side. And the Card Case at Brighton. I can assure you My Dear Mother I have keep your promice ever since. In writing to me please enclose your letter to Mr. Gilbes to prevent unnesersery enquiry as I do not wish any person to know me in this Country. When I take my proper prosition and title. Having therefore made up my mind to return and face the Sea once more I must request you to send me the Means of doing so and paying a fue outstranding debts. I would return by the overland Mail. The passage Money and other expences would be over two Hundred pound. for I propose Sailing from Victoria not this colonly And to Sail from Melbourne in my own Name. Now to annable me to do this my dear Mother you must send me ". In the original letter the half-sheet is now torn off at this point, but it has been stated by the Dowager's solicitor, who saw it when complete, that the ending originally contained the words "How's Grandma?" If so, the fact must have again puzzled the Dowager, for Roger had no "Grandma" living when he went away. The date, "22d April, '54," was also certainly incorrect, for the Bella sailed away on April 20th, and was never heard of more. But there were other difficulties; Lady Tichborne had never seen, and what is more, had never heard of any brown mark on her son Roger; she could say nothing about the "card case at Brighton" (which referred, according to Mr. Gibbes, to the Claimant's assertion that he had left England in consequence of having been swindled out of £1,500 by prize-fighters at Brighton races), and lastly the anxious mother could not recognize the handwriting. From the facsimiles of the writings of Roger Tichborne and that of the Wagga-Wagga correspondent, which we are enabled to give, the reader may judge for himself |