The Lost Heir

by G. A. Henty

"By gad, that is great news indeed!" the latter exclaimed; "and I congratulate you most heartily. I had quite given up all hope myself, and although I would have fought that fellow to the last, I never had any real doubt in my mind that the child they fished out of the canal was General's Mathieson's grandson."

"You astonish me indeed," Mr. Pettigrew said. "I own that, while I was able to swear that I did not recognize him, yet as a reasonable man I felt that the evidence was overpowering the other way. Though I would not dash your hopes by saying so, it appeared to me certain that, sooner or later, the courts would decide that the provisions of the will must be carried out. And so you discovered this, Miss Netta? May we ask how you did it?"

"Netta wanted her share in the matter to remain a secret, Mr. Pettigrew; but I told her that was out of the question, and that it was quite necessary that you and Colonel Bulstrode should know the precise facts, for that, as a lawyer, you could not take any action or decide upon any course to be pursued unless you knew the exact circumstances of the case. However, she asked me, as she has given me the whole particulars, to tell the story for her. When I have done she will answer any questions you may like to ask."

Hilda then repeated, almost word for word, the story Netta had told her. Mr. Pettigrew and the Colonel several times broke in with exclamations of surprise as she went on. Dr. Leeds sat grave and thoughtful.

"Splendidly done!" Colonel Bulstrode exclaimed when she brought her story to an end. "It was a magnificent idea, and it must have needed no end of pluck to carry it out as you did. But how, by looking at a fellow's mouth through a hole, you knew what he said beats me altogether."

"That part was very simple, Colonel Bulstrode," Netta said quietly. "I learned it by a new system that they have in Germany, and was myself a teacher in the institution. You may not know, perhaps, that I am stone-deaf."

"You are not joking, Miss Purcell; are you?" the Colonel said, looking at her earnestly. "Why, I have talked to you a dozen times and it never struck me that you were in the slightest degree deaf."

"I am absolutely so, as Miss Covington will tell you, and Mr. Pettigrew knows it also. Fortunately I did not lose my hearing until I was six years old, and I had not altogether lost the habit of speaking when I went out to Germany, three years later. Had I been born deaf and dumb I could have learned to understand what was said perfectly, but should never have spoken in a natural voice."

"Well, it is wonderful altogether, and I should not have believed it if a stranger had told me. However, the great thing at present is that you have found out that the child is alive. We ought not to be long in laying hands on him now, Pettigrew, eh?"

"I hope not, Colonel; but you must not be too sanguine about that; we have evidently very crafty scoundrels to deal with. Still, now that we feel sure that the child is alive and well, the matter is a comparatively straightforward one, and we can afford to work and wait patiently. Tilbury is only a bit of a village, but beyond that stretch great marshes—in fact, all South Essex as far as the mouths of the rivers Crouch, Blackwater, and Coln. He would say, 'I went down to Tilbury,' because Tilbury is the terminus of the railway. Possibly he may have crossed to Gravesend; possibly he may have gone inland to Upminster or some other village lying in that district; or he may have driven down as far as Foulness, which, so far as anybody knows anything about it, might be the end of the world. Therefore, there is a wide area to be searched."