“Your age, sir?”
“Twenty-six.”
“Where were you born, and where did you grow to maturity? “
“I was born in Southwark, and there did I grow up.”
Sir Johns brow wrinkled. “Southwark, you say? You mean just across the river? You do not sound in your speech as one from Southwark — and I am one who can usually place a man by his manner of speech.”
“And so am I,” said Mr. Mobley, formerly the claimant. “I was the youngest of six children and soon became the family mimic. And it was not long before I exercised my talent beyond the limits of our home. I was soon able to imitate speech and physical movements of all my teachers at school. Soon there was no one on either side of the river whom I did not consider fair game for my play.”
“This, then, was a sort of game with you?”
“In the beginning, of course, but then, as a boy no older than this young fellow here” — indicating me, of course — “I discovered amateur theatrics.”
“Ah, yes,” said Sir John, “as many before you have. And did that lead to professional employment?”
“In the theater? Not in London’s three companies, but one summer I went out with a troupe of strolling players and had a grand time. That did, however, move me to emigrate to the North American colonies. I told myself that things would be better there. At least there was no Licencing Act. I told myself that I might one day have my own company, my own theater, as Mr. Garrick has.”
“You were ambitious.”
“And am still. Yet I had to take employment where I could find it in the colonies. The history of work which I attributed to Lawrence Paltrow was my own.”
“You speak as a gentleman, or at least as an educated man,” noted Sir John.
“Mimicry — naught but a good ear, the actor’s gift. Surveying, which saw me through when all else failed, was a skill I acquired quite casually along the way. As I said earlier today, there is work in the colonies for a man willing to dirty his hands. I might also say that I am reasonably intelligent, and as the youngest child of six, I was allowed to stay longest in school.”
‘You said that you were in the city of Philadelphia when you read of your brother’s death and saw your claim to the title. Would you now like to correct that?”
“In truth, it happened quite different. I was in Georgetown in the colony of Maryland when I was approached by the man you seem to know as Eli Bolt. He has appeared with me as Elijah Bolton. As you perceived, they are one and the same.”
“What did Eli Bolt have to say to you?”
“He had just attended a performance of The Duchess of Malfi in which I played a role. Though the drama pleased him greatly — no doubt because of its violence — it was not to discuss it that he invited me to a dram shop nearby, but to acquaint me with the facts of Arthur Paltrow’s execution and its relation to the Laningham title and fortune. He told me that Arthur Paltrow had had a brother named Lawrence, who would now be in line as the next Lord Laningham, but that he, Mr. Bolt, knew as certain what no one else knew — that Lawrence Paltrow was dead. He had been with him on an expedition along the frontier seven or eight years past, and he had seen him drown during a river crossing. ‘Let me tell you, young sir,’ said he to me, you are the spit and image of Lawrence Paltrow, except a little taller and wider. You could fool his own dear mother, I’m sure.’ Thus I began to understand the direction in which he was taking me, and I confess I did not resist him overmuch — perhaps not at all. Mr. Bolt flattered my abilities as an actor and hinted how much greater a role this would be for me to play — greater than any heretofore. My head was turned by him. I began to fantasize what life might be in the House of Lords.”
“You consented, then, to impersonate Lawrence Paltrow?”
“In so many words, I did, yes,” said Mobley. “He said there would be a man in London who would wish to meet me before the plan could be put into action. Would I be willing to sail to England to meet him? I said I would, and in less than a week we were on a ship bound for London. My fare was paid by Eli Bolt. I thought this most fortunate, for I was long overdue for a visit to my family in Southwark. I told myself that no matter how this adventure might turn out, I should at least have that out of it. “
“What did you know of the Paltrow family and the last Lord Laningham at that time?”
“Nothing at all. Oh, I suppose I had heard the title bandied about some, yet I had no idea whether it was a dukedom, an earlship, or what it was. Nor did I know that Paltrow was the family name of the Laningham line. I have never taken interest in such matters. I had much to learn.”
“And you learned it well,” said Sir John with a respectful nod.
“I suppose I should thank you, yet if I had proved a little less conscientious as a scholar, I might not be in the position in which I find myself today. Mr. Bolt began my instruction on shipboard. He told me all he remembered of Lawrence Paltrow. I was especially interested in the Journal that he kept during their journey through the wilderness. It seemed to me that the man would have revealed himself through his writing. That might prove most beneficial. And so I asked Mr. Bolt if he knew what had become of it, and he became quite angry, though not at me — no, not quite. He would say only that the Journal had been lost when Mr. Paltrow drowned.”
At this point, Percival Mobley fell into a thoughtful silence, as if he were seeking to remember something — or perhaps weighing its importance. After a hesitation of nearly a minute, through which Sir John waited most patiently, he resumed his telling of his long tale.
“I should probably add at this point, Sir John, that all during the voyage, as we talked about the man I was to become, Mr. Bolt played constantly with a rope of woven leather that he seemed to keep with him at all times. He had it fixed in a loop and would constantly throw it round objects on the deck, doing tricks with it for the amusement of others aboard. I mention this only because it will become important later in the story.”
And to that, Sir John replied: “No doubt it does, and I have a good notion of just how. But tell me, how long after your arrival did you meet the man you were intended to see?”
“Oh, it was not long at all,” said he. “It must have been the day after we docked that I met the man who would become the director and financer of this enterprise.”
“And who was that man?”
“Why, it was the Solicitor-General — or, so that there be no confusion in the matter, it was Sir Patrick Spenser. “
Sir John took this startling information with equanimity. I, on the other hand, was so disturbed by what I had just heard that the pen with which I had been writing dropped from my hand, fluttering down to the floor and landing just beyond my foot. In my effort to scoop it up quickly, I knocked down the pile of paper upon which I had been writing and came ever so close to tipping the inkwell where I had dipped my pen. Reader, I was at once surprised and chagrined. The first thought that passed through my mind was not really a thought at all, but the repetition of those words in my mind’s ear, “That will be quite enough, Mr. Bolt” and “Come up here — now,” which I had heard during the night of my abduction. Why, yes, of course, it had been Sir Patrick’s voice, the same voice I had heard on that very night just outside the Globe and Anchor. Why had I not recognized it at that time, particularly after those hints dropped by Sir John? He, it was evident, had divined the answer by reason, by common sense, or by that extraordinary other sense which only he seemed to have. Yet now Sir John turned it all around and handed it back to Mobley.
“That is mere assertion,” said he. “You must convince me.”