Ellery Queen’s Anthology. Volume 12, 1967

Allan Vaughan Elston Eva? Caroline?

Allan Vaughan Elston grew up on his father’s ranch near the Colorado-New Mexico line, where antelope were plentiful and the rincon of a timbered mesa was full of deer and bear and wild turkey, where men of the sage and mesquite habitually wore six-guns and where The Three R’s stood for riding, roping, and roaring. From these deep-rooted beginnings how was it possible for Mr. Elston ultimately to write a novelet like “Eva? Caroline?”

Well, Mr. Elston left the ranch of his father, went to college, became an engineer, gave up surveying railroads for a career of writing, and now he plots stories from {in his own words) the logical, mathematical viewpoint of his later professional, rather than his earlier environmental, background.

But plots are neither cold logic nor precise mathematics: they are about people, and surely that characteristic stems, however transmuted, from Mr. Elston s boyhood and young manhood on the old ranch, where the sea of bunch grass heaved in the sun and the lordly herds lowed down in the wind...

“That,” roger marsh asserted with a strained effort to speak calmly, “is absurd and impossible. My wife died almost four years ago.”

Inspector Whipple, who had just arrived in Baltimore to interview Roger Marsh, gave the photograph a puzzled stare. It was the picture of a woman, one which he had taken himself only day before yesterday in Seattle. “Then this,” he said, “can’t be your wife.”

Roger tried hard to control himself. “Of course not,” he said stiffly.

“You admit it looks like her?”

“I admit it does. If you’d shown it to me four years ago I might have sworn it was Caroline. But since you took it only this week, it has to be someone else.”

They were in the drawing room of the old Marsh house. Five generations of Marshes had lived here amid high-ceilinged elegance, the gentlest and richest of the old Maryland culture.

And Roger Marsh, severely handsome at thirty-three, looked part of it. A portrait of his great-grandfather over the mantel had the same narrow granite face, the uncompromising gaze of a man who doesn’t believe in change. Apparent too was a long-bred restraint which would be instantly revolted by anything sensational.

Inspector Whipple studied the man sitting opposite him; then he said, “Who, Mr. Marsh, was with your wife when she died?”

Roger reminded himself that this police officer was his guest for the moment and must be treated as such. When he spoke, it was with a carefully disciplined patience. “I was. So was our family doctor. So was a nurse at a local hospital.”

“Tell me the how, when and where of it, Mr. Marsh. You’d been married how long?”

“I was married eight years ago,” Roger told him. “Seven years ago I went into the army. Judge Advocate’s department, foreign service. In London, three years later, I received a cablegram from Dr. Cawfield, our family physician, saying my wife had pneumonia. So I got an emergency leave and flew home.”

“Was she still living when you arrived?”

“Yes, but failing fast. She lingered on for six more days.”

“Did she have a twin sister? An identical twin?”

“She did not,” Roger said. “What are you suggesting, Inspector?”

“You’re quite certain the woman who died was your wife?”

With a stern effort Roger controlled his irritation. “Are you implying I didn’t know my own wife? I tell you I was there at her bedside. So was Dr. Cawfield. During those last six days she was occasionally able to talk and receive visitors. Many of her closest friends called to see her.”

“Was her casket open at the funeral? Did lots of people who knew her well see her then?”

“Scores of them,” Roger said, his face flushed.

“The woman in Seattle,” Whipple explained, “is known to the police as Eva Lang. She’s a confidence woman and five years ago she killed a man in Detroit. The crime was witnessed. Police had a good description of her but no fingerprints. A week ago we raided a farm near Walla Walla, Washington, where four wanted men were hiding out. Three of them were killed in the fight; the fourth escaped. But we picked up a woman living with them who was identified as Eva Lang. Her defense is: ‘I’m not Eva Lang; I’m Mrs. Roger Marsh.’ ”

Roger reclaimed the photograph and gave it a long bitter stare. “This woman just happens to look like Caroline. So now she’s using that fact to save her life.”

“She gave us a list of twenty-eight people in Baltimore who, she claims, will verify that she’s Caroline Marsh,” Inspector Whipple said. He handed Roger a list of names.

Roger saw that his own name headed it. Next came Dr. Cawfield; Effie Foster, who had been Caroline’s most intimate friend, was third. Others on the list were neighbors, clubwomen, friends.

“This is the most ridiculous hoax I ever heard of,” Roger said. “These same people were at her funeral.”

Whipple nodded in sympathy. “No doubt you’re right. But it’s something we have to straighten out. Did your wife have any distinguishing scars?”

Roger concentrated. “Only one,” he said. “Just after we were married, she burned the third knuckle of her right hand with a hot iron. It left a small star-shaped white scar.”

The statement startled Whipple. “Our prisoner in Seattle,” he said, “also has a burn scar on the third knuckle of her right hand.”

Roger closed his eyes for a moment. This can’t be happening, he thought. His mind clung stubbornly to the one certain fact: Caroline’s death four years ago. “If Caroline had had a twin sister,” he snapped, “she would have told me. I don’t want to be brusque, Inspector, but I have no desire to be dragged into this.”

“The trouble is, you’re already in,” Whipple argued amiably. “It’s like this: the Detroit police want to try Eva Lang for that murder she committed five years ago. But when she claimed she’s your wife and named twenty-eight witnesses to prove it, Detroit got worried. If she really is the wife of a wealthy Maryland lawyer, extraditing her as Eva Lang might get them in hot water. So they tell us to disprove the Marsh angle first, then they’ll take her to Detroit for trial. That’s why I came here to Baltimore. I want to take the top three persons named on the list back with me to Seattle. They can look at her, talk to her and say whether she’s your wife.”

“You want to take me, Dr. Caw-field and Effie Foster clear across the continent just to say a living impostor isn’t a woman who died four years ago? I won’t do it. Talk to Dr. Cawfield while you’re here and with nurses at the hospital and the mortician if you want to; then go back to Seattle and tell Eva Lang to retract her ridiculous statement.”

Whipple smiled tolerantly. “I don’t blame you for wanting to avoid publicity. But you’re heading right into it. Because ultimately she’ll go on trial for murder and her defense will be that she’s your wife. You yourself will be subpoenaed as a witness to identify her. It’ll be a field day for the papers. So why not silence her at once, in the privacy of the Seattle jail? Think it over, Mr. Marsh.”

Reluctantly Roger realized the inspector was right. “Very well,” he agreed. “I’ll go. She may look like Caroline, but she isn’t. I can trip her up with questions. Small details that no one but Caroline could know.”

Whipple gave a shrewd nod. “That’s the idea. And now about taking along Dr. Cawfield and some close woman friend. We want to keep this hush-hush if we can. So why not call them up and ask them to come over?”

An hour later Inspector Whipple sat facing an audience of three. Dr. Elias Cawfield, gray, oldish, testy, was taking Whipple’s questions as an insult to his professional integrity. “I issued that death certificate myself,” he blazed at Whipple. “I’ll have you know, sir, that—”

Effie Foster, a plump blonde of Roger’s age, put a hand over the doctor’s lips. “Now let’s not get excited,” she soothed. “That woman’s just trying to put one over and of course we won’t let her get away with it.”

“Does she presume to give any details as to how she’s been spending the last four years?” Roger asked the inspector.

“Plenty of them,” Whipple said. “Personally, I don’t believe her, not for a minute. I think she’s Eva Lang, a career adventuress guilty of murder and trying to avoid the penalty by claiming another identity.”

“If she gave details,” Roger said, “let’s hear them.”

“She claims that you, her husband, went off to war seven years ago, leaving her in this house with a couple of servants. But as the war went on and the housing and manpower shortages grew, she turned over the lower floor to a society of ladies who made bandages for veterans, laid off the servants and occupied the second floor alone.”

Roger, Effie and Dr. Cawfield exchanged glances. “That’s exactly what Caroline did!” Effie exclaimed.

Roger nodded. “Yes, she wrote me about it. For the last year of her life she lived upstairs alone. Everybody knows that. So what?”

Whipple resumed: “She says that one night she answered a knock at the door and her own image walked in. The image said, ‘You’re Caroline, I suppose. I’m Evelyn Blythe.’ ”

Again Roger nodded. “My wife’s maiden name was Blythe. But she never mentioned an Evelyn.”

“What members of the Blythe family did you know?” Whipple asked.

“None but Caroline herself. She was twenty-three when I met her, and a salesgirl in a New York department store. When I got to know her better she told me her mother had died when she was fourteen, that she’d been making her own living ever since and that she couldn’t remember her father at all. She said her mother would never talk about her father. She knew of no living relatives.”

“Bear in mind, what I’m telling you is Eva Lang’s story, not mine,” Whipple cautioned. “It goes on like this: Evelyn told Caroline that they were identical twins; that their father and mother had separated when they were small children, each taking a twin. The father took Evelyn, the mother Caroline. But the father had a photograph of his wife. At his death Evelyn acquired it. She showed it to Caroline and Caroline definitely recognized her own mother. That, plus the testimony of a mirror, convinced Caroline that they were twin sisters. Eva Lang says now, ‘I’d always hungered for a blood relative; so I, Caroline Blythe Marsh, took Evelyn to my heart.’ ”

Roger listened, tense and incredulous. Dr. Cawfield snorted: “It’s preposterous!”

“I can accept the fact of twins,” Whipple asserted, “because you all admit that this photograph looks like Caroline. But I don’t believe that Eva Lang is Caroline. For my money, she’s Evelyn.”

Roger protested, “It won’t stand up, Inspector. Even if we concede that Caroline could have had a twin sister without knowing it, it still won’t stand up. Because my wife would have presented this sister to her friends. She would have written me all about it.”

“According to Eva Lang,” Whipple countered, “that was her first and natural impulse. But Evelyn begged her not to. She said she was in trouble. Some men were looking for her and she mustn’t let them find her. If Evelyn could just hide here till the men hunting for her gave up and left town—”

The pain on Roger’s face stopped Whipple. Cawfield and Effie Foster were hardly less shocked. Again Whipple reminded them, “It’s Eva Lang’s story, not mine.”

“Go on,” Roger said.

“It took a lot of pleading by Evelyn. But Caroline, naturally sympathetic and warmhearted, finally agreed to let her stay in hiding. Evelyn said a few weeks would be long enough; then everything would be safe and she would go away. Actually Evelyn stayed at least two months. She wore Caroline’s clothes and fixed her hair like Caroline’s. That’s why you, Mrs. Foster, were fooled when you popped in unannounced on a day Caroline was out shopping and you chatted ten minutes with Evelyn, thinking she was Caroline.”

“I?” Effie exclaimed. “Of course I didn’t. I’d have known she wasn’t Caroline.”

“You were rounding up some old clothes,” Whipple suggested, “for a rummage sale. Eva Lang says Evelyn told her about it when she got home. Evelyn was afraid to turn you down. So she took a few outmoded things from Caroline’s closet and gave them to you. You remember the incident, Mrs. Foster?”

“I did come here,” Effie admitted, “and Caroline gave me a bundle of clothes. But it was Caroline herself.”

“Take a look at this.” Whipple produced a latchkey from his pocket. “We found it in Eva Lang’s purse. See if it fits the front door.”

Roger took the key to the door and tried it in the lock. The key was a perfect fit.

“If you showed me a hundred keys,” he muttered, “you still couldn’t convince me.”

“I’m not trying to convince you, Mr. Marsh. I’m just showing you what you’re up against with this Lang woman. It’s pretty clear the real story is this: After two or three months here, Evelyn made good on her promise and slipped away. No doubt she’d just been hiding put so the police wouldn’t grab her for the Detroit murder. When things cooled off she drifted back to the underworld she came from. Then she read in the papers about Caroline’s death and got an idea for defense if she was ever picked up. She’d swear she was Caroline and that it was Evelyn who had died in Baltimore. Preparing for it, she took a hot iron and burned the third knuckle of her right hand. But that, of course, isn’t the way Eva Lang tells it.”

“How does Eva Lang tell it?” Roger asked.

“She claims that she, Caroline, was wakened one night by coughing. Evelyn had caught a bad cold. So Caroline walked two blocks to a drugstore to get a cough remedy for Evelyn. On the way home two toughies stopped her. ‘So it’s little Eva,’ they said. ‘We been lookin’ all over for you, Eva. We can’t risk lettin’ cops pick you up. They’d put on the heat and you might talk. So we’re takin’ you home.’ The next thing she knew she was riding in a closed car.”

“And she didn’t call out to the first passer-by?” Dr. Cawfield scoffed.

“She says she was taped up, hands, feet and mouth. The men drove only by night. A week of nights took them to an isolated farm in the State of Washington. Two other men were there, one of them a forger named Duke Smedley. He’d been Evelyn’s sweetheart. He walked up to her and took her in his arms. ‘Hello, Eva,’ he said and kissed her. She slapped him, crying, ‘I’m not Eva.’ He looked more closely at her. ‘Damn it, you’re not Eva,’ he said. He turned in fury on the two men. ‘You stupid fools got the wrong girl.’

“Three of them still thought she was Eva; only Duke Smedley was sure she wasn’t. But they had her. They didn’t set her free. It meant their necks if they did. So they held her.”

“For four years?” Cawfield said derisively.

“The woman says they didn’t mean to. Three of them wanted to kill her right away. But Duke Smedley wouldn’t let ’em because she looked so much like Eva. Pretty soon they saw the notice of Mrs. Marsh’s death in the Baltimore papers. Smedley got the Baltimore papers to see if Caroline’s disappearance would be discovered. His argument then was: ‘We don’t need to do away with her; she’s dead already. Nobody’s looking for her.’ Too, there was the idea of holding her as a hostage, an ace in the hole if it ever came to a showdown with the police. So the stalemate dragged on, month after month.”

“I don’t believe it,” Roger said.

“Nor I. The police theory is that Eva Lang went there of her own free will and was part of the mob.”

Roger rose and crossed the room to stand before the portrait of his great-grandfather. His face, more than ever like pale granite, was brooding and bitter. Nothing like this had ever before happened to the Marshes.

“She ought to know that she hasn’t a chance in the world to put this over.”

“I think she does know it,” Whipple agreed. “I don’t think she has the least idea of being accepted and taken back into your home. But she can get an acquittal if just one juror out of twelve feels a reasonable doubt. Eleven can be as sure as you are that she’s an impostor. But if only one juror thinks, well, maybe she is Mrs. Marsh, that would be enough. And that, I figure, is all she wants.”

“The devil it is!” Dr. Cawfield growled. “She’ll be after money too, once she’s free. She’ll pester Roger, parading as his poor disowned wife, till he makes a settlement.”

“Cheer up,” Effie Foster urged breezily. “It’s a headache, of course, but it mustn’t get us down. We’ll go to Seattle and ask her questions. ‘If you’re Caroline, what did I give you for your birthday five years ago?’ ”

Dr. Cawfield turned to Roger. “Hadn’t we better take along your aunt and uncle?”

Roger considered for a moment; then shook his head. His Uncle Carey was a fire-eater; he’d want to sue the Seattle police. Aunt Harriet was just the opposite. She was a gullible sentimentalist. Show her an underdog, like Eva Lang, and she’d want to start petting it right away. “No, Doctor. Just the three of us. I’ll charter a plane. We’ll meet at the airport in the morning.”

By the time the plane was flying westward Roger Marsh had made a concession. Although the Marsh in him erected an iron Wall against any part of Eva Lang’s claim, the lawyer in him couldn’t deny certain glaring bits of evidence. Evelyn Blythe, alias Eva Lang, was not his wife but she was his sister-in-law. His unspeakably criminal sister-in-law. And she had spent two months visiting his wife.

Yes, he thought, reviewing Eva Lang’s story once more as he looked out the window of the plane, that much he would concede, but no more. Then he remembered something and beckoned to Inspector Whipple.

“I’ve just thought of something,” Roger said when the inspector sat down beside him. “Caroline kept a diary. She made entries every night — all sorts of personal details.”

“Well, what about it?”

“After the funeral four years ago, I happened to think of the diary. It was something too intimate to be left lying around loose in the house. But I couldn’t find it. I looked everywhere — it was gone. So I con-eluded that Caroline had destroyed it herself.”

Whipple nodded. “I see. And now you’re afraid Evelyn took it?”

“It’s possible,” Roger brooded.

“If Eva Lang took it,” Whipple admitted, “she’s had four years to memorize everything in it. She can answer questions like a fox.”

“You said four men were at the farm with her. Three were killed in the raid and one escaped. Which one?”

“Duke Smedley. Smoothest confidence man in the business. The police are after him, coast to coast, on a dozen counts.”

“He was Eva Lang’s sweetheart?”

“So our prisoner says. But when he knew she wasn’t Eva he gave her a break because she was Eva’s sister. It’s more logical to assume she was and is Duke Smedley’s girl, and that she went back of her own free will to join him at the farm.”

Roger stoked a pipe nervously. “The point is, Inspector, he’s alive. He may be picked up. And he knows the truth about Eva Lang.”

“He’ll be picked up, all right. He has a police record. Here’s his picture.”

Whipple opened his suitcase and brought out a photograph. It showed a man of exceptional good looks, well dressed and with an air of sophistication.

“He’s the tops in his racket,” Whipple said. “One time he — but what’s the matter, Mr. Marsh?” Roger was staring with a strange intensity at the photograph.

“I’ve a feeling,” Roger murmured, “that I’ve seen this man before. I can’t remember when or where. But I’m sure I’ve seen him.”

“Then maybe this goes deeper than we think, Mr. Marsh. Maybe he’s back of the whole thing.”

“It’s hardly possible,” Roger said. “I’ve a feeling it was years ago when I saw him. Perhaps while I was in the army. He couldn’t have schemed this far ahead.”

“Well, keep the picture,” Whipple insisted. “We have other copies. Look at it every once in a while. Maybe you’ll remember where you saw him.”

A morning later Inspector Whipple led Effie Foster, Dr. Cawfield and Roger Marsh into a reception room at the Seattle jail. Roger stood stiffly, preparing himself for the ordeal of disowning this woman.

A police matron came in. Quietly she reported, “I’ve just brought her to the inspection room. Are these the identifiers?”

Whipple nodded. Then he saw the dread on Roger’s face and suggested, “Would you rather see her first without her seeing you, Mr. Marsh? You may if you like. Later, of course, you’ll have to talk with her for a voice test.”

“We’d like to see her first,” Roger said.

“Then step this way.” Whipple led him to a far wall of the room and stood him in front of a closed panel. When he opened the panel a circular glass pane was exposed. It was about the size of a porthole in a ship’s cabin. Through it Roger could see clearly into the room beyond.

Seated in the center of that room, under a bright light, was the prisoner Eva Lang. She was in half profile to Roger. Instantly he felt a surge of relief. For the seated woman didn’t look nearly so much like Caroline as he had expected. She seemed much older. There were streaks of gray in her hair. Roger remembered the velvety smoothness of Caroline’s skin. The face of this woman was hard. Nothing of Caroline’s sweet gentle character was etched there. Instead of Caroline’s calm complacent gaze, Roger saw a tense bitter defiance. The eyes were brown, like Caroline’s, and the hair was center-parted and fluffed at the sides, like Caroline’s. Evidently a hairdresser had worked on Eva Lang in her cell, doing everything possible to make her resemble Caroline. The contours of her face were indeed quite like Caroline’s and Roger could understand instantly why a photograph would be more convincing than the woman herself. The photograph didn’t show color; it showed only shape and lines.

Roger stared long and intently through the glass. Then he closed the panel and stepped back to Inspector Whipple. “Before God,” he said, “I never saw that woman before.”

“Your turn, Dr. Cawfield.”

The doctor went to the panel, opened, peered through it. In a moment he turned back with a snort. “Just as I thought! A masquerade!”

“Your turn, Mrs. Foster.”

Effie Foster took more time than had either of the men. When she closed the panel her face had a clouded disturbed look. “She’s not Caroline, of course. But she does look like her in a sort of jaded way.”

The police matron surprised them by speaking up. “Wouldn’t you look rather jaded yourself, Mrs. Foster, if you’d been slave and prisoner for four years to a gang of crooks?”

Effie flushed. Inspector Whipple cut in quickly. “Well, we’ll talk to her, Mrs. Kelly. Right now. That will be more conclusive.”

Whipple led them through a door into the presence of the woman known as Eva Lang.

Roger Marsh breathed deeply in an attempt to slow his pounding heart. This was the moment he’d been dreading.

She stood up as they entered, stared for a moment at Roger, her lips parted and her face lighting up. Then she came toward him, eager, confident, her hands outstretched. “Roger! I thought you’d never come!”

The uncompromising granite of Roger’s face stopped her. “You’re not at all convincing, Miss Lang,” he said stiffly.

The shock on her face was as though he’d struck her. “You don’t know me, Roger?”

“No,” he said. “I do not. You’d know me, of course, if you were Caroline’s guest for two months, because there were pictures of me all over the house.”

Her dazed eyes stared at him a moment longer, then turned to Effie Foster. Then to Dr. Cawfield.

Effie didn’t speak. Dr. Cawfield’s stony face was answer enough.

Her eyes went back to Roger. “You mean you’re disowning me, Roger?”

“Hasn’t this gone far enough, Miss Lang?” he parried.

For a moment he thought she’d burst into tears. Instead the hardness and defiance came back to her face. “What a fool I’ve been!” she said bitterly. “To think you’d come and take me home! I might have known you wouldn’t! You and your stiff Maryland pride!” She laughed hysterically. “It’s so much easier to say you never knew me. Will you take me back to my cell, Inspector? They’ve seen the rogues’ gallery. They’ve said, yes, she’s the rogue, not the wife.”

Inspector Whipple said crisply, “First, Miss Lang, I’ve a few questions. Please sit down.”

She sat down stiffly, facing Whipple, ignoring the others.

It had been agreed that Whipple would ask the questions because, as a police officer, he could do so with more authority. Effie had given him a list.

“What,” Whipple asked, “did Effie Foster give Caroline Marsh for a birthday present five years ago?”

“I don’t remember.”

Effie smiled. “You see?” she challenged.

“Effie,” the accused woman retorted, “won a bridge prize at my house six years ago. What was it?”

Effie gaped. “I’ve forgotten,” she admitted.

“You see?” The woman’s smile mocked her. “That, I suppose, proves she isn’t Effie Foster. Go on, Inspector.”

Whipple read from his list: “Roger Marsh has an aunt and uncle. What are their names, where do they live and what is their telephone number?”

“Uncle Carey and Aunt Harriet,” the prisoner answered promptly, “live in Edgeton. I’ve forgotten their phone number.”

“Roger and Caroline Marsh were in an amateur play one time. What was the play and what parts did they take?”

“It was William Tell. Roger was William Tell and I was his son, with an apple on my head. Ask me something hard, Inspector.”

“Who was the chairman of the Community Chest committee Caroline Marsh once served on?”

“I can’t remember.”

Her voice, Roger thought, was a little like Caroline’s but definitely bolder. Caroline had been a timid quiet girl. This woman was a fighter.

“When Dr. Cawfield was on vacation, who was the doctor who substituted for him?”

“The name slips my mind, Inspector. Perhaps if I think awhile, I’ll remember.”

Caroline, Roger was sure, would remember instantly. Young and good looking Dr. Joyce had in fact treated that burn on the third knuckle of Caroline’s hand. This woman, he saw, had a burn scar in the same place. She might have inflicted it deliberately.

“Caroline and Roger Marsh had one serious quarrel during the first year of their married life. What caused it?”

“As if I could forget!” The woman smiled bitterly. “Roger had a too beautiful secretary named Lucile Dutton. I thought he admired her more than he should. One day he went to Annapolis for a trial. He forgot his briefcase. Lucile carried it to him and he took her to lunch. People saw them and told me. I shouldn’t have been jealous but I was. And one word led to another.”

Whipple looked at Roger and Roger, with a grimace, nodded. “I suppose it was all in Caroline’s diary,” he murmured.

“Did Roger ever take Caroline to Honolulu?”

“Yes.”

“What hotel did they stop at?”

“I can’t remember. It’s been eight years.”

“What was the occasion?”

“Our honeymoon.”

“How long had Roger been married when he went into the army?”

“About a year.”

“That was seven years ago. How many times did Caroline see him after that?”

“Not once — until now. Perhaps that’s why he doesn’t know me.”

“Who introduced Roger to Caroline?”

“No one. He went into a New York store to buy a bottle of perfume. I was the clerk who sold it to him. That’s how we met.”

All that, Roger kept assuring himself, could have been in Caroline’s diary. Or Caroline could have confided it during Evelyn’s visit. Undoubtedly this was Evelyn Blythe.

There were many more questions. To about half of them the woman answered frankly, “I can’t remember.” But certainly she had briefed herself on Caroline’s past with a studied thoroughness. The romantic incidents in it were the ones she knew best. The very ones which Caroline, always a romanticist, would have been most likely to confide.

In the end Whipple turned to Roger. “You still say this woman isn’t your wife?”

“I do,” Roger said.

Dr. Cawfield echoed him emphatically. “Caroline Marsh died four years ago.”

Whipple pressed a button and the police matron came in. “We’re finished,” he said.

The prisoner followed Matron Kelly to an exit. Then she turned defiantly to Roger Marsh. “You’ve asked me a great many questions, Roger. Now let me ask you one. Did you ever read Matthew 19:5?”

Without waiting for a response she disappeared with the matron.

“The devil,” Dr. Cawfield derided, “can cite Scripture for his purpose. Let’s get out of here.”

As they went out Whipple said, “Pretty sharp, wasn’t she? Well, now that that’s over, the Detroit police will extradite her for trial in Michigan. I’ll be glad to get rid of her. Where to now, Mr. Marsh?”

“To a hotel,” Roger said, “for a night’s sleep. Then to Baltimore.”

With Effie Foster and the doctor he taxied to a hotel. In his room there Roger saw a Gideon Bible on the dresser. He picked it up and turned to Matthew 19:5.

The verse read: “For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh.”

When Roger’s chartered plane glided to a landing at the Baltimore airport, he saw that the gateway was swarming with reporters.

“And look, Roger,” Effie exclaimed, “isn’t that your Uncle Carey and Aunt Harriet?”

“It’s the whole town,” Roger groaned. “Blast them! Why can’t they leave us alone?”

Roger fought fiercely through people who waylaid them in the gateway, refusing to answer the questions hurled at him by newsmen. He let Effie and Dr. Cawfield deal with them. He himself broke away, flanked by his uncle and aunt. Reporters, Uncle Carey was complaining, had awakened him at five o’clock this morning.

“And what,” he demanded furiously, “are you going to do about it?” He was short and bald. His wife, Harriet, was tall and gray.

“Nothing,” Roger said.

“You mean you’ll let them drag the name of Marsh through—”

“Oh, fiddlesticks!” Aunt Harriet broke in. “That’s all I’ve heard for forty years. The proud unsullied name of Marsh! For a century you’ve kept it out of headlines. And now you’re in them up to your necks.” Her eyes glittered.

“Harriet,” Uncle Carey rebuked bleakly, “must you be flippant at a time like this? Don’t you realize what it means? We’re disgraced, all of us. Now look, Roger, I’ve thought it over. We’ll all make a tour of South America till this horrible mess is over. That way they can’t drag us in at the trial.”

“You can run if you want to,” Roger said. “I shan’t.”

Just as they reached Uncle Carey’s car, Leslie Paxton, Roger’s law partner, caught up with them. “Roger,” he demanded, “why didn’t you tell me about this? Think of the firm! Have you seen the latest editions?” He had a packet of them under his arm.

Uncle Carey herded them into his sedan and took the wheel himself.

“No,” Roger said. “What about them?”

As the car sped away, Uncle Carey trying desperately to elude reporters, Leslie Paxton gave Roger the latest journalistic flashes.

“They’ve traced the background of Jake Lang, alias Jake Blythe. He was a cardsharp who died at Joliet. He came originally from Arizona. A record in an old mine hospital proves that twin girls were born to Jake’s wife about thirty years ago. The twins were named Evelyn and Caroline. So that much of it can’t be denied.”

“I’ve already conceded that much,” Roger told him. “Eva Lang is my sister-in-law. We have to start from there.”

“They’ve taken her to Detroit,” Paxton said, “for trial. Don’t you see what you’re up against? You can’t ignore it.”

“I don’t intend to ignore it, Leslie. That’s why I want you to go to Detroit.”

“Me? Why me?”

“Because you’re a lawyer and my partner. Please tell Eva Lang that you represent me. Tell her that as her brother-in-law, I offer to employ the most competent counsel in Detroit for her defense. Make it clear that I do this not as her husband, but as her brother-in-law.”

“If she’s a criminal,” Paxton protested, “why back her at all?”

“Criminal or not, she’s Caroline’s sister. Caroline would want me to do it.”

Uncle Carey protested loudly. But Aunt Harriet applauded. “That’s the most human thing I ever heard a Marsh say. Bravo, Roger.”

Leslie Paxton reluctantly agreed. He promised to catch a night train for Detroit.

The car was passing a pair of tall granite pillars with a grilled gate between them. Roger asked Uncle Carey to stop.

“Let me out here, please. I’ll take a taxi home.”

They knew what he wanted. Uncle Carey let him out and the car drove on. Roger passed through the gateway and took a gravel path through a grove of stately, elms. This was St. Cecelia Cemetery. He went directly to the Marsh family plot.

Hat in hand, Roger stood beside the newest grave. On its headstone was inscribed:

Caroline Blythe Marsh, 1917-1944

Here was a fact, Roger thought. Something to cling to. Here was the one and final answer to Eva Lang. It brought back, vividly, all the incontestable realities. Caroline’s last illness, the six days he had sat by her bedside. He remembered her last whispered word, “Good-by, Roger,” With her small hand in his, her eyes had closed in death.

No fantastic masquerade could possibly gainsay that fact — Caroline’s death four years ago. It steadied him now, as he stood by her grave. Confusion, and sometimes whispers of doubt, had taken their toll. There’d been moments when he’d wondered if he was mistaken; brief torturing suspicions that he might be denying his own wife.

All that was brushed away now as he stood by Caroline’s grave. Dozens of people had seen her lowered here. They’d mourned by her open casket. Every one of them was an unbreachable defense against Eva Lang.

For two days Roger dodged reporters and waited morosely for Leslie Paxton’s return from Detroit. Paxton dropped in on him late the second evening. “I’ve seen Eva Lang, Roger. She turned down your offer. What an actress that woman is! She’s a scuffed-up imitation of Caroline, but she’s not Caroline.”

“Just what did she say?”

“If you want her exact words, she said, ‘Tell Roger I’ll accept from him the loyalty of a husband; nothing more; nothing less.’ ”

Paxton left a few minutes later. Roger saw him to the door, then went up to his bedroom. As he took off his tie and loosened his collar, he studied the picture of Caroline on his chifforobe. Innocence and pride shone in the loving gaze of her eyes. He thought of Eva Lang’s response to Leslie. It was a response that didn’t fit Eva Lang. It seemed more the attitude of innocence and hurt pride.

Lucile Dutton, Roger’s secretary, was alone in the office when Roger appeared the next morning. With her “Good morning, Mr. Marsh,” she flashed him a quick look of sympathy.

“Good morning, Lucile.” Roger considered her troubled eyes for a moment, then consulted her about the problem that had kept him from sleep the night before. She warmly reassured him. “Don’t let her fool you, Mr. Marsh. Turning down your offer just shows she’s smart. She knew you’d react just that way.”

“But she hasn’t a cent. And good attorneys come high.”

“It’ll be worth more, she thinks, to soften you up. And to win public sympathy. The deserted-wife act is her best bet.”

Roger sat down at his desk and took from his pocket the photograph of Duke Smedley given him by Whipple. He showed it to Lucile Dutton. “Was this man ever in the office? Did we ever have any contact with him?”

“I don’t recognize him,” the girl said. “Who is he?”

“He’s Eva Lang’s boy friend. I’ve a vague feeling I saw him one time. Keep an eye open for him, Lucile.”

Later in the day a deputy from the district attorney’s office of Detroit called on Roger. He served a summons which required Roger Marsh to testify in the case of the People Against Eva Lang. Roger had been expecting it.

“I’m serving a similar summons,” the deputy said, “on a dozen or more persons who knew your wife well.”

“How will you select them?”

“We’re interviewing all the twenty-eight people named by the accused and will select ten or more who are positive she isn’t your wife.”

“What tests have you made on Eva Lang?” Roger asked.

“A blood test and a handwriting test. Her blood type is the same as your wife’s, but that would be expected with twin sisters. Her handwriting very closely resembles your wife’s. But Eva Lang had four years to practice her sister’s handwriting under the coaching of an expert forger, Duke Smedley.”

“You think he’s in on this with her?”

“It fits him like a glove. We think their first objective is an acquittal on the murder charge. Probably their second is a raid on your fortune after she’s free. She might file suit, for instance, for desertion and humiliating renunciation.”

“Who’ll her lawyer be?”

“Young chap assigned by the court. Name of Sprague. He’s already put his cards on the table.”

“What are they?”

“That the defense concedes the murder of one Rufus Fox by one Eva Lang in Detroit on a certain day five years ago. But the accused is not, the defense will insist, Eva Lang. She’s Caroline Blythe Marsh. That’s their case and they’ll stick to it.”

During the weeks that followed, reporters and feature writers dogged Roger. Often, on the way to his office, he heard a camera click at his elbow. Almost hourly the jangle of the telephone brought some friend offering support and sympathy, or perhaps some gossip columnist with an impertinent question. Crank letters, most of them anonymous, cluttered his mail.

It seemed to Roger he couldn’t pick up a paper without seeing news of the Eva Lang affair. In a metropolitan rotogravure section, on the Sunday before Eva Lang’s trial, a full page displayed twenty-nine photographs. The central one was Eva Lang. Surrounding it, each pictured individually, were all of the twenty-eight prominent Marylanders on the list she’d given for identification and vindication.

Roger himself was among them; Uncle Carey and Aunt Harriet were there; so were Effie Foster and Leslie Paxton and Dr. Cawfield. The élite of Baltimore were there. The page, in bold letters at the bottom, was titled: “The People Against Eva Lang.”

When The People Against Eva Lang opened at Superior Court in Detroit, Roger Marsh sullenly absented himself from the preliminary sessions. He barricaded himself in a hotel room near the courthouse all during the selection of a jury. His radio kept him informed and he received all the newspapers. Only when called to testify would he appear in court.

It was a week before he was called. By then Eva Lang’s murder guilt was clearly established and had not even been disputed by the defense. A hotel clerk had identified the accused as the woman he had seen shoot to death a man named Rufus Fox. It seemed conclusive. But in cross-examination the defense counsel had pointed to a pair of twin girls he had planted in the audience.

“Do you remember that one of those young ladies asked you the time on the street this morning?”

“Yes,” the clerk said.

“Which of them was it?”

And the witness had been unable to say. Thus the entire case was resolved into an identification of Eva Lang.

Roger was called to the stand.

“Are you a widower?” inquired the prosecutor.

“I am.”

“When did your wife die?”

“Four years ago.”

“State the circumstances of her illness, death and funeral.”

Roger complied in a precise voice.

“Look at the accused. Did you ever see her before?”

The defendant returned Roger’s stare. Her eyes challenged him, bitter and defiant.

“Yes,” Roger said. “I saw her once.”

“Only once?”

“Yes.”

“When and where?”

“At the Seattle jail two months ago.”

“That is all. Thank you, Mr. Marsh.”

In cross-examination the defense counsel asked, “Do you now concede that your wife had a twin sister named Evelyn?”

“Recently,” Roger answered stiffly, “I’ve come to that conclusion.”

“That is all.”

Roger tried not to hurry as he left the courtroom. He had expected it to be worse. He’d thought the defense counsel would nag him for hours.

At his hotel room he picked up the rest of the trial by radio and printed word. Ten other Marylanders were called by the prosecution and all of them, with varying degrees of emphasis, denied that the defendant could be Caroline Marsh. All ten of them had seen Caroline buried. When the state rested, Eva Lang’s position seemed untenable.

Then the defense opened and the defendant herself took the stand. She told precisely the story she’d told Inspector Whipple from the beginning. Her lawyer produced ten Baltimore witnesses himself, people he’d hand-picked after a series of interviews there. People who were uncertain enough to answer, “I don’t know.” One was a boy who, during the war, had delivered groceries to the Marsh home. He remembered peering into the kitchen once and seeing two women who looked just alike.

“Was the accused one of them?”

“I think so.”

“Is she Mrs. Marsh or the other one?”

“I don’t know.”

“I don’t know,” or, “I can’t be certain,” was a response given by nine others.

A former maid at the Marsh house was asked, “Is there a faint doubt in your mind as to whether the defendant is Mrs. Marsh?”

“I’m afraid there is. I don’t see how she could be Mrs. Marsh because they say Mrs. Marsh passed away. But she looks like her. I can’t be sure.”

Then came a bombshell. The defense called Mrs. Carey Marsh of Edgeton, Maryland.

“Are you Caroline Marsh’s Aunt Harriet?”

“I am.”

“You knew your niece quite well?”

“Of course.”

“Can you look at the accused and swear she isn’t your niece?”

“No,” Aunt Harriet said coolly, “because I’m not at all sure she isn’t.”

Later Aunt Harriet herself, marching straight to Roger’s room, explained the stand she had taken.

“How could you?” he demanded.

“How could I say anything else? How can I swear away her life? I’m not sure she’s Caroline. But I’m not sure she isn’t.”

He sat on the bed and stared at her balefully. “You’re not sure she isn’t?”

“And deep down in your heart, neither are you, Roger.”

“Are you crazy? Of course I’m sure.”

“Your pride’s sure,” she corrected. “Your stiff-necked Marsh pride made up its mind even before you went to Seattle. You went there to say no. And you said it.”

Dr. Cawfield and Leslie Paxton came storming in. “And that goes for the rest of you,” Aunt Harriet blazed. “You’re just like Carey. You don’t like scandals. Sensations make you sick. You’ll trust a cold gravestone, every time, before you’ll trust flesh and blood. Stop glaring at me, Leslie. Has the jury gone out yet?”

“It has,” Leslie said. He added with a grimace. “And you should have heard the judge charge them! ‘If a reasonable doubt exists in your minds,’ he said, ‘that the defendant is Eva Lang, you will not be justified in a verdict of guilty.’ ”

“Doubt!” snorted Dr. Cawfield. “It’s in their minds like a maggot. And you planted it, Harriet Marsh.”

“Don’t you bully me, Elias. They asked my opinion and I gave it. And maybe I’ll sleep better than the rest of you.” Aunt Harriet flounced out.

Roger packed his bags and taxied to the airport. He was in a fever to get out of town before reporters made a mass assault. From now on he didn’t want any part of the case. And whatever the verdict, to him Eva Lang would still be Eva Lang.

All through the flight to Baltimore the plane’s stewardess kept a radio on. A concert, then a newscast. No decision yet in the Detroit case. Passengers whispered, nudged each other, looked covertly at Roger Marsh. He sat there staring frigidly into space.

Half an hour before they reached Baltimore the flash came. The jury had reported. The verdict was “not guilty.”

It wasn’t over yet. Roger was dismally sure of it. Eva Lang was free and could never be tried again on this charge. But by trade she was a swindler. So was Duke Smedley. They’d already raided his good name; and now, given time, they’d try to raid his purse.

For a month Roger waited, dreading every ring of his phone. Would Eva contact him herself? Or would Duke Smedley do it? Probably not Smedley; being wanted on many old counts, he’d hardly dare come into the open.

Eva, Roger learned from the papers, was boldly in the open. She was still a celebrity and every move she made was publicized. The papers said she’d gone to a Florida hotel for a month’s rest.

But how could she finance a trip like that? A month at a Florida resort would be expensive. Eva Lang, the prisoner, had had no money. The courts had even had to appoint a public defender.

Roger saw only one answer. Duke Smedley. While she was in custody he couldn’t reach her. Now that she was free, he could and had.

This conclusion comforted Roger considerably. No doubt the police were watching Eva in hopes of picking up Smedley. And once Smedley was caught, the truth about Eva Lang would be known. For Smedley knew everything about her. He’d bridged the gap of those four years with her and so he knew, beyond a shadow of doubt, which of the twins she was.

A short time later came a report that the woman once known as Eva Lang was now in New York. She had taken an apartment as Caroline Blythe Marsh and had found herself a job. It was at the perfumery counter of a Fifth Avenue department store, exactly the job held by Caroline Blythe eight years ago when she met Roger Marsh of Baltimore.

Roger was alarmed and confused because it seemed out of character. A confidence woman doesn’t usually go to work. But Caroline Marsh, thrown on her own resources, would do exactly that. She’d try to get her last job back.

Night after night he lay awake, reviewing every step of what had happened, trying to refute the vague uncertainties that had crept into his mind. What if he’d been wrong? What if this woman he had denied were really Caroline, whose love had been the most wonderful thing in his life? He kept telling himself it couldn’t be.

But he had to know. Suddenly he realized that the entire scheme used in identifying Eva Lang had been faulty. They’d taken witnesses from Baltimore to look at her — to say whether she was or wasn’t Caroline Marsh. No such scheme could be conclusive, because it was based upon opinion rather than upon incontestible fact.

A proper scheme would be the reverse. Instead of people identifying Eva Lang, Eva Lang should be made to identify people. People who’d known Caroline well, and whom Evelyn had never seen, should be paraded before Eva Lang. Recognition should then be demanded, not by the witnesses, but by Eva Lang herself.

For instance, Eva Lang had never in her life seen Lucile Dutton. During the war Lucile had left Roger’s company to become a Wave. There’d never been a picture of her at the Marsh house. From a diary Evelyn could know about Lucile but definitely she had never seen her. Therefore Evelyn couldn’t possibly recognize Lucile.

But Caroline, if living, could. And would. No married woman ever forgets a girl of whom she’s been jealous — a lovely secretary who’d caused the first marital quarrel.

So a test, using Lucile as a pawn, should be both simple and conclusive. Roger worked out the details and then rang up a New York client. He made an appointment for eleven the next morning.

“It’s rather important,” he told Lucile. “I’d like you to run up with me and make a transcript of the conference.”

They caught an early train and were in New York by ten. The conference engaged them till noon, when they had lunch in a restaurant on Fifth Avenue, close to the department store where Eva Lang was working. Roger ordered generously, tried to be gay and they lingered there until almost two.

He made it sound casual when, walking to the next corner for a cab, he remarked: “I have a bit of shopping to do, Lucile. I need a new hat. Mind if we stop in here a minute?”

They turned into the store. As they threaded through the crowded aisles Roger seemed to have an afterthought. “That reminds me — I’d better pick up something for Ruth Paxton’s birthday next week. How would a bottle of perfume do?”

Lucile gave him a searching look. “They can always use it,” she said.

“I tell you: While I get the hat you pick up the perfume. Make any selection you like. Here.” He handed her a bill. “Meet me at the Fifth Avenue exit in fifteen minutes.”

Roger disappeared in the crowd. Circling, he maneuvered to an aisle about ten yards to the right of the-perfume counter. He saw Eva Lang, but she, busy with customers, didn’t see him.

A strange feeling of nostalgia ran through Roger. It was here that he’d first seen Caroline, eight and a half years ago. The woman back of the perfume counter today had gray-streaked hair and looked forty-five. But the hardness was gone from her face. She was gracious, charming. She looked startlingly like Caroline.

But she wasn’t. Because she was now waiting on Lucile and her smile was entirely impersonal. Not the faintest flicker of recognition came to her eyes. “May I help you? Something for yourself?... Oh, a gift—”

Unseen himself, Roger missed no detail of it. He saw Lucile master her surprise at seeing Eva Lang. He watched her deliberately take time making her selection. The vital thing, however, was that Eva Lang didn’t know her.

Roger melted into the crowd, relieved to know that this woman was not Caroline. But mingled with the relief was the unreasonable wish that she might have been.

All the uncertainties dissolved, Roger’s mind was at ease. It stayed that way till late in May.

Then, in the lobby of the Lord Baltimore Hotel one morning, a rough hand clapped his shoulder. A hearty voice boomed, “Roger Marsh! How the devil are you, Roger?”

Roger turned to see a big rubicund man in a loose tweed suit. At Roger’s blank stare the man’s smile broadened. “Don’t you know me, Roger? Hell’s bells. And I thought I’d made an impression. I must have been too easy on you.”

With chagrin, Roger finally remembered. “Colonel Cox! How stupid of me! How are you, Colonel?”

Cox chuckled. “Imagine a guy not knowing his own commanding officer just because he’s out of uniform!”

“What about lunch, Colonel?”

“Not today. My wife’s waiting for me right now. We’re stopping here. Give me a ring sometime. See you later, Roger.”

Roger was thoughtful as he went on to his office. I’ve shared quarters with Cox in London, he reminded himself. And now, after only three years, I didn’t recognize him out of uniform.

It was more than seven years since Caroline had seen Lucile. The test at the perfume counter didn’t seem conclusive after all.

At his office Roger was surprised to find Uncle Carey, who was just back after wintering in California.

“Hello, Uncle Carey. How’s Aunt Harriet?”

“As hard-headed as ever,” Carey growled. “You know, Roger, I can’t pound any sense into her about that Eva Lang. Just like a woman. They’ll never admit when they’re wrong.”

Roger’s face clouded. “You mean she still isn’t sure about her?”

“Less sure than ever,” Carey said. “Felt sorry for her, she said, right after the trial. That’s why she offered to finance her for a month in Florida.”

Roger stared. “You mean Aunt Harriet paid for that trip?”

“Offered to. But Eva Lang wouldn’t take it except as a loan. She said she’d pay it back ten dollars a week when she got a job. And blast it, she has. Ten dollars came in the mail every week all winter. Says she has her old job back. So Harriet—”

But Roger didn’t hear any more. All the certainty of the past month came tumbling down.

On the morning of May twenty-fourth, Roger awakened with anticipation. For it was Caroline’s birthday and each year he remembered it with flowers for her grave. Today this act would dispel all his doubts, bringing him back to the invincible fact of Caroline’s death.

At a florist’s shop he purchased a wreath and drove with it to the cemetery, parking his car just inside the gate. Elms were in leaf and the grass was green. A clean gravel path took him fifty yards to the Marsh family plot.

And there was her headstone. Upright and solid it stood there, a bulwark to his faith. It was his last and final witness. Standing by it steadied him now, as always.

He placed the wreath against the headstone. Then he stood by quietly, his head uncovered. And as the minutes passed, all the nagging doubts left him. Here in this grave, where he had reverently buried her with all his world standing by, lay his wife Caroline.

Sustained and reassured, he walked fifty yards back to his car. A sound of footsteps crunching on gravel made him turn. A man, he saw, was approaching the Marsh plot from the opposite direction. The man had a florist’s box under his arm.

Some old friend of the family, Roger presumed, had remembered the day and Caroline.

Getting into his car, Roger waited idly to see who it could be. At fifty yards, through the elms, he saw the man open the box and lay a dozen red roses on Caroline’s grave.

Then the man removed his hat and stood there with his head bowed.

He was well dressed, a personable man with brownish wavy hair. His face — with a start, Roger knew it. It was the face in a photograph Inspector Whipple had given him. Duke Smedley!

It was the face Roger had vaguely remembered having seen before.

He knew now where he’d seen it. The stranger at the funeral, four and a half years ago. The unobtrusive mourner none of them had known. He’d stood apart from the others and yet had followed them to the grave, this same grave to which he now returned.

A tribute for Caroline? It was Evelyn’s birthday too. Evelyn was the woman he’d loved, not Caroline.

Duke Smedley, all along, had known the truth.

And now, with a shock of conviction, Roger Marsh knew too.

Roger swerved his car through the gate. It was not yet noon. Driving fast, he could reach New York before the store closed. There, long ago, he had found Caroline.

And there, in humble contrition, he must find her again.