The Changeling

"Oh, I am sorry."

"No one need express any sorrow on that account. As he left my mother when I was a baby, I have never seen him. I did not know that he was in England. It appears that he has been a sandwich-man for some time. And he died in a pauper infirmary. As for myself, I feel neither shame nor grief; he was to me, as to you, a stranger. But perhaps I can use the event in order to give publicity to our story, if we must court publicity."

"Well, let us hope – But go on."

"As for Lady Woodroffe, she has actually confessed the thing."

He then proceeded to tell the story of the child's clothes.

The doctor became thoughtful. The audacity of showing and claiming the clothes astonished him.

"It isn't evidence, Dick," he said.

"No; but it's complete proof to the true mother."

"Perhaps – to her."

Sir Robert, in fact, admitted everything. But at this stage a mere admission of the kind meant nothing.

"It was a strange thing to do," said the doctor. "There is the audacity of despair about it. She had quite forgotten the fact that the register of deaths contained the name of the boy. If it had been a common name, it would have mattered little. She did not tell me that the child died in Birmingham. That doctor – what is his name? Ah! I don't know him. Does he know the meaning and bearing of his evidence?"

"I believe not. He will not talk, however. He has undertaken to preserve absolute silence until he is called upon to speak."

"Keep the power of disclosure in your own hands, Dick. Above all things, do that. Why did she produce the child's clothes? Woman's wit is hard to follow. 'My word against all the world,' she meant, I believe. As if she must be believed on her bare assertion, against all the facts that could be brought against her. It was her pride. Like all female leaders, she is incredibly proud. She means to stand up and deny. On the other hand, the situation is harassing; there are points in the case which make it almost impossible – "

"The goings-on of my ill-conditioned brother, I suppose?"

"Perhaps – perhaps. I wish she had told me when and how the child died."

They dined together. Over an excellent bottle of Chateau Mouton they exchanged further confidences.

"My dear Dick," said the doctor, "it's a serious situation. You propose to cover a woman of the highest reputation with infamy. She says, in effect, 'You are quite right. I am that infamous person. But prove it.' You want to restore to another most amiable and honourable woman her son, and he would break her heart in a year. You want me to identify the lady, and thereby to confess my share in a transaction which might be made to look like complicity in a fraud and a conspiracy. I told her at the time that it looked like substitution, though she called it adoption. Well, I can imitate the lady's frankness; that is to say, I do not in so many words confess the truth, but I show it; I allow you to conclude that the thing is true. And, like the lady, I defy you. You will find out nothing more. And if you were to put me in the box – if you were to make me tell the truth about that infernal babe – never, never would I confess to knowing the name of the lady. And without that evidence you can never prove your case."

As a rule, the doctor was the last man in the world either to dream or to trouble himself with dreams; nevertheless, there fell upon him an incubus of the night which was so persistent, that, though he waked a dozen times and shook off the thing, a dozen times it came again. And so vivid was it that he saw it still when he awoke in the morning, and heard it, and remembered it, and felt it.

For in this dream he saw himself giving evidence in a court of law as to his own share in the substitution of another child for the dead child.

And in the dream he saw himself losing reputation, character, practice, everything. As the evidence was reluctantly given, he saw the face of the judge growing more and more severe, the faces of the jury harder, the faces in the court more hostile. He read in all his own condemnation.

This is what he had to say.

"In the years 1873-1876 I was carrying on a general practice in a quarter of Birmingham. I was, in fact, a sixpenny doctor, charging that sum for advice and medicine, and having a fairly good reputation among the poorer class of that quarter. On a certain afternoon in February, 1874" – here the witness referred to his books – "a lady entered the surgery. She was deeply veiled, and in much trouble. She told me that she wanted to adopt a child in the place of her own, whom she had just lost by death. She asked me, further, if I knew of any poor woman who would give up her child. It was to be about fifteen months old. She gave the date of her dead child's birth as December the 2nd, 1872. And it must have light hair and blue eyes.

"Among my patients was a woman left penniless by her husband, who had deserted her. She wanted, above all things, money to go in search of him. As he was an actor in a small way, she thought it would be easy to find him if she had money to travel with. The woman was mad with grief. She was ready to give up the child in return for the money she wanted. At the time, she would have given up her own soul for the money. The child was somewhere about the required age – a month more or less mattered little; it had blue eyes and light hair. I made the arrangement with her. I took the child, also by arrangement, to the Great Western Railway Station, and gave it to an Indian ayah, who carried it into a first-class carriage, where the lady sat. Then the train went off, and I saw nothing more of the lady or the child for twenty-four years.

"I did not know, nor did I ask, the lady's name or address; only on a half-torn envelope, in which she had placed the notes – ten five-pound notes – for the mother of the child, was the word, 'Lady W – ,' as part of an address.

"I did not know, nor did I ask, the lady's intentions. She said she wanted to adopt a child. I arranged this for her. I took the mother the sum of fifty pounds, and I charged the lady a fee of three guineas. The only question we discussed was that of heredity, and especially the danger of the child inheriting criminal tendencies.

"Four and twenty years later I received a visit – being then a physician practising in London – from the mother of the child, who had remembered my name. She was anxious to learn, if possible, what had become of her son. She had become rich, and would willingly claim the child.

"Upon her departure I began to think over the case, which I had almost forgotten. I remembered, first, the half-torn envelope. And then, looking at my note-book, I remembered the date of the dead child's birth – December 2, 1872. I took down a Peerage, and looked through the pages. Presently I discovered what I wanted, under the name of Woodroffe. The present baronet, the second, is there described as born on December 2, 1872. Now, the son of the first baronet, the late Sir Humphrey Woodroffe, who died early in 1874, was born on that day. It was so extremely unlikely that two women enjoying the title of 'Lady W.' should have a son born on the same day, that I naturally concluded the second baronet and the adopted child were one and the same person. So convinced was I of this fact that I ventured to call upon Lady Woodroffe, and satisfied myself that it was so.

"As, however, I had ascertained the truth in this unexpected manner, I assured Lady Woodroffe that the secret should remain with me until she herself should give me permission to reveal it.

"Meantime, one of Mrs. Haveril's friends began to make inquiries into the case. He ascertained that the son of Sir Humphrey Woodroffe died, a child of fifteen months old, at Birmingham, early in 1874. He further learned that the so-called son, in person, figure, and face, closely resembled the father of the adopted child; and he learned also that the medical man who attended the dead child knew its name, and could absolutely identify the mother as the present Lady Woodroffe. In fact, the case was so far capable of proof that no reasonable person could entertain the slightest doubt on the subject.

"It was certainly open to Lady Woodroffe to perjure herself by denying that she had ever been in Birmingham. This she was going to do. I took no steps to dissuade her; nor did I take any steps to put an end to the fraudulent representation of this young man as Sir Humphrey's son; in fact, I became a party to the conspiracy."

He looked round the court in his dream, and read his own condemnation in all the faces.

When he awoke in the morning, the scene began all over again.

"Confound the baby!" he groaned. "Am I never to get to the end of it?"

He went down to breakfast, trying to shake off the feeling of disquiet that possessed him.

Just as he sat down, Richard Woodroffe called. "I am sorry to disturb you," he said, "but I have just been called to the Hôtel Métropole. Mrs. Haveril has had a miserable night. Molly sat up with her. She was weeping and crying all the night. This morning she is a wreck. There is, perhaps, no time to be lost – "

"I knew something was going to happen."

"If she is to get her son back, it must be soon, or that dream of hers will not come true."

"Sit down, Dick. I've had a horrid night too. We will consider directly what is best to be done."

While he spoke there came a letter – "By hand. Sir Robert Steele. Bearer waits."

"Dear Sir Robert,

"Come to see me as soon as you can. I have had the most terrible night.

    "Yours,
    "L. W."

"Again! Three terrible nights for the three principal conspirators. The devil is in the business, I believe. Now, Dick, I have to call on Lady Woodroffe. Before I go to see this lady – "

"I sincerely hope she will treat you as she did me. The manners of the aristocracy never showed to such advantage in my experience."

"Before I go to see this lady – " Sir Robert repeated.

Again Richard interrupted him. "We cannot afford to wait any longer. Mrs. Haveril's condition forbids it. I have determined to write to Humphrey. I shall begin by informing him of his father's death. I shall invite him to join me in paying his father's debts. I shall then advertise the death of Anthony Woodroffe in the Marylebone Infirmary as the father of Sir Humphrey Woodroffe. That will make him do something. If he likes to go to law, we will meet him; if he wishes to see me, I will tell him everything."

"Why not go to him at once without any letter?"

"Because he will thus learn, in the most dramatic way possible, the name and the social position of his real father."

"Dick, you make this a personal matter."