Are hearts less wise than flowers,
That know the night from day?"
FRANK HEARTWELL; OR, FIFTY YEARS AGO.
BY BOWMAN TILLER.
CHAPTER III.
A rigid search after Mr. Heartwell was instituted under the superintendence of two of the most efficient officers of the Bow Street establishment. The evidence given by the coachman was proved to be strictly correct, except that a small portion of time was unaccounted for between the period of his having—as he stated—set the lieutenant down in Ormond Street, and his arrival at the coach-stand in Covent Garden, which according to the deposition of the waterman was much later than would have been required to traverse the distance between the two places. But Simpson's explanation was that, having by request driven his fare very quick to Ormond Street, he merely walked his horses to Charles Street in order to cool them.
Nothing whatever having been elicited that day which was calculated to throw any light on the mysterious affair, Mr. Brady with his witnesses appeared before Mr. Bond on the following morning at the time appointed, when the officers made their reports, and were instructed to persevere. The Bank Agent deposed that he had paid over to the lieutenant at the office of Mr. Brady, and in the presence of the lawyer and his clerk, a thousand guineas in gold, and bank-notes to the amount of fourteen thousand pounds, besides securities and deeds, relating to property supposed to be of considerable value in the East Indies, all which had belonged to the lieutenant's uncle, who had died without issue and intestate: he produced the receipt for the charge he had delivered, and stated that he had earnestly advised the lieutenant to deposit the whole in the hands of his professional man to invest for him to the best advantage; but though Mr. Heartwell perfectly assented to the propriety of such a step, yet he expressed himself so desirous of displaying his newly acquired fortune to his wife, that as a matter of course he (the agent) offered no further argument against it.
Shipkins, the clerk, corroborated the statement of Mr. Brady; but in addition, mentioned that the lieutenant had declared that it was his intention to resign his appointment to the seventy-four for the purpose of remaining at home with his family, but that it would be necessary for him in the first instance to visit Portsmouth.