Free Put on by Cunning by Ruth Rendell

he suddenly found he had so much to say to her. He talked on and on about his life since she went away, her mother’s death, his retirement because of the arthritis in his hands, how he had built that house. She answered him, he said, but a lot of things she said he couldn’t hear. Maybe she spoke low, but my voice is low and he could always hear me. However . . .’
    ‘She has an American accent,’ said Wexford.
    ‘Perhaps that was it. The awful thing was, he said, that when he talked of the long time she’d been away he actually cried. I couldn’t see it was important, but he was so ashamed of having cried. Still, he pulled himself together. He said they must have tea and he hoped she would stay the night and would she like to see over the house? He was always taking people over the house, I think it was something his generation did, and then . . .’
    Wexford broke in, ‘All this time he believed her to be his daughter?’
    ‘Oh, yes! He was in no doubt. The way he saidhe found out – well, it’s so crazy . . . Anyway, he actually told her he was going to make a new will after his marriage, and although he intended to leave me the house and its contents, everything else was to go to her, including what remained of her mother’s fortune. It was a lot of money, something in the region of a million, I think.
    ‘He showed her the bedroom that was to be hers, though she did say at this point that she couldn’t stay, and then they went back and into the music room. Oh, I don’t suppose you’ve ever been in the house, have you?’
    ‘As a matter of fact, I have,’ said Wexford.
    She gave him a faintly puzzled glance. ‘Yes. Well, you’ll know then that there are alcoves all round the music room and in one of the alcoves is a flute made of gold. It was given to Manuel by a sort of patron and fan of his, an American of Italian origin called Aldo Cazzini, and it’s a real instrument, it’s perfectly playable , though in fact Manuel had never used it.
    ‘He and Natalie went in there and Natalie took one look in the alcove and said, “You still have Cazzini’s golden flute,” and it was at this point, he said, that he knew. He knew for certain she wasn’t Natalie.’
    Wexford said, ‘I don’t follow you. Surely recognizing the flute would be confirmation of her identity rather than proof she was an impostor?’
    ‘It was the way she pronounced it. It ought to be pronounced Catzini and this woman pronounced it Cassini. Or so he said. Now the real Natalie grew up speaking English, French and Spanish with equal ease. She learnt German at school and when she was fifteen Manuel had her taught Italian because he intended her to be a musician and he thought some Italian essential for a musician. The real Natalie would never have mispronounced an Italian name. She would no more have done that, he said – these are his own words – than a Frenchman would pronounce Camargue to rhyme with Montague. So as soon as he heard her pronunciation of Cazzini he knew she couldn’t be Natalie.’
    Wexford could almost have laughed. He shook his head in dismissal. ‘There must have been more to it.’
    ‘There was. He said the shock was terrible. He didn’t say anything for a moment. He looked hard at her, he studied her, and then he could see she wasn’t his daughter. Nineteen years is a long time but she couldn’t have changed that much and in that way. Her features were different, the colour of her eyes was different. He went back with her into the drawing room and then he said, “You are not my daughter, are you?”’
    ‘He actually asked her, did he?’
    ‘He asked her and – you understand, Mr Wexford, that I’m telling you what he said – I feel a traitor to him, doubting him, as if he were senile or mad – he wasn’t, he was wonderful, but . . .’
    ‘He was old,’ said Wexford. A foolish, fond old man, fourscore years . . . ‘He was overwrought.’
    ‘Oh, yes, exactly! But the point