Adventures of Martin Hewitt (3 page)

Hewitt sat late in his office that evening, and at about nine o’clock Mrs.
Seton returned. The poor woman seemed on the verge of serious illness. She
had received two anonymous letters, which she brought with her, and with
scarcely a word placed before Hewitt’s eyes.

The first he opened and read as follows:—

“The writer observes that you are offering a reward for the
recovery of your child. There is no necessity for this; Charley is quite
safe, happy, and in good hands. Pray do not instruct detectives or take any
such steps just yet. The child is well and shall be returned to you. This I
swear solemnly. His errand is one of mercy; pray have patience.”

Hewitt turned the letter and envelope in his hand. “Good paper, of the
same sort as the envelope,” he remarked, “but only a half sheet, freshly torn
off, probably because the other side bore an address heading; therefore most
likely from a respectable sort of house. The writing is a woman’s, and good,
though the writer was agitated when she did it. Posted this afternoon, at
Willesden.”

“You see,” Mrs. Seton said anxiously, “she knows his name. She calls him
Charley.’”

“Yes,” Hewitt answered; “there may be something in that, or there may not.
The name Charles Seton is on the bills, isn’t it? And they have been visible
publicly all day to-day. So that the name may be more easily explained than
some other parts of the letter. For instance, the writer says that the
child’s errand’ is one of mercy. The little fellow may be very intelligent-no
doubt is—but children of two years old as a rule do not practise
errands of mercy—nor indeed errands of any sort. Can you think of
anything whatever, Mrs. Seton, in connection with your family history, or
indeed anything else, that may throw light on that phrase?”

He looked keenly at her as he asked, but her expression was one of blank
doubt merely, as she shook her head slowly and answered in the negative.
Hewitt turned to the other letter and read this:—

“Madam,—If you want your child you had better make an
arrangement with Die. You fancy he has strayed, but as a matter of fact he
has been stolen, and you little know by whom. You will never get him back
except through me, you may rest assured of that. Are you prepared to pay me
one hundred pounds (£100) if I hand him to you, and no questions asked? Your
present reward, £20, is paltry; and you may finally bid good-bye to your
child if you will not accept my terms. If you do, say as much in an
advertisement to the
Standard,
addressed to
Veritas
.”

“A man’s handwriting,” Hewitt commented; “fairly well formed, but shaky.
The writer is not in first-rate health—each line totters away in a
downward slope at the end. I shouldn’t be surprised to hear that the
gentleman drank. Postmark, ‘Hampstead’; posted this afternoon also. But the
striking thing is the paper and envelope. They are each of exactly the same
kind and size as those of the other letter. The paper also is a half sheet,
and torn off on the same side as the other; confirmation of my suspicion that
the object is to get rid of the printed address. I shall be surprised if both
these were not written in the same house. That looks like a traitor in the
enemy’s camp; the question is winch is the traitor?” Hewitt regarded the
letters intently for a few seconds and then proceeded. “Plainly,” he said,
“if these letters are written by people who know anything about the matter,
one writer is lying. The woman promises that the child shall be returned,
without reward or search, and talks generally as if the taking away of the
child, or the estrayal, or whatever it was, were a very virtuous sort of
proceeding. The man says plainly that the child has been stolen, with no
attempt to gloss the matter, and asserts that nothing will get the child back
but heavy blackmail—a very different story. On the other hand, can
there be any concerted design in these two letters? Are they intended, each
from its own side, to play up to a certain result?” Hewitt paused and
thought. Then he asked suddenly: “Do you recognise anything familiar either
in the handwriting or the stationery of these letters?”

“No, nothing.”

“Very well,” Hewitt said, “we will come to closer quarters with the
blackmailer, I think. You needn’t commit yourself to paying anything, of
course.”

“But, Mr. Hewitt, I will gladly pay or do anything. The hundred pounds is
nothing. I will pay it gladly if I can only get my child.”

“Well, well, we shall see. The man may not be able to do what he offers
after all, but that we will test. It is too late now for an advertisement in
to-morrow morning’s
Standard,
but there is the
Evening
Standard
—he may even mean that—and the next morning’s. I will
have an advertisement inserted in both, inviting this man to make an
appointment, and prove the genuineness of his offer; that will fetch him if
he wants the money, and can do anything for it. Have you nothing else to tell
me?”

“Nothing. But have you ascertained nothing yourself? Don’t say I’ve to
pass another night in such dreadful suspense.”

“I’m afraid, Mrs. Seton, I must ask you to be patient a little longer. I
have ascertained something, but it has not carried me far as yet. Remember
that if there is anything at all in these anonymous letters (and I think
there is) the child is at any rate safe, and to be found one way or another.
Both agree in that.” This he said mainly to comfort his client, for in fact
he had learned very little. His news from the City as to Mr. Seton’s early
history had been but meagre. He was known as a successful speculator, and
that was almost all. There was an indefinite notion that he had been married
once before, but nothing more.

All the next day Hewitt did nothing in the case. Another affair, a previous
engagement, kept him hard at work in his office all day, and indeed had this
not been the case he could have done little. His City inquiries were still in
progress, and he awaited, moreover, a reply to the advertisement. But at
about half-pest seven in the evening this telegram arrived—

CHILD RETURNED. COME AT ONCE.—SETON.

In five minutes Hewitt was making northwest in a hansom, and in half an
hour he was ringing the bell at the Setons’ house. Within, Mrs. Seton was
still semi-hysterical, clasping the child—an intelligent-looking little
fellow—in her arms, and refusing to release her hold of him for a
moment. Mr. Seton stood before the fire in the same room. He was a
smart-looking, scrupulously dressed man of thirty-five or thereabouts, and he
began explaining his telegram as soon as he had wished Hewitt good
evening.

“The child’s back,” he said, “and of course that’s the great thing. But
I’m not satisfied, Mr. Hewitt. I want to know why it was taken away, and I
want to punish somebody. It’s really very extraordinary. My poor wife has
been driving about all day—she called on you, by the bye, but you were
out,” (Hewitt credited this to Kerrett, who had been told he must not be
disturbed) “and she has been all over the place uselessly, unable to rest, of
course. Well, I have been at home since half-past four, and at about six I
was smoking in the small morning-room—I often use it as a
smoking-room—and looking out at the French window. I came away from
there, and half an hour or more later, as it was getting dusk, I remembered I
had left the French window open, and sent a servant to shut it. She went
straight to the room, and there on the floor, where he was seen last, she
found the child playing with his toys as though nothing had happened!”

“And how was he dressed—as he is now?”

“Yes, just as he was when we missed him.”

Hewitt stepped up to the child as he sat on his mother’s lap, and rubbed
his cheek, speaking pleasantly to him. The little fellow looked up and
smiled, and Hewitt observed: “One thing is noticeable: this linen overall is
almost clean. Little boys like this don’t keep one white overall clean for
three days, do they? And see—those shoes—aren’t they new? Those
he had were old, I think you said, and tan coloured.”

The shoes now on the child’s feet were of white leather, with a noticeable
sewn ornamentation in silk. His mother had not noticed them before, and as
she looked he lifted his little foot higher and said. “Look, mummy, more new
shoes!”

“Ask him,” suggested Hewitt hurriedly, “who gave them to him.”

His father asked him and the little fellow looked puzzled. After a pause
he said “Mummy.”

“No,” his mother answered, “
I
didn’t.”

He thought a moment and then said, “No, no, not
his
mummy—course not.” And for some little while after that the only answer
procurable from him was “Course not,” which seemed to be a favourite phrase
of his.

“Have you asked him where he has been?”

“Yes,” his mother answered, “but he only says ‘Ta-ta.’”

“Ask him again.”

She did. This time, after a little reflection, he pointed his chubby arm
toward the door and said. “Been dere.”

“Who took you?” asked Mrs. Seton.

Again Charley seemed puzzled. Then, looking doubtfully at his mother, he
said “Mummy.”

“No, not mummy,” she answered, and his reply was “Course not,” after which
he attempted to climb on her shoulder.

Then, at Hewitt’s suggestion, he was asked whom he went to see. This time
the reply was prompt.

“Poor daddy,” he said.

“What,
this
daddy?”

“No, not
vis
daddy—course not.” And that was all that could
be got from him.

“He will probably say things in the next day or two which may be useful,”
Hewitt said, “if you listen pretty sharply. Now I should like to go to the
small morning-room.”

In time room in question the door was still open. Outside the moon had
risen and made the evening almost as clear as day. Hewitt examined the steps
and the path at their foot, but all was dry and hard and showed no footmark.
Then, as his eye rested on the small gate, “See here,” he exclaimed suddenly;
“somebody has been in, lifting the gate as I showed Mrs. Seton when I was
last here. The gate has been replaced in a hurry and only the top hinge has
dropped in its place; the bottom one is disjointed.” He lifted time gate once
more and set it back. The ground just along its foot was softer than in the
parts surrounding, and here Hewitt perceived the print of a heel. It was the
heel-mark of a woman’s boot, small and sharp and of the usual curved D
-shape. Nowhere else within or without was there the slightest mark. Hewitt
went some distance either way in the outer lane, but without discovering
anything more.

“I think I will borrow those new shoes,” Hewitt said on his return. “I
think I should be disposed to investigate further in any case, for my own
satisfaction. The thing interests me. By the way, Mrs. Seton, tell me, would
these shoes be more likely to have been bought at a regular shoemaker’s or at
a baby-linen shop?”

“Certainly, I should say at a baby-linen shop,” Mrs. Seton answered; “they
are of excellent quality, and for babies’ shoes of this fancy description one
would never go to an ordinary shoemaker’s.”

“So much the better, because the baby-linen shops are fewer than the
shoemakers’. I may take these, then? Perhaps before I go you had better make
quite certain that there is nothing else not your own about the child.”

There was nothing, and with the shoes in his pocket Hewitt regained his
cab and travelled back to his office. The case, from its very bareness and
simplicity, puzzled him. Why was the child taken? Plainly not to keep, for it
had been returned almost as it went. Plainly also not for the sake of reward
or blackmail, for here was the child safely back, before the anonymous
blackmailer had had a chance of earning his money. More, the advertised
reward had not been claimed. Also it could not be a matter of malice or
revenge, for the child was quite unharmed, and indeed seems to have been
quite happy. No conceivable family complication previous to the marriage of
Mr. and Mrs. Seton could induce anybody to take away and return the child,
which was undoubtedly Mrs. Seton’s. Then who could be the “poor daddy” and
“mummy”—not
“vis
daddy” and not
“vis
mummy “—that
the child had been with. The Setons knew nothing of them. It was difficult to
see what it could all mean.

Arrived at his office Hewitt took a map, and, setting the leg of a pair of
compasses on the site of the Setons’ house, described a circle, including in
its radius all Willesden and Hampstead. Then, with the Suburban Directory to
help him, he began searching out and noting all the baby-linen shops in the
area. After all, there were not many—about a dozen. This done, Hewitt
went home.

In the morning he began his hunt. His design was to call at each of the
shops until he laid found in which a pair of shoes of that particular pattern
had been sold on the day of little Charley Seton’s disappearance. The first
two shops he tried did not keep shoes of the pattern, and had never had them,
and the young ladies behind the counter seemed vastly amused at Hewitt’s
inquiries. Nothing perturbed, he tried the next shop on his list in the
Hampstead district. There they kept such shoes as a rule, but were “out of
them at present.” Hewitt immediately sent his card to the proprietress
requesting a few minutes’ interview. The lady—a very dignified lady
indeed—in black silk, gray corkscrew curls and spectacles, came out
with Hewitt’s card between her fingers. He apologised for troubling her, and,
stepping out of hearing from the counter, explained that his business was
urgent.

“A child has been taken away by some unauthorised person, whom I am
endeavouring to trace. This person bought this pair of shoes on Monday. You
keep such shoes, I find, though they are not in stock at present, and, as
they appear to be of an uncommon sort, possibly they were bought here.”