A glass was placed before him. He took a sip. The two men discussed the port, as men of business must. Montgomery would not raise the matter first, Vaughan knew, but he did create a pause, which plainly he expected Vaughan to fill.
‘I realize that in my letter yesterday I set out recent events without clarifying the respects in which I may need your assistance,’ he began. ‘Some things are better discussed in person.’
‘Quite right.’
‘The fact of the matter is, there is a chance – scarcely likely, I should say, yet worth attending to – that another party might make a claim to the child.’
Montgomery nodded, as unsurprised as if he had been expecting this very eventuality. Although Mr Montgomery must have been sixty, he had the unlined face of an infant. After forty years of practising a poker face in the office, the muscles that twitch and tauten in response to doubt, worry or suspicion had atrophied to such a degree that it was now impossible to read any kind of expression in his face other than a general and permanent bonhomie.
‘There is a young man living in Oxford who claims – at least, I think he may claim – that he is the father of the child. His estranged wife died at Bampton and his own child’s whereabouts are unknown. His daughter, Alice, was just the same age, and she disappeared at more or less the same time as’ – Vaughan saw the hurdle coming and was ready for it – ‘Amelia was found. An unfortunate coincidence that has permitted uncertainty to arise …’
‘Uncertainty …?’
‘In his eyes.’
‘In his eyes. Yes. Good.’
Montgomery listened, his face a picture of bland goodwill.
‘The young man – his name is Armstrong – had not seen his wife or child in recent times. Hence his inability to be immediately certain as to the identity of this child.’
‘Whereas you, on the other hand, are entirely certain of’ – his level gaze was quite unaltered – ‘the child’s identity?’
Vaughan swallowed. ‘Indeed.’
Montgomery smiled benignly. He was far too well mannered to press a client on a doubtful statement. ‘The child is your daughter, then.’ It sounded for all the world like a declaration, but Vaughan’s uncertainty heard the question in it.
‘It is …’ (the hurdle again) ‘Amelia.’
Montgomery continued smiling.
‘There is no shadow of a doubt,’ Vaughan added.
The smile persisted.
Vaughan felt the need to throw something in to make weight. ‘A mother’s instinct is a powerful thing,’ he concluded.
‘A mother’s instinct!’ exclaimed Montgomery encouragingly. ‘What could be plainer than that? Of course,’ – there was no fall in his face – ‘it is fathers to whom the custodial right to a child belongs, but still, a mother’s instinct! Nothing finer!’
Vaughan swallowed. He took the plunge. ‘It is Amelia,’ he said. ‘I know.’
Montgomery looked up, round of cheek and smooth of forehead. ‘Excellent.’ He nodded contentedly. ‘Excellent. Now, I have a good deal of experience in assessing competing claims to certain cargoes that occasionally go astray for one reason or another. Do not be offended if I use my experience – for the parallel is a useful one – to test the strength of this Armstrong’s case against you.’
‘It is not yet a case against us. It is not yet a case at all. For two months we have had her now, and the fellow comes every so often to see us. He comes and he watches her and he neither claims her to be his nor relinquishes his claim. Every time he turns up I am ready for him to state his mind one way or the other, but he remains silent on the issue. I am reluctant to press him on the matter – the last thing I want is to precipitate a claim, and all the while he does not say, “She is mine,” it is clearly an open possibility in his own mind that she is not. I prefer not to provoke him, but in the meantime it is unsettling. My wife …’
‘Your wife?’
‘My wife believed at the outset that the situation would last only so long as his own daughter was not found. We expected every day to hear report of a child, a body perhaps, found in the river, but we waited in vain and no such news has come. We are starting to feel unsettled by the fact that the matter remains unresolved after so long, but Helena is sorry for him, knowing all too well how heartbreaking the loss of a child is. She tolerates his continuing visits to our home, even though it has gone beyond the point where he can expect to reach any sense of certainty. His own child has vanished into the blue and I fear that in the desperation of his grief it might not be beyond the machinations of his own mind to persuade him that Amelia’ (the hurdle successfully jumped – he was getting better at this!) ‘– that Amelia is in fact his child. Grief is a powerful force, and who knows to what a man might be driven when his child is lost to him. A man is liable to imagine all manner of things rather than think his child – his only child – lost for ever.’
‘You have a very acute understanding of his mind and his situation, Mr Vaughan. Then we must test the facts of the matter, for facts are what matter in law, and see what is the power of his case in principle, in case he should think to make his claim, so as to be ready when the time comes. Incidentally, what does the child herself have to say about the matter?’
‘Nothing. She has not spoken.’
Mr Montgomery nodded serenely, as if nothing could have been more natural.
‘And before she was taken from your care, she had the power of speech?’
Vaughan nodded.
‘And Mr Armstrong’s daughter – did she have the power of speech?’
‘She did.’
‘I see. Now do not be offended, remember, if I appear to treat the little Amelia as if she were a cargo gone astray and returned to sight, it is the way my experience goes. What I know is this: much weight is given to the last sighting of the cargo before it disappeared and the first sighting when it reappeared. That is what will tell us as much as can be known about the cargo while it was out of sight. Taken together with as complete a description as possible of the cargo as it was before and as it was afterwards, it will generally be enough to cast a decent enough light into the muddle to ascertain ownership within the law.’
He proceeded to ask a number of questions. He asked about Amelia before the kidnap. He asked about the circumstances in which Alice Armstrong was lost. He asked about the circumstances in which the cargo – ‘Amelia,’ he said, more than once, with emphasis – was found. He noted all and nodded.
‘Armstrong’s daughter has, to all extents and purposes, disappeared into the blue. These things happen. Yours has returned out of the blue. Which is more unusual. Where has she been? Why is it now that she has returned – or been returned? These are unanswered questions. It would be better to have an answer, but if there is no answer to be had, then instead we must rely on other evidence. Do you have photographs of Amelia from before?’
‘We do.’
‘And she resembles those photographs, now?’
Vaughan shrugged. ‘I suppose so … In the way little girls of four resemble their own selves aged two.’
‘Which is to say …?’
‘A mother’s eye can see it is the same child.’
‘But another? A more judicial eye?’
Vaughan paused, and Montgomery, as if he had not registered the pause, sailed blithely on. ‘I take your point entirely about children. They change. A cargo of cheese lost on Wednesday does not transform into an equivalent weight of tobacco when it reappears on Saturday, but a child – ah! another matter entirely. I take your point. Still, to be ready, keep the photographs safe, and keep note of everything – every little detail – that tells you that this Amelia and that Amelia from two years ago are one and the same child. It is as well to be prepared.’