If Van Vernet had been thwarted, in a measure, Richard Stanhope had been no less baffled.
Each had succeeded partially, and each had beaten a too hasty and altogether unsatisfactory retreat.
Van Vernet had planned well. By keeping himself informed as to the doings at police headquarters, he had been aware of all the efforts there being made in the search for the missing child. He found it quite easy to possess himself of a sheet and envelope bearing the official stamp; and by writing his spurious letter in a most unreadable scrawl, and ending with a signature positively undecipherable, he had guarded himself against dangerous consequences should a charge of forgery, by any mischance, be preferred against him. The disguise was a mere bit of child’s play to Van Vernet, and the rest “went by itself”.
His object in thus entering the Warburton house was, first, to see Alan Warburton; study his face and hear his voice; to satisfy himself, as far as possible, as to the feud, or seeming feud, between Alan and his brother’s wife—for since the day on which he had discovered, and he had taken pains since to confirm this discovery, that the six-foot masker who had personated Archibald Warburton was not Archibald Warburton, but his brother Alan, Van Vernet had harbored many vague suspicions concerning the family and its mysteries. He had also hoped to see Leslie, and to surprise from one or both of them some word, or look, or tone, that would furnish him with a clue, if ever so slight.
Well, he had surprised several things, so he assured himself, but he had not seen Leslie. And the denouement of his visit had rendered it impossible for him ever to reenter that house, in the character of Mr. Augustus Grip.
True, he had learned something. He had heard Winnie’s words: “Leslie is not a child; and you must have said bitterly cruel words before you left her in a dead faint on that library floor last night.” And he had coupled these with those other words uttered by Winnie as she confronted Alan, with that farewell note in her hand: “Read that; see what your cruelty has done.”
Was this girl a plotter, too? If he could have seen that note! And then the organ-grinder—. On the whole, he was not even half satisfied with the result of his expedition, especially when he remembered that organ-grinder, and how he had let his temper escape its leash and rage itself into that cold white heat, his most intense expression of wrath, in which he had openly defied Alan Warburton, and flung his own colors boldly forth.
Another thing puzzled Vernet exceedingly. He had discovered Richard Stanhope at the Warburton masquerade, and had bestowed upon him the character of lover. Was he there in that character? Was he, in any way, mixed up with their family secrets? Where had he spent the remainder of that eventful night? Since the morning when Stanhope had reported to his Chief, after his night of adventure beginning with the masquerade, Vernet had heard no word from that Chief concerning Stanhope’s unaccountable conduct, or the abandoned Raid.
The whole affair was to Vernet, vague, unsatisfactory, mysterious. But the more unsatisfactory, the more mysterious it became, the more doggedly determined became he.
He had not forgotten, nor was he neglecting, the Arthur Pearson murder. He was pursuing that investigation after a manner quite satisfactory—to himself at least.