CHAPTER XVII
BACK AT NORTHFIELD
After a long absence, Sir Donald and Esther are back at Northfield. Many parts of Europe and the Orient were visited. Father and daughter saw much of interest. Their stops had been sufficiently prolonged for comfort and intelligent impression.
Though in regular communication with the London office, Sir Donald knows nothing about the present location of either Lanier.
That William Dodge disappeared from Calcutta seems certain. After the death of Nellie this unfortunate man was released. News of her illness and of his boy's death at length reached Dodge through the doctor. All attempts of Mary Dodge to hear from her husband while he was in prison were unavailing. Little Nellie's appeals to see "papa" had failed.
Under patrol of verbal promise the prisoner was permitted to attend the burial. He returned according to pledge. In about ten days thereafter he was released. The family soon moved, and there is no clew to present whereabouts.
Neither Sir Donald nor Esther heard anything from Oswald Langdon. Since Oswald's departure from Calcutta, Sir Donald anxiously had waited for notice of clew to Lanier guilt. He believed London agents honestly were seeking more decisive results, but there was little immediate or remote prospect of success. At the last Calcutta conference, Sir Donald promised Oswald to spare no zeal in bringing these villains to swift accounting.
Convinced that absence from England and India was essential to success of plans then in operation, Oswald hesitated not, but promptly sailed.
It was agreed between them that any decisive act or clew should be communicated by letter to Paris, thence forwarded to whatever point they should direct. Sir Donald's letters would be directed to an agreed alias. Both would use guarded terms, but to them intelligible. There would be no letter from Sir Donald except "upon some important development." Should Oswald stop long at any point, he was to write, that unnecessary delay might be avoided.
They had decided that any attempt of Oswald at ferreting out these crimes would be dangerous. Such action might hamper the London bureau and hasten a crisis exculpating the Laniers.