Until they were clear of the village again, Sir Clinton made no attempt to extract any further information; but when the car crossed the neck at Flatt’s cottage and was running beside the bay, he slowed down and turned to Fordingbridge.
“There’s a point you might be able to throw light on, Mr. Fordingbridge,” he said tentatively. “Quite obviously, Staveley was supposed to have been killed in the war. Could you give me any information about his earlier history? You came in contact with him at times, I understand.”
Paul Fordingbridge seemed in no way put out by the request.
“I can tell you all I know about the fellow easily enough,” he answered readily. “You’ll have to go elsewhere for any real information about his past; but, so far as I’m concerned, I met him here. My nephew, Derek, brought him home to spend his leave with us at Foxhills. That was in 1916. In the spring of ’17, he was slightly wounded; and we asked him down again to stay with us when he was convalescent. He married my niece in April 1917. The marriage wasn’t a success—quite the other thing. The fellow was a scoundrel of the worst brand. In September 1917 we learned privately that he had got into the black books of the military authorities; and my private impression—it’s only that, for I really don’t know—my private impression was that he ran the risk of a firing-party. What I heard was a rumour that he’d been given a chance to rehabilitate himself in the field. There was a big attack being mounted at the moment, and he was sent in with the rest. That was the last we heard of him. After the attack, he was posted as missing; and a while later still the War Office returned some of his things to my niece. It seems they’d found a body with his identity disc on it. Naturally we were relieved.”
He halted for a moment; then, seeming to feel that he had put the matter in an unnecessarily callous way, he added:
“He was a thoroughly bad lot, you understand? I caught him once trying to forge my name to a cheque for a good round figure.”
Sir Clinton nodded his thanks for the information.
“Then I suppose one has to assume that in some way or other he managed to escape, after exchanging identity discs with somebody who was really killed,” he suggested. “It’s not difficult to see how that could be done.”
Wendover interposed.
“More difficult than it looks at first sight, Clinton. How do you imagine that he could conceal himself after the battle? He’d have to give some account of himself then.”
“Oh, I expect he went amongst people who didn’t know his substitute by sight. That wouldn’t be difficult.”
“He’d be picked up and sent back to his supposed unit very soon—the dead man’s unit, I mean. And then the fat would be in the fire.”
“Obviously he wasn’t sent back, then, squire, if you prefer it so,” Sir Clinton conceded, turning to Fordingbridge. “What we’ve heard just now accounts well enough for Staveley being associated with your nephew lately—I mean the man who’s living at Flatt’s cottage.”
“Is there a nephew of mine at Flatt’s cottage?” Paul Fordingbridge questioned coldly. “I don’t know with certainty that I have a nephew alive at all.”
“He calls himself Derek Fordingbridge, if that’s any help.”
“Oh, you mean that fellow? I’ve no proof that he’s my nephew.”
“I should like to hear something more about him, if you don’t mind,” Sir Clinton suggested.
“I’ve no objection—not the slightest,” Paul Fordingbridge responded. “My nephew Derek was in the Army from 1914. He was captured on the West Front in the same battle as the one I’ve been speaking about. We learned later on that he’d been sent to the prisoners’ camp at Clausthal. He got away from there almost at once and made a good try to get over the Dutch frontier; but they got hold of him at the last moment. Then he was sent to Fort 9, Ingolstadt. He hadn’t been there a week before he got away again. My impression is that most probably he was shot in trying to get across the Swiss frontier, if not earlier; and they failed to identify him. We heard no more about him, anyhow; and when the prisoners were released after the Armistice, he wasn’t among them. If this fellow were really my nephew, it’s hard to see why he’s let so long a time go by without communicating with us. If he really is my nephew, there’s a lot of money waiting for him; and he’s an enterprising chap, as you can see from his escape attempts. And yet we’ve had no word from him of any sort since before the attack in which he was captured.”
“Lost his memory, perhaps?” Wendover suggested.
“It might be possible,” Paul Fordingbridge answered in a frigid tone which damped further speculation on Wendover’s part. Turning to Sir Clinton, he added:
“Unless there’s any further information you want, I think I’ll get down here and walk back to the hotel. I’d be glad of a chance to stretch my legs.”
As Sir Clinton showed no desire to detain him, he stepped out of the car; and they soon left him behind.
“Barring the girl,” Wendover confided to Sir Clinton as they drove on, “that Fordingbridge family seem a damned rum crew.”
“You surprise me, squire. You even capture my interest. Proceed.”
“Well, what do you make of it all?”
“I’ll admit that my vulgar curiosity is piqued by their highly developed faculty of reticence. Miss Fordingbridge seems the only one of them who has a normal human desire to talk about her own affairs.”
“Did you see anything else?”
“They seem a bit at sixes and sevens. But you’ve a much acuter mind than I have, so I suppose you spotted that quite a long time ago.”
“I had a glimmering of it,” Wendover retorted sarcastically. “Anything more?”
“Oh, yes. For one thing, Mr. Paul Fordingbridge seems to have a
