The Complete Works of Arthur Morrison (Illustrated). Arthur Morrison

they kept such shoes as a rule, but were “out of them at present.” Hewitt immediately sent his card to the proprietress requesting a few minutes’ interview. The lady—a very dignified lady indeed—in black silk, gray corkscrew curls and spectacles, came out with Hewitt’s card between her fingers. He apologised for troubling her, and, stepping out of hearing from the counter, explained that his business was urgent.

      “A child has been taken away by some unauthorised person, whom I am endeavouring to trace. This person bought this pair of shoes on Monday. You keep such shoes, I find, though they are not in stock at present, and, as they appear to be of an uncommon sort, possibly they were bought here.”

      The lady looked at them. “Yes,” she said, “this pattern of shoe is made especially for me. I do not think you can buy them at other places.”

      “Then may I ask you to inquire from your assistants if any were sold on Monday, and to whom?”

      “Certainly.” Then there were consultations behind counters and desks, and examinations of carbon-papered books. In the end the proprietress came to Hewitt, followed by a young lady of rather pert and self-confident aspect. “We find,” she said, “that two pairs of these shoes were sold on Monday. But one pair was afterwards brought back and exchanged for others less expensive. This young lady sold both.”

      “Ah, then possibly she may remember something of the person who bought the pair which was not exchanged.”

      “Yes,” the assistant answered at once, addressing herself to the lady, “it was Mrs. Butcher’s servant.”

      The proprietress frowned slightly. “Oh, indeed,” she said, “Mrs. Butcher’s servant, was it. There have been inquiries about Mrs. Butcher before, I believe, though not here. Mrs. Butcher is a woman who takes babies to mind, and is said to make a trade of adopting them, or finding people anxious to adopt them. I know nothing of her, nor do I want to. She lives somewhere not far off, and you can get her address, I believe, from the greengrocer’s round the corner.”

      “Does she keep more than one servant?”

      “Oh, I think not; but no doubt the greengrocer can say.” The lady seemed to feel it an affront that she should be supposed to know anything of Mrs. Butcher, and Hewitt consequently started for the greengrocer’s. Now this was just one of those cases in which dependence on information given by other people put Hewitt on the wrong scent. He spent that day in a fatiguing pursuit of Mrs. Butcher’s servant, with adventures rather amusing in themselves, but quite irrelevant to the Seton case. In the end, when he had captured her, and proceeded to open a cunning battery of inquiries, under plea of a bet with a friend that the shoes could not be matched, he soon found that she had been the purchaser who, after buying just such a pair of shoes, had returned and exchanged them for something cheaper. And the only outcome of his visit to the baby-linen shop was the waste of a day. It was indeed just one of those checks which, while they may hamper the progress of a narrative for popular reading, are nevertheless inseparable from the matter-of-fact experience of Hewitt’s profession.

      With a very natural rage in his heart, but with as polite an exterior as possible, Hewitt returned to the baby-linen shop in the evening. The whole case seemed barren of useful evidence, and at each turn as yet he had found himself helpless. At the shop the self-confident young lady calmly admitted that soon after he had left something had caused her to remember that it was the other customer who had kept the white shoes and not Mrs. Butcher’s servant.

      “And do you know the other customer?” he asked.

      “No, she was quite a stranger. She brought in a little boy from a cab and bought a lot of things for him—a suit of outdoor clothes, as well as the shoes.”

      “Ah! now probably this is what I want. Can you remember anything of the child?”

      “Yes, he was a pretty little fellow, about two years old or so, with curls. She called him Charley.”

      “Did she put the things on him in the shop?”

      “Not the frock; but she put on the outer coat, the hat and the shoes. I can remember it all now quite well, now I have had time to think.”

      “Then what shoes did the child wear when he came in?”

      “Rather old tan-coloured ones.”

      “Then I think this is the person I am after. You say you never saw her at any other time before or since. Try to describe her.”

      “Well, she was a lady well dressed, in black. She had a very high collar to hide a scar on her neck, like the scars people have sometimes after abscesses, I think. I could see it from the side when she stooped down.”

      “And are you sure she had nothing sent home? Did she take everything with her?”

      “Yes; nothing was sent, else we should know her address, you know.”

      “She didn’t happen to pay with a banknote, did she?”

      “No, in cash.”

      Hewitt left with little more ceremony and made the best of his way to his friend the inspector at the police station. Here was the woman with the scarred neck again—Charley’s deliverer once, now his kidnapper. If only something else could be ascertained of her—some small clue that might bring her identity into view—the thing would be done.

      At the station, however, there was something new. A man had just come in, very drunk, and had given himself into custody for kidnapping the child Charles Seton, whose description was set forth on the bill which still appeared on the notice-hoard outside the station. When Hewitt arrived the man was lolling, wretched and maudlin, against the rail, and, oblivious of most of the questions addressed to him, was ranting and snivelling by turns. His dress was good, though splashed with mud, and his bloated face, bleared eyes and loose, tremulous mouth proclaimed the habitual drunkard.

      “I shay I’ll gimmeself up,” he proclaimed, with a desperate attempt at dignity; “I’ll gimmeself up takin’ away lil boy; I’ll shacrifishe m’self. Solemn duty shacrifishe m’self f’elpless woman, ain’t it? Ver’ well then; gimmeself up takin’ ‘way lil boy, buyin’ ‘m pair shoes. No harm in that, issher? Hope not. Ver’ well then.” And be subsided into tears.

      “What’s your name?” asked the inspector.

      “Whash name? Thash my bishnesh. Warrer wan’ know name for? Grapert—hence ask gellum’sh name. I’m gellum, thash whit’ I am. Besht of shisters too, besht shis’ers”—snivelling again—“an’ I’m ungra’ful beasht. But I shacrifishe ‘self; she shun’ get ‘n trouble. D’year? Gimmeself up shtealin’ lil boy. Who says I ain’ gellum?”

      Nothing more intelligible than this could be got out of him, and presently he was taken off to the cells. Then Hewitt asked the inspector, “What will happen to him now?”

      The inspector laughed.

      “Oh he’ll get very sober and sick and sorry by the morning,” he said; “and then he’ll have to send home for some money, that’s all.”

      “And as to the child?”

      “Oh, he’ll forget all about that; that’s only a drunken freak. The child has been recovered. You know that, I suppose?”

      “Yes, but I am still after the person who took it away. It was a woman. Indeed I’ve more than a suspicion that it was the woman who brought the child here when he was lost before—the one with the scar on the neck, you know.”

      “Is that so?” said the inspector. “Well, that’s a rum go, ain’t it? What did she bring him back here for if she wanted him again?”

      “That I want to find out,” Hewitt answered. “And now I want you to do me a favour. You