XIV

“I can’t believe it.”

Leslie stared at the inspector.

“His own mother charged him? How monstrous!”

Mr. Coldwell had reached an age where it was almost impossible to surprise him.

“Queer, isn’t it? But, Lord bless you, mothers do rum things! I’ve known cases⁠—but you’ve heard about ’em too, Leslie. Peter went down to Wimbledon to raise hell for some reason or other. It appears his mother had heard the fuss he was making at the door and telephoned for the police before he broke in. It might have been bad for him if he were a convict on licence, but fortunately he’s time-expired, and he has only to say that it was a family quarrel to get bound over. I don’t think he will be called upon for a defence, anyway.”

Leslie Maughan nibbled at the end of her glove, a devastating habit of hers in moments of perturbation.

“I really can’t believe it, though, of course, it must have happened. What was his mother doing down there? And why on earth did Peter do such a mad thing?”

Coldwell smiled.

“Go down and ask him,” he said. “I’ll give you a note to the inspector, and you might have a few minutes’ talk with him before he appears in court. It is very unlikely that they will remand him to Brixton. If the Princess has got horse sense she will get him acquitted. Mrs. Dawlish is pretty sick and sorry that she allowed herself to charge him. I can tell you that because, as soon as I heard about the case, I phoned up the station and the sergeant in charge told me that Mrs. Dawlish came to the police station at seven o’clock this morning to see if she could get her name taken out of the record. She’d allowed her spite to lead her astray, and she knows that when it comes into court, the story of a mother charging her son is going to make a pretty big newspaper sensation. That is why I think that the charge may be withdrawn.”

When Leslie reached the police station she found that Peter had been transferred to the cells adjoining the court, and her own card was sufficient to obtain an interview. He met her with a rueful smile.

“You see me again in my natural environment,” he said cheerfully.

“Why did you go to Bellini’s?”

“I wanted to learn something,” he said, and he would not explain any more.

She told him of the inspector’s prophecy, but he seemed careless as to whether the charge would be supported.

“It was certainly a facer,” he said. “I didn’t expect my mother to take that line. I suppose until then I had not realized how bitterly she hated me. They may go on with the charge, knowing that, in any circumstances, I should not tell what brought me to Wimbledon.”

She did not press him for any further particulars. The interview took place in the passage adjoining the court; policemen and prisoners were passing every few seconds, and the conditions were not favourable to confidences. She told him of her own alarming experience, and when she had finished he whistled.

“That explains everything⁠—the chain on the door and old Simms being on guard. I never saw the old devil again after I broke in.”

She made no attempt to hide her astonishment.

“I don’t see why a chain on Anita Bellini’s door explains a little yellow man in my rooms,” she said.

“It does⁠—most emphatically.”

Just then his name was called by the court usher, and she followed him into court. Peter had hardly been put in the steel pen when the detective-sergeant who had arrested him stood up and addressed the Bench.

“This case, your Worship, arose from a visit which the prisoner paid to the house of the Princess Anita Bellini last night. The prisoner, who is a very distant relative of the Princess’, had some sort of grievance, and the argument became so heated that her Highness was compelled to telephone for the police. The Princess has no wish to prosecute the prisoner in the circumstances, or to bring a family quarrel into court, and in these circumstances I don’t propose to produce any evidence, your Worship.”

“But the charge is attempted murder,” said the presiding magistrate.

“The charge was only taken last night,” explained the detective, “and it was the intention of the police to ask for a remand. But the Princess has modified her statement, and I am advised that a conviction could not follow on the evidence that she would offer. In those circumstances, I ask your Worship to discharge Dawlish.”

The magistrate nodded, and that was the end of the proceedings. Peter walked out of the dock and joined the girl in front of the police court.

At first he refused her invitation to drive him back to town.

“You’re coming with me,” she said firmly. “I have a lot of things to say to you and a list of questions as long as Lucretia’s grocery order. Probably you will not answer them, but that is beside the point.”

They were crossing Putney Common when she leaned over and spoke to the driver, and, slowing down, he brought the car to the edge of the path.

“Let us go a little walk,” she said, and no sooner were they out of earshot than: “Why did you go to Princess Bellini’s last night, Peter Dawlish?” she asked.

“To find out something.”

“What did you want to know?”

Should he tell her? He could not understand himself. Why should he hesitate to take her into his confidence, she who knew so much? And yet he felt an unaccountable shyness. It was as though the confession would make a perceptible difference in their curious friendship. At last he blurted out the truth.

“Jane had a child,” he said.

She stopped, and her deep violet eyes met his.

“Your child⁠—well?”

He was astonished by the coolness with which she received this momentous news.

“Did you guess?” he asked.

She shook her head.

“I knew,” she answered quietly. “It was born at a little farm called Appledore, near Carlisle.”

He was momentarily paralyzed.

“You⁠—knew⁠—all the time?” he stammered.

“I knew all the time,” she repeated. “I knew you had a child, before I knew you were married. It was at Appledore that I found the book of poems, and your little blank verse. And that was why I wasn’t quite sure you were married. Naturally, she would call herself Mrs. Dawlish in the circumstances.”

They were passing a park bench and she caught his arm and drew him down.

“I’ll tell you all about it, shall I?” And, when he nodded: “I was spending a holiday in Cumberland, and I suppose it was fate that led me to this very farmhouse. The old lady, Mrs. Still, who owned the place was a widow, and rather a garrulous old soul, but very kind. It was only natural she should tell me of the interesting people who had stayed with her. One of the most interesting was a pretty girl, whose baby was born in the very room I occupied. She came in February, before the season had started⁠—there is a season in Cumberland, you know⁠—and stayed till the beginning of April. She called herself⁠—it doesn’t matter what she called herself, but it was not Jane Dawlish. The child was born on the 17th of March, St. Patrick’s Day. The old lady, who was half-Irish, remembered that fact because she had sent a bunch of shamrock up to the pretty lady the morning the child was born.”

“Who was with her?” asked Peter huskily.

“Two women⁠—a nurse, and somebody who was obviously Anita Bellini. No doctor was called in; apparently the other woman was a maternity nurse, and it was not necessary to call for medical assistance. My old Appledore lady never saw the baby; she wasn’t even sure when it was taken away, but she thought it was on the second day following the birth, because that was the day a man came from London. The ‘man’ was obviously Druze. She arrived just before Mrs. Still went into Carlisle to do her midweek shopping, and when she returned Druze had gone. The old lady did not know that the baby had gone too until the end of the week, when she asked to be allowed to see it and was told that it had been sent off to a warmer climate. The only thing she knew was that it was a boy; the nurse had told her that, and the Appledore lady was rather disappointed, because, as she said, the pretty lady had been praying and hoping for a girl. Why she should pray or hope for a baby of either sex is a little beyond me, but I have no reason to doubt the truth of the old lady’s statement. She showed me very proudly a little book that the ‘pretty young thing’⁠—she generally called her that⁠—was in the habit of reading, a book of poems; and then I saw your ridiculous acrostic. Just about this time I was rather intrigued by certain things which had happened to Lady Raytham⁠—we had, in fact, information at Scotland Yard that she was paying blackmail, and I naturally connected the two events: her appearance here under an assumed name, the birth of the child, and the fact that she was paying out large sums of money from time to time for some unknown service. When, about an hour before I left the farm, old Mrs. Still said that she had heard one of the women speak about ‘Peter,’ I was pretty sure I was on the right track.”

“Do you know the name of the nurse? Was it Martha⁠—?”

“Martha!” She sprang up and stared at him. “Martha? What do you know about Martha?”

He was a little dumbfounded by the effect of his words.

“Tell me⁠—tell me quickly,” she said impatiently, and he produced from his pocket the letter he had received, and which had brought him to Jane Raytham.

She looked at the pencilled words.

“Martha’s servant. That was Druze’s sister,” she said suddenly. “She had the child. Peter, I am going on this new trail, and you mustn’t interfere until I’ve followed this thing to the end.”

“What do you think of me, I wonder?” he asked.

She eyed him steadily.

“What should I think of you? You’re unfortunate, Peter Dawlish⁠—I’ve told you that before.”

He shook his head with a wry smile.

“You don’t know how unfortunate I am,” he said, and she laughed in spite of herself.

“Come back to the car, or we’ll find ourselves indulging in an orgy of mutual self-pity.”

It did not occur to Peter that he should ask her why the self-pity should be mutual, but he never forgot her words.

She dropped him in the centre of London and, going on to Scotland Yard, interviewed her chief and received permission from him to take a day off. Her first step was to get into telephonic communication with the chief detective of Plymouth, who promised to call her up as soon as his inquiries were completed. Though she was on holiday, there were many official interruptions. First there came the man who had arrested Mrs. Inglethorne to tell her that that unrepentant lady had been remanded, and to expose the red-faced woman’s shocking history. Her maiden name had been Zamosser; she was of Dutch origin, though her parents had lived for many years in England; and with the exception of a very short interval she had been either in the hands or under the observation of the police. She was a receiver, and worse; had been convicted of shoplifting, and, except for one interval in her early youth when she seemed to have lived so respectable a life that the police had no trace of her, she had been in and out of prison since she was a child.

“What about the children?” asked Leslie, anticipating the reply.

The sergeant laughed.

“One of them’s hers; the others are what she calls ‘adopted.’ That is to say, they have been inconvenient children of whom she has taken charge for a small weekly sum or for a larger payment cash down. The only one we have been able to trace is a little boy.”

For a moment wild hopes had surged up into Leslie’s heart, but they were to die at his words.

“Oh, you’ve traced the boy?” she said. She remembered the wizened little fellow who had looked up at her with big, sleepy eyes, when she had made her incursion to the kitchen.

“Well, we’ve found his mother, at any rate. The other children mostly belong to poor little working-class girls.”

“Are there many baby-farmers in England?”

“Hundreds,” said the officer. “They’re supposed to be under police supervision, but, of course, they’re not. There is no law to prevent anybody adopting a child, though the actual adoption is not recognized in law.”

“In England, then, there must be hundreds?” she said, her heart sinking.

“Thousands.”

“There is no list of them?”

He shook his head.

“There may be a few hundreds on the books. You would know that better yourself, Miss Maughan, as you’re at the Yard.” And then, unconsciously extinguishing her last lingering hope: “I was once asked to trace a little baby that had been handed over to a ‘farmer,’ but it is like looking for a needle in a haystack, trying to find an ‘adopted child’ after trace has been lost of it,” he said. “A few of them drift into the workhouse schools; most of them die. It doesn’t pay the kind of woman who makes a living out of that sort of thing to feed them properly. There should be a State institution where unwanted children could be taken and cared for and become an asset to the country.”

He had been gone half an hour when the Plymouth call came through, and the news was not especially helpful. Martha Druze had qualified as a maternity nurse in the years ’89-’90, and had left the hospital to take up a private position as a general nurse. It was believed she had gone abroad, but there was no actual evidence of this fact except that the present matron, who remembered her, had received a postal card mailed at Port Said a month or two after Martha had gone away. There was also a rumour that she had married very well, to somebody who was variously described as a carpenter of Cape Town and a rancher in Australia. There was only one clue which was faintly promising. Martha was known to have registered herself in the books of a London agency, the name of which Leslie jotted down.

As soon as the conversation was through, she searched the telephone directory for the nurses’ agency. It was not there; possibly it had been overwhelmed by competition and had died, as so many other agencies die, from sheer inanition. To make absolutely sure on this point she called up one well-known woman agent and asked her a question.

“Ashley’s Agency? Oh yes. It is now called the Central Nurses Bureau⁠—in fact, we are Ashley’s Agency, though we never use that title.”

Leslie explained who she was and what she required.

“If you’ll come round, we will show you the old books; we still have them,” was the encouraging reply.

Leslie Maughan put on her hat and coat and went out at once. Halfway down she remembered Mr. Coldwell’s gift, and went back to buckle on a most uncomfortable garter. The premises of the agency were off Regent Street, no great distance to walk, and she was there in five minutes.

The secretary, who had replied to her telephone message, was already selecting the books for her inspection, and by great good fortune the first of these, she had discovered, contained the very information that the girl had asked for.

“Yes, we have her on our books⁠—Martha Druze. She applied to us before she left Plymouth Hospital apparently, for that is her original address, and we placed her in a situation in the early part of 1891.”

The secretary had opened the book, and her finger pointed to a line. Leslie read⁠—she found herself gripping tight to the edge of the table. Looking at her, the secretary saw that her eyes were blazing and wondered what there was in this simple record to engender such excitement.

“It was the only job we ever got for her,” she began.

Leslie shook her head.

“She would not want another,” she said.