Bee was at odds with herself these days. She wanted this boy to be Patrick; but it would be so much better for all concerned, she felt, if he proved not to be Patrick. Seven-eighths of her wanted Patrick back; warm, and alive, and dear; wanted it passionately. The other eighth shrank from the upheaval of the happy Ashby world that his return would bring with it. When she caught this renegade eighth at its work she reproved it and was suitably ashamed of herself; but she could not destroy it. And so she was distrait and short-tempered, and Ruth, commenting on it to Jane, said:
"Do you think she can have a Secret Sorrow?"
"I expect the books won't balance," Jane said. "She's a very bad adder-up."
Mr. Sandal reported from time to time on the progress of the investigations, and the reports were uniform and monotonous. Everything seemed to confirm the boy's story.
"The most heartening thing, using the word in its sense of reassurance," Mr. Sandal said, "is that the young man seems to have no contacts since he came to England. He has lived at that address since the Philadelphia's arrival, and he has had neither letters nor visitors. The woman who owns the house occupies one of the front rooms on the ground floor. She is one of those women who has nothing to do but sit back and watch her neighbours. The lives of her tenants seem to be an open book to the good lady. She is also accustomed to waiting for the postman and collecting the letters he drops. Nothing escapes her. Her description of myself was, I understand, hardly flattering but quite touching in its fidelity. The young man could therefore have hardly had visitors without her being aware of it. He was out all day, of course; as any young man in London would be. But there is no trace of that intimacy which would suggest connivance. He had no friends."
The young man came willingly to the office and answered questions freely. With Bee's consent, Kevin Macdermott had "sat in" at one of these office conferences, and even Kevin had been shaken. "What shakes me," Kevin had said, "is not the fellow's knowledge of the subject-all good con. men are glib-but the general cut of his jib. He's quite frankly not what I expected. After a little while in my job you develop a smell for a wrong 'un. This chap has me baffled. He doesn't smell like a crook to me, and yet the set-up stinks."
So the day came when Mr. Sandal announced to Bee that Cosset, Thring and Noble were now prepared to accept the claimant as Patrick Ashby, the eldest son of William Ashby of Latchetts, and to hand over to him everything that was due to him. There would be legal formalities, of course, since the fact of his death eight years ago had been presumed; but they would be automatic. As far as they, Cosset, Thring and Noble, were concerned, Patrick Ashby was free to go home whenever he pleased.
So the moment had come, and Bee was faced with breaking the news to the family.
Her instinct was to tell Simon first, privately; but she felt that anything that set him apart from the others in this matter of welcoming back his brother was to be avoided. It would be better to take for granted that for Simon, as for the others, the news would be a matter for unqualified happiness.
It was after lunch on a Sunday that she told them.
"I have something to tell you that will be rather a shock to you. But a nice kind of shock," she said. And went on from there. Patrick had not committed suicide, as they had thought. He had merely run away. And now he had come back. He had been living for a little in London because, of course, he had to prove to the lawyers that he was Patrick. But he had had no difficulty in doing that. And now he was going to come home.
She had avoided looking at their faces as she talked; it was easier just to talk into space, impersonally. But in the startled silence that followed her story she looked across at Simon; and for a moment did not recognise him. The shrunk white face with the blazing eyes had no resemblance to the Simon she knew. She looked away hastily.
"Does it mean that this new brother will get all the money that is Simon's?" asked Jane, with her usual lack of finesse.
"Well, I think it was a horrible thing to do," Eleanor said bluntly.
"What was?"
"Running away and leaving us all thinking he was dead."
"He didn't know that, of course. I mean: that we would take his note to mean that he was going to kill himself."
"Even so. He left us all without a word for-for-how long is it? Seven years? Nearly eight years. And then comes back one day without warning, and expects us to welcome him."
"Is he nice?" asked Ruth.
"What do you mean by nice?" Bee asked, glad for once of Ruth's interest in the personal.
"Is he nice to look at? And does he talk nicely or has he a frightful accent?"
"He is exceedingly nice to look at, and he has no accent whatsoever."
"Where has he been all this time?" Eleanor asked.
"Mexico and the States, mostly."
"Mexico!" said Ruth. "How romantic! Does he wear a black sailor hat?"
"A what? No, of course he doesn't. He wears a hat like anyone else."
"How often have you seen him, Aunt Bee?" Eleanor asked.
"Just once. A few weeks ago."
"Why didn't you tell us about it then?"
"It seemed better to wait until the lawyers were finished with him and he was ready to come home. You couldn't all go rushing up to London to see him."
"No, I suppose not. But I expect Simon would have liked to go up and see him, wouldn't you, Simon, and we wouldn't have minded? After all, Patrick was his twin."
"I don't believe for one moment that it is Patrick," Simon said, in a tight, careful voice that was worse than shouting.
"But, Simon!" Eleanor said.
Bee sat in a dismayed silence. This was worse than she had anticipated.
"But, Simon! Aunt Bee has seen him. She must know."
"Aunt Bee seems to have adopted him."
Much worse than she had anticipated.
"The people who have adopted him, Simon, are Cosset, Thring and Noble. A not very emotional firm, I think you'll agree. If there had been the faintest doubt of his being Patrick, Cosset, Thring and Noble would have discovered it during those weeks. They have left no part of his life since he left England unaccounted for."
"Of course whoever it is has had a life that can be checked! What did they expect? But what possible reason can they have for believing that he is Patrick?"
"Well, for one thing, he is your double."
This was clearly unexpected. "My double?" he said vaguely.
"Yes. He is even more like you than when he went away."
The colour had come back to Simon's face and the stuff on the bones had begun to look like flesh again; but now he looked stupid, like a boxer who is taking too much punishment.
"Believe me, Simon dear," she said, "it is Patrick!"
"It isn't. I know it isn't. You are all being fooled!"
"But, Simon!" Eleanor said. "Why should you think that? I know it won't be easy for you to have Patrick back-it won't be easy for any of us-but there's no use making a fuss about it. The thing is there and we just have to accept it. You are only making things worse by trying to push it away."
"How did this-this creature who says he is Patrick, how did he get to Mexico? How did he leave England? And when? And where?"
"He left from Westover in a ship called the Ira Jones."
"Westover! Who says so?"
"He does. And according to the harbourmaster, a ship of that name did leave Westover on the night that Patrick went missing."
Since this seemed to leave Simon without speech, she went on: "And everything he did from then on has been checked. The hotel he worked at in Normandy is no longer there, but they have found the ship he sailed from Havre in-it's a tramp, but it belongs to a firm in Brest-and people have been shown photographs and identified him. And so on, all the way back to England. Till the day he walked into Mr. Sandal's office."