“And you won’t talk unless I do, is that it?”
The doctor raised his hand and brushed the thought away from his face, like an annoying insect. “I suggested no bargain. I simply want to know who I’m dealing with. There may be grave matters involved.”
“There are.”
“I think you ought to elucidate that remark.”
“I can’t.”
We faced each other in a stretching silence. His eyes were steady, and bright with the hostility of a proud old man. I was afraid of losing him entirely, just as the case seemed to be breaking open. While I didn’t doubt his integrity, I had my own integrity to think of, too. I’d promised Gordon Sable and Mrs. Galton to name no names.
Dr. Dineen produced a pipe, and began to pack its charred bowl with tobacco from an oilskin pouch. “We seem to have reached a stalemate. Do you play chess, Mr. Archer?”
“Not as well as you do, probably. I’ve never studied the book.”
“I would have thought you had.” He finished packing his pipe, and lit it with a kitchen match. The blue smoke swirled in the hollow shafts of sunlight from the window. “We’re wasting both our times. I suggest you make a move.”
“I thought this was a stalemate.”
“New game.” A flicker of interest showed in his eyes for the first time. “Tell me about yourself. Why would a man of your sort spend his life doing the kind of work you do? Do you make much money?”
“Enough to live on. I don’t do it for the money, though. I do it because I want to.”
“Isn’t it dirty work, Mr. Archer?”
“It depends on who’s doing it, like doctoring or anything else. I try to keep it clean.”
“Do you succeed?”
“Not entirely. I’ve made some bad mistakes about people. Some of them assume that a private detective is automatically crooked, and they act accordingly, as you’re doing now.”
The old man emitted a grunt which sounded like a seal’s bark. “I can’t act blindly in a matter of this importance.”
“Neither can I. I don’t know what makes it important to you–”
“I’ll tell you,” he said shortly. “Human lives are involved. A boy’s love for his parents is involved. I try to handle these things with the care they deserve.”
“I appreciate that. You seem to have a special interest in John Brown, Junior.”
“I do have. The young fellow’s had a rough time of it. I don’t want him hurt unnecessarily.”
“It’s not my intention to hurt him. If the boy is actually John Brown’s son, you’d be doing him a favor by leading me to him.”
“You’re going to have to prove that to me. I’ll be frank to say I’ve had one or two experiences with private detectives in my time. One of them had to do with the blackmailing of a patient of mine – a young girl who had a child out of wedlock. I don’t mean that reflects on you, but it makes a man leery.”
“All right. I’ll put my position hypothetically. Let’s say I’d been hired to find the heir to several million dollars.”
“I’ve heard that one before. You’ll have to invent a better gambit than that.”
“I didn’t invent it. It happens to be the truth.”
“Prove it.”
“That will be easy to do when the time comes. Right now, I’d say the burden of proof is on this boy. Can he prove his identity?”
“The question never came up. As a matter of fact, the proof of his identity is on his face. I knew whose son he was as soon as he stepped in here. His resemblance to his father is striking.”
“How long ago did he turn up?”
“About a month. I’ve seen him since.”
“As a patient?”
“As a friend,” Dineen said.
“Why did he come to you in the first place?”
“My name is on his birth certificate. Now hold your horses, young man. Give me a chance to think.” The doctor smoked in silence for a while. “Do you seriously tell me that this boy is heir to a fortune?”
“He will be, if his father is dead. His grandmother is still living. She has the money.”
“But you won’t divulge her name?”
“Not without her permission. I suppose I could call her long distance. But I’d rather have a chance to talk to the boy first.”
The doctor hesitated. He held his right hand poised in the air, then struck the desk-top with the flat of it. “I’ll take a chance on you, though I may regret it later.”
“You won’t if I can help it. Where can I find him?”
“We’ll come to that.”
“What did he have to say about his origins?”
“It would be more appropriate if you got that from him. I’m willing to tell you what I know about his father and mother from my own direct observation. And this has more relevance than you may think.” He paused. “What precisely did this anonymous client of yours hire you to do?”
“Find John Brown, Senior,” I said.
“I take it that isn’t his real name.”
“That’s right, it isn’t.”
“I’m not surprised,” Dineen said. “At the time I knew him, I did some speculating about him. It occurred to me he might be a remittance man – one of those ne’er-do-wells whose families paid them to stay away from home. I remember when his wife was delivered, Brown paid me with a hundred-dollar-bill. It didn’t seem to suit with their scale of living. And there were other things, his wife’s jewels, for example – diamonds and rubies in ornate gold settings. One day she came in here like a walking jewelry store.
“I warned her not to wear them. They were living out in the country, near the old Inn, and it was fairly raw territory in those days. Also, people were poor. A lot of them used to pay me for my services in fish. I had so much fish during the Depression I’ve never eaten it since. No matter. A public display of jewels was an incitement to robbery. I told the young lady so, and she left off wearing them, at least when I saw her.”
“Did you see her often?”
“Four or five times, I’d say. Once or twice before the boy was born, and several times afterwards. She was a healthy enough wench, no complications. The main thing I did for her was to instruct her in the care of an infant. Nothing in her background had prepared her for motherhood.”
“Did she talk about her background?”
“She didn’t have to. It had left marks on her body, for one thing. She’d been beaten half to death with a belt buckle.”
“Not by her husband?”
“Hardly. There had been other men in her life, as the phrase goes. I gathered that she’d been on her own from an early age. She was one of the wandering children of the thirties – quite a different sort from her husband.”
“How old was she?”
“I think nineteen or twenty, perhaps older. She looked older. Her experiences hadn’t hardened her, but as I said they left her unprepared for motherhood. Even after she was back on her feet, she needed a nurse to help her care for the child. Actually, she was a child herself in emotional development.”
“Do you remember the nurse’s name?”
“Let me see. I believe she was a Mrs. Kerrigan.”
“Or Culligan?”
“Culligan, that was it. She was a good young woman, fairly well trained. I believe she took off at the same time the Brown family did.”
“The Brown family took off?”
“They skipped, without a good-by or a thank-you to anybody. Or so it appeared at the time.”
“When was this?”
“A very few weeks after the child was born. It was close to Christmas Day of 1936, I think a day or two after. I remember it so distinctly because I’ve gone into it since with the sheriff’s men.”
“Recently?”
“Within the last five months. To make a long story short, when they were clearing the land for the Marvista tract, a set of bones were unearthed. The local deputy asked me to look them over to see what I could learn from them. I did so. They were human bones, which had probably belonged to a man of medium height, in his early twenties. It’s not unlikely, in my opinion, that they are John Brown’s bones. They were found buried under the house he lived in. The house was torn down to make way for the new road. Unfortunately, we had no means of making a positive identification. The skull was missing, which ruled out the possibility of dental evidence.”