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

regarded as a spy, and I was puzzling over the explanation of what the Countess had told me when I heard the front door shut. That meant they had left the house and that Nessa would soon be down.

But she did not come for some time, and presently I heard a movement in the big room, the faint click of a key being turned and then of a drawer being cautiously opened.

The conclusion was obvious. The spy was at work, believing that I had gone to the tailor's and meaning to fix the thing on Nessa, should her little operation be discovered. So I got up noiselessly and, from the safe shelter of some plants, did a little spy work on my own account.

It was one of the servants, of course; but I could not at first catch sight of her face. She was at Rosa's bureau, reading a letter, probably one of those which had come just before. That did not occupy more than a minute, and she next opened the Countess's cabinet drawer, picked out a couple of letters, glanced at them rapidly, just tossed them back carelessly, relocked the drawer, and turned to leave the room.

I saw her clearly then, for she went out by a door which stood at my end of the room, near the big stove in the corner. It was Gretchen.

It would never do to have a possible eavesdropper when Nessa and I were together, and, being unwilling to let the woman know she had been seen, I crept over to the door we all used, opened it noisily, shut it with a bang, and began to whistle.

This had immediate results. I heard the door of the stove opened at the back, some logs were thrown in, and directly afterwards Gretchen came out, with an apology for disturbing me.

"It's my work to see to the stoves, sir," she explained with a smirk. "And the door to our quarters is locked."

"All right, Gretchen. It's getting chilly, isn't it?"

"It gets cold in the evenings, sir, and my orders are to see that the stoves are kept going well." She was a little uneasy; and after she had been gone a while, I had a look at the hiding-place.

It was a passage with cupboards on each side, and as the door at the other end was fastened, she had been compelled to return through the room when she had heard me. There was a bolt on my side of that door, and I shot it to prevent her coming back to listen while Nessa and I were together.

I was only a minute or two in the place, but when I left it I found Nessa already in the drawing-room. She had caught me apparently in the act of playing the spy, and her look left no doubt about her opinion.

I laughed. I really could not help it. It was such a preposterous misreading of the situation that the ludicrous absurdity of it appealed to me. Of course my laughter added to her indignation and also to the awkwardness of the meeting.

"You are practising your new profession, I see. It appears to rouse your sense of humour," she said icily.

"It would probably rouse yours also if you understood everything," I retorted, not at all relishing her prompt condemnation.

"I don't see anything particularly humorous in your sneaking into the house of my friends and spying in its holes and corners."

"Perhaps not, but I had a good reason," I said shortly, a bit rattled by her sneer.

"No doubt; but I have no curiosity on such a subject. Rosa has induced me to see you, so I——" She got so far in the same level, cutting tone, evidently putting a great restraint upon herself; but she could not keep it up. Her eyes blazed suddenly, her cheeks flushed, and raising her voice in her indignation she exclaimed: "How dare you come——"

I had to stop that, however, as the old eavesdropper might have followed her to the room and be on keyhole drill. "I am very glad to meet you, Miss Caldicott," I broke in in German loudly enough to be heard outside, and added in a low tone in English: "It is not safe to speak so loudly as you did. Come away from the door;" and I led the way into the conservatory.

She stared at me as if I were a dangerous lunatic, but after a moment's pause followed me. "Say what you like now, but lower your voice," I said, lowering my own tone.

She hesitated, but acted on the warning and returned to her former icy tone. "What I want to know is why you dare to come here in a false name, as the sham lover of my friend, and humiliate me in this way. If you must be a spy, haven't you enough decency to avoid blackening me by making me a partner in such treacherous baseness?"

I met her angry look for a second, realizing that this was the reason for her conduct to me; and it was all I could do to prevent myself smiling at her injustice, although it riled me considerably.

"Rather a rough judgment," I replied with a shrug, "and your manner doesn't smooth it out much; but as no one else can hear you now, I don't mind so much. I can explain——"

"Explain!" she broke in scornfully.

"Yes, explain. That's what I said. If you understood——"

"I do understand as it is—too well," she fired in again.

I really could not help smiling again, both at her words and flashing anger. "I must either smile or lose my temper as you have done; and it's better to smile."

This was like petrol on the fire. "Just what I should expect of you—to see nothing but a joke in my indignation."

"I'm not laughing at your indignation, but at your mistake. You always have been ready to make the worst of anything I do."

"What have you ever done that was worth doing?"

"Nothing much, I admit."

"If you were like other men you'd be doing what they are doing—fighting."

"Perhaps I should; but we can't all be soldiers."

Her lip curled. "Men can; but even you needn't have sunk so low as to be a spy!"

"Go on. I'm not ashamed of what I'm doing; and if you'll let me explain——"

She stopped me again with an impatient gesture. "I need no explanation, thank you. Aren't you here as Johann Lassen?"

"Yes."

"Pretending to be engaged to Rosa von Rebling?"

"Yes."

"And pretending to have lost your memory?"

"Yes."

"Haven't you both spoken and acted lies to gain admission to this house?"

"I had to, of course."

"You convict yourself out of your own mouth, then?"

"Apparently."

"Aren't you trying to get employed in the Secret Service here?"

"Looks black, doesn't it?"

"Looks!" and she drew a long deep breath and repeated the word. "But you don't imagine for one instant that I will be a party to it!"

"You are already, for that matter."

"You shall leave this house at once and never set foot in it again, and I shall find the means to let Rosa know the disgraceful trick you have played."

"And if I refuse?"

"I'll expose you as surely as my name is Nessa Caldicott."

"You know what the result would be to me?"

"I neither know nor care."

"Then I'll tell you. I should certainly be imprisoned and most probably shot."

She wavered somewhat at that. "It is easy for you to avoid it by doing what I say—leave the house."

"That's out of the question."

"Do you expect me to allow you to go on imposing on the girl who has been my friend at a time when I was absolutely helpless? Wouldn't you be ashamed of me if I were to consent to such treachery? Can't you see what a vile degradation it would be, and that I should hate myself as well as you if I consented?"

"No. Yes. Yes. I wish you'd ask one question at a time."

"Do you expect me to smile at such insufferable flippancy as that?"

"No. But it wasn't flippancy at all. I was answering your questions in order. You appear to think that I like being compelled to deceive Miss von Rebling."

"How can you talk about having been compelled to do it?"

"Because it happens to be the truth."

"Your version of the truth, you mean?"

"Exactly. My version of the truth, although you won't believe it. I was forced into the thing against my will by a series of coincidences which I found it impossible to avoid; and, as a matter of fact, I am not harming Miss von Rebling in the least."

"Haven't you led her to believe you may break off the engagement?"

"I've been considering it."

"Don't you call that harming her?"

"No."

"How can you say that? What will happen when the real man arrives?"

"Not even then."

She gestured incredulously. "It's impossible," she cried. "In any case I insist upon her being told."

I stopped to think a bit. I knew Nessa so well that I could quite understand her mood. Her first fierce rush of anger had spent itself, checked, I was sure, by my statement of the consequences to me if the truth were told. She had not a suspicion of the reason for my being in Berlin, evidently believing that I had come as a spy, and knew even better than I what my end would be if I were denounced; and her words had cut me too deeply to let me tell her the truth then—that I had only come on her account.

At the same time I could quite appreciate how she would shrink from being made a partner, as she had said, and her impatience for me to leave the house. It was an awkward corner, but I thought I could see a way round it.

"I'll do what you suggest," I said at length.

"Go away?"

"No. Tell Miss von Rebling."

This alarmed her at once. "But you? What you said about the risk?" she protested.

"Oh, never mind about me. You said you couldn't endure it; and, of course, nothing matters compared with that. I should have taken care to let her know everything as soon as I'd done what I came to do."

"What is that?"

"Your mother is very anxious about you, and when she knew I was coming here, naturally wanted me to find out things."

"But they've had my letters, surely?"

"Not a line since some time after Christmas."

"Do you mean that, Jack? Oh, poor mother! I've written regularly every week. When Julia Wassermann died, her father, who hates the English and hated me because I'm English, turned me out of the house. I should have gone to one of these dreadful concentration camps, if it hadn't been for Rosa. That's why I can't bear the thought of deceiving her; but—I—I don't want to get you into any trouble. We—we can't tell her. We—we mustn't. You can go away, can't you?" and she bit her lip in desperate perplexity and distress.

"I'm going to tell her, Nessa," I said.

"But I don't wish it, Jack. I really don't. I didn't mean all the horrid things I said just now; I—I'm sorry. I've been just distracted."

"Don't worry. Nothing very terrible is likely to come to me; and I quite agree that she ought to know the truth."

She looked at me wonderingly. "How different you are, Jack. What has changed you so? You're so quiet and so—so firm. You don't look the same. Not a bit like you used to be in any way, manner, bearing, everything. I saw it the moment I came into the room."

"You didn't show it. You went for me in much the same old style, you know," I said with a smile. "You always did think me a rotter."

"Do you mean that you've risked coming here merely because of—of what mother told you about me."

"Not very likely, is it?"

"It wouldn't have been at one time, but—— You mustn't say anything to Rosa. You mustn't, really. You won't, Jack, will you?" and she laid her hand on my arm appealingly.

"I must, Nessa."

"No, no. I won't be the cause——"

And then, just as she was clinging to my