“It’s not to my taste to bring unpleasant family scandals into public notice,” he said, “and that’s why I rather welcomed your proposal that we should discuss this affair in private, Mr. Halfpenny. And now for what I’ve got to tell you. I shall have to go back a long way in our family history. My late uncle, Jacob Herapath, was the eldest of the three children of his father, Matthew Herapath, who was a medical practitioner at Granchester in Yorkshire—a small town on the Yorkshire and Lancashire border. The three children were Jacob, Richard, and Susan. With the main outlines of Jacob Herapath’s career I believe we are all fairly well acquainted. He came to London as a youth, and he prospered, and became what we know him to have been. Richard, my father, went out to Canada, when he was very young, settled there, and there he died.
“Now we come to Susan, the only daughter. Susan Herapath, at the age of twenty, married a man named Wynne—Arthur John Wynne, who at that time was about twenty-five years of age, was the secretary and treasurer of a recently formed railway—a sort of branch railway on the coast, which had its head office at Southampton, a coast town. In Southampton, this Arthur John Wynne and his wife settled down. At the end of a year their first child was born—my cousin Margaret, who is here with us. When she—I am putting all this as briefly as I can—when she was about eighteen months old a sad affair happened. Wynne, who had been living in a style very much above his position, was suddenly arrested on a charge of forgery. Investigations proved that he had executed a number of most skilful and clever forgeries, by which he had defrauded his employers of a large—a very large—amount of money. He was sent for trial to the assizes at Lancaster, he was found guilty, and he was sentenced to seven years’ penal servitude. And almost at once after the trial his wife died.
“Here my late uncle, Jacob Herapath, came forward. He went north, assumed possession and guardianship of the child, and took her away from Southampton. He took her into Buckinghamshire and there placed her in the care of some people named Bristowe, who were farmers near Aylesbury and whom he knew very well. In the care of Mrs. Bristowe, the child remained until she was between six and seven years old. Then she was removed to Jacob Herapath’s own house in Portman Square, where she has remained ever since. My cousin, I believe, has a very accurate recollection of her residence with the Bristowes, and she will remember being brought from Buckinghamshire to London at the time I have spoken of.”
Barthorpe paused for a moment and looked at Peggie. But Peggie, who was listening intently with downcast head, made no remark, and he presently continued.
“Now, not so very long after that—I mean, after the child was brought to Portman Square—another person came to the house as a permanent resident. His name was given to the servants as Mr. Tertius. The conditions of his residence were somewhat peculiar. He had rooms of his own; he did as he liked. Sometimes he joined Jacob Herapath at meals; sometimes he did not. There was an air of mystery about him. What was it? I will tell you in a word—the mystery or its secret, was this—the man Tertius, who sits there now, was in reality the girl’s father! He was Arthur John Wynne, the ex-convict—the clever forger!”
CHAPTER XXIV
cold steel