It was evident from his tone that he thought this contingency a most unlikely one, though not altogether impossible.
“In any case, I’ve got to do the best I can for his interests. That’s why I propose to let Foxhills if I can find someone to take it on a short lease. We can’t afford to let Derek’s property stand idle—if it is his property. Besides, a place of that size is far better occupied. It’s more or less all right just now, with old Peter Hay looking after it and living in the cottage; but it would be far better if we had someone living there permanently and keeping it heated. I’m afraid of dry-rot setting in sometime or other. Now, do you understand the state of affairs, Jay? Can’t you see that’s the best course to take?”
Miss Fordingbridge paid no attention to either query.
“I’ve listened to you,” she said, perhaps with a slight lapse from strict accuracy, “and now it’s your turn to listen to me, Paul. It’s no use your trying to persuade me that there’s any doubt about Derek at all. I know perfectly well he’s alive.”
Paul Fordingbridge made no effort to restrain his involuntary gesture of annoyance. Quite evidently he saw what was coming.
“Now, Julia, it’s no use bringing up this stuff of yours again. I’ve told you fifty times already that I don’t believe it in the slightest. Since you went in for this table-turning, and spirit-rapping, and planchette, and all the rest of the wretched business, you’ve hardly been sane on the subject. I daresay you adored Derek when he was here. No doubt you think you’re justified in all this séance business, trying to get in touch with him, and the rest of it. But frankly, it leaves me as it leaves every other sensible person—completely sceptical.”
Miss Fordingbridge was evidently well-accustomed to this kind of reception when she broached the topic. She ignored her brother’s protest and continued as though he had not interrupted her.
“I remember quite well how you laughed at me when I came back from that wonderful séance and told you how I had been assured that Derek was still alive. That was five years ago, but I can recall it perfectly. And I know it was true. And if you had been there yourself, and had heard it with your own ears, you’d have believed it too. You couldn’t have disbelieved. It was far too convincing. After the medium went into a trance, the control spoke to me. And it told me all about Derek—what regiment he’d been in; when he was captured; how he’d disappeared; how anxious I’d been about him; and how we’d lost all trace of him. You’d have been quite convinced yourself, if you’d been there and heard it all.”
“I am quite convinced,” her brother replied drily. “That’s to say I’m quite convinced that they’d looked up Derek’s name in the casualty lists and got together all the data they could gather beforehand. I expect you gave away a good deal yourself by your questions, too. You’re about the easiest person to pump, if one goes about it in the right way.”
Miss Fordingbridge smiled in a superior fashion, as though she knew that she held a trump card still.
“Would it convince you if I said that I’d seen Derek?”
“Some more of their confounded mummery? No, it wouldn’t convince me. A child could deceive you, Jay. You want to be deceived. You can’t bear the idea that Derek’s dead—that’s what vitiates this stuff that you dignify by the name of evidence.”
“Vulgar abuse never hurts a spiritualist. We’re used to it,” Miss Fordingbridge replied with simple dignity. “But you’re wrong as usual, Paul. It wasn’t at a séance that I saw Derek. It was here, at Lynden Sands. And it was last night.”
From the expression on her brother’s face it was clear that he hardly knew how to take this news.
“You saw him here, last night? In a dream, I suppose?”
“No, not in a dream. I met him by appointment down at that rock on the beach—the one we used to call Neptune’s Seat. And I saw him close enough to make no mistake—as close as I am to you this moment. And I talked to him, too. It’s Derek; there’s no doubt about it.”
Paul Fordingbridge was evidently taken aback. This latest tale of his sister’s seemed to have something more solid behind it than her earlier ventures.
“You said nothing to me about this. Why was that?”
Miss Fordingbridge recognised that she had scored a point and had startled her brother out of his usual scepticism. She had her answer ready.
“Naturally you’d hardly expect me to discuss a thing like that over the breakfast-table, with half-a-hundred total strangers sitting round and craning their necks so as to hear better? If you will insist on staying at hotels, you must put up with the results. This is the first time I’ve been alone with you since I met him.”
Paul Fordingbridge acknowledged the justice of her view with a nod.
“Quite so,” he admitted. “And you had a talk with this fellow, had you?”
Miss Fordingbridge’s temper showed unmistakably in her tone as she replied.
“Kindly don’t call Derek ‘this fellow,’ if you please. It’s Derek himself. He talked to me for quite a long time—all about things that had happened at Foxhills when he was here before the War, and other things that happened at the times he was home on leave. And part of the time he told me about Clausthal and Fort 9, too.”
Her brother’s scepticism again made itself evident.
“Plenty of people were in Fort 9 and at Clausthal besides Derek. That proves nothing.”
“Well, then, he mentioned a whole lot of little things as well. He reminded me of how Cressida dropped her bouquet when she was signing the register after her wedding. And he remembered which wedding march they played then.”
“Almost
