He sat at the head of the table and placed us on either side of him. Sable leaned forward across the corner of the table. The events of the day and the one before it had honed his profile sharp:
“Will you give me your opinion of the young man’s moral character?”
“I entertain him in my house. That ought to answer your question.”
“You consider him a friend?”
“I do, yes. I don’t make a practice of entertaining casual strangers. At my age you can’t afford to waste your time on second-rate people.”
“Does that imply that he’s a first-rate person?”
“It would seem to.” The doctor’s smile was slow, and almost indistinguishable from his frown. “At least he has the makings. You don’t ask much more from a boy of twenty-two.”
“How long have you known him?”
“All his life, if you count our initial introduction. Mr. Archer may have told you that I brought him into the world.”
“Are you certain this is the same boy that you brought into the world?”
“I have no reason to doubt it.”
“Would you swear to it, Doctor?”
“If necessary.”
“It may be necessary. The question of his identity is a highly important one. A very great deal of money is involved.”
The old man smiled, or frowned. “Forgive me if I’m not overly impressed. Money is only money, after all. I don’t believe John is particularly hungry for money. As a matter of fact, this development will be quite a blow to him. He came here in the hope of finding his father, alive.”
“If he qualifies for a fortune,” Sable said, “it ought to be some comfort to him. Were his parents legally married, do you know?”
“It happens that I can answer that question, in the affirmative. John has been making some inquiries. He discovered just last week that a John Brown and a Theodora Gavin were married in Benicia, by civil ceremony, in September 1936. That seems to make him legitimate, by a narrow margin.”
Sable sat in silence for a minute. He looked at Dineen like a prosecutor trying to weigh the credibility of a witness.
“Well,” the old man said. “Are you satisfied? I don’t wish to appear inhospitable, but I’m an early riser, and it happens to be my bedtime.”
“There are one or two other things, if you’ll bear with me, Doctor. I’m wondering, for instance, just how you happen to be so close to the boy’s affairs.”
“I choose to be,” Dineen said abruptly.
“Why?”
The doctor looked at Sable with faint dislike. “My motives are no concern of yours, Counselor. The young man knocked on my door a month ago, looking for some trace of his family. Naturally I did my best to help him. He has a moral right to the protection and support of his family.”
“If he can prove that he’s a member of it.”
“There seems to be no question of that. I think you’re being unnecessarily hard on him, and I see no reason why you should continue in that vein. Certainly there’s no indication that he’s an impostor. He has his birth certificate, which proves the facts of his birth. My name is on it as attending physician. It’s why he came to me in the first place.”
“Birth certificates are easy to get,” I said. “You can write in, pay your money, and take your choice.”
“I suppose you can, if you’re a cheat and a scoundrel. I resent the implication that this boy is.”
“Please don’t.” Sable moderated his tone. “As Mrs. Galton’s attorney, it’s my duty to be skeptical of these claims.”
“John has been making no claims.”
“Perhaps not yet. He will. And very important interests are involved, human as well as financial. Mrs. Galton is in uncertain health. I don’t intend to present her with a situation that’s likely to blow up in her face.”
“I don’t believe that’s the case here. You asked me for my opinion, and now you have it. But no human situation is entirely predictable, is it?” The old man leaned forward to get up. His bald scalp gleamed like polished stone in the light from the chandelier. “You’ll be wanting to talk to John, I suppose. I’ll tell him you’re here.”
He left the room and came back with the boy. John was wearing flannel slacks and a gray sweater over an open-necked shirt. He looked like the recent college graduate that he was supposed to be, but he wasn’t at ease in the situation. His eyes shifted from my face to Sable’s. Dineen stood beside him in an almost protective posture.
“This is Mr. Sable,” he said in a neutral tone. “Mr. Sable is an attorney from Santa Teresa, and he’s very much interested in you.”
Sable stepped forward and gave him a brisk handshake. “I’m glad to meet you.”
“Glad to meet you.” His gray eyes matched Sable’s in watchfulness. “I understand you know who my father is.”
“Was, John,” I said. “We’ve identified those bones at the station, pretty definitely. They belonged to a man named Anthony Galton. The indications are that he was your father.”
“But my father’s name was John Brown.”
“He used that name. It started out as a pen name, apparently.” I looked at the lawyer beside me. “We can take it for granted, can’t we, that Galton and Brown were the same man, and that he was murdered in 1936?”
“It appears so.” Sable laid a restraining hand on my arm. “I wish you’d let me handle this. There are legal questions involved.”
He turned to the boy, who looked as if he hadn’t absorbed the fact of his father’s death. The doctor laid an arm across his shoulders:
“I’m sorry about this, John. I know how much it means to you.
“It’s funny, it doesn’t seem to mean a thing. I never knew my father. It’s simply words, about a stranger.”
“I’d like to talk to you in private,” Sable said. “Where can we do that?”
“In my room, I suppose. What are we going to talk about?”
“You.”
He lived in a workingmen’s boardinghouse on the other side of town. It was a ramshackle frame house standing among others which had known better days. The landlady intercepted us at the front door. She was a large-breasted Portuguese woman with rings in her ears and spice on her breath. Something in the boy’s face made her say:
“Whatsamatter, Johnny? You in trouble?”
“Nothing like that, Mrs. Gorgello,” he said with forced lightness. “These men are friends of mine. Is it all right if I take them up to my room?”
“It’s your room, you pay rent. I cleaned it up today for you, real nice. Come right in, gentlemen,” she said royally.
Not so royally, she jostled the boy as he passed her in the doorway. “Lift up the long face, Johnny. You look like judgment day.”
His room was a small bare cubicle on the second floor at the rear. I guessed that it had been a servant’s room in the days when the house was a private residence. Torn places and stains among the faded roses of the wallpaper hinted at a long history of decline.
The room was furnished with an iron cot covered by an army blanket, a stained pine chest of drawers topped by a clouded mirror, a teetery wardrobe, a kitchen chair standing beside a table. In spite of the books on the table, something about the room reminded me of the dead man Culligan. Perhaps it was the smell, compound of hidden dirt and damp and old grim masculine odors.
My mind skipped to Mrs. Galton’s grandiose estate. It would be quite a leap from this place to that. I wondered if the boy was going to make it.
He was standing by the single window, looking at us with a sort of defiance. This was his room, his bearing seemed to say, and we could take it or leave it. He lifted the kitchen chair and turned it away from the table: