The Case of Naomi Clynes by Basil Thomson Page B

introduced him to us. On the second day I spoke to him in the lounge as he was going through with a Frenchwoman, talking French as fluently as a native. ‘You don’t remember me, Mr. Bryant?’ I said. He stopped short and stared at me. ‘I seem to remember your face,’ he said; ‘where did we meet?’ The lady had gone through the swing doors and was waiting for him outside; she was getting impatient and he broke off, saying, ‘I’ll see you later when I’m alone.’ I managed to find out at the desk that he had registered as Wilfred Bryant, and that the lady was his wife.
    â€œLater in the day he came to me alone and sat down beside me. ‘I remember you quite well now. You were one of the ladies in that American Society in Paris.’ I said, ‘Perhaps you remember another lady who was there, Miss Naomi Clynes?’ He changed colour and didn’t seem to know which way to look.”
    â€œWhat a swine!” broke in Jim Milsom. “I hope you told him so in plain English.”
    â€œIf I’d said that he’d have taken himself off and I should never have heard his explanation. What I did say was, ‘And now I hear you’re married, after being reported killed.’ ‘Yes,’ he said; ‘I was buried by a high explosive shell, and when they dug me out my death had already been reported. I was taken into a French hospital and the lady you saw this morning nursed me back to life.’
    â€œâ€˜And you never thought of poor Naomi who was crying her eyes out? Why didn’t you tell her that the death notice was a mistake?’ ‘I was too much smashed up at the time, and when I got better I thought that a wreck like me had no right to come and claim a girl like Naomi, and I don’t know— somehow I let things drift until it was too late to tell her.’ ‘And so you went off and married someone else?’ I said.
    â€œHe looked awkward and I thought he was going to leave me, so I added, ‘I suppose that the girl had a dot .’
    â€œThat made him flare up. ‘I thought you were going to say that,’ he said. ‘It’s quite true. Her father was a rich war profiteer and she had a dot , but I didn’t marry her on that account. After all, she saved my life by her devoted nursing.’
    â€œHe was very much embarrassed, but I gathered from his manner that it was his wife who had married him , not he who married her , and if it is any satisfaction to know it, she looked a thoroughly bad-tempered woman who makes his life a hell. To do him justice he had made no secret of his marriage. She goes everywhere with him. He took her over to England and introduced her to his people over there, only— he never announced his marriage to poor Naomi.”
    â€œDo you think that she could have run across him in London, and that was what she wanted to consult you about?” asked Milsom.
    â€œThat is what I think it was, Mr. Milsom.”
    â€œI wonder whether he was over in England at the time when she wrote that letter. There ought to be a way of finding out. Did you ask him where he was living?”
    â€œNo, I did not. His treatment of poor Naomi who had believed in him had been so mean that I had lost interest in him. He must have been living in Paris when I met him in Dieppe, because twice during the inside of the week they went off early in their car and didn’t get back much before dinner. Now, if you’ll let me speak to our waiter we might have a look at the telephone book.”
    She made a sign to the waiter and asked that the directory be brought to their table. The request caused a stir among the staff, for, as it appeared, the ponderous volume was chained to the desk, and permission to unfasten the chain must be sought from higher authority. But authority seemed to attach some importance to the pleasing of foreign tourists during the financial crisis, and the waiter