“What proof of that did you ever have?”
“My first endeavor, after the accident,” said Vance, “was to serve the man to whom I had owed my own life; and it was not till I saw you secure from Hyde, and your scalds taken care of, I learnt from Judge Onslow that the Berwicks, husband and wife, had died from their wounds.”
“Were their bodies ever recovered?”
“Those of the husband and wife I saw and recognized. But not half the bodies of the drowned were recovered, so strong was the current. It was not surprising, therefore, that the child and nurse should be of this number. Two of the passengers testified to seeing them in the river,—tried ineffectually to save them, and saw them go under.”
“Did you ever learn who those passengers were?”
“No. But I satisfied myself, so far as I could from human testimony, that the child was not among the saved. Business called me suddenly to New Orleans. Why do you ask?”
“Excuse me. Were you never summoned as a witness on the trial which gave Mr. Charlton the Berwick property?”
“Never. Perhaps one of the inconveniences of my aliases is, that my friends do not often know where to find me, or how to address me. I was not aware there had been a trial.”
“Nor was I,” said Peek, “until a few weeks ago. At the Exchange Hotel in Montgomery, I waited on Captain Ireton of the army, who, learning that I had had dealings with Charlton, informed me that his (Ireton’s) grandfather had been a party to a lawsuit growing out of the loss of the Pontiac, but that the case had been decided in Charlton’s favor. When Captain Ireton learned that I, too, had been on the Pontiac, he put me many questions, in the course of which I learned that the evidence as to the death of the child and her nurse rested solely on the testimony of Colonel Delancy Hyde and his friend, Leonidas Quattles.”
Vance started up and paced the floor, striking both palms against his forehead. “Dupe and fool that I’ve been!” he exclaimed. “Deep as I thought myself, this thick-skulled Hyde has been deeper still. I’ve been outwitted by a low rascal and blockhead. In all my talk with Hyde about the explosion, he never intimated to me that he had ever testified as a witness in a suit growing out of the accident. Never would he have kept silent on such a point if he hadn’t been guilty. He and Quattles and Charlton! What possible rascality might not have been hatched among the three! Of course there was knavery! What was the amount of property in suit?”