CHAPTER XXVII.

Richards, a secret silent man, had been in Mr. Temple's service for a great number of years. Long before Mr. Temple had achieved distinction, he had observed in this man certain qualities which he deemed might be useful to him; and he took Richards into his service. He found the man invaluable, and had entrusted to him many delicate commissions, all of which had been carried out to his satisfaction. The men were necessary to each other. As the possessor of secrets the revelation of which, in former years, might have proved awkward, the master was bound to his servant by a strong, albeit somewhat dangerous tie. Richards made use of his power without showing his hand, by asking from time to time for additions to his salary, which were freely accorded. Richards had saved money, and the service was an easy and, to a great extent, an independent one.

He had a knack of keeping his opinions to himself, and of devoting himself, all appearance, entirely to the business entrusted to him--which he invariably contrived should add to the weight of his purse. Mr. Temple had a high opinion of Richards; so high that he had said to his son,

"Arthur, if at any time you want any business of a delicate nature transacted, which you would rather not appear in yourself, employ Richards."

Arthur thought the suggestion strange, as he could not conceive what delicate business he should require attended to, which he should be ashamed to appear in; but a very short time was sufficient to convince him that his father was wiser than he. Certain circumstances occurred which caused him, a fortnight since, to call in the help of Richards; and it thus happened that, at one and the same time, Richards was employed on confidential commissions for the father and the son. A singular, but not unusual phase in these commissions was the absolute silence imposed upon Richards.

"Not a word of this to my father," Arthur Temple said.

The stipulation was not needed. Richards was the soul of secrecy.

On the same day Richards presented two written reports--one to the father, the other to the son. The report presented to Mr. Temple ran thus:

"In accordance with instructions, I have to report--

"The name of the man is Seth Dumbrick. He is a cobbler, and lives in Rosemary Lane.

"Rosemary Lane is in one of the poorest quarters of London. All the people who live there are poor.

"Seth Dumbrick is a single man, and has never been married--either directly or indirectly.

"He has two persons living with him--both young women, whom he has brought up from childhood. They are not his children. One is Sally Chester. Her parents, when she was a child, lived in Rosemary Lane; they fell into misfortune; the father died in the hospital; the mother took service in the country. They had another child, a son. His name is Edward, or, as he was familiarly called, Ned. This son was a thief; he went, or was sent away, to Australia. Upon the precise manner of his going my information is not clear.

"The other person living with Seth Dumbrick goes by the title of the Duchess of Rosemary Lane; she has no Christian or surname. Nothing is known of her parentage.

"Sally Chester is a plain person. The Duchess of Rosemary Lane is a beautiful woman.

"It is whispered about in the neighbourhood that the Duchess of Rosemary Lane will one day marry a gentleman, and that she will become a fine lady. She herself has this anticipation; I had it from her own lips.

"Seth Dumbrick is very poor, and Sally Chester takes in work to help to support them. The Duchess of Rosemary Lane does not work.

"I have nothing further to report at present."

The report presented to Arthur Temple ran thus:

"To a certain point my report is now complete, and I present it, being prepared to prosecute the inquiry, and carry it on from day to day, if I am instructed so to do.

"So that there may be no mistake about my understanding of the instructions given to me, I recapitulate them.

"On the 17th of last month you sent for me, and informed me that you were being robbed. You had missed at various times articles of jewelry, the particulars and description of which I wrote down from your dictation, for the purpose of identification. The principal of the articles were a diamond breastpin, a ring with sunk diamonds and emeralds, a silver cigar-case. I inquired if you were being robbed of anything but articles of jewelry. You replied, not to your knowledge. I inquired if you were careful in looking over your banking account. You replied that you were not in the habit of doing so. I requested that you should look into the matter before I commenced to prosecute my investigations.

"On the following day, the 18th, you sent for me, and informed me that you had looked into your banking account, and that you had been robbed of money by means of forged cheques. It was what I expected.

"I went with you to the bank, and made certain inquiries and took possession of the forged cheques which had been cashed, and of five genuine cheques which had also been cashed, and which I required for my own purposes. In accordance with my wish the bank was not made acquainted with these forgeries. I inquired whether you had a suspicion of any person. You replied that you had no suspicion.

"On the following day, the 19th, I requested that you should send by your valet, James Kingsford, a letter addressed to the manager of the bank, stating that for the next two months you did not intend to draw any one cheque for a larger sum than ￡20. I desired that this letter should, as though by accident, be given unsealed into the hands of your valet, James Kingsford. This was done, and the result justified my anticipation. From the 19th to the 26th, two forged cheques were presented, each for a sum under ￡20. They were paid. The total amount of the forged cheques reached ￡674.

"On the 26th, I desired you to send another letter, imperfectly fastened, to the bank manager, by your valet, stating that, pending certain arrangements you had in contemplation, you did not intend to draw any further cheques upon your account without due notice being given. From that day no forged cheques were presented for payment.

"During the whole of the time I was proceeding with my secret investigation, and have continued it until this date, with this result.

"A person of the name of Ned, or Edward Chester, has lately returned from Australia, where he resided for ten or twelve years. Of his career there I have no information; the time employed by me in this investigation not having been long enough to obtain it. He is an Englishman, born in London, and living during his boyhood, and afterwards at intervals, in Rosemary Lane a common street, in a common locality, in the east of London. Since his return he has not made himself known to any of his former associates, with the exception of one, whom I will presently mention, and who can scarcely be called an associate.

"Ned Chester, before he left for Australia, was a thief, but at the same time a person whose manners were superior to those of his associates. He took a strange fancy, as a young man, to a child, a little girl, living in Rosemary Lane, of whose parentage nothing was known. When he left for Australia, this little girl was probably not more than five or six years of age, but I do not pledge myself to a year or two. While he was in Australia he sent her money, which the man who has brought her up received and spent. Returning home, after an absence of ten or twelve years, he renewed his acquaintance with her. She is now a very beautiful young woman.

"It was his intention to introduce himself in his proper name, having an idea that she must have been thinking of him during his absence as much as he had been thinking of her; but he amused himself at first by conversing with her as a stranger. He soon discovered that the young woman had no recollection of him, and that she had never bestowed a thought upon him; he discovered, also, that she was dissatisfied with her position in life, and that she had a fancy in her head that, because her parents were not known, she must certainly be a lady. He told her he was a gentleman, and when she asked for his name, he gave the name of Arthur Temple. He pledged her to secrecy upon this point, on the grounds that he did not wish to have anything to do with her friends and neighbours, and that family reasons required that their intimacy should for a time be kept from the knowledge of his father. He represented that, upon his father's death, who, he said, was an old man, he would come into possession of a large fortune.

"Under the name of Arthur Temple, he meets the young woman regularly. He has given her presents, and has frequently written to her upon paper bearing your father's crest.

"The name by which the young woman is known is The Duchess of Rosemary Lane.

"The man who is passing himself upon her as Arthur Temple is your valet, James Kingsford. You will thus perceive that Ned Chester, James Kingsford, and the fictitious Arthur Temple, are one and the same person.

"It is this person, also, who has uttered the forged cheques, and who has stolen the missing jewelry.

"This report is longer than I desired, but to place you in possession of all the particulars, I have found it impossible to abbreviate it."

The receipt of this communication caused Arthur Temple great excitement. It appeared to him that it was the real commencement of his life's experience. The loss of the money, and the discovery of the man who had robbed him, did not so much affect him as that portion of the narrative which related to the beautiful girl whom Ned Chester was deceiving. His imagination was stirred, and his chivalrous heart prompted him to defend and save her. He went at once in search of Richards, with the man's statement in his hand, and plunged immediately into the subject.

"I have no reason to doubt the truth of your report, Richards."

"You need have none, sir."

"It is true?"

"Every word of it."

"How have you obtained so much information in as short a time?"

"My method--if you will excuse my saying so much--is my own."

"Undoubtedly. Perhaps you have had some conversation with the rogue who robbed me."

"I have; he is not aware of the position I hold with respect to your father and yourself."

"The means in this case," said Arthur Temple, in a tone of slight dissatisfaction, "possibly justified the end."

"You must judge of that for yourself, sir. I have no doubt in my mind."

"You have seen the person who has brought up this girl?"

"I have; and have had some talk with him. His name is Seth Dumbrick; he lives in Rosemary Lane."

"That accounts, then, for the whimsical title of the girl."

"Possibly, sir."

"You have seen her?"

"I have."

"And, she is, as you say, pretty?"

"I have not used the word pretty. She is beautiful."

"Richards," said Arthur Temple, with excitement, "the girl must be saved!"

Richards did not reply. He was a practical man, and was not given to sentimental action on the spur of the moment.

"It is my duty," continued Arthur, "to save her. Will you assist me?"

Richards hesitated. The reports he had written to Mr. Temple and Arthur were straightforward and to the point. In so far, he had done his duty. But there was a matter he had not touched upon in those reports--a discovery he had made which had astonished and perplexed him.

That he himself was culpable in the matter did not affect him; sufficient that he was not punishable; and if it came to the value of one man's word against another's, he knew full well that, in this instance, he held the winning card. He was an old man, and he was tired of servitude. He had saved sufficient money to pass the remainder of his days in comfort; and perhaps, for the peculiar service he was enabled to render Arthur Temple--a service the nature of which held no place in Arthur's mind--the young man would generously remember him. Then, again, it was an act of justice which chance had placed in his hands the power to perform; such an act, brought about by himself, might condone for many a piece of dirty work in the past. It is not necessary to pause and inquire by what process of reasoning these thoughts, leading to a definite and startling course of action, formed themselves in his mind. They came at a time when most men in shackles, having the power to free themselves, would gladly have availed themselves of the power. There were reasons which, in the conclusion he was arriving at, undoubtedly played an important part. One of these was that it was possible, if he did not make himself the principal instrument of rendering atonement for a great wrong, the discovery might be made in a manner disadvantageous to himself. Another reason, although he was scarcely conscious of it, was that he had been deeply touched by the beauty of the Duchess, and it is not unlikely that, if Arthur Temple had not stepped forward, he would have taken upon himself the task of rescuing her from the clutches of an unscrupulous villain.

While he was engaged in these reflections, Arthur Temple paced the room excitedly.

"She must be saved, Richards. There is a mystery here which it has fallen to my lot to clear up. Your story being true, this man has imposed upon me as well as robbed me. He told me, before I engaged him to accompany me to England, that there was a woman at home whom he had loved for years, and to see whom would complete the happiness of his life. The trickster! As for the money, let it go. But his villainy to an innocent girl shall not escape punishment. Once again, will you assist me, or must I work alone?"

Richards adopted the chivalrous course; partly for the reasons already given, and partly because of the excitement it would afford.

"I will assist you, sir," he said.