The Man Without a Memory by Arthur W. Marchmont (good summer reads txt) 📖

"It is rather urgent that I should return to Berlin as soon as possible. Do you think you could manage the journey to-day?"

"I don't see why not. But—er—it's a bit awkward, you know. Are you sure I'm your man?"

He glanced at his watch and started. "It's just possible that we could catch the express, and we can talk in the train; that is, if you haven't many preparations to make."

"I haven't any. I've nothing but what I stand up in, and one place is as good as another to me unti——" and I sighed and gestured hopelessly.

"Then I should like to go."

"Can I go without any papers or anything?"

"With me, certainly. I have everything necessary, and will explain on the journey."

And go we did to my infinite satisfaction.

In the cab to the station he was silent and thoughtful, and as my one consuming desire was to get across the frontier before anything could happen, I didn't worry him with any questions. It was all clear sailing at the station. Whoever Hoffnung might be, there was no doubt about his having authority. He secured a special compartment, although the train was crowded, and did all possible for my comfort.

"That's the best of travelling officially," he said pleasantly as he settled himself in the seat opposite me, while the train ran out of the station. "Now, you asked me a question at the hospital which I did not answer—whether I'm sure you're Lassen. Frankly, I'm not; and the more I look at you the more I'm puzzled."

"It's a bit awkward. I don't wish to be somebody else."

"Do you feel fit to talk? The doctor warned me against worrying you; but there are things I should enormously like to know."

"You're not half so keen as I am," I told him truthfully. "If I am Lassen, what am I; where do I live; have I any friends anywhere; isn't there any one who knows me anywhere? It's such a devil of a mess."

"There's one thing certain, my friend, you're a German; and as for the rest you'll find plenty of people in Berlin who'll know you. The von Reblings, for instance. Which reminds me I have the Countess's letter;" he opened his despatch case and handed me a sealed envelope.

But I had already told the doctors that I could not write and could not read handwriting, although I had fumbled out some large print. That had been one of the specialities of my peculiar aphasia. So I just smiled vacantly and shook my head. "Will you read it to me?" I asked.

He agreed after some little demur, and a very charming letter it was. The Countess addressed me as "My dear Johann," wrote in the familiar thee and thou, said how anxious she and Rosa—especially Rosa, it seemed—had been about me; urged me to hurry to Berlin as soon as possible, where, of course, I should be the most welcome guest in the world, and signed herself "Your affectionate aunt, Olga von Rebling."

"Doesn't that remind you of anything?" asked Hoffnung.

"Not in the faintest. Who is Rosa?"

Instead of telling me, he smiled suggestively and I smiled back. "Did the Countess send you to fetch me?"

"Oh, no. I came officially. I'll tell you about that directly; but it is because of what she told us about you that I was sent. She received a letter from you from England saying that you were crossing in the Burgen, and when the newspapers reported the loss of the steamer and that you were the only survivor, she told me about it. I reported it at Headquarters, and—well, here I am in consequence."

"And you've never seen me, or Lassen, or whoever I am, before?"

"Never. I have seen a photograph of you, but it was taken some long time ago; and while you answer to the likeness in some respects, you certainly do not in others, although I can see that you may be Lassen, allowing for the difference of time."

"Well, anyway, these von Reblings will know, thank Heaven."

But he shook his head. "I'm not so sure. You see, it's a good many years since you were in Berlin. The family arrangement dates back many more years than that, moreover—since you were children."

"What family arrangement?"

"Your betrothal to Miss Rosa."

"The devil!" I exclaimed. "Do you mean to tell me I'm engaged to marry this Rosa von Rebling?"

"Certainly I do, and a very charming girl she is, and very rich too," he replied, smiling unrestrainedly.

But it cost me some effort to smile in return. It was the very deuce of a mix up; there were no end of bothering complications in it, and I leant back in my seat to try and think it out. It was quite on the cards, after what he had said about my photograph, that even these people themselves might mistake me for Lassen; and if they did, I should be hampered at every turn in my search for Nessa.

"Is it really possible that you don't remember anything about it?" he asked after a long pause.

"Not a thing."

"The doctor hoped that the mention of them would stir your memory."

I shook my head hopelessly. "It may when I see them—if I'm really Lassen, that is. Phew! What a kettle of fish!"

We reached the frontier soon afterwards, and I breathed more freely as soon as I was on the right side of it. Whatever happened now, I could play at being a German. I recalled with immense satisfaction his confident assertion that whoever I might be I was certainly one of his countrymen; and I could gamble on it that when the von Reblings met me, my "case" would still continue to be interesting enough to secure my safety.

Hoffnung had begun to study some papers from his grip and presently looked across at me and put a surprising question. "Do you speak English?" he asked in my own tongue.

I had presence of mind enough to be instantly very American. "Gee, don't I, some."

"Then you've been in America?"

"Have I?" My practice with the Rotterdam people was coming in well.

"Oh, yes. You went from there to England," he replied, going back to his own language. "Can't you remember that?"

I shook my head and frowned.

"Nor anything you did in England?" Another mystified shake of the head. "It's a pity. Don't you know that you sent a report from England of what you'd seen there?"

A little duet followed in which he asked me a series of questions, and I replied each time with a shake of the head. The subject matter of them all was the mention of persons, places, dockyards, ships and so on, which had obviously been embodied in the report Lassen had sent to Berlin. He referred to them in a casual tone and in a way which would not give anything away supposing I should turn out not to be Lassen.

"I'm inclined to be very sorry for all this, and fear it may affect you very seriously. You're not just playing at this, I hope?" he asked then very earnestly.

"Playing at what?"

"This loss of memory. I mean that you need not have the faintest hesitation about speaking to me; and it occurred to me that you might have put it all on just to avoid questions at Rotterdam."

"Are you serious?"

"Absolutely. It's a tremendously serious matter. It's this way. We've seen the Burgen's manifest, of course; we know there were only two male cabin passengers on board, both travelling as Americans; one as Jas. R. Lamb, the other as Joseph Lyman. If you are Lassen, that was you. The other man, Lamb, as he called himself, we have good reason to believe was an English spy. It follows, therefore, that if you are not Lassen, you are the Englishman; and I need scarcely tell you that at such a time as this, spies find Berlin a very unhealthy place."

He was a quicker-witted fellow than I had believed, but he made a mistake in not springing this beastly surprise on me more suddenly. His long preamble gave me time to get myself well in hand.

"It'll be a pretty climax for me if I am the Englishman," I answered, laughing, and without turning a hair.

"You're sure you're not?" he rapped.

I tried to appear amused. "I wish I could be sure of anything."

A pause followed, and then he tried another shot. "You may have noticed that I stared pretty hard at you this morning when you came into the doctor's room, and that afterwards I rather rushed you away from Rotterdam. I reached there yesterday morning and spent the day making such inquiries as I could about you. I was instructed to, of course; and I came to the conclusion that you were the Englishman, and I thought so when you came into that room. That was why I hurried you away; I wished to have you on this side of the frontier. It is also the reason why I am sorry you cannot recover your memory."

I declined the opening without thanks. "I'm just as sorry as you are; but I suppose we can clear up the tangle at Berlin."

"Oh, yes. I've wired to the von Reblings to meet our train. Of course you'll understand that I have some men at hand here. It is better you should know that," he added in an unpleasantly suggestive tone.

But I only laughed. "I wish you would send one of them to get me something to eat."

"I will, of course;" and he looked out into the corridor, beckoned some one and gave him the necessary order, returned to his seat and busied himself with the papers from his despatch case.

A substantial meal for us both was brought to the compartment, and although very little was said as we ate it, I was conscious that a considerable change had come over the relations between us. His manner had become distinctly official, and I understood that I was virtually under arrest until at least we reached Berlin.

Afterwards he went back to his papers, suggesting that I might like to sleep; so I leant back in my corner and gave myself up to my thoughts.

They were anything but pleasant. He had given me a shock that was almost as great as the explosion on the Burgen. I was in the very devil's own mess. I had no delusions about my fate if I was held to be an English spy; and that would almost certainly be the case if the von Reblings declared I was not Lassen. That that would be their decision was a million to one chance. It was a sheer impossibility that they would be unable to recognize a relation who was actually engaged to the daughter; and how to meet the difficulty baffled me.

I was right in the eye of the net. The fact that there had been only two men as cabin passengers on the Burgen was like a mine sprung under my feet. I had reckoned on being able to recover my memory at any necessary moment; but this cut the ground from under me. I couldn't become Jimmy. That was a cert. And I certainly couldn't become any one else, because every lie I might tell would most surely be scrupulously investigated.

Poor Nessa! I was a heap more troubled about her and her mother than about myself. Whether the von Reblings knew me or not, the result would be much the same to her. Tied up as the betrothed of another girl, it would be next to impossible in the short time at my command to do a thing to find Nessa. The only possibility that occurred to me was that if the million to one chance came off and the von Reblings didn't denounce me at once as a fraud, I might manage to lose myself in the city somehow and set to work on the search.

But even in that case I should be in hourly danger of discovery; a state of things which would make it virtually impossible to