The Vanished Child

by Sarah Smith

  Knight, Gilbert H 263 Commonwealth Avenue

  —H. P. Boulding.

  The address was an easy walk from his hotel.

  Sometime before dawn he took the walk. The house was a double frontage of granite blocks and gargoyles, outsized for the street of narrow brownstones. The Knights had apparently possessed a talent for the conspicuous. The blinds were drawn; perhaps no one was home, perhaps they were all asleep. What would happen if he rang the doorbell? “Tell me why I think I recognized Richard Knight.” He did not stay long in front of the house; he took a long walk. Like a tourist, he saw the Public Garden with its amusing King Ludwig swan boats and then bought himself coffee at a shop with a counter, open early. He and the counter girl were the only persons in the shop.

  He asked her, “Have you ever believed anything you’re certain isn’t true?”

  “Sure,” she said. “I keep believing my brother’ll get a job.”

  “Have you ever thought you might be someone else?”

  She looked at him sideways and moved down the counter, laughing. “That’d be crazy.”

  “Of course,” he said. “Everything has a simple explanation.”