Miss Fordingbridge reflected for a moment or two, evidently searching her memory for some crucial piece of evidence.
“He remembered that we used to bring up some of the old port from Bin 73 every time he went off to the Front. He said often he wished he could have had some of it just before zero hour.”
Paul Fordingbridge shook his head.
“One of the servants might have mentioned that in the village and he could have got hold of it. If you’ve nothing better than this sort of tittle-tattle to prove it’s Derek, it won’t go far.”
He reflected for a moment, then he asked:
“You recognised his face, of course?”
A flicker of repulsion crossed his sister’s features.
“I saw his face,” she said. “Paul, he’s horribly disfigured, poor boy. A shell-burst, or something. It’s dreadful. If I hadn’t known it was Derek, I’d hardly have recognised him. And he was so good-looking, in the old days. But I know it’s Derek. I’m quite sure of it. That medium’s control never makes a mistake. If Derek had passed over, she’d have found him and made him speak to me at that séance. But she couldn’t. And now he’s come back in the flesh, it shows there is something in spiritualism, in spite of all your sneers. You’ll have to admit it, Paul.”
Her words had evidently started a fresh train of thought in her brother’s mind.
“Did you recognise his voice?” he demanded.
Miss Fordingbridge seemed to make an effort to recall the tones she had heard:
“It was Derek’s voice, of course,” she said, with a faint hesitation in her manner. “Of course, it wasn’t quite the voice I’d been expecting. His mouth was hurt in those awful wounds he got. And his tongue was damaged, too; so his voice isn’t the same as it used to be. It’s husky instead of clear; and he has difficulty in saying some words, I noticed. But at times I could quite well imagine it was Derek speaking just as he used to do, with that Australian twang of his that we used to tease him about.”
“Ah, he has the twang, has he?”
“Of course he has. Derek couldn’t help having it, could he, when he was brought up in Australia until he was quite grown-up? Last night he laughed over the way we used to chaff him about his accent.”
“Anything more about him that you can remember?”
“He’s been dreadfully hurt. Two of his fingers were blown off his right hand. It gave me such a start when he shook hands with me.”
Paul Fordingbridge seemed to reflect for a moment or two on the information he had acquired.
“H’m!” he said at last, “It’ll be difficult to establish his identity; that’s clear. Face unrecognisable owing to wounds; voice altered, ditto; two fingers gone on right hand, so his writing won’t be identifiable. If only we had taken Derek’s fingerprints, we’d have had some sort of proof. As it is, there’s very little to go on.”
Miss Fordingbridge listened scornfully to this catalogue.
“So that’s all the thanks you give Derek for suffering so horribly for us all in the war?”
“Always assuming that this friend of yours is Derek. Don’t you understand that I can’t take a thing of this sort on trust? I’m in charge of Derek’s property—assuming that he’s still alive, I can’t hand it over to the first claimant who comes along, and then, if Derek himself turns up, excuse myself by saying that the first fellow had a plausible yarn to tell. I must have real proof. That’s simply plain honesty, in my position. And real proof’s going to be mighty hard to get, if you ask me, Jay. You must see that, surely.”
“It is Derek,” Miss Fordingbridge repeated, obstinately. “Do you think I can’t recognise my own nephew, when he’s able to tell me all sorts of things that only we in the family could know?”
Her brother regarded her rather ruefully.
“I believe you’d go into the witness-box and take your oath that it’s Derek,” he said, gloomily. “You’d made up your mind that Derek was coming back sooner or later; and now you’re prepared to recognise anything down to a chimpanzee as your long-lost nephew, rather than admit you’re wrong. Damn this spiritualism of yours! It’s at the root of all the trouble. It’s led you to expect Derek; and you mean to have a Derek of some sort.”
He paused for a moment, as though following out a train of thought; then he added:
“And it’s quite on the cards that if it ever came before a jury, some chuckleheads would take your word for it. ‘Sure to know her nephew,’ and all that sort of stuff. They don’t know your little fads.”
Miss Fordingbridge glanced up at the note of trouble in her brother’s voice.
“I can’t see why you’re trying to throw doubt on the thing, Paul. You haven’t seen Derek; I have. And yet you don’t wait to see him yourself. You come straight out with a denial that it is Derek. And you say I’ve got a preconceived idea about the affair. It seems to me that you’re the one with a preconceived notion. One would think you’d made up your mind already on the subject.”
Paul Fordingbridge acknowledged the counter-thrust.
“There’s something in what you say, perhaps, Jay. But you must admit the whole business is a trifle unexpected. It’s hardly taking the line one might expect, if everything were square and aboveboard. Let’s assume that it is Derek, and then you’ll see what a lot’s left unexplained so far. First of all, it’s years since the war. Why hasn’t he turned up before now? That’s a strange affair, surely. Then, when he does reappear, why doesn’t he come to me first of all? I’m the person he left in charge of his affairs, and I should think his first step would be to communicate with me. But no, he comes down here unannounced; and he fixes up some sort of clandestine
