“You have been up to the cottage already, I see,” he continued, as I sat quietly, after vainly searching once more the columns of his paper the Standard, as I daily did; “you will never find any notice there, my boy, nor in any other paper. It is the blackest puzzle I ever came across; and this only makes it the blacker. Mother Bull is come back”—he should have said, “the Honourable Mrs. Bulwrag Fairthorn”—“I was told so yesterday by that good woman, who came down when you were so ill. You know the woman I mean—Mrs. Wilcox. She was down here yesterday to ask for you, and was very sorry not to find you. She said that if Mother Bull had not been away, she could have sworn that it was all her doing. But now she doubts whether she knew anything about it; for when she does a thing, she always does it by herself, and never trusts any one with her wicked works. Mrs. Wilcox has not heard a word from your wife, as I need not tell you; but she flies in a fury at the smallest hint that there can be any fault on her part. She says that poor Kitty could never plot anything, even if she wished it. Her mind is too simple, and she could never carry out any plan requiring sharp management. I asked her what she thought of it all, and she could think of nothing at all worth speaking of. Only that there is something we don’t know—which I could have told her, without walking a mile. But I think it might do you good to go and see her; and it would comfort you at any rate, for she holds all your own opinions. And she said one thing which I thought right, and sharper of her than I expected, for it never had occurred to me—that you should take in one of those scientific journals, which give an account of discoveries and all that; so as to find out, if you can, where Professor Fairthorn is.”
“How can that do any good.” I asked. “He had sailed at least ten days before I was forsaken, and while we were down at Baycliff. The telegram from Falmouth proved all that.”
“That is clear enough. And of course he cannot help us, while he is far away at sea. But for all that, we are bound to let him know, if there should be any chance. You would write to him, or write at him, if his daughter was dead; and it is very much the same case now.”
“Uncle Corny, you have the most coldblooded way sometimes, though you never mean it. Certainly I am bound to let him know, if I can; and I ought to have thought of it before. But he has given us little of his company. I will go and see Mrs. Wilcox to-morrow, if only to find out what paper to get; for she will know what they used to take in. And I shall find out what is going on up there; though I don’t see how it will help me much.”
“When that dog was stolen from Miss Coldpepper,” said my uncle, without meaning any harm, “by some big rogue in London, what did she do? Why, she offered a reward at once, and sent posters right and left. And what was the result? Why, the dog came back almost before she had time to miss him.”
“But if he came back without any reward, what could the reward have to do with it?”
“How do you know that no reward was paid?” My uncle seemed quite to look suspicious; but perhaps it was my conscience that made him do it. “We can’t tell what happened between them, up there.”
“Certainly not,” I replied with haste; “but I don’t like talking about a dog, in the same breath with my Kitty.”
“I did not mean to annoy you, Kit,” he answered very humbly; “although the poor lady may have felt it bitterly, in her little way. All that I meant was, that we might have offered a large reward for any information. It could have done no harm, you know. And it might have come to Kitty’s ears, and inclined her to come back to us. Women are so glad to save expense.”
“How can you understand such things? As if I could bear to fetch my wife home, by jingling a purse before the world! If she won’t come back without that, she had better—she had better almost stay away.”