CHAPTER XXXIII

In spite of the very good case which Priscilla had made out for herself to Jack’s mother, without deviating from strict accuracy more widely than could easily be pardoned by even the severest moralist, and in spite also of the still better case which was made out for her by some of the contributors to that holiday page of the newspapers, she felt that she had considerable cause for uneasiness as the weeks went by and Messrs. Liscomb and Liscomb, having returned from Scotland or Homburg, were busying themselves about the nullity suit. Incidentally, they were concerned in two very dainty divorce suits and three libel actions which they hoped to get on the list before Christmas. They let Jack know that a defence had been entered to the nullity suit by Mr. Marcus Blaydon, so that the petitioner should not have a walk-over, whatever might happen; and they urged on Mr. Wingfield the necessity for finding out whether all that Captain Lyman knew would be in favour of Priscilla or of Marcus Blaydon.

It was apparent that what Captain Lyman knew would be an important factor in the case; but what he did know he had no chance of revealing, for it seemed as if Captain Lyman was lost. His name was in the registry of certificated mariners, but it was there as the master of the barque Kingsdale, and the owners of that ill-fated craft, on being communicated with by Messrs. Liscomb and Liscomb, stated that he was no longer in their service, nor did they know whose employment he had entered after the loss of his vessel. During the whole of the month of August the solicitors had, through their agents, been endeavouring to trace Lyman, but they had met with no success. The barque Kingsdale had been owned in Quebec, and he had been seen in that city in the month of June, but since then his whereabouts had been vague; and the clerk who was ready to rush off at a moment’s notice in search of him, and to fathom the mystery of what he knew, began to feel that he stood a very good chance of being deprived of his excursion.

Messrs. Liscomb and Liscomb were beginning to write rather grave letters, They reminded Jack that they had absolutely no evidence to show that Blaydon had gone away from the English gaol to meet another woman than his wife; and as this was an important fact to establish both in the nullity suit and the possible divorce suit, and as, apparently, no one but Captain Lyman could give evidence on this point—a question which had not yet been answered—they thought no stone should be left unturned in order to find him and learn from his own lips what it was that he knew, and how much of it he did actually know, and whether his knowledge should take the form of an affidavit, or be carefully suppressed.

As a matter of fact Messrs. Liscomb and Liscomb gave Mr. Wingfield to understand that the success of their case would be seriously jeopardized unless they could place some evidence before the judge bearing upon the object of that trip made by Marcus Blaydon across the Atlantic.

Jack did not question the accuracy of their opinion in this matter; but what was he to do to provide them with the evidence they required? It was all very well for them to write about the necessity for leaving no stone unturned in order to find the extent of Captain Lyman’s knowledge; but how could he, Jack Wingfield, travel through the world during the next couple of months, turning over stones to see if Captain Lyman was concealed beneath one of them?

He felt greatly disappointed, but he took good care that Priscilla remained in ignorance of the purport of Messrs. Liscomb and Liscomb’s letters, and every day made it harder for him to keep her in this condition.

One afternoon he drove with her into Framsby, and their carriage stopped at a shop almost exactly opposite to the Corn Exchange, just when the frequenters of that institution were standing in groups along the pavement on the one day of the week when the Exchange was open. Business had been exceptionally good that day, and most of the farmers and millers were in a good humour. As soon as the rumour went round that the handsome lady in the carriage was the daughter of Farmer Wadhurst who was “standing up for her rights”—that was the precis that reached them of the “curious case” of the newspaper page—they took off their hats and gave her a hearty cheer.

This was not the first time that Priscilla had been so greeted in Framsby; but such proofs of the position she occupied in the hearts of the people, though gratifying, when considered from one standpoint, did not throw the light that was needed upon the question of what stone would, when turned, reveal the form of Captain Lyman ready to make an affidavit that should have weight with a judge. So while Priscilla drove home gratified by the kindly spirit shown by her sympathisers, Jack could not help feeling that he would gladly have exchanged it all for a single statement, made in the presence of a commissioner for taking oaths, bearing out the admission of Marcus Blaydon in regard to that woman on the other side of the Atlantic.

Of course Priscilla quickly perceived that he was becoming uneasy, and equally as a matter of course she found out the cause of the uneasiness. He told her something of what Messrs. Liscomb and Liscomb had communicated to him, though he did not go so far as to let her know that they considered the absent evidence to be vital to the success of the petition.

She took his explanation without saying more than a word or two.

“If Captain Lyman is not to be found we cannot have his evidence, whether for us or against us,” she said. “And that being so, we shall have to do our best without it. I have great faith in Sir Edward’s power of cross-examining. If he puts that man in the witness-box he should be able to get him to confess as much as he did to you.”

Jack did not tell her that Messrs. Liscomb and Liscomb had explained to him that perhaps Marcus Blaydon might be prevented from going into the box by his own advisers, who might think it advisable to let the judge say whether or not she had succeeded in establishing her petition when she had been examined before him. It was well known that a very strong case indeed required to be made out in favour of pronouncing a marriage null and void before a judge would make such a pronouncement. So Messrs. Liscomb and Liscomb had told him; but he kept this information to himself.

It was with that phrase about leaving no stone unturned ringing in his mind, as if it were Messrs. Liscomb and Liscomb’s telephone bell, that he sent off to the governor of the prison where Marcus Blaydon had been incarcerated the postcard which contained upon its gummy surface the imprint of the finger-tips of the man who had visited the Manor claiming Priscilla as his wife. In spite of the absolute certainty of Priscilla that he was Marcus Blaydon, Jack thought that there was just a chance that he was an impostor. Even within his experience there had been cases of men impersonating others with a view to blackmail or to an inheritance. There was just a chance that this man was not the real Marcus Blaydon, but a scoundrel of a slightly different pattern.

He sent the card in a small box, enclosing with it a letter asking the governor to be good enough to let him know if the finger-prints that it bore were those of Marcus Blaydon, who had been incarcerated in the prison for over a year.

With the lapse of only a few posts he received a communication from the acting-governor of the prison stating that he had sent on the card to the Criminal Investigation Department, and that the reply had been that the prints were those of Marcus Blaydon.

He told Priscilla what he had done, and what was the result, and she shook her head and smiled.

“It was very clever of you to get the finger-prints as you did,” she said. “But I knew that I could not be mistaken in the man.”

“There was only the ghost of a chance that the man was an impostor,” said Jack; “but I felt bound to leave no stone—oh, there’s that phrase buzzing about me again!”

“You were quite right, dear Jack,” she said. “No stone should be left unturned in digging the foundation for our case.”

Nothing further passed between them on this point; but two days later Jack received a private letter from the governor of the prison, stating that he had just resumed his duty after taking his annual leave, and that he had seen the letter which his deputy had answered.

“I can easily understand that you should be interested in an enquiry of the nature of that suggested by your communication,” he added; “and though the reply which was sent to you may not have been just the one for which you hoped, yet I think it possible that it may be in my power to give you some assistance in any investigation you or your lawyers may be making in regard to Marcus Blaydon. It would not be regular to do so by letter, but if you could make it convenient to pay me a visit I might be able to place you in possession of one or two interesting—perhaps they may even turn out to be important—facts which came to my knowledge respecting the man when he was in my charge.

“When I read in the English newspapers, which I received in Switzerland, the particulars of the case in which Marcus Blaydon played so sinister a part, I made up my mind to place myself in communication with you; and I would have done so even if your letters had not been put into my hands on my return.”

“It may mean a great deal or it may mean nothing,” remarked Jack, passing this communication on to Priscilla.

Of course, Priscilla felt inclined, on a first reading of the note, to attribute a great deal of importance to it. “Why should the prison official take the trouble to write asking you to meet him if he was not sure that what he had to say was vital?” she asked Jack. But a second reading caused her to be less sanguine.

“It is just as you say it is: the man is guarded in his words; they may mean a great deal or they may mean very little,” she said. “But he is in an official position, and no doubt he has had experience of curious cases and of everything that has a bearing upon them; and I can’t think that he would have taken the trouble to write to you or to ask you to visit him unless he had something important to tell you.”

“He says it may turn out to be important,” said Jack; “but just now he thinks that it is only interesting. I am inclined to believe that it will never get beyond that qualification. You see, if he himself had thought that what he knew was vital to our interests he would have telegraphed to us the moment the first newspapers came into his hands.”

“Yes, that is so, I can see plainly; but anyhow, you’ll go, will you not?” said Priscilla. She could see plainly that J ack was a little annoyed because nothing had come of his cleverly-contrived trap in obtaining the man’s finger-prints. He was not disposed to have any extravagant hopes of important information coming from a quarter that had failed him before. She knew that he was unreasonable; but she also knew that it was quite natural for him to be affected as he was by the failure of the authorities to say that the finger-prints were those of some man other than Marcus Blaydon.

“Great Gloriana! Of course I shall go to see him, and you will come with me,” cried Jack. “No matter what he has to say to us, I feel that no stone——”

Priscilla clapt her hands upon her ears and rushed out of the room.

The county gaol to which Marcus Blaydon had been committed was a long way from Framsby. To reach it necessitated a journey to London, and thence into the heart of the Midlands. Passing through London they called upon Messrs. Liscomb and Liscomb to tell them of their mission, and the junior partner, who was acquainted with Major Crosbie, the governor of the prison, became greatly interested in the letter which he had written to Jack—so interested, indeed, that if the duty had not been laid upon him of receiving professional visits from two most promising prospective co-respondents and three defendants of newspaper libel actions, to say nothing of sundry uncompromising plaintiffs, he would, he declared, accompany his clients into the very presence of Major Crosbie.

“Whatever he may have to communicate, you may be sure that it will have a bearing upon the case,” he said. “He will put you on the track of evidence—real evidence—not merely what somebody said that somebody told somebody else. You know where we are deficient in this particular.”

“Yes,” said Jack quickly, being afraid that he might go on to express himself strongly in Priscilla’s presence regarding the need for evidence on the object of Blaydon’s trip across the Atlantic. “Yes, we know pretty well how we stand. Any proof that Blaydon was a blackguard will be received with gratitude.”

“That’s it,” said Mr. Liscomb.

“I thought Sir Edward’s cross-examination might be expected to do great things for us in this way,” said Priscilla.

“It may do something, but not a great deal,” said Liscomb. “Judges are fond of facts; they don’t care much about cross-examinations, however brilliant the newspapers may call them. You can easily see how the fellow, now that he has been put on his guard by your hint that you mean to try to connect his voyage with a woman, will be careful to have a story ready to account for all his movements, and he has only to stick to it to pull through, however Sir Edward may browbeat him. If you can bring the woman into court we shall have him in the cart.”

That was all that Mr. Liscomb had to say to them, and they began to feel that they might as well have gone on direct to the gaol instead of calling upon him. And that was exactly what Mr. Liscomb himself thought. The honour and glory of being associated with the “curious case” were not inordinately estimated by him; the firm had been so closely connected with such a number of other curious cases ever since he had become a partner.

They found Major Crosbie waiting for them in a private room at the governor’s house. As he was somewhat irregular in offering them the information of which he was possessed, he was too strict a disciplinarian to receive them in an official apartment. Within the precincts of his private residence he felt himself at liberty to talk as he pleased. A conscience capable of such reasonable differentiation is most valuable in an official.

He waved aside in a graceful way Mr. Wingfield’s expression of gratitude for the invitation to this interview.

“There is no need to say a word on this point, Mr. Wingfield,” he said. “Your case is a most curious one.”

Jack confessed that he had heard it so described.

“A very curious one. It had been for nearly a week in the papers before I had a chance of hearing anything about it; but when I heard the name Marcus Blaydon I at once recollected some particulars which had come under my notice officially in connection with that man Blaydon. You are aware that it is part of my duty to read not only those letters which the prisoners in my charge write to persons outside, but also those which are received for themselves. Now, Blaydon received while in this prison four letters, all of which had been addressed to him at Prangborough, where, as you doubtless know, he lived.”

Priscilla assented. Prangborough was the town in which her Aunt Emily lived.

“They had been addressed to him at Prangborough, and from there were forwarded to the prison. I find by reference to my official diary that three of them came from apparently the same correspondent and were posted at the same place—London in Canada; they were signed ‘Lucy.’ The fourth was from a man, evidently a captain in the merchant service, named Horace Lyman. It had been posted at Sunderland, and was received by me a short time before the expiration of the man’s term of imprisonment.”

“That is the letter which would be of importance to us if it told us what is the present address of Captain Lyman,” said Jack.

Major Crosbie shook his head.

“You cannot expect a letter written nearly seven months ago to state positively what is the writer’s address to-day,” said he with a laugh. “But the contents of that letter made it clear that the writer and his correspondent were not on the best terms; and that the reason of this was the ill-treatment by Blaydon of the writer’s sister, whose name was Lucy.”

“And the woman’s letters—did they make anything clear?”

“The woman’s three letters made a good deal clear. The one of the earliest date suggested very clearly that she was the man’s wife.”

“What, Blaydon’s wife!” cried Jack. “That would be the best possible news for us.”

“So it occurred to me,” said Major Crosbie. “If the man had been married—as the letters suggested he was—some years before he came under my notice—under our notice, I should say—and if his wife was alive, as she must have been when those letters of hers were written, the curious case becomes a very simple case indeed.”

“And the letters suggested marriage?” said Priscilla, interrogatively.

“They undoubtedly suggested marriage—at least, they would have done so to someone with a smaller experience than I have had of such correspondence. But from what I know I should say that to assume that because a woman addresses a man as ‘My own husband,’ she is that man’s lawful wife, would be a very unwise thing to do. Such a form of address, I have learnt by experience, comes quite naturally to the woman who is not married to the man but who should be on the grounds of the most elementary morality. It is the form used by the woman who has been deserted by the man, but who hopes to get back to her former place in his affection. She seems to think, poor thing, that if she assumes the title of wife whenever she has the chance, she will in time come to feel that she is his wife. I am not sure if you recognize the—the—what shall I call it?—the naturalness of all this.”

He glanced first at Jack and then at Priscilla, and paused as if for their acquiescence in his suggestion.

They acquiesced. Jack nodded and muttered “Quite so.” Priscilla said:

“I am sure it is natural—it is quite plausible. But it might be possible, might it not? to gather from the rest of the letters whether the woman was trying to bring back a husband or a lover.”

“It is sometimes a good deal more difficult to do so than you could imagine,” replied the Governor. “I used to think that I could determine this point by the character of the letters; the most earnest letters—those that were the most loving—the most full of endearment—were written by the woman to her lover; the tamest—the most formal, with a touch of nasty upbraiding, came from the legal wife to her legal husband. That was the general principle on which I drew my conclusions; but I soon found out how easy it was to make a mistake by building on such foundations only. You see, women differ so amazingly in temper and in temperament, leaving education and ‘the complete letter-writer’ out of the question altogether, that a wife who is not quite a wife may be carried away by her feelings of the moment, and say something so bitter that you could only believe it to come from a true wife, and the true wife may be really in love with her husband, and ready to condone his lapses without a word of reproach. That is how it is quite easy for one to make a mistake in trying to differentiate on the basis of correspondence only.”

“Quite so,” muttered Jack.

“I can quite believe that,” said Priscilla. “But about these particular letters?”

She thought it quite as well to bring back Major Crosbie from his consideration of the abstract to that of the concrete. She could see that Jack was becoming slightly impatient at the somewhat cynical expression of the Governor’s experiences.

“I was just returning to the letters written to Marcus Blaydon,” said he. “It was necessary for me to state to you the difficulty which I find in the way of coming to any legitimate conclusion on the point which concerns you most, in order to prevent you from falling into the mistake of believing that you are quite safe, when investigation may prove that you have assumed too much.”

“Of course—quite right,” said Jack. “But you believe that the woman was his wife?”

The Governor caressed his chin with a neat forefinger.

“I think, after going very carefully once more over the copy of the letters, that there would be sufficient in any one of them to allow a Grand Jury to bring in a true bill,” he replied.

Jack saw that the man described very neatly what was in his mind. But Priscilla had never served on a Grand Jury. She required further explanation.

“What I mean to say,” resumed Major Crosbie, “is that the letters suggest a relationship which may prove on investigation to be a legal union contracted three years ago in Canada. You observe how cautious I am?”

“I do indeed,” replied Priscilla, and she did not acquiesce merely out of politeness.

“I should be reluctant to say one word that might lead you to expect too much,” said he. “My experience leads me to look for the worst and not the best in men; but I should be reluctant to say that the letters signed ‘Lucy’ did not come from a woman who was the legal wife of Marcus Blaydon.”

“That is so much, at any rate,” said Jack; “and now if you can give us any clue as to how it would be possible to be brought in touch with Horace Lyman, we will be evermore indebted to you.”

“The woman is his sister—so much I gathered,” said the Governor. “And I learned that he was waiting for Blaydon at the prison gate when Blaydon was released. That is all I know. But the sister’s address is, as I mentioned just now, London, in Canada—at least, that was her address when she was in communication with Blaydon. Her letters were not illiterate, though of course they were not carefully written. They showed what critics would possibly call an ill-balanced mind—extremes of blandishments on one page, and threats of the wildest nature on the next. I can give you copies if you would care to see them.”

Priscilla shook her head. She could not see herself sitting down to read the confidential letters of the poor woman.

“I am quite willing to accept your judgment on them, Major Crosbie,” she said.

“I think that you are right to do so,” said he. “If you were to, read them they would certainly convey more to you, who have fortunately had no experience of this form of correspondence, than would be good for your future peace of mind. You would say at once when you saw the address ‘My dearest husband,’ and the reiteration of the same word, ‘husband’ with various vehement adjectives—you would undoubtedly feel confident that the pair were married, but you must think of that possibility with great suspicion.”

“You have suggested it, at any rate, and for that you have our heartiest thanks,” said Jack. “Why, only to be able to put that name ‘Lucy Lyman’ on Sir Edward’s brief means an enormous gain to us.”

“But you will, of course, send someone out to Canada to make the thing sure,” said Crosbie. “You may be able to find the woman herself, and to bring her to England to confront the man. Whether she’s his wife or not, that will be a help to your case.”

“I should rather think that it will be a help,” cried Jack. “If it can be shown that the man went straight from this place to the side of that woman in Canada, I don’t see how any judge could refuse us a verdict. I shall start for Canada to-morrow.”

“For Heaven’s sake consult with your solicitors first,” said Crosbie. “They may think that one of their own agents is the best person to pursue the necessary enquiry in Canada. And now that we have gone as far as we are likely to go into this matter, even though we should confer together for a week, we shall have lunch. My wife and daughter are unfortunately still in Paris—I left them starting on a round of shops—but you will make allowances for a household run for the present en garçon.” The lunch was, however, so excellent as to leave no need for any allowance to be made by either of the visitors; and when it was over their host offered, as they expected he would, to show them over the prison. Jack knew that governors of prisons, as well as commanders of cruisers and vergers of cathedrals and superintendents of lunatic asylums, take it for granted that every visitor is burning to be “shown over the place”; and he felt too deeply indebted to Major Crosbie not to afford him an opportunity of exhibiting his hobby at this time. So for the next hour and a half he and Priscilla gave themselves up to this form of entertainment. The Governor spared them none of the interesting horrors of the “system.” They were shown the handsome young bank clerk who, on a salary of one hundred and twenty pounds a year, had managed to keep a motor and to go to a music hall every night of his life for three years without once arousing the suspicion of the directorate; the ex-Lord Mayor (not of London) who had made a fortune by insuring people’s lives (in an American office) and then encouraging them to drink themselves to death; the soldier who, after winning the Victoria Cross twice over, and saving two batteries of field artillery, had taken to beating women in Bermondsey, and had one day gone a little too far in this way; the great financier who had done his best to save the life of the King by standing by in his 300-ton yacht when his Majesty was in no danger, and had a little later been sentenced at the Old Bailey for another audacious fraud; the young man of “superior education” who had done several very neat forgeries, and was now making pants in the tailor’s shop; the ex-officer of Engineers who had lived in a mansion on the Cromwell Road for several years on the profits of writing begging letters, and was now, by the irony of Fate, engaged in sewing canvas, mail-bags in which probably, when he came to be relieved of this obligation, his own compositions would be conveyed to their destination—all of these interesting persons the visitors saw, with many others of equal distinction. And they went away fully satisfied, and with a consciousness of having cancelled a good portion of whatever debt they owed to the Governor.

“Funny!” said Priscilla suddenly, when they were sitting opposite to each other in the dining-car a few hours later. “Funny, isn’t it, that that man with the reddish hair who was working out his sentence for forgery should be the Reverend Sylvanus Purview, who read the marriage service between Marcus Blaydon and myself!”

“Great Gloriana! Are you positive?” cried Jack.

“As positive as I was about the other,” said Priscilla. “And what’s stranger still, he recognized me the moment we entered the tailor’s shop. I saw as much by his face, though I had not recognized him in his prison clothes. He was a temporary hand taken on by Mr. Possnett to do his duty when he was absent on his holiday. He lodged in Mrs. Bowman’s cottage, and went away without paying her. It created rather a scandal in our respectable neighbourhood.”

“The rascal! I suppose he’ll lose his frock, now,” said Jack.

“Mr. Possnett wrote to the Bishop about him; but he had left the diocese, and no one knew what had become of him,” said Priscilla.

“Well, we know now. I wonder what it was he forged. He was clearly a bad egg from the first. How did you feel when you recognized him?”

“Delighted,” cried Priscilla. “I felt as if I were paying him back in full the grudge that I owed him.” Jack laughed.