The Amazing Chance

by Patricia Wentworth

  “Please, please tell me.”

  “Yes, I will tell you. It was towards morning on the first night, the night of the storm. It was still dark, and he was tossing this way and that and very restless. I did not dare to leave him in case he should get up and wander out into the forest. He began to mutter to himself. And then, all at once, he said words that I could hear, the same words over and over. He went on saying them for a long time, perhaps for half an hour. And then he fell asleep. And after that he never spoke a word that anyone could understand.”

  “What did he say?”

  “I will tell you, but it will not help you—you will see,” Anna fixed her eyes on Evelyn’s flushed and eager face. “He said, in English like this: ‘Pearl—I must go—Pearl—I must go,’ just like that, over and over.”

  “You are sure?” Evelyn’s voice dried in her throat. The last word was hardly said.

  Anna saw all the colour pass from her face.

  “Yes, I am sure. I told you that it would not help. Over and over he said it, just like I have said: ‘Pearl—I must go.’ I told you it would not help.”

  Evelyn pressed a handkerchief to her lips. She got up slowly. The room was full of mist. It would be dreadful to faint here. The words she had just heard rang in her ears like bells: “I must go—I must go.” She repeated them mechanically. And then Anna was opening the door. Evelyn crossed the threshold and came out into the cold, still air. She did not know whether she spoke again to Anna. She went down the path with one word ringing in her ears—Pearl—Pearl—Pearl.…

  XVII

  Evelyn found Jessica Sunning at the flat when she got back to town. She was very glad to see her. Jessica fussed over her tartly, asked a great many questions about things that did not matter in the least, and did not so much as mention Laydon’s name. It was very restful to hear Jessica raging because there was a cobweb on her bedroom cornice, and to be brought hot soup, and to have her suit-case unpacked, and to be scolded vehemently for the way she had crushed a tea-gown.

  Jessica did everything vehemently. She was a little, peaked creature with sharp, transparent features and short, tossed hair gone prematurely grey. She had scolded Evelyn incessantly for the past five years, and loved her with an intense devotion.

  Evelyn fell asleep after her journey, feeling that it was pleasant to be at home again. In the morning, when breakfast had been disposed of, Jessica planted herself on the hearth-rug in a manly attitude, and said in her quick staccato:

  “I suppose you know your beastly cousin, Cotty Abbott, has been here every single moment of the day and night, wanting to know when you were coming back.”

  “He’s not my cousin, and how should I know?” said Evelyn. Then she added with a gurgle, “I wonder Sophy let him.”

  “Sophy’s been round too. When it wasn’t one, it was the other—sometimes both. Now when the bell rings, I just say ‘Damn’ and bolt,—it’s certain to be one of them, and a little of your Cousin Cotty goes a long, long way.”

  Evelyn looked worried.

  “I don’t want to see Cotty. Why should I see Cotty? I never want to see Cotty.”

  “Cotty wants to see you,” said Jessica grimly. “You’re for it, my child. He’s a sticker, Cotty is. Damn! What’s the odds that’s him now?”

  The bell rang its peal to the end, and Jessica darted to the drawing-room door.

  “Oh, Jess, stay!” wailed Evelyn.

  “Not I!” Jessica whisked away as the maid came into the hall. A moment later Evelyn was having her hand pressed by Cotty Abbott, whose tight hand-shake was one of the things which endeared him to his relatives. “Beastly feeling having your hand held on to as if it was a bone and Cotty was a dog,” Jack Laydon had said once long ago.

  Evelyn detached her fingers, resisted the temptation to rub them, and sat down. Cotty sat down too, stiffly erect and rather on the edge of his chair. He was dressed with extreme correctness, and wore a ceremonial manner.

  “I am very glad to find you here,” he observed. Cotty didn’t say things; he made observations and remarks. “Miss—er—Sunning will perhaps have told you that I’ve called here several times during your absence. She was rather—er—indefinite as to the probable date of your return.”

  “Yes, she didn’t know. You wanted to see me?”

  “Yes, I wanted to see you most particularly—er—most particularly.”

  Of all the unconscionable hours to want to see one most particularly! The sound of Ponson clearing breakfast could be heard from the next room, and the sound of Jessica clattering the fire-irons, a thing she was very prone to do when annoyed.

  Cotty Abbott gazed at Evelyn solemnly, cleared his throat, and remarked,

  “Your position, my dear Evelyn, is, if I may say so, one of great delicacy.” He cleared his throat again. “As I said to Sophy only this morning, ‘Evelyn’s position in this matter is really one of extreme delicacy.’”

  “And what did Sophy say?” Evelyn looked down to hide an exasperated twinkle.

  “Sophy agreed with me—she agreed with me fully. She said that she really failed to recall a situation of similar delicacy in her—in fact, in all her wide social experience.”

  “Oh——” said Evelyn. Cotty made her want to scream. And the worst of being properly brought up is that you can’t scream when you want to.

  “As Sophy said to me from the very beginning: ‘It is your undoubted duty to speak to Evelyn.’ ‘My unpleasant duty,’ I said. And Sophy thereupon reminded me that it was not my habit to shirk any duty merely because it was unpleasant. All the Mendip-ffollintons hold very strong views indeed on points like these—er—very strong views indeed.”

  “What did you want to say to me?”

  Cotty drew himself a trifle more erect.

  “My dear Evelyn, it’s not what I want to say, but what I feel it my duty to say. As I pointed out to the children at a local gathering in the school-house the other day—a festive occasion, in fact a treat very generously given by Sir John Tipton, but I was asked to say a few words, to—er—in point of fact, address them—as I said to the children: ‘Duty—er—is—er—at once the mainstay and the—er—sheet anchor of the British character. In—er—duty our national institutions have their roots, their growth, their—er—foliage,—and their fruitage.’ Sophy considered that I had put it very happily.”

  Evelyn felt a little bewildered—one did with Cotty; he digressed so much that one did not always know whether one was listening to quotations from Sophy, or from a speech, or to something which Cotty really wanted to say to you.

  “Which bit of that was what you wanted to say to me, Cotty?” she asked with a charming smile.

  Cotty pursued his way:

  “No, as Sophy said, I am not the man to shirk an unpleasant duty. And as I said to Sophy, ‘She ought to know—Evelyn certainly ought to know.’ Tom Mendip-ffollinton thought so too.”

  “My dear Cotty, if you would tell me what it is that I ought to know.”

  “Tom Mendip-ffollinton was very strongly of the opinion that you should be fully informed—all the Mendip-ffollintons have very strong opinions. He added that he considered your position an extremely delicate one, and that you had his fullest sympathy.”

  Evelyn felt a strange ingratitude for Mr Thomas Mendip-ffollinton’s sympathy. She felt her colour rise and her voice lift as she said:

  “I do wish you’d tell me what you’ve come to say. If it’s unpleasant, do let’s get it over.”

  Mr Abbott looked reproachful. His little grey eyes and his tufted eyebrows registered a considerable degree of reproach. What was the use of being delicate and making a tactful approach to an unpleasant subject? Tact and delicacy were entirely wasted on the modern young woman. Sophy had said as much only yesterday—and Sophy was always right. Very well, he would throw tact aside and be brutally frank.

  “I believe”—his voice was stiff—“that the—er—claimant paid you a visit here just before you went abroad?”

 
“The who?” said Evelyn. There was a sparkle of anger in her blue eyes.

  “The—er—claimant.”

  “Do you mean Anthony Laydon?”

  “I mean the—er—person who claims to be Jack or Jim Laydon. No, my dear Evelyn, your warmth does not offend me. But I would wish you to hear me before you indulge it. This—er—person——”

  “No, Cotty!” said Evelyn. She sat bolt upright, her blue eyes blazing in what Cotty Abbott considered a most unsuitable manner. Blue eyes should be mild and gentle: Evelyn’s were at the moment brilliant with anger. “No, Cotty!” she repeated. “It’s no use. If you’re going to talk of him in that ridiculous way, I shan’t listen. You can call him Laydon, or Anthony, or Tony—I don’t care which—, and I’ll listen to anything you’ve got to say in reason. But I just can’t do with ‘claimants’ and ‘persons.’” She melted into a laugh and nodded at him. “So that’s that, Cotty.”

  Cotty was considerably taken aback. After his forbearance and tact, to be treated like this! Modern manners, modern young women—Sophy had no opinion of them. He hemmed loudly and held up a protesting hand.

  “Really, my dear Evelyn, really!”

  “Yes, really, Cotty.” Evelyn’s anger had passed, and her smile was a disarming one. “Let’s get on. You were saying that Anthony Laydon came here to see me. What about it?”

  “I was not so much referring to his coming here; though, as Sophy says, in your position——”

  Evelyn laughed.

  “Yes, I know. But we’d really finished with my delicate position, hadn’t we? Couldn’t we go on to something else?”

  “I was about to say that I was not so much concerned with—er—the visit to you as with the subsequent visits paid by Mr—er—Laydon.”

  “What on earth do you mean by subsequent visits? And how do you come to know anything about them?”

  Cotty Abbott tapped his knee—Sir Cotterell’s gesture, a little exaggerated.

  “I would like to make it quite clear to you, Evelyn, that I do not accept Mr—er—Laydon as a member of the Laydon family. I do not believe him to be a Laydon at all, but a very different person. And this being my conviction, I conceive it no less than my duty to inform myself as fully as possible with regard to his movements.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean that I have placed the affair in the hands of thoroughly competent private investigators, with the result that I already feel abundantly justified in having taken these measures.”

  Whilst Cotty was speaking, Evelyn passed from anger to a sort of chill fear. What was coming next? She could not find any words to ask.

  Cotty went on, well pleased with his own acumen.

  “Abundantly justified,” he repeated. “For where, I ask you, did this man proceed after leaving your flat?”

  “My dear Cotty, why ask me?”

  A look of annoyance crossed Cotty Abbott’s face—rhetorical questions are not intended to be answered. He cleared his throat.

  “Upon leaving this flat, he proceeded at once to the Upton Street registry office, where he inspected the records of marriages for the years 1913–14. From the registry office he proceeded to 391 Morningdale Road, where he inquired whether Miss Pearl Palliser still lodged there, adding that it was possible that she might be calling herself Mrs Field.”

  Evelyn bit her lip, but not quickly enough; a little sharp sound betrayed her surprise.

  “Yes, Mrs Field—Miss Pearl Palliser or Mrs James Field—that was the form of his inquiry. It appeared that the lady had moved some years before, but the people of the house were on friendly terms with her and knew where she was staying. They furnished Mr—er—Laydon with the address, and he went straight on. On arrival he repeated his inquiries, was told that Miss Palliser was in, and went up to her room, where he remained for nearly half an hour. When he had gone, the detective went up and knocked at the door. He was, I believe, primed with some excuse, but he had no need to employ it. When Miss Palliser opened the door of her room it was evident that she had been weeping violently and was still in a good deal of distress. She used some very remarkable words. As I said to Sophy: ‘Certainly remarkable, and probably conclusive,’” Cotty paused, savouring his triumph.

  “What did she say?” Evelyn tried hard for a level voice, but it shook.

  “She said, ‘Oh, for the Lord’s sake, go away! I’ve just seen a ghost.’ And she banged the door in his face. Remarkable words, I think.”

  Evelyn said nothing.

  “Certainly remarkable—and taken in conjunction with what follows, I think, conclusive. The detective”—Cotty was really enjoying himself a good deal—“returned to the Upton Street registry office, where he examined the register with this result—he found that on December the seventh, 1914, a marriage had taken place there between Pearl Harriet May Palliser and James Calthrop Field. As Sophy says, that is surely a remarkable piece of evidence.”

  Evelyn had the sensation of being in a very thick fog. It is no use hitting out at a fog; and it is no use to try and run away. What on earth was Cotty driving at? And what on earth did he think he was proving, with his detective, and his registry office, and all this rigmarole about poor Jim Field having married Pearl Palliser?

  Later on Cotty confided to Sophy that he did not consider Evelyn Laydon at all an intelligent young woman: “She looked at me blankly, and seemed incapable of following what I really considered was a very lucid chain of reasoning.”

  At the moment, he remarked tartly, “Surely you see the inevitable conclusion to be drawn from these facts?”

  “I’m afraid I don’t.”

  For the second time Cotty determined to be brutally frank.

  “My dear Evelyn, it is surely obvious—to Sophy and myself it appears quite obvious—that this man is neither Jack Laydon nor Jim Laydon, but simply Jim Field.”

  Evelyn sat up quite straight.

  “Oh, no,” she said.

  “Ah, you say ‘Oh, no’ because you have not fully grasped what I have been endeavouring to convey.”

  “Jim Field? Nonsense!”

  Cotty rapped his knee.

  “Sophy and I have suspected as much from the beginning. It was Sophy who, whilst we were looking at some old groups and snapshots, pointed out to me that this man bore far more resemblance to Jim Field than to either of the Laydons. She spoke at first quite casually; we were looking at the photographs and she said, ‘He is not like either of them. Now if he were claiming to be this young fellow, he would have more to go upon.’ And then she asked, ‘By the way, who is this? He seems to be in all the groups. Who is he?’ And it was Jim Field. Tom Mendip-frollinton was in the room, and he came and leaned over us and said, ‘Remarkable, very—very remarkable.’ This was the—er—germ of the idea, if I may so phrase it,—the—er—germ. As Sophy said, it came with a flash. We then proceeded to develop it and—er—examine it. It was, if I may say so, amazing that it had not struck us all before. As Sophy said to me: ‘Nothing—nothing could be plainer.’”

  “Nonsense!” said Evelyn again.

  “You have not yet examined the facts, the—er—data. Jim Field, though a year older than the Laydons, was at school and college with them, and a most constant visitor at Laydon Manor. He was in the same squadron in the Flying Corps, and was one of the three who were missing on the fifteenth of November, 1915. The man who has been representing himself to be a Laydon had no proof to offer except the fact that he recognized various members of the family, and was familiar with a number of names and circumstances with which Jim Field would have been equally familiar. One of his first actions is to look up the entry of Jim Field’s marriage to this Miss Palliser, whom I seem to remember by repute as a favourite of the music-hall stage a good many years ago. And he then proceeds to pay the lady a visit, asking for her in the name of Mrs Field. There, my dear Evelyn! You can, I think, no longer say ‘Nonsense!’ to all that.”

  Evelyn propped her chin in her hand and spoke quietly:

&n
bsp; “I beg your pardon. You’re making a mistake, of course. But I see how you got there. What you don’t see is that there might be a perfectly natural explanation. Don’t you see that if Jack or Jim knew that Jim Field was married, the first thing they would do would be to look up his widow?”

  A small, superior smile appeared for a moment on Cotty Abbott’s face.

  “I’m afraid, my dear Evelyn, that you have overlooked Miss Palliser’s very remarkable words. Whilst undoubtedly labouring under extremely strong emotion she—er—stated that she had just seen a ghost. As I said to Sophy, we cannot of course take such a statement literally. What she most undoubtedly meant was that she had just seen some person whom she had previously supposed to be dead. Certainly that was her meaning. As Tom Mendip-ffollinton observed——”

  Evelyn’s desire to avoid hearing this observation brought her to her feet.

  “Cotty, do stop! You’ve got it all wrong.” She walked to the fire, poked it, and turned round, her colour high and her eyes bright. “You’ve really got the whole thing topsy-turvy. I don’t know whether Pearl Palliser knew Jim—I think she must have known him—met him anyhow—, but this I do know for certain—she and Jack Laydon knew each other very well, very well indeed.”

  Cotty got up too.

  “I do not see that that affects the question at all.”

  “Go away and think it over,” said Evelyn.

  Cotty stared at her with an air of offence.

  “Do I understand you to imply that you believe this man to be Jack Laydon?”

  “I didn’t say so.” She turned round and put the poker down; it fell with a little crash.

  “Let me understand your meaning: If not Jim Field or Jack Laydon, there remains only Jim Laydon. Are you prepared to state that you recognize him as Jim Laydon—as your husband?”

  “He has not claimed to be my husband.” Evelyn’s voice was low and controlled. She was very pale.

  “Then——”