so if ye see smoke ye’ll know what ut is. There’ll be no docthor wanted. I’m wan mesilf, an’ I’ll do all for ’um. An’ sure I knew him for a docthor ivir since he come. ‘The cottage ye shall not come near,’ he sez, ‘till ut’s over one way or another, an’ yez can lave whativir av food an’ dhrink we want mid-betwixt the houses an’ go back, an’ I’ll come and fetch ut. But have the letther posted,’ he sez, ‘at wanst. ’Tis not contagious,’ he sez, ‘bein’ as I’ve dishinfected it mesilf. But kape yez away from the cottage.’ An’ I kept.”
“And then did he go back to the cottage at once?”
“He did that, sor, an’ a sore stew was he in to all seemin’—white as paper, and much need, too, the murtherin’ scutt! An’ him always so much the jintleman an’ all. Well, I saw no more av him that day. Next day he laves another letther wid the dirthy’ plates there mid-betwixt the houses, an’ shouts for ut to be posted. ’Twas for the poor young jintleman’s mother, sure, as was the other wan. An’ the day afther there was another letther, an’ wan for the undhertaker, too, for he tells me it’s all over, an’ he’s dead. An’ they buried him next day followin’.”
“So that from the time you went for the pail and saw Mr. Rewse writing, till after the funeral, you were never at the cottage at all?”
“Nivir, sor; an’ can ye blame me? Wid children an’ Terence himself sick wid bronchitis in this house?”
“Of course, of course, you did quite right—indeed you only obeyed orders. But now think; do you remember on any one of those three days hearing a shot, or any other unusual noise in the cottage?”
“Nivir at all, sor. ’Tis that I’ve been thryin’ to bring to mind these four days. Such may have been, but not that I heard.”
“After you went for the pail, and before Mr. Main returned to the house, did Mr. Rewse leave the cottage at all, or might he have done so?”
“He did not lave at all, to my knowledge. Sure he might have gone an’ he might have come back widout my knowin’. But see him I did not.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Hurley. I think we’ll go across to the cottage now. If any people come, will you send them after us? I suppose a policeman is there?”
“He is, sor. An’ the serjint is not far away. They’ve been in chyarge since Mr. Bowyer wint away last—but shlapin’ here.”
Hewitt and Mr. Bowyer walked towards the cottage. “Did you notice,” said Mr. Bowyer, “that the woman saw Rewse writing letters? Now what were those letters, and where are they? He has no correspondents that I know of but his mother and sister, and they heard nothing from him. Is this something else?—some other plot? There is something very deep here.”
“Yes,” Hewitt replied thoughtfully, “I think our inquiries may take us deeper than we have expected; and in the matter of those letters—yes, I think they may lie near the kernel of the mystery.”
Here they arrived at the cottage—an uncommonly substantial structure for the district. It was square, of plain, solid brick, with a slated roof. On the patch of ground behind it there were still signs of the fires wherein Main had burnt Rewse’s clothes and other belongings. And sitting on the window-sill in front was a big member of the R.I.C., soldierly and broad, who rose as they came, and saluted Mr. Bowyer.
“Good-day, constable,” Mr. Bowyer said. “I hope nothing has been disturbed?”
“Not a shtick, sor. Nobody’s as much as gone in.”
“Have any of the windows been opened or shut?” Hewitt asked.
“This wan was, sor,” the policeman said, indicating the one behind him, “when they took away the corrpse, an’ so was the next round the corrner. ’Tis the bedroom windies they are, an’ they opened thim to give ut a bit av air. The other windy behin’—sittin’-room windy—has not been opened.”
“Very well,” Hewitt answered, “we’ll take a look at that unopened window from the inside.”
The door was opened and they passed inside. There was a small lobby, and on the left of this was the bedroom with two single beds. The only other room of consequence was the sitting-room, the cottage consisting merely of these, a small scullery and a narrow closet used as a bath-room, wedged between the bedroom and the sitting-room. They made for the single window of the sitting-room at the back. It was an ordinary sash window, and was shut, but the catch was not fastened. Hewitt examined the catch, drawing Mr. Bowyer’s attention to a bright scratch on the grimy brass. “See,” he said, “that nick in the catch exactly corresponds with the narrow space between the two frames of the window. And look”—he lifted the bottom sash a little as he spoke—“there is the mark of a knife on the frame of the top sash. Somebody has come in by that window, forcing the catch with a knife.”
“Yes, yes!” cried Mr. Bowyer, greatly excited, “and he has gone out that way too, else why is the window shut and the catch not fastened? Why should he do that? What in the world does this thing mean?”
Before Hewitt could reply the constable put his head into the room and announced that one Larry Shanahan was at the door, and had been promised half a sovereign.
“One of the men who heard a shot,” Hewitt said to Mr. Bowyer. “Bring him in, constable.”
The constable brought in Larry Shanahan, and Larry Shanahan brought in a strong smell of whisky. He was an extremely ragged person, with only one eye, which caused him to hold his head aside as he regarded Hewitt, much as a parrot does. On his face sun-scorched brown and fiery red struggled for mastery, and his voice was none of the clearest. He held his hat against his stomach with one hand and with the other pulled his forelock.
“An’ which is the honourable jintleman,” he said, “as do be burrnin’ to prisint me wid a bit o’ goold?”
“Here I am,” said Hewitt, jingling money in his pocket, “and here is the half-sovereign. It’s only waiting where it is till you have answered a few questions. They say you heard a shot fired hereabout?”
“Faith, an’ that I did, sor. ’Twas a shot in this house, indade, no other.”
“And when was it?”
“Sure, ’twas in the afthernoon.”
“But on what day?”
“Last Tuesday sivin-noight, sor, as I know by rayson av Ballyshiel fair that I wint to.”
“Tell me all about it.”
“I will, sor. ’Twas pigs I was dhrivin’ that day, sor, to Ballyshiel fair from just beyond Cullanin. At Cullanin, sor, I dhropped in wid Danny Mulcahy, that intintioned thravellin’ the same way, an’ while we tuk a thrifle av a dhrink in comes Dennis Grady, that was to go to Ballyshiel similarously. An’ so we had another thrifle av a dhrink, or maybe a thrifle more, an’ we wint togedther, passin’ this way, sor, as ye may not know, bein’ likely a shtranger. Well, sor, ut was as we were just forninst this place that there came a divil av a bang that makes us shtop simultaneous. ‘What’s that?’ sez Dan. ‘’Tis a gunshot,’ sez I, ‘an’ ’tis in the brick house too.’ ‘That is so,’ sez Dennis; ‘nowhere else.’ And we lukt at wan another. ‘An’ what’ll we do?’ sez I. ‘What would yez?’ sez Dan; ‘ ’tis none av our business.’ ‘That is so,’ sez Dennis again, and we wint on. Ut was quare, maybe, but it might aisily be wan av the jintlemen emptyin’ a barr’l out o’ windy or what not. An’—an’ so—an’ so——” Mr. Shanahan scratched his ear, “an’ so—we wint.”
“And do you know at what time this was?”
Larry Shanahan ceased scratching, and seized his ear between thumb and forefinger, gazing severely at the floor with his one eye as he did so, plunged in computation. “Sure,” he said, “’twould be—’twould be—let’s see—’twould be—” he looked up, “’twould be half-past two maybe, or maybe a thrifle nearer three.”
“And Main was in the place all the time after two,” Mr. Bowyer said, bringing down his fist on his open hand. “That finishes it. We’ve nailed him to the minute.”
“Had you a watch with you?” asked Hewitt.
“Divil of a watch in the company, sor. I made an internal calculation. ’Tis foive mile from Cullanin, and we never lift till near half an hour after the Town Hall clock had struck twelve. ’Twould take us two hours and a thrifle more, considherin’ the pigs, an’ the rough road, an’ the distance, an’—an’ the thrifle of dhrink.” His eye rolled slyly as he said it. “That was my calculation, sor.”
Here the constable appeared with two more men. Each had the usual number of eyes, but in other respects they were very good copies of Mr. Shanahan. They were both ragged, and neither bore any violent likeness to a teetotaler. “Dan Mulcahy and Dennis Grady,” announced the constable.
Mr. Dan Mulcahy’s tale was of a piece with Mr. Larry Shanahan’s, and Mr. Dennis Grady’s was the same. They had all heard the shot, it was plain. What Dan had said to Dennis and what Dennis had said to Larry mattered little. Also they were all agreed that the day was Tuesday, by token of the fair. But as to the time of day there arose a disagreement.
“’Twas nigh soon afther wan o’clock,” said Dan Mulcahy.
“Soon afther wan!” exclaimed Larry Shanahan with scorn. “Soon afther your grandmother’s pig! ’Twas half afther two at laste. Ut sthruck twelve nigh half an hour before we lift Cullanin. Why, yez heard ut!”
“That I did not. Ut sthruck eleven, an’ we wint in foive minutes.”
“What fool-talk ye shpake, Dan Mulcahy. ’Twas twelve sthruck; I counted ut.”
“Thin ye counted wrong. I counted ut, an’ ’twas elivin.”
“Yez nayther av yez right,” interposed Dennis Grady. “’Twas not elivin when we lift; ’twas not, be the mother av Moses!”
“I wondher at ye, Dennis Grady; ye must have been dhrunk as a Kerry cow,” and both Mulcahy and Shanahan turned upon the obstinate Grady, and the dispute waxed clamorous till Hewitt stopped it.
“Come, come,” he said, “never mind the time then. Settle that between you after you’ve gone. Does either of you remember—not calculate, you know, but remember—the time you got to Ballyshiel?—the actual time by a clock—not a guess.”
Not one of the three had looked at a clock at Ballyshiel.
“Do you remember anything about coming home again?”
They did not. They looked furtively at one another and presently broke into a grin.
“Ah! I see how that was,” Hewitt said good-humouredly. “That’s all now, I think. Come, it’s ten shillings each, I think.” And he handed over the money. The men touched their forelocks again, stowed away the money and prepared to depart. As they went Larry Shanahan stepped mysteriously back again and said in a whisper, “Maybe the jintlemen wud like me to kiss the book on ut? An’ as to the toime—”
“Oh, no, thank you,” Hewitt laughed. “We take your word for it, Mr. Shanahan.” And Mr. Shanahan pulled his forelock again and vanished.
“There’s nothing but confusion to be got from them,” Mr. Bowyer remarked testily. “It’s a mere waste of time.”
“No, no, not a waste of time,” Hewitt replied, “nor a waste of money. One thing is made pretty plain. That is that the shot was fired on Tuesday. Mrs. Hurley never noticed the report, but these three men were close by, and there is no doubt that they heard it. It’s the only single thing they agree about at all. They contradict one another over everything else, but they agree completely in that. Of course I wish we could have got the exact time; but that can’t be helped. As it is it is rather fortunate that they disagreed so entirely. Two of them are certainly wrong, and perhaps all three. In any case it wouldn’t have been safe to trust to mere computation of time by three men just beginning to get drunk, who had no particular reason for remembering. But if by any chance they had agreed on the time we might have been led into a wrong track altogether by taking the thing as fact. But a gunshot is not such a doubtful thing. When three independent witnesses hear a gunshot together there can be little doubt that a shot has been fired. Now I think you’d better sit down. Perhaps you can find something to read. I’m about to make a very minute examination of this place, and it will probably bore you if you’ve nothing else to do.”
But Mr. Bowyer would think of nothing but the business in hand. “I don’t understand that window,” he said, shaking his finger towards it as he spoke. “Not at all. Why should Main want to get in and out by a window? He wasn’t a stranger.”
Hewitt began a most careful inspection of the whole surface of floor, ceiling, walls and furniture of the sitting-room. At the fireplace he stooped and lifted with great care a few sheets of charred paper from the grate. These he put on the window-ledge. “Will you just bring over that little screen,” he asked, “to keep the draught from this burnt paper? Thank you. It looks like letter paper, and thick letter paper, since the ashes are very little broken. The weather has been fine, and there has been no fire in that grate for a long time. These papers have been carefully burned with a match or a candle.”
“Ah! perhaps the letters poor young Rewse was writing in the morning. But what can they tell us?”
“Perhaps nothing—perhaps a great deal.” Hewitt was examining the cinders keenly, holding the surface sideways to the light. “Come,” he said, “see if I can guess Rewse’s address in London. 17, Mountjoy Gardens, Hampstead. Is that it?”
“Yes. Is it there? Can you read it? Show me.” Mr. Bowyer hurried across the room, eager and excited.
“You can sometimes read words on charred paper,” Hewitt replied, “as you may have noticed. This has curled and crinkled rather too much in the burning, but it is plainly notepaper with an embossed heading, which stands out rather clearly. He has evidently brought some notepaper with him from home in his trunk. Look, you can just see the ink lines crossing out the address; but there’s little else. At the beginning of the letter there is ‘My d——’ then a gap, and then the last stroke of ‘M’ and the rest of the word ‘mother.’ ‘My dear Mother,’ or ‘My dearest Mother’ evidently. Something follows too in the same line, but that is unreadable. ‘My dear Mother and Sister,’ perhaps. After that there is nothing recognisable. The first letter looks rather like ‘W,’ but even that is indistinct. It seems to be a longish letter—several sheets, but they are stuck together in the charring. Perhaps more than one letter.”
“The thing is plain,” Mr. Bowyer said. “The poor lad was writing home, and perhaps to other places, and Main, after his crime, burned the letters, because they would have stultified his own with the lying tale about small-pox.”
Hewitt said nothing, but resumed his general search. He passed his hand rapidly over every inch of the surface of everything in the room. Then he entered the bedroom and began an inspection of the same sort there. There were two beds, one at each end of the room, and each inch of each piece of bed-linen passed rapidly under his sharp eye. After the bedroom he betook himself to the little bath-room, and then to the scullery. Finally he went outside and examined every board of a close fence that stood a few feet from the sitting-room window, and the brick-paved path lying between.
When it was all over he returned to Mr. Bowyer. “Here is a strange thing,” he said. “The shot passed clean through Rewse’s body, striking no bones, and meeting no solid resistance. It was a good-sized bullet, as Dr. O’Reilly testifies, and therefore must have had a large charge of powder behind it in the cartridge. After emerging from Rewse’s back it must have struck something else in this confined place. Yet on nowhere—ceiling, floor, wall nor furniture—can I find the mark of a bullet nor the bullet itself.”
“The bullet itself Main might easily have got rid of.”
“Yes, but not the mark. Indeed, the bullet would scarcely be easy to get at if it had struck anything I have seen about here; it would have buried itself. Just look round now. Where could a bullet strike in this place without leaving its mark?”
Mr. Bowyer looked round. “Well, no,” he said, “nowhere. Unless the window was open and it went out that way.”
“Then it must have hit the fence or the brick paving between, and there is no sign of a bullet there,” Hewitt replied. “Push the sash as high as you please, the shot couldn’t have passed over the fence without hitting the window first. As to the bedroom windows, that’s impossible. Mr. Shanahan and his friends would not only have heard the shot, they would have seen it—which they didn’t.”
“Then what’s the meaning of it?”
“The meaning of it is simply this: either Rewse was shot somewhere else and his body brought here afterwards, or the article, whatever it was, that the bullet struck must have been taken away.”
“Yes, of course. It’s just another piece of evidence destroyed by Main, that’s all. Every step we go we see the diabolical completeness of his plans. But now every piece of evidence missing only tells the more against him. The body alone condemns him past all redemption.”
Hewitt was gazing about the room thoughtfully. “I think we’ll have Mrs. Hurley over here,” he said; “she should tell us if anything is missing. Constable, will you ask Mrs. Hurley to step over here?”
Mrs. Hurley came at once and was brought into the sitting-room. “Just look about you, Mrs. Hurley,” Hewitt said, “in this room and everywhere else, and tell me if anything is missing that you can remember was here on the morning of the day you last saw Mr. Rewse.”
She looked thoughtfully up and down the room. “Sure, sor,” she said, “’tis all there as ord’nary.” Her eyes rested on the mantelpiece, and she added at once, “Except the clock, indade.”
“Except the clock?”
“The clock ut is, sure. Ut stud on that same mantelpiece on that mornin’ as ut always did.”
“What sort of clock was it?”
“Just a plain round wan wid a metal case—an American clock they said ut was. But ut kept nigh as good time as me own.”
“It did keep good time, you say?”
“Faith an’ ut did, sor. Mine an’ this ran together for weeks wid nivir a minute betune thim.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Hurley, thank you; that will do,” Hewitt exclaimed, with something of excitement in his voice. He turned to Mr. Bowyer. “We must find that clock,” he said. “And there’s the pistol; nothing has been seen of that. Come, help me search. Look for a loose board.”
“But he’ll have taken them away with him, probably.”
“The pistol perhaps—although that isn’t likely. The clock, no. It’s evidence, man, evidence!” Hewitt darted outside and walked hurriedly round the cottage, looking this way and that about the country adjacent.
Presently he returned. “No,” he said, “I think it’s more likely in the house.” He stood for a moment and thought. Then he made for the fireplace and flung the fender across the floor. All round the hearthstone an open crack extended. “See there!” he exclaimed as he pointed to it. He took the tongs, and with one leg levered the stone up till he could seize it in his fingers. Then he dragged it out and pushed it across the linoleum that covered the floor. In the space beneath lay a large revolver and a common American round nickel-plated clock. “See here!” he cried, “see here!” and he rose and placed the articles on the mantelpiece. The glass before the clock-face was smashed to atoms, and there was a gaping rent in the face itself. For a few seconds Hewitt regarded it as it stood, and then he turned to Mr. Bowyer. “Mr. Bowyer,” he said, “we have done Mr. Stanley Main a sad injustice. Poor young Rewse committed suicide. There is proof undeniable,” and he pointed to the clock.
“Proof? How? Where? Nonsense, man! Pooh! Ridiculous! If Rewse committed suicide, why should Main go to all that trouble and tell all those lies to prove that he died of small-pox? More even than that, what has he run away for?”
“I’ll tell you, Mr. Bowyer, in a moment. But first as to this clock. Remember, Main set his watch by the Cullanin Town Hall clock, and Mrs. Hurley’s clock agreed exactly. That we have proved ourselves to-day by my own watch. Mrs. Hurley’s clock still agrees. This clock was always kept in time with Mrs. Hurley’s. Main returned at two exactly. Look at the time by that clock—the time when the bullet crashed into and stopped it.”
The time was three minutes to one.
Hewitt took the clock, unscrewed the winder and quickly stripped off the back, exposing the works. “See,” he said, “the bullet is lodged firmly among the wheels, and has been torn into snags and strips by the impact. The wheels themselves are ruined altogether. The central axle which carries the hands is bent. See there! Neither hand will move in the slightest. That bullet struck the axle and fixed those hands immovably at the moment of time when Algernon Rewse died. Look at the mainspring. It is less than half run out. Proof that the clock was going when the shot struck it. Main left Rewse alive and well at half-past nine. He did not return till two—when Rewse had been dead more than an hour.”
“But then, hang it all! How about the lies, and the false certificate, and the bolting?”
“Let me tell you the whole tale, Mr. Bowyer, as I conjecture it to have been. Poor young Rewse was, as you told me, in a bad state of health—thoroughly run down, I think you said. You said something of his engagement and the death of the lady. This pointed clearly to a nervous—a mental upset. Very well. He broods, and so forth. He must go away and find change of scene and occupation. His intimate friend Main brings him here. The holiday has its good effect perhaps, at first, but after a while it gets monotonous, and brooding sets in again. I do not know whether or not you happen to know it, but it is a fact that four-fifths of all persons suffering from melancholia have suicidal tendencies. This may never have been suspected by Main, who otherwise might not have left him so long alone. At any rate he is left alone, and he takes the opportunity. He writes a note to Main, and a long letter to his mother—an awful, heartbreaking letter, with a terrible picture of the mental agony wherein he was to die—perhaps with a tincture of religious mania in it, and prophesying merited hell for himself in the hereafter. This done, he simply stands up from this table, at which he has been writing, and with his back to the fireplace shoots himself. There he lies till Main returns an hour later. Main finds the door shut, and nobody answers his knock. He goes round to the sitting-room window, looks through, and perhaps he sees the body. Anyway he pushes back the catch with his knife, opens the window and gets in, and then he sees. He is completely knocked out of time. The thing is terrible. What shall he—what can he do? Poor Rewse’s mother and sister dote on him, and his mother is an invalid—heart disease. To let her see that awful letter would be to kill her. He burns the letter, also the note to himself. Then an idea strikes him. Even without the letter the news of her boy’s suicide will probably kill the poor old lady. Can she be prevented hearing of it? Of his death she must know—that’s inevitable. But as to the manner? Would it not be possible to concoct some kind lie? And then the opportunities of the situation occur to him. Nobody but himself knows of it. He is a medical man, fully qualified, and empowered to give certificates of death. More, there is an epidemic of small-pox in the neighbourhood. What easier, with a little management, than to call the death one by small-pox? Nobody would be anxious to examine too closely the corpse of a small-pox patient. He decides that he will do it. He writes the letter to Mrs. Rewse announcing that her son has the disease, and he forbids Mrs. Hurley to come near the place for fear of infection. He cleans the floor—it is linoleum here, you see, and the stains were fresh—burns the clothes, cleans and stops the wound. At every turn his medical knowledge is of use. He puts the smashed clock and the pistol out of sight under the hearth. In a word, he carries out the whole thing rather cleverly, and a terrible few days he must have passed. It never strikes him that he has dug a frightful pit for his own feet. You are suspicious, and you come across. In a perhaps rather peremptory manner you tell him how suspicious his conduct has been. And then a sense of his terrible position comes upon him like a thunderclap. He sees it all. He has deliberately of his own motion destroyed every evidence of the suicide. There is no evidence in the world that Rewse did not die a natural death, except the body, and that you are going to dig up. He sees now (you remind him of it, in fact) that he is the one man alive who can profit by Rewse’s death. And there is the shot body, and there is the false death certificate, and there are the lying letters, and the tales to the neighbours and everything. He has himself destroyed everything that proves suicide. All that remains points to a foul murder, and to him as the murderer. Can you wonder at his complete breakdown and his flight? What else in the world could the poor fellow do?”
“Well, well—yes, yes,” Mr. Bowyer replied thoughtfully, “it seems very plausible, of course. But still, look at probabilities, my dear sir, look at probabilities.”
“No, but look at possibilities. There is that clock. Get over it if you can. Was there ever a more insurmountable alibi? Could Main possibly be here shooting Rewse and half-way between here and Cullanin at the same time? Remember, Mrs. Hurley saw him come back at two, and she had been watching for an hour, and could see more than half a mile up the road.”
“Well, yes, I suppose you’re right. And what must we do now?”
“Bring Main back. I think we should advertise to begin with. Say, ‘Rewse is proved to have died over an hour before you came. All safe. Your evidence is wanted,’ or something of that sort. And we must set the telegraph going. The police already are looking for him, no doubt. Meanwhile I will look here for a clue myself.”
The advertisement was successful in two days. Indeed, Main afterwards said that he was at the time, once the first terror was over, in doubt whether or not it would be best to go back and face the thing out, trusting to his innocence. He could not venture home for money, nor to his bank, for fear of the police. He chanced upon the advertisement as he searched the paper for news of the case, and that decided him. His explanation of the matter was precisely as Hewitt had expected. His only thought till Mr. Bowyer first arrived at the cottage had been to smother the real facts and to spare the feelings of Mrs. Rewse and her daughter, and it was not till that gentleman put them so plainly before him that he in the least realised the dangers of his position. That his fears for Mrs. Rewse were only too well grounded was proved by events, for the poor old lady only survived her son by a month.
These events took place some little while ago, as may be gathered from the fact that Miss Rewse has now been Mrs. Stanley Main for nearly three years.
IT has struck me that many of my readers may wonder that, although I have set down in detail a number of interesting cases wherein Hewitt figured with success, I have scarcely as much as alluded to his failures. For failures he had, and of a fair number. More than once he has found his search met, perhaps at the beginning, perhaps after some little while, by an impenetrable wall of darkness through which no clue led. At other times he has lost time on a false trail while his quarry escaped. At others still the stupidity or inaccuracy of some person upon whom he has depended for information has set his plans to naught. The reason why none of these cases have been embodied in the present papers is simply this: that a problem with no answer, a puzzle with no explanation, an incident with no satisfactory end, as a rule lends itself but poorly to purposes of popular narrative, and it is often difficult to make understood and appreciated any degree of skill and acumen unless it produces a clear and intelligible result. That such results attended Hewitt’s efforts in an extraordinary degree those who have followed my narratives so far will need no assurance; but withal impossibilities still remain impossibilities, for Hewitt as for the dullest creature alive. On some other occasion I may perhaps set out at length a case in which Martin Hewitt achieved nothing more than unqualified failure; for the present I shall content myself with a case which, although it was completely cleared up in the end, yet for some while baffled Hewitt because of some of the reasons I have alluded to.
On the ground floor of the building wherein Hewitt kept his office, and in which I myself had my chambers, were the offices of Messrs. Streatley & Raikes, an old-fashioned firm of family solicitors. Messrs. Streatley & Raikes’s junior clerk appeared in Hewitt’s outer office one morning with the query, “Is your guv’nor in?”
Kerrett admitted the fact.
“Will you tell him Mr. Raikes sends his compliments and will be obliged if he can step downstairs for a few minutes? It’s a client of ours—a lady—and she’s in a great state about losing her baby or something. Say Mr. Raikes would bring her up, only she seems too ill to get up the stairs.”
This was the purport of the message which Kerrett brought into the inner room, and in three minutes Hewitt was in Streatley & Raikes’s office.
“I thought the only useful thing possible would be to send for you, Mr Hewitt,” Mr. Raikes explained; “indeed, if my client had been better acquainted with London, no doubt she would have come to you direct. She is in a bad state in the inner office. Her name is Mrs. Seton; her husband is a recent client of ours. Quite young, and rather wealthy people, so far as I know. Made a fortune early, I believe, in South Africa, and came here to live. Their child—their only child, a little toddler of two years or thereabout—disappeared yesterday in a most mysterious way, and all efforts to find it seem to have failed as yet. The police have been set going everywhere, but there is no news as yet. Mrs. Seton seems to have passed a dreadful night, and could think of nothing better to do this morning than to come to us. She has her maid with her, and looks to be breaking down entirely. I believe she’s lying on the sofa in my private room now. Will you see her? I think you might hear what she has to say, whether you take the case in hand or not; something may strike you, and in any case it will comfort her to get your opinion. I told her all about you, you know, and she clutched at the chance eagerly. Shall I see if we may go in?”
Mr. Raikes knocked at the door of his inner sanctum and waited; then he knocked again and set the door ajar. There was a quiet “Come in,” and pushing open the door the lawyer motioned Hewitt to follow him.
On the sofa facing the door sat a lady, very pale, and exhibiting plain signs of grief and physical weariness. A heavy veil was thrown back over her bonnet, and her maid stood at her side holding a bottle of salts. As she saw Hewitt she made as if to rise, but he stepped quickly forward and laid his hand on her shoulder. “Pray don’t disturb yourself, Mrs. Seton,” he said; “Mr. Raikes has told me something of your trouble, and perhaps when I know a little more I shall be able to offer you some advice. But remember that it will be very important for you to maintain your strength and spirits as much as possible.”
“This is Mr. Martin Hewitt, you know,” Mr. Raikes here put in—“of whom I was speaking.”
Mrs. Seton inclined her head, and with a very obvious effort began. “It is my child, you know, Mr. Hewitt—my little boy Charley; we can’t find him.”
“Mr. Raikes has told me so. When did you see the child last?”
“Yesterday morning. His nurse left him sitting on the floor in a room we call the small morning-room, where we sometimes allowed him to play when nurse was out, because the nursery was out of hearing, except from the bedrooms. I myself was in the large morning-room, and as he seemed to be very quiet I went to look, and found he was not there.”
“You looked elsewhere, of course?”
“Yes; but he was nowhere in the house, and none of the servants had seen him. At first I supposed that his nurse had gone back to the small morning-room and taken him with her—I had sent her on an errand—but when she returned I found that was not the case.”
“Can he walk?”
“Oh, yes, he can walk quite well. But he could scarcely have come out from the room without my hearing him. The two rooms, the morning-room and the small sitting-room, are on opposite sides of the same passage.”
“Do the doors face each other?”
“No; the door of the small room is farther up the passage than the other. But in any case he was nowhere in the house.”
“But if he left the room he must have got out somehow. Is there no other door?”
“Yes, there is a French window, with the lower panels of wood, in the room; it gives on to a few steps leading down into the garden; but that was closed and bolted on the inside.”
“You found no trace whatever of him, I take it, on the whole premises?”
“Not a trace of any sort, nor had anybody about the place seen him.”
“Did you yourself actually see him in this room, or have you merely the nurse’s word for it?”
“I saw her put him there. She left him playing with a box of toys. When I went to look for him the toys were there, scattered on the floor, but he had gone.” Mrs. Seton sank on the arms of her maid and her breast heaved.
“I’m sure,” Hewitt said, “You’ll keep your nerves as steady as you can, Mrs. Seton: much may depend on it. If you have nothing else to tell me now, I think I will come to your house at once, look at it, and question your servants myself. Meantime, what has been done?”
“The police have been notified everywhere, of course,” Mr. Raikes said, handing Hewitt a printed bill, damp from the press; “and here is a bill containing a description of the child and offering a reward, which is being circulated now.”
Hewitt glanced at the bill and nodded. “That is quite right,” he said, “so far as I can tell at present. But I must see the place. Do you feel strong enough to come home now, Mrs. Seton?”
Hewitt’s business-like decision and confidence of manner gave the lady fresh strength. “The brougham is here,” she said, “and we can drive home at once. We live at Cricklewood.”
A fine pair of horses stood before the brougham, though they still bore signs of hard work; and indeed they had been kept at their best pace all that morning. All the way to Cricklewood Hewitt kept Mrs. Seton in conversation, never for a moment leaving her attention disengaged. The missing child, he learned, was the only one, and the family had only been in England for something less than a year. Mr. Seton had become possessed of real property in South Africa, had sold it in London, and had determined to settle here.
A little way past Shoot-up Hill the coachman swung his pair off to the left, and presently entering a gate, pulled up before a large, old-fashioned house.
Here Hewitt immediately began a complete examination of the premises. The possible exits from the grounds, he found, were four in number: the two wide front gates giving on to the carriage-drive, the kitchen and stable entrance, and a side gate in a fence—always locked, however. Inside the house, from the central hall, a passage to the right led to another wherein was the door of the small morning-room. This was a very ordinary room, fifteen feet square or so, lighted by the glass in the French window, the bottom panes of which, however, had been filled in with wood. The contents of a box of toys lay scattered on the floor, and the box itself lay near.
“Have these toys been moved,” Hewitt asked, “since the child was missed?”
“No, we haven’t allowed anything to be disturbed. The disappearance seemed so wholly unaccountable that we thought the police might wish to examine the place exactly as it was. They did not seem to think it necessary, however.”
Hewitt knelt and examined the toys without disturbing them. They were of very good quality, and represented a farmyard, with horses, carts, ducks, geese and cows complete. One of the carts had had a string attached so that it might be pulled along the floor.
“Now,” Hewitt said, rising, “you think, Mrs. Seton, that the child could not have toddled through the passage, and so into some other part of the house, without you hearing him?”
“Well,” Mrs. Seton answered with indecision, “I thought so at first, but I begin to doubt. Because he must have done so, I suppose.”
They went into the passage. The door of the large morning-room was four or five yards further toward the passage leading to the hall, and on the opposite side. “The floor in this passage,” Hewitt observed, “is rather thickly carpeted. See here, I can walk on it at a good pace without noise.”
Mrs. Seton assented. “Of course,” she said, “if he got past here he might have got anywhere about the house, and so into the grounds. There is a veranda outside the drawing-room, and doors in various places.’
“Of course the grounds have been completely examined?”
“Oh, yes, every inch.”
“The weather has been very dry, unfortunately,” Hewitt said, “and it would be useless for me to look for footprints on your hard gravel, especially of so small a child. Let us come back to the room. Is the French window fastened as you found it?”
“Yes; nothing has been changed.”
The French window was, as is usual, one of two casements joining in the centre and fastened by bolts top and bottom. “It is not your habit, I see,” Hewitt observed, “to open both halves of the window.”
“No; one side is always fastened, the other we secure by the bottom bolt because the catch of the handle doesn’t always act properly.”
“And you found that bolt fastened as I see it now?”
“Yes.”
Hewitt lifted the bolt and opened the door. Four or five steps led parallel with the face of the wall to a sort of path which ran the whole length of the house on this side, and was only separated from a quiet public lane by a low fence and a thin hedge. Almost opposite a small, light gate stood in the fence, firmly padlocked.
“I see,” Hewitt remarked, “your house is placed close against one side of the grounds. Is that the side gate which you always keep locked?”
Mrs. Seton replied in the affirmative, and Hewitt laid his hand on the gate in question. “Still,” he said, “if security is the object I should recommend hinges a little less rural in pattern; see here,” and he gave the gate a jerk upward, lifting the hinge-pins from their sockets and opening the gate from that side, the padlock acting as hinge. “Those hinges,” he added, “were meant for a heavier gate than that;” and he replaced the gate.
“Yes,” Mrs. Seton replied; “I am obliged to you; but that doesn’t concern us now. The French window was bolted on the inside. Would you like to see the servants?”
The servants were produced, and Hewitt questioned each in turn, but not one would admit having seen anything of Master Charles Seton after he had been left in the small morning-room. A rather stupid groom fancied he had seen Master Charles on the side lawn, but then remembered that that must have been the day before. The cook, an uncommonly thin, sharp-featured woman for one of her trade, was especially positive that she had not seen him all that day. “And she would be sure to have remembered if she had seen him leaving the house,” she said, “because she was the more particular since he was lost the last time.”
This was news to Hewitt. “Lost the last time?” he asked; “why, what is this, Mrs. Seton? Was he lost once before?”
“Oh, yes,” Mrs. Seton answered, “six or seven weeks ago. But that was quite different. He strayed out at the front gate, and was brought back from the police station in the evening.”
“But this may be most important,” Hewitt said. “You should certainly have told me. Tell me now exactly what happened on this first occasion.”
“But it was really quite an ordinary sort of accident. He was left alone and got out through an open gate. Of course we were very anxious; but we had him back the same evening. Need we waste time in talking about that?”
“But it will be no waste of time, I assure you. What was it that happened, exactly?”
“Nurse was about to take him for a short walk just before lunch. On the front lawn he suddenly remembered a whip which had been left in the nursery, and insisted on taking it with him. She left him and went back for it, taking, however, some little time to find it. When she returned he was nowhere to be seen; but one of the gates was a couple of feet or more open—it had caught on a loose stone in swinging to—and no doubt he had wandered off that way. A lady found him some distance away, and, not knowing to whom he belonged, took him that evening to a police station, and as messages had been sent to the police stations, we had him back soon after he was left there.”
“Do you know who the lady was?”
“Her name was Mrs. Clark. She left her name and address at the police station, and of course I wrote to thank her. But there was some mistake in taking it down, I suppose, for the letter was returned marked ‘not known.’”
“Then you never saw this lady yourself?”
“No.”
“I think I will make a note of the exact description of the child and then visit the police station to which this lady took him six weeks ago. Fair, curly hair, I think, and blue eyes? Age two years and three months; walks and runs well, and speaks fairly plainly. Dress?”
“Pale blue llama frock with lace, white under-linen, linen overall, pale blue silk socks and tan shoes. Everything good as new except the shoes, which were badly worn at the backs, through a habit he has of kicking back and downward with his heels when sitting. They were rather old shoes, and only used indoors.”
“If I remember aright nothing was said of those shoes in the printed bill?”
“Was that so? No, I believe not. I have been so worried.”
“Yes, Mrs. Seton, of course. It is most creditable in you to have kept up so well while I have been making my inquiries. Go now and take a good rest while I do what is possible. By the way, where was Mr. Seton yesterday morning when you missed the boy?”
“In the City. He has some important business in hand just now.”
“And to-day?”
“He has gone to the City again. Of course he is sadly worried; but he saw that everything possible was done, and his business was very important.”
“Just so. Mr. Seton was not married before, I presume—if I may?”
“No, certainly not; why do you ask?”
“I beg your pardon, but I have a habit of asking almost every question I can think of; I can’t know too much of a case, you know, and most unlikely pieces of information sometimes turn out useful. Thank you for your patience; I will try another plan now.”
Mrs. Seton had kept up remarkably well during Hewitt’s examination, but she was plainly by no means a strong woman, and her maid came again to her assistance as Hewitt left. Hewitt himself made for the police station. Few inspectors indeed of the Metropolitan Police force did not know Hewitt by sight, and the one here in charge knew him well. He remembered very well the occasion, six weeks or so before, when Mrs. Clark brought Mrs. Seton’s child to the station. He was on duty himself at the time, and he turned up the book containing an entry on the subject. From this it appeared that the lady gave the address No. 89, Sedgby Road, Belsize Park.
“I suppose you didn’t happen to know the lady,” Hewitt asked—“by sight or otherwise?”
“No, I didn’t, and I’m not sure I could swear to her again,” the inspector answered. “She wore a heavy veil, and I didn’t see much of her face. One rum thing I noticed, though: she seemed rather taken with the baby, and as she stooped down to kiss him before she went away I could see an old scar on her throat. It was just the sort of scar I’ve seen on a man that’s had his throat cut and got over it. She wore a high collar to hide it, but stooping shifted the collar, and so I saw it.”
“Did she seem an educated woman?”
“Oh yes; perfect lady; spoke very nice. I told her a baby had been inquired after by Mrs. Seton, and from the description I’d no doubt this was the one. And so it was.”
“At what time was this?”
“7.10 p.m., exactly. Here it is, all entered properly.”
“Now as to Sedgby Road, Belsize Park. Do you happen to know it?”
“Oh, yes, very well. Very quiet, respectable road indeed. I only know it through walking through.”
“I see a suburban directory on the shelf behind you. Do you mind pulling it down? Thanks. Let us find Sedgby Road. Here it is. See, there is no No. 89; the highest number is 67.”
“No more there is,” the inspector answered, running his finger down the column; “and there’s no Clark in the road, that’s more. False address, that’s plain. And so they’ve lost him again, have they? We had notice yesterday, of course, and I’ve just got some bills. This last seems a queer sort of affair, don’t it? Child sitting inside the house disappeared like a ghost, and all the doors and windows fastened inside.”
Hewitt agreed that the affair had very uncommon features, and presently left the station and sought a cab. All the way back to his office he considered the matter deeply. As a matter of fact he was at a loss. Certain evidence he had seen in the house, but it went a very little way, and beyond that there was merely no clue whatever. There were features of the child’s first estrayal also that attracted him, though it might very easily be the case that nothing connected the two events. There was an unknown woman—apparently a lady—who had once had her throat cut, bringing the child back after several hours, and giving a false name and address, for since the address was false, the same was probably the case with the name. Why was this? This time the child was still absent, and nothing whatever was there to suggest in what direction he might be followed, neither was there anything to indicate why he should be detained anywhere, if detained he was. Hewitt determined, while awaiting any result that the bills might bring, to cause certain inquiries to be made into the antecedents of the Setons. Moreover, other work was waiting, and the Seton business must be put aside for a few hours at least.
Hewitt sat late in his office that evening, and at about nine o’clock Mrs. Seton returned. The poor woman seemed on the verge of serious illness. She had received two anonymous letters, which she brought with her, and with scarcely a word placed before Hewitt’s eyes.
The first he opened and read as follows:—
“The writer observes that you are offering a reward for the recovery of your child. There is no necessity for this; Charley is quite safe, happy, and in good hands. Pray do not instruct detectives or take any such steps just yet. The child is well and shall be returned to you. This I swear solemnly. His errand is one of mercy; pray have patience.”
Hewitt turned the letter and envelope in his hand. “Good paper, of the same sort as the envelope,” he remarked, “but only a half sheet, freshly torn off, probably because the other side bore an address heading; therefore most likely from a respectable sort of house. The writing is a woman’s, and good, though the writer was agitated when she did it. Posted this afternoon, at Willesden.”
“You see,” Mrs. Seton said anxiously, “she knows his name. She calls him ‘Charley.’”
“Yes,” Hewitt answered; “there may be something in that, or there may not. The name Charles Seton is on the bills, isn’t it? And they have been visible publicly all day to-day. So that the name may be more easily explained than some other parts of the letter. For instance, the writer says that the child’s ‘errand’ is one of mercy. The little fellow may be very intelligent—no doubt is—but children of two years old as a rule do not practise errands of mercy—nor indeed errands of any sort. Can you think of anything whatever, Mrs. Seton, in connection with your family history, or indeed anything else, that may throw light on that phrase?”
He looked keenly at her as he asked, but her expression was one of blank doubt merely, as she shook her head slowly and answered in the negative. Hewitt turned to the other letter and read this:—
“Madam,—
“If you want your child you had better make an arrangement with me. You fancy he has strayed, but as a matter of fact he has been stolen, and you little know by whom. You will never get him back except through me, you may rest assured of that. Are you prepared to pay me one hundred pounds (£100) if I hand him to you, and no questions asked? Your present reward, £20, is paltry; and you may finally bid good-bye to your child if you will not accept my terms. If you do, say as much in an advertisement to the Standard, addressed to
“Veritas.”
“A man’s handwriting,” Hewitt commented; “fairly well formed, but shaky. The writer is not in first-rate health—each line totters away in a downward slope at the end. I shouldn’t be surprised to hear that the gentleman drank. Postmark, Hampstead; posted this afternoon also. But the striking thing is the paper and envelope. They are each of exactly the same kind and size as those of the other letter. The paper also is a half sheet, and torn off on the same side as the other; confirmation of my suspicion that the object is to get rid of the printed address. I shall be surprised if both these were not written in the same house. That looks like a traitor in the enemy’s camp; the question is, which is the traitor?” Hewitt regarded the letters intently for a few seconds and then proceeded. “Plainly,” he said, “if these letters are written by people who know anything about the matter, one writer is lying. The woman promises that the child shall be returned without reward or search, and talks generally as if the taking away of the child, or the estrayal, or whatever it was, were a very virtuous sort of proceeding. The man says plainly that the child has been stolen, with no attempt to gloss the matter, and asserts that nothing will get the child back but heavy blackmail—a very different story. On the other hand, can there be any concerted design in these two letters? Are they intended, each from its own side, to play up to a certain result?” Hewitt paused and thought. Then he asked suddenly: “Do you recognise anything familiar either in the handwriting or the stationery of these letters?”
“No, nothing.”
“Very well,” Hewitt said, “we will come to closer quarters with the blackmailer, I think. You needn’t commit yourself to paying anything, of course.”
“But, Mr. Hewitt, I will gladly pay or do anything. The hundred pounds is nothing. I will pay it gladly if I can only get my child.”
“Well, well, we shall see. The man may not be able to do what he offers, after all, but that we will test. It is too late now for an advertisement in to-morrow morning’s Standard, but there is the Evening Standard—he may even mean that—and the next morning’s. I will have an advertisement inserted in both, inviting this man to make an appointment, and prove the genuineness of his offer; that will fetch him if he wants the money, and can do anything for it. Have you nothing else to tell me?”
“Nothing. But have you ascertained nothing yourself? Don’t say I’ve to pass another night in such dreadful suspense!”
“I’m afraid, Mrs. Seton, I must ask you to be patient a little longer. I have ascertained something, but it has not carried me far as yet. Remember that if there is anything at all in these anonymous letters (and I think there is) the child is at any rate safe, and to be found one way or another. Both agree in that.” This he said mainly to comfort his client, for in fact he had learned very little. His news from the City as to Mr. Seton’s early history had been but meagre. He was known as a successful speculator, and that was almost all. There was an indefinite notion that he had been married once before, but nothing more.
All the next day Hewitt did nothing in the case. Another affair, a previous engagement, kept him hard at work in his office all day, and indeed had this not been the case he could have done little. His City inquiries were still in progress, and he awaited, moreover, a reply to the advertisement. But at about half-past seven in the evening this telegram arrived—
Child returned. Come at once.—Seton.
In five minutes Hewitt was making north-west in a hansom, and in half an hour he was ringing the bell at the Setons’ house. Within, Mrs. Seton was still semi-hysterical, clasping the child—an intelligent-looking little fellow—in her arms, and refusing to release her hold of him for a moment. Mr. Seton stood before the fire in the same room. He was a smart-looking, scrupulously dressed man of thirty-five or thereabouts, and he began explaining his telegram as soon as he had wished Hewitt good-evening.
“The child’s back,” he said, “and of course that’s the great thing. But I’m not satisfied, Mr. Hewitt. I want to know why it was taken away, and I want to punish somebody. It’s really very extraordinary. My poor wife has been driving about all day—she called on you, by the bye, but you were out” (Hewitt credited this to Kerrett, who had been told he must not be disturbed), “and she has been all over the place uselessly, unable to rest, of course. Well, I have been at home since half-past four, and at about six I was smoking in the small morning-room—I often use it as a smoking-room—and looking out at the French window. I came away from there, and half an hour or more later, as it was getting dusk, I remembered I had left the French window open, and sent a servant to shut it. She went straight to the room, and there on the floor, where he was seen last, she found the child playing with his toys as though nothing had happened!”
“And how was he dressed—as he is now?”
“Yes, just as he was when we missed him.”
Hewitt stepped up to the child as he sat on his mother’s lap, and rubbed his cheek, speaking pleasantly to him. The little fellow looked up and smiled, and Hewitt observed: “One thing is noticeable: this linen overall is almost clean. Little boys like this don’t keep one white overall clean for three days, do they? And see—those shoes—aren’t they new? Those he had were old, I think you said, and tan-coloured.”
The shoes now on the child’s feet were of white leather, with a noticeable sewn ornamentation in silk. His mother had not noticed them before, and as she looked he lifted his little foot higher and said. “Look, mummy, more new shoes!”
“Ask him,” suggested Hewitt hurriedly, “who gave them to him.”
His father asked him, and the little fellow looked puzzled. After a pause, he said, “Mummy.”
“No,” his mother answered, “I didn’t.”
He thought a moment and then said, “No, no, not vis mummy—course not.” And for some little while after that the only answer procurable from him was, “Course not,” which seemed to be a favourite phrase of his.
“Have you asked him where he has been?”
“Yes,” his mother answered, “but he only says ‘Ta-ta.’”
“Ask him again.”
She did. This time, after a little reflection, he pointed his chubby arm toward the door and said. “Been dere.”
“Who took you?” asked Mrs. Seton.
Again Charley seemed puzzled. Then, looking doubtfully at his mother, he said “Mummy.”
“No, not mummy,” she answered; and his reply was “Course not,” after which he attempted to climb on her shoulder.
Then, at Hewitt’s suggestion, he was asked whom he went to see. This time the reply was prompt.
“Poor daddy,” he said.
“What, this daddy?”
“No, not vis daddy—course not.” And that was all that could be got from him.
“He will probably say things in the next day or two which may be useful,” Hewitt said, “if you listen pretty sharply. Now I should like to go to the small morning-room.”
In time room in question the door was still open. Outside the moon had risen and made the evening almost as clear as day. Hewitt examined the steps and the path at their foot, but all was dry and hard, and showed no footmark. Then, as his eye rested on the small gate, “See here,” he exclaimed suddenly, “somebody has been in, lifting the gate, as I showed Mrs. Seton when I was last here. The gate has been replaced in a hurry, and only the top hinge has dropped in its place; the bottom one is disjointed.” He lifted the gate once more and set it back. The ground just along its foot was softer than in the parts surrounding, and here Hewitt perceived the print of a heel. It was the heel-mark of a woman’s boot, small and sharp and of the usual curved D-shape. Nowhere else within or without was there the slightest mark. Hewitt went some distance either way in the outer lane, but without discovering anything more.
“I think I will borrow those new shoes,” Hewitt said on his return. “I think I should be disposed to investigate further in any case, for my own satisfaction. The thing interests me. By the way, Mrs. Seton, tell me, would these shoes be more likely to have been bought at a regular shoemaker’s or at a baby-linen shop?”
“Certainly I should say at a baby-linen shop,” Mrs. Seton answered; “they are of excellent quality, and for babies’ shoes of this fancy description one would never go to an ordinary shoemaker’s.”
“So much the better, because the baby-linen shops are fewer than the shoemakers’. I may take these, then? Perhaps before I go you had better make quite certain that there is nothing else about the child which is not your own.”
There was nothing, and with the shoes in his pocket Hewitt regained his cab and travelled back to his office. The case, from its very bareness and simplicity, puzzled him. Why was the child taken? Plainly not to keep, for it had been returned almost as it went. Plainly also not for the sake of reward or blackmail, for here was the child safely back, before the anonymous blackmailer had had a chance of earning his money. More, the advertised reward had not been claimed. Also it could not be a matter of malice or revenge, for the child was quite unharmed, and indeed seemed to have been quite happy. No conceivable family complication, previous to the marriage of Mr. and Mrs. Seton, could induce anybody to take away and return the child, which was undoubtedly Mrs. Seton’s. Then who could be the “poor daddy” and “mummy”—not “vis daddy” and not “vis mummy”—that the child had been with? The Setons knew nothing of them. It was difficult to see what it could all mean.
Arrived at his office, Hewitt took a map, and, setting the leg of a pair of compasses on the site of the Setons’ house, described a circle, including in its radius all Willesden and Hampstead. Then, with the Suburban Directory to help him, he began searching out and noting all the baby-linen shops in the area. After all, there were not many—about a dozen. This done, Hewitt went home.
In the morning he began his hunt. His design was to call at each of the shops until he had found in which a pair of shoes of that particular pattern had been sold on the day of little Charley Seton’s disappearance. The first two shops he tried did not keep shoes of the pattern, and had never had them, and the young ladies behind the counter seemed vastly amused at Hewitt’s inquiries. Nothing perturbed, he tried the next shop on his list in the Hampstead district. There they kept such shoes as a rule, but were “out of them at present.” Hewitt immediately sent his card to the proprietress, requesting a few minutes’ interview.
The lady—a very dignified lady indeed—in black silk, gray corkscrew curls and spectacles, came out with Hewitt’s card between her fingers. He apologised for troubling her, and, stepping out of hearing from the counter, explained that his business was urgent. “A child has been taken away by some unauthorised person, whom I am endeavouring to trace. This person bought this pair of shoes on Monday. You keep such shoes, I find, though they are not in stock at present, and, as they appear to be of an uncommon sort, possibly they were bought here.”
The lady looked at them. “Yes,” she said, “this pattern of shoe is made especially for me. I do not think you can buy them at other places.”