“Does she keep more than one servant?”
“Oh, I think not; but no doubt the greengrocer can say.” The lady seemed to feel it an affront that she should be supposed to know anything of Mrs. Butcher, and Hewitt consequently started for the greengrocer’s. Now this was just one of those cases in which dependence on information given by other people put Hewitt on the wrong scent. He spent that day in a fatiguing pursuit of Mrs. Butcher’s servant, with adventures rather amusing in themselves, but quite irrelevant to the Seton case. In the end, when he had captured her, and proceeded to open a cunning battery of inquiries, under plea of a bet with a friend that the shoes could not be matched, he soon found that she had been the purchaser who, after buying just such a pair of shoes, had returned and exchanged them for something cheaper. And the only outcome of his visit to the baby-linen shop was the waste of a day. It was indeed just one of those checks which, while they may hamper the progress of a narrative for popular reading, are nevertheless inseparable from the matter-of-fact experience of Hewitt’s profession.
With a very natural rage in his heart, but with as polite an exterior as possible, Hewitt returned to the baby-linen shop in the evening. The whole case seemed barren of useful evidence, and at each turn as yet he had found himself helpless. At the shop the self-confident young lady calmly admitted that soon after he had left something had caused her to remember that it was the other customer who had kept the white shoes and not Mrs. Butcher’s servant.
“And do you know the other customer?” he asked.
“No, she was quite a stranger. She brought in a little boy from a cab and bought a lot of things for him—a suit of outdoor clothes, as well as the shoes.”
“Ah! now probably this is what I want. Can you remember anything of the child?”
“Yes, he was a pretty little fellow, about two years old or so, with curls. She called him Charley.”
“Did she put the things on him in the shop?”
“Not the frock; but she put on the outer coat, the hat and the shoes. I can remember it all now quite well, now I have had time to think.”
“Then what shoes did the child wear when he came in?”
“Rather old tan-coloured ones.”
“Then I think this is the person I am after. You say you never saw her at any other time before or since. Try to describe her.”
“Well, she was a lady well dressed, in black. She had a very high collar to hide a scar on her neck, like the scars people have sometimes after abscesses, I think. I could see it from the side when she stooped down.”
“And are you sure she had nothing sent home? Did she take everything with her?”
“Yes; nothing was sent, else we should know her address, you know.”
“She didn’t happen to pay with a banknote, did she?”
“No, in cash.”
Hewitt left with little more ceremony and made the best of his way to his friend the inspector at the police station. Here was the woman with the scarred neck again—Charley’s deliverer once, now his kidnapper. If only something else could be ascertained of her—some small clue that might bring her identity into view—the thing would be done.
At the station, however, there was something new. A man had just come in, very drunk, and had given himself into custody for kidnapping the child Charles Seton, whose description was set forth on the bill which still appeared on the notice-hoard outside the station. When Hewitt arrived the man was lolling, wretched and maudlin, against the rail, and, oblivious of most of the questions addressed to him, was ranting and snivelling by turns. His dress was good, though splashed with mud, and his bloated face, bleared eyes and loose, tremulous mouth proclaimed the habitual drunkard.
“I shay I’ll gimmeself up,” he proclaimed, with a desperate attempt at dignity; “I’ll gimmeself up takin’ away lil boy; I’ll shacrifishe m’self. Solemn duty shacrifishe m’self f’elpless woman, ain’t it? Ver’ well then; gimmeself up takin’ ‘way lil boy, buyin’ ‘m pair shoes. No harm in that, issher? Hope not. Ver’ well then.” And be subsided into tears.
“What’s your name?” asked the inspector.
“Whash name? Thash my bishnesh. Warrer wan’ know name for? Grapert—hence ask gellum’sh name. I’m gellum, thash whit’ I am. Besht of shisters too, besht shis’ers”—snivelling again—“an’ I’m ungra’ful beasht. But I shacrifishe ‘self; she shun’ get ‘n trouble. D’year? Gimmeself up shtealin’ lil boy. Who says I ain’ gellum?”
Nothing more intelligible than this could be got out of him, and presently he was taken off to the cells. Then Hewitt asked the inspector, “What will happen to him now?”
The inspector laughed.
“Oh he’ll get very sober and sick and sorry by the morning,” he said; “and then he’ll have to send home for some money, that’s all.”
“And as to the child?”
“Oh, he’ll forget all about that; that’s only a drunken freak. The child has been recovered. You know that, I suppose?”
“Yes, but I am still after the person who took it away. It was a woman. Indeed I’ve more than a suspicion that it was the woman who brought the child here when he was lost before—the one with the scar on the neck, you know.”
“Is that so?” said the inspector. “Well, that’s a rum go, ain’t it? What did she bring him back here for if she wanted him again?”
“That I want to find out,” Hewitt answered. “And now I want you to do me a favour. You say you expect that man below will want to send home in the morning for money. Well, I want to be the messenger.”
The inspector opened his eyes.
“Want to be the messenger? Well, that’s easily done; if you’re here at the time I’ll leave word. But why?”
“Well, I’ve a sort of notion I know something about his family, and I want to make sure. Shall I be here at eight in the morning, or shall we say nine?”
“Which you like; I expect he’ll be shouting for bail before eight.”
“Very well, we will say eight. Goodnight.”
And so Hewitt had to let yet another night go without an explanation of the mystery; but he felt that his hand was on the key at last, though it had only fallen there by chance. Prompt to his time at eight in the morning he was at the police-station, where another inspector was now on duty, who, however, had been told of Hewitt’s wish.
“Ah,” he said, “you’re well to time, Mr. Hewitt. That prisoner’s as limp as rags now; he’s begging of us to send to his sister.”
“Does he say anything about that child?”
“Says he don’t know anything about it; all a drunken freak. His name’s Oliver Neale, and he lives at 10 Morton Terrace, Hampstead, with his sister. Her name’s Mrs. Isitt, and you’re to take this note and bring her back with you, or at any rate some money; and you’re to say he’s truly repentant,” the inspector concluded with a grin.
The distance was short, and Hewitt walked it. Morton Terrace was a short row of pleasant old-fashioned villas, ivy-grown and neat, and No. 10 was as neat as any. To the servant who answered his ring Hewitt announced himself as a gentleman with a message from Mrs. Isitt’s brother. This did not seem to prepossess the girl in Hewitt’s favour, and she backed to the end of the hall and communicated with somebody on the stairs before finally showing Hewitt into a room, where he was quickly followed by Mrs. Isitt.
She was a rather tall woman of perhaps thirty-eight, and had probably been attractive, though now her face