The Wiles of the Wicked Part 25

All I want is a straightforward explanation of how I came here, in this house."

He smiled, pityingly I thought. That old medical idiot had apparently hinted to both the servant and this young prig, who declared himself my secretary, that I was not responsible for my actions; therefore, what could I expect?

"The explanation is one which I regret I cannot give you," he answered.

"All I want is your instructions what to wire to Mawson."

"Oh, bother Mawson!" I cried angrily. "Wire him whatever you like, only don't mention his name again to me. I don't know him, and don't desire to make any acquaintance either with him or his confounded pans."

"I shall send him congratulations, and tell him to remain in Dawson City pending further instructions."

"He can remain there until the Day of Judgment, for all I care," I said, a remark which brought a smile to his pale features.

A brief silence fell between us. All this was absolutely bewildering.

I had been struck down on the previous night in a street at Chelsea, to find myself next day in a country house, and to be coolly informed by a man who called himself my secretary that I was owner of a great gold concession and a millionaire. The whole thing seemed too utterly incredible.

I felt my head, and found it bandaged. There was no mistake about the reality of it all. It was no curious chimera of the imagination.

Before me upon the blotting-pad were some sheets of blank notepaper. I turned them over in idle curiosity, and found embossed upon them the address in bold, black characters: "Denbury Court, near Budleigh-Salterton."

"Is this place Denbury Court?" I inquired.

"Yes."

"And whose guest am I, pray?"

"You are no one's guest. This is your own house," was his amazing response.

I turned towards him determinedly, and in a hard voice said--

"I think, Mr Gedge, that you've taken leave of your senses. I've never heard of this place before, and am certainly not its owner. Are you certain you are not confounding me with some one else--some one resembling me in personal appearance?"

"Absolutely certain," he replied. "Your name is Wilford Heaton, and I repeat that I am your confidential private secretary."

I shook my head.

"Well," he said quickly, "here is some further proof," and bending beside me he opened one of the drawers of the big writing-table, and took therefrom a number of blank memorandum forms, which he placed before me. In eagerness I read their printed heading. It was "From Wilford Heaton, 103A, Winchester House, Old Broad Street, London, E.C."

"Well, what are those used for?" I asked in wonder. "They are used at the City office," he answered, tossing them back into the drawer.

"And you tell me I am wealthy?" I said, with a cynical laugh.

"Your banker's pa.s.s-book should be sufficient proof of that," he answered; and taking the book from an iron safe let into the opposite wall, he opened it and placed it before me.

I glanced at the cover. Yes, there was no mistake. It was my own pa.s.s-book.

My eyes fell upon the balance, standing to my credit, and the largeness of the figures held me open-eyed in astonishment.

It was wealth beyond all my wildest dreams.

"And that is mine--absolutely mine?" I inquired, when at last I found tongue.

"Certainly," he replied, a moment later adding: "It is really very strange that I have to instruct you in your own private affairs."

"Why have I an office in the City?" I asked, for that point was puzzling.

"In order to carry on your business."

"What business?"

"That of financial agent."

I smiled at the absurdity of the idea. I had never been a thrifty man; in fact, I had never had occasion to trouble my head about finance, and, truth to tell, had always been, from a lad, a most arrant dunce at figures.

"I fear I'm a sorry financier," I remarked for want of something better to say.

"You are acknowledged to be one of the shrewdest and the soundest in the City of London," Gedge answered.

"Well," I remarked, closing the pa.s.s-book, securing the flap, and handing it back to him, "all I have to say is that this last hour that has pa.s.sed has been absolutely replete with mystery. I can make nothing of all these things you tell me--absolutely nothing. I shall begin to doubt whether I'm actually myself very soon."

"It would be better to rest a little, if I might advise," he said, in a more deferential tone than before. "Britten suggested repose. That blow has upset you a little. To-morrow you'll be quite right again, I feel sure."

"I don't intend to rest until I've cleared up this mystery," I said determinedly, rising from the table.

At that moment, however, the door opened, and turning quickly, I was confronted by an angular, bony-faced, lantern-jawed woman, whose rouged and powdered face and juvenility of dress struck me as utterly ludicrous. She was fifty, if a day, and although her face was wrinkled and brown where the artificial complexion had worn off, she was nevertheless attired in a manner becoming a girl of twenty.

"Oh, my dear Wilford! Whatever has happened?" she cried in alarm, in a thin, unmusical voice, when she beheld the bandages around my head.

I looked at her in mingled surprise and amus.e.m.e.nt; she was so doll-like and ridiculous in her painted juvenility.

"Mr Heaton accidentally struck his head against the statue in the drawing-room, madam," explained Gedge. "Doctor Britten has a.s.sured me that the injury is not at all serious. A little rest is all that is necessary."

"My dear Wilford! Oh, my dear Wilford! Why didn't you call me at once?"

"Well, madam," I answered, "that was scarcely possible, considering that I had not the honour of your acquaintance."

"What!" she wailed. "You--you can't really stand there and coolly tell me that you don't know me?"

"I certainly a.s.sert, madam, that I have absolutely no knowledge whatever of whom you may be," I said with some dignity.

"Is your brain so affected, then, that you actually fail to recognise me--Mary, your wife!"

"You!" I gasped, glaring at her, dumbfounded. "You, my wife!

Impossible!"

CHAPTER NINETEEN.

MY UNKNOWN WIFE'S STORY.

"My dear Wilford!" exclaimed the thin-faced, angular woman. "I really think you must have taken leave of your senses."