how can you ask? Just think! One day I meet you in the Hampstead Road, going about your ordinary business, apparently a fixture, at least for months. A few days later, a hundred miles from London, I feel myself suddenly seized from behind; I turn round and there are you with tragedy and adventure written large all over you."
"I thought the tragedy was rather on your side; and so did the ancient mariner with the black bottle and the tea cup. But—"
"I don't wish to discuss the views of that well-meaning old brute. I want an explanation. I want to know how you came to be in Folkestone and in that extraordinary condition. I am sure something strange must have happened to you."
"Why? Haven't I as much right to be in Folkestone as you have?"
"That is mere evasion. When I see a man who is usually rather carefully and very neatly dressed, walking in the streets of a seaport town without hat or a stick and with a collar that looks as if it had been used to clean out a saucepan, and great stains on his clothes, I am justified in inferring that something unusual has happened to him."
"I didn't think you had noticed my neglige get-up."
"At the time I did not. I was very upset and agitated, I had just had a lot of worry and was compelled to cross to France at a moment's notice; and then there was that horrible horse, and the sudden way that you seized me and then got knocked down; and the—"
"The ancient mariner."
"Yes, the ancient mariner; and the knowledge that I was behaving like an idiot and couldn't help it—though you were so nice and kind to me. So you see, I was hardly conscious of what was happening at the time. But afterwards, when I had recovered my wits a little, I recalled the astonishing figure that you made, and I have been wondering ever since what had happened to you. I assure you. Dr. Jardine, you looked as if you might have swum to Folkestone."
"Did I, by Jove!" I exclaimed with a laugh. "Well, appearances weren't so very deceptive. The fact is that I had swum part of the way."
She looked at me incredulously. "Whatever do you mean?" she asked.
"I mean that you are now looking on a modern and strictly up-to-date edition of Sinbad the Sailor."
"That isn't very explanatory. But I suppose it isn't meant to be. It is just a preliminary stimulant to whet my appetite for marvels, and a most unnecessary one, I can assure you, for I am absolutely agape with curiosity. Do go on. Tell me exactly what had happened to you."
Now the truth is that I had already said rather more than was strictly discreet and would gladly have drawn in my horns. But I had evidently let myself in for some sort of plausible explanation, and a lack of that enviable faculty that enables its possessor to tell a really convincing and workmanlike lie, condemned me to a mere unimaginative adherence to the bald facts, though I did make one slight and amateurish effort at prevarication.
"You want a detailed log of Sinbad's voyages, do you?" said I. "Then you shall have it. We will begin at the beginning. The port of departure was the Embankment somewhere near Cleopatra's Needle. I was leaning over the parapet, staring down at the water like a fool, when some practical joker came along, and, apparently thinking it would be rather funny to give me a fright, suddenly lifted me off my feet. But my jocose friend hadn't allowed for the top-heaviness of a person of my height, and, before you could say ' knife,' I had slipped from his hold and taken a most stylish header into the water. Fortunately for me, a barge happened at the moment to be towing past, and, when I had managed to haul myself on board, I fell into the arms of a marine species of Good Samaritan, who, not having a supply of the orthodox oil and wine, proceeded to fill me up with hot gin and water, which is distinctly preferable for internal application. Then the Samaritan aforesaid clothed me in gorgeous marine raiment and stowed me in a cupboard to sleep off the oil and wine, which I did after some sixteen hours, and then awoke to find our good ship on the broad bosom of the ocean. And so—not to weary you with the incidents of the voyage—I came to Folkestone, where I found a beautiful lady endeavouring, very unsuccessfully, to hypnotize a run-away horse; and so to the adventure of the tarred nets and the ancient mariner with the black bottle."
Mrs. Samway smiled a little consciously as I mentioned the last incidents, but the smile quickly faded and left a deeply thoughtful expression on her face. "You take it all very calmly," said she, "but it seems to me to have been a rather terrible experience. You really had a very narrow escape from death."
"Yes; quite near enough. I'm far from wanting any more from the same tap."
"And I don't quite see why you assume that it was a mere clumsy joke that sent you into the river by accident."
"Why, what else could it have been?"
"It looks more like a deliberate attempt to drown you. Perhaps you have some enemy who might want to make away with you."
"I haven't. There isn't a soul in the world who owes me the slightest grudge."
"That seems rather a bold thing to say, but I suppose you know. Still, I should think you ought to bear this strange affair in mind, and be a little careful when you go out at night; to avoid the riverside, for instance. Have you—did you give any information to the police about this accident, as you call it?"
"Good Lord! No! What would have been the use?"
"I thought you might have given them some description of the man who pushed you over."
"But I never saw him. I don't even know for certain that it was a man. It might have been a woman for all that I can tell."
Mrs. Samway looked, up at me with that strangely penetrating expression that I had seen before in those singular, pale eyes of hers. "You don't mean that?" she said. "You don't really think that it could have been a woman?"
"I don't think very much about it; but as I never saw the person who did me the honour of hoisting me overboard, I am clearly not in a position to depose as to the sex of that person. But if it was a woman, she must have been an uncommonly strong one."
Mrs. Samway continued to look at me questioningly. "I thought you seemed to hint at a suspicion that it actually was a woman. You would surely be able to tell."
"I suppose I should if there were time to think about the matter; but, you see, before I was fairly aware that anyone had hold of me, I was sticking my head into the mud at the bottom of the river, which is a process that does not tend very much to clarify one's thoughts."
"No, I suppose not," she agreed. "But it is a most mysterious and dreadful affair. I can't think how you can take it so calmly. You don't seem to be in the least concerned by the fact that you have been within a hairsbreadth of being murdered. What do your friends think about it?"
"Well, you see, Mrs. Samway," I replied evasively, "one doesn't talk much about incidents of this kind. It doesn't sound very credible, and one doesn't want to gain a reputation as a sort of modern Munchausen. I shouldn't have told you but that you were already partly in the secret and that you cross-examined me in such a determined fashion."
"But," she exclaimed, "do you mean to tell me that you have said nothing to anyone about this extraordinary adventure of yours?"
"No, I don't say that. Of course, I had to give some sort of explanation to my landlady, for instance, but I didn't tell her all that I have told you; and I would rather, if you don't mind, that you didn't mention the affair to anyone. I should hate to be suspected of romancing."
"You shan't be
