The Amazing Chance

by Patricia Wentworth

  With the last word the door opened. Brooks came in bearing cheese, biscuits and butter. He put them down on the sideboard, and with a deadly, careful slowness he changed Major O’Neill’s plate, removed the beef, went out, came back, and vaguely marked time in the background.

  Manning pushed his plate away impatiently.

  “All right, Brooks. Put everything on the table, and don’t come back.”

  “Though what on earth ’e and Major O’Neill, as sees each other every blessed day of the week, can ’ave to talk about so blooming private—well, I puts it to you, Miss Possiter——”

  Miss Possiter bridled.

  “Oh, don’t put it to me!” she said. “I’m sure what gentlemen do or don’t do isn’t a thing that I should ever concern myself with.” Here she chilled Brooks’s young blood by a glance so undeniably flirtatious that he instantly heard the Major calling him.

  In the dining-room the talk went on. Once, Manning and O’Neill went through the connecting door into the room beyond, and stood for five full minutes staring at the sleeping man in the spare room bed. There was a reading-lamp on the table by the head of the bed. O’Neill switched it on, tilted the shade, and let the light fall on the pillow. Anton Blum lay on his back, with the bed-clothes pulled up to his chin. They saw as much of his face as was to be seen in the twilight just outside the ray from the lamp. There was a bandage about his forehead. His eyes were shut; he appeared to be very deeply asleep. Between an uncommonly thick head of hair, a full square beard, and Major O’Neill’s clean white bandage there really was not very much to see. After a moment O’Neill spoke in a quiet, low voice:

  “Is he—is there any likeness, any look of anyone you ever knew?”

  Manning made a frightful face.

  “How can I say when he’s simply smothered in hair? Take it off and I’ll tell you.”

  “H’m,” said O’Neill. He turned the shade down again. “Well, I’ll come round in the morning, Monkey. He’s pretty safe to sleep till then.”

  Anton Blum slept till the morning, and then went on sleeping. He drank a cup of Benger without waking, and O’Neill shrugged his shoulders and said, “Let him sleep.” Even the stir and bustle of Lacy Manning’s arrival did not rouse him.

  Mrs Manning was what Brooks irreverently called a “houseful.” She was a little person, but she certainly made herself felt. From the moment that she came inside the front door, silence was a thing of the past. There began instantly a clatter on the stairs, a banging of doors, a shifting of furniture, and above all, Lacy’s sweet, very high-pitched voice: “Monkey! Monkey, darling! Brooks, where is the Major? Ada! Ada! Find Brooks at once! And ask him where the Major is. And, Ada——No, come back!”

  Ada Possiter came reluctantly—Mrs Manning, who had travelled by air for the first time, had enjoyed the experience more than had her maid—Possiter looked gloomily resigned.

  “Ada, I want my house-shoes—you’ve hidden them. And I want the Major at once. Oh, and tell the cook.…” It never stopped; and the voice never varied from its flute-like sweetness.

  “If she’d a ’undred servants, she’d find work for a ’undred and fifty of ’em,” Brooks was moved to say in the interval between his twentieth and twenty-first errand.

  Presently it was Manning who was receiving a fortnight’s arrears of conjugal conversation. For the first ten minutes it concerned Don, and he had no difficulty in keeping his mind on it. Don, aged eight, had gone to his first prep. school after Christmas, and Lacy had been over to see how he was getting on. She considered herself an absolutely Spartan parent to have held out until mid-term.

  Don, it appeared, was the most promising boy in the school.

  “And he’s going to be most frightfully good at games. I don’t see why you should laugh, Monkey. He is clever, and he is good at games. Why, even when he was six months old, look how hard he could throw. You remember my diamond ring—right out of the window—and it never was found. So that just shows. Monkey, you’re a pig to laugh.” The bright, pink colour deepened in Lacy’s cheeks. “You can ask Evelyn if you don’t believe me. Oh, and that reminds me——” Her voice became eager; she ran to the bed, rummaged in one of the piles of odds and ends which seemed suddenly to have sprung up everywhere, and came back, fluttering the leaves of a magazine. “Monkey, darling, she’s going to do it at last—I really do believe she is!”

  “Who’s going to do what?” asked Manning vaguely; his mind was still on Don. He laughed at Lacy, but he was really just as big a fool about Don as she was. “Who’s going to do what?” he asked.

  Lacy stopped by his chair to pinch him.

  “Evelyn,” she said. “Evelyn Laydon—going to do it at last, I do believe. What’s that, Ada? Lunch? Oh, thank goodness! Monkey, come along and feed me. I can’t even remember breakfast; it’s such miles and miles, and hours and hours ago; and flying does make you hungry.”

  At lunch, when Brooks was out of the room, Monkey came back to Evelyn Laydon. He was really very fond of this cousin of Lacy’s, who was more like a sister.

  “What did you say Evelyn was going to do?”

  “What everyone thought she’d have done years and years ago—not that there’s anything settled, and I’m simply on tenterhooks till it’s really come off. They’ve got a horrible, vulgar paragraph in The Weekly Whisper—I’ve brought it for you to see—and her photograph too, though I can’t imagine how they got it. She’ll be most frightfully angry; and I only hope and trust it won’t rot the whole show.”

  “My dear child, if you’d tell me what you’re talking about——”

  “Evelyn—my cousin Evelyn—Evelyn Laydon——” Lacy’s voice soared to even sweeter heights.

  “Well, what about her?”

  “Idiot!” said Lacy succinctly. She pushed The Weekly Whisper across the table. “Read it for yourself. I’m much too hungry to talk.”

  Manning picked up the magazine, and frowned at a blurred version of Evelyn Laydon’s latest photograph. His frown deepened to a scowl as he read the paragraph beside it:

  “We all know Mrs Jim Laydon. Some of us remember her pretty, tragic wedding, and poor Jim Laydon and his cousin Jack—the Inseparables as we used to call them. The name held to the end, for Jack Laydon was best man, and got his recall an hour after the ceremony, just as Jim did. And a week later they were both ‘missing’ and never heard of again. Well, well, that’s old history, and all Mrs Jim’s friends will be pleased if, as I hear, they are to have an opportunity very soon of wishing her joy and better luck next time.”

  Manning flung the paper across the room with a single explosive word. Lacy’s eyebrows went up.

  “Monkey, how can you!”

  “What’s it mean?” growled Manning.

  “Well, there’s nothing settled, but I believe, I do believe, she’s going to take Chris Ellerslie at last. Goodness knows he’s waited long enough.”

  Manning made a dreadful face.

  “Man’s about a mile high,” he objected. “Pokes—wears glasses—writes vers libres.”

  “He’s devoted to Evelyn.”

  “Good Lord, my dear child, we’re all devoted to Evelyn. If she married a tenth of the people who are devoted to her, she’d be put in prison. Let ’em be devoted; it does ’em good.”

  Lacy’s colour rose becomingly.

  “Monkey, I think it’s because she’s lonely—I do indeed. She came down with me to see Don, and—and she looked at him.”

  “My good girl, what else could she do?”

  “Don’t be an idiot! She—she—don’t you see, Monkey? If Jim hadn’t—if things had been different——” The tears came with a rush into the bright hazel eyes. “Evelyn ought to be going down to see her own boy at school, and—and I think it came over her. And I think that’s what’s going to give Chris Ellerslie his chance at last—Monkey, I can’t find my handkerchief.”

  Manning had not been married nine years for nothing. He produced a bandanna, passed it over the table, and
was rewarded by the instant cessation of Lacy’s tears and an indignant:

  “Monkey, how can you? Pouf! What have you been putting on it?”

  Manning resumed his rejected offering.

  “The petrol gauge leaked, that’s all—perfectly clean, wholesome smell. I’d rather have it than half the scents you women use, any day of the week. But look here, Lacy—seriously—is Evelyn engaged to this Ellerslie chap? Has she told you anything? Or are you just going by that poisonous paragraph?”

  “Of course I’m not.” Lacy stuck her chin in the air. “No, she didn’t exactly tell me, Evelyn doesn’t——”

  “Doesn’t what?”

  “Tell one things. And there’s something about her—you can’t ask. We’ve been like sisters all our lives, but sometimes I feel I don’t really know a thing about her. When—when Jim was missing and she was breaking her heart—Monkey, I never was sure whether she was breaking it for Jim Laydon or—for Jack.”

  Manning moved impatiently.

  “Jack? What Jack? What d’you mean?” His voice was very cross.

  “Jim’s cousin Jack, of course—Jack Laydon. Why everyone expected her to marry Jack; and they were engaged—I know they were; and then something happened—I never quite knew what, and it was all off. And then Jim got leave, and they were engaged and married all in a flash. Mary Prothero bet me ten bob Jack wouldn’t have the nerve to be best man, and when she lost she said he did it to punish Evelyn. She was a cat; I just loathed being bridesmaid with her. She went round telling everyone that Evelyn really cared for Jack, but of course he was only the poor cousin without a bean, whereas Jim would have Laydon Manor. As a matter of fact, she’d have given her eyes to get Jim for herself.”

  Lacy was leaning forward, pleasantly flushed. Manning’s black eyes rested on her for a moment with a sharply sarcastic expression. Amazing how women loved to rake over old scandals. He was reminded of Vixen, his terrier, scratching to unearth a toothsome bone long buried. Lacy was enjoying herself very much. Enjoying the memory of Evelyn Laydon’s broken heart? No, be fair—she did love Evelyn. Then what was it? Heaven knew! He looked away scowling. Lacy rippled on—

  “Another thing I didn’t know was how much Jim knew.”

  “Perhaps there wasn’t anything to know, my dear.”

  Lacy tossed her head.

  “Rubbish! There was. I saw Jack’s face when Jim was saying ‘I, James, take thee, Evelyn——’ and all the rest of it, and it was—well—awful. And Evelyn was as white as her veil. She didn’t look any whiter when the telegram came half an hour later and Jim and Jack went off together. Oh dear, it was a tragedy—recalled like that, and then a week later both of them missing on the same day. Well, Evelyn cared for one of them all right. I wonder how many men she’s turned down in the last ten years.”

  “Why rake it all up now?” said Manning drumming irritably on the table. “For the Lord’s sake——”

  Lacy looked reproachful.

  “Evelyn’s like my very own sister. Of course, if you’re not interested——”

  At this moment Brooks came in with the pudding. Whilst he changed the plates Mrs Manning gave him three messages, recalled two of them and ended with:

  “Tell Possiter that I’m going to lie down after lunch and I want her as soon as she’s finished.”

  “Yes ma’am,” said Brooks. He then came round to Manning’s side of the table, lowered his voice in a manner which absolutely riveted Lacy’s attention, and said,

  “I give ’im some more Benger at one o’clock.”

  “Is he awake?” asked Manning sharply.

  “No, sir, ’e is not, sir. Drunk it down like a baby with ’is eyes shut.”

  “Let him sleep then.”

  When the door had closed behind Brooks, words positively burst from Mrs Manning’s lips.

  “Monkey, what on earth was Brooks talking about?”

  Manning began to explain, but was not allowed to proceed very far.

  “You brought him here!”

  “Well, yes, my dear. There—er, didn’t seem to be anything else to do.”

  “Monkey! I suppose there are hospitals. You brought an awful, dirty tramp of a creature here, and put him to bed in the spare room?”

  Manning jerked his chair back.

  “Yes, I did.”

  From these preliminaries a very pretty quarrel emerged, proceeding briskly for some five minutes or so, at the end of which time the usual reconciliation was in sight. Manning had once in an unguarded moment assured Lacy that he knew the drill so well that he would back himself to go through with it by numbers in his sleep. The end was always the same—Lacy prettily tearful and injured; Manning, self-confessed a brute, with his tongue in his cheek; a kiss or two; and a final, “Monkey, I can’t think why I married you.”

  On this particular occasion peace was restored at just about the time that Anna Blum, having finished her house-work and washed up after the mid-day meal, was setting out on the six-mile walk which lay between her and Anton in Cologne.

  Half an hour later an unwonted silence had fallen upon the Mannings’ house—the sort of silence which was only possible when its mistress was either out or fast asleep. Lacy was, in fact, slumbering comfortably and becomingly beneath a pink silk eider-down. Miss Possiter also slept—an uneasy sleep haunted by dreams in which she continually looped the loop. Manning was out; and Brooks had withdrawn himself to the seclusion of the basement. The house was extraordinarily quiet.

  VI

  It was to this quietness and stillness that the man in the spare room awoke. Lying on his back with his arms outside the coverlet, he stretched himself, yawned, and opened his eyes. A series of vague impressions presented themselves at once to his half - awakened consciousness—daylight,—nice room—very comfortable bed—rather too warm—oh Lord, yes! Much too warm—hot!

  He pushed back the bed-clothes, sat up, and put his hands to his head with the instinctive movement of a man about to run his fingers through his hair. His hands touched a bandage, and at the touch he came broad awake. A bandage—there was certainly a bandage about his head. He felt it gingerly, and was reassured. His head felt all right, a little wobbly perhaps, but nothing more. Come to think of it, he remembered being hit. They had gone up, struck that beastly fog, and lost their bearings. The Lord knows where they had got to or who was firing. But he remembered being hit. His hand went up again and fingered the bandage over his right temple. That was all. He couldn’t remember past that, except for an interminable, long dream in which he was always being ordered about and doing all sorts of things that he’d never really done in his life.

  He drew his feet up and locked his arms about his knees. Very queer things dreams. You’d expect a man to dream about things he knew something about; and here he’d been dreaming miles and miles of an endless dream about hoeing roots and ploughing a long, narrow field set round with trees. Queerest of all, in his dream he had been a German. Crazy, absolutely. But there it was.

  He began to remember all sorts of odd details out of the dream. Children throwing stones at him, and calling him “Stummer Anton,” “Dummer Anton”—German children calling out at him with German words. But—he didn’t know any German. All his muscles stiffened suddenly. For a moment he did not breathe. He did not know any German; but in his dream the children called him “Dummer Anton” “Stummer Anton”—and he understood what they said. They said “Stupid Anton,” “Dumb Anton,” and he understood them, just as he understood Tante Anna when she spoke kindly to him, and Josef when he grumbled. Tante Anna and Josef belonged to the dream, the long, long dream in which he was not himself at all, but Anton—Anton Blum. It was the very dickens of a queer start. Extraordinarily detailed the whole thing; nothing exciting about it; just an every-day dullness, going on, and on, and on. Why, he remembered the very clothes that he wore in the dream, the patches on his boots, and a neat, square darn on his left shirtsleeve——

  He stretched and yawned again, then with a
sudden movement pushed the bed-clothes right back and swung his legs out of bed. He sat on the edge of the bed, blinking hard and staring at his own bare knees. They had put him to bed in his shirt. He picked up the hem and fingered it—blue and white checked stuff, very old and faded. Good Lord! He’d never had a shirt like that in his life. Yes, he had—not really, but in the dream. Very, very slowly he lifted his right hand and felt for the darn on the other sleeve. It was there, neat and fine, just above the left elbow.

  He sprang to his feet frowning. Where in the world was he? What was this house? Not a hospital, for there was a carpet on the floor and curtains at the windows. He must have been knocked out, and then someone had picked him up, carried him off to an expensively furnished house, and put him to bed in some other fellow’s shirt. The whole thing got queerer every moment.

  He crossed the room and stood by the window looking out. What he saw told him very little—a narrow strip of garden, a few bare trees, and a grey sky over all; other trees to right and left, other town gardens.

  He was in a town. What town? And how long had he been here? How long was it since he had been hit? It was the fifteenth of November when they had gone up—a topping morning before they ran into the fog. He looked again at the trees in the narrow garden. To the eye of a boy brought up in the country, they did not look like November trees. Bare, yes—and brown; but the buds were swelling on them, and the brown had the warm, purplish tinge that comes with the rising sap.

  He turned abruptly, and looked about the room. There was a wash-stand, dressing-table, chest of drawers—all the usual furniture of a comfortable bedroom. A couple of steps took him to the dressing-table. He tilted the glass and, as he did so, saw his own image in it flicker and blur. He gripped the table so hard that the edge came near to cutting his hands. The glass, tipped back, showed him, not himself, but a figure unfamiliar and repulsive, heavy-shouldered, with a forward stoop of the head, shaggy-haired, and bearded almost to the eyes. The bandage that crossed the forehead alone told him that what he saw was himself. Months—it must have been months since he was wounded; a beard like that takes months to grow. He stepped back and took another look about him.