Dorothy's Double. Volume 1 of 3

A week later Ned Hampton was established in lodgings in Jermyn Street. He had been down for three days into Lincolnshire, but had not cared much for the visit. He had never got on very well with his elder brother, and they had no tastes or opinions in common. Mrs. Hampton was a woman with but little to say on any subject, while her husband was at this time of year absorbed in his duties as a magistrate and landlord, although in the winter these occupied a secondary position to hunting and shooting. The only son was away at school, the two girls were all day with their governess; and, after three as dull days as he had ever spent in his life, Ned pleaded business that required his presence in London, and came back suddenly. He had been a good deal in society during his visits to London in the three years that intervened between his obtaining his commission and sailing for India. He had, therefore, many calls to make upon old acquaintances, and as at his military club he met numbers of men he knew, he soon had his hands full of engagements. He still managed, however, to spend a good deal of time at the Hawtreys', where he was always welcome. One morning, when he dropped in, Dorothy, after the first greeting, said, 'I have a piece of news to tell you. I should not like you to hear it from anyone else but me.' There was a heightened colour in her cheek, and he at once guessed the truth.

'You have accepted Lord Halliburn? I guessed it would be so. I suppose I ought to congratulate you, Dorothy. At any rate, I hope you will be very happy with him.'

'Why should you not congratulate me?'

'Only because I do not know Lord Halliburn sufficiently well to be able to do so. Of course, I understand that he is a good match; but that, in my mind, is quite a secondary consideration. The real question is, is he the sort of man who will make you happy?'

'I should not have accepted him unless I thought so,' she said gravely. 'Mind,' she added with a laugh, 'I don't mean to say that I am insensible to the advantages of being a peeress, but in itself that would not have decided me. He is pleasant, and has the advantage of being very fond of me, and everyone speaks well of him.'

'All very good reasons, Dorothy, if added to the best of all – that you love him.'

The girl nodded.

'Of course, Ned. I don't think that I have the sort of love one imagines as a young girl; not a wild, unreasoning sort of love; but you don't find that much in our days except in books. I like him very much, and, as I said before, he likes me. That does make such a wonderful difference, you see. When a man begins to show that he likes you, of course one thinks of him a good deal and in quite a different way from what you would otherwise do, and so one comes in time to like him in the same way he likes you. That seems to me the way with most girls I have known married. You don't see any harm in that?'

'Oh no; I suppose it is the regular way in society; and, indeed, I don't see how people could get to care more than that for each other when they only meet at balls and flower shows and so on. Well, I think I may congratulate you. There is no doubt whatever about its being a good match, and I don't see why you should not be very happy, and no doubt your liking, as you call it, will grow into something more like the love you used to dream about by-and-by.'

The girl pouted.

'You are not half as glad as I expected you to be – and please don't think that I am marrying without love. I only admit that it is not the sort of love one reads of in novels, but I expect it is just as real.'

'If it is good enough to wear well that is all that is necessary,' Captain Hampton said, more lightly than he had before spoken. 'You know, Dorothy, you have my very best wishes. You were my little sister for years, you know, and there is no one whose happiness would give me so much pleasure.'

CHAPTER III

Mr. Hawtrey and his daughter were sitting at breakfast a fortnight later, the only other person present being a cousin, Mrs. Daintree, who had come up to stay with them for the season to act as chaperon to Dorothy. She had been unwell and unable to form one of the party at Epsom. The servant brought in the letters just as they sat down, carrying them as usual to his master, as Dorothy was busy with the tea things. As Mr. Hawtrey looked through them his eye fell upon a letter. On the back was written in a bold handwriting, 'Unless the money is sent I shall use letters. – E. T.'

He turned it over, it was directed to his daughter. He was about to speak, but as his eye fell on Mrs. Daintree he checked himself, placed the missive among his own letters, and passed those for his daughter and cousin across to them. He was very silent during breakfast. Dorothy detected by his voice that something was wrong with him, and asked anxiously if he was not feeling well. When the meal was over he said to her:

'Before you go out, Dorothy, look in upon me in the library.'

Ten minutes later she came into the room.

'Dorothy,' he said, 'are you in any trouble?'

'Trouble, father?' she repeated, in surprise. 'No; what sort of trouble do you mean?'

'Well, dear,' he said kindly, 'girls do sometimes get into scrapes. I did not think you were the sort of girl to do so, but these things are more often the result of thoughtlessness than of anything more serious, and the trouble is that instead of going frankly to their friends and making a clean breast of it, girls will try and set matters right themselves, and so, in order to avoid a little unpleasantness, may ruin their whole lives.'

Dorothy's eyes opened more and more widely as her father went on.

'Yes, father, I have heard of such things, but I don't know why you are saying so to me. I have never got into any scrape that I know of.'

'What does this mean then?' he said, handing her the envelope.

She read it with an air of bewilderment, looked at the address, and re-read the words.

'I have not the faintest idea, father.'

'Open the envelope,' he said sternly. She broke the seal, but there was no enclosure whatever. 'You do not know who this E. T. is? You have not written any letters that you would not care to have read aloud? You have had no demand for money for their delivery? Wait a moment before you speak, child; I don't mean for a moment that there could be anything wrong in any letter that you have written. It can only be that in some country house where you have been staying, you have got into some foolish flirtation with some one, and have been silly enough to correspond with him. I will not suppose that a man to whom you would write would be blackguard enough to trade upon your weakness, but the letters may have fallen into some one else's hands; his valet, perhaps, who, seeing your engagement to Lord Halliburn, now seeks to extort money from you by threatening to send your letters to him. If so, my dear child, speak frankly to me. I will get the letters back, at whatever cost, and will hand them to you to burn, without looking at them, and will never mention the subject again.'

'There is nothing of the sort, father. How could you think that I could do anything so foolish and wrong? Surely you must know me better than that.'

'I thought I did, Dorothy; but girls do foolish things, especially when they are quite young and perhaps not out of the schoolroom, and know nothing whatever of the world. They fancy themselves in love, and are foolish enough sometimes to allow themselves to be entrapped into correspondence with men of whose real character they know nothing; it is a folly, but not one to deal hardly with.'

'At any rate, father, I have not done so. If I had I would say so at once. I have not the remotest idea what that letter means, or who wrote it. If it were not that it had my name and address on the other side, I should not have had an idea that it was meant for me. Except trifling notes of invitation and that sort of thing I do not think that I had ever written to any man until I was engaged to Algernon.'

'Well, that is a relief,' Mr. Hawtrey said, more cheerfully than he had before spoken. 'It was a pain to me to think even for a moment that you could have been so foolish. It never entered my head to think that you could have done anything absolutely wrong. However, we must now look at this rascally letter from another point of view. Here is a man writing to demand a sum of money for letters. Now, it is one of two things. Either he has forged letters in his possession, for which he hopes to extort money, or he has no letters of any kind, and his only intention in writing in this manner on an envelope is in some way to cause you pain and annoyance. We may assume that the initials are fictitious; whoever wrote the letter would certainly avoid giving any clue to his identity. Sit down, Dorothy. We must talk the matter over quietly and see what had best be done.'

'But this is dreadful, father!' Dorothy said, as she seated herself in an arm-chair.

'Not dreadful, dear, though I admit that it is unpleasant, very unpleasant; and we must, if possible, trace it to the bottom, for now that this annoyance has begun there is no saying how much farther it may be pushed. Is there anyone you can think of who would be likely to have a spite against you? I do not say any of the four or five gentlemen whose proposals you have declined in the course of the past year; all were gentlemen and beyond suspicion. Any woman servant you may have dismissed; any man whose request for money for one purpose or another you may have refused; anyone, in short, to whom you may have given offence?'

'Not that I know of, father. You know my last maid left to get married, and I had nothing to do with hiring or discharging the other servants; they are all under the housekeeper. I really do not know of anyone who has cause for ill-feeling against me.'

'I shall write at once to the Postmaster General and request him to give orders that no more letters of the kind shall be openly delivered. Peters can hardly have helped reading it; it has evidently been written in a large, bold handwriting, so that it can be read at a glance. Of course, I shall speak to him, but he will probably have chatted about it downstairs already. I shall go down to Scotland Yard and inform them of the annoyance, and ask their advice there, though I don't see that they can do anything until we can furnish them with some sort of clue. We may find one later on; this envelope certainly gives us nothing to go on, but we may be sure others will follow.'

'It is dreadful, father,' Dorothy repeated, as she rose, 'to think that such malicious letters as this can be sent, and that they may be talked about among the servants.'

'Well, I do not think there will be any more coming here, dear. I should imagine the Post Office authorities will have no objection to retain them. If there should be any difficulty about it, I will have a lock put on the letter-box and keep the key myself, so that, at least, the servants here will know nothing about it. Are you going out with your cousin this morning?'

'I was going, but I shall make some excuse now; I could not be chattering about all sorts of things with her.'

'That is just what you must do, Dorothy. It has taken the colour out of your cheeks, child, though I suppose cold water and a rub with a hard towel will bring it back again, but, at any rate, do not go about as if you had something on your mind. You may be sure that the servants will be looking at you curiously, whatever I may say to Peters; if they see you are in no way disturbed or annoyed, the matter will soon pass out of their minds, but, on the other hand, if they notice any change, they will be saying to themselves there must be something in it.'

As soon as his daughter had left the room Mr. Hawtrey touched the bell.

'I am going out, Peters; if anyone calls to see me you can say that I shall not be in till lunch-time. I may be detained at Scotland Yard. I am going there to set the police on the track of the fellow who sent that letter to Miss Hawtrey this morning. I suppose you noticed it?'

'Yes, sir,' the man replied, in a hesitating tone; 'as I took the letters out of the box and laid them on the hall table, the envelope was back upwards, and I could not help seeing what was on it.'

'I can quite understand that, Peters, and am not blaming you. The words were evidently written with the intention that they should be read by everyone through whose hands it passed. It is evidently the work of some malicious scoundrel, though we have not, of course, the slightest clue as to whom it may be, but I have no doubt the police will be able to get on his track. If you have mentioned it to any of the other servants, tell them that on no account is the matter to be spoken of outside the house. Our only chance of catching the scoundrel is that he should be kept entirely in the dark. Probably the fellow is in communication with some one either in the house or acquainted with one of the servants. If he hears nothing about it, he may suppose the letter has not attracted notice, as he intended it should do, and we shall have some more of them, and this will increase our chance of finding him.'

'I have not mentioned anything about it, sir.'

'All the better, Peters. Should another come do not bring it in with the other letters, but hand it in to me privately. Miss Hawtrey is naturally greatly pained and annoyed, and I should not wish her to know if any more letters come.'

'It is hardly a matter that we can take up,' an inspector at Scotland Yard said when Mr. Hawtrey showed him the envelope and explained the matter. 'I suppose at bottom it is an attempt to extort money, though one does not see how the writer intends to go about it. If there should be any offer to drop the annoyance on the receipt of a sum of money sent to a post-office or shop, to be called for, we would take it up, watch the place, and arrest whoever comes for the letter. At present there is nothing to go upon, and I don't see that we can do anything in the matter. If you think it worth while you might put it into private hands, but it would cost you a good deal of money, and I don't see that anyone could help you much.'

'I do not care what it costs,' Mr. Hawtrey said hotly. 'Can you recommend any of these private detectives?'

The inspector shook his head.

'There are some trustworthy men among them, sir, and some thorough rogues, but we make a point of never recommending anyone. No doubt your own solicitor would be able to tell you of some good man to go to.'

Mr. Hawtrey hailed a cab when he went out and told the man to drive to Essex Street. Just as he turned down from the Strand he saw Danvers turn out from the approach to the Middle Temple. He stopped the cab and jumped out.

'I was just going to my lawyer,' he said, 'but I dare say, Danvers, you can save me the loss of time. It generally means at least half an hour's waiting before he is disengaged. Can you tell me of a shrewd fellow who can be trusted to undertake a difficult piece of business?'