Philanthropists often remark, à propos of other philanthropists, that it is easier to do harm than good, even when you are, as it were, an expert in doing good. George began to think that his amateur effort at preserving the family reputation and punishing a wrongdoer looked like vindicating the truth of this general principle. Here was a hornets’-nest about his ears! And would what he brought back with him make the buzzing less furious or the stings less active? He thought not.
“Can a girl be in two places at once,” he asked,—“in one of her Majesty’s prisons, and also at—where is it?—Balmoral Villa, Bournemouth?” And he laid side by side Mrs. Horne’s letter and a certain photograph which was among the spoils of his expedition.
George had not the least doubt that it was a photograph of Neaera Witt, for all that it was distinctly inscribed, “Nelly Game.” Beyond all question it was a photograph of the girl who stole the shoes, thoughtfully taken and preserved with a view to protecting society against future depredations at her hands. It was Crown property, George supposed, and probably he had no business with it, but a man can get many things he has no business with for half a sovereign, the sum George had paid for the loan of it. It must be carefully remembered that Peckton is exceptional, not typical, in the laxity of its administration, and a long reign of solitary despotism had sapped the morality of the fat policeman.
The art of photography has made much progress in recent years. It is less an engine for the reduction of self-conceit than it used to be, and less a means of revealing how ill-looking a given person can appear under favourable circumstances. But Peckton was behind the time, here as everywhere. Nelly Game’s portrait did faint justice to Neaera Witt, and eight years’ wear had left it blurred and faded almost to the point of indistinctness. It was all very well for George to recognise it. In candour he was bound to admit that he doubted if it would convince the unwilling. Besides, a great change comes between seventeen and five-and-twenty, even when Seventeen is not half-starved and clad in rags, Five-and-twenty living in luxury, and decked in the glories of millinery.
“It won’t do alone,” he said, “but it will help. Let’s have a look at this—document.” When he had read it he whistled gently. “Oh, ho! an alibi. Now I’ve got her!” he exclaimed.
But had he? He carefully re-read the letter. It was a plausible enough letter, and conclusive, unless he was prepared to charge Mrs. Witt with deeper schemes and more dangerous accomplishments than he had yet thought of doing.
Men are mistaken sometimes, said a voice within him; but he would not listen.
“I’ll look at that again to-morrow,” he said, “and find out who ‘Susan Horne’ is.”
Then he read his letters, and cursed his luck, and went to bed a miserable man.
The presentment of truth, not the inculcation of morality, being the end of art, it is worth while to remark that he went to bed a miserable man simply and solely because he had tried to do his duty.