"Wiley went to board with the widow, and it seemed only natural that he should want to go through his uncle's effects. The widow gave him free access to the attic, and it was there, in one of those boxes, that he professed to find the packet of papers which he afterward produced. Undoubtedly the marriage-certificate and the maps were genuine; only the article of adoption had been added. He left soon after, and nothing further was known of him there.
"When I learned that much, I, too, went to board with the widow and learned every detail of Wiley's stay. One of Hillery's oldest friends had a son who had gone to the bad and was serving a term for highway robbery in a prison near Phoenix. I found that Wiley had taken a great interest in the lad and paid him more than one visit, promising to use his influence to have him pardoned. I went to Phoenix, talked with this prisoner and a few others, and incidentally looked over the records.
"I discovered that Wiley had interested himself particularly in an ex-forger whose term had expired at about that period, and it was understood that Wiley had provided him with a new start in life. I hunted up this man—it wasn't hard for he had bought a ranch and was trying to go straight—and under threat of arrest obtained his written confession.
"The money for the fresh start was the price Wiley had paid for the execution of the false document. I have the confession here in my bag, and I will show it to you later. It is absolutely conclusive proof. Miss Murdaugh, I may be an accessory after the fact, but I felt sure you would not want the forger punished, and I gave him time to sell out his ranch and disappear. I am under the impression that he has gone to Canada to enlist, and if so——"
Willa shook her head.
"No. I don't believe he had any idea of the purpose to which the document would be put, or its far-reaching effects, and if he has gone to war, his punishment is on the knees of the gods."
"Exactly. He did not know. The name of Murdaugh wasn't mentioned in it if you remember, only those of Hillery and the supposed Abercrombie."
"'Abercrombie!'" repeated Willa meditatively. "I wonder how Wiley came to add that?"
"I finally solved that. Wiley wanted to add clinching verisimilitude to the document and took a long shot. Like many another amateur criminal, he overreached himself, and that one fact, you see, led to the whole discovery. He must have followed Gentleman Geoff's trail through his wanderings from Topaz Gulch, seeking a loop-hole to prove you were not the baby originally adopted, and when he came upon the story which was told to him in Missoula, Montana, of Gentleman Geoff's illness in the trapper's cabin on Flathead Lake, one can easily see how the whole scheme popped into his head. There were the two men and two little girls of the same age, isolated far from civilization for a long winter. One child dies, the other departs with Gentleman Geoff. What more simple than to arrange for a plausible substitution of the children? Gentleman Geoff being dead, the only possible obstacle could be in the person of the other member of that lonely quartette, Frank Hillery, the trapper. We know now how Wiley traced him and overcame that difficulty.
"Wiley's efforts culminated in Arizona, but mine only began there. I traced him back step by step on the trail he had come, following Hillery, and in Missoula I learned more of Gentleman Geoff. Wiley must have learned there what I did, that Gentleman Geoff's last name was known to be Abercrombie, but Wiley didn't investigate deeply enough.