"I never heard that Charity had a twin."
"Nor did I. But then we don't know Charity's history."
"I do, in part," said Tod quickly. "When Mrs. Pelham Odin was traveling with her own comedy company in India, fifteen or sixteen years ago, she found Charity at Calcutta. The child was then five years of age, and belonged to a native woman of the juggler caste."
"Native? Do you mean to say that Charity has nigger blood?"
"No," snapped Tod sharply, "I don't. You have only to look at her to see that she is purely European. The native woman confessed to Mrs. Pelham Odin that she had picked up the child from an ayah at Simla for a few rupees. The ayah had perhaps stolen the child from some English people, or perhaps the mother was dead. At any rate the native woman bought the child, and taught her to dance in the show she and her husband went round with. Mrs. Pelham Odin took a fancy to the child's beauty, and bought her from this native woman, and adopted her as her daughter in a way. She called her Charity because of the way in which she was found, and Bird because of her silvery voice."
"Ha!" Gerald started, "another point of resemblance. Mavis has a voice like a nightingale. Tod, I must learn Mavis's past life; these two girls must be connected in some way; the resemblance is too wonderful."
"There are chance likenesses," hinted Tod slowly.
"I daresay, but Nature doesn't turn out two girls line for line the same unless she sends them into the world as twins. Mavis was brought to the Pixy's House when she was five years of age, but she doesn't remember where she lived before that. She is twenty-one in ten months."
"By Jupiter!" Tod hoisted himself up with a curious look, "that's odd, for Charity told me that she would be twenty-one next year, and then could run away with me. Perhaps there is something in what you say, Jerry, after all. What's to be done?"
Haskins pinched his chin. "Let us leave the question of the resemblance alone for the moment, Tod. What I want you to do is to go to Somerset House and look up the wills."