“By Jove!” cried Bob. “That’s interesting. Of course I’ll help her to get her own in any way I can! Where is she? And how are you sure she’s the right baby?”
“It’s just a common criminal story. The baby had a nurse, of course, and she was no better than she should be. The leader of the gang that burnt and robbed the house had begun operations by establishing himself in the village as a travelling photographer with a van. He had a proper license for the van, and took very good photographs, and he got permission from Lady Trevelyan to make a series of views of the park and the house. By way of strengthening his position he made love to the nurse, and she became his accomplice, and shared the profits afterwards. But she was soft-hearted about children, and insisted that the baby should not run any risk. She handed it over to the photographer-burglar just before the house was set on fire. That’s the story.”
“How do you know it’s true?”
“Simple enough. Being a born criminal, she afterwards committed other crimes, and was at last caught and sent to penal servitude. And now she is dying of cancer, and has ‘experienced religion,’ as those people call it, and has confessed the whole story to the chaplain, who has written about it to me. For she had always kept track of Sir Randolph, and knew that he had been brought here some years ago.”
“But what proof is there that she is telling the truth?”
“This. Before she parted with the baby, she broke a sixpence in two, sewed half of it into the baby’s clothes and kept the other half.”
“But the clothes must have disappeared long ago!”
“No: they didn’t. When the thieves found that they could not get any ransom, they left the baby on the doorstep of an old bachelor in Kensington, who took care of it and ultimately adopted it. I suppose he is a sentimental person, for he kept the clothes in which he found the child, and, what is more, he has now discovered the half-sixpence sewn up in the little frock, just where the dying woman says it was.”
“Jolly good luck for the girl! Where is she?”
“She goes by the name of Ellen Scott, and is governess in Colonel Follitt’s family here in Yorkshire.”