The Lost Heir

by G. A. Henty

"Thank you very much, Harrison; I think that, with the assistance of these two men, I shall be able to work the matter I have in hand without fear of a hitch."

"Anything else I can do for you? You know that you can rely upon me, Simcoe. You were with poor Bill for six years, and you stood by him to the last, when the natives rose and massacred the whites, and you got Bill off, and if he did die afterwards of his wounds, anyhow you did your best to save him. So if I can help you I will do it, whatever it is, short of murder, and there is my hand on it. You know in any case I could not round on you."

"I will tell you the whole business, Harrison. I have thought the matter pretty well out, but I shall be very glad to have your opinion on it, and with your head you are like to see the thing in a clearer light than I can, and may suggest a way out of some difficulties."

He then unfolded the details of his scheme.

"Very good!" the other said admiringly, when he had finished. "It does credit to you, Simcoe. You risked your life, and, as you say, very nearly lost it to save the General's, and have some sort of a right to have his money when he has done with it. Your plan of impersonating the General and getting another lawyer to draw out a fresh will is a capital one; and as you have a list of the bequests he made in his old one, you will not only be able to strengthen the last will, but will disarm the opposition of those who would have benefited by the first, as no one will suffer by the change. But how about the boy?"

"The boy must be got out of the way somehow."

"Not by foul play, I hope, Simcoe. I could not go with you there."

"Certainly not. That idea never entered my mind; but surely there can be no difficulty in carrying off a child of that age. It only wants two to do that: one to engage the nurse in talk, the other to entice the child away, pop him into a cab waiting hard by, and drive off with him."

"I doubt whether the courts would hand over the property unless they had some absolute proof that the child was dead."

"They would not do so for some time, no doubt, but evidence might be manufactured. At any rate I could wait. They would probably carry out all the other provisions of the will, and with the ten thousand pounds and the three or four thousand I have saved I could hold on for a good many years."