High noon was striking when Nick Carter entered Mr. Field’s palatial house the following day.
Stepping into the hall he met Barnes.
Offering him his hand, he said:
“Well, I left you here when I went away, and I find you here now. Have you slept here?”
With a laugh, the other replied:
“Not quite so bad as that. I have been here the greater part of the time, though.”
“Anything new turned up?”
“Yes.”
“What?”
“A certain person has put in an appearance since last night.”
“Who is it?”
“A lady.”
“Her name?”
“Field.”
“Ha! What does your answer imply?”
“Can’t you guess?”
“Mrs. Field has returned?”
“She has!”
“Does she bring any substantial proof of her identity?”
“She brought no proof at all.”
“Ah! How do you know that it is she?”
“Because she was recognized.”
“By whom?”
“Several of the servants.”
“How did she come?”
“She came to the door and inquired for Miss Doane. She did not give her name or attempt in anyway to explain who she was, but the woman who saw her exclaimed: ‘You are my lady!’”
“What was her reply?”
“She said: ‘So you recognize me after all these years!’”
“What then?”
The other rejoined:
“Don’t you think it would be as well for you to see the lady yourself?”
And the detective said:
“I think it would. Suppose you send her to me.”
“Here?”
“Yes. Or no, let her come to the back parlor, which is more private.”
“Very; well.”
Nick Carter had been an inmate of the back parlor only a few minutes when the rustling of a dress told him of the approach of a lady.
Rising as she entered, he found himself facing a lady of most striking and graceful proportions, with queenly carriage. She was a person once seen, seldom forgotten, which fact, trivial as it was, had weight for him.
“Pray be seated!”
She uttered those words with the air and tone of one who had been accustomed to receiving and speaking with strangers.
Her self-possession could never have been obtained save by familiarity with the duties of a hostess.
As the detective accepted the invitation, she said:
“I believe you wished to see me?”
“I did and do.”
“Mr. Barnes informed me that you are the detective who is engaged in trying to solve the mystery of my husband’s death or disappearance?”
“I am.”
“You think it possible that I may help you?”
“Yes. You are Mr. Field’s wife?”
“I am.”
“You were separated from him years ago?”
“I was.”
“You took your child with you?”
“I did.”
“What became of that child?”
“I was taken ill and removed to a hospital in an unconscious condition. Hence I could give no directions as regarded my daughter.”
“Well?”
“When I recovered and was discharged from the hospital and went in quest of my child I could find nothing of her. On returning to the hospital afterward I learned that she had been there in search of me, but I lost all trace there, and never was able to discover anything of her until a couple of days ago.”
“Yet you were both in the city all the time?”
“Yes.”
“Isn’t it a trifle singular that you could not find her, and that you never met?”
“I suppose it is. And yet New York is a large place, and a person might live next door to a long lost friend and not know it.”
“True! But a detective might have solved the problem for you in a very short time, if you had been anxious to find your child.”
“I employed a detective.”
“Did you?”
“Yes.”
“And he could not find any trace of your child?”
“Apparently not.”
“Well, I don’t think much of him as a detective. But to business! You got on the track of your daughter a couple of days ago?”
“I did.”
“How?”
“I advertised for information in the personal columns of a daily paper, offering a reward.”
“Somebody gave you the information you wanted?”
“Yes. A girl who worked in the same store with Helen saw the personal and came and told me of her.”
“What did you do then?”
“I went yesterday to the place where I had learned she was boarding, to see if by any possibility this Helen Doane was my child.”
“Well?”
“I found she was out.”
The detective rejoined:
“And left word that you would return to-day at noon?”
Giving him a surprised look, the lady said:
“You know, it seems, of my visit there?”
“I do.”
“You were there after I was?”
“Yes.”
He was looking sharply but covertly at her, and she knew it.
Quietly, he now said:
“You came here last night, I am told?”
“I did.”
“And asked for Miss Doane?”
“I did.”
“If, when you left her boarding house at one or two o’clock, you did not know that she was here, how could you have come here and inquired for her with such perfect confidence as to the result?”
Looking him fairly in the face, the lady returned:
“I can see, sir, that you suspect me, or if you do not, at least you want every circumstance that seems at all strange explained to your satisfaction.”
“That is the truth.”
“Well, the explanation is easy. Instead of waiting until to-day to go back to her boarding house, I went there later in the afternoon. In the meantime she had returned with Mr. Barnes and had left word for me that she could be found here, on learning which I at once came to this place.”
“Had you then heard of what had befallen your husband?”
“I learned it while on my way here, from the columns of an afternoon paper that I bought in the car.”
“You found Miss Doane here?”
“I did.”
“And recognized her as your daughter?”
“Yes.”
“You would swear to her being your child?”
“I would.”
The woman spoke in the most decided way.
The detective said:
“There is no possibility that you could be mistaken?”
“None in the world.”
“Can this be proved in any way that you know of?”
“Yes, by a birthmark.”
“It was known to others besides yourself?”
“Yes.”
“To whom, then?”
“Mr. Field and all the servants who were at the tame in our service.”
All this was evidence of the most positive kind that Helen Doane was really the child of Mr. Field, and not, as he had firmly believed, an impostor. That this lady was Mrs. Field, the wife who had left her husband because of his jealousy, he had no doubt whatever.
But, was she not mistaken about Helen Doane?
Come what might, that letter brought by the girl to prove her kinship was a forgery!
That was a fact about which there could be no doubt.
And, as it was a forgery, did not her possession of it imply that she was a party in the guilty transaction?
It certainly was strong evidence.
As he sat there he asked himself if it was not possible that Helen was really the daughter and yet a schemer?
It was hardly reasonable that she should be, for as Mr. Field was only too desirous of finding wife or child, or both, there was no need of her doing anything underhanded if by coming to her father she could prove her identity by so excellent testimony as a birthmark of which he knew and with the appearance of which he could be presumed to be familiar.
The more Nick twisted the case, the more inexplicable it became.
Having thanked the lady, he took the trouble to see and speak with one of the servants, the same one with whom he had talked before and with whom he had been favorably impressed.
On asking her about the birthmark that the little Helen Field possessed, she said at once that she remembered it well.
“You know it so well that you could swear to it if you saw it again?”
“Yes.”
“Have you ever seen it since the little Helen went away with her mother?”
“Never until last night.”
“You saw it then?”
“I did.”
“Under what circumstances?”
“I was present at the meeting of Mrs. Field and her child. The birthmark being spoken of, the young lady who came here as Miss Doane removed such portion of her clothing as was necessary to show that she possessed the mark.”
“There could be no mistake about this?”
“There could not be.”
“You would take an oath to it that Miss Helen Doane and Miss Helen Field are the same?”
“I would!”
“That is all.”
Nick Carter left the house then and went slowly downtown, wrapped in deep thought.
The clouds were growing thicker this morning, and this in spite of the fact that he felt himself near the solution of the mystery.
That Helen Doane was the daughter of Mr. Field it would appear insane to doubt in the face of a recognition by her mother and an old servant who had been with her from the time of her birth until the mother left with the child.
But the forged letter!
Could it be possible that she had received it as she said, and that she was an innocent holder of it, no matter what scheme might be back of it?
The detective said to himself at last:
“That is the only way of accounting for the thing, and yet who was to be benefited, and how, if the girl was proved to be Field’s daughter and placed in possession of the property? It could not be done without her sanction, hence she must have been a party in it.”