Castle Court, near Cannon Street station in London, on the northern bank of the Thames.
Part 1 of 2
WHEN a tearful mother left her baby son at London’s Foundling Hospital, she went away knowing only that they had named him ‘Walter Wilding’. He was eleven when she returned and claimed him by that name, lavishing a mother’s love on him until she died thirteen years later.
As her only heir, at twenty-five Walter was now the proprietor of a prosperous vintner’s business, and he engaged a housekeeper, a former Foundling nurse, to manage his home. However, the nurse revealed that he was not the Walter Wilding his mother had brought to the hospital. That Walter Wilding was taken away at once, she believed to Switzerland.
Overcome with the feeling that he had wronged this boy, our Walter undertook to find him, but the trail always ended in ‘no thoroughfare’. The burden of his guilt consumed Walter, and he died soon after, having left his handsome property to the missing Wilding, if he be found within two years.
Précis
Aged eleven, Walter Wilding was reclaimed from his orphange by his birth-mother. But after her death, he learnt that there had been a mix-up, and another Walter Wilding had been the one entitled to her love and inheritance. That knowledge brought our Walter to an early grave, but not before he settled his property on the missing Walter. (58 / 60 words)
Part Two
The Fletschhorn, which lies between the Saas Valley and the Simplon Valley in the Swiss canton of Valais, near the Italian border.
TALK of Switzerland, meanwhile, prompted Walter’s partner George Vendale to renew the acquaintance of a delightful Swiss girl he knew named Marguerite. But her uncle, Mr Obenreizer, forbade any marriage unless Vendale doubled his income.
However, they must put this difference aside, for Wilding’s Swiss suppliers of champagne had complained of accounting discrepancies. As Obenreizer was their London agent, he and Vendale were obliged to travel together to Neuchâtel to set things straight.
Obenreizer himself was the embezzler, of course, and to avoid exposure he planned to drug Vendale and leave him to die in the freezing Simplon Pass.
But Marguerite, guessing her uncle’s mind, had followed them. She rescued George from the ice, and declared herself ready to testify against her uncle. In reply, Obenreizer threatened to publish a letter proving that Vendale was no gentleman, but some common brat named Walter Wilding, adopted from the Foundling Hospital over twenty-five years ago!
For some reason, this shameful revelation made George and Marguerite very happy.
Précis
A case of embezzlement took Walter Wilding’s business partner, George Vendale, to Switzerland, with his agent, Mr Obenreizer. Obenreizer was also the embezzler; but his attempt to murder George failed, and his threat to expose George as an orphan named Walter Wilding backfired, for it merely confirmed George as his late friend’s rightful heir, enabling him to marry Obenreizer’s niece. (60 / 60 words)
