The Man Without a Memory, Arthur W. Marchmont [best business books of all time .txt] 📗

a second look at it, and found a quaint card-case inside, with some cards printed, "Johann Lassen," and a line saying she thought I should understand and find them useful. It was rather neat of her, and clearly was intended as an assurance that she meant to keep our secret.

She came in soon afterwards and I thanked her for it. She was pleased that she had succeeded in making her intention clear; but she wasn't so pleased when she heard that old Gretchen had had a peep at the card-case. Nor was she at all overjoyed at the story of the afternoon's doings in the Untergasse. She looked mighty grave about it, indeed.

"I'm not going to say I'm pleased about it, Johann," she declared. We had agreed that it would be better practice for us to use the Christian names even when alone. "It wants thinking over."

"Your reason?"

"Von Gratzen. You saw him this morning, didn't you?"

I nodded and gave her a very brief report of what had occurred and that he had been quite friendly.

She shook her head. "You'll have to be awfully careful with him. He knows, as well as I do, that my cousin is an arrant coward, and that no man in all Berlin would be less likely to do what you did this afternoon; or could have done it, in fact. The Baron's a man I could never understand. No one can. He does the most extraordinary things; he's horribly keen and shrewd; quixotic at one time and abominably harsh at another; although from his manner you'd think he wouldn't hurt a fly."

"Well, let's hope he'll show his quixotic side over this, for it's too late to alter things;" and we were still discussing it when Feldmann arrived, and she asked him eagerly for news.

"There's a hitch, I'm sorry to say. About Hans," he reported with a worried look. "His permit to travel has been refused. They won't release him from his training even for twenty-four hours. I did all I could, I assure you, Rosa."

"And about the other?"

"Oh, that's all right, of course. A mere matter of form; and it will be ready to-morrow, I expect. But one's not much use without the other."

"Johann could use yours, Oscar," suggested Rosa.

"Not on any account," I protested. "Herr Feldmann might get into no end of a mess."

"It isn't that, Lassen. I'm so well known all along the line that it would be hopeless. You'd be spotted in a moment. I'd run the risk like a shot otherwise; I know how Rosa feels about it."

"What can we do?" she exclaimed, turning to me.

"Make the best of it. Nessa must go without me, if I can't get off; and there's no chance of that tomorrow. Will the papers have a definite date for the journey?"

"I gave the date we agreed, but I dare say I could get that altered to allow us a margin of a day or two, perhaps a week; but then this wedding is the excuse; and of course that date can't be altered. But I could see Miss Caldicott into Holland all right."

"What, with a false passport! It's awfully good of you to offer, but I'm sure she wouldn't hear of it for a second. No; we must try the other way."

"What's that?" he asked.

He shook his head ominously at the mention of von Gratzen. "I know a lot about him, and I wouldn't put a pfennig's reliance on any hope from that quarter," he said emphatically. "I don't say he won't do anything, mind you, because one never knows what he will do next. He's one of the sharpest and ablest men in the country; we all admit that; but——" and he gestured and shrugged his shoulders.

"Unreliable?" He nodded. "In a shifty unscrupulous way, you mean?"

"Oh dear, no; not that at all," he said vigorously. "Individual. That is the best word. If he thinks a thing should be done, he does it whether it is according to official rules or not. That is not German. He is not thorough, as we understand the word."

There remained only the other plan—that Nessa and I should get away in some disguise, and at a tentative suggestion about false papers, Feldmann laughed.

"You will easily understand that when a people are subject to so many rules and regulations as we are, plenty of men set their wits to work to break them. False identification cards are as common as false coins, and if you knew where to go, a few marks would buy one, or a genuine one either, for that matter," he declared; but he made no offer to get them, and it was better not to press the thing farther then.

I left soon afterwards. The failure to get Hans' permit and all that had passed about von Gratzen served to make the position more and more difficult and complicated. The man seemed to be an enigma even to those who were in constant touch with him, and it was ridiculous to imagine, therefore, that any one who had only seen him once should understand him. A close and careful review of the interview with him threw no light on the matter. He had been exceedingly kind and friendly; but there had been a moment of startling contrast. That one keen look of his; so sharp, intent and piercing that it had seemed almost to change him into a different man; and it might well be accepted as the one instant in which the mask had been allowed to drop.

In the morning there was another incident. A curt formal summons arrived summoning me to his office at noon. This, after the previous day's job in the Untergasse! He might at least have had the decency to write a private note; and naturally enough the thing increased my uneasiness.

And then, if you please, it turned out that he had named that time as it was the hour when he went home to lunch and wished to take me with him! How could one judge such a man?

I put the note before him, with a word to the effect that I had thought it was on official business, and he laughed it away, saying he had told his secretary just to ask me to call.

He couldn't make enough of me; kept speaking to me as "My boy," and "My dear boy"; smothered me with protestations of gratitude; and capped it all by asking me to make his house my home while I was in Berlin.

That didn't appeal to me in the least. "Wouldn't it be very invidious, sir, if I was to go to you when I've only just left my aunt's?"

"I've a good mind to use my official power to compel you, my boy," he returned laughingly; "but the wife shall talk to you about it. In any case you must promise to let us see as much of you as possible."

That was easy to promise; and after a few moments we went out together.

If he wasn't sincere, then he was one of the best actors in the world either on or off the stage.

Which was he?

I could find no answer to the question. Yet everything probably depended upon it—Nessa's fate and my freedom, and possibly even my life.

CHAPTER XI THE PROBLEM OF VON GRATZEN

As soon as we were in the street von Gratzen linked his arm in mine. "It won't do you any harm to be seen in public with me," he said jestingly; and even in that half-bantering remark he managed to convey a subtle meaning.

"I can understand that, sir."

"And now I want to hear all about that affair yesterday."

"I expect you've already heard what there is to tell."

"Of course I've had my wife's and Nita's story, but I want yours. I may need your statement for official purposes, you see."

"I would rather not have to do anything official," I replied. An appearance as witness in any police proceedings was unthinkable.

"Don't let that worry you; I'll make it all right. But the affair was by far the most serious of the sort we've had, and I want all the facts available. That's all."

He listened to my description of the scene; questioned me about the men in it particularly, asking if I could recognize them; and laughed outright at the story of the scramble for the money.

"It was a stroke of genius, boy; positive genius," he declared, and asked me how much I had thrown away. A very German touch. I expected him to offer to repay me; but he spared me that and let me continue the story. When I came to the closing part, I made the most of Hans' share, declaring that if it had not been for him the result would have been very serious, and that he had acted like the brave man he was.

It made an impression; but he did not evince anything like as much interest as in the other parts.

"You've left out one thing, haven't you, my boy? Something that pleased me exceedingly and set me thinking. I mean about your being able to drive the car. Nita says you not only drove like an expert, but were able to put the engine right."

Nita had much better have held her tongue, was my thought. "I was awfully perplexed about it myself afterwards," I replied, feeling deucedly uncomfortable.

"You haven't had anything to do with cars since you came, have you?"

"Not a thing, of course. That's what worried me. I just went up to it as if it was the most natural thing in the world—I didn't have to touch the engine, though—and got in and drove it."

"You see what it means, of course. Why, that it was an instinctive recurrence of memory. It was most fortunate."

That was a matter of opinion, however; but as we reached the house then no more was said about it.

At lunch all the talk was on the subject of the scrap. They were full of it, and went over the ground again and again until one might have thought I had won the Iron Cross by some conspicuous act of most gallant bravery and resource.

That was the sentimental side, and, at first, when the Baron and I were alone afterwards smoking in his sanctum, he grew even more embarrassingly flattering. "It's no good your trying to belittle the affair, my dear boy. If it hadn't been for you, Heaven alone knows what would have happened to my wife and Nita. I haven't a doubt that it would have killed the wife. She is not strong; she has been very ill; and is only just pulling round. The marvel is that she hasn't collapsed, as it is."

I tried to protest, but he wouldn't listen to me.

"I tell you my blood runs cold when I think what those devils would have done if they had got hold of her. I know that sort of Berliners; they'd have torn the clothes off her back and mauled and beaten her without mercy. And it was only the fortunate fact that you were present and acted so bravely that saved her. I shall never forget it; never; and if there's anything I can ever do to prove that I mean what I say, I shall grip the chance with both hands."

"You are very kind, sir."

"Don't talk in that way about kindness. I should be an ungrateful brute if I did not mean it. You can judge how I feel when I tell you that if my son had lived I would have him just like you;" and there was moisture in his eyes as he stretched out his hand and wrung mine impulsively.

That he was in earnest it seemed impossible to doubt. He sat looking at me steadily for a while and then surprised me. He leant forward and fixed his eyes on mine. "I want to ask you a question. Are you sure you have never seen me before?"

Rosa's warning flashed across my thoughts. This might