"I've got the coverlet," said Mr. Larkspur, dragging the little silken covering from his carpet-bag, and displaying it before those to whom it was so familiar. "That's about the ticket, I think, my lady. Yes, just so. I found a nice old hag waiting to claim her five pounds reward; for, you see, the men at the police-office at Murford Haven contrived to keep her dancing attendance backward and forwards—call again in an hour, and so on—till I was there to cross-question her. A precious deep one she is, too; and a regular jail-bird, I'll wager. I soon reckoned her up; and I was pretty sure that whatever she knew she'd tell fast enough, if she was only paid her price. So, after a good deal of shilly-shally, and handing her over five-and-twenty pounds in solid cash, and telling her that she'd better beware how she trifled with a gentleman belonging to Bow Street, she consented to tell me all about the little girl. The man that stole little missy had been to her precious hovel, and old Mother Brimstone had found a change of clothes for little missy, in token of which, and on payment of another sovereign, the old harpy gave me little missy's own clothes; and there they are."
Hereupon Mr. Larkspur dragged from his capacious carpet-bag the delicate little garments of lawn and lace which had been worn by the cherished heiress of Raynham. Ah! who can describe the anguish of the mother's heart as she gazed upon those familiar garments, so associated with the form of the lost one?
"Well," gasped Honoria, "go on, I entreat! She told you the child had been there. But with whom? Did she tell you that?"
"She did," returned Andrew Larkspur. "She told me that the scoundrel who holds little missy in his keeping is no other than the man suspected of a foul murder—a man I have long been looking for—a man who is well known amongst the criminal classes of London by the name of Black Milsom."
Black Milsom! the face of Lady Eversleigh, pale before, grew almost ghastly in its pallor, as that hated name sounded in her ears, ominous as a death-knell.
"Black Milsom!" she exclaimed at last. "If my child is in the power of that man, she is, indeed, lost."
"You know him, my lady?" cried Andrew Larkspur, with surprise. "Ah, I remember, you seemed familiar with the details of the Jernam murder. You know this man, Milsom?"
"I do know him," answered Honoria, in a tone of utter despair. "Do not ask me where or when that man and I have met. It is enough that I know him. My darling could not be in worse hands."
"He can have but one motive, and that to extort money," said Captain
Copplestone. "No harm will come to our darling's precious life. You
have reason to rejoice that your child has not fallen into the hands of
Sir Reginald Eversleigh."
"Tell me more," said Honoria to Mr. Larkspur. "Tell me all you have discovered."