The Lost Heir

In some cases the offer was closed with at once; in others it was only agreed to after threats that the debt must be at once paid or an application would be made forthwith. So far the gambling-house keeper's expectations had not met with the success he had looked for. He had spent a good deal of time in endeavoring to find the descendants of persons who stood in the direct line of succession to properties, but of whom all clew had been lost. He had indeed obtained an insight into various family differences that had enabled him to successfully extort blackmail, but his gains in this way had not, so far, recouped him for the sums he had, as he considered, invested in the speculation.

He was, however, a patient man, and felt, no doubt, that sooner or later he should be able to make a coup that would set him up for life. Still he was disappointed; his idea had been the one held by many ignorant persons, that lawyers are as a class ready to resort to tricks of all kinds, in the interests of their clients or themselves. He had found that he had been altogether wrong, and that although there were a few firms which, working in connection with money-lenders, financial agents, and the lowest class of bill discounters, were mixed up in transactions of a more or less shady character, these were the black sheep of the profession, and that in the vast majority of cases the business transacted was purely technical and connected with the property of their clients. Nevertheless, he took copious notes of all he learned, contending that there was no saying what might come in useful some day.

"Well, Dawkins," he said one day to a dark-haired young fellow with a handsome face that already showed traces of the effect of late hours and dissipation, "I suppose it is the usual thing; the lawsuit as to the right of way at Brownsgrove is still going on, the settlements in Mr. Cochrane's marriage to Lady Gertrude Ivory are being drawn up, and other business of the same sort. You never give me a scrap of information that is of the slightest use. I am afraid that your firm is altogether too eminently respectable to have anything to do with doubtful transactions."

"I told you so from the first, Wilkinson; that whatever your game might be, there would be nothing in our office that could be of the least use to you, even if you had copies of every deed drawn up in it. Ours is what you might call a family business. Our clients have for the most part dealt with the firm for the last hundred years; that is to say, their families have. We have drawn their wills, their marriage settlements, their leases, and done everything relating to their property for years and years. My own work for the last two or three days has been drafting and engrossing the will of a General Mathieson, whose father and grandfather were our clients before him."

"Mathieson – he is an old Indian officer, isn't he, if it is the man I mean? He was in command at Benares twenty years ago. He was a handsome man, then, about my height and build."

"Yes, I have no doubt that is the man – John Le Marchand Mathieson."

"That is him. He was very popular with the troops. He used to spend a good deal of money in improving their rations and making them comfortable. Had a first-rate stable, and they used to say he was a rich man. Anyhow, he spent a good deal more than his pay."

"Yes, he was a second son, but his elder brother died, and he came into the property; but instead of coming home to enjoy it he stopped out in India for years after he came into it."

"He had a daughter, quite a little girl, in those days; her mother died out there. I suppose she inherits his property?"

"Well, no; she married some time back; she and her husband are both dead, and their son, a boy, six or seven years old, lives with the old man."

"How much does he leave?"

"Something over a hundred thousand pounds. At least I know that that is about the value of the estates, for we have always acted as his agents, collected the rents, and so on."

"I should like to see a copy of his will," Wilkinson said, after sitting for some time silent. "I don't want all the legal jargon, but just the list of the legacies."

"I can easily jot those down for you. The property goes to the grandson, and if he dies before coming of age, to a niece, Hilda Covington, who is his ward and lives with him. He leaves her beside only five hundred pounds, because she is herself an heiress. There are a score of small legacies, to old servants, soldiers, widows, and people of that sort."

"Well, you may as well give me the list entire."

Dawkins shrugged his shoulders.

"Just as you like," he said; "the will was signed yesterday, but I have the note of instructions still by me, and will bring round the list to-morrow evening; though, upon my word, I don't see what interest it can possibly have for you."

"I don't know myself," the other said shortly, "but there is never any saying."

After talking for a few minutes on other subjects he said, "The room is open downstairs now, Dawkins, and as we have finished the bottle I will not keep you any longer. In fact, the name of that old General has called up some queer memories of old times, and I should like to think them over."

When the clerk had left, Wilkinson sat for a long time in thought.

"It is a great idea," he murmured to himself at last; "it will want a tremendous lot of planning to arrange it all, and of course it is tremendously risky. Still, it can be done, and the stake is worth trying for, even if it would be seven years' transportation if anything went wrong. In the first place I have to get some proofs of my identity. I own that I have neglected my family scandalously," and his face, which had been stern and hard, softened into a smile. "Then, of course, I must establish myself in chambers in the West End, and as I have three or four thousand pounds in hand I can carry on for two or three years, if necessary. At the worst the General is likely to add me to his list of legatees, but of course that would scarcely be worth playing for alone. The will is the thing. I don't see my way to that, but it is hard if it can't be managed somehow. The child is, of course, an obstacle, but that can certainly be got over, and as I don't suppose the old man is going to die at present I have time to make my plans. When I see how matters go I can put my hand on a man who could be relied on to help me carry out anything I might put in his way. Well, I always thought that I should hit on something good through these young scamps who come here, but this is a bigger thing than I ever dreamed of. It will certainly be a difficult game to play, but, knocking about all over the world as I have been for fifteen years before I came back and set up this show, I think that I have learned enough to pass muster anywhere."

Somewhat to the surprise of the habitués of the room below it was nearly eleven o'clock before the proprietor made his appearance there, and even when he did so he took little interest in what was going on, but moved restlessly from one room to another, smoking cigar after cigar without intermission, and acknowledging but briefly the greetings of those who were the most regular frequenters of his establishment.

Two days later the following advertisement appeared, not only in the London papers, but in a large number of country journals:

"John Simcoe: Any relatives of John Simcoe, who left England about the year 1830 or 1831, and is supposed to have been lost at sea in the Bay of Bengal, in the ship Nepaul, in December, 1832, are requested to communicate with J. W. Thompson & Co., Newspaper Agents, Fleet Street, when they will hear of something to their advantage."

Only one reply was received. It was dated "Myrtle Cottage, Stowmarket," and was as follows:

"Sir: A friend has shown me the advertisement in the Ipswich paper, which must, I think, refer to my nephew, who left here twenty years ago. I received a letter from him dated December 2, 1832, from Calcutta, saying that he was about to sail for China in the Nepaul. I never heard from him again, but the Rector here kindly made some inquiries for me some months afterwards, and learned that the vessel had never been heard of after sailing, but was believed to have foundered with all hands in a great gale that took place a few days after she sailed. So far as I know I am his only relative. Awaiting a further communication from you,

    "I remain,
    "Your obedient servant,
    "Martha Simcoe."

Great was the excitement caused by the advertisement at Myrtle Cottage. Miss Simcoe, who with a tiny servant was the sole inmate of the cottage, had called together all her female acquaintances, and consulted them as to what the advertisement could mean, and as to the way in which she should answer it.

"Do you think it would be safe to reply at all?" she inquired anxiously. "You see, my nephew John was a very wild young fellow. I do not mean as to his conduct here; no one could say anything against that. He was a clerk in the bank, you know, and, I believe, was very well thought of; but when his father died, and he came into two thousand pounds, it seemed to turn his head. I know that he never liked the bank; he had always wanted to be either a soldier or a sailor, and directly he got the money he gave up his situation at the bank, and nothing would do but that he must travel. Everyone told him that it was madness; his Aunt Maria – poor soul, you all knew her – and I cried over it, but nothing would move him. A fine-looking fellow he was, as some of you will remember, standing six feet high, and, as everyone said, looking more like a soldier officer than a clerk at a bank.

"We asked him what he would do when his money was gone, but he laughed it off, and said that there were plenty of things for a man to do with a pair of strong arms. He said that he might enter the service of some Indian prince, or marry the daughter of a black king, or discover a diamond mine, and all sorts of nonsense of that sort. He bought such an outfit as you never did see – guns and pistols and all sorts of things; and as for clothes, why, a prince could not have wanted more. Shirts by the dozen, my dear; and I should say eight or ten suits of white clothes, which I told him would make him look like a cricketer or a baker. Why, it took three big trunks to hold all his things. But I will say for him that he wrote regular, either to me or to my sister Maria. Last time he wrote he said that he had been attacked by a tiger, but had got well again and was going to China, though what he wanted to go there for I am sure I don't know. He could not want to buy teacups and saucers; they would only get broken sending home. Well, his death was a great blow to us."

"I don't know whether I should answer the advertisement, Miss Simcoe," one of her friends said. "There is no saying what it might mean. Perhaps he got into debt in India, and the people think that they might get paid if they can find out his relations here."

The idea came like a douche of cold water upon the little gathering.

"But the advertisement says, 'will hear of something to their advantage,' Mrs. Maberley," Miss Simcoe urged timidly.

"Oh, that is nothing, my dear. That may be only a lawyer's trick; they are capable of anything, I have heard."

"But they could not make Miss Simcoe pay," another urged; "it seems to me much more likely that her nephew may have left some of his money in the hands of a banker at Calcutta, and now that it has been so many years unclaimed they are making inquiries to see who is his heir. That seems much more likely."

A murmur of assent ran round the circle, and after much discussion the answer was drafted, and Miss Simcoe, in a fever of anxiety, awaited the reply.

Two days later a tall, well-dressed man knocked at the door of Myrtle Cottage. It was a loud, authoritative knock, such as none of Miss Simcoe's usual visitors gave.

"It must be about the advertisement," she exclaimed.

The little servant had been enjoined to wear her Sunday clothes in case a visitor should come, and after a hasty glance to see if she was tidy, Miss Simcoe sat down in her little parlor, and tried to assume an appearance of calmness. The front door opened, and a man's voice inquired, "Is Miss Simcoe in?" Then the parlor door opened and the visitor entered, pushing past the girl, who had been instructed how to announce him in proper form, and exclaiming, "My dear Aunt Martha," fairly lifted the astonished old lady from her seat and kissed her.

"Dear me! Dear me!" she gasped, as he put her on her feet again, "can it be that you are my nephew John?"

"Why, don't you know me, aunt? Twenty years of knocking about have changed me sadly, I am afraid, but surely you must remember me."

"Ye – es," she said doubtfully, "yes, I think that I remember you. But, you see, we all thought that you were dead; and I have only got that likeness of you that was cut out in black paper by a man who came round when you were only eighteen, and somehow I have always thought of you as like that."

"Yes, I remember," he laughed. "Well, aunt, I have changed since then, there is no doubt. So you see I was not drowned, after all. I was picked up by a passing ship, clinging to a spar, but I lost all my money in the wreck of the Nepaul. I shipped before the mast. We traded among the islands for some months, then I had a row with the captain and ran away, and threw in my lot with the natives, and I have been knocking about in the East ever since, and have come back with enough to live on comfortably, and to help you, if you need it."

"Poor Maria died four years ago," she said tearfully. "It would have been a happiness to her indeed, poor creature, if you had come back before."

"I am sorry indeed to hear that," he replied. "Then you are living here all alone, aunt?"

"Yes, except for my little maid. You see, John, Maria and I laid out the money our father left us in life annuities, and as long as we lived together we did very comfortably. Since then, of course, I have had to draw in a little, but I manage very nicely."

"Well, well, aunt, there will be no occasion for you to stint yourself any more. As I said, I have come home with my purse warmly lined, and I shall make you an allowance of fifty pounds a year. You were always very kind to me as a boy, and I can very well afford it, and I dare say it will make all the difference to you."

"My dear John, I could not think of taking such a sum from you."

"Pooh, pooh, aunt! What is the use of money if one cannot use it to make one's friends comfortable? So that is settled, and I won't have anything more said about it."