“I am looking for no one but my brother,” said he, “Even if he turns out to be this miscreant, I cannot help it.”
“Quite so. Only it is right to remember that to find Ratman means to hang him. That at least is the object the police have in view. But you need not disturb yourself on that score. Roger Ingleton, major, if we find him, may be a villain, but he won’t be the murderer of Miss Oliphant’s father.”
They returned presently, baffled, to Maxfield. No one at the depots, or recruiting head-quarters, or pension offices could tell them a word of a soldier or a sailor named Callot who might have enlisted or gone to sea about twelve years ago. How could they expect it? Nor did the most careful search among the old Squire’s papers lead to the discovery of any record of the supposed report of the lad’s death.
As a matter of fact, if the billiard-marker at “L’Hôtel Soult” was the man, they had already traced him down to a date long subsequent to that of his rumoured death.
Together they ransacked the memories of Dr Brandram, the Vicar, old Hodder, and one or two other inhabitants who might be supposed to know something of the matter. Very few there were who had seen the boy at all. He had spent most of his time at school, and during his occasional holidays had usually found all the amusement he needed in the ample confines of the park.
No one had seen in black and white an announcement of his death. The Squire had told the Doctor that news of it had arrived from abroad; where and when and under what circumstances he never said. Old Hodder remembered the story of the quarrel between father and son, and identified the portrait as that of the missing lad. But, despite his boasted “threescore years and ten,” the old man was absolutely useless in the present inquiry.
And so, thwarted at every turn, not knowing what to hope for, too proud to own himself beaten, Roger abandoned the search, and awaited his majority very much as a debtor awaits his bankruptcy.
Mr Armstrong, who chanced to look up at the moment when Raffles delivered the letter, concluded at once from the startled look on the lad’s face that it was a missive of no common importance.
It was from Ratman, and bore on its envelope the London post-mark:—
“Dear Brother,—For the last time I claim your help. I know quite well that I am being hunted to death by you and those you employ. Without a shred of evidence you are willing to believe me a murderer. I suppose I have no right to complain. It would be convenient to you to have me out of the way, and the best way of getting rid of me is to get up this cry against me. A nice brotherly act, and worthy of an Ingleton! It is no use my telling you that I am innocent—that till I had been two days here I never so much as heard of Oliphant’s death. You would not believe it. Nor, I fancy, is it much use telling you that the scoundrel owed me money, that I was shielding him from the consequences of an old felony for which he might have had penal servitude, and that the little he did pay me was stolen from your property. Of course you wouldn’t believe it. It is only about your brother, who has been a slung stone all his life, who never had a friend, never knew a kind look from any one, that you are ready to believe evil. I am nearly at the end of my tether here. In a day or two you will probably hear that I am arrested, and then you will have your revenge on me for daring to be your flesh and blood; and you will have no difficulty in convincing a judge and jury that I have committed any crime you and your saintly tutor choose to concoct between you. Pleasant to be rich and influential! I could escape if I had money. Fifty pounds would rid you of me almost as effectively as the gallows. But it would cost you something; therefore it is absurd to imagine it possible. When, three days hence, I make my last call at the General Post Office, and hear once more that there is nothing for me, not even a message of brotherly pity (which costs nothing), I shall know my last hope is gone. And you, in the lap of luxury, counting your thousands, and monarch of all you survey, will be able to breathe again. Either you will hear of my arrest, or, if my courage befriends me, you may read in an obscure corner of the paper of a wretch, hounded to death, who escaped his pursuers after all, and preferred to die by his own hand rather than that of his brother. Good-bye till then.
“Your brother,—
“Roger Ingleton.
“P.S.—The Post Office know me, or my messenger, as ‘Richard Redfern.’ No doubt you will show this letter to your tutor, who should have no difficulty in using the information I am obliged to give as to my whereabouts to run me down.”