"I do not bring the charge, grandfather," Harry said quietly, "I only state the alternative. That one of your nephews took this note seems to me to be clear; the crime would be infinitely greater, infinitely more unpardonable in the one case than the other, but the incentive, too, was enormously greater. In the one case the only object for the theft would be to avoid the consequence of a foolish, but, after all, not a serious freak; in the other to obtain a large fortune, and to ruin the chances of a dangerous rival.
"Remember, at that time Fred did not know how you had determined to dispose of your property. Frank was living with you, and was apparently your favourite, therefore he may have deemed that it was all or nothing. There, grandfather, I have done. I need not say that I know little of the real disposition of your two nephews. Frank behaved to me with the greatest kindness when I was a poor cripple without the slightest claim upon him. Fred has behaved kindly and courteously, although I have come between him and you. I can only say that I believe that one of these two must be guilty; which it is, God alone knows."
"I wish you had said nothing about it," Captain Bayley groaned, "it is dreadful; I don't know what to do or what to think."
"There is nothing to be done," Harry said, "except, grandfather, to find Frank. Let us find him and see him face to face; let us hear his story from beginning to end, and I think then we shall arrive at a just conclusion. I have no doubt he has gone abroad, and I should advise that you should advertise in all the Colonial and American papers begging him to return to have an interview with you, and offering a handsome reward to any one who will give you information of his whereabouts. If we find where he is, and he will not come to us, we will go to him."
"That's what I will do, Harry. I will not lose a moment's time, but will set about it at once; if I spend ten thousand pounds in advertising I will find him. As to Fred, I cannot meet him again until I get to the bottom of the affair, so we will stay away from England till I get some news of Frank."
Before starting abroad, Captain Bayley carried out his plan for rewarding John and Sarah Holl for the kindness they had shown to Harry. After consultation with his grandson, he had concluded that the best plan of doing so would be to help them in their own mode of life. He accordingly called upon the dust-contractor for whom John Holl worked, a man who owned twenty carts. An agreement was soon come to with him, by which Captain Bayley agreed to purchase his business at his own price, with the whole of the plant, carts, and horses. A fortnight after this John's master said to him one day—
"John, I have sold my business, you are going to have a new master."
"I am sorry for that," John said, "for we have got on very well together for the last fifteen years. Besides," he added thoughtfully, "it may be a bad job for me; I am not as young as I used to be, and he may bring new hands with him."
"I will speak to him about you, John," his master said; "he is a good sort, and I dare say I can manage it. The thing is going to be done well. Three or four new carts are going to be put on instead of some of the old ones, and there are ten first-rate horses coming in place of some of those that are getting past work. The stables are all being done up, and the thing is going to be done tip-top. Curiously enough his name is the same as yours, John Holl."
"Is it now?" John said. "Well, that will be a rum go, to see my own name on the carts, 'John Holl, Dust Contractor.' It don't sound bad, neither. So you will speak to him, gaffer?"