“It hasn’t been recovered, and I can now see no prospect of its being recovered. My dear, I don’t want to distress you. But you must really consider whether you are justified in withholding any information you possess.”
Evelyn slipped out of her chair and knelt in front of the fire. All that Sir Henry could see of her face was the line of cheek and throat. She put a log on the fire, and stayed kneeling, with her hands held to the glow.
“Do you want me to justify myself?” she said at last.
He was pained, and his voice showed it.
“No—no—not to me—certainly not to me. But you know, Evelyn, there are others to consider. Cotterell now—he’s feeling the strain very much. Cotty doesn’t give him much peace.”
“Oh—Cotty——”
“I know. But he has to be reckoned with. Cotterell’s a hasty man. I think myself he ought to have waited a little before he altered his will. I think we all wanted a little time. Well, he wouldn’t wait; and now he’s beginning to wonder whether he oughtn’t to have waited. You see, there’s no doubt we all allowed ourselves to build a good deal on the identity disc turning up. It hasn’t turned up. That means there’s no definite proof—nothing that would hold in a court of law. And Cotty declares that this woman, Pearl Palliser, has admitted to him that she recognized Laydon as Jim Field.”
Evelyn went on warming her hands, but she looked round for a moment with rather a strange little smile.
“I shouldn’t worry about that, darling. She’d say he was King Edward, or Napoleon, or George Bernard Shaw if you pressed her. She told me Cotty was bothering her to death, and she supposed she’d end up by signing anything he wanted her to. She’s like that, you know,—a sort of moral jellyfish.”
“You’ve been seeing her again?”
She nodded, and settled herself on the hearthrug in a sitting position.
“Gregory ought to see her. Unfortunately he’s had to go away for a change. I’ll put him on to her as soon as he gets back. But meanwhile, my dear, don’t you think it would be wiser to share your knowledge with us?”
Evelyn locked her hands about her knees. She looked down at her emerald ring.
“Don’t you see?” said Sir Henry—“my dear Evelyn, don’t you see that the disappearance of the identity disc means that there will be no external evidence such as would settle the case? We’re thrown back on the possibility that Laydon may recover his memory or, alternatively, may declare himself. Now, the longer this is delayed, the harder it will be to convince everyone concerned. Cotty Abbott will point out with perfect truth that the interval—even such an interval as has already elapsed—might quite easily be used to bolster up a fictitious claim by acquiring detailed information about the family affairs. He would point out that Sir Cotterell has himself placed Laydon in a position to acquire this information. He’s living at the Manor; he has access to the family papers; and he’s in touch with old servants like Lake. You see, it’s very difficult to answer. And the longer it goes on, the harder it will be for Laydon to make out a convincing case. If he knows who he is, he ought to say so at once. And if you think you have recognized him, you ought at least to tell Cotterell and myself what grounds you have for this recognition.”
Evelyn went on looking at her ring. There was a slight smile about her lips. If she had been moved by emotion the other day, she showed no traces of it now. Her thought was calm and tinged with affectionate amusement. Darling Uncle Henry was addressing her as if she were a deputation or a legislative council—he really did it awfully well. When he had finished, she said in her gentlest voice:
“Yes, I know, darling. But I can’t.”
Sir Henry sighed. An angry woman may come round. A tearful woman will certainly give way in the end. But the woman who smiles and speaks gently means what she says, and a wise man does not waste good arguments upon her.
“Well, well,” he said, and left it at that.
Evelyn jumped up, sat on the arm of his chair, and kissed him.
“Angel!” she said. Then she kissed him again. “I’m crossing to Cologne to-morrow. Have you any messages for Lacy?”
XXVI
Evelyn stood at Anna Blum’s door and knocked. The sun shone hot upon the door and the doorstep, and upon Evelyn herself. The stone was warm under her feet, and the air was full of that strange, gentle, spring sound which some people cannot hear at all, the sound of all the green things upon the earth beginning to stretch themselves and grow. Evelyn looked up at a little patch of heavenly blue right overhead. Then she knocked again. This time there were footsteps. The door opened, and Anna stood there, looking at her with that grave, considering look of hers which told nothing.
Evelyn put out her hand with a friendly smile.
“I’ve come back. May I come in?”
“Certainly.” Anna’s tone was neither friendly nor unfriendly.
She shut the door, set a chair, took one herself, and picked up her knitting, a sock that was almost finished. The room was warm; the sun shone in through a tightly closed window and made a bright patch on the floor between Evelyn and Anna. It touched Anna’s shoulder as it passed, and showed how shabby the stuff of her afternoon dress had grown. It had been a rather bright blue once, and twenty years earlier when Anna had first inherited it from her aunt and godmother, Anna Strohmacher born Müller, she had been very proud of it. As Anna knitted, her arm moved in and out of the slanting sunbeam. Just at the elbow-there was hardly any blue left in the stuff at all, and there was a neat square darn.
It was not Anna’s custom to begin a conversation. She knitted in a composed silence until Evelyn leaned forward and said,
“Major Manning came to see you the other day, didn’t he?”
Anna nodded.
“It was on Tuesday. I remember because of the baking. I bake on Tuesdays and Fridays, just as my mother did. Everyone to his own liking is what I say; but as far as I am concerned, my mother’s ways are good enough for me.”
Evelyn found herself obliged to start all over again.
“You saw Major Manning, and he told you that the identity disc could not be found.”
“Yes, he told me—and I am sorry. But what would you have?” She shrugged her broad shoulders. “Ten years is a long time, and a little thing like that may very well be lost when you think of all the things that have been lost in ten years.”
Her tone was dry and unconcerned. But Evelyn had a quick vision of lost crowns, lost causes. Truly in the ten years between 1915 and 1925 too many things had been lost in Germany to make the loss of one small disc a matter of importance. She had to make an effort to recover her sense that it was important.
“I think Major Manning told you that he had had a report from the man who went down to make inquiries for Mr Laydon’s family.”
Anna shrugged again.
“Ach! Inquiries—after ten years!”
“It’s a long time; but the people who found the clothes seemed to remember everything very clearly. I expect they would have told the story a good many times in the ten years, and that would fix it in their memories.”
“Perhaps,” said Anna politely.
“I saw Mr Müller myself yesterday, Frau Blum.”
“Yes,” said Anna, “I also saw him—not yesterday—no, it was on Wednesday that he came, the day after I had seen the Herr Major.”
Evelyn admired her composure; if she did know anything, it was extraordinary. “My dear girl, you won’t get a thing out of her,” Manning had said. “I’ve tried, and Müller’s tried. If she does know anything, she means to keep it to herself. But go along and have a shot if you want to. You can’t do any harm.” She bit her lip and began again. Anna’s end of the conversation seemed always to be falling to the ground. When one tried to pick it up, there was nothing to take hold of, and one had to begin all over again.
“Mr Müller said that he thought the two young men were speaking the truth. They declared most positively that they were much too frightened to touch
anything or to go near the clothes. They were only little boys at the time, and when they saw the clothes they were dreadfully frightened and thought a savage Englishman would spring out on them and kill them. They said they ran as fast as their legs would carry them, and never stopped until they got home.”
Anna shifted the sock she was knitting.
“Boys are very untruthful,” she observed. “If one of them had taken the disc to look at, and it had dropped into the water, that is what he would say without doubt. He would be frightened, and he would run away; and afterwards, if anyone questioned him, he would say that he had never seen any disc. Boys are like that; they have no conscience. I have had five brothers, besides nephews and cousins, and I know what I am saying.”
This was a long speech for Anna to make. It contained, however, so much common sense that Evelyn found it difficult to answer. It was whilst she was wondering what she would say next that Anna looked at her searchingly and asked:
“Why do you so much wish that the disc should be found?”
Evelyn met the look, and was a little puzzled by it.
“I think Major Manning told you why we are anxious to find the disc. Didn’t he tell you?”
Anna nodded.
“Something he told me. There were two cousins, and Anton, it seems, is one of them. But he does not know which of the two he is. And the Herr Major, who was the friend of both, does not know, nor the old grandfather to whom the estate belongs, nor you, gnädige Frau, who are the wife of one of them. That,” said Anna, still placidly knitting, “that to me seems a very singular thing. Ach, ja—sonderbar.” She shrugged her shoulders, and a very slight, ironic smile played about her lips.
Evelyn’s colour rose sharply.
“Frau Blum!”
She sprang up.
“Ach ja—sonderbar,” murmured Anna.
“Frau Blum!”
Anna raised her eyes, saw the brilliant flush the quivering lips. She spoke gently, as if she were addressing a child:
“Sit down, and do not be angry. I meant no harm.”
Evelyn’s flush died away.
“If you cannot tell me anything, it’s no use for me to stay.”
“Sit down,” said Anna.
“No.” Evelyn shook her head. “But I want to say one thing. I want you to understand that it is for Mr Laydon’s sake that we want to find the disc. Even if I knew who he was a hundred times over, it would not help. You see, people would say that I was mistaken, or deceived, or that I wanted to make out a case in order to help him. We want to find the disc because we want a proof that will stop everybody’s mouth and put him in his right place.”
Anna went on knitting.
“Why does he not come himself?” she asked. “Why does he send you?”
“He doesn’t send me.”
“Does he know you have come?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“Ach, so——”
There was a pause. The little triangle formed by the stitches at the toe of the sock had diminished until Anna seemed to be continually turning her work and putting in a fresh needle; the sock was almost done.
“Then why have you come?” said Anna at last.
“I have told you why.”
“He is a man. It is his affair. Why do you concern yourself?”
Evelyn laughed, a queer, involuntary laugh that left her rather shaken.
“I think you know quite well why I have come.”
“Perhaps,” said Anna, “you wish to be sure that you are a widow. Ach, yes, that understands itself. You are young and beautiful, and you wish, no doubt, to marry again.”
“No, you don’t really think that,” said Evelyn gently. “You know very well that I love him.”
“Love?” said Anna. “What sort of love is it that doesn’t know a man because his shoulders have grown broad and his face has changed? I would not call that love.”
Evelyn stood looking at her. She was pale now, and her voice was not quite steady. She was saying things to Anna that she had never said to anyone. She was saying them to Anna because Anna loved him too.
“Frau Blum, have I said that I do not know him?”
“You have not said it.”
There were only two needles left in the sock. Anna knitted the few remaining stitches, drew the needles out, and pulled her thread tight through the last loop. Then she got up.
Evelyn turned to the door.
“I’ll go. What’s the good of our talking this?”
“There is no hurry,” said Anna. “You say that you love him?”
Evelyn looked at her without speaking. She was proud, but there was no pride in the look. Her eyes were dark with unshed tears.
“Does he love you?” said Anna.
“I don’t know—I don’t think so—he doesn’t say.”
“He will love you. You are beautiful.”
Evelyn flushed to the roots of her hair.
“I don’t want that sort of love.”
“Ach, was—one takes what one can get. It is the giving that counts. For the rest, men are as they are made.”
Evelyn felt that she could bear no more. She put her hand on the door and groped for the latch. The tears began to run down her cheeks. She felt that she had been weighed and found wanting, judged and condemned. A cold unhappiness welled up in her. A line once familiar came into her mind and stayed there:
“The unplumbed, salt, estranging sea.”
It was such a sea, strange, oblivious, that stretched between her and Laydon.
Anna’s hand fell on her arm.
“You are in a great hurry all at once. Will you not take the disc before you go?”
Evelyn’s hands pressed against the door. She stayed like that, quite still. There was a silence.
“Na, I will get it,” said Anna.
She let go of Evelyn’s arm, crossed the room, and went up the stair, all in her usual slow, deliberate manner.
When Evelyn heard her moving about in the room above, she made an effort and turned. She still leaned against the door; but she faced the room now. She could see the finished sock lying on the edge of the table, the chair in which Anna had sat and knitted, her own chair pushed hastily back, and the patch of bright sunshine on the clean floor. She could hear Anna coming down the stair, and quite suddenly she wanted to run away. She wanted to wrench open the door behind her and run as fast as flying feet could carry her, down the path to where Monkey was waiting with the car. She did not want to see the disc, or to touch it, or to read the name on it.
Anna came in, and Evelyn straightened herself. She did not want to look at Anna; but she made herself look, and saw her come forward with her hand out—and on the palm of it something wrapped up in a square of yellowish paper. One of the corners of the paper was torn. She raised her eyes to Anna’s face, and found it calmly expressionless.
“You had it all the time!”
Anna came up to the table and stood there.
“And you are thinking that I lied to you. But”—the broad shoulders lifted a little—“that I did not do.” She laid the little packet on the top of the Bible, and just touched it with one of her work-roughened fingers. “No, I did not lie. What I told you was true, only—I did not tell you all.”
“Will you tell me now?”
“Yes, now I will tell you. Perhaps you will understand me—perhaps not. But I will tell you.”
“You said you put the disc on the top of the clothes.”
Anna nodded.
“That is true. All that I told you is quite true. I put the disc on the top of the clothes, and I did not look at it or read the name. I thought I had meddled enough. Then I went home; and in the night, when I was sitting there watching the Englishman, I began to think about Anton, the real Anton. I did not love him, you understand; he was a burden to me, and he was rough and violent. But, after all, he was my husband’s nephew, and I thought of him a little. I did not weep, but I tried to think good, pious thoughts. And then
it came to me that Anton would be buried in an Englishman’s name, and that perhaps he would be buried with that disc about his neck. I did not know what they would do with it, but I thought perhaps they would bury it with him; and it came over me that Anton had hated the English very much, and what would he say if he rose on the Judgment Day with an Englishman’s name about his neck? Perhaps it seems foolish to you. Sometimes it has seemed foolish to me; but that night it did not seem foolish. I thought of Anton rising am Jüngsten Tag and being very angry; and at the last I could bear it no longer. I put on my things and went up through the wood, and took the disc from the top of the clothes and brought it home. I did not look at it. I folded it up in a piece of writing paper, and I hid it in a safe place.”
“You didn’t look?” said Evelyn.
Anna touched the little packet again.
“No, I have never looked. Why should I want to know his name? I thought I knew too much. I did not want to know any more. If one does not know a thing, one can swear that one does not know it, and there is no lie on one’s conscience. I was brought up to speak the truth, and I do not like to tell lies.”
“But why,” said Evelyn, “Frau Blum, why didn’t you say before that you had the disc?”
Anna laughed.
“Why should I say?”
“Why shouldn’t you?” said Evelyn.
“Do you really ask that? Think a little. Already I have trouble enough for what I have done. I do not complain. But I do not wish for any more trouble—and in Germany one may get into very bad trouble indeed over such a thing as keeping back papers, or certificates, or such-like. Also I had the thought that if I kept the disc——” She paused and looked at Evelyn. “Na, that was nothing but foolishness.”
Evelyn came a little nearer.
“What did you think?”
“I thought that perhaps he would come back,” said Anna Blum. “I thought I would keep it. I thought he would come back and ask for it himself.”
She picked up the disc in its yellow paper and held it out.
“There you have it. Open it and read the name.”
Evelyn made no movement to take it. She lifted her head and spoke very gently, but as if from a distance:
The Amazing Chance Page 19
