No circumstance of the slightest importance happened on my way to the
offices of Messrs. Gilmore & Kyrle, in Chancery Lane.
While my card was being taken in to Mr. Kyrle, a consideration occurred
to me which I deeply regretted not having thought of before. The
information derived from Marian’s diary made it a matter of certainty
that Count Fosco had opened her first letter from Blackwater Park to
Mr. Kyrle, and had, by means of his wife, intercepted the second. He
was therefore well aware of the address of the office, and he would
naturally infer that if Marian wanted advice and assistance, after
Laura’s escape from the Asylum, she would apply once more to the
experience of Mr. Kyrle. In this case the office in Chancery Lane
was the very first place which he and Sir Percival would cause to be
watched, and if the same persons were chosen for the purpose who had
been employed to follow me, before my departure from England, the fact
of my return would in all probability be ascertained on that very day.
I had thought, generally, of the chances of my being recognised in
the streets, but the special risk connected with the office had never
occurred to me until the present moment. It was too late now to repair
this unfortunate error in judgment—too late to wish that I had made
arrangements for meeting the lawyer in some place privately appointed
beforehand. I could only resolve to be cautious on leaving Chancery
Lane, and not to go straight home again under any circumstances
whatever.
After waiting a few minutes I was shown into Mr. Kyrle’s private room.
He was a pale, thin, quiet, self-possessed man, with a very attentive
eye, a very low voice, and a very undemonstrative manner—not (as I
judged) ready with his sympathy where strangers were concerned, and not
at all easy to disturb in his professional composure. A better man for
my purpose could hardly have been found. If he committed himself to a
decision at all, and if the decision was favourable, the strength of
our case was as good as proved from that moment.
“Before I enter on the business which brings me here,” I said, “I ought
to warn you, Mr. Kyrle, that the shortest statement I can make of it
may occupy some little time.”
“My time is at Miss Halcombe’s disposal,” he replied. “Where any
interests of hers are concerned, I represent my partner personally, as
well as professionally. It was his request that I should do so, when he
ceased to take an active part in business.”
“May I inquire whether Mr. Gilmore is in England?”
“He is not, he is living with his relatives in Germany. His health has
improved, but the period of his return is still uncertain.”
While we were exchanging these few preliminary words, he had been
searching among the papers before him, and he now produced from them a
sealed letter. I thought he was about to hand the letter to me, but,
apparently changing his mind, he placed it by itself on the table,
settled himself in his chair, and silently waited to hear what I had to
say.
Without wasting a moment in prefatory words of any sort, I entered on
my narrative, and put him in full possession of the events which have
already been related in these pages.
Lawyer as he was to the very marrow of his bones, I startled him out of
his professional composure. Expressions of incredulity and surprise,
which he could not repress, interrupted me several times before I had
done. I persevered, however, to the end, and as soon as I reached it,
boldly asked the one important question—
“What is your opinion, Mr. Kyrle?”
He was too cautious to commit himself to an answer without taking time
to recover his self-possession first.
“Before I give my opinion,” he said, “I must beg permission to clear
the ground by a few questions.”
He put the questions—sharp, suspicious, unbelieving questions, which
clearly showed me, as they proceeded, that he thought I was the
victim of a delusion, and that he might even have doubted, but for my
introduction to him by Miss Halcombe, whether I was not attempting the
perpetration of a cunningly-designed fraud.
“Do you believe that I have spoken the truth, Mr. Kyrle?” I asked, when
he had done examining me.
“So far as your own convictions are concerned, I am certain you have
spoken the truth,” he replied. “I have the highest esteem for Miss
Halcombe, and I have therefore every reason to respect a gentleman
whose mediation she trusts in a matter of this kind. I will even go
farther, if you like, and admit, for courtesy’s sake and for argument’s
sake, that the identity of Lady Glyde as a living person is a proved
fact to Miss Halcombe and yourself. But you come to me for a legal
opinion. As a lawyer, and as a lawyer only, it is my duty to tell you,
Mr. Hartright, that you have not the shadow of a case.”
“You put it strongly, Mr. Kyrle.”
“I will try to put it plainly as well. The evidence of Lady Glyde’s
death is, on the face of it, clear and satisfactory. There is her
aunt’s testimony to prove that she came to Count Fosco’s house, that
she fell ill, and that she died. There is the testimony of the medical
certificate to prove the death, and to show that it took place under
natural circumstances. There is the fact of the funeral at Limmeridge,
and there is the assertion of the inscription on the tomb. That is
the case you want to overthrow. What evidence have you to support the
declaration on your side that the person who died and was buried was
not Lady Glyde? Let us run through the main points of your statement
and see what they are worth. Miss Halcombe goes to a certain private
Asylum, and there sees a certain female patient. It is known that a
woman named Anne Catherick, and bearing an extraordinary personal
resemblance to Lady Glyde, escaped from the Asylum; it is known that
the person received there last July was received as Anne Catherick
brought back; it is known that the gentleman who brought her back
warned Mr. Fairlie that it was part of her insanity to be bent on
personating his dead niece; and it is known that she did repeatedly
declare herself in the Asylum (where no one believed her) to be Lady
Glyde. These are all facts. What have you to set against them? Miss
Halcombe’s recognition of the woman, which recognition after-events
invalidate or contradict. Does Miss Halcombe assert her supposed
sister’s identity to the owner of the Asylum, and take legal means for
rescuing her? No, she secretly bribes a nurse to let her escape. When
the patient has been released in this doubtful manner, and is taken to
Mr. Fairlie, does he recognise her? Is he staggered for one instant in
his belief of his niece’s death? No. Do the servants recognise her? No.
Is she kept in the neighbourhood to assert her own identity, and to
stand the test of further proceedings? No, she is privately taken to
London. In the meantime you have recognised her also, but you are not
a relative—you are not even an old friend of the family. The servants
contradict you, and Mr. Fairlie contradicts Miss Halcombe, and the
supposed Lady Glyde contradicts herself. She declares she passed the
night in London at a certain house. Your own evidence shows that she
has never been near that house, and your own admission is that her
condition of mind prevents you from producing her anywhere to submit to
investigation, and to speak for herself. I pass over minor points of
evidence on both sides to save time, and I ask you, if this case were
to go now into a court of law—to go before a jury, bound to take facts
as they reasonably appear—where are your proofs?”
I was obliged to wait and collect myself before I could answer him.
It was the first time the story of Laura and the story of Marian had
been presented to me from a stranger’s point of view—the first time
the terrible obstacles that lay across our path had been made to show
themselves in their true character.
“There can be no doubt,” I said, “that the facts, as you have stated
them, appear to tell against us, but——”
“But you think those facts can be explained away,” interposed Mr.
Kyrle. “Let me tell you the result of my experience on that point.
When an English jury has to choose between a plain fact ON the surface
and a long explanation UNDER the surface, it always takes the fact in
preference to the explanation. For example, Lady Glyde (I call the lady
you represent by that name for argument’s sake) declares she has slept
at a certain house, and it is proved that she has not slept at that
house. You explain this circumstance by entering into the state of her
mind, and deducing from it a metaphysical conclusion. I don’t say the
conclusion is wrong—I only say that the jury will take the fact of her
contradicting herself in preference to any reason for the contradiction
that you can offer.”
“But is it not possible,” I urged, “by dint of patience and exertion,
to discover additional evidence? Miss Halcombe and I have a few hundred
pounds——”
He looked at me with a half-suppressed pity, and shook his head.
“Consider the subject, Mr. Hartright, from your own point of view,” he
said. “If you are right about Sir Percival Glyde and Count Fosco (which
I don’t admit, mind), every imaginable difficulty would be thrown in
the way of your getting fresh evidence. Every obstacle of litigation
would be raised—every point in the case would be systematically
contested—and by the time we had spent our thousands instead of our
hundreds, the final result would, in all probability, be against
us. Questions of identity, where instances of personal resemblance
are concerned, are, in themselves, the hardest of all questions to
settle—the hardest, even when they are free from the complications
which beset the case we are now discussing. I really see no prospect of
throwing any light whatever on this extraordinary affair. Even if the
person buried in Limmeridge churchyard be not Lady Glyde, she was, in
life, on your own showing, so like her, that we should gain nothing,
if we applied for the necessary authority to have the body exhumed. In
short, there is no case, Mr. Hartright—there is really no case.”
I was determined to believe that there WAS a case, and in that
determination shifted my ground, and appealed to him once more.
“Are there not other proofs that we might produce besides the proof of
identity?” I asked.
“Not as you are situated,” he replied. “The simplest and surest of
all proofs, the proof by comparison of dates, is, as I understand,
altogether out of your reach. If you could show a discrepancy between
the date of the doctor’s certificate and the date of Lady Glyde’s
journey to London, the matter would wear a totally different aspect,
and I should be the first to say, Let us go on.”
“That date may yet be recovered, Mr. Kyrle.”
“On the day when it is recovered, Mr. Hartright, you will have a case.
If you have any prospect, at this moment, of getting at it—tell me, and
we shall see if I can advise you.”
I considered. The housekeeper could not help us—Laura could not help
us—Marian could not help us. In all probability, the only persons in
existence who knew the date were Sir Percival and the Count.
“I can think of no means of ascertaining the date at present,” I said,
“because I can think of no persons who are sure to know it, but Count
Fosco and Sir Percival Glyde.”
Mr. Kyrle’s calmly attentive face relaxed, for the first time, into a
smile.
“With your opinion of the conduct of those two gentlemen,” he said,
“you don’t expect help in that quarter, I presume? If they have
combined to gain large sums of money by a conspiracy, they are not
likely to confess it, at any rate.”
“They may be forced to confess it, Mr. Kyrle.”
“By whom?”
“By me.”
We both rose. He looked me attentively in the face with more appearance
of interest than he had shown yet. I could see that I had perplexed him
a little.
“You are very determined,” he said. “You have, no doubt, a personal
motive for proceeding, into which it is not my business to inquire.
If a case can be produced in the future, I can only say, my best
assistance is at your service. At the same time I must warn you, as the
money question always enters into the law question, that I see little
hope, even if you ultimately established the fact of Lady Glyde’s being
alive, of recovering her fortune. The foreigner would probably leave
the country before proceedings were commenced, and Sir Percival’s
embarrassments are numerous enough and pressing enough to transfer
almost any sum of money he may possess from himself to his creditors.
You are of course aware——”