Meanwhile, Lady Tichborne had learned that he whom she called Roger had arrived in England; and she wrote letters imploring him to come to her, to which the Claimant, who had not been in London more than a fortnight, answered, that he was "prevented by circumstances!" and added, "Oh! Do come over and see me at once." On the very day after the date of this letter, however, he arrived in Paris, accompanied by a man whose acquaintance he had made in a billiard room, and by Mr. Holmes, the attorney to whom his casual acquaintance had introduced him. The party put up at an hotel in the Rue St. Honoré. They knew Lady Tichborne's address in the Place de la Madeleine, scarcely five minutes' walk from their hotel; but they had arrived somewhat late, and "Sir Roger" paid no visit to his mother that day. Lady Tichborne had in the meantime consulted her brother and others on the subject, but though the opinions given by them were adverse to the claims of the impostor, she only became more fixed in her ideas. Early the morning after the Claimant's arrival, she sent her Irish servant, John Coyne, to the hotel in the Rue St. Honoré with a pressing message, but was told that "Sir Roger" was not well; his mistress, dissatisfied with that message, sent him again, whereupon "Sir Roger" came out of his bedroom and walked past him "slowly and with his head down," bidding him at the same time go and tell his mamma that he was not able to come to her; and his mistress, still more dissatisfied, then directed her servant "to take a cab immediately and fetch her son." Coyne then went a third time and found "Sir Roger" with his attorney and his casual acquaintance sitting at breakfast, but was again unsuccessful. Lady Tichborne that afternoon went herself to the hotel, and was then permitted to see her son in a darkened chamber, and in the presence of his attorney and friend. "Sir Roger," said Coyne, who tells the story, "was lying on the bed with his back turned to us and his face to the wall," and he added that while he was in that position, his mistress leaned over and kissed Sir Roger on the mouth, observing at the same time that "he looked like his father, though his ears were like his uncle's." Then "Sir Roger" having remarked that he was "nearly stifled," Lady Tichborne directed Coyne to "take off her son's coat and undo his braces;" which duties the faithful domestic accomplished with some difficulty, while at the same time he "managed to pull him over as well as he could." Upon this Mr. Holmes, solemnly standing up, addressed John Coyne in the words: "You are a witness that Lady Tichborne recognises her son," and John Coyne having replied, "And so are you," the ceremony of recognition was complete.
Soon after this it was rumoured in the neighbourhood of Alresford, that the Dowager Lady Tichborne had acknowledged the stranger as her lost son Roger; that she had determined to allow the repentant wanderer £1000 a year; and that he was going to take a house at Croydon pending his entering into the possession of the Tichborne estates. There happened then to be living in Alresford a gentleman named Hopkins. He had been solicitor to the Tichborne family, but they had long ceased to employ him. He had also been a trustee of the Doughty estates, but had been compelled to resign that position, at which he had expressed much chagrin. Hopkins had an acquaintance named Baignet at Winchester, an eccentric person of an inquisitive turn. Both these began at this time to busy themselves greatly in the matter of the Tichborne Claimant, who, on his next visit to Alresford, was accordingly invited to stay at Mr. Hopkins's house. From that time Mr. Hopkins and Mr. Baignet became active partisans of the Claimant's cause. Hopkins had not been the solicitor of Roger Tichborne, but he had seen him occasionally from fifteen to twenty years previously; and he made an affidavit, that "though he could not recall the expression of Roger Tichborne's features," he had no doubt, from the knowledge which the Claimant had shown of the neighbourhood of Tichborne and of family matters, that he was the same person. All Alresford may, in fact, be said to have been converted; the bells were rung on the Claimant's arrival there; and Colonel Lushington, the tenant of Tichborne house, invited the Australian stranger and his wife to stay with him there. Colonel Lushington had never seen Roger Tichborne, but he has explained that he was impressed by his visitor's knowledge of the old pictures on the walls, which, it will be remembered, Bogle had been sent by "Mr. Taylor" to reconnoitre. When the news came that "Sir Roger's wife," on a visit with her husband to Col. Lushington, had had a child baptised in the chapel at Tichborne, while Mr. Anthony Biddulph, another convert, and a remote connection of the Tichborne family, had become godfather, the bells of Alresford rang louder; and nobody seemed for a moment to doubt the right of the Claimant to the estates and title. Still it was felt strange that "Sir Roger" went near none of his old friends. He had left Paris without an effort to see his former circle of acquaintances. Chatillon, his early tutor, had been brought by the Dowager there to see him; but Chatillon had said, "Madame, this is not your son!" Neither the Abbé Salis, nor Roger's dear old instructor, Father Lefevre, nor Gossein, the faithful valet, who had played with him from childhood, and had known him well as a man, nor, indeed, any person in Paris who had been acquainted with Roger Tichborne, received a visit. In England the facts were the same. The stranger would go nowhere, and at last it began to be believed that he was afraid of detection.
Active measures were meanwhile in preparation for those legal proceedings which have, within the past three years, occupied so large a share of public attention. Mr. Holmes and many others were busy in procuring information. The voluminous will of Roger Tichborne, setting forth a mass of particulars about the family property, was examined at Doctors' Commons. Then there were records of proceedings in the Probate Court and in Chancery relating to the Tichborne estates, of which copies were procured. The Horse Guards furnished the indefatigable attorney with minute and precise statements of the movements of the Carabineers during Roger Tichborne's service, and of the dates of every leave of absence and return. Then the Dowager's attorney procured from Stonyhurst lists of the professors and officials during Roger's three years' study there; and finally, the books of Lloyd's and the "Merchant Seamen's Register" were searched for information about the movements of the "Pauline," the "Bella," and other vessels. Coincident with these researches, there was a marked improvement in the Claimant's knowledge of the circumstances of what he alleged to be his own past life. There was no mention now of "the Sixty-sixth Blues," or of having been a private soldier; no denial, with or without an oath, of having been at Stonyhurst; no allusion to any other of the numerous statements he had made to Mr. Gibbes on those points. Then converts began to multiply, but not among the Tichborne family, or in any other circle that had known Roger very intimately. Affidavits, however, increased in number. People related wonderful instances of things the Claimant reminded them of, and which had happened in the past. On the one hand, these facts were regarded as "genuine efforts of memory;" on the other, they were stigmatised as the result of an organized system of extracting information from one person, and playing it off upon another.
At the end of July 1867, there was a public examination of the Claimant in Chancery, at which, for the first time, he made generally known that famous account of his alleged wreck and—escape in one of the boats of the "Bella," with eight other persons, which, with some variations, he has since maintained. It was then that, in answer to questions, he stated that he was not certain of the name of the vessel that picked him up, but was "under the impression that it was the 'Osprey.'" He also said that her captain's name was "Owen Lewis, or Lewis Owen," but he was "not certain," though he said that three months elapsed between the date of his being saved and his being landed in Melbourne in July 1854. Besides these, the most remarkable points in his examination were his statements that, on the very next day after his arrival, he was engaged by a Mr. William Foster, of Boisdale, an extensive farmer in Gippsland, to look after cattle; and that he henceforward lived in obscurity in Australia under the name of Thomas Castro. The name of Thomas Castro, he added, had occurred to him because, during his travels in South America, he had known a person so named at Melipilla, in Chili.
Mr. Gosford was also examined on that occasion, with results which had an important influence on the progress of the great cause célèbre. Some time before that gentleman had been induced to have one more interview with the Claimant in the presence of two of his most influential supporters, who thereupon requested Mr. Gosford to test their protégé by asking him about some private matter between him and his friend Roger in the past. Thus challenged Mr. Gosford naturally bethought him of the sealed paper, in which Roger had recorded his intention of building a chapel or church at Tichborne, and dedicating it to the Virgin, in the event of his marrying his cousin within three years; and he therefore requested the Claimant to declare, if he could, what were the contents of a certain packet marked "private" which Roger left in his hands when he went away. Having obtained no definite answer, Mr. Gosford, for the sake of fairness, went a step further, and said that it recorded an intention "to carry out an arrangement at Tichborne in the event of his marrying a certain lady." Still there was no answer; and thereupon Mr. Gosford, declaring that the whole interview "was idle," left the place. That packet, unfortunately, was no longer in existence. Some years after Roger Tichborne's death appeared to be beyond all doubt, Mr. Gosford had simply burnt it, regarding it as a document which it would be useless, and which he had no right, to keep, and yet one which, on the other hand, he should not be justified in giving up to any living person. The fact of its being burnt he had for obvious reasons concealed, but being now asked on the subject he was compelled to state the circumstance. It is remarkable that, on the very morrow of that disclosure, the Claimant for the first time made a statement to his supporter, Mr. Bulpett, as to the packet. It may be supposed that Mr. Bulpett and the Claimant's friends generally were inclined to draw unfavourable inferences from his apparent ignorance of the contents of the packet. He now, however, declared that not ignorance of its contents, but delicacy and forbearance towards Mrs. Radcliffe, had alone prevented his answering Mr. Gosford's test question. Mr. Gosford, he said, was right. It did relate to "an arrangement to be carried out at Tichborne," but an arrangement of a very painful kind. Then it was that he wrote out the terrible charge against the lady whom Roger had loved so well—confessing, it is true, his own diabolical wickedness, but at the same time casting upon her the cruellest of imputations. This, he said, was what he had sealed up and given to Mr. Gosford. Mr. Bulpett, the banker, put his initials solemnly to the document, and within a few months all Hampshire had whispered the wicked story. It is to be observed that, during all this time, no word had been spoken by the Claimant of his having confided to Mr. Gosford a vow to build a church. Four years later, when under examination, he was asked whether he had ever left any other private document with Mr. Gosford, and he answered, "I think not." Then it was that counsel produced the copy of the vow to build the church in Roger Tichborne's hand, which he had fortunately given to his cousin on the sorrowful day of their last parting; and finally there was found and read aloud the letter of Roger Tichborne to Mr. Gosford, dated January 17th, 1852, in which occur the precious words, "I have written out my will, and left it with Mr. Slaughter; the only thing which I have left out is about the church, which I will only build under the circumstances which I have left with you in writing." Happily these facts render it unnecessary to enter upon the question, Whether this story was not wholly irreconcilable, both with itself and with the ascertained dates and facts in Roger Tichborne's career?
The estates of Tichborne were not likely to be left undefended either by the trustees or by the family, who, with the exception of the Dowager Lady Tichborne, had, with one accord, pronounced the Claimant an impostor. Accordingly, very soon after his arrival in England, a gentleman named Mackenzie was despatched to Australia to make inquiries. Mr. Mackenzie visited Melbourne, Sydney, and Wagga-Wagga, and up to a certain time was singularly successful in tracing backwards the career of Thomas Castro. He discovered that, some months before the Dowager's advertisement for her son had appeared, and Mr. Gibbes' client had set up his claim, the slaughter-man of Wagga-Wagga had married an Irish servant-girl named Bryant, who had signed the marriage register with a cross. He also found that the marriage was celebrated, not by a Roman Catholic priest, but by a Wesleyan minister. Searching further he found out that immediately after the date of the arrival of a letter from the Dowager, informing Mr. Gibbes that her son was a Roman Catholic, Thomas Castro and Mary Anne Bryant had again gone through the ceremony of marriage in those names, and on this occasion the wedding was celebrated in a Roman Catholic chapel. By applying to Mr. Gibbes, Mr. Mackenzie then discovered that the Claimant, before leaving Australia, had given instructions for a will, which was subsequently drawn up and executed by him, in which he pretended to dispose of the Tichborne estates, and described properties in various counties, all of which were purely fictitious. The Tichborne family had not, and never had, any such estates as were there elaborately set forth, nor did any such estates exist; and the will contained no bequest, nor indeed any allusion to a solitary member of Roger's family except his mother, whom it described as Lady "Hannah Frances Tichborne," though her Christian names were, in fact, "Henriette Félicité." Mr. Gibbes explained that it was the knowledge which this document seemed to display of the Tichborne estates and family which induced him to advance money, and that the Dowager Lady Tichborne's letters being merely signed "H.F. Tichborne," he had inserted the Christian names, "Hannah Frances," on the authority of his client. Lastly, Mr. Mackenzie learnt that there had been a butcher in Wagga-Wagga named Schottler, and that Higgins's slaughterman, known as Tom Castro, had once told some one that he had known Schottler's family, and lived very near their house when he was a boy. Schottler had disappeared, but he was believed to have originally come from London. This information was slight, but it appeared to the shrewd Mr. Mackenzie to be valuable. If the Schottlers were known to Tom Castro as neighbours when he was a boy in London, it would seem to be only necessary to find the Schottler family in order to discover who the Claimant to the Tichborne estates really was. After much trouble, though Schottler was not discovered, a clue was found. The solicitor to the defendants in the Chancery suits obtained old directories of London, and discovered that there was one Schottler, who had kept a public-house, called The Ship and Punchbowl, in High Street, Wapping. In that direction, therefore, inquiries were instituted. The Schottlers had, it was found, gone and left no trace, but it was easy to instruct a detective to inquire after old neighbours, to show them a portrait of the Claimant, and to ask if any one in that locality recognised the features. At last the man prosecuting inquiries found himself in the Globe public-house in Wapping, the landlady of which hostelry at once declared the carte de visite to be a portrait of a mysterious individual of huge bulk who had visited her on the night of the previous Christmas day, stayed an hour in her parlour, and made numerous inquiries after old inhabitants of Wapping. His inquiries included the Schottlers, and he had particularly wanted the address of the family of the late Mr. George Orton, a butcher in the High Street, who answered the description of an old "neighbour of the Schottlers." The Christmas day referred to was the very day of the Claimant's arrival in England, and the landlady of the Globe was positive that the portrait represented her visitor, whoever he might have been. Moreover, she informed the gentleman that, struck by his inquiries after the Ortons, she had scanned her mysterious visitor's features closely, and observed, "Why, you must be an Orton; you are very like the old gentleman." Three daughters of old George Orton were then applied to, but they declared that the portrait had no resemblance to any brother of theirs. Neighbours, however, had perceived that these persons, who had been extremely poor, had suddenly shown signs of greatly improved circumstances. Further inquiry led to the discovery that they had a brother named Charles, "a humpbacked man," who had been a butcher in a small way, in partnership with a Mr. Woodgate, in Hermitage Street, Wapping. He had recently dissolved partnership rather suddenly, but he had previously confided to Mr. Woodgate the curious information that he had a brother just come home from Australia, who was entitled to great property, and who had promised him an allowance of "£5 a month," and £2000 "when he got his estates." When, after some trouble, Charles Orton was discovered, he showed signs of being disposed to explain the mystery "if the solicitors" would promptly "make it worth his while;" but in the very midst of the inquiry he suddenly vanished from the neighbourhood, and for a long while all trace of him was lost. Meanwhile, the Claimant had, by some mysterious means, become aware that these inquiries were in progress, for he wrote at this period to his confidential friend Rous, the landlord of the Swan, as follows:—"We find the other side very busy with another pair of sisters for me. They say I was born in Waping. I never remember having been there, but Mr. Holmes tell me it a very respectiabel part of London." Shortly afterwards two out of the three daughters of old Mr. Orton made affidavit that the Claimant was not their brother, nor any relation of theirs; the other sister and Charles Orton, however, made no affidavit. Four years later the Claimant confessed that he was, after all, the mysterious visitor at the Globe public-house on that Christmas eve; that he shortly afterwards entered into secret correspondence and transactions with the Orton family; that he gave the sisters money whenever they wrote to say they were in want of any; and that after the period when Charles Orton was solicited to give information to "the other side," he allowed him £5 a month—Charles Orton, who was then in concealment, being addressed in their correspondence by the assumed name of "Brand." The Claimant's explanation of these relations with the Orton family, which he at first denied, was, that their brother, Arthur Orton, had been a great friend of his for many years, and in various parts of Australia, and that hence he was desirous of assisting his family. At one time he said that his object was to ascertain if his friend, Arthur Orton, had arrived in England; at another he stated, on oath, that when he sailed from Australia he left Arthur Orton there. The solicitors for the defendants in the Chancery suit, however, did not hesitate to declare their conviction that the pretended Roger Tichborne was no other than Arthur Orton, youngest son of the late George Orton, butcher, of High Street, Wapping; that his visit to Wapping on the very night of his arrival was prompted by curiosity to know the position of his family, of whom he had not heard for some years; and that his stealthy transactions with the three sisters, and with the brother of Arthur Orton, had no object but that of furnishing them with an inducement to keep the dangerous secret of his true name and origin.
While all these discoveries were being made, the poor old lady went to live for a time with her supposed son at Croydon; but even she could not manage to stay in the extraordinary household, and after a time, though still strong, despite the advice of her best friends, that the huge impostor was her son, she left, and gradually becoming weaker and weaker in body as well as mind, she was, on the 12th of March 1868, found by a servant dead in a chair, and with no relative or friend at hand, in a hotel near Portman Square, where she had sought and found a shelter.
Amidst much that was vague in the Claimant's account of his past life, there were, at all events, two statements of a precise and definite character. These were, first, that he had been at Melipilla, in Chili, and had there known intimately a man named Thomas Castro, whose name he had afterwards assumed; and, secondly, that in 1854, he had been engaged as herdsman to Mr. William Foster, of Boisdale, in Gippsland, Australia. If he were an impostor, these statements were undoubtedly imprudent. But they served the purpose of establishing the identity of his career with that of the man whom he claimed to be, for Roger Tichborne had, undoubtedly, travelled in Chili; and, according at least to the tramping sailors' story, embodied in the Dowager's advertisement, he had been carried thence to Australia. The importance attached by his supporters to these apparent tokens of identity sufficiently explains the Claimant's explicitness on these points. Melipilla is a long way off; and Boisdale is still further. It may have been supposed that witnesses could not be brought from so far; but vast interests were at stake, and the defendant in the Chancery suit speedily applied for Commissions to go out to South America and Australia to collect information regarding the Claimant's past history. The proposition was strenuously opposed as vexatious, and designed merely to create delay, but the Court granted the application. Then the Claimant asked for an adjournment, on the ground that he intended to go out and confront the Melipilla folks, including his intimate friend Don Thomas Castro, before the Commission; and also to accompany it to Australia. The postponement was granted, a large sum was raised to defray his expenses, and he finally started with the Commission, accompanied by counsel and solicitors, bound for Valparaiso and Melipilla, and finally for Victoria and New South Wales. When the vessel, however, arrived at Rio. the Claimant went ashore, declaring that he preferred to go thence to Melipilla overland. But he never presented himself at that place, and finally the Commission proceeded to examine witnesses and to record their testimony, which thus became part of the evidence in the suit. The Claimant had, in fact, re-embarked at Rio for England, having abandoned the whole project; for which strange conduct he made various and conflicting excuses. Even before he had started, circumstances had occurred which had induced some of his supporters to express doubts whether he would ever go to Melipilla. When the Commission had become inevitable, the Claimant had written a letter to his "esteemed friend, Don Tomas Castro," reminding him of past acquaintance in 1853, sending kind remembrances to a number of friends, and altogether mentioning at least sixteen persons with Spanish names whom he had known there. The purpose of the letter was to inform Don Tomas that he had returned to England, was claiming "magnificent lands," and in brief to prepare his old acquaintances to befriend him there. This letter was answered by Castro through his son Pedro, with numerous good wishes and much gossip about Melipilla, and what had become of the old circle. But to the astonishment and dismay of the Claimant's attorney, Mr. Holmes, Pedro Castro reminded his old correspondent, that when among them he had gone by the name of Arthur Orton. A Melipilla lady named Ahumada then sent a portion of a lock of hair which the Claimant acknowledged as his own hair, and thanked her for. But this lady declared that she had cut the lock from the head of an English lad named Arthur Orton; and the Claimant thereupon said that he must have been mistaken in thanking her, and acknowledging it as his. In the town of Melipilla—sixty or seventy miles inland from Valparaiso—everyone of the sixteen or seventeen persons mentioned by the Claimant as old acquaintances—except those who were dead or gone away—came before the Commission, and were examined. They proved to have substantially but one tale to tell. They said they never knew any one of the name of Tichborne. Melipilla is a remote little towns far off the great high road, and the only English person, except an English doctor there established, who had ever sojourned there, was a sailor lad who, not in 1853, but in 1849, came to them destitute; was kindly treated; picked up Spanish enough to converse in an illiterate way; said his name was Arthur, and was always called Arthur by them; declared his father was "a butcher named Orton, who served the queen;" and said he had been sent to sea to cure St. Vitus's Dance, but had been ill-used by the captain, and ran away from his ship at Valparaiso. This lad, they stated, sojourned in Melipilla eighteen months, and finally went back to Valparaiso and re-embarked for England. Don Tomas Castro, the doctor's wife, and others, declared they recognised the features of this lad in the portrait of the Claimant; and being shown two daguerreotype portraits of Roger Tichborne, taken in Chili when he was there, said that the features were not like those of any person they had ever known. Searches were then made in the records of the consul's office at Valparaiso, from which it resulted that a sailor named Arthur Orton did desert from the English ship "Ocean" in that port at the very date mentioned, and did re-embark, though under the name of "Joseph M. Orton," about eighteen months later.
To Boisdale, in Australia, the Commission then repaired, and though this is many thousands of miles from South America, but here similar discoveries were made. Mr. William Foster, the extensive cattle farmer, was dead, but the widow still managed his large property. In reference to the Claimant's statement that in July, 1854, the very day after he was landed by the vessel which he believed was named the "Osprey," at Melbourne, he was engaged by Mr. William Foster, and went with him at once to Gippsland, under the assumed name of Thomas Castro, the lady declared that her husband did not settle at Boisdale, or have anything to do with that property till two years later than that date, and that they never had any herdsman named Thomas Castro. The ledgers and other account books of Mr. Foster were then examined, but no mention of any Castro, either in 1854 or at any other time, could be found. On the other hand, there were numerous entries, extending over the two years 1857 and 1858, of wages paid and rations served out to a herdsman named Arthur Orton, whom the lady perfectly well remembered, and who had come to them from Hobart Town.