The Lost Heir

by G. A. Henty

"Read it!" she said to Netta, who was alone with her.

"The letter is good enough as it stands," Netta remarked, as she finished it.

"Good enough, if coming from anyone else," Hilda said scornfully, "perhaps better than most men would write, but I think that a rogue can generally express himself better than an honest man."

"Now you are getting cynical—a new and unpleasant phase in your character, Hilda. I have heard you say that you do not like this man, but you have never given me any particular reason for it, beyond, in one of your letters, saying that it was an instinct. Now do try to give me a more palpable reason than that. At present it seems to be only a case of Dr. Fell. You don't like him because you don't."

"I don't like him because from the first I distrusted him. Personally, I had no reason to complain; on the contrary, he has been extremely civil, and indeed willing to put himself out in any way to do me small services. Then, as I told you, Walter disliked him, too, although he was always bringing chocolates and toys for him; so that the child's dislike must have been also a sort of instinct. He felt, as I did, that the man was not true and honest. He always gave me the impression of acting a part, and I have never been able to understand how a man of his class could have performed so noble and heroic an act as rushing in almost unarmed to save another, who was almost a stranger to him, from the grip of a tiger. So absolutely did I feel this that I have at times even doubted whether he could be the John Simcoe who had performed this gallant action."

"My dear Hilda, you are getting fanciful! Do you think that your uncle was likely to be deceived in such a matter, and that he would not have a vivid remembrance of his preserver, even after twenty years?"

"That depends on how much he saw of him. My uncle told me that Mr. Simcoe brought some good introductions from a friend of his at Calcutta who came out in the same ship with him. No doubt he dined at my uncle's two or three times—he may even have stayed a few days in the house—possibly more; but as commanding the district my uncle must have been fully occupied during the day, and can have seen little of him until, I suppose, a week or so after his arrival, when he invited him to join in the hunt for a tiger. Although much hurt on that occasion, Simcoe was much less injured than my uncle, who lay between life and death for some time, and Simcoe had left before he was well enough to see him. If he had dined with my uncle a few times after this affair, undoubtedly his features would have been so impressed on him that he would have recognized him, even after twenty years; but, as it was, he could have no particular interest in this gentleman, and can have entertained but a hazy recollection of his features. In fact, the General did not recognize him when he first called upon him, until he had related certain details of the affair. It had always been a sore point with my uncle that he had never had an opportunity of thanking his preserver, who had, as he believed, lost his life at sea before he himself was off his sick bed, and when he heard the man's story he was naturally anxious to welcome him with open arms, and to do all in his power for him. I admit that this man must either have been in Benares then, or shortly afterwards, for he remembered various officers who were there and little incidents of cantonment life that could, one would think, be only known to one who had been there at the time."

"But you say he was only there a week, Hilda?"

"Only a week before this tiger business; but it was a month before he was able to travel. No doubt all the officers there would make a good deal of a man who had performed such a deed, and would go and sit with him and chat to while away the hours; so that he would, in that time, pick up a great deal of the gossip of the station."

"Well, then, what is your theory, Hilda? The real man, as you say, no doubt made a great many acquaintances there; this man seems to have been behind the scenes also."