"Lady Charvington--as I found out from overhearing a conversation between them--asked him to get it."
George thought of the lie told by the lady as to the cross having been found by her in the library. "And why did she want it?"
"I can't say," replied Canning, moving away; "ask her. Good-bye. And Walker, my dear fellow," he added, "one last word. Maud Ellis and Hale are plotting to get that money which should come to your mother. Good-bye," and he disappeared down the road--withdrawing swiftly like a receding mist. That was the last George saw of Arthur Sargent, alias Canning, alias The Shadow.
[CHAPTER XXII]
THE PLOT
But that Canning fairly ran away, George would have stopped him to ask further questions. He had told much which was new and strange and explained a great deal: but his last remark hinted at further difficulties.
Apparently, Hale had not yet given up all idea of procuring the money, although how he hoped to do so in the absence of the child, George could not understand. Of course, Walker felt very certain that Hale had kept back the amethyst cross when sending the jewels to Lord Charvington, but its production by Hale would have no effect on Mr. Jabez. The lawyer wanted the cross to be produced by the child of Katherine Morse--whatever her married name might be and, according to Hale himself, the dying woman had no child. Mrs. Walker, indeed, had stated that her sister had written about a sick child, but this had probably died. If not, surely during all these twenty years the child would have come forward to recover its inheritance.
George was naturally puzzled with this new development, and decided that to learn the truth it would be best to go to the fountain head. That is, if Hale intended to use the cross to procure the money he would have to produce it to Mr. Jabez in his office in Lincoln's Inn Fields. It was thus best to go at once to Mr. Jabez and inform him of what Canning had said about this new plot. What Maud Ellis had to do with the matter it was impossible to say; George could no more understand her connection with the matter than he could understand why Lady Charvington had employed Captain Sargent to get her the cross. What possible interest could she have in the amethyst cross? And why had she told a deliberate lie about its being in the library?
George was quite bewildered with the complicated state of affairs. And Jabez, as he believed, alone could solve the mystery.
George duly gave his mother Lord Charvington's message. She received it in silence, but with a change of colour, which did not escape his notice.