Chapter 13

DR. IVOR OF BABBICOMBE

Two days later, Cousin Willie drove us over to Berry Pomeroy. The
lion of the place is the castle, of course; but Minnie had told him
beforehand I wanted, for reasons of my own, to visit the
cricket-field where the sports were held "the year Dr. Ivor won the
mile race, you remember." So we went there straight. As soon as we
entered, I recognised the field at once, and the pavilion, and the
woods, as being precisely the same as those presented in the
photograph. But I got no further than that. The captain of the
cricket-club was on the ground that day, and I managed to get into
conversation with him, and strolled off in the grounds. There I
showed him the photograph, and asked if he could identify the man
climbing over the wagon: but he said he couldn't recognise him.
Somebody or other from Torquay, perhaps; not a regular resident. The
figures were so small, and so difficult to make sure about. If I'd
leave him the photograph, perhaps--but at that I drew back, for I
didn't want anybody, least of all at Torquay, to know what quest I
was engaged upon.

We drove back, a merry party enough, in spite of my failure. Minnie
was always so jolly, and her mirth was contagious. She talked all
the way still of Dr. Ivor, half-teasing me. It was all very well my
pretending not to remember, she said; but why did I want to see the
cricket-field if it wasn't for that? Poor Courtenay! if only he
knew, how delighted he'd be to know he wasn't forgotten! For he
really took it to heart, my illness--she always called it my
illness, and so I suppose it was. From the day I lost my memory,
nothing seemed to go right with him; and he was never content till
he went and buried himself somewhere in the wilds of Canada.

That evening again, I sat with Minnie in my room. I was depressed
and distressed. I didn't want to cry before Minnie, but I could have
cried with good heart for sheer vexation. Of course I couldn't bear
to go showing the photograph to all the world, and letting everybody
see I'd made myself a sort of amateur detective. They would mistake
my motives so. And yet I didn't know how I was ever to find out my
man any other way. It was that or nothing. I made up my mind I would
ask Cousin Willie.

I took out the photograph, as if unintentionally, when I went to my
box, and laid it down with my curling-tongs on the table close by
Minnie. Minnie took it up abstractedly and looked at it with an
indefinite gaze.

"Why, this is the cricket-field!" she cried, as soon as she
collected her senses. "One of your father's experiments. The
earliest acmegraphs. How splendidly they come out! See, that's Sir
Everard at the bottom; and there's little Jack