course you have not,” replied the kindly woman in the cool-looking head-dress. “You are only just recovering.”
“From what?”
“From loss of memory, and – well, the doctors say you have suffered from a complete nervous breakdown.”
I was aghast, scarce believing myself to be in my senses, and at the same time wondering if it were not all a dream. But no! Gradually all the events of that night in Stretton Street arose before me. I saw them again in every detail – Oswald De Gex, his servant, Horton, and the dead girl, pale but very beautiful, as she lay with closed eyes upon her death-bed.
I recollected, too, the certificate I had given for payment – those notes which the police held in safe custody.
The whole adventure seemed a hideous nightmare. And yet it was all so real.
But how did I come to be in St. Malo? How did I travel from London?
“Sister,” I said presently. “What is the date of to-day?”
“The eleventh of December,” she replied.
The affair at Stretton Street had occurred on the night of November 7th, over a month before!
“And how long have I been here?”
“Nearly three weeks,” was her answer.
Was it really possible that I had been lost for the previous ten days or so?
I tried to obtain some further facts from my nurse, but she refused to satisfy my curiosity.
“I have been ordered by the doctors to keep you very quiet,” she said. “Please do not ask me to break my promise. You will be much better to-morrow – and they will tell you everything.”
“But mine is a strange case, is it not?” I asked.
“Very strange,” she admitted. “We have all been much puzzled concerning you.”
“Then why not tell me all the circumstances now? Why keep me in suspense?” I urged.
“Because you have not yet quite recovered. You are not entirely yourself. Come,” she added kindly, “let us take a little walk. It will do you good for the weather is so lovely to-day.”
At her suggestion I strolled by her side through the pleasant grounds of the hospital, down into St. Malo, the busy streets of which were, however, entirely unfamiliar to me. Yet, according to the Sister, I had walked in them a number of times before. Still, I had no recollection of doing so.
“I am taking you for your favourite stroll,” she said, as we went down one of the steep, tortuous streets to the little Place Châteaubriand in front of the ancient castle, which, she told me, was now a barracks.
Presently she mounted to the ramparts, and as we strolled round them, I admired the beautiful view of the sea, the many islets, and the curious appearance of the town. The tide was up, and the view on that sunny December morning was glorious.
At one point where we halted my nurse pointed out the little summer town of Dinard and St. Enogat, and told me the names of the various islets rising from the sea, Les Herbiers, the Grand Jardin, La Conchée, and all the rest.
But I walked those ramparts like a man in a dream. A new life had, in that past hour, opened up to me. What had occurred since I had accepted that bundle of bank notes from the millionaire’s hand I did not know. I had emerged from the darkness of unconsciousness into the knowledge of things about me, and found myself amid surroundings which I had never before known – in a French hospital where they evidently viewed me as an interesting “case.”
I stood against the wall and gazed about. My habit was to carry my cigarette-case in my upper waistcoat pocket. Instinctively I felt for it, and it was there. It was not my own silver case, but a big nickel one, yet in it there were some of my own brand.
I looked inquiringly at my nurse.
She smiled, saying:
“You haven’t many left. Why can’t you smoke some other brand? You always insist upon that one. I had so much difficulty in getting them for you yesterday!”
“They are my own particular fancy,” I said, tapping one of them upon the case before lighting it.
“I know. But here, in France, they are most difficult to get. The other day you said you had smoked them all through the war, and even when you were in Italy you had had them sent out to you from London.”
That was quite correct.
“Well, Sister,” I laughed. “I have no recollection of saying that, but it is perfectly true. It seems that only this morning I regained consciousness.”
“Professor Thillot said you would. Others gave you up, but he declared that after careful nursing your memory would regain its normal balance.”
“Who is Professor Thillot?”
“The great nerve specialist of Paris. The police engaged him to come to see you. He was here ten days ago, and he put you under my charge.”
I laughed.
“Then I am still an interesting case, Sister – eh?”
“Yes. You certainly are.”
“But do tell me more of what I am in ignorance,” I implored. “I want to know how I came here – in France – when I lost all consciousness in a house just off Park Lane, in London.”
“To-morrow,” she said, firmly, but kindly. She was a charming woman, whose name she gave me as Sœur Marie.
We strolled back to the hospital, but on the way along the Quai Duguay-Trouin – I noticed it written up – I became again confused. My vision was not as it should have been, and my memory seemed blurred, even of the happenings of the past hour.
My nurse chatted as we walked together through the streets, but I know that my answers were unintelligible. I felt I was not myself. All my senses were keen as far as I could gauge – all save that of my memory of the past.
As I ascended through the pretty grounds of the hospital, the Sister beside me, I felt a curious failing of my heart. I experienced a sensation which I cannot here describe, as of one who had lost all interest in life, and who longed for death.
There may be some among my readers who have experienced it, perhaps. I cannot describe it; I merely explain that I felt inert, inefficient, and bored with life.
No such feeling had ever fallen upon me before. Hitherto I had been quick, alert, and full of the enjoyment of living. At Rivermead Mansions Harry Hambledon and I had prided ourselves on our post-war alertness.
Where was Harry? What was he doing? Would he be wondering why I was absent from our riparian bachelor home?
I was reflecting upon all this when suddenly, without any apparent cause, I once more lost consciousness. We were at that moment entering the door of the hospital and the Sister had just exclaimed:
“Now, do remain quite quiet and not worry over the past. It will all be right to-morrow,” she urged.
I
