The detective nodded to the old man and stood back discreetly and formally beside the nurse.
Janet approached his bedside and lifted his limp hand in greeting. He raised his other hand in benediction.
The old man moved his pale eyes towards Alec.
‘It’s you, Alec,’ he said in a blurred voice, as if his tongue were in the way.
‘I was wondering,’ said Alec, ‘if you remember a lady called Lisa at all? Lisa Brooke. Lisa Sidebottome.’
‘Lisa,’ said the old man.
‘You don’t remember Lisa — a red-haired lady?’ said Alec.
‘Lisa,’ said the old man, looking at Janet.
‘No, this isn’t Lisa. This is her sister, Janet. She’s come to see you.
The old man was still looking at Janet.
‘Don’t you remember Lisa? — Well, never mind,’ said Alec.
The old man shook his head. ‘I recollect all creatures,’ he said.
‘Lisa died last year,’ Alec said. ‘I just thought you might know of her.’
‘Lisa,’ said the old man and looked out at the sky through the window. It was a bright afternoon, but he must have seen a night sky full of stars. ‘My stars are shining in the sky,’ he said. ‘Have I taken her to Myself?’
Janet was served with tea downstairs and invited to put her feet up for a while.
She put away her handkerchief. ‘I did not,’ she said, ‘at first find any resemblance. I thought there must be a mistake. But as he turned his head aside to the window, I saw the profile, I recognized his features quite plainly. Yes, I am sure he is the same Matthew O’Brien. And his manner, too, when he spoke of the stars…’
Alec declined tea. He took a notebook from his pocket and tore a page from it.
‘Will you excuse me if I scribble a note to a friend? — I have to catch the post.’ He was already scribbling away when Miss Sidebottome gave him leave to do so.
Dear Guy — I believe I shall be the first to give you the following information.
A man named Matthew O’Brien has been discovered, who was already married to Lisa when you married her.
Mortimer will give you the details, which have now been fully established.
As it happened, I have been visiting this man, in the course of research, at St Aubrey’s Home for mental cases, for the past ten years, without suspecting any such association.
I imagine there will be no blame imputed to you. But of course, as your marriage with Lisa was invalid, you will not now benefit from her estate. Lisa’s money, or at least the great bulk of it, will, of course, go to her legal husband — I fancy it will be kept in trust for him as he is mentally incapacitated.
Be a good fellow, and, immediately on reading this letter, take your pulse and temperature, and let me know…
Alec begged an envelope from the receptionist. He slipped in his note, and addressed and stamped it. He slid the letter into the post-box in the hall, and returned to comfort Janet.
Alec felt, when he left Janet Sidebottome’s hotel after escorting her painfully home, that he had had a fruitful though exhausting day.
Reflecting on Matt O’Brien’s frail and sexless flesh and hair on his pillow, and how the old man had looked back and forth between Janet and himself, he was reminded of that near-centenarian, Mrs Bean, who had replaced Granny Green in the Maud Long Ward. So different from each other in features, they yet shared this quality, that one would not know what was their sex from first impressions. He resolved to make a note of this in Matt O’Brien’s case-history.
He felt suddenly tired and stopped a taxi. As it drove him home he ruminated on the question why scientific observation differed from humane observation, and how the same people, observed in these respective senses, actually seemed to be different people. He had to admit that Mrs Bean, for instance, to whom he had not paid close attention, had none the less rewarded him with one of those small points of observation that frequently escaped him when he was deliberately watching his object. However, the method he had evolved was, on the whole, satisfactory.
A fire-engine clanged past. Alec leaned in his corner and closed his eyes. The taxi turned a corner. Alec shifted his position and looked out into the evening. The taxi was purring along the Mall towards St James’s Street.
The driver leaned back and opened the communicating window.
‘A fire somewhere round here,’ he said.
Alec found himself on the pavement outside his block of chambers, in a crowd. There were policemen everywhere, smoke, people, firemen, water, then suddenly a cry from the crowd and everyone looking up as a burst of flame shot from the top of the building.
Alec pushed through to the inner edge of the crowd. A policeman barred his way with a strong casual arm. ‘I live here,’ Alec explained. ‘Let me pass, please.’
‘Can’t go in there,’ said the policeman. ‘Stand back, please.’
‘Get back,’ shouted the crowd.
Alec said, ‘But I live there. My things. Where’s the porter?’
‘The building is on fire, sir,’ said the policeman.
Alec made a rush advance and got past the policeman into the smoke and water at the entrance to the building. Someone hit him on the face. The crowd fell back as a wave of smoke and flame issued from a lower window. Alec stood and looked into the interior while another policeman from the opposite side of the crowd walked over to him.
