The Man Without a Memory Part 27

She clapped her hands to her face and looked like starting hysterics again. "Oh, you must know. You must. You can't have forgotten me! You can't!"

"Perhaps your name will help me."

With a very overdone theatrical gesture she stopped and stared at me and looked distracted.

"I'm--Anna. Your Anna."

"_My_ Anna? I didn't know I had one;" and she clapped her hands to her face again, but not quickly enough to hide her expression, which looked uncommonly like a smile. "And the surname?"

"Hilden, of course," she said after a pause without looking up.

This gave the clue. It was not von Gratzen's scheme but von Erstein's.

I remembered our interview; his persistent attempt to test my memory; his story of Anna Hilden; his genuine anger when I had not recollected her; and then the sudden change of manner which had been so puzzling.

He had put her up to play the part of the ruined maiden and had probably planned the melodramatic scene which had just taken place, knowing that, unless at the same time I gave myself away, I could not expose her. It was cunning, and put me in a beast of a mess. There seemed only one course--to prevail on the woman to admit the truth.

"You can see for yourself that this has taken me entirely by surprise,"

I said after a pause. "I had a very tough time of it a few weeks ago; the s.h.i.+p I was in was blown up and the explosion caused me to lose my memory entirely. What you have said may be absolutely true; although to me it seems impossible. What do you wish me to do?"

"I want my rights," she replied, after a slight pause.

"Well, we can scarcely discuss things here. Where do you live?"

"In the Kammerplatz. 268g. No, I mean 286g;" making the correction in some confusion.

Curious that she could not remember the right number; looked as if she had only just gone there for this special business. "Shall we go there?" I asked.

She found the question unnecessarily embarra.s.sing, hesitated and glanced at the child with a frown of perplexity. "I can't go home yet.

I was just taking my little darling to some friends."

She was certainly not a good actress, or she would never have implied that it was more important to take the child to some friends than to have an explanation with the false lover discovered after long years.

"When then?" I asked, concluding that the child had been borrowed for the show and was to be returned with thanks at once.

"Come there in an hour," she said after thinking. "You won't escape me again, for I know where to find you now," she added with a toss of the head.

"I shall not try. Here's my address;" and I scribbled it on a card.

"I'll turn up all right. I'm only too interested in what you've said and wish to know all you can tell me about it. I'll do the right thing by you, Anna;" and I held out my hand.

She hesitated a second and then shook hands, her look showing that my words had impressed her favourably and also perplexed her.

I spent the interval in the Thiergarten thinking over the whole unpleasant incident: the probable effect upon those who had witnessed it, and the line to take in the coming interview.

It would serve one good turn at any rate. Von Gratzen would hear all about it from his wife and it ought to put an end to his suspicions. If the woman I had ruined could identify me as the result of a chance meeting, he could scarcely fail to regard it as a mighty strong corroboration of the La.s.sen theory.

Both Rosa and Nessa would of course know that the story, even if it were true, had nothing to do with me, and what the Countess herself thought didn't amount to anything. The main point was what would happen if the woman stuck to it and how far she was prepared to go. That would probably depend upon the inducements or pressure brought to bear by von Erstein; and judging the man, pressure was the more likely.

It would be easy enough to knock the bottom out of the scheme by bringing the police into it; her nervousness at the mention of them had shown that plainly. But that wouldn't suit me. The less the police had to meddle with my affairs, the better. No doubt an inquiry agent could soon get at the truth so far as the woman herself was concerned; and if she proved obdurate, that might be the best course. But obviously the quickest and best solution would be to get the woman herself to own up; and that must be the first line of attack.

Her answer to my question what she wished me to do, suggested an idea.

She wanted her "rights," as she phrased it; and clearly the straightforward course was to offer them. "Rights" meant marriage; and she was likely to feel in a deuce of a stew if I agreed to marry her.

The farce of it was quite to my liking. To appear to force her into such a marriage with a man she had never seen in her life was rich, and at the same time good policy, as it would impress her with my honesty of purpose.

I kept the appointment punctually and found her rather breathless and flurried. It was a mean little flat; had evidently been hastily got ready; and the number of things still littered about the room, told that I had arrived in the middle of her efforts to get it in order.

She looked far less presentable without her hat and things. She was an untidy person, anything but clean, and made the mistake of trying to explain away the confusion and disorder in the place.

"I didn't really believe you'd come, or I'd have had the place tidier.

When any one has to struggle alone for a living in these times, there isn't much chance of keeping the home right."

"Still I can see you've been doing your best."

"I always have to," she replied with a quick, half-suspicious glance.

"You have a hard struggle?"

"Hard enough."

"What do you do?"

"Anything and everything I can, of course. It's hard work."

Her hands offered no evidence of this, however. "Well, we must try to make things easier for you, Anna. Now let us talk it over."

"I'll wash my hands first and tidy up a bit," and she went into the adjoining room, where I heard her moving some furniture into place.

This gave an opportunity of scrutinizing the mean little sitting-room, and one fact was instantly apparent. There was not a single thing to suggest that a child had even set foot in it. On the floor close to the shabby sofa was a partly open leather bag; much too good and expensive to be in keeping with the rest, and a glance into it revealed a number of dressing-table fitments, also much better than a struggling working woman would be at all likely to own.

She had forgotten this in her confusion at my arrival and presently came out to fetch it, still in the untidy slovenly dress. "I won't be a minute, now," she said.

But several minutes pa.s.sed before she returned, wearing now a well-fitting coat and skirt and cosmeticed much as she had been when we had met first.

"I try to keep my head above water, you see," she said, to account for her good clothes, no doubt.

I smiled approval and got to business. "First let me ask you whether you are absolutely certain I am the man you think."

"Do you think I should have made that fuss to-day if I wasn't? Why do you ask such a question?"

"Because I don't remember anything whatever of it, and to me you are an absolute stranger. Just tell me everything about it."

Her story was in its essence that which von Erstein had told me, repeated as if she had got it up much as she would have studied her part in a play. She was not very perfect in it, and there were just those verbal slips and trips which one may hear in a badly rehea.r.s.ed play on the first night of production. Moreover, apart from her lines she was hopelessly muddled and had either been very badly coached about details or her memory was little better than my a.s.sumed one.

She judged by my looks that her story shocked me, and I sat a long time frowning as if lost in thought. "It seems absolutely inconceivable!" I exclaimed at length with a deep sigh. "Absolutely inconceivable that I could have treated you in this way; and only--how long ago was it?"

"You came straight to Hanover from Gottingen."

"What was I doing there?"

"I don't know? At least, you were always so close you would never tell me anything."