Anna the Adventuress Part 7

"He is quiet only this minute," she said to the official. "All the time he is shouting and muttering. If this is the young lady, she can perhaps calm him."

Anna stepped to the foot of the bed. An electric light flashed out from the wall. The face of the man who lay there was clearly visible.

Anna merely glanced at the coa.r.s.e, flushed features, and at once shook her head.

"I have never seen him in my life," she said to the official. "I have not the least idea who he is."

Just then the man's eyes opened. He saw the girl, and sprang up in bed.

"Annabel at last," he shouted. "Where have you been? All these hours I have been calling for you. Annabel, I was lying. Who says that I am not Meysey Hill? I was trying to scare you. See, it is on my cards--M.

Hill, Meysey Hill. Don't touch the handle, Annabel! Curse the thing, you've jammed it now. Do you want to kill us both? Stop the thing.

Stop it!"

Anna stepped back bewildered, but the man held out his arms to her.

"I tell you it was a lie!" he shouted wildly. "Can't you believe me? I am Meysey Hill. I am the richest man in England. I am the richest man in the world. You love money. You know you do, Annabel. Never mind, I've got plenty. We'll go to the shops. Diamonds! You shall have all that you can carry away, sacks full if you like. Pearls too! I mean it. I tell you I'm Meysey Hill, the railway man. Don't leave me. Don't leave me in this beastly thing. Annabel! Annabel!"

His voice became a shriek. In response to an almost imperative gesture from the nurse, Anna laid her hand upon his. He fell back upon the pillows with a little moan, clutching the slim white fingers fiercely.

In a moment his grasp grew weaker. The perspiration stood out upon his forehead. His eyes closed.

Anna stepped back at once with a little gasp of relief. The hand which the man had been holding hung limp and nerveless at her side. She held it away from her with an instinctive repulsion, born of her unconquerable antipathy to the touch of strangers. She began rubbing it with her pocket-handkerchief. The man himself was not a pleasant object. Part of his head was swathed in linen bandages. Such of his features as were visible were of coa.r.s.e mould. His eyes were set too close together. Anna turned deliberately away from the bedside. She followed the official back into his room.

"Well?" he asked her tersely.

"I can only repeat what I said before," she declared. "To the best of my belief, I have never seen the man in my life."

"But he recognized you," the official objected.

"He fancied that he did," she corrected him coolly. "I suppose delusions are not uncommon to patients in his condition."

The official frowned.

"Your name and address in his pocket was no delusion," he said sharply. "I do not wish to make impertinent inquiries into your private life. Nothing is of any concern of ours except the discovery of the man's ident.i.ty. He was picked up from amongst the wreckage of a broken motor on the road to Versailles last night, and we have information that a lady was with him only a few minutes before the accident occurred."

"You are very unbelieving," Anna said coldly. "I hope you will not compel me to say again that I do not know the man's name, nor, to the best of my belief, have I ever seen him before in my life."

The official shrugged his shoulders.

"You decline to help us in any way, then," he said. "Remember that the man will probably die. He had little money about him, and unless friends come to his aid he must be treated as a pauper."

"I do not wish to seem unfeeling," Anna said, slowly, "but I can only repeat that I am absolutely without concern in the matter. The man is a stranger to me."

The official had no more to say. Only it was with a further and most unbelieving shrug of the shoulders that he resumed his seat.

"You will be so good as to leave us your correct name and address, mademoiselle," he said curtly.

"You have them both," Anna answered.

He opened the door for her with a faint disagreeable smile.

"It is possible, mademoiselle," he said, "that this affair is not yet ended. It may bring us together again."

She pa.s.sed out without reply. Yet she took with her an uneasy consciousness that in this affair might lie the germs of future trouble.

As she crossed the square, almost within a stone's throw of her lodgings, she came face to face with Courtlaw. He stopped short with a little exclamation of surprise.

"My dear friend," she laughed, "not so tragic, if you please."

He recovered himself.

"I was surprised, I admit," he said. "You did not tell me that you were going out, or I would have offered my escort. Do you know how late it is?"

She nodded.

"I heard the clock strike as I crossed the square," she answered. "I was sent for to go to the Hospital St. Denis. But what are you doing here?"

"Old Pere Runeval met me on your doorstep, and he would not let me go.

I have been sitting with him ever since. The Hospital St. Denis, did you say? I hope that no one of our friends has met with an accident."

She shook her head.

"They wanted me to identify some one whom I had certainly never seen before in my life, and to tell you the truth, they were positively rude to me because I could not. Have you ever heard the name of Meysey Hill?"

"Meysey Hill?" He repeated it after her, and she knew at once from his tone and his quick glance into her face that the name possessed some significance for him.

"Yes, I have heard of him, and I know him by sight," he admitted. "He was a friend of your sister's, was he not?"

"I never heard her mention his name," she answered. "Still, of course, it is possible. This man was apparently not sure whether he was Meysey Hill or not."

"How long had he been in the hospital?" Courtlaw asked.

"Since last night."

"Then, whoever he may be, he is not Meysey Hill," Courtlaw said. "That young man was giving a luncheon party to a dozen friends at the Cafe de Paris to-day. I sat within a few feet of him. I feel almost inclined to regret the fact."

"Why?" she asked.

"If one half of the stories about Meysey Hill are true," he answered, "I would not stretch out my little finger to save his life."

"Isn't that a little extreme?"

"I am an extreme person at times. This man has an evil reputation. I know of scandalous deeds which he has done."

Anna had reached the house where she lodged, but she hesitated on the doorstep.

"Have you ever seen Annabel with him?" she asked.

"Never."