"I tell you what it is, Simcoe," Harrison said two months later, "this affair of yours is getting to be a good deal more troublesome than I bargained for. It all looked simple enough; one only had to pick up a child, drive him in a cab across London, then down in a trap to Pitsea, hand him over to a man I knew would take good care of him, and take the payments for him when they became due, which would be no trouble, as I had to see the man occasionally on my own business. Of course I expected that there would be a big hue and cry for him, but I had no fear whatever of his being found. Then I managed through another man to get that body from the workhouse undertaker, and you managed the rest easily enough; but I tell you that the matter is getting a good deal hotter than I ever thought it would.
"I told you that I had been followed several times after leaving your place, and one morning when I went out early I saw footmarks, showing that someone had been walking round my house and trying to look in at the windows. I have a strong suspicion that I have been followed to my office, and I know that someone got in there one day at my dinner hour. I know, because I always fasten a piece of thread, so that if the door is opened it breaks it. There is nothing there that anyone could make anything of, but it is just as well to know if anyone has been prying about. The woman of the house was sure that she had not been in there, nor had she let anyone in; so the lock must have been picked. Of course anyone is liable to have his office robbed when he is out and it is empty; but nothing was taken, and if a common[Pg 263] thief had found nothing else he would probably have made off with my dress suit, which would have brought him a sov. in a second-hand clothes shop.
"You know I have an excessive objection to being watched. I have had nothing on hand lately, at any rate nothing that has come off, but I might have had, you know. Well, yesterday I was going down to see my man in the marshes, and to tell him that likely enough I should bring something down to him next week. I got out of the train at Tilbury, and, as you know, there are not a dozen houses anywhere near the station. Now, I have a habit of keeping my eyes open, and I saw a man sitting on an old boat. What called my attention particularly to him was that he was turned half round watching the entrance to the station as I came out. You can always tell whether a man is watching for someone, or whether he is merely looking generally in that direction, and this man was certainly watching for someone. The instant his eye fell upon me he turned round and stared at the river. The path to the public house lay just behind him. Now, it would be natural that hearing a footstep a man doing nothing would look round and perhaps say a word—ask the time, or something of that sort. Well, he didn't turn round. Now, it is my habit, and a very useful one, always to carry a glass of about the size of a folded letter in my pocket. Instead of going on to the public house I turned off from the path and walked away from the river. When I had got some little distance I took out my glass, and still walking along, I held it up so that I could see in it what was going on behind. The man was standing up, watching me. I put the glass in my pocket and dropped my handkerchief. I stooped down to pick it up, of course partly turning as I did so, and saw that he had instantly dropped into a sitting position again, with his back to me.
"That was good enough. I turned, cut across the fields, went straight back to the station and took the next ferry-boat to Gravesend, and came back that way. It is quite clear to me that not only is this girl on the[Pg 264] track still, but the chase is getting to be a very hot one, and that not only are they watching you, but they are watching me, and have in some way or other, though how, I cannot guess, found out that I go down to Tilbury, and have accordingly sent a man down to follow me. Now, I tell you frankly, I will have no more to do with the matter—that is to say, as far as going down on your business. As I have told you, I have always managed my own affairs so well that the police and I have no acquaintance whatever; and I am not going to be spied upon and followed and have the 'tecs upon my track about an affair in which I have no interest at all, except that, you having stood by my brother, I was glad to do you any service I could. But this is getting serious. I don't like it. I have told you I have business with the man, and get things off abroad through him that I should have great trouble in getting rid of in any other way; but unless in quite exceptional cases, these things are so small that they could be hidden away for months without much risk of their being found, however sharp the hunt after them might be. As I am in no way pressed for money I can afford to wait, though I own that I like to get the things off my hands as soon as I can, and as I considered that I ran practically no risk in going down with them into Essex, I never kept them at my house. However, for a time I must do so. I must tell you that when I am going down I always write beforehand and make an appointment for him to have his barge at the wharf at Pitsea, and I send my letter addressed to him: 'Mr. William Nibson, barge Mary Ann, care of Mr. Scholey, Spotted Horse, Pitsea.' You had better write to him in future. You need not put anything inside the envelope except notes for twenty-five pounds, and the words, 'For the child's keep for six months.' I need not say that you had better disguise your writing, both on the envelope and on the inside, and it is best that you should get your notes from some bookmaker on a race-course. You tell me you often go to races now and do a little betting. They are not the sort of men who take[Pg 265] the numbers of the notes they pay out, and it would be next to impossible for them to be traced to you."
"Thank you, Harrison; you have behaved like a true pal to me, and I am ever so much obliged to you. I quite see what you mean, and indeed it is as much for my interest as yours that you should not go down there any more. Confound that girl Covington! I am sure she is the moving spirit of it all. I always felt uneasy about her from the first, and was sure that if there was any trouble it would come from her. I wonder how the deuce she ever found out that you went down to Tilbury."
"That beats me too, Simcoe. As you may guess, I am always most cautious about it, and always take a very roundabout way of going to the station."
"I have been uneasy ever since that girl at our place left so suddenly. A fortnight afterwards we found that there was a hole bored through the doorpost. Of course it might have been bored before I went there; but in that case it is curious that it was never noticed before. I cannot help thinking that she did it."
"Yes, you told me; but you said that you tried the experiment, and found that when your man and his wife were talking there in a loud voice, and you had your ear at the hole, you could not catch a single word."
"Yes, that was certainly so. I could hear them talking, but I could not make out a word of their conversation. Still it is evident that somebody has been trying to hear. I cannot help thinking that it was that girl, though both Johnstone and his wife spoke very highly of her. Certainly the story she told them was true to a certain extent, for when they sent the box down to Reading I sent a man down there to watch, and she called to fetch it, and my man found out that she labeled it 'Oxford,' and took it away with her on the down train. As he had no directions to follow her farther he came back. After we found the hole I sent him down again; but he never came upon her traces, though he inquired at every village near Oxford."
"She may have been put there as a spy," the other[Pg 266] said; "but as it is evident that she couldn't hear through that hole, it is clear that she could not have done them any good. That is, I suppose, why they called her off; so the puzzle still remains how they got on my track at Tilbury. I should like to have a good look at this Covington girl. I can admire a clever wench, even when she is working against me."
"There is 'The Huguenots' at Her Majesty's to-night, the first time this season. She very often goes in Lady Moulton's box, and it is likely enough that she will go to-night. It's the third box from the stage, on the first tier; I will go down to Bond Street and see if I can get hold of a box opposite, on the second or third tier. The money will be well laid out, for I should very much like you to study her face, and I won enough at pool at the club this afternoon to pay for it."
"Very well, then I will come round to your place. I really am curious to see the girl. I only caught a passing glimpse of her in the park that day."
Simcoe was not wrong in his conjecture, for Hilda dined at Lady Moulton's, and they took their places in the latter's box just as the first bar of the overture sounded. She was in half mourning now, and in black lace, with white camellias in her hair and breast, was, as Netta had told her before starting, looking her best.
"That is the girl," Simcoe exclaimed, as she went forward to the front of the box.
"Well, there is no denying that she is good-looking," the other said, as he turned his glasses upon her; "there is not a better-looking woman in the house. Plenty of self-possession too," he added, as Hilda took her seat and at once, in apparent ignorance that any glasses were upon her, took her own lorgnettes from their case and proceeded calmly to scan the stalls and boxes, to see who among her numerous acquaintances were there. As her eyes fell upon the two men sitting nearly opposite to her, her glasses steadied, then after a minute she lowered them.
"Lady Moulton, I regard it as a providence that you[Pg 267] brought me here this evening. Do you see those two men there in the box nearly opposite, in the second tier? Well, one of the men is Simcoe, to whom my uncle left all his property if Walter should not live to come of age, and who I am absolutely convinced carried the child away."
"I see them, my dear; they are staring at you. I suppose they are as much interested in you as you in them."
Hilda again put her glasses to her eyes.
"She has just told Lady Moulton who I am," Simcoe said.
"She has a clever face, Simcoe—broad across the chin—any amount of determination, I should say. Ah! there, she is getting up to make room for somebody else."
"Stay where you are, my dear," Lady Moulton said, putting her hand on Hilda's arm; "there is plenty of room for three."
"Plenty," she replied; "but I want to watch those two men, and I cannot keep my glasses fixed on them while I am sitting in the front row."
"Hardly, my dear," Lady Moulton said with a smile. "Well, have your own way."
A fourth lady came in almost immediately. She took the third chair in the front, and Hilda, sitting half in the shade, was able to devote herself to her purpose free from general obs............