“You would not believe,” said he, “that I have been in pursuit of you for a matter of more than three thousand miles. I went down to Norfolk and to St Louis, and was in full chase into the Far West, when I found I was on the wrong tack; so I 'wore ship' and came over to Europe.” After satisfying, in some degree, the astonishment this declaration excited, he went on to tell how he, through a chance acquaintance at first, and afterwards a close friendship with the Laytons, came to the knowledge of the story of the Jersey murder, and the bequest of the dying man on his daughter's behalf, his interest being all the more strongly engaged because every one of the localities was familiar to him, and his own brother a tenant on the very land. All the arts he had deployed to trace out the girl's claim, and all the efforts, with the aid of the Laytons, he had made to find out Winthrop himself, he patiently recounted, mentioning his accidental companionship with Trover, and the furtive mode in which that man had escaped him. It was, however, by that very flight Trevor confirmed the suspicion he had attached to him, and so the stranger continued to show that from the hour of his escape they had never “lost the track.” How they had crossed the Atlantic he next recorded,—all their days spent in discussing the one theme; no other incident or event ever occupying a moment's attention. “We were certain of two things,” said he: “there was a deep snare, and that girl was its victim.” He confessed that if to himself the inquiry possessed a deep interest, with old Layton it had become a passion.
“At last,” continued Trover, “he began to confess that their hopes fell, and each day's discomfiture served to chill the ardor that had sustained them, when a strange and most unlooked-for light broke in upon them by the discovery of a few lines of a note written by you to Dr. Layton himself years before, and, being produced, was at once recognized as the handwriting of Mrs. Penthony Morris.”
“Written by me! How could I have written to him? I never heard of him,” broke she in.
“Yes, he was the doctor who attended Hawke in his last illness, and it appeared you wrote to beg he would cut off a lock of hair for you, and bring it to you.”
“I remember that,” said she, in a hollow voice, “though I never remembered his name was Layton. And he has this note still?”
“You shall hear. No sooner had his son—”
“You cannot mean Alfred Layton?”
“Yes; the same. No sooner had he declared that he knew the hand, than they immediately traced you in Mrs. Penthony Morris, and knowing that Stocmar had become the girl's guardian, they lost no time in finding him out. I was too much flurried and terrified at this moment to collect clearly what followed, but I gathered that the elder Layton held over him some threat which, if pushed to execution, might ruin him. By means of this menace, they made Stocmar confess everything. He told who Clara was, how he had gained possession of her, under what name she went, and where she was then living. Through some influence which I cannot trace, they interested a secretary of state in their case, and started for the Continent with strong letters from the English authorities, and a detective officer specially engaged to communicate with the foreign officials, and permit, when the proofs might justify, of an arrest.”
“How much do they know, then?” asked she, calmly.
“They know everything. They know of the forged will, the false certificate of death, and Winthrop has confirmed the knowledge. Fortunately, I have secured the more important document I hastened to his room while they were yet talking, opened his desk, and carried away the will. As to the certificate, the Laytons and the detective had set off for Meisner the moment after reaching Bregenz, to establish its forged character.”