We will go downstairs,” said Carpentaria, when a certain amount of order had been restored to the room. “We shall be more at ease there.”

“No,” cried Jetsam, and there was a note of passion in his voice. “This old woman shall hear my tale. I tell it in her presence, or I tell it not at all.” Carpentaria gazed at Mrs. Ilam’s eyes, which made no response. Her bed was now replaced in its proper position, and those strange burning eyes perused their old spot in the ceiling. After the brief and terrible return of activity to that stricken body, it seemed to have sunk back into a condition of helplessness more absolute even than before. The eyes burned, but not quite with their former disturbing brilliance.

“Very well,” Carpentaria agreed.

Ilam was already seated, apparently half-comatose. The other two men each seized a chair. And then there was a timid but insistent knocking.

“What is that?” demanded Carpentaria of Jetsam. “You ought to know; you have been master here for some hours.”

“It is Miss Rosie, I imagine,” Jetsam answered. “Your singular music has startled her.”

Carpentaria walked rapidly to the door, unlocked it, and opened it. Rosie it indeed was who stood there.

“Ah, my dear young lady,” he said lightly, without giving her an opportunity even to express her astonishment. “I would like you to go to your sister, who is in my house over the way. But I fear you cannot open any of the doors. Won’t you retire and rest a little, after your complicated labours?” He smiled a little grimly. “Everything is all right here, and should your aged relative need your ministrations you may rely on me to call you. In the meantime, your cousin and I, and your particular friend Mr. Jetsam, must have a chat on business matters.”

He bowed, covering the aperture of the door with his body so that Rosie could not see inside the room. As for Rosie, she hesitated.

“I entreat you,” he insisted, “go and rest, and don’t have anything more to do with boats; you might drown yourself. And believe me when I say that nothing further will be done in secret. The moment I am free I will endeavour to free the doors.”

Rosie moved reluctantly away down the landing. She had not spoken a word. Carpentaria closed the portal softly and retired to his chair.

“You have my attention,” he remarked significantly to Mr. Jetsam.

“Well,” said Jetsam, after a moment’s pause. “It goes back a very long time, this affair does, Mr. Carpentaria. It certainly began before you were born—down at Torquay. Torquay, according to what they tell me, was not the place then that it is now, not by a considerable distance; but it was fashionable. It had got a bit of a name as a good place to go and get fat in. Perhaps that was why a certain soda-water manufacturer went there to spend a year or so. He was a very wealthy man, and he rented a villa there. It’s one of those villas on the top of the hill between Union Street and the sea, and it still exists. His age was about fifty, and he was supposed to be worth half a million or so—all made out of gas and splutter, you see. Being supposed to be worth half a million or so, of course he soon had the entire population of Torquay knocking at his door and throwing cards into his card-basket. He made a wide circle of friends in rather less than no time, and being a simple, decent creature, though not faultless, he was pretty well pleased with himself. Now among the friends that he made was a certain widow, age uncertain—but in the neighbourhood of thirty, and her name was Kilmarnock.”

At this time Mr. Jetsam stood up, and bending over Mrs. Ham’s bed with his smile so ruthlessly cruel, he repeated, staring at the invalid:

“Her name was Kilmarnock, wasn’t it?”

Mrs. Ilam made no sign. Mr. Jetsam resumed his chair.

“A pretty woman, I believe she was, with magnificent black eyes; the most wonderful eyes in the West Country, people said,” Mr. Jetsam proceeded. “Husband dead some little time. Anyhow, she had gone out of mourning, and her dresses were the amazement of the town. They’d look pretty queer nowadays, I reckon, because that was before 1860. However, her dresses have got nothing to do with it, especially as the soda-water manufacturer—have I happened to mention that his name was Ilam?—especially as Mr. Ilam couldn’t see them very well. Mr. Ilam was beginning to suffer from a cataract; both his eyes were affected, and the disease was making progress rapidly. You must remember that oculists didn’t know as much about cataract then as they do now. Well, Mr. Ilam was himself a widower—a widower with one child, aged three years. He had been a widower for two years when he first met Mrs. Kilmarnock. He liked Mrs. Kilmarnock. She seemed to have in her the makings of a good nurse, and one of the things that Mr. Ilam wanted was a faithful, loving nurse. He was certainly in an awkward predicament. He also wanted a mother for his child; and Mrs. Kilmarnock took a tremendous fancy to the child—a simply tremendous fancy. He was a man who talked pretty freely and openly, Mr. Ilam was, and he made no secret of the fact that, though he preferred to marry a widow, he would never permit himself to marry a widow who had children of her own. And one day he said to Mrs. Kilmarnock that, since he had never heard her mention a child, he assumed that she had no children.

“She replied that his assumption was correct, and that she continually regretted being childless, as she adored children, and felt very severely the need of something to give her a real interest in life. A month later Mr. Ilam asked Mrs. Kilmarnock to marry him, and she consented like a bird. Three months later they were married. Everybody said kind things; for you must know that Mrs. Kilmarnock was not penniless herself. Oh, no! She lived in very good style in Torquay, and gave dinners that Torquay liked. And Torquay is a good judge of dinners. Her husband had been a Scottish writer to the Signet, she said. So the marriage was celebrated amid universal plaudits, and there was quite three-quarters of a column about it in the Western Morning News.”

At this juncture Carpentaria ventured to interrupt the speaker.

“You appear,” he said, “to be remarkably well informed about matters which occurred long before you were of an age to take an intelligent interest in them. At the time of this marriage you surely were not in the habit of reading newspapers?”

“I was not,” answered Jetsam drily. “I had attained the mature age of three years. If I am well informed it is because I have taken the trouble to inform myself. You see, I was interested, and I have spared no pains during this last year or two to acquire all the circumstantial details of the case.”

“I perceive,” said Carpentaria. “But how were you interested?”

“You will understand presently,” said Jetsam. “To continue. This Mrs. Kilmarnock, whom we must now call Mrs. Ilam, used, both before and after her second marriage, to pay visits to the town of Teignmouth, and these visits were, not to put too fine a point on it, of an extremely discreet nature; they were, in fact, strictly secret. Mrs. Ilam fell into the habit of telling her husband that she was going to Exeter to shop, but instead of going to Exeter she went only as far as Teignmouth. She was always dressed very simply indeed for these Teignmouth visits. She used to walk through the town from the station, and, having taken the ferry across the Teign, she walked up the right bank of the river till she came to a cottage that stood by itself in the marshy land thereabouts. At the cottage an old man and woman and a little boy would meet her. And the strange thing was that the old man spoke French; he could not speak English. You may possibly not be aware that onion-boats from the coast of Brittany are constantly arriving at the smaller Devonshire ports, such as Torquay and Teignmouth. The old man was a Breton peasant, with all the characteristics of a Breton peasant, who had arrived at Teignmouth once in an onion-boat, and forgotten to go back again because he fell in love with an Englishwoman—a Devonshire lass with a soft drawling accent. So Mrs. Ilam used to talk to the Breton peasant in French, and to his wife in English, and to the boy in baby language. She would cover the boy with kisses; she would call him by pet names, and she saw him at least once a week.”

“He was her son?” Carpentaria put in interrogatively.

“You have naturally guessed it,” Jetsam responded. “He was her son.”

“But if she was really a widow, and this was really her son, why did she——”

“Oh,” cried Jetsam, “I think she was really a widow, and there is not the slightest shadow of doubt that this was really her son. Perhaps she kept him a secret from Torquay because she felt that he might prove an obstacle to the achievement of her desires in Torquay. Anyhow, she loved him passionately. Her son was, beyond question, the greatest passion of her life.” He turned abruptly again to the old woman, “Wasn’t he?” he demanded.

And the aged creature’s burning eyes were filled with tears.

“I think perhaps it might be as well to leave Mrs. Ilam out of the conversation,” suggested Carpentaria.

“Impossible to leave her out of the conversation,” said Jetsam quickly, “because the conversation is almost exclusively about her. However, I will not trouble her any more for confirmation of what I say. Well, for nearly a year after her second marriage these clandestine visits of Mrs. Ilam to the cottage on the banks of the Teign continued with the most perfect regularity, and then something extremely remarkable happened.”

“What was that?”

“First, I must tell you that soon after the marriage Mr. Ilam’s cataract got rapidly worse. In six months he could only distinguish objects vaguely. He could not read anything except shop signs. In Mrs. Ilam he found an admirable nurse and companion. Except for her shopping excursions to Exeter she never left his side. She was a model wife, and all Torquay admitted the fact. Even when Mr. Ilam’s impaired vision rendered him captious, querulous, and indeed unbearable, she remained sweetness itself; and Mr. Ilam would not admit anyone but her to his presence. He even took a dislike to his child, his only son, and the infant was left in the charge of servants and governesses, except that Mrs. Ilam saw him as frequently as she could.”

“But this is not very remarkable,” said Carpentaria, “such things are constantly happening.”

“I am coming to the remarkable part,” replied Jetsam, with a certain solemnity of manner. “One day the old Breton fisherman told Mrs. Ilam that a relative had left him property in his native district, and that he had persuaded his wife to go with him to France so that they might end their days there. Mrs. Ilam was extremely disturbed by this piece of news, because she did not know what to do with the boy. She asked the Frenchman how soon he proposed to leave, and the Frenchman said in about three weeks. She left and said she would come back again in a few days. It is at this point that the remarkable begins. Within a week all Torquay was made aware that Mr. Ilam, at the solicitation of his wife, had decided to go to Paris to consult a great specialist there.”

“I see,” breathed Carpentaria, while Ilam’s face wore at length a look of interest.

“I doubt if you do see,” said Jetsam. “You think that Mrs. Ilam was arranging to go to Paris in order to be nearer her son. Well, she was, but not at all in the way you imagine. They departed from Torquay almost at once, and in a somewhat remarkable manner, for Mrs. Ilam dismissed every servant, even her own maid and Mr. Ilam’s man, and the child’s nurse—all were dismissed in Torquay itself—and Mr. Ilam and his wife and child left Torquay railway station entirely unaided, except by porters and the domestics of a hotel. Mrs. Ilam would certainly have all her work cut out to conduct the expedition, for you must remember that at this period Mr. Ilam was practically blind. Well, they had to change at Exeter and catch the Plymouth express, and at Exeter the old French peasant was waiting on the platform, evidently by arrangement, and he held Mrs. Ilam’s own little boy by the hand, and Mrs. Ilam and the peasant had a long talk by themselves, and then the express came in, and the Ilams got into it, and the express started off again for London, and the French peasant was left standing on the platform holding the little boy by the hand. You see?”

“No,” said Carpentaria bluntly.

“Well,” proceeded Jetsam. “It was not the same little boy that the peasant held by the hand. Mrs. Ilam had taken her own child with her, and left behind her step-child.”

“Great heavens!” murmured Carpentaria. “Exactly,” said Jetsam. “Only the heavens didn’t happen to interfere. This was no common case of substitution at birth, it was a monstrously ingenious change which Mrs. Ilam, out of her passionate love for her own son, had planned and carried out in a manner suggested to her by the facts of the situation. Consider. The two boys were the same age—about three years—and they were dressed alike, Mrs. Ilam had seen to that. Mr. Ilam is nearly blind, certainly he could not distinguish one child of three from another child of three, even if they had been dressed differently. Moreover, Mr. Ilam is not interested in the child. He is wrapped up in his own complaint, a ferocious egotist, like most sufferers. Probably the child sleeps during the journey to London—probably Mrs. Ilam gives him something to make him sleep. The party arrive at Paddington, and are met by a new set of servants whom Mrs. Ilam has engaged. She left Torquay with a child; she arrived at Paddington with a child. Who, except the old French peasant, is to know that there has been a change en route? The new child is kept entirely out of Mr. Ilam’s presence. He is taught his new name; he is taught to forget his past on the banks of the Teign; and he readily succeeds in doing so. His new nurse is suitably discreet. During their brief stay in London the Ilams stop at a hotel. They do not visit friends, on the plea of Mr. Ilam’s complaint. Then they leave London for Paris.”

“The thing was perfect,” observed Carpentaria, astounded.

“It was fatally perfect,” Jetsam agreed. “Even had Mr. Ilam been cured at once, the danger would have been but slight, because he had never seen his own child clearly. However, Mr. Ilam was not cured at once, for it happened that the famous oculist whom they meant to consult died on the very day they entered Paris. It was seven years before Mr. Ilam got himself cured; but in the end he was cured almost completely. The boy was then aged ten years. What possible chance was there of a discovery of the fraud? Even had Mr. Ilam ever seen his child clearly, what resemblance is there between an infant of three and a boy of ten? None; none whatever. Mrs. Ilam had triumphed: she had deposed the authentic heir of Mr. Ilam and had put her own son on the throne in his stead.”

“And the other boy?” Carpentaria queried.

Jetsam paused, his eyes bent downwards.

“Do you know the Breton peasantry?” he demanded suddenly, at length.

“Not in the least,” said Carpentaria.

“Ah, well; that doesn’t matter! When you hear the sequel of the story you will be able to imagine what a Breton peasant is capable of. He is the equal of the Norman peasant, and no French novelist has ever yet dared to write down the actual! truth about the Norman peasant. I told you that Mrs. Ilam and the old Frenchman had a chat on Exeter platform. She told him that she was giving him a new charge, preferring to take the other boy herself. It was arranged that the new charge should accompany the Breton to France, and live with him as his foster-child. Terms were fixed up, no doubt to the entire satisfaction of the peasant. Then Mrs. Ilam ventured to play her great card. She informed the Frenchman that his new charge was a very delicate plant, frequently ill, and not apparently destined to long life. This, by the way, was grossly untrue. ‘Of course, if he were to die,’ she said in effect to the peasant, ‘you would lose the income which I shall pay to you for looking after the child, and to compensate you for that loss I will promise to give you, if he dies, the sum of five hundred pounds.’ I expect she managed to put a peculiar and sinister emphasis on these words. Anyhow, the Frenchman understood. That was just the kind of thing that you might rely on a Breton peasant to comprehend without too much explanation. Five hundred pounds is five hundred pounds; it is over twelve thousand francs, and twelve thousand francs to a Breton peasant is worth anything—it is worth eternal torture.”

“And so, in due course, Mrs. Ilam received news of her stepson’s death?”

“In due course she received news of her stepson’s death,” said Jetsam. “It took a considerable time—six years, in fact—‘but it was accompanied by legal proof, and when she received it Mrs. Ilam must have been as happy as the day is long, especially as her own boy was growing up strong and well, and Mr. Ilam had taken quite a fancy to him. So all trace of the crime—would you call it a crime, or only a pleasing manifestation of a mother’s love?—all trace of the crime was lost, for the French peasant died; the English wife of the French peasant had expired a long time before.”

And Jetsam paused again.

“I am accepting all that you say as gospel,” said Carpentaria. “Because somehow it impresses me vividly as being true.” Here he looked at Josephus Ilam, who avoided his glance. “But how does this matter concern yourself, and in what way did you come upon the traces of the crime?”

“I’ll tell you,” Jetsam recommenced. “It was like this. The boy was not dead.”

“Not dead?”

“No. He had run away. He had had a pretty hard time before the death of the peasant’s wife. Afterwards, his existence was a trifle more exciting than he could bear. He was starved and he was beaten. But that was not all. On board fishing boats he was forced to accept dangers and risks of such a nature that the continuance of his life was nothing less than a daily miracle. So he ran away. He was aged nine, and he had a perfect knowledge of two languages as his stock-in-trade.”

“But the legal proof of his death?”

“Nothing simpler. The foster-father was a great friend of the village schoolmaster, and the schoolmaster, as you may know, is always the secretary of the mayor in a French village. He it is who makes out all certificates, and transacts every bit of the routine business of population-recording. The foster-father suggested to the schoolmaster that in exchange for a certificate of the boy’s death, the schoolmaster should receive a note of the Bank of France for a thousand francs. This was more than half a year’s salary to the schoolmaster, and the result was that the foster-father got the certificate. No fear of discovery! None knew of the issue of the certificate except these two men. And the lady for whose benefit the certificate was issued would be extremely unlikely to visit a remote French fishing village.”

“And what occurred to the boy?”

“The principal thing that occurred to the boy is that he is now sitting here and telling you his story,” said Jetsam, calmly.

“I guessed it,” said Carpentaria, with equal calmness, “as soon as you mentioned that the boy was not dead.”

Josephus Ilam maintained a stony silence.

“I knocked about for nine or ten years,” continued Jetsam, “both in England and France, chiefly fishing. Then I suddenly became respectable. I got a place in a house-agency in Cannes, chiefly on the strength of my knowledge of French and English. Of course, that only lasted during the winter season. But my employer had a similar agency in Ostend during the summer. It was in Ostend that I became gay. I joined a theatrical troupe. I travelled a great deal. I did everything except make money. And after ten years of that I settled down again as a house-agency clerk. I really was rather good at that, much better than as a music-hall performer with revolvers, for instance. And in various ‘pleasure cities’ of Europe I acted as a clerk for over twenty years. Think of it—twenty years! And me growing older and narrower and more gloomy every year in the service of ‘pleasure.’ I never saved any money to speak of, even though I remained single, perhaps because I remained single. And then one day, finding myself at St. Malo, I thought I would go and have a look at that fishing village which I had fled from over thirty years before. My delightful foster-father was, of course, dead; so was the schoolmaster; but one or two people remembered me, and among them was an old woman who had been a charming young girl when I left. It appeared that my old foster-father had fallen deeply in love with her in a senile way, and at her parents’ instigation she had married him for his money. He had confided to her, once when he thought he was dying, the secret of the substitution on Exeter platform. And now she told me. She had always liked me. You should have heard her pronounce ‘Exeter.’ It was the funniest thing.”

Mr. Jetsam laughed hardly.

“So that was how you got on the track?” said Carpentaria.

“Yes. I then pursued my inquiries in Torquay, and I found my old nurse. She told me that the real child of Mr. Ilam had a large crimson birthmark on the calf of his left leg. I had that mark. She also told me that there existed a photograph—one of the old daguerreotypes—of me as a child in the arms of my step-mother, my father standing close by, and that the mark on my leg was most clearly visible on this photograph. And that was the only real solid piece of information that I obtained, except that the photograph used to be kept in an old lacquered box. I had an instinct that the photograph had been preserved. And it was preserved—until to-night! I relied on the photograph. I could dimly recollect Torquay and Exeter platforms, but of what use would my assertions be without some proof, some tangible proof? When I thought of my wasted and spoiled and miserable life—and of what it might have been had I not been hated by a woman, I was filled with hatred and with—with such sorrow as you can’t understand.”

A sob escaped from Mr. Jetsam, and Carpentaria got up and took his hand.

“It is not too late for justice,” said Carpentaria.

“That woman has always hated me,” Jetsam murmured. “And even to-night her hatred still burned so fiercely that she tried to kill me. Even if she could speak, would she admit the truth? And she cannot speak.”

“I think I can cause her to communicate with us,” said Carpentaria. “You will see in a moment.”