“Sit down if you like. One of you can sit on the bed.”
“I’d just as soon stand, thanks,” Sable said. “I had a long drive up here, and I’m going to have to drive back tonight.”
The boy said stiffly: “I’m sorry to put you to all this trouble.”
“Nonsense. This is my job, and there’s nothing personal about it. Now I understand you have your birth certificate with you. May I have a look at it?”
“Certainly.”
He pulled out the top drawer of the chest of drawers and produced a folded document. Sable put on horn-rimmed spectacles to read it. I read it over his shoulder. It stated that John Brown, Jr., had been born on Bluff Road in San Mateo County on December 2, 1936; father, John Brown; mother, Theodora Gavin Brown; attending physician, Dr. George T. Dineen.
Sable glanced up, snatching off his glasses like a politician:
“You realize this document means nothing in itself? Anyone can apply for a birth certificate, any birth certificate.”
“This one happens to be mine, sir.”
“I notice it was issued only last March. Where were you in March?”
“I was still in Ann Arbor. I lived there for over five years.”
“Going to the University all that time?” I asked.
“Most of it. I attended high school for a year and a half, then I shifted over to the University. I graduated this spring.” He paused, and caught with his teeth at his full lower lip. “I suppose you’ll be checking all this, so I might as well explain that I didn’t go to school under my own name.”
“Why? Didn’t you know your own name?”
“Of course I did. I always have. If you want me to go into the circumstances, I will.”
“I think that’s very much to be desiderated,” Sable said.
The boy picked up one of the books from the table. Its title was Dramas of Modernism. He opened it to the flyleaf and showed us the name “John Lindsay” written in ink mere.
“That was the name I used, John Lindsay. The Christian name was my own, of course. The surname belonged to Mr. Lindsay, the man who took me into his home.”
“He lived in Ann Arbor?” Sable said.
“Yes, at 1028 Hill Street.” The boy’s tone was faintly sardonic. “I lived there with him for several years. His full name was Mr. Gabriel R. Lindsay. He was a teacher and counselor at the high school.”
“Isn’t it rather odd that you used his name?”
“I didn’t think so, under the circumstances. The circumstances were odd – that’s putting it mildly – and Mr. Lindsay was the one who took a real interest in my case.”
“Your case?”
The boy smiled wryly. “I was a case, all right. I’ve come a long way in five years, thanks to Mr. Lindsay. I was a mess when I showed up at that high school – a mess in more ways than one. I’d been two days on the road, and I didn’t have decent clothes, or anything. Naturally they wouldn’t let me in. I didn’t have a school record, and I wouldn’t tell them my name.”
“Why not?”
“I was mortally scared that they’d drag me back to Ohio and put me in training-school. They did that to some of the boys who ran away from the orphanage. Besides, the superintendent didn’t like me.”
“The superintendent of the orphanage?”
“Yes. His name was Mr. Merriweather.”
“What was the name of the orphanage?”
“Crystal Springs. It’s near Cleveland. They didn’t call it an orphanage. They called it a Home. Which didn’t make it any more homelike.”
“You say your mother put you there?” I said.
“When I was four.”
“Do you remember your mother?”
“Of course. I remember her face, especially. She was very pale and thin, with blue eyes. I think she must have been sick. She had a bad cough. Her voice was husky, very low and soft. I remember the last thing she ever said to me: ‘Your daddy’s name was John Brown, too, and you were born in California.’ I didn’t know what or where California was, but I held on to the word. You can see why I had to come here, finally.” His voice seemed to have the resonance of his life behind it.
Sable was unimpressed by his emotion. “Where did she say that to you?”
“In the Superintendent’s office, when she left me there. She promised to come back for me, but she never did. I don’t know what happened to her.”
“But you remember her words from the age of four?”
“I was bright for my age,” he answered matter-of-factly. “I’m bright, and I’m not ashamed of it. It stood me in good stead when I was trying to get into the high school in Ann Arbor.”
“Why did you pick Ann Arbor?”
“I heard it was a good place to get an education. The teachers in the Home were a couple of ignorant bullies. I wanted an education more than anything. Mr. Lindsay gave me an aptitude test, and he decided that I deserved an education, even if I didn’t have any transcript. He put up quite a battle for me, getting me into the high school. And then he had to fight the welfare people. They wanted to put me in Juvenile, or find a foster-home for me. Mr. Lindsay convinced them that his home would do, even if he didn’t have a wife. He was a widower.”
“He sounds like a good man,” I said.
“He was the best, and I ought to know. I lived with him for nearly four years. I looked after the furnace, mowed the lawn in the summer, worked around the house to pay for my board and room. But board and room was the least of what he gave me. I was a little bum when he took me in. He made a decent person out of me.”
He paused, and his eyes looked past us, thousands of miles. Then they focused on me:
“I had no right today, to tell you that I never had a father. Gabe Lindsay was a father to me.”
“I’d like to meet him,” I said.
“So that you can check up on me?”
“Not necessarily. Don’t take all this so hard, John. As Mr. Sable said, there’s nothing personal about it. It’s our business to get the facts.”
“It’s too late to get them from Mr. Lindsay. Mr. Lindsay died the winter before last. He was good to me right up to the end, and past it. He left me enough money to finish my studies.”
“How much did he leave you?” Sable said.
“Two thousand dollars. I still have a little of it left.”
“What did he die of?”
“Pneumonia. He died in the University Hospital in Ann Arbor. I was with him when he died. You can check that. Next question.”
His irony was young and vulnerable. It failed to mask his feeling. I thought if his feeling was artificial, he didn’t need the Galton money: he could make his fortune as an actor.
“What motivated you to come here to Luna Bay?” Sable said. “It couldn’t have been pure coincidence.”
“Who said it was?” Under the pressure of cross-questioning, the boy’s poise was breaking down. “I had a right to come here. I was born here, wasn’t I?”
“Were you?”
“You just saw my birth certificate.”
“How did you get hold of it?”
“I wrote to Sacramento. Is there anything wrong with that? I gave them my birthdate, and they were able to tell me where I was born.”
“Why the sudden interest in where you were born?”
“It wasn’t a sudden interest. Ask any orphan how important it is to him. The only sudden part of it was my bright idea of writing to Sacramento. It hadn’t occurred to me before.”
“How did you know your birthdate?”
“My mother must have told the orphanage people. They always gave me a birthday present on December second.” He grinned wryly. “Winter underwear.”
Sable smiled, too, in spite of himself. He waved his hand in front of his face, as if to dissipate the tension in the room: “Are you satisfied, Archer?”