“And continued as it returned to your landing?”
“Yes.”
“Yes. Would you mind telling me what happened when the lift stopped at the top landing?”
“We were bewildered. We couldn’t think what had happened, why she was — was making such an appalling scene. She — she — I should explain that she is rather highly-strung. A little hysterical, perhaps. The lift stopped and Henry opened the doors. She rushed out, almost fell out, into my wife’s arms. My son, the twin — I — it’s too stupid that I can’t tell you which it was — came out without speaking, or if he did speak I didn’t hear him. You see I was looking in the lift.”
“That must have been a great shock to you, my lord,” said Fox simply.
“Yes: A great shock.”
“I saw my brother,” said Lord Charles loudly and rapidly. “He was sitting at the end of the seat. The injury — it was there — I saw it — I–I didn’t understand then, that they — my sister-in-law and my son — had gone down in the lift without at first realizing there was anything the matter.”
“When did you realize this, my lord?”
“As soon as my wife had calmed her down a little she began to speak about it. She was very wild and incoherent, but I made out as much as that.”
“You did not question your son, my lord? Whichever son it was,” inquired Fox, as if the confusion of one’s children’s identities was the most natural thing in the world.