Then she started back in alarm, and no wonder, for I burst out laughing, and ended by wringing the little woman’s hand with a force which brought tears to her eyes.
‘It’s all right!’ I exclaimed. ‘If that is your Godfrey Harleston, I can understand everything.—Hi!’—this was to a passing cab—‘Mansion House, my good fellow!—Now, jump in, Mrs Sam, and we will settle the business in no time.’
We rattled away. What a load was off my mind! How deep and cunning the trick, and yet how easy to understand, when once the clue was supplied! The man she identified as Godfrey Harleston was no other than Mr George Picknell, my friendly clerk, who had taken so much interest in me, and who had so constantly, although without any seeming intention, directed suspicion to the step-son of Mr Thurles; and if Sam had not been ‘shopped,’ or if Picknell had had the honesty to behave fairly to Sam’s wife, his scheme might have been successful—so far as he was concerned.
We told our story at the Mansion House; and the case being one of importance, Mr Picknell was arrested that very afternoon, as he sat at his desk in the office. If he had not been taken then, we should not have had him at all, for he had a ticket in his pocket for his passage to the Cape, by a vessel sailing the next day.
But before all these things had been done and found out, you may be sure I had hurried off home in a cab. I dashed up the steps, opened the door with my key, and then into the parlour, where Winny was sitting, half distracted with suspense and anxiety. But there must have been something in my face which told a tale, for before I had spoken a word, she rose, and with a laugh, which was a sob before it was finished, threw her arms round my neck and exclaimed: ‘My dear father! Thank heaven!’ She could say no more just then for sobbing and tears; but she knew somehow that all was well. We should have made a pretty picture, if any one could have seen us, for I was as bad as Winny; but we were both brimming over with happiness.
Yet there was a great deal to be accounted for, which at another time would have checked anything like pleasure; but I had got over the worst; the most fatal difficulty had been mastered, and I did not care about anything else.
Mr Godfrey—the real Godfrey—called upon me that afternoon, and much was explained then; while the examination in Picknell’s case supplied most of the rest. What was still obscure was cleared by Godfrey’s mother and by the confession of the unlucky young fellow who had forged the bills and was apprehended about this time. The poor creature was at death’s door, and never lived to take his trial.
I daresay, however, that every one can see pretty nearly what had happened, so I will be very brief. Godfrey Harleston had really taken a fancy for betting on horseraces. Picknell had told the truth in saying this. Most of what he said was true, but so mixed up and coloured that it was worse than a lie. This, of course, is common enough; all mischief-makers resort to this trick.
Well, young Godfrey had bad luck from the first; and Smithers—I forget whether I mentioned his name before, but this was the party who absconded—being his chief adviser, Harleston applied to him to obtain the money to meet some heavy losses. Smithers was as bad off as himself, and had no one to look to for help; while Godfrey, if he chose to make any emergency known, could always get assistance. He trusted to his luck to bring him round, however, without applying to his mother—most novices would have felt the same—so was ready to agree, when Smithers suggested bills at two months, which he could get discounted on his own signature—so Godfrey understood.
Harleston drew up the bills; and Smithers, being unable to get a shilling on his own name, put in a fictitious firm, depending on Godfrey getting the money to meet the bills in time. But, by an awful stroke of luck, the bills were rediscounted, and afterwards paid to Thurles & Company, where some accidental circumstance caused the recognition of Godfrey’s writing, and then inquiry soon proved that the accepting firm was a sham.