I wouldn't go to
Oxford; and I wouldn't travel. I mooned about. Six months ago I came
across Vicary at a meet--you remember Vicary at Vane's?--he told me
that Vane had died in Jersey. I went to Jersey, and found Vane's
grave. Next to it was my wife's."

Again Sir Tancred fell silent in a gloomy musing.

"Well?" said Lord Crosland gently.

"The oddest thing happened. It doesn't sound exactly credible; and you
won't understand it. I don't. But as I stood by the grave, I suddenly
felt that there was something for me to do, something very important
that had to be done. It was odd, very odd. I went back to my hotel
quite harassed, puzzling and racking my brains. Then an idea struck
me; and I had a hunt through the registers. I found that two days
before she died a boy was born, Hildebrand Anne Beauleigh--the old
Beauleigh names. She knew that I should like him to be called by them.
From the registers I learnt where they had been living. I rushed off
to the house, and found it empty and to let--always these shut-up
houses. I made inquiries and inquiries, from the house agents and the
tradespeople. I could learn nothing. They had lived very quietly.
But there was a child; people had seen him wheeled about in a
perambulator. He had disappeared. I suspected my stepmother at once;
and I hurried back to Beauleigh. It had bucked me up, don't you know,
to think that I had a child. I had it out with my stepmother; and what
do you think she told me?"

"Can't guess; but I'm laying odds that it doesn't surprise me," said
Lord Crosland.

"She said that the fact of my having a son and heir would stand in the
way of my making the marriage she hoped. That the boy was in the hands
of a respectable couple, where I need never hope to find him; that he
would be brought up in the station of life suitable to his mother's
having been the daughter of a Tutor. My word, I did talk about the
firm of Stryke & Wigram!"

"I should think you must have," said Lord Crosland.

"I lost no time, but put the matter in the hands of a crack Private
Inquiry Agency. When they learned what I was doing, I'm hanged if my
stepmother and uncle Bumpkin didn't stop my allowance." He laughed
ruefully. "However, I kept the inquiries going by selling my two
horses, my jewellery, my guns, and my clothes. That's why I'm in these
rags. But no good came of it; the private detective discovered
nothing, and charged me nearly three hundred for