“Now as to Sedgby Road, Belsize Park. Do you happen to know it?”
“Oh, yes, very well. Very quiet, respectable road indeed. I only know it through walking through.”
“I see a suburban directory on the shelf behind you. Do you mind pulling it down? Thanks. Let us find Sedgby Road. Here it is. See, there is no No. 89; the highest number is 67.”
“No more there is,” the inspector answered, running his finger down the column; “and there’s no Clark in the road, that’s more. False address, that’s plain. And so they’ve lost him again, have they? We had notice yesterday, of course, and I’ve just got some bills. This last seems a queer sort of affair, don’t it? Child sitting inside the house disappeared like a ghost, and all the doors and windows fastened inside.”
Hewitt agreed that the affair had very uncommon features, and presently left the station and sought a cab. All the way back to his office he considered the matter deeply. As a matter of fact he was at a loss. Certain evidence he had seen in the house, but it went a very little way, and beyond that there was merely no clue whatever. There were features of the child’s first estrayal also that attracted him, though it might very easily be the case that nothing connected the two events. There was an unknown woman — apparently a lady — who had once had her throat cut, bringing the child back after several hours and giving a false name and address, for since the address was false the same was probably the case with the name. Why was this? This time the child was still absent, and nothing whatever was there to suggest in what direction he might be followed, neither was there anything to indicate why he should be detained anywhere, if detained he was. Hewitt determined, while awaiting any result that the bills might bring, to cause certain inquiries to be made into the antecedents of the Setons. Moreover other work was waiting, and the Seton business must be put aside for a few hours at least.
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 bef
ore 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.”
The lady looked at them. “Yes,” she said, “this pattern of shoe is made especially for me. I do not think you can buy them at other places.”
“Then may I ask you to inquire from your assistants if any were sold on Monday, and to whom?”
“Certainly.” Then there were consultations behind counters and desks, and examinations of carbon-papered books. In the end the proprietress came to Hewitt, followed by a young lady of rather pert and self-confident aspect. “We find,” she said, “that two pairs of these shoes were sold on Monday. But one pair was afterwards brought back and exchanged for others less expensive. This young lady sold both.”
“Ah, then possibly she may remember something of the person who bought the pair which was not exchanged.”
“Yes,” the
assistant answered at once, addressing herself to the lady, “it was Mrs. Butcher’s servant.”
The proprietress frowned slightly. “Oh, indeed,” she said, “Mrs. Butcher’s servant, was it. There have been inquiries about Mrs. Butcher before, I believe, though not here. Mrs. Butcher is a woman who takes babies to mind, and is said to make a trade of adopting them, or finding people anxious to adopt them. I know nothing of her, nor do I want to. She lives somewhere not far off, and you can get her address, I believe, from the greengrocer’s round the corner.”
“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.
Delphi Complete Works of Arthur Morrison Page 38