Before Netta's marriage the interest in the Mathieson case was revived by the appearance of a letter in the principal London papers. All search for the man who had assisted Sanderson in the abduction of the child had been fruitless. He had probably taken steps to receive information of how matters were going on in court, and long before an officer arrived at Rose Cottage with a warrant for his arrest he had left, and the police had failed to find any trace of his subsequent movements. The letter bore the simple heading, "United States," and ran as follows:
"To the Editor.
"Sir: I scarcely know why I write this letter, but I suppose even an habitual criminal does not care to remain under an unjust suspicion. I acknowledge that I come under that category, and that my life has been spent in crime, although never once has suspicion attached to me, until I became mixed up in the Simcoe-Mathieson affair. I wish to state solemnly that I was absolutely ignorant that the name John Simcoe was an assumed one. That was the name he gave me when I first knew him, and I believed that he was, as he represented, the man who had saved General Mathieson's life from a tiger. That he had subsequently lived a rough life in the South Seas I was aware, for he came to me with a message sent by a brother of mine when at the point of death. The man had been a chum of his out there and had gallantly carried him off when he had received the wound from which he subsequently died, in a fight with a large body of natives. I have absolute assurance that this was true, for my brother would never have sent anyone to me except under altogether extraordinary circumstances. The man called on me when he first returned to England, but I saw little of him for the first two years, and then he came to me and said that he had looked up General Mathieson, and that the General had taken to him, and put him down in his will for ten thousand pounds. He said that General Mathieson was worth a hundred thousand, and that he had planned to get the whole. Not being in any way squeamish, I agreed at once to help him in any way in my power.
"His plan briefly was that he should obtain a fresh will, appointing him sole heir to the General's estate in the event of a boy of six or seven years old dying before he came of age. He had somehow obtained a copy of the General's will, and had notes in the General's handwriting. There were two things to be done, first that he should get instructions for the draft of the will drawn up in precise imitation of the General's handwriting, containing all the provisions of the former will, except that he was made heir in place of Miss Covington in the event of his grandson's death. There are a dozen men in London who can imitate handwriting so as to defy detection, and I introduced him to one of them, who drew up the instructions. Then I introduced him to a man who is the cleverest I know—and I know most of them—at getting up disguises.
"He had already ascertained that the General had on one occasion been for a minute or two in the offices of Messrs. Halstead & James. They would, therefore, have a vague, and only a vague, remembrance of him. He had obtained a photograph of the General, who was about his own height and figure, and although there was no facial resemblance, the man, by the aid of this photograph, converted him into a likeness of the General that would pass with anyone who had seen him but once casually. So disguised, he went to the offices of these solicitors, told a plausible story, and gave them the written instructions. In the meantime he had been practicing the General's signature, and being a good penman had got to imitate it so accurately that I doubt if any expert would have suspected the forgery. The lawyers were completely deceived, and he had only to go there again three days later, in the same disguise, and sign the will.
"So much for that. Then came the General's seizure. I most solemnly declare that I had no shadow of suspicion that it was not a natural fit, and that if I had had such a suspicion I should have chucked the whole thing over at once, for though, as I have said, an habitual criminal, that is to say, one who plans and directs what may be called sensational robberies, I have always insisted that the men who have worked under me should go unprovided with arms of any kind, and in no case in which I have been concerned has a drop of blood been shed. As to the carrying off of the boy, it was entirely managed by me. I had agents, men on whom I could rely, as a word of mine would have sent them to penal servitude for life. We knew that suspicion would fall upon Simcoe, and that it was important that he should be able to account for every hour of his time. Therefore, on the day the child was carried away he went down to Stowmarket, while I managed the affair and took the child down to the place where he was hidden in the Essex marshes. It was I also who made the arrangements by which the body of the child about the same age, who had died in the workhouse, was placed in the canal in some of the clothes the missing heir had worn when taken away. I owe it to myself to say that in all this there was no question of payment between this man and myself. I am well off, and I acted simply to oblige a man who had stood by the side of my brother to death. Whether his name was Simcoe or Sanderson mattered nothing to me; I should have aided him just the same. But I did believe that it was Simcoe, and that, having risked his life to save that of General Mathieson, he had as good a right as another to his inheritance. He never hinted to me that it would be a good thing if the child was got rid of altogether. He knew well enough that if he had done so I would not only have had nothing to do with it, but that I would have taken steps to have put a stop to his game altogether. Now I have only to add that, having fairly stated the part that I bore in this affair, I have nothing more to say, except that I have now retired from business altogether, and that this is the last that the world will hear of William Sanderson's accomplice."
For four or five years Hilda Covington devoted much of her time to assisting Netta Leeds in her work, but at the end of that time she married. Her husband was a widower, whose wife had died in her first confinement. His name was Desmond. He sold out of the army, and Hilda never had reason to regret that she had played the part of a gypsy woman at Lady Moulton's fête.
Walter grew up strong and healthy, and is one of the most popular men of his county. His early love for the water developed, and he served his time as a midshipman in one of Her Majesty's ships, and passed as a lieutenant. He then retired from the service and bought a fine yacht, which he himself commanded. His friends were never able to understand why he allowed his nominal skipper, William Nibson, to take his wife on board, and gave up two cabins for their accommodation. The barge Walter passed into the hands of Joshua, who, for many years, sailed her most successfully. He is now an elderly man, and his four sons are skippers of as many fine barges, all his own property.
THE END.
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