Hilda lowered her gla.s.ses as the curtain rose again. "Oh, Lady Moulton!"

she whispered, "I have found out all that I have been so long wanting to know. I believe now that in three days I shall have the child home again."

Lady Moulton turned half round.

"How on earth have you found that out, Hilda? Are you a wizard indeed, who can read men's thoughts in their faces? I always thought that there was something uncanny about you, ever since that day of my fete."

To Harrison's relief, Miss Covington did not turn her gla.s.s towards him again during the evening. When the curtain fell on the next act a gentleman, to whom Lady Moulton had nodded in the stalls, came in. After shaking hands with her and her friends, he seated himself by the side of Hilda.

"Miss Covington," he said, "I have never had an opportunity of speaking to you since that fete at Lady Moulton's. I have understood that the gypsy on that occasion was engaged by you, and that there was, if you will excuse me saying so, some little mystery about it. I don't wish to pry into that, but if you should ever see the woman again you will oblige me very greatly by telling her that I consider I owe her a deep debt of grat.i.tude. She said something to me then that made a tremendous impression upon me, and I do not mind telling you it brought me up with a round turn. I had been going ahead a great deal too fast, and I see now that, had I continued on the same course, I should have brought absolute ruin upon myself, and blighted my life in every way. The shock she gave me by warning me what would come if I did not give up cards and racing showed me my utter folly, and on that day I swore never to touch a card or lay a penny upon a horse for the rest of my life. When I tell you that I have completely pulled myself round, and that, by the aid of an old uncle, to whom I went and made a clean breast of all, I am now straight in every way, and, as you may have heard, am going to be married to Miss Fortescue in a fortnight, you may guess what deep reason I have to be grateful to this gypsy woman of yours, and how I hope that, should you come across her again, you will tell her so, and should there be any possible way in which I can prove my grat.i.tude, by money or otherwise, I shall be delighted to do so."

"I will tell her, Captain Desmond," the girl said in a low voice. "I am sure that it will make her happy to know that she did some good that evening. I do not think that she is in need of money or a.s.sistance of any kind, but should she be so I will let you know."

"And do you really mean that you have discovered where General Mathieson's grandson is living?" Lady Moulton asked, as they rose to leave their seats when the curtain fell.

"I think so; I am almost sure of it."

Lady Moulton had heard a good deal from Hilda as to the situation. Mr.

Pettigrew had strongly impressed upon both Hilda and Colonel Bulstrode that it was very important that the contents of the will should not be talked about. "We don't want our private affairs discussed in the press and made the subject of general talk," he had said, and it was only to Lady Moulton that Hilda had spoken freely of the matter, so far as the discovery of the new will, the change that had been made, and the singularity of Walter being missing. She had also mentioned her belief that Simcoe was at the bottom of this, but had breathed no words of her suspicion that the General had come to his death by foul play, or of her own conviction that Simcoe was an impostor, although there had been some talk in the clubs over the matter, for Colonel Bulstrode was by no means so discreet as Hilda, and among his intimate friends spoke his mind with great vehemence and strength of language as to General Mathieson having made so singular a disposition of his property, and he made no secret of his suspicion that Simcoe was at the bottom of Walter's disappearance.

Thus the matter had gradually gone the round of the clubs; but it was not until Simcoe's own counsel had drawn from him the fact that Walter's death would put him into possession of the estate that the public in general learned the facts.

"It was a clever move," Mr. Pettigrew had said, talking it over with his partner. "No doubt he was afraid that the question would be asked by our counsel, and he thought that it was better that the fact should come voluntarily from himself. His best plan by far was to brazen it out. No doubt nine men out of ten will consider that the affair is a very suspicious one, and some of them will give him the cold shoulder; but whatever their opinions, they dare not express them without laying themselves open to an action for libel, while, on the other hand, the fact that a man is heir to a good estate will always cause a good many to rally round him. Not the best of men, you know, but enough to prevent his being a lonely figure in a club.

"Yes, I think he was certainly well advised to declare his heirship voluntarily, instead of having it drawn from him. He must have known, of course, that sooner or later the matter would be made public, and it is better for him to get the talk and gossip over now instead of the matter being known for the first time when he begins to take legal steps to compel us to put him into possession of the estate."

"What on earth did you mean, Hilda," Lady Moulton said, as the door of the carriage was closed and they drove off from Her Majesty's, "by saying that you had discovered a clew by which you might in a few days find your little cousin?"

"I cannot tell you exactly how I discovered it. At present it is a secret that both my mother and uncle charged me to keep, but when these troubles are over I will explain it all to you, though I should certainly do so to no one else."

"Well, I suppose I must be content with that, Hilda. But it certainly does seem extraordinary to me that by merely seeing two men in a box on the other side of the house you should have obtained a clew to what you have for a year now been trying to get at."

"It does seem extraordinary, Lady Moulton, but it really is not so, and I hope to convince you that I am right by producing Walter in a week from the present time."

"I hope you will, Hilda. I sincerely hope so, both for the child's sake, yours, and my own. Of course, when he is found there will be no possible reason for your keeping yourself shut up as you have done. I have missed you very much, and shall be very glad to have you under my wing again."

"Thank you for saying so, Lady Moulton; but so far as I have formed my plans, they are that Walter's trustees shall either let or sell the house in Hyde Park Gardens, and that I shall go down for a time with him into the country. I have had a great deal of anxiety this last year, and I shall be very glad of complete rest for a time."

"That is reasonable enough, my dear, but I do hope that you are not thinking of burying yourself in the country for good. There, I am at home. Good-night, Hilda; thanks for the lift. It is not often my horses or my coachmen have a night off during the season."

CHAPTER XXII.

NEARING THE GOAL.

"I suppose Miss Netta is in bed?" Hilda asked, as she entered the house.

"Yes, miss; she and Miss Purcell went to their rooms soon after ten o'clock."

Hilda ran upstairs to Netta's room.

"Are you awake, Netta?" she asked, as she opened the door.

"Well, I think I was asleep, Hilda; I didn't intend to go off, for I made sure that you would come in for a chat, as usual, when you got back; but I think I must have dozed off."

"Well, if you had been so sound asleep that I had had to violently wake you up, I should have done so. I have had my chance, Netta. Simcoe and his friend were in a box opposite to ours, and I have learned where Walter is."

"That is news indeed," Netta exclaimed, leaping up; "that is worth being awakened a hundred times for. Please hand me my dressing-gown. Now let us sit down and talk it over comfortably."

Hilda then repeated the whole conversation that she had overheard.

"Splendid!" Netta exclaimed, clapping her hands; "and that man was right, dear, in feeling uncomfortable when your gla.s.ses were fixed on his face, though he little guessed what reason he had for the feeling.

Well, it is worth all the four years you spent with us to have learned to read people's words from their lips. I always said that you were my best pupil, and you have proved it so now. What is to be done next?"

"We shall need a general council for that!" Hilda laughed. "We must do nothing rash now that success seems so close; a false move might spoil everything."

"Yes, we shall have to be very careful. This bargeman may not live near there at all; though no doubt he goes there pretty often, as letters are sent there for him. Besides, Simcoe may have someone stationed there to find out whether any inquiries have been made for a missing child."

"Yes, I see that we shall have to be very careful, Netta, and we must not spoil our chances by being over hasty."

They talked for upwards of an hour, and then went to their beds. The next morning Roberts took a note to Dr. Leeds. It contained only a few lines from Hilda:

"MY DEAR DR. LEEDS: We have found a most important clew, and are going to have a consultation, at which, of course, we want you to be present. Could you manage to be at Mr. Pettigrew's office at three o'clock? If so, on hearing from you, I will send to him to make an appointment."

The answer came back:

"I congratulate you heartily, and will meet you at three o'clock at Pettigrew's office."

A note was at once sent off to the lawyer's to make the appointment, and the girls arrived with Miss Purcell two or three minutes before the hour, and were at once shown into Mr. Pettigrew's room, where Mr. Farmer immediately joined them.

"I will wait a minute or two before I begin," Hilda said. "I have asked Dr. Leeds to join us here. He has been so very kind throughout the whole matter that we thought it was only fair that he should be here."

"Certainly, I thoroughly agree with you. I never thought that terrible suspicion of his well founded, but he certainly took immense pains in collecting information of all sorts about these native poisons, and since then has shown the greatest desire to a.s.sist in any way."

A minute later Dr. Leeds was shown in.

"Now, Miss Covington," Mr. Farmer said, "we are ready to hear your communication."

Hilda then related what she had learned at the opera.

"Really, Miss Covington," Mr. Farmer continued, "it is a thousand pities that you and your friend cannot utilize your singular accomplishment in the detective line. You ought to make a fortune by it. I have, of course, heard from my partner of the education that you had in Germany, and of your having acquired some new system by which you can understand what people are saying by watching their lips, but I certainly had no conception that it could be carried to such an extent as you have just proved it can. It is like gaining a new sense. Now I suppose you have come to us for advice as to what had best be done next."

"That is it, Mr. Farmer. It is quite evident to us that we must be extremely careful, for if these people suspect that we are so far on their track, they might remove Walter at once, and we might never be able to light upon a clew again."

"Yes, I see that. Of course, if we were absolutely in a position to prove that this child has been kept down near Pitsea with their cognizance we could arrest them at once; but, unfortunately, in the words you heard there was no mention of the child, and at present we have nothing but a series of small circ.u.mstantial facts to adduce. You believe, Mr. Pettigrew tells me, that the man who calls himself John Simcoe is an impostor who has no right to the name, and that General Mathieson was under a complete delusion when he made that extraordinary will. You believe that, or at any rate you have a suspicion that, having got the General to make the will, he administered some unknown drug that finally caused his death. You believe that, as this child alone stood between him and the inheritance, he had him carried off with the a.s.sistance of the other man. You believe that the body the coroner's jury decided to be that of Walter Rivington was not his, and that the child himself is being kept out of the way somewhere in Ess.e.x, and you believe that the conversation that you most singularly overheard related to him.

"But, unfortunately, all these beliefs are unsupported by a single legal fact, and I doubt very much whether any magistrate would issue a warrant for these men's arrest upon your story being laid before him. Even if they were arrested, some confederate might hasten down to Pitsea and carry the child off; and, indeed, Pitsea may only be the meeting-place of these conspirators, and the child may be at Limehouse or at Chatham, or at any other place frequented by barges. Therefore we must for the present give up all idea of seizing these men. Any researches at Pitsea itself are clearly attended by danger, and yet I see no other way of proceeding."