"Of course the post office order can be traced, and we shall endeavour to find out who changed it, if it has been changed, but it will not be found that Mr. Arthur Murray had anything to do with it," concluded the lawyer.
This was the way in which Mr. Andrews turned the tables on Lady Mary, for the magistrate admitted in his speech that nothing was more likely than that the suggestion Mr. Andrews had made was the true solution of the mystery concerning the disappearance of the letter. He then assured Arthur that he left the court without the slightest stain upon his character, and congratulated him on being able to prove his innocence of all share in the theft.
No names were mentioned, and Mr. Simmons could not say a word against the letter being spoken of, but it annoyed him exceedingly, for he had seen Lady Mary, and she had expressed her opinion that Arthur could still be charged with stealing the letter and post office order. She was not in court, or she might have made the charge there and then, and declared, what in truth her blind prejudice had made her believe, that Arthur had prompted her son to cash the cheque, and had shared in the proceeds of both cheque and post office order, quite ignoring the fact that a post office order must be signed by the receiver of the money. She would never have believed that her darling had touched it, if she had not received a telegram from her brother, more incisive than polite, telling her not to be a fool and stir up dirty water, before she received a letter from him.
If this telegram had reached her ladyship a few hours earlier, Arthur would not have been arrested, but by the time Mr. Simmons received it, Arthur was in the cells, and Mr. Andrews was hunting up the necessary evidence to prove his innocence, which so seriously compromised Adrian.
The fact was, when Adrian rushed off to London to get out of the way, he found that his uncle asked so many questions as to the reason for his sudden arrival that he had to make a clean breast of the whole matter, and admit that he had cashed the cheque to pay a debt for which he was being pressed. Upon hearing this, Lord Lismore telegraphed to his sister, and wrote, saying that the culprit was Adrian himself, but that she was to blame for keeping the lad idling at home when he ought to be preparing himself for some useful life.
"It will never do for him to come back to that place, where he seems by his own account to have got into bad company, but you must spend a little of the money upon him now, that you have been hoarding. It is all very well to try and leave the lad a fortune, but you would be showing him more true kindness, if you spent something in helping him to make his own, or at least putting him in the way of earning his living decently as honourable men do. The best thing you can do for the lad is to let him go into the army. He says he would like that better than anything else, and so it would be better to send him to an establishment where they prepare young men for passing the necessary examinations."
"Of course you will have to spend some money, but you may as well do it in making him a useful man as let him waste it in loafing around billiard saloons, which seems to be all he has done lately."
Lady Mary went almost frantic as she read this letter, but she knew that what her brother said was true, and that she would have to give up what had of late years become the dream of her life, and let Arthur Murray succeed to his inheritance just when it was likely to become profitable.
The letter she received from Mr. Simmons made her the more willing to do this, for how could she prove that Adrian did not appropriate the whole of the proceeds of the cheque for his own use. One thing was certain, he could never show his face in Fairmead again, now that this had all been made public. And so she wrote to her brother, asking him to make the necessary arrangements for Adrian to be placed under the care of a suitable instructor to fit him for entering the army.
This was a fortunate thing for the lad, or he would inevitably have drifted from bad to worse, and from robbing his mother, he might have proceeded to rob others, and thus have entered upon a career of crime instead of having the chance to live a useful life.
Mr. Andrews was soon informed that the necessary deeds and securities would be handed over to him by Mr. Simmons at an early date, and the money he held to redeem them would be accepted by Lady Mary without further dispute.