“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.