She led him into the tiny parlour, and asked him to be seated. At Smeaton’s request she told him all about her lodger.
“He was in very poor health, sir, when he came here, and he seemed to gradually get worse. He was a very quiet gentleman; spent most of his time reading. When he first came he took long walks, but latterly he had to give these up. He lived a most solitary life, hardly ever wrote or received a letter, and had only one visitor, who came from London to see him occasionally.”
“Can you describe this visitor to me?” asked Smeaton.
“A tall, bearded man, who walked with a limp, and looked like a foreigner. He told me he was his brother. I remarked once how unlike they were, and he smiled and said he took after his mother, and the other after his father. Once he told me that Charlton was not his proper name, that he had taken it for the sake of property.”
A somewhat indiscreet admission, thought Smeaton. But after all those years there was little to fear. He had been forgotten by now, and this simple woman could do him no harm.
The landlady went on with her narrative.
“As I told you, sir, he got worse and worse, and Doctor Mayhew, who lives a little way beyond the village, was always in and out. It must have cost a small fortune, that long illness. Then one night, just before the end, he sent me with a telegram to his brother—it was a long foreign name, and I can’t remember it.”
“Bolinski,” suggested Smeaton.
The woman looked puzzled. “Very likely, sir; I know it began with a B. Next day the brother came down, and stayed with him till he died, a matter of a week. I remember when the doctor was going to give the certificate he told him the right name to put on it. I remember his words: ‘The name of Charlton was assumed, doctor. On the certificate we will have the real one. It doesn’t matter now. It was assumed for reasons I do not wish to explain, and they would not interest you.’”
“When did he die?” asked Smeaton eagerly.