"And you did nothing about it!"
"What do you suggest that I should have done? Your lawyer, your family, and your friends had all accepted and welcomed you. I had no evidence to show that you were not Patrick. Nothing but my own belief that you weren't. What good would it have done to express my disbelief? It did not seem to me that it would be long before the situation resolved itself without my interference."
"You mean: that I should be found out."
"No. I mean that you did not seem to me someone who would be happy in the life you had chosen. Judging by your visit to-night, I was right."
"But I didn't come here to-night just to confess to not being Patrick."
"No?"
"No, that is only-I had to tell you that because it was the only way you could understand what has-I wish my mind was clearer. I've been walking about trying to get things straight."
"Perhaps if you told me first how you came to Latchetts at all, it would at least clear my mind."
"I–I met someone in America who had lived in Clare. They-she thought I looked like an Ashby, and suggested that I should pretend to be Patrick."
"And you were to pay her a share of the proceeds of the deception."
"Yes."
"I can only say that she earned her percentage whatever it was. As a tutor she must be remarkable. I have never seen a better piece of coaching. Are you American, then?"
"No," said Brat, and the Rector smiled faintly at the emphasis. "I was brought up in an orphanage. I was left on its doorstep."
And he sketched for the Rector the story of his life.
"I have heard of your orphanage," the Rector said, when he had finished. "It explains one thing that puzzled me: your good upbringing." He poured tea, and added whisky. "Would you like something more substantial than biscuits, by the way? No? Then have the oatmeal ones; they are very filling."
"I had to tell you all this because of something I found out. Patrick didn't commit suicide. He was murdered."
The Rector set down the cup he was holding. For the first time he looked startled.
"Murdered? By whom?"
"His brother."
"Simon?"
"Yes."
"But, Patrick! That — What is your name, by the way?"
"You forget. I haven't got one. I've always been called Brat. It was a corruption of Bartholomew."
"But my dear fellow, that is absurd. What evidence have you of anything so incredible?"
"I have Simon's word for it."
"Simon told you?"
"He boasted about it. He said that I could never do anything about it because it would mean giving myself away. He knew as soon as he saw me that I wasn't Patrick, you see."
"When did this extraordinary conversation take place?"
"Last night, at the Bures ball. It wasn't as sudden as it sounds. I began to wonder about Simon long before that, and I challenged him about it because of something he said about knowing I wasn't Patrick, and he laughed and boasted about it."
"I think that the setting of this scene does a lot to explain it."
"You mean you think we were drunk?"
"Not exactly. Elated, shall we say. And you challenged Simon on the subject, and Simon with his perverted sense of mischief provided you with what you expected from him."
"Do you really believe I have as little intelligence as that?" Brat asked quietly.
"It surprises me, I must admit. I have always considered you to be highly intelligent."
"Then believe me, I am not here because of a piece of fooling on Simon's part. Patrick didn't commit suicide. Simon killed him. Deliberately. And what is more, I know how he did it."
And he told him.
"But Brat, you have no evidence even now. That is theory, what you have just told me. An ingenious and likely theory, I admit. It has the merit of simplicity. But you have no evidence whatsoever."
"We can get the evidence, if the police once know the truth. But that isn't what I want to know. What I want advice about is-well, whether to let sleeping dogs lie."
And he explained his dilemma.
But the Rector, rather surprisingly in view of his silence about his doubts of Brat's identity, had no doubts on the subject at all. If murder had been done, then the law must be invoked. Anything else was anarchy.
His point was that Brat had no case against Simon. His mind had run on murder, he had taunted Simon with it, Simon had one of his well-known impish moments and confessed, and Brat after long thought had found a theory to fit the alleged confession.
"And you think that I've been walking about in the rain since four o'clock because of a little joke of Simon's? You think that I came here to-night and confessed to not being Patrick because of a little joke of Simon's?" The Rector was silent. "Tell me, Rector, were you surprised when Pat committed suicide?"
"Exceedingly."
"Do you know anyone who wasn't surprised?"
"No. But suicide is a surprising thing."
"I give up," Brat said.
In the contemplative silence that followed, the Rector said: "I see what you meant by the pit in Dothan. That was an excellent upbringing at the orphanage."
"It was a very thoroughly Biblical one, if that is what you mean. Simon knows that story, too, by the way."
"I expect so, but how do you happen to know?"
"When he heard that Patrick had come back he couldn't help, in spite of his denials, a fear that it might be true. There had been that other case, you see. That time the victim had survived by a miracle. He was afraid that by some miracle Patrick had survived. I know, because he came into that room, the first day I was there, strung up to face something dreadful. And his relief when he saw me was almost funny."
He drank down the rest of his tea and looked quizzically at the Rector. In spite of himself he was beginning to feel better.
"Another of Simon's little jokes was to send me out that first day on Timber, without telling me he was a rogue. But I suppose that was just his 'perverted sense of mischief. And still another of his little jokes was to loosen my girth yesterday before I started a race on Chevron. But I suppose that was just one of his 'well-known impish moments'."
The Rector's deep eyes considered Brat.
"I am not defending Simon-he has never been an admirable character-but tricks played on an interloper, a pretender-even dangerous tricks, are one thing, and the murder of a well-loved brother is quite another. Why, by the way, did Simon not denounce you at once if he did not believe you were his brother?"
"For the same reason that you didn't."
"I see. He would merely be held to be-difficult."
"And of course, having got rid of one Patrick with impunity, he looked forward with confidence to getting rid of another."
"Brat, I wish I could convince you that this is a figment of your imagination."
"You must have a great respect for my imaginative powers."
"If you look back, critically and honestly, you must see how the thing grew in your mind from quite small beginnings. An edifice of your own making."
And that, when Brat took his leave towards two o'clock in the morning, was still the Rector's opinion.
He offered Brat a bed, but Brat compromised on the loan of a waterproof and a torch, and found his way back to Latchetts by the soaking field-path with the rain still pouring hopelessly down.
"Come and see me again before you decide anything," the Rector had said; but he had at least been helpful in one direction. He had answered Brat's main question. If it was a choice between love and justice, the choice had to be justice.
He found the front door of Latchetts unlocked, a note from Bee on the hall table, saying: "Soup on the ring in the pantry," and a silver cup on an ebony stand bearing a card in Eleanor's writing which said: "You forgot this, you blase rodeo hound!"