Page:Herbert Jenkins - Return of Alfred.djvu/75

 LITTLE BILSTEAD RECEIVES A SHOCK 71 He had heard of men completely forgetting their own identity, or who had deliberately traded upon the likeness they bore to others. Never, however, had he heard of any one being plunged into such a position as that in which he now found himself.

There was Adolf Beck, as he had remarked to Dr. Crane; but that proved nothing beyond the fact that one man could be so like another as to have his identity sworn away by a score of witnesses including prison-warders in whose charge he had been for months at a time.

The dramatic possibilities of the situation were endless. Clearly there was some mystery about the original Alfred, an unsavoury mystery he decided, judging from the embarrassment of Willis and Mrs. Higgs, and the curious attitude of Dr. Crane.

If Alfred Warren had done anything which rendered him amenable to the law, then the possibilities might become something more than merely dramatic. What if he were secretly married? He shuddered at the thought.

Through no merit of his own, he had acquired a new mother, now mercifully some two or three thousand miles away; but a hitherto unknown "wife !" He wondered how it would feel to be claimed as a long-lost husband.

One thing was clear, he could not continue at The Grange. He could swear an affidavit that he was not Alfred Warren, it was true; but a judge might not unreasonably enquire why he had continued to occupy an obviously false and invidious position. He could not appeal to the Courts to restrain people from identifying him as Alfred Warren. The obvious thing was to