Patricia Wentworth: She Came Back

“Anne’s wedding-ring had an inscription inside it, hadn’t it? I remember you told me.”

“A. J., and the date,” said Philip.

Anne slipped off the sapphire, slipped off the platinum ring beneath it, crossed to Milly Armitage, and held it out on her palm.

“A. J., and the date,” she said.

There was a moment of silence. Nobody moved. Lyndall felt as if her heart would break. The three people she loved most in the world were there in that silence together. It wasn’t just a silence. It was cold, it was suspicion, it was distrust- and that icy anger of Philip’s which cut to the bone. She wanted to run away and hide. But you can’t hide from a thing which is in your own mind. It goes with you. You can’t hide from it. She stayed where she was, and heard Philip say,

“Anne took off her wedding-ring when she went to France. We quarrelled about her going, and she took it off.”

Anne stepped back.

“I put it on again.”

“I’ve no doubt you did-when you made up your mind to this impersonation. Now perhaps you will give us your story. You’ve had mine. I suppose you’ve got one ready. You had better let us have it.”

“Philip-” Her voice broke a little on the word. She slipped the ring back on her finger and stood up straight. “I’m very glad to tell you my story. Aunt Milly and Lyn have heard it already. Pierre helped me to get away from the beach. There was a cave-we hid there until the shooting was over. I had sprained my ankle very badly. The Germans came down and searched, but they didn’t find us. When they had gone away we went back to the château. I was very wet and cold, and I was beginning to be ill. By the time the Germans came to search I was in a high fever. Pierre told them that I was Annie Joyce, and that I had been living there for ten years with my old cousin who had just died. He said there had been another English lady there, but she had gone away when she heard that the soldiers were coming. They sent a doctor to look at me, and he said I had double pneumonia and couldn’t be moved. I was ill for a long time. They left me alone. When I was all right they sent me to a concentration camp, but I got ill again and they let me go back. That’s all. I just lived there with Pierre and his wife. Fortunately Cousin Theresa always kept a great deal of money in the house. We kept finding it in all sorts of places-lavender-bags, pin-cushions, between the pages of books, rolled up in the toes of her slippers. When it seemed to be coming to an end I began to feel desperate.”

“Why did you never write?”

“I was afraid. They were leaving me alone, and I didn’t want to do anything that might stir them up. But I did write- twice-when Pierre said there was a chance of getting a letter smuggled across.”

“Are you very surprised that these-letters-never arrived?”

She met his look with an open one.

“Oh, no-I knew it was only a chance. Then a week ago I was offered a chance of getting over, myself. I had to put up all the rest of Cousin Theresa’s money, but I thought it was worth the risk. I landed with nothing in my purse except a five-pound note which I had taken over with me. There isn’t a great deal of change left out of it now, so if you’re thinking of turning me out, I’m afraid you will have to provide me with funds until Mr. Codrington has handed my own money over to me again.”

Philip considered this in a cold fury. He couldn’t turn her out penniless, and she knew it. But every hour she spent under his roof was going to help her claim. If he turned out himself… He was damned if he would turn out of Jocelyn’s Holt for Annie Joyce.

There was hardly any pause before he said, “Anne’s money.” And none at all between that and her reply, “My money, Philip.”

A most extraordinary situation,” said Mr. Codrington. “Awkward-very awkward. You know, it would have been better if you had left the house.”

Philip Jocelyn smiled.

“Leave Miss Annie Joyce in possession? I’m afraid that doesn’t appeal to me.”

Mr. Codrington frowned. His father and he between them had known four generations of Jocelyns. They were an intractable family. He had attended Philip’s christening and known him ever since-liked him a good deal, and was not at all sure that he wasn’t the most intractable of the lot. Lawyers see a good deal of human nature. He said,

“These identity cases are always ticklish, and they attract a most undesirable amount of interest.”

“An understatement, I should say.”

Mr. Codrington looked grave.

“If she brings a case-” he said, and then broke off. “You know, I couldn’t go into the box myself and swear she wasn’t Anne Jocelyn.”

“You couldn’t?”

“No, I couldn’t.”

“You think she’d win her case?”

“I don’t say that. She might break down under cross-examination. Short of that-” He shrugged his shoulders. “You know, Philip, the resemblance is amazing, and the trouble is we can’t get at the people who know Annie Joyce, and by the time we can get at them-if there are any of them left-accurate recollection will be dimmed. She’s been over there in France with Miss Jocelyn ever since she was fifteen, and that’s getting on for eleven years ago. I saw her just before she went-Miss Jocelyn brought her into my office. She was a year or two older than Anne, and thinner in the face, but there was quite a likeness-you’ve all got the same eyes and general colouring. But there it ended. Her hair was darker and quite straight-none of Anne’s wave.”

Philip smiled.

“Hair can be tinted and waves induced.”

“That, I think, would be susceptible of proof.”

Philip shook his head.

“Aunt Milly raised the point last night. Miss Joyce had her answer ready. Three years of privation had spoiled her hair dreadfully. She had had to have a permanent wave as soon as she landed. She said she had found a very good hairdresser in Westhaven-spent her last penny on it. And as to the colour, all these fair girls use a brightening wash, you know. Anne did herself, so there’s nothing in that.”

Mr. Codrington slewed round in his chair.

“Philip,” he said, “will you tell me just why you are so sure that she isn’t Anne? When I went into the room just now and saw her standing there under the portrait-well, you know-”

Philip Jocelyn laughed.

“She’s very fond of standing under Anne’s portrait. It’s a pity she can’t wear the fur coat all the time. She made a most effective entrance in it, I understand, but she can’t very well go on wearing it in the house. Everything else is most carefully reproduced-the hair, the dress, the pearls-Anne to the life at the time the portrait was painted. But don’t you see how that gives her away? Why should Anne dress to a portrait that’s four years old? Do you see her doing her hair the same way for four years? I don’t.” He gave a short laugh. “Why should she bother to reproduce Amory’s portrait, or to stop in Westhaven and have things done to her hair? If she was Anne she wouldn’t have to bother. She could come home in any old rag, with her head tied up in a scarf like half the girls do anyway, and it would never occur to her that she could be taken for anyone else. It’s the woman who’s putting on an act who’s got to dress the part and be particular over her make-up. Why should Anne think that her identity would be questioned? The bare possibility would simply never enter her head.”

Mr. Codrington nodded slowly.

“That’s a point. But I don’t quite know what a jury would think about it. Juries like facts. I’m afraid they don’t care about psychology.”

“Well, it’s one of my reasons for being sure she isn’t Anne. Here’s another-but I’m afraid you’ll call that psychological too. She’s astonishingly like Anne-as Anne might have been if she had lived to be nearly four years older-astonishingly like, to look at. But she’s not Anne, because if she were, she’d have flared back the moment I gave her the rough side of my tongue. I didn’t mince words, you know, and she turned the other cheek. I don’t see Anne doing that.”