The Charing Cross Mystery

by J. S. Fletcher

"This print is from one of our photographs of Lady Riversreade," he said, turning to a side table in the reception-room in which they were standing and picking up a framed portrait. "This one."

"Then you probably know in what newspaper this print appeared?" suggested Hetherwick. "That's really what I'm desirous of finding out."

"Oh, it appeared in several," answered the photographer. "Recently. It was about the time that Lady Riversreade opened some home or institute—I forget what. There was an account of it in the papers, and naturally her portrait was reproduced."

Hetherwick made a plausible prearranged excuse for his curiosity, and went away. Lady Riversreade!—evidently some woman of rank, or means, or position. But was she identical with the Mrs. Whittingham of ten years ago—the Mrs. Whittingham who did the Sellithwaite jeweller out of a necklace worth nearly four thousand pounds and cleverly escaped arrest at the hands of Hannaford? And if so...

But that led to indefinite vistas; the main thing at present was to find out all that could be found out about Lady Riversreade, of Riversreade Court, near Dorking. Hetherwick could doubtless have obtained considerable information from the fashionable photographer, but he had carefully refrained from showing too much inquisitiveness. Moreover, he knew a man, one Boxley, a fellow club-member, who was always fully posted up in all the doings of the social and fashionable world and could, if he would, tell him everything about Lady Riversreade—that was, if there was anything to tell about her. Boxley was one of those bachelor men about town who went everywhere, knew everybody, and kept himself fully informed; he invariably lunched at this particular club, the Junior Megatherium, and thither Hetherwick presently proceeded, bent on finding him.

He was fortunate in running Boxley to earth almost as soon as he entered the sacred and exclusive portals. Boxley was lunching and there was no one else at his table. Hetherwick joined him, and began the usual small talk about nothing in particular. But he soon came to his one point.

"Look here!" he said, at a convenient interval. "I want to ask you something. You know everybody and everything. Who is Lady Riversreade, who's recently opened some home or institution, or hospital or something?"

"One of the richest women in England!" replied Boxley promptly. "Worth a couple of millions or so. That's who she is—who she was, I don't know. Don't suppose anybody else does, either. In this country, anyhow."

"What, is she a foreigner, then?" asked Hetherwick. "I've seen her portrait in the papers—that's why I asked you who she is. Doesn't look foreign, I think."

"I can tell you all that is known about her," said Boxley, "and that's not much. She's the widow of old Sir John Riversreade, the famous contractor—the man who made a pot of money building railways, and dams across big rivers, and that sort of thing, and got a knighthood for it. He also built himself a magnificent place near Dorking, and called it Riversreade Court—just the type of place a modern millionaire would build. Now, old Sir John had been a bachelor all his life, until he was over sixty—no time for anything but his contracts, you know. But when he was about sixty-five, which would be some six or seven years ago, he went over to the United States and made a rather lengthy stay there. And when he returned he brought a wife with him—the lady you're inquiring about."