Author's note – This is kind of a major stretch as far as plausibility goes and I sense it would take a lot of time to truly let this play out but this chapter is basically me needing to at least try the idea.

February 1923

"Richard, I have a small favor to ask of you. Possibly several."

Sir Richard Carlisle braced himself but only a little. Geoffrey Bull, Scotland Yard Senior Inspector, was an old friend from his school days. An old friend whose favor probably didn't involve asking for a loan, Geoffrey had married well. Richard gestured for him to take a seat as he closed the door to his newspaper office. A favor could mean anything and although Geoffrey was one of his more upright friends, it still paid to be cautious.

"I can't guarantee anything," Richard said genially as he took a seat behind his desk. "But I admit I am curious to know what I could help you with."

Geoffrey smiled. "We've drifted apart since school, I know, but I do still keep an eye on my old school friends." His expression grew more serious. "You were engaged to be married to Lady Mary Crawley, during the war."

An odd place for Geoffrey to go but he was willing to play along. All things considered, it was for the best that he hadn't married Lady Mary. He had been angry, and then he had gone to France and met Claudette in Toulouse, and that pretty French maiden and artist was now his lovely wife. It was rather nice to have a wife that looked up to him as a man. Lady Mary Crawley at heart was a snob, while Claudette was happy to have an English husband with a wealthy business and a minor title. Even better, he loved her and in that love realized that he was better off away from Mary. They already had a baby son and another child was on the way. "I was. We broke our engagement in 1919 and she then married her cousin Matthew Crawley, her father's heir."

"Did you ever meet Matthew Crawley?" Geoffrey asked, his eyes intent. "Before his… severe injuries in May of 1918?"

Oh, do I smell a story, Richard wondered. "I did. There were some dinners at Lord Grantham's estate when he was assisting with recruitment in 1916 and 1917." He hesitated. There was a story brewing, he could see it in his old friend's eyes, but the engagement had been broken years ago. He was happily married. As much as he had once wanted revenge on Mary, he hadn't acted when the wounds were fresh, and truth be told, he rather thought that Matthew Crawley had been the real loser in the mess. "What is this about, Geoffrey? The poor chap is dead and gone, and I can't believe you're investigating him for some past crime…" Matthew Crawley, Richard thought with no small amount of amusement, was the sort of fellow that breathed life into the saying 'only the good die young'. A bit of a prig, and besotted with Mary, but an honorable decent fellow. It still surprised Richard that the man had been a lawyer.

Geoffrey shook his head. "When you first met him, in 1916, did he have any… identifying marks or traits? Did he seem to change after his injury in 1918?"

That's interesting, Richard thought. "I can't say I ever noticed any visible scars. And yes, he changed after being crippled and told he'd never walk or bear children. He was bloody near catatonic from depression for a good long while. He told his fiancé to leave him. He told Lady Mary that the only reason he tolerated her was because she was already engaged to me and therefore wouldn't ruin her life being attached to a cripple."

Geoffrey sighed. "You really didn't know the man well, then. Before 1918?"

"No. I've satisfied your curiosity. Please satisfy mine. What is this about? I'll help you any way I can, as long as I get first crack at the story." It was touchy if it swirled around his former fiancé but he couldn't help but sense that there was a story, a big story.

"I was trying to spare the family some pain, but I realize now that this will need to be a giant public mess." Geoffrey took a deep breath and let it out. "I got a letter from Lord Philip Atherton, about six months ago. Or rather, Lord Atherton posted a letter to his lawyer who sent it to the Yard because he was worried that Lord Atherton was being lied to. Lord Atherton, if you didn't know, has a large estate in Kenya where he farms coffee of all things. He wrote that a few months prior, an Englishman claiming to be Captain Matthew Crawley had just about crawled onto his lands, claiming he'd been captured by the Germans in early 1918 and transported to their African colony in Namibia. He was locked up in a diamond mine and forced to work for them and eventually broke out and spent literally years crossing the veldt, trying to get to a British colony. He turned up on Atherton's farm and told his story to Lord Atherton."

Richard smiled. Such tales had occurred before and Geoffrey was wise to investigate, especially considering Matthew Crawley's rather dramatic public death in late August of 1921. "And all things considered, you're investigating someone making an outlandish claim. Is this really so difficult?"

He was surprised and intrigued to see Geoffrey nod. "I was like you," Geoffrey admitted. "It felt like a con game was afoot. But there's too many things that don't make sense. This sort of con, especially in Africa, plays out with the con man making his claims and fleecing everyone and then running off."

"Agreed," Richard said easily. "Typically, they beg for help and promise that whoever helps them will be paid by their benefactor, in this case Lord Grantham, as soon as he knows the joyous news that his heir is alive. Did it not go that way?"

"It didn't. For starters, the supposed Matthew Crawley merely asked for food, water, and passage to England once he'd regained his health." Geoffrey gave him a nod. "Second, per Lord Atherton, the man has a fortune of diamonds, back wages he called it, that he took from his captors. He's here in London now, with Lord Atherton, and I am assured by the diamond brokers that this man has no need to beg for help, or to lie about who he is. And third…." Geoffrey signed again. "We took his fingerprints and compared them to the ones Captain Crawley gave when he took a commission in 1914. They're a match. For most people, this would be enough to declare him. I was hoping you could confirm or deny it by citing a scar or physical quirk… I didn't want to put it to the family if I didn't have to…"

Richard tried not to show how shocked he was. "Do you really think he's Matthew Crawley? If he's Crawley then who was the chap who had the broken spine?"

"A German," Geoffrey said. "Crawley has the Viking look, blond and blue eyed to a fault. His story is that he was captured, that he was mocked by the German officers for looking like one of their junior officers, and then knocked out. When he woke up, he was chained up on a steamship headed for Africa. Crawley only got the last name of the German, von Rostenburg. We're investigating it now. The concept as far as Crawley knew, and he was hardly welcomed into the planning, was that this von Rostenburg would take his place and spy… It clearly didn't work out that way. I just… I was hoping you'd known Crawley better." Geoffrey's expression grew pensive as he leaned back in the chair. "If this wasn't to do with the peerage, I'd let the chips fall where they may. I've done the right thing. I've questioned if this was a con man, and fingerprints don't lie. But… Lord Grantham is a peer and this will affect his family a great deal. And worse for poor young Crawley. I was hoping you could help soften the blow." Geoffrey sighed. "Can you imagine? This German fellow wasn't much of a spy but he managed to fool everyone in the man's family. What a masterful scam artist that one was…"

"More likely desperate," Richard offered. "There was no faking the injury, the man couldn't feel a thing below his waist. As Matthew Crawley, he'd be yes, a cripple, but a rich cripple with a title, while if he confessed that he was a German spy… with the war lost, why not take the best chance left? And then he regained the ability to walk, a miracle really… If he had nothing to go back to, and thought the real Matthew Crawley was dead, why not take his place?" And poor young Crawley was the man with the real story, Richard thought, a story worth publishing. Separated from his family and his country, enslaved in a German diamond mine in Africa, escaping and running across Africa for years. That sort of tale, especially with a German spy stealing his life in England, serialized, sold papers and books and that meant he needed to consider the favor Geoffrey was asking even if it seemed almost a farce. "Crawley and I were hardly close chums, Geoffrey, and I certainly can't confirm or deny any identifying marks he might have had. As for softening the blow… When I say we weren't close, I mean it. He was a nice enough fellow who apparently didn't ruin my engagement to Lady Mary." An amusing irony, all things considered. "I do remember him as a friendly enough fellow. Surely there are a few friends closer to him you could bring in to break the bad news?"

"That is the second problem," Geoffrey admitted. "Everyone he's named as a friend either died in the war or died in the influenza epidemic. I've been trying to find someone that isn't family to break the news to him that his family was so utterly fooled by a stranger that they've been mourning his death by car accident in 1921."

It was the sort of thing that could drive a man mad, Richard thought. Which made the story even more saleable. "Poor fellow," he said to Geoffrey, already considering his options. "He was an honorable sort, Matthew. No doubt he spent this whole time dreaming of the reunion with his family. If I am the closest thing to a compatriot you could find, then I am glad to talk with him. I certainly know most of the main events." And all the really awkward events revolve around the German interloper the Crawleys welcomed to their family with open arms. It was going to be a thing of beauty to witness. Unpleasant for poor Matthew Crawley, the one member of the Crawley family who hadn't actually wronged him, but Richard couldn't deny hoping he could see the look on Lady Mary's face when she found out

0o0o0o0

Matthew tried to fight the urge and then finally gave up and walked over to the fire place, holding out his hands to soak up the heat from the fire. "I'm sorry," he said to his host, Lady Atherton, Lord Atherton's elderly sister who still maintained a home in London. Philip had needed to deal with some issues with the coffee markets, so he said, Matthew suspected that the man was dealing with some sort of situation pertaining to his house guest, and had left him with the older woman to deal with the authorities. He could hardly complain about it or about anything, Philip had saved and helped him in so many ways. "I just can't seem to get warm here. I know, intellectually, that it's not even that cold but…" He shivered as he spoke and fought the urge to cough.

"Your body still expects the African sun," Lady Atherton said easily. "You'll be fine in a few weeks. It takes a bit to acclimate. You won't feel it so harshly in a month or so."

"I hope so," Matthew said, grateful to shake off some of the chill that had enveloped him. Being in London was a miserable sort of joy. Somehow he'd forgotten how damp and cold it was when he was sweating in the mines or wandering in the desert, tiredly waiting under a baobab tree for the blistering sun to retreat for the day.

The real problem wasn't the cold, he thought as he warmed his hands, it was knowing, deep down, that Philip and Inspecter Bull were keeping something from him. He wasn't worried about proving his story, he was telling the truth, and the diamonds he'd stolen from his captors guaranteed people would take the story seriously and not dismiss him as some pretender to Robert's title. Bull had been suspicious of just that, and then flabbergasted at the finger print results. Matthew had agreed to having his identity established first, before he upended the lives of his family but he was getting frustrated and worried. He had been missing for six years, the war had ended. His family most likely assumed he was dead. He had agreed with Philip that starting with the authorities was best. It was best to get it out of the way. But he was already a week in London and there was no word about his family. He was beginning to fear the silence. It's been six years, he reminded himself. For all that happened to you, so much could have happened to your family.

When Philip entered the library, with a long face, followed by Inspector Bull, looking equally unhappy, followed by a third man that was a bit familiar, he decided to not pull any punches. "Gentlemen… I respect how careful and kind you've both been in establishing my existence to the authorities but it's obvious there's some bad news you're not telling me." He braced himself. "I'm a grown man, and it's been six years." He went for the obvious. "Has my mother died? Is that it?"

Philip smiled, his expression still worried. "No, Matthew, I'm told she's quite well. But you're right, there's some news that you'll find upsetting. Let me prepare us all some drinks." He gestured the familiar looking man. "I believe you know Sir Richard Carlisle?"

Is this where the bad news begins. Matthew wondered. The man looked older, and had the same sly, and not entirely friendly look on his face that Matthew recalled. He hadn't disliked the man, but it had surprised him that Mary had agreed to marry him. "Yes, I do recall. Sir Richard was engaged to my cousin, Lady Mary." He tried to smile. "Though with all the time that has passed, I imagine you must have married after all this time."

"Well," Sir Richard said easily as Philip handed him a drink, "Perhaps that is a good place to start. As it happens, Lady Mary eventually broke her engagement with me and… married someone else."

A surprise, an awkward surprise, but the man didn't seem terribly upset by it. In fact, Sir Richard seemed more amused than anything else. "What a shame."

"It was for the best, all things considered." Richard gave Philip and Bull a surprisingly harsh look. "Perhaps this is the sort of situation that demands a certain amount of bluntness. Matthew, do you mind if I call you Matthew?"

Matthew shook his head. They hadn't been so familiar when they last met, but he was hardly in a position to complain, especially since Richard seemed willing to break the silence. "Not at all."

"Then, Matthew, why don't you sit down and Philip, bring him a drink and make it generous." Matthew considered protesting, he'd barely had a drink beyond a glass of beer or two in years and Philip knew it, but judging by the looks on all of their faces, he suspected he'd need it.

He took the proffered glass and took a seat in the deep leather chair. One thing he was enjoying about London was that while the weather made his war and prison injuries ache more, there was finally something more comfortable than bare ground or a rock to sit on. He sipped the drink, letting it warm him. "Go ahead, Sir Richard. Rip off the bandages." He tried to say it bravely. "If my mother is as well as Philip says, then I am already incredibly lucky. Frankly, I am incredibly lucky to be sitting here at all."

"And I will want that story, Matthew," Richard said quickly. "What Philip has told me is frankly astounding. But I think you're right." He looked at Matthew intently. "It's frankly eerie, how incredibly alike the German spy was to you." To Bull, he said briskly, "You may want to check into university students from Germany, the fellow spoke the language like he was born here."

"We're looking into it, already," Bull said.

Matthew found himself suddenly full of questions. "Are you saying… that people actually believed the German fellow was me? Granted he was a near twin to me but…"

"He was wounded not long after he took your place, so the soldiers under him probably didn't notice any changes in behavior. The one that might have noted, William Mason, your batman, was severely wounded in the same battle and died not long after." Richard paused.

"Poor chap," Matthew said sadly. He took another drink and decided to risk saying what he was beginning to suspect. "Did… my family believe this German spy was really me?"

"Yes. They were horrified at how badly injured he was, and I suspect his injuries and dark depression may have made it easier to ignore any mistakes he might have made but your family was quite taken in by the ruse." Richard wasn't exactly cold but he was matter of fact.

Matthew tried to make sense of it. "Was he disfigured?" It was the only thing he could think of that would cause people to be fooled.

"No. He was paralyzed from the waist down. And…" Richard sniffed, as if something had struck him. "His face was badly bruised, it was a good two months before all the marks faded. So, little differences were likely excused. I won't lie to you. I never once heard anyone express any suspicion. And apparently, you weren't burdened with any identifying marks from before the war."

Matthew felt the cold grip his insides like an icy vice. He had assumed that he'd been declared missing. The guards and commandant at the prisoner internment camp had essentially sold the few English POWs that had survived the hellish shipment to Namibia to the diamond mines. As he toiled in the mines, plotting against the overseers and finally escaping with nothing but his clothes, a knife, a hammer and chisel in his belt, and a sack of stolen diamonds, he'd always assumed that his mother, and his cousins, and Lavinia, were at least wondering and worrying about him. At worst mourning him and recalling him fondly. That no one had noticed the imposter stung his heart. Especially since… "But you said my mother was well. Did she see this imposter? I mean, you said he was badly wounded. I mean you said he couldn't walk but were his legs scarred or burned?"

Richard shook his head and gave him an odd look. A look of worry, strange to see on the manipulative man's face. "No, it was his back that had taken the injury."

"And Mother, if she'd gotten the news I was wounded, she would have been there at my side as soon as she could get there, to tend to me." He looked at Richard, hoping he was wrong for once about his mother.

"As soon as she knew, she was there," Richard agreed. "Frankly it was considered a small bit of luck, a paralyzed man having a nurse for a mother." He leaned in, clearly interested. "Why is this an issue?"

"Because…" Matthew stood up and rolled up the right leg of his trousers, revealing the large scar he'd had as long as he could remember. "I was bitten by a dog when I was a little boy. Mauled, really. My mother certainly knew about the scar, she helped my father stitch it up. I… I can understand Lady Mary, Lady Edith and Lady Sybil not knowing about it, and Lord Grantham and his wife, because they didn't know me as a boy… But my mother… my mother should have noticed the scar not being there." He sat down heavily, feeling the icy tendrils of shock clench around his chest. It wasn't a mistake his mother would have made. Not unless she was starting to slip the way older people sometimes did but there'd been no sign of it during his last leave home. They don't know her as well as I, he reminded himself. It was unsettling but forgivable.

He looked up from his glass. "There's more, isn't there? That's not the whole piece of bad news, is it?" Of course it wasn't, he realized. Out of all the people he listed to Philip and Bull as friends and family, they had brought Sir Richard Carlisle to break the news. Something was wrong and that meant there was more bad news. "I said to rip the bandage off."

Richard leaned back in his chair. "He was crippled, depressed. He ordered your fiancé, Lavinia Swire, to leave him. He told her he could never marry a woman if all she'd be was a nurse to him. She refused to give up on him."

"Of course," Matthew nodded sadly. "She would never have left me with such an injury. We had discussed it once, when I was on leave because… I was worried about her future. She said I was being silly, that people who married, married for life and that meant weathering any storm." It stung, because he sensed what was coming. "Did she marry the fellow, thinking it was me crippled from the war?"

"Not… not quite," Richard said softly. "The… I suppose we should call him the spy, refused to marry due to his condition. She stayed at his side, she and Lady Mary, and months later, he had a miracle recovery. The feeling came back to his body and everyone was well pleased. He and Lavinia did decide to marry and then… the poor girl took sick with the Spanish flu and died the night before their wedding day."

The icy coldness seemed to envelope his body. He sipped the drink but it did nothing to warm him. "She was such a sweet woman… I knew… I knew there would be deaths, but hers, I hadn't suspected. I thought I'd find her married to some other fellow after giving me up for dead. At least she… never knew the mistake she'd made in trusting someone that looked like me." A thought struck him. "Is this man parading around York as I even now?"

Bull gave Richard a knowing look and Richard nodded. Then Richard looked at him. "He's dead, Matthew. The man we all thought was Matthew Crawley died in late August of 1921. It was a car accident."

"So, my family is mourning my death. To them I died a year and a half ago." He let that roll around in his mind. Then he turned to the inspector. "No wonder… no wonder you were so suspicious of me. I must have looked like a terrible cad, playing on a grieving family's emotions. And Robert… the poor man doesn't even have an heir for the estate, it must have worried him terribly." At least it will be good news and not a total humiliation for one member of the family, he thought. The Crawley family taking in a German spy as one of their own was going to make them the laughingstock of all of their highborn friends.

"Well, about that," Richard said. "I'm genuinely uncertain how painful you'll find the blow that I am about to land on you, all things considered." He looked at his drink pensively. "I am not a particularly kind person, Matthew. I think you know that. You will hear different versions of why Lady Mary and I ended our engagement. I am neither the hero or entirely the wronged party. I did love her but I was also holding her to me with knowledge of one of her secrets."

Matthew felt a rush of anger. He'd often suspected something along those lines. There were times when he had been on leave where he had regretted meeting Lavinia, loving Lavinia, because as pleasant as that love was, he had the terrible sense that Mary needed his protection. And apparently, she had, which only made him feel even worse. "You were blackmailing her, weren't you? About the Turk?"

Richard's eyes widened and he smiled suddenly. "You knew about the Turk? That surprises me." Then he nodded. "Or perhaps it shouldn't, all things considered. How did you find out?"

The man's genuine interest forced some of his anger back. "There was a war, you know. Soldiers talk and tell squalid little stories about their supposed accomplishments and about the sort of things highborn women get up to. I heard the story from a fellow from London while in a field camp in France and after I beat him bloody for saying such a thing, Evelyn Napier took me aside and explained how likely it was to be true." He clenched his free hand into a fist. The story had angered him when he first heard it, because he had still felt betrayed by Mary's shallow concerns about money and the earldom. Then she had taken up with Richard, and he with Lavinia and with a cooler head he could see how little it truly mattered. The war had changed him in many ways, and the prison camp, the toil in the diamond mines under cruel masters, and his escape and years long trudge across the hinterlands of Africa had changed him even more. "With everything that happened since… I never had a chance to ask her about it, so I have no idea of the true circumstances. My assumption was always that he took advantage of her. He was certainly aggressive. Why are we discussing this?"

"Because in my way," Richard said easily, "I'm an honest man. And you're a clever man, and I have no doubt that other people will tell you the story of how Mary and I parted and what happened after. So always do keep in mind, I may be, in your eyes, a terrible cad, but I'm not dancing around the parts where I wasn't so noble. I thought I loved her, and I was holding her to me with the promise of keeping that story out of the news. She… threw me over for you. Or rather, the German spy she thought was you. Then they married. She had a child with him, and the tragedy of the last year is that Lord Grantham's heir died in a car crash the day his son was born." Richard shrugged. "The only positive thing people said about the tragedy was at least the child was a boy, that the title could be passed."

"Which makes it all more of a mess now," Philip added quietly. "Matthew, your family was quite taken in by this man." He held out some photographs, which Matthew numbly accepted. It was like looking at a mirror image, the image of a life he'd never lived. Wedding photographs, no doubt from the social pages of the newspaper, of the spy who looked so much like him with Mary. Mary, who was smiling so joyfully at him in the photo.

"I…" he handed the photos back. "I have no idea what I should say or do. I... have spent years wanting to be with my family again. Now I feel like I should just… take myself back to Africa." It all tasted like bitter ashes. No, he told himself as he clenched his drink, that's not true. They will be shocked, and embarrassed, but also overjoyed. "I don't mean that. I don't." He took a moment to find his center, that part of him that had fought against the inevitable death that his captors had clearly longed for. "This has hurt, and I am sure it will continue to hurt but… I've already opened Pandora's Box and there's no closing it."

"Well said," Philip said after a moment. He patted Matthew on the back reassuringly. "Once the upsetting news is digested, I think you'll find your family moves past the unpleasantness quite easily."

"I hope so," Matthew said worriedly. "I somehow thought this was going to be the easy."

Sir Richard smiled wryly. "I know I should find nothing of this amusing, Matthew. But… I will admit, I never in my life ever considered that I would feel sorry for you. And yet here I am."