a month passed. tom roberts and andrew watched together in jermyn street, the former with a cap pulled well down over his face and very tattered clothes, the latter dressed as a groom, but making no attempt to disguise his face. during that time everyone who called at the house in jermyn street was followed, and their names and addresses ascertained, one always remaining in jermyn street while the other was away. the man they were watching had gone out every evening, but it was either to one or the other of the clubs to which he belonged, or to the theater or opera.
"you will trace him to the right place presently, roberts," hilda said cheerfully, when she saw that he was beginning to be disheartened at the non-success of his search. "you may be sure that he will not go to see these men oftener than he can help. does he generally wear evening clothes?"
"always, miss."
"i don't think there is any occasion to follow him in future when he goes out in that dress; i think it certain that when he goes to meet these men he will be in disguise. when you see him come out dressed altogether differently to usual, follow him closely. even if we only find where he goes it will be a very important step."
on the seventh week after the disappearance of walter, mr. pettigrew came in one morning at eleven o'clock. his air was very grave.
"have you heard news, mr. pettigrew?" hilda asked.
"i have very bad news. mr. comfrey, a lawyer of not the highest standing, who is, i have learnt, acting[pg 177] for this fellow, called upon me. he said, 'i am sorry to say that i have some painful news to give you, mr. pettigrew. yesterday the body of a child, a boy some six or seven years old, was found in the canal at paddington. it was taken to the lockhouse. the features were entirely unrecognizable, and the police surgeon who examined it said that it had been in the water over a month. most of its clothing was gone, partly torn off by barges passing over the body; but there still remained a portion of its underclothing, and this bore the letters w. r. the police recognized them as those of the child who has been so largely advertised for, and, as my client, mr. simcoe, had offered a thousand pounds reward, and as all information was to be sent to me, a policeman came down, just as i was closing the office, to inform me of the fact.
"'i at once communicated with my client, who was greatly distressed. he went to paddington the first thing this morning, and he tells me that he has no doubt whatever that the remains are those of walter rivington, although he could not swear to his identity, as the features are altogether unrecognizable. as i understand, sir, that you and miss covington were the guardians of this unfortunate child, i have driven here at once in order that you may go up and satisfy yourselves on the subject. i understand that an inquest will be held to-morrow.'"
hilda had not spoken while mr. pettigrew was telling his story, but sat speechless with horror.
"it cannot be; surely it cannot be!" she murmured. "oh, mr. pettigrew! say that you cannot believe it."
"i can hardly say that, my dear; the whole affair is such a terrible one that i can place no bounds whatever to the villainy of which this man may be capable. this may be the missing child, but, on the other hand, it may be only a part of the whole plot."
"but who else can it be if it has walter's clothes on?"
"as to that i can say nothing; but you must remember that this man is an extraordinarily adroit[pg 178] plotter, and would hesitate at nothing to secure this inheritance. there would be no very great difficulty in obtaining from some rascally undertaker the body of a child of the right age, dressing him up in some of our ward's clothes, and dropping the body into the canal, which may have been done seven weeks ago, or may have been done but a month. of course i do not mean to say that this was so. i only mean to say that it is possible. no. i expressed my opinion, when we talked it over before, that no sensible man would put his neck in a noose if he could carry out his object without doing so; and murder could hardly be perpetrated without running a very great risk, for the people with whom the child was placed would, upon missing it suddenly, be very likely to suspect that it had been made away with, and would either denounce the crime or extort money by holding a threat over his head for years."
"yes, that may be so!" hilda exclaimed, rising to her feet. "let us go and see at once. i will take netta with me; she knows him as well as i do."
she ran upstairs and in a few words told netta the news, and in five minutes they came down, ready to start.
"i have told walter's nurse to come with us," hilda said. "if anyone can recognize the child she ought to be able to do so. fortunately, she is still in the house."
"now, young ladies," the lawyer said before they started, "let me caution you, unless you feel a moderate certainty that this child is walter rivington, make no admission whatever that you see any resemblance. if the matter comes to a trial, your evidence and mine cannot but weigh with the court as against that of this man who is interested in proving its identity with walter. of course, if there is any sign or mark on the body that you recognize, you will acknowledge it as the body of our ward. we shall then have to fight the case on other grounds. but unless you detect some unmistakable mark, and it is extremely unlikely that you will do so in the state the body must be in, confine yourself to simply stating that you fail to recognize it in any way."[pg 179]
"there never was any mark on the poor child's body," hilda said. "i have regretted it so much, because, in the absence of any descriptive marks, the chance of his ever being found was, of course, much lessened."
the lawyer had come in a four-wheeled cab, and in this the party all took their places. not a word was spoken on the way, except that hilda repeated what mr. pettigrew had said to the nurse. it was with very white faces that they entered the lockhouse. the little body was lying on a board supported by two trestles. it was covered by a piece of sailcloth, and the tattered garments that it had had on were placed on a chair beside it. prepared as she was for something dreadful, the room swam round, and had hilda not been leaning on mr. pettigrew's arm she would have fallen. there was scarce a semblance of humanity in the little figure. the features of the face had been entirely obliterated, possibly by the passage of barges, possibly by the work of simple decay.
"courage, my dear!" mr. pettigrew said. "it is a painful duty, but it must be performed."
the three women stood silent beside the little corpse. netta was the first to speak.
"i cannot identify the body as that of walter rivington," she said. "i don't think that it would be possible for anyone to do so."
"is the hair of the same color?" the policeman who was in charge of the room asked.
"the hair is rather darker than his," netta said; "but being so long in the water, and in such dirty water, it might have darkened."
"that was never master walter's hair!" the nurse exclaimed. "the darling had long, soft hair, and unless those who murdered him cut it short, it would not be like this. besides, this hair is stiffer. it is more like the hair of a workhouse child than master walter's."
"that is so," hilda said. "i declare that i not only do not recognize the body as that of my ward, but that i am convinced it is not his."[pg 180]
"judging only by the hair," mr. pettigrew said, "i am entirely of your opinion, miss covington. i have stroked the child's head many times, and his hair was like silk. i have nothing else to go by, and am convinced that the body is not walter rivington's."
they then looked at the fragments of clothes. in two places they were marked "w. r."
"that is my marking, miss," the nurse said, after closely examining the initials. "i could not swear to the bits of clothes, but i can to the letters. you see, miss, i always work a line above the letters and another below them. i was taught to do it so when i was a girl in our village school, and i have always done it since. but i never saw anyone else mark them so. you see the letters are worked in red silk, and the two lines in white. the old woman who taught us said that it made a proper finish to the work. yes, miss covington, i can swear to these things being master walter's."
"you could not swear to their being those in which he went out the morning he was lost, nurse?"
"i can, sir, because there is nothing missing except what he had on. i have all his things properly counted, and everything is there."
at this moment there was a little stir outside, and hilda glanced down and whispered to netta:
"let down your fall; i do not want this man to recognize you."
just as she did so john simcoe entered. he bowed to hilda.
"i am sorry, indeed, to meet you under such painful circumstances."
"i beg you not to address me, sir," she said haughtily. "i wish to have no communication with or from you. your coming here reminds me of the thirty-seventh verse of the nineteenth chapter of st. john. you can look it out, sir, if you happen to have a bible at home. fortunately it is not wholly applicable, for we are all absolutely convinced that this poor little body is not that of general mathieson's grandson."[pg 181]
so saying she stepped out of the little house, followed by the others; leaving john simcoe white with passion.
"you should not have shown your hand so plainly, miss covington."
"i could not help it," the girl said. "he has called a dozen times at the house and has always received the message, 'not at home,' and he must know that i suspect him of being walter's abductor."
"what is the verse you referred him to, hilda?" netta said. "i confess that i do not know any verse in st. john that seems to be at all applicable to him."
"the quotation is, 'they shall look on him whom they pierced.'"
netta could not help smiling. mr. pettigrew shook his head.
"you are really too outspoken, miss covington, and you will get yourself into trouble. as it is, you have clearly laid yourself open to an action for libel for having practically called the man a murderer. we may think what we like, but we are in no position to prove it."
"i am not afraid of that," she said. "i wish that he would do it; then we should have all the facts brought out in court, and, even if we could not, as you say, prove everything, we could at least let the world know what we think. no, there is no chance of his doing that, mr. pettigrew."
"it is fortunate for us, miss covington, that our clients are for the most part men. your sex are so impetuous and so headstrong that we should have a hard time of it indeed if we had to take our instructions from them."
"mr. pettigrew, you will please remember that there are three of my sex in this cab, and if you malign us in this way we will at once get out and walk."
the old lawyer smiled indulgently.
"it is quite true, my dear. women are always passionately certain that they are right, and neither counsel[pg 182] nor entreaty can get them to believe that there can be any other side to a case than that which they take. talk about men ruining themselves by litigation; the number that do so is as nothing to that of the women who would do so, were they to get as often involved in lawsuits! when dickens drew the man who haunted the courts he would have been much nearer the mark had he drawn the woman who did so. you can persuade a man that when he has been beaten in every court his case is a lost one; but a woman simply regards a hostile decision as the effect either of great partiality or of incompetence on the part of the judge, and even after being beaten in the house of lords will attend the courts and pester the judges with applications for the hearing of some new points. it becomes a perfect mania with some of them."
"very well, mr. pettigrew. i would certainly carry my case up to the highest court, and if i were beaten i would not admit that i was in the wrong; still, i do not think that i should pester the poor old judges after that. i suppose we shall all have to come up again to-morrow to the inquest?"
"certainly. nurse has recognized the clothes, and i suppose you all recognize the marks, miss covington?"
"yes; i have no doubt whatever that the clothes are walter's."
"of course we shall be represented by counsel," mr. pettigrew went on. "we must not let the jury find that this is walter's body if we can possibly prevent it."
"you think that they will do so?"
"i am afraid of it. they will know nothing of the real circumstances of the case; they will only know that the child has been missing for nearly two months, and that, in spite of large rewards, no news has been obtained of him. they will see that this child is about the same age, that the clothes in which it was found are those worn by the missing boy. they will themselves have viewed the body and have seen that identification is almost impossible. this man will give his[pg 183] evidence to the effect that he believes it to be walter rivington's body. we shall give it as our opinion that it is not; that opinion being founded upon the fact that the few patches of hair left on the head are shorter and coarser than this was. to us this may appear decisive, but the counsel who will, no doubt, appear for simcoe, will very legitimately say this fact has no weight, and will point out that no real judgment can be formed upon this. the child was missing—probably stolen for the sake of its clothes. seeing the description in the handbills and placards, the first step would be to cut off its hair, which disposes of the question of length, and, as he will point out, hair which, when very long, seems soft and silky, will stand up and appear almost bristly when cropped close to the head. i am afraid that, in the face of all that we can say, the coroner's jury will find that the body is walter's. as to the cause of death they will probably give an open verdict, for even if the surgeon has found any signs of violence upon the body, these may have been inflicted by passing barges long after death."
"will you have it brought forward that simcoe has an interest in proving the body to be walter's?"
"i think not. there would be no use in beginning the fight in the coroner's court. it will all have to be gone into when he applies to the higher courts for an order on the trustees of the will to proceed to carry out its provisions. then our case will be fully gone into. we shall plead that in the first place the will was made under undue influence. we shall point to the singularity of the general's mysterious attack, an attack which one of the doctors who attended him at once put down to poison, and that at the moment of the attack simcoe was sitting next to him at dinner. we shall point to the extraordinary coincidence that the child who stood between simcoe and the inheritance disappeared on the evening when the general was in extremis, and, lastly, we shall fire our last shot by declaring that the man is not the john simcoe named in the will, but is an impostor who[pg 184] assumed his name and traded upon his brave action on the general's behalf.
"but i do not want the fight to begin until we are in a better position than at present to prove what we say. as yet, however satisfactory to us, we have not got beyond the point of conjecture and probabilities, and i trust that, before we have to fight the case, we shall obtain some absolute facts in support of our theory. the man would be able at present to put into court a number of highly respectable witnesses from stowmarket, and of officers he has met here, who would all testify to his being john simcoe, and as against their evidence our conjectures would literally go for nothing. no doubt you will all receive notices to attend this evening. the policeman took your names and addresses, and will have told the officer in charge of the case the nature of the evidence you will probably give. and please remember that, in giving evidence, you must carefully abstain from saying anything that would lead the jury to perceive that you have any personal feeling against simcoe, for they would be likely to put down your declaration of inability to recognize the body as a result of a bias against him. do not let it be seen that there is any personal feeling in the matter at all."
the summonses arrived that evening and the next morning they drove to the coroner's court, miss purcell accompanying them. they found mr. pettigrew awaiting them at the door.
"there is another case on before ours," he said, "and i should advise you to take a drive for half an hour, and, when you come back, to sit in the carriage until i come for you. the waiting room is a stuffy little place, and is at present full of witnesses in the case now on, and as that case is one of a man killed in a drunken row, they are not of a class whom it is pleasant to mix with."
when they returned, he again came out. "i have just spoken to the coroner and told him who you are, and he has kindly given permission for you to go up[pg 185] to his own room. the case he has now before him may last another half hour."
it was just about that time when mr. pettigrew came up and said that their case was about to commence, and that they must go down and take their places in court. this was now almost empty; a few minutes before it had been crowded by those interested in the proceedings, which had terminated in the finding of manslaughter against four of those concerned in the fray. the discovery of a child's body in the canal was far too common an event to afford any attraction, and with the exception of the witnesses, two counsel seated in the front line facing the coroner, and two or three officials, there was no one in court. as soon as the little stir caused by the return of the jury from viewing the body had ceased, the coroner addressed them.
"we shall now, gentlemen of the jury, proceed to the case of the body of the child said to be that of walter rivington, which was found under very strange and suspicious circumstances near this end of the canal. you will hear that the child was missing from his home in hyde park gardens on the 23d of october, and for his discovery, as some of you are doubtless aware, large sums have been offered. the day before yesterday the drags were used for the purpose of discovering whether another child, who was lost, and who had been seen going near the bank, had been drowned. in the course of that search this body was brought up. you have already viewed it, gentlemen. dr. macilvaine will tell you that it has certainly been a month in the water, perhaps two or three weeks longer. unfortunately the state of the body is such that it is impossible now to ascertain the cause of death, or whether it was alive when it fell in, or was placed in, the water. fortunately some of its clothes still remain on the body, and one of the witnesses, the nurse of the missing boy, will tell you that the marks upon them were worked by herself, and that she can swear to them. whether any other matters will come before you in reference to the case, which, from the fact[pg 186] that the child was grandson of the late general mathieson and heir to his property, has attracted much attention, i cannot say. the first witness you will hear is the lock-keeper, who was present at the finding of the body."
before the witness was called, however, one of the counsel rose and said:
"i am instructed, sir, to appear to watch the proceedings on behalf of mr. john simcoe, who, by the death of walter rivington, inherits under the will of the late general mathieson."
the coroner bowed. the other counsel then rose.
"and i, sir, have been instructed by mr. pettigrew and colonel bulstrode, the trustees under the will, the former gentleman being also joint guardian with miss hilda covington of the missing child, to watch the case on their behalf."
there was again an exchange of bows, and the lock-keeper then entered the box. his evidence was given in few words. he simply deposed to assisting in dragging the canal, and to the finding of the body.
"have you any questions to ask the witness?" the coroner said, turning to the barristers.
the counsel employed by mr. pettigrew rose.
"yes, sir; i have a few questions to ask. now, mr. cousins, you say that you took part in dragging the canal. you are in charge of the drags, are you not?"
"yes, sir; they are always kept in readiness at the lockhouse."
"how came you to use the drags? i suppose you don't take them down and spend a day or two in dragging the canal unless you have reason for supposing that a body is there."
"no, sir. the afternoon before a woman came up crying and said that her child had fallen into the water. he had gone out in the morning to play, and when dinner-time came and he didn't return she searched everywhere for him, and two children had just told her that they were playing with him on the bank of the[pg 187] canal, and that he had fallen in. they tried to get him out, but he sank, and they were so frightened that they ran home without saying anything. but they thought now that they had better tell. i said that she had better go to the police station and repeat her statement, and they would send a constable to help me. she did that, and came back with the policeman. it was getting late then, but we took a boat and dragged the canal for two or three hours. the next morning she came again, and said that the boys had shown her just where her child fell in, and we dragged there and found this body. we brought it ashore, and after we had carried it to the lockhouse we set to work again, but could not find any other body."
"what became of the woman?"
"she was with us till we fetched up this body. when she saw it she ran away crying, and did not come back again."
"you have not seen her since, mr. cousins?"
"no, sir; i have not seen her since. i believe the constable made inquiries about her."
"thank you, i have nothing more to ask."
the policeman then entered the box and gave his evidence shortly, as to assisting in the operation of dragging and to finding the body.
"about this woman who gave the alarm," the barrister asked. "have you seen her, constable?"
"no, sir; not since the body was found. thinking it strange that she did not come back, i reported it at the station. she had given the name of mary smith and an address in old park. i was told to go round there, but no such person was known, and no one had heard of a child being lost. on my reporting this, inquiries were made all round the neighborhood; but no one had heard of such a woman, nor of a missing child."
"this is a very strange circumstance, sir, and it looks as if the whole story of the drowning child was a fabrication. the fact that the body of the child whose death[pg 188] we are considering was found close to the spot would certainly seem to point to the fact that some person or persons who were cognizant of the fact that this body was there were for some reasons anxious that it should be found, and so employed this woman to get the drags used at that point in order that the body might be brought to light."
"it is certainly a very strange business," the coroner said, "and i hope that the police will spare no efforts to discover this woman. however, as she is not before us, we must proceed with the case."
then the officer of the court called out the name of mary summerford, and the nurse went into the witness box.
"i understand, mary sommerford, that you were nurse to walter rivington?"
"i was, sir."
"will you tell the jury when you last saw him, and how it was that he was lost?"
she told the story as she had told it to hilda on the day that he was missing.
"you have seen the clothes found on the body. do you recognize them as those that he was wearing when you last saw him?"
"yes, sir."
"how do you recognize them?"
"because his initials are worked in two places. i worked them myself, and can swear to them."
"you cannot recognize the body, nurse?"
"i do not believe it is the body of my young master," she said; "his hair was lovely—long and silky. what hair remains on the body is very short, and what i should call stubbly."
"but the hair might have been cut short by the people who stole him," the coroner said. "it is the first precaution they would take to evade the search that would at once be set on foot."
"yes, sir, but i don't think that it would have grown up so stiff."[pg 189]
"my experience of workhouse children," the coroner remarked, "is that whatever the hair they may have had when they entered the house, it is stiff enough to stand upright when cut close to the head. there is nothing else, is there, which leads you to doubt the identity of the child?"
"no, sir, i cannot say that there is; but i don't believe that it is master walter's body."
hilda, netta, and mr. pettigrew all gave their evidence. the two former stated that they identified the clothes, but, upon the same ground as the nurse, they failed to recognize the body as that of walter rivington. all were asked if they could in any way account for the finding of the child's body there. the question had been foreseen, and they said that, although they had used every means of discovering the child, they had obtained no clew whatever as to his whereabouts from the time that he was stolen to the time they were summoned to identify the body.
"you quite assume that he was stolen, and not that he wandered away, as children will do when their nurses are gossiping?"
"we are convinced that he was stolen, sir, because the search was begun so momentarily after he was missed that he could hardly have got out of sight, had he merely wandered away on foot. notice was given to the police an hour after he disappeared, and every street in this part of london was scoured immediately."
"children of that age, miss covington, have often a fancy for hiding themselves; and this child may have hidden somewhere close until he saw his nurse pass by, and then made off in the opposite direction. the spot where the child's body was found is little more than a quarter of a mile from the corner where he was missed. he might have wandered up there, found himself on the canal bank, and childlike, have begun to play, and so slipped into the water."
john simcoe was the last witness called. he gave his evidence to the effect that he had seen the body, and[pg 190] that personally he saw no reason to doubt that it was that of walter rivington.
his counsel then rose.
"you are, i believe, mr. simcoe, owing to the death of this poor child, the principal legatee under the will of general mathieson?"
"i am sorry to say that i am. the whole business has caused me immense distress. i have felt that, being the only person that would benefit by the child's death, those who did not know me would have a suspicion that i might have had a hand in his mysterious disappearance."
"you have taken an active part in the search for him?"
"i offered a reward of one thousand pounds for any information that would lead to his discovery, and i believe that i have traveled up and down every obscure slum in london in hopes of lighting upon him."
"even without the provision in the will which made you next heir you benefited by it, did you not?"
"i did, most munificently. general mathieson had himself informed me that i should find, by his will, that he had not been ungrateful for a service that i rendered him many years ago; but i was not aware of the sum that he had left me. as to the distant contingency of inheriting in case of the child's death, i was altogether ignorant of it; but had i known it, it would in no way have affected me. the little fellow was a fine healthy child, and, therefore, the thought that he might not live to come of age would never have entered my mind."
as the other counsel had no question to ask, the evidence was now concluded.
"well, gentlemen, you have heard the evidence," the coroner said. "dr. macilvaine has told you, as indeed you might judge for yourselves on viewing the body, that it is impossible, in its advanced state of decomposition, to say whether the child was alive or dead at the time he fell, or was placed in the canal. as to who were the guilty persons who beguiled the child away, if he was[pg 191] beguiled, we have no shadow of evidence, and it may well be that he was stolen for the sake of his clothes. the cutting short of his hair certainly points to the truth of this theory, as does also the fact that no vestige has been found of his upper clothing. it is probable that some woman enticed him away, and kept him for some time with her, and then, when she became alarmed by the search made for him, carried him in his sleep from the house, and perhaps laid him down by the canal, thinking that he would be found there in the morning, and that the poor child awoke in the dark, wandered about, and fell into the canal.
"however, this is only theory; but it is at least supported by the mysterious incident of the unknown woman who, by means of a tale which appears beyond doubt to have been wholly fictitious, caused the water at that spot to be dragged. the fact that on the second day she pointed out almost the exact point where the body was found would seem to show that the child could scarcely have fallen in the water, as she suggested, for in that case she could not have known the precise spot. it would seem, then, more likely that either the child died a natural death, perhaps from confinement or bad treatment, or possibly that, terribly alarmed at the search that was being maintained, he was put out of the way and then thrown into the canal at this spot. in that case we may admit that it is certainly strange that she should risk discovery by the course she took, and i can only account for it on the ground that she had been, ever since his death, suffering from remorse, and possibly she may have thought that she might in some sort of way atone for her conduct were she to point out where the child was, and so secure for him christian burial. that, however, is not before us at present, and i see no advantage in an adjournment for an indefinite time until this mystery is solved. the police have taken the matter in hand, and will spare no pains to discover the woman. if they do so, undoubtedly proceedings will be taken in another court. the point that we have to consider is who[pg 192] this child was, and how he came to his death. unfortunately we are absolutely without any evidence of what became of him from the time he got lost up to the discovery of his body, and i think that you cannot do otherwise than find an open verdict.
"as to the question of identity, there can, i think, be no shadow of doubt. the clothes in which he was found prove him beyond question to have been walter rivington, although the body itself is absolutely beyond identification. i do not think that you need give any weight to the nurse's failure to recognize him, or to her opinion about the hair. she is naturally reluctant to acknowledge, even to herself, that the child which was lost by her inadvertence is dead, and the ladies would be equally reluctant to admit that all hope was over."
the jury put their heads together, and there was evidently no difference of opinion, for in two or three minutes they sat down again and the foreman stood up.
"you have decided on your verdict?" the coroner asked.
"we have, sir. we find that the body is that of walter rivington, and that he was found dead in the canal, but how he came there and by what means he came by his death, there is no evidence to show."
"thank you, gentlemen; that is precisely the verdict that i should myself have given."
