Lady Woodroffe read the advertisement as well. One of her secretaries pointed it out to her as an interesting item in the day's news. She read it; she held the paper before her face to hide a guilty pallor; her heart sank low: the dreadful thing was already in the papers. Soon, perhaps, it would appear again, with her name attached to it.
Next morning a letter was received by the advertiser. It enclosed the advertisement, cut out of a paper, with these words, "You need not advertise any more. The child has been dead for twenty years."
"Now"—Richard read the letter twice before he began to think about it—"what does this mean? If it was adoption, why not come forward? If it was substitution, then the child may be dead or he may not. I don't think he is, for my part. I believe it is a try-on to make us give over. We shall not give over, dear madam."
He continued the advertisement, therefore, for another week. Yet there came no more letters and no discovery.
"Oh, Dick, and I have been waiting day after day!"
"We must change the advertisement. The anonymous letter proves pretty clearly that there is reason for concealment. Else, why did not the writer sign her name? It was in a lady's handwriting—not a servant's. The adoption, therefore, to put it kindly, was not generally known. Let us alter the advertisement. We will now put in a few more details. We will leave the mother out; and we will no longer address the lady."
In consequence of this resolution, the following advertisement appeared next day:—
"Whereas, in the month of February, 1874, in the city of Birmingham, a child, adopted by a lady to take the place of her own, recently dead, was taken to the railway station; was there delivered to the lady and carried to London;—a reward of TWO THOUSAND GUINEAS will be given to any person who will give such information as may lead to the discovery and identity of the child. Nothing will be given for proffered information which does not lead to such discovery and identity. No advance will be made for expenses of travelling, or any other expenses. And no person will be received who offers verbal information. Address, by writing only, to R. W., care of the Hall porter, Dumfries Flats."
I dare say that many of my readers will remember the interest—nay, the racket—created by the appearance of this strange series of advertisements, which were never explained. The mystery is still referred to as an illustration of romance in upper circles. Some of the American papers quoted it as another proof of the profligacy of an aristocracy, concluding that it was the substitution of a gutter child for the Scion of a Baronial Stock.
This time there were shoals of answers. They came by hundreds; they came from all parts of the country. One would think that adoption by purchase was a recognized form of creating heirs to an estate. One railway porter wrote from Birmingham, stating that he remembered the affair perfectly well, because the lady gave him sixpence; that he saw the lady into the carriage, carrying the baby, which was dressed in white clothes with a woollen thing over its face; that on receipt of travelling money, and a trifle of £5 on account, he would run up to London and identify the baby. Another person conveyed the startling intelligence that she herself was the mother of the child; that she could tell by whom it was adopted. "My child," she said, "is now a belted earl. But my conscience upbraids me. Better a crust with the reward, than the pricks of a guilty conscience."