The professional man recognised his client. He had before been employed as the agent of that client’s family solicitor in a prosecution.
Within ten minutes after the arrival of the lawyer at the station, the door of Mr. Goodwin’s cell was opened, and that gentlemen with his attorney were shown into the head private apartment of the officer who lives on the premises. Miss Goodwin was also looked after with as much tenderness during her stay in this urban hostelry.
After a short further interview between the attorney and gentleman, and a few words with the lady in compulsory waiting, a conference was held between the magistrate, his learned clerk, and the attorney.
Mr. and Miss Goodwin were then next shown into his worship’s private room, and the brother and sister were liberated on their own recognisances.
Nothing further was done in the case against the occupants of the suburban cottage. Nothing was done by that lady and gentleman against any other person for setting the law in motion against them. The vigilant sergeant got promoted. On what theory and by what influences, let the reader guess. Was it as a reward for past clever and prudent service? Was it the price of perpetual silence? Was it the seal upon a mystery?
I cannot explain why the sergeant was thus dealt with; but as much of some other things as I can properly explain, I will.
First, let me say that I had no further interference by the police with my plans for the detection of the real thieves, and that I hunted them down to conviction.
In the second place, I may inform the reader that Mr. Goodwin was no other than an alias for his Grace the Duke of Nomatterwhere, a nobleman who boasts of a long pedigree, and whose own father was not a little proud of the historic traditions of the house of Nomatterwhere. The living duke has a large rent-roll, an almost infinitessimal portion of which goes to Miss Goodwin, who, although not a sister, is in very intimate relationship towards him. He had reasons of his own, I dare say, for the quiet, or, as I should say, mysterious manner in which his visits to the cottage in the western suburb were shrouded.
THE ATTORNEY AND THE SMUGGLER.
TOMMY JOHNSON was a smuggler of the modern school, about which it is hardly necessary to say more than that it differs considerably from the old or the ideal school. Neither Tommy nor any of his men were the picturesque ruffians that school-boy imagination describes, under the tutelary genius of well-known romancists; nor did they much resemble the full-booted, rollicking giants which low art, in common pictures, invariably makes the bold smuggler.