"In 1897."
"What date?"
It was the crucial question, but since he meant to tell everything he
knew, Tom had no choice but to be exact.
"I'm not very sure of the date, because my mother changed it at three
different times. At first my birthday used to be on the fifth of March;
but afterward she said that that had been the birthday of a little
half-sister of mine who died before I was born."
"What was her name?"
"Grace Coburn."
"And her parents' names?"
"Thomas and Lucy Coburn."
"And after your birthday was changed from the fifth of March--?"
"It was shifted to September, but not for very long. Later my mother
told me I was born on the tenth of May, and we always kept to that."
From the woman there was something like a smothered cry, but the man
only took his notes.
"The tenth of May, 1897. Did she ever tell you why she selected that
date?"
"No, sir."
"Did she ever say anything about it, about what kind of day it was, or
anything at all that you can remember?"
Tom hesitated. The reflection that the wisest course was to make a
clean breast of everything impelled him to go on.
"She only said that it was a day when all the nursemaids had had their
babies in the Park, and the lilacs were in bloom."
There followed the question of which he was most afraid, because he
often put it to himself.
"Why should she have said that, when, if you were born in the Bronx,
she and her baby were miles away?"
"I don't know, sir."
"What was your mother's maiden name?"
"I don't know, sir."
"She was married to Thomas Coburn before she was married to Theodore
Whitelaw, your father?"
"Yes, sir."
"Where were she and your father married?"
"I don't know, sir."
"What _do_ you know about your father?"
"Nothing at all. I never heard his name till she gave it at the police
station, the night before she died."
"Oh, at the police station! Why there?"
Tom told the whole story, keeping nothing back.
The man's only comment was to say, "And you never heard the name of
Whitelaw in connection with yourself till you heard it on that evening?"
"Yes, sir, I'd heard it before that."
"When and how?"
"Always when my mother was in a--in a state of nerves. You mustn't
forget that she wasn't exactly in her right mind. That was the excuse
for what she--she did in shops. So, once in so often, she'd say that I
was never to think that my name was Whitelaw, or that she'd stolen me."
There was again from the woman a little moaning gasp, but the man was
outwardly self-possessed.
"So she said that?"
"Yes, sir."
"And have you any explanation why?"
"I didn't have then; I've worked one out. You see, my name really
being Whitelaw, and her mind a little unbalanced, she was afraid
she might be suspected of--your little boy's case had got so much
publicity--and she a friendless woman, with no husband or relations--"
"So that you don't think she did--steal you?"