"Just the verdict that I expected," Mr. Pettigrew said, as he and the ladies issued from the courthouse.  
"I suppose that it is for the best, Mr. Pettigrew, but it seems hard, when we could have said so much, to be obliged to hold our tongues altogether."
 
"No doubt you will have an opportunity later on, Miss Covington. Our tongues are tied until we can obtain some sort of proof to go upon. We cannot go into court with merely suspicions; we must get facts. All we have done at present is to obtain some sort of foundation on which to work; but facts we shall, I hope, get ere long from what we may discover of this fellow's movements. He is likely to be less careful now that it has been decided that Walter is dead. He is doubtless well aware of the fact that trustees have a year given them before proceeding to carry out the provisions of a will, and, therefore, for that time he will keep quiet. At the end of the year his solicitor will write us a courteous letter, asking when we shall be in a position to distribute the estate in accordance with the provisions of the will. We shall reply that we are not in a position to do so. Then, after a time, will come letters of a more and more peremptory character, and at last a notice that they are about to apply to the courts for an order for us to act upon the provisions of the will. About two years after the General's death the matter will probably come on. I may say that I have already sent checks to all the small legatees."
 
"Thank you, I was aware of that, because Tom Roberts came to me yesterday with his check for two hundred[Pg 194] pounds," and said, "Look here, Miss Covington; you said you meant to keep me on just the same as in the General's time, so this won't be of any use to me, and I should like to spend it in any way that you think best to find out what has become of Master Walter.' Of course I told him that the money could not be spent in that way, and that the work that he was doing was of far greater use than ten times that sum would be."
 
"I will send you your check to-morrow, Miss Covington. The sum we have paid to the people who have been searching, and all other expenses that may be incurred, will, of course, come out of the estate. You have not as yet settled, I suppose, as to your future plans?"
 
"No, except that I shall certainly keep on the house in Hyde Park Gardens for the present. It is, of course, ridiculously large for me, but I don't want the trouble of making a move until I make one permanently, and shall therefore stay here until this matter is finally cleared up. Miss Purcell has most kindly consented to remain as my chaperon, and her plans and those of her niece will depend upon mine."
 
They had sent away their carriage when they entered the court, and they walked quietly home, Mr. Pettigrew returning at once to his office. The next morning Tom Roberts accosted Hilda as she entered the breakfast room, with a face that showed he had news.
 
"We have traced him down to one of his places at last, miss. I said to Andrew, 'We must keep a special sharp look out to-night, for like enough, now that the inquest is over, he will be going to talk over the matter with his pals.' Well, miss, last night, at half-past nine, out he comes. He wasn't in evening dress, for although, as usual, he had a topcoat on, he had light trousers and walking boots. He did not turn the usual way, but went up into Piccadilly. We followed him. I kept close behind him, and Andrew at a distance, so that he should not notice us together. At the Circus he hailed a cab, and as he got in I heard him say to the driver, 'King's[Pg 195] Cross Station.' As soon as he had gone off Andrew and I jumped into another cab, and told the man to drive to the same place, and that we would give him a shilling extra if he drove sharp.
 
"He did drive sharp, and I felt sure that we had got there before our man. I stopped outside the entrance, Andrew went inside. In five minutes he arrived, paid the driver his fare, and went in. I had agreed to wait two or three minutes outside, while Andrew was to be at the ticket office to see where he booked for. I was just going in when, to my surprise, out the man came again and walked briskly away. I ran in and fetched Andrew, and off we went after him. He hadn't more than a minute's start, and we were nearly up to him by the time he had got down to the main road. We kept behind him until we saw him go up Pentonville Hill, then Andrew went on ahead of him and I followed. We agreed that if he looked back, suspicious, I should drop behind. Andrew, when he once got ahead, was to keep about the same distance in front of him, so as to be able to drop behind and take it up instead of me, while I was to cross over the road if I thought that he had discovered I was following him.
 
"However, it did not seem to strike him that anyone was watching him, and he walked on briskly until he came to a small house standing by itself, and as he turned in we were in time to see that the door was opened to him by a man. Andrew and I consulted. I went in at the gate, took my shoes off, and went round the house. There was only a light in one room, which looked as if there were no servants. The curtains were pulled together inside, and I could see nothing of what was going on. He stopped there for an hour and a half, then came out again, hailed a cab halfway down the hill, and drove off. Andrew and I had compared watches, and he had gone back to Jermyn Street, so that we should be able to know by the time the chap arrived whether he had gone anywhere else on his way back. When I joined him I found that the man must have driven straight to the[Pg 196] Circus and then got out, for he walked in just twenty minutes after I had seen him start."
 
"That is good news indeed, Roberts. We will go and see Mr. Pettigrew directly after breakfast. Please order the carriage to be round at a quarter to ten."
 
Netta was as pleased as her friend when she heard that a step had been made at last.
 
"I am sick of this inaction," she said, "and want to be doing something towards getting to the bottom of the affair. I do hope that we shall find some way in which I can be useful."
 
"I have no doubt at all that you will be very useful when we get fairly on the track. I expect that this will lead to something."
 
After Tom Roberts had repeated his story to Mr. Pettigrew, Hilda said:
 
"I brought Roberts with me, Mr. Pettigrew, that he might tell the story in his own way. It seems to me that the best thing now would be to employ a private detective to find out who the man is who lives in Rose Cottage. This would be out of the line of Tom Roberts and Colonel Bulstrode's servant altogether. They would not know how to set about making inquiries, whereas a detective would be at home at such work."
 
"I quite agree with you," the lawyer said. "To make inquiries without exciting suspicion requires training and practice. An injudicious question might lead to this man being warned that inquiries were being made about him and might ruin the matter altogether. Of course your two men will still keep up their watch. It may be that we shall find it is of more use to follow the track of this man than the other. But you must not be too sanguine; the man at Rose Cottage may be an old acquaintance of Simcoe. Well, my dear," he went on, in answer to a decided shake of the head on Hilda's part, "you must call the man by the only name that he is known by, although it may not belong to him. I grant that the manner in which he drove into King's Cross station and then walked out on foot would seem to show that he was[Pg 197] anxious to throw anyone who might be watching him off the scent, and that the visit was, so to speak, a clandestine one. But it may relate to an entirely different matter; for this man may be, for aught we know, an adept in crime, and may be in league with many other doubtful characters."
 
"It may be so, Mr. Pettigrew, but we will hope not."
 
"Very well, my dear," the lawyer said. "I will send for a trustworthy man at once, and set him to work collecting information regarding the occupant of the cottage. And now I have a point upon which I wish to ask your opinion. I have this morning received a letter from this man's solicitor, asking if we intend to undertake the funeral of the body which the coroner's jury have found to be that of Walter Rivington; and announcing that, if we do not, his client will himself have it carried out."
 
"What do you think, Mr. Pettigrew?" Hilda said hesitatingly. "We may be wrong, you know, and it may be Walter's body."
 
"I have been thinking it over," the lawyer replied, "and I must say it is my opinion that, as we have all stated our conviction that it is not, we should only stultify ourselves if we now undertook the funeral and put a stone, with his name on, over the grave. If we should at any time become convinced that we have been wrong, we can apply for a faculty to remove the coffin to the family vault down in Warwickshire."
 
"If we could do that I should not mind," Hilda said; "but even the possibility of Walter being buried by the man who we firmly believe was the cause of his death is terrible."
 
"Yes, I can quite understand your feelings, but I think that it is necessary that the family should make a protest against its being supposed that they recognize the child, by declining to undertake the funeral. No protest could well be stronger."
 
"If you think that, Mr. Pettigrew, we certainly had[Pg 198] best stand aside and let that poor child be buried by this man."
 
Two days later they were driving in the Row. It was Hilda's first appearance there since the General's death, and, after talking it over with Netta, she now appeared there in order to show that she was perfectly convinced that the child which had been found in the canal was not her little cousin. The details of the proceedings of the coroner's court had, of course, been read by all her friends, and her appearance in the park would be the best proof that she could give that the family were absolutely convinced that the body was not that of Walter.
 
Miss Purcell and Netta were with her. The latter had on, as usual, a thick veil. This she always wore when driving through any locality where she might meet John Simcoe.
 
"That is the man," Hilda said to her in a sharp tone; "the farther of those two leaning on the rail the other side of the road."
 
As Hilda fixed her eyes on the man she saw him give a sudden movement. Then he said to the man next to him:
 
"Do you see that girl in deep mourning? It is that little vixen, Hilda Covington. Confound her, she is at the bottom of all this trouble, and I believe she would give ten thousand out of her own pocket to checkmate me."
 
The carriage was opposite to them now. Hilda looked straight in front of her, while Netta, who was sitting with her back to the horses, took up the watch.
 
"She would have to be sharp indeed to do that," the other man said. "So far everything has gone without a hitch, and I don't see a single weak point in your case. The most troublesome part has been got over."
 
And now some carriages going the other way cut off the view, and Netta could read no further. She drew a long breath as Hilda's eyes turned towards her.
 
"What did you read?" the latter asked.[Pg 199]
 
Netta repeated what she had caught, and then Hilda took up the conversation.
 
"It is quite evident that this man, whoever he is, is an accomplice. He is a gentlemanly-looking man, and I fancy that he sat in the stalls near to us one evening this spring. However, it is quite clear that he is a confederate of Simcoe. Just repeat his words over again. They were in answer to his remark that I would give ten thousand pounds to be able to checkmate him."
 
Netta repeated the answer of Simcoe's companion.
 
"You see, Netta, there is something to find out that would checkmate him; that is quite evident. He thinks that I cannot find it out. It must be, I should think, that Walter is kept in hiding somewhe............