Three days after this conversation, the amateur detective on his first job arrived in London with the midday train from Birmingham. He was in a state of happiness and triumph almost superhuman. For he brought with him, as he believed, the conclusion of the matter. Alone, single-handed, he had discovered the plot; the proofs were in his hands. He was on his way to compel the guilty to submission, to subdue the proud, to send the rich empty away. Poetical justice would be done; his half-brother would be restored to his fraternal arms; and Molly would be free.

I say there was no happier man than this poor credulous Richard to be found anywhere than in that third-class carriage. He wanted no paper to read; he sat in a kind of cloud of glorious congratulations. Everything was proved; there was but one step possible—that of surrender absolute.

Two letters preceded his arrival.

One was for Molly. "Expect me to-morrow evening," he said. "I bring great news; but do not say anything to Alice. The news should be still greater than what I have to tell you."

The other was for Lady Woodroffe.

Now you understand why Richard Woodroffe came to town in so buoyant and jubilant a mood. He saw himself received with shame and confusion by a fallen enemy. He saw himself playing, for the first time in his life, a part requiring great dignity—that of the conqueror. He would be chivalrous towards this sinner; he would utter no reproach: to lay his proofs before her, to receive her surrender, would be enough. Richard was not a revengeful person; wrongs he forgot; injuries he forgave. At the same time, he would have been more than human if he had not contemplated, with some kind of satisfaction, the reduction of the second baronet to his true level, which would leave him with no more pride and no more superiority.

Alas! He was not prepared for what awaited him. Had he asked himself what kind of woman he should meet, he would have imagined a person broken down by the discovery of her guilt; throwing herself at his feet, ready to confess everything—a woman with whom he would be the conqueror. That the tables would be turned upon him, he never even thought possible. Who would? He had discovered that the real heir to the name and title of Sir Humphrey Woodroffe had actually died at Birmingham twenty-four years ago. Who, then, was the present so-called Sir Humphrey?

"Thou art the woman!" "Alas! alas! I am the woman."

This was the pretty dialogue of conquest and confession which he fondly imagined.

What happened?

At the hour of three he called and sent in his card.

He was taken upstairs to the drawing-room, where a lady of august presence and severe aspect, who struck an unexpected terror into him at the outset, was sitting at a table with a secretary. This severe person put up her glasses curiously, and icily motioned him to wait, while she went on dictating to the secretary. When she had finished—which took several minutes—she dismissed her assistant and turned to her visitor, who was still standing, hat in hand, already disconcerted by this contemptuous treatment, and expectant of unpleasantness.

She pushed back her chair and took a paper from the table.

"You sent me a letter yesterday, Mr. Woodroffe."

"I did," he said huskily. Then, with a feeling of being cross-examined, he cleared his throat and tried to assume an attitude of dignity.

"This is the letter, I believe. Read it, to make sure."

"That is the letter."

"Oh! And you are come, I suppose, to talk over the matter, to see what you can make out of it. Well, sir, I have taken advice upon this letter. I was advised to have the door shut in your face; I was advised to send you to my lawyers; but I am not afraid, even of the black-mailer. I resolved to see you. Now, sir, you may sit down, if you like." Richard sank into a chair, his cheeks flaming. "Go on, then," she added impatiently. "Don't waste my time. Explain this letter, sir, instantly."

She rapped the table sharply with a paper-knife. The triumphant detective jumped.

"I can—I can explain it." The poor young man felt all his confidence slipping away from him. For it looked as if she was actually going to brazen it out—a contingency that had not occurred to him.

"One moment, Mr. Woodroffe. I am the more inclined to give you an opportunity to explain personally, because I hear that my son has already met you. I can hardly say, made your acquaintance—met you—and that you are, or pretend to be—it matters nothing—a distant cousin of his. And now, sir, having said so much, I am prepared to listen."

"I can give you the whole story, Lady Woodroffe."

"The whole story? A whole story, you mean. Call things by their right names. But go on. Do not occupy my time needlessly, and do not be tedious."

"I will do neither, I assure you." He plucked up some courage, thinking of his proofs, but not much. "I even think I shall interest you. First of all, then: my father, who was a comedian playing under the name of Anthony, which was his Christian name, married, as his first wife, a London girl. My father was not a man of principle, I am sorry to say. After a time, he deserted his wife, and left her alone with her child in the streets of Birmingham—Birmingham," he repeated.

Lady Woodroffe winced. It might have been his fancy, but she certainly seemed to wince at the mention of that great city. She sat upright, with hands crossed; her face was pale, her eyes were hard, though she still smiled.

"Go on, sir," she said; "left his wife in Birmingham. I dare say I shall understand presently what this means."

"This was twenty-four or twenty-five years ago. The deserted wife could not believe that she had lost his affection; but she knew that the child's presence annoyed him. That fact, perhaps, influenced her. There was also the certainty of the workhouse before her for the child; she was therefore easily persuaded to consent to an arrangement, by means of some doctor of the place, to give her child into the charge of a lady who had lost her own, and was willing to adopt another. She did this in ignorance of the lady's name."

"Did she never learn the lady's name?" The question was a mistake. Lady Woodroffe perceived her mistake, and set her lips tighter.

"Never. She had no means of finding out. She went after her husband, and followed him from place to place, till she finally caught him in some town of a Western State. Here, as soon as she appeared on the scene, he divorced her for alleged incompatibility of temper. Afterwards he married again. I am the son of the second marriage."

"Yes. This is, no doubt, an interesting story. But I am not, really, interested in your—your pedigree," she sighed. "Oh, do go on, man! Why do you come here with it?"

"It is the beginning of the story which ends with that letter of mine."

"You promised, Mr. Woodroffe"—she smiled icily, and her eyes remained hard—"that you would neither bore me nor waste my time. Are you sure that you are keeping your word?"

"Quite sure. I go back to the story. I concluded from the story as it was told me, that the lady's child had died in Birmingham—in some hotel, probably——"

"One moment. May I guess that your object is, apparently, to find this person who bought or took charge of the child?"

"It is on behalf of the mother, who is now in England. Above all things, she desires to find her child. That is natural, is it not?"

"Perfectly natural. Let us hope that she may succeed. Now go on, Mr. Woodroffe. Of course, a woman who would sell her child does not deserve to get it back again."

Perhaps the last remark was also a mistake. At least it showed temper.

"Perhaps not. This woman, Mrs. Haveril, however, who is married to an extremely wealthy American——"

"Haveril! Can it be the millionaire person whom my son met—with you—at Sir Robert Steele's house?"

"That is the lady."

"Indeed! I always tell my son that he should be more careful of his company. Well, go on."

Richard smiled. The insolence of the observation did not hurt him in the least. It lessened the power of the presence, and gave him confidence.

"This lady," he continued, "fancies or discerns an extraordinary resemblance to her husband, my father—and to myself—in your son, Lady Woodroffe. The resemblance is very striking. He has most undoubtedly my father's face, the same colour of his hair—his figure even more strongly, it is said, than myself. Yet I am considered like him."

"And because there is this resemblance, she imagined——"

"Hardly imagined. She dreamed——"

"Dreamed! What have I to do with her dreams? Well, she has only to ascertain the real parentage of Sir Humphrey—my son. Oh, I have your letter in my mind! Sir Humphrey, you said, the second baronet. We shall come to your letter presently."

"One would think——"

"Has she any other reason to go upon besides the resemblance?"

By this time it was evident that she understood exactly what was meant.

"She had, until yesterday, no other reason. Yet, from one or two simple facts that I have discovered—they are in my letter—I am certain that she is right."

"Indeed! Do you understand, Mr. Woodroffe, the exact meaning of those words, 'that she is right.' Then what is my son?"

"He would be no longer your son. He would be her son."

"Then what am I?"

"That, Lady Woodroffe, is not for me to say."

"I promised to give you an audience. Therefore go on."

"Since there was no kind of proof of this imagining—or this dream—I thought that I would go down to Birmingham to search the registers."

"You are a detective, or a private and secret inquirer?"

"No; I am acting only for this lady."

"She is a millionairess. I hope she pays you well. But the facts—the facts. And you found——"

"A great deal more than I hoped. The facts which I set forth in my letter."

"An entry in the register, purporting to record the death of my son, and an entry in a hotel-book, giving my name,—that is all!"

"Is it not enough? The child was about the same age as the one adopted. There are not many children of that age who die every week—even in Birmingham. Again, if the child died in Birmingham at all, it must have been at a hotel. There are not many children of the same age likely to die in the same week in a Birmingham hotel. I had the register of deaths searched, and found—what I told you. Copies have been taken. I went to the hotel nearest the station, and had the visitors' book searched. I found—what I told you. Copies have been taken."

"Very good. What next?"

"I sent you that letter, and I came to hear what you say about it."

"What should I say about it?"

"Who is this young man who calls himself the second baronet?"

"He is my son."

"Then who is the child that died?"

"How am I to tell? You must ask some one else."

"And who was the Lady Woodroffe who came to the hotel?"

"How do I know? You must ask some one else."

"Oh!"

He might have considered this attitude as possible at least. But he had not. His face expressed bewilderment and surprise.

"You actually suggest to me—to me, of all people in the world!—that I, actually I myself, a woman of my position, bought a child in place of a dead child! That is your meaning, is it not, sir?"

"Certainly it is," he answered with creditable valour. "I know you did it! There's no way out of it but to confess!"

"Why, you miserable little counter-jumper!"

Dick stepped back in some alarm, because it looked as if she were going to box his ears. She was quite capable of it, indeed, and but for the guilty conscience that held her back, she would have done it. As it was, her wrath was not feigned. It maddened her to think that this man should so easily discover a whole half of the thing she thought concealed for ever.

"You wretched little counter-jumper!" she repeated, with reginal gesture, tall and commanding—taller than poor Richard, and, dear me! how much more commanding! "And you pretend a trumpery resemblance! Why, my son is half a foot taller than you! My son's father was a gentleman, and his face and manners show it. Yours—— But your face and manners show what he was. Leave the house, sir!" Dick dropped his hat in his surprise. "If you think to black-mail me, you are mistaken. Leave the house! If you dare to speak of this again, it shall be to my lawyers."

Richard picked up his hat. The action is a trifle, but it completed his discomfiture.

"No; stay a moment. Understand quite clearly, that you can make any use of these entries that you please. But you may as well understand that I have never been in Birmingham in my life; that persons in my position act and move among a surrounding troop of servants, to speak nothing of friends and relations. That the heirs of persons like Sir Humphrey do not die and get buried unknown to their friends—perhaps you have not thought of all this."

He heard this statement with open mouth. He was struck dumb.

"Understand at once, make your principal—who is she? the rich person—understand that I have never been in Birmingham in my life; and that every hour of my life can be accounted for."

"Who was that child, then?"

"Find out, if you can. It has nothing to do with me. If, twenty years ago, some woman chose, for purposes of her own, to personate the wife of Sir Humphrey—who was then in Scotland—while Sir Humphrey was on his way home from India, do you think I am going to inquire or trouble my head about her impudence?"

Richard murmured something indistinct. He did not know what to say. How could this majestic woman have done such a thing? Yet who else could have done it?

Lady Woodroffe sat down again. "I have been wrong," she said, "in getting angry over this matter. Perhaps you are not, after all, a black-mailer."

"Indeed, I am not."

"I have heard my son," she said, in a softer voice, "speak of you, Mr. Woodroffe. But I must warn you that any attempt to bring this charge will be met by my solicitors. One word more. Miss Hilarie Woodroffe has also, I believe, taken some interest in you. I would suggest, Mr. Woodroffe, that it would be foolish to throw away the only respectable connections you possess in a wild-goose chase, which can lead to nothing except ignoble pay from a woman who, by your own confession, threw away her own child or sold it to a stranger. Now you can go, sir." She did not ring the bell for the servant. She pointed, and turned back to her desk. "Have the goodness to shut the door behind you."

It was with greatly lowered spirits that Richard walked down those stairs and out of the door.