CHAPTER 4

It lacked but a few minutes of midnight when Grey entered the smoke-clouded air of the Café Américain. The great room was crowded and the babel of voices and the clatter of glass and china were wellnigh deafening. He stood for a moment near the door, looking about through half-closed lids like one near-sighted. A dark, languorous-eyed woman, gorgeous in scarlet silk and lace, smiled and beckoned him, but he paid no heed. He forced his way between the closely aligned tables to the centre of the room, glancing from right to left as he proceeded. His imagination had pictured his correspondent as a youngish, fair man, but he realised that his imagination was not to be relied on. He must depend on being seen and recognised, since recognition on his part was impossible. A waiter brushed against him, spattering him with beer46 from jostled glasses. A pretty brunette in a white gown and a great rose-trimmed hat of coarse straw seized his hand and pressed it suggestively as she passed him on her way to the door. And then, over near the mirrored wall to the right, he saw a man standing, his arm raised to attract attention, a smile on his honest, sun-browned face; and he knew it was “Jack.” He was tall and spare, all muscle and sinew, and his hair was brightly red, as also was his rather close-cropped moustache.

“Gad, man,” he exclaimed, as Grey came to him, “I fancied you weren’t to be here.”

He spoke with the pleasant brogue of the North of Ireland, and his voice and manner were as confidence-inspiring as had been his note.

Grey smiled, with something of embarrassment in his eyes. The very frankness of the other man was disconcerting. It had been comparatively easy to hide his simulation from the others, but now it was different. This big, hearty fellow was not only all honesty himself, but he inspired honesty—he demanded it.

“To tell the truth,” the American replied, feeling47 that a confession was about to be wrung from him, “I’ve had a rather wretched day.”

Jack looked at him keenly, his lips pressed tight in cogitation, as Grey ordered a grenadine.

“What’s the trouble, old chap?” he asked presently, throwing back his head and sending an inverted cone of cigarette smoke ceilingward. “Tell me about it; you don’t look well; you are pale and—by Jove! What’s the matter with your voice? You don’t speak like yourself. If I didn’t see you sitting there I’d fancy it was another man who spoke.”

“Would you, really?” Grey asked. The information, seeing that it was necessary for him to keep up his masquerade for awhile, was disconcerting.

“Really, you have quite lost something—or perhaps I should say you have gained something. Your tone now has some colour, some modulation. Yesterday you spoke like—you’ll pardon me, won’t you?—you spoke like an automaton.”

“Would you mind giving me an imitation?” Grey laughed. “Oh, yes, I am serious. I want to hear you. After awhile I’ll tell you why.”

48 “Since it is your pleasure, my dear Max,” Jack replied in an even drone at low pitch, “I am only too delighted to do as I am bidden. There you are! That’s not exaggerated the least bit, either.”

“Thank you,” Grey said; and then he sat for a full minute in silence. He was impelled to make a clean breast of the whole astounding affair to this man and ask his aid. Though he was unacquainted even with his name he felt he could trust him. In this sudden and inexplicable faith his aversion for Herr Schlippenbach and Captain Lindenwald found its antithesis. He nevertheless appreciated the importance of extreme caution, and his judgment warred for the moment with his impulse. Finally a truce was signed.

“Was yesterday’s tone an affectation or is today’s?” asked the Irishman jocularly.

Grey took a sip at the pink contents of his glass.

“Neither,” he answered, seriously; “yesterday I was asleep; today I am awake.”

“Tut, tut, man! Don’t talk in riddles,” the other protested. “You were no more asleep last night at Maxim’s than you are this minute. By the way, did you see your friend Sarema as you49 came in? She was sitting quite near the door a little while ago.”

“Sarema?”

“To be sure. Come, come, my lad, has your mood changed as well as your tone and voice? You certainly remember the odalisque from the Folies Bergères.”

Grey’s eyes showed that his astonishment was unfeigned.

“Oh, but this is marvellous,” cried Jack, leaning forward, his arms on the table. “You weren’t drunk, man. You—you certainly weren’t asleep.”

“What is your name?” Grey asked, suddenly.

“Fancy!” exclaimed the Irishman. “Have you forgotten that, too? John James O’Hara, lieutenant in His Majesty’s Second Dragoon Guards, of Kirwan Lodge, Drumsna, County Leitrim, at your service, sir. And you’ll be telling me next, I suppose, that you don’t remember meeting me in the smoke-room of the Lucania the first day out of New York, and that over two months ago.

“As God is my judge,” Grey answered, solemnly,50 “I have no recollection of ever seeing you before tonight.”

O’Hara’s muscles stiffened and then relaxed. There was no incredulity in his face, only wonder.

“And have you forgotten your own name, too?” he queried, after a moment.

“I never knew the name I am called by until today.”

“Gad, man, you’re crazy,” the Irishman commented, lighting a fresh cigarette. “You’ve got me all of a tangle. I’m damned if you’re not uncanny. And your name is not Max Arndt at all, then?”

“No.”

“And Herr Schlippenbach. He is not your uncle?”

“God forbid!”

“And the Fr?ulein von Altdorf is not your sister’s daughter, I suppose?”

“I never had a sister.”

The dragoon guard threw up his hands.

“Then, if it’s all the same to you,” he continued, “and not revealing any State secrets,51 would you be so good as to tell me who you are? Introduce yourself to me. For it seems that though we’ve been together the better part of two months we’re still strangers.”

Grey made a rapid but careful survey of his neighbours. Under the circumstances it might not be well to speak his own name where it could be overheard. He took another drink of his grenadine before replying.

“After all,” he said, “this is hardly the place for confidences. What do you say to walking over to my hotel? We can have privacy there.”

And Lieutenant O’Hara readily consented.

At the door of the H?tel Grammont a courier was in excited dispute with the portier.

“But he will be here tomorrow, perhaps. Is it not so?”

“I cannot say. There is no Monsieur Grey here now, of a certainty.”

“You are sure? You are most sure?”

“Is it not that I have said it twenty—thirty—a hundred times?” insisted the portier. “And you are not the only one who has asked. There have been three others here, including an agent of52 police. Ah, Monsieur Grey! He had better stay away, perhaps.”

When at length the room of the American was reached and the door locked on the inside, Grey turned to his friend.

“Did you overhear the conversation below?” he asked.

“I caught snatches of it. A wire for someone, wasn’t it?”

“Yes; for me.”

“For you?” O’Hara stared. “Then why in God’s name didn’t you take it?”

“I couldn’t afford to, and yet I’d give a good deal to know its message.”

“But it was for a person named Grey, I thought. You are Grey, then?”

“Yes.”

“And the police officer! He was looking for—you?”

“For me,” Grey confessed. “Now you can understand why I didn’t care to talk in the café.”

O’Hara dropped into a chair.

“This is very interesting,” he said, and his blue eyes twinkled.

53 Grey, his hands in his trousers’ pockets, was standing before the chimney-piece. His expression was very grave.

“I suppose,” he began, “that you think me rather a blackguard. Appearances so far are against me, aren’t they? By my own admission I’m here under an assumed name trying to evade the minions of the law, who are hot-foot on my trail. Everything you thought you knew about me I have informed you is false. Therefore you are not likely to be predisposed in my favour. Consequently the story I’m going to tell you now you’ll probably not believe. I’m free to admit that if the situation were reversed I wouldn’t believe you; and yet—I—well, I wouldn’t have taken you into my confidence if it were not that I’m sure you’re a gentleman—an honest, high-principled, Irish gentleman who loves right and is willing to fight for it.”

O’Hara smiled encouragingly.

“Drive ahead, my boy,” he urged; “the jury is absolutely unprejudiced.”

Then Grey plunged into a detailed narrative of that surprising day. He told of his strange awakening54 and parenthetically gave his hearer an idea of his position at home and a glimpse of his previous life. He rehearsed his conversation with Frothingham; he repeated word for word the cables he had sent to New York; he summarized the articles he had read in the Herald; he described the passing of Herr Schlippenbach and recited his death-bed communication, and finally he gave, as nearly as he could remember it, the conversation between Lutz and Johann.

O’Hara listened with rapt interest, interrupting him now and then with a question, at times smiling understandingly and at others scowling at what he regarded as evidence of importance against the little group by which Grey was surrounded. At the conclusion of the recital he sprang up and impulsively grasped the American’s hand.

“You’ll come out on top yet, boy,” he cried, “and it’s John James O’Hara that’ll help to put you there. I’ve heard of such cases as this before. They’ve been drugging you, lad, that’s as plain as the nose on my face, and your dear uncle, Herr Schlippenbach, do you mind, has been the chief55 drugger. It was because he was too ill to do his work that the effects wore off. Now that he’s gone they’re worried to death over you. Sure, you’re not so blind that you can’t see that yourself.”

“But I don’t understand——”

“Of course you don’t. Neither do I. There’s a lot we have got to find out. But two heads are better than one; and you just put a big bundle of trust in mine.”

He was excited and his brogue, Grey thought, was delightful.

“What do you suggest?”

“In the first place it is probably best that I tell you what little I know. Your memory, up until this afternoon, is a blank. Well, then, I’ll give you the benefit of mine.”

O’Hara lighted another cigarette and, taking a deep inhalation, started pacing the floor, his head bent thoughtfully forward.

“As I said,” he began, “we met in the smoke-room of the Lucania on the afternoon of Saturday, the seventh of April. You told me your name was Max Arndt, that you were born in56 Kürschdorf, the capital of Budavia, where your uncle, Herr Schlippenbach, whom you accompanied, had at one time been tutor in the royal family. You had spent your life, however, in the United States, had been engaged in the importation of German wines, I think you said, in New York, and were now on your way back to your native town, where, by the death of a relation, you had recently come into large estates. The man Lutz was with you, but he appeared to be old Schlippenbach’s valet rather than yours. On reaching Liverpool you were met by Captain Lindenwald, who is of the royal household of the Kingdom of Budavia, and by the fellow Johann. After about a week in London your party was joined by Miss von Altdorf, who had been at school somewhere in Kent. You told me she was your sister’s child, an orphan, and that your uncle and yourself supported her.”

“Great God!” exclaimed Grey, amazedly, “and did I seem sane—rational?”

“Perfectly,” O’Hara answered; “you were the character to the smallest detail. Your voice was the only peculiar thing about you. You57 spoke like a deaf man, with practically no inflection.”

“Did you talk to Schlippenbach?”

“Oh, yes; frequently. He was really very clever. He had a wonderful fund of general knowledge. There was scarcely a subject with which he was not familiar. But his specialty was phrenology. He told me that in his youth he had known Dr. Spurzheim, the pupil of Dr. Franz Gall, the founder of the science, that he had studied under him and gone very deeply into the matter. He was a chemist, too, and from something he let drop one day I got the impression that he had experimented considerably with an?sthetics, narcotics, and that sort of thing.”

“And to some purpose, apparently,” put in Grey. “But his object, O’Hara? What in heaven’s name could have been his object? I never knew him—never saw him to my recollection until he was dying.”

“Ah, lad, we haven’t got that far yet, but we’ll know before we’re through.”

And then he went on with his story. He was with the quartet a great deal in London, he said.58 He showed them about, and they were all very appreciative. They stopped there until the middle of May and then they moved on to Paris. Without any intention of prying into their affairs he had observed that Herr Schlippenbach and Captain Lindenwald had a good deal of correspondence with parties in Kürschdorf.

“And what was my attitude towards them all?” Grey inquired. “Was I very sociable or was I reserved?”

“You were rather dignified,” O’Hara answered; “and now I come to think of it, they treated you with considerable deference, though they endeavoured to dissemble it whenever I was about. Miss von Altdorf seemed quite fond of you, old chap, and it was amusing to note how Captain Lindenwald insisted on making love to her at every opportunity, only to be gently, but firmly, repulsed. As for that young woman I found her most charming,—and you did too, apparently. Of course, as she was your niece, you could take her to dine tête-à-tête and to places of amusement unchaperoned, and you did very frequently, much to Lindenwald’s annoyance. Whatever59 the plot is, Grey, I feel satisfied that she is not in it.”

“And now what do you advise?”

“For the present at least to give no sign that you suspect anything. You are well enough posted now, my boy, to go straight ahead. Give them enough rope and they’ll hang themselves as sure as your name’s Grey and mine’s O’Hara. Assume the tone I told you of, and they’ll never suspect. They may be surprised, but they’ll be happy and they’ll be unwary. Never take the initiative yourself. Leave it all to Lindenwald.”

“But what will they make out of it?” Grey urged, curiously. “Surely you have formed some theory?”

“Yes, I have a theory,” O’Hara responded, “but it is probably just as well for me to keep it to myself for a while.”

“What do you think this talk about ‘thrones’ and ‘mad princes’ means?”

“That is for us to find out. And unless I am more of a fool than I think, it will very shortly develop. In the meantime you are anxious about the answers to your cables, aren’t you? Since they60 are addressed to Grey, you can’t accept them, that’s clear. But you shall know what is in them just the same. I’ll undertake that for you.”

“But——”

“Never mind, lad; leave it to me.”

“And the box with proofs that Schlippenbach spoke of? That is important.”

“To be sure. It is at the Gare du Nord in his name or yours, eh? I’ll get it for you. But the key?”

Suddenly Grey remembered.

“There is a key in a wallet I found. Possibly that is it.”

“Possibly.”

And the thought of the wallet reminded him that a fifty-franc note and some change was all the money he had in his possession.

“I’m a little short of funds,” he said. “Do you happen to know how or where I have been in the habit of getting money when I needed it?”

O’Hara laughed.

“The whole thing is so absurd,” he explained, “as well as serious. Fancy your not knowing what you have done every few days since you61 landed! Johann has your letter of credit and gets you whatever you desire. All that is necessary is for you to sign your name.”

When O’Hara had gone Grey sat for a long time brooding over his extraordinary experience. His head was still aching, throbbingly, and his nerves were still a-tingle. Whatever treatment he had been subjected to its effects had not yet been entirely eliminated. He undressed, got into his pyjamas and went to bed; but sleep was coy and not to be won by wooing. He heard the clock strike two and three and four, and he saw the first gray sign of dawn between his curtains before he fell into a restless, troubled, unrefreshing slumber.