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

I let him have some choice specimens of student slang which strengthened his opinion.

"I was also at Göttingen. Need we pretend any longer?" and he held out his hand. He was very much my own build and colouring, but I hoped the resemblance stopped short there, for I didn't like his looks a bit.

"Pretend what?" I asked as if on my guard.

"That we are Americans."

"You needn't, but I didn't say I wasn't one."

He made a peculiar flourish with his left hand which was one of the membership signs of a secret society among the students, and I answered it. It was enough, and he let himself go then. He was a good swaggerer; told me that he had come from America to England, where he had been ferretting out every possible scrap of information, having represented himself as the agent of an American firm of munition makers; that he had sent his report to Berlin and had been summoned to go there at once on the strength of it; and that he was to join the Secret Service.

He was so full of his self-importance and seemingly so glad to have some one to listen to him, that, with a very little prompting, he told me a whole lot about himself, and the great things he had done. He only stopped when he got sea-sick, and before he went below he told me his real name was Johann Lassen, and scribbled his address in Berlin on his card, so that we might meet again there.

I was a little worried by the business. It might be awkward if we did run against one another in Berlin; but there was no need to look for trouble before it arrived, so I dismissed the thing and went on thinking out my own plan of campaign. But the affair had very unexpected results.

We were nearing the Dutch coast and I was considering how to avoid Lassen on landing, when there was the very dickens of an explosion. As if the lid of hell itself had lifted!

What happened I only learnt afterwards, for the next thing I knew was that I was lying in bed somewhere, with a grave-eyed nurse bending over me.

"Herr Lassen!" Just a whisper. After a pause the name was repeated with slightly more solicitous emphasis.

I was too weak and exhausted to reply or feel either surprise or curiosity at the mistake about my name; and with a sigh of utter weariness I closed my eyes and fell asleep. When I woke it was in the dead stillness of the night.

I was far less exhausted and my mind was beginning to work again. I was lying alone in a small bare-walled room, lighted by one carefully shaded electric light. There were two other beds in the room, both unoccupied; and I was not too dazed to understand that it was a hospital ward. Then I remembered the nurse had addressed me as "Herr Lassen"; and was puzzling over the mistake when the remembrance of Nessa and her peril flashed across my mind and stirred a confused jangle of disturbing thoughts.

I was still too weak to clear the tangle then, however, and fell asleep again, and did not wake until the morning.

I was much better and the nurse was very pleased at my improvement. "You will soon be yourself again," she said, speaking German with a quaint accent. "You were so exhausted that at one time we feared you would not recover from the shock."

"You are very good," I murmured, with a feeble smile.

"Do you think you could eat some solid food? The doctor said you could have some when you recovered consciousness."

"Where am I?" I asked after thanking her.

"This is the Nazareth Hospital in Rotterdam. You were brought in by the fishermen who found you in the sea when the Burgen went down."

I did not ask any more questions then, as I wanted to think matters over; and during the day I succeeded in getting it all clear. The only point that bothered me was why I should be mistaken for Lassen; but I got that at last. I remembered the card he had given me and how I had shoved it in my pocket.

But why hadn't my pocket-book with my passport and papers and all the rest of it been found? It had been in my jacket pocket. It looked as if it must have been lost. That set me thinking and no mistake. How was I to get on to Berlin without the passport? It looked as if I must either give up the search for Nessa, when every minute might be invaluable, or go back to England for fresh papers. That wouldn't do, as too much of my leave would be used up.

It was the dickens of a mess, and then an idea occurred to me. Lassen must have gone down with the steamer, for they wouldn't take me for him if he had been saved. And then I soon had a plan—to drop the Jimmy Lamb character and continue to be Lassen as long as necessary. I might get across the frontier in that way, and must trust to my wits for the rest. There might be a bit of risk in it, but that needn't stop me; and then a very pretty little development suggested itself which offered a promise of safety even if I was found out.

Why shouldn't the "shock" of which the nurse had spoken have destroyed my memory? The more I considered it the more promising it looked. It was the easiest of parts to play; I had done a lot of amateur theatricals; and any one could look a fool and act one.

I had a first rehearsal of this stunt—as Jimmy would have called it—with the nurse; and the result quite came up to expectations. I reckoned that she would tell the doctor, and it was clear she had done so when he came to me next morning.

He was tremendously interested in the case now, and, after telling me how much better I was, began to question me about the loss of the Burgen.

I looked as vacant and worried as I thought necessary.

"You remember being on her, don't you?"

"The nurse told me so. Was I?"

"Yes, of course. She struck a mine; you remember that?"

I affected to try to remember, stared round the room, and then helplessly at him and gestured feebly.

"You were picked up at sea. Does that help you?"

It wasn't likely to, and I shook my head.

"She came from Harwich—England, you know, and was blown up."

"Harwich, England," I murmured, as if the words had no meaning for me.

He muttered something in Dutch under his breath. "Does your head trouble you much?" and he smoothed my hair, feeling my head all over carefully.

I looked as stupid as a sheep. "It—it——" and I frowned and gestured to suggest what I could not express.

He looked rather grave for a second or two and then smiled reassuringly. "It will be all right in time, quite right. You are suffering from shock; but you needn't worry. No worry. That's the great thing. A day or so will put you all right, Herr—let's see, what's your name?"

But I didn't bite. "Is it Lassen? The nurse said so."

"Don't you know it yourself?" he asked very kindly.

"No." That was true at any rate. "How did you find it out?"

"From the card in your trousers' pocket. You are the only survivor from the Burgen and had a very narrow escape. Even most of your clothes were blown off you. Doesn't anything I say suggest anything to you?"

I lay as if pondering this solemnly. "It's all so—so strange," I muttered, putting my hand to my head. "So—so——" and I left it at that; and he went away, after giving me one more item of valuable information—that my belt which contained my money had also been saved.

I played that lost memory for all it was worth and with gorgeous success. I became a "case" for the doctors who trotted along to interview me as a sort of interesting freak and held learned discussions over me. All this gave me such ample practice that I became perfect in the part.

But there was a fly in the amber. As the only survivor from the Burgen the Dutch authorities regarded me as a person of quite considerable importance. Officials came to visit me, pouring in regular broadsides of questions; and as they got no satisfaction, and the doctors differed about my recovering my memory, the official verdict was that I should remain in Rotterdam until I did recover it.

This threatened complications; but I had no intention to remain, so I prepared to get away, sent out for a ready-made suit of clothes—ye gods, what a beautiful misfit!—and was going to leave the hospital to see what I could do at the German Embassy about a passport, when my luck propeller snapped and I saw myself nose-diving to the ground.

A nurse brought me a card and said some one was waiting to see me in the doctor's room. The card told me it was a certain Herr Heinrich Hoffnung, 480b, Ugenplatz, Berlin!

It was just rotten luck, for it meant the collapse of the Lassen show. The instant he clapped eyes on me he'd know I wasn't the real Simon Pure; and it might be the dickens of a job to get across the frontier.

As I thought of Nessa and what the delay might mean to her, I was mad. But I couldn't shirk the meeting; so after giving him time to learn all about my "case" from the doctor, I went down, wondering what ill wind had blown the fellow to Rotterdam at such a moment, and what the dickens would happen when I was no longer Lassen.

CHAPTER II THE FIRST CRISIS

As I opened the door the doctor jumped up to help me to a chair, and the man from Berlin gave a start of surprise and then stared at me keenly; but whether he recognized me or not, I couldn't decide.

"You've picked up wonderfully, Herr Lassen, wonderfully!" said the doctor. "I declare no one would guess from your appearance what you have been through."

"And I feel as well as I look, doctor, thanks to you and the nurses," I replied. "I owe my life to the doctor here," I added, turning to the stranger.

"You are Johann Lassen?" he asked.

I shrugged my shoulders. "That's what they tell me."

"I told you how we know," put in the doctor, adding to me: "I have explained the nature of your case to Herr Hoffnung. He has come to take you to Berlin."

It was clearly time to bring matters to a head, so I turned to the man. "Have I ever had the pleasure of seeing you before?" I asked, with a perplexed and rather bewildered look.

He shook his head. "No, we have never met, but——" He paused and then added: "But of course it must be right."

I could have shouted for joy, but I put my hand before my eyes that he should not see the delight in them.

"You will wish to see Herr Lassen alone, of course," said the doctor. "You will bear in mind all that I have told you, I trust."

Hoffnung crossed to the door with him and the two stood speaking together in low tones for a minute, giving me an opportunity to observe my visitor. He was rather a good-looking man of about thirty, well-dressed and smart, and I placed him as somebody's secretary. Certainly a decent sort and not too quick-witted.

"First let me congratulate you on your marvellous escape, Herr Lassen," he said when the doctor had gone.

"It seems to have been touch and go; but——" and I gestured to suggest that I knew nothing about it.

"The doctor tells me he quite despaired at one time of saving your life. But he says you are quite fit to travel. Do you agree with that?"

"It's all the same to me. I feel