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

I was not long left in doubt. My first uneasy impression was that he suspected the impersonation, gathered from the smiling slyness with which he looked at me.

As we were to cross swords it was necessary for me to probe this at once; and when Nessa entrenched herself securely between the two sisters and he showed a disposition to drop behind with me, I was glad of the chance.

He opened the ball by speaking of my loss of memory, and I soon found that I was wrong about his suspecting my imposture. He professed great sympathy with my misfortune, throwing in a hint that it might after all have its compensations. "A good many of us have memories we might be glad to lose, Herr Lassen," he added with a laugh, but in a tone which reminded me of what Hans had said about my past.

"I should be glad to have mine back, good or bad," I replied with a laugh as easy as his.

"Perhaps. One never knows," he retorted meaningly. Then he switched off to the von Rebling family. "Most charming people; delightful; but unfortunately there's one little fly in the amber. You know it, of course?" and he nodded toward Nessa.

"I only arrived late last night. What is it?"

"It is a thousand pities; but these are times in which no one can afford to run risks, even with the highest motives. I know, of course, that Miss von Rebling's motives are of the highest; but we have to think imperially; especially in regard to this plague of spies. You agree with that, of course?"

"Naturally; but how does that apply here?"

He paused, rolling his eyes round at me with a significant shake of the head. "Why do you suppose that English girl there, Miss Caldicott, finds it so desirable to be an inmate of their house?"

"Rosa told me she was Lottchen's governess."

He put his forefinger to the side of his nose and winked and nodded. "Ostensibly—yes; but in reality—eh?"

"Do you mean she's a spy?" I cried, appropriately shocked.

He nodded emphatically. "I do; and I'm relying on your help in the matter. They may have told you that I have a great deal of interest in circles that would enable me to be of considerable help to you; and I have every wish that we two should be great friends. My influence is such that you may depend upon getting high in the service you wish to join. Very high."

"I'm not likely to quarrel with any one who can help me in that way, of course; but you see there's a bit of a stumbling-block at present until I can get over this infernal loss of memory."

"Oh, that'll soon come right."

"So all the doctors at Rotterdam told me; but so far——" and I broke off with a flourish of the hands.

"I think I can help you about that, too. Of course when you were known to be coming here I made such inquiries about you as were open to me, and the result made me feel sure that you would wish to be friendly with me;" and he leered at me in a way that left me in no doubt as to his sinister meaning. He thought he had me in his power.

"I shall be tremendously interested to learn what you heard. So far as I know, I might have been born about a week ago, and it's a devilish unpleasant feeling."

He favoured me with another leer. "Ah, you're a good deal older than that," he said meaningly. "I fancy I can convince you if you'll come and have a chat with me. Here's my address," giving me his card.

"Certainly I'll come," said I readily. "You've roused my curiosity tremendously. What time and day?"

"Come and lunch with me to-morrow. In the morning you'll be wanted in the Amtstrasse; Baron von Gratzen, you know. Come on to me from him. I can open your eyes to a thing or two; and I'm altogether mistaken if we can't come to understand one another thoroughly. I'll manage to refresh that lapsed memory of yours, Lassen, and perhaps find the real reason for it."

"The Rotterdam people put it down to shock," I replied, as if I had not understood him.

"Ah, the doctors don't know everything, my friend," he returned drily. "But I must get off. Till tomorrow, then. Don't forget;" and he quickened after the others, shook hands, patted Lottchen on the cheek, much to her disgust, and went off.

A pleasant fellow, very. Evidently a strong believer in the knuckle-duster methods; meant to use them to force me to help him in his infamous scheme against Nessa, and had discovered something about my past which would bring me to heel. That was his ideal of friendship. Certainly a very pleasant fellow!

That was a generous offer of his influence, too. Thinking me to be as big a scoundrel as himself, he was ready to betray his country by pushing me up the ladder of promotion if I would only help him in his blackguardism. A staunch patriot, too. Deutschland über alles! but von Erstein first!

I was certainly curious to know what it was he had discovered; but my speculations were interrupted by Lottchen, who came back to me and took my hand and made me chatter to her until we reached the house.

This was all right, as it saved Nessa from having to talk trivialities with me in Rosa's presence, gave her an opportunity of accustoming herself to my presence in Berlin and nerving herself for the inevitable deception it involved.

How she would treat me I could not guess; but I was utterly unprepared for the attitude she did assume. She hurried into the house the instant we reached it and disappeared. We met at the midday dinner; but she steadfastly refused even to cast so much as a glance in my direction.

Rosa made more than one attempt to draw her into conversation with me; but every effort was foiled by Nessa pretending to have to pay some attention to Lottchen, who sat by her. In fact, she ignored me as completely as if I had not been present and seized the first opportunity to leave the room.

I had looked for any treatment rather than that; and felt more than a little riled and aggrieved. It was no harmless picnic, this jaunt of mine to Berlin; and I thought she might have taken that into consideration.

But there was more than mere pique involved. If she meant to keep up this attitude, how was I to come to any understanding with her?

I might as well go back to my flying—if that were possible. Itself a pretty stiff proposition, as Jimmy would have said.

CHAPTER V ABOUT SPIES

Nessa's treatment of me both offended and distressed the Countess, and Rosa tried to draw her attention away from it by engaging her in a discussion about the afternoon's arrangements. It appeared that the Countess always spent an hour or two on that particular day with a very old friend, an invalid; Rosa herself had an engagement; Hans had to attend some lecture or other in connection with his military studies; and Nessa generally took Lottchen for a drive.

I would not hear of the arrangements being altered on my account, declaring that I should be glad of the opportunity to get some decent clothes.

"Then there will be an empty house," declared Rosa as we rose from the table.

There were two servants—an elderly woman, named Gretchen, and Marie, a younger one—in the room during the discussion; an important fact in the light of after events.

Some letters arrived for the Countess and Rosa; and when the former took hers away to the drawing-room, Rosa detained me in the library to speak about Nessa's conduct. "I can't understand it, Johann," she said irritably.

"Does it matter much?" I asked with a shrug.

"Of course it does. How are you going to help her if she keeps up this ridiculous attitude? I've no patience with her."

"Oh, I have. She knows about our engagement, of course, and being staunch to you looks on me as an enemy."

"But she knew you were coming and was most anxious to see you, and even promised to try and bring you to reason."

"Have you told her that I'm willing to help her; if I can, that is?"

"No, but I'll go and tell her now, and tell her also that if she doesn't wish to make mother furious, she'd better take things differently."

"Perhaps if I could have a quiet chat with her, it might do the trick," I suggested casually.

"Then you mustn't lose any time about it. Why not this afternoon? I can take Lottchen with me, and if you stop in, it could be managed easily. And when I come back the three of us can talk the thing over together."

I agreed to this like a shot, and we went into the drawing-room, where her mother was still reading her letters. Rosa glanced hurriedly at hers, locked them in a little bureau, and hurried off to tackle Nessa.

The Countess was standing by a very handsome cabinet, a drawer of which she had opened, and called me up to her. "Come here, Johann, I want you to see me put these letters away," she said to my astonishment, and, drawing my attention to the neatness with which her letters and papers were arranged, asked me to remember precisely where she put those which had just arrived, and to make sure that the drawer was locked. "I want to have a witness," she added.

Then she spoke of Nessa's behaviour to me, saying how it had grieved and surprised her.

"It is really not of the least consequence," I assured her.

"But I'm sorely afraid it is, Johann, and I'm very troubled. That's one reason why I wished you to do that just now. I was always against her coming to the house, but Rosa would have her;" and then by degrees the reason came out.

She was afraid that von Erstein's story was true, that Nessa was really a spy. Some one had a key to her drawer in the cabinet; she had found her papers disturbed more than once; she kept money in the same place, but none of it had ever been taken, so that it could not be the work of a thief; she believed that Rosa's bureau had also been tampered with; and as the servants were above suspicion, there seemed to be only one conclusion.

The dear little lady was more grieved than angry about it. "I'm very sorry for Nessa really, Johann, but we can't have a spy in the house; yet I don't know how to get rid of her. But I won't open that drawer again until you are with me, and then we shall both know that I'm not making a mistake. Meanwhile, don't say anything to Rosa or any one."

We went upstairs together, and she was telling me the address of Hans' tailor and how I was to find it, when the old servant, Gretchen, passed us. Rosa was waiting dressed to go out, and told me she had spoken to Nessa, who would come down to me in the drawing-room after the rest had left the house.

"She baffles me, Johann. She just jumped at your offer to help her get away—after her conduct just now, too! But she seems to have taken a violent dislike to you, and even declared she wouldn't stop in the same house with you," she said in a tone of consternation.

I passed it off with a smile and some banal remark about feminine inconsistency, and went downstairs to wait for Nessa. There was a lounge at the end of the drawing-room, a big comfortable sort of winter garden, with lots of big plants, and rugs and easy chairs and so on, and I sat down there to think over the position. I didn't smoke; a lucky fact in view of things.

It worried me excessively that Nessa should be