Mary Louise and Josie O'Gorman Part 18

Josie was sorry to have her walk cut short but the man's courtesy was not to be gainsaid. She climbed up on the seat by him, thanking him frankly. She had seen him before, where, she could not remember.

"Are you in the army?" she asked.

"I suppose so," he answered whimsically.

"They tell me I am, but I can't remember ever getting in it. I can't remember anything, in fact. I remember how to read and how to speak French and some German and whenever I get hold of a book I have read before the plot comes back to me if it happens to be a novel, but my past life is a blank. If I could get some inkling of it I believe it would come back like the plot of the novels. I am as well as can be physically and the alienists say I am as sane as anyone, but I might have been born yesterday, for all I know of my life before I became conscious in a vile German prison camp.

"But I wonder why I tell you all this! It seems hardly fair to pick up a young lady on the road and take advantage of her helplessness to pour in her ear my own troubles."

"Oh, please, tell me! I am very much interested. Do you never have any remembrance of your former existence? Do not odors or sounds or sights bring some vague impression of yesterday?"

"Why--yes! Violets seem to mean more to me than other flowers. Why, I don't know--but I have a feeling that someone I must have loved and who loved me is in trouble. I can't get rid of the feeling. But if it is so--if anyone does love me why doesn't he or she find me? I'm here--not really lost. If I only could get some clue--a name--an address-- something, anything on which to build."

He turned and looked at Josie. She met his gaze with a long wondering look.

"Stop the car, please, for a moment," she asked. He obeyed immediately.

"Mr. Waller," she said gently, "Don't you remember these little porridge bowls?"

She tore the wrappings from the bowls, disclosing the rabbits and the chickens. The man took them in his hands reverently. His lips pressed together to form the letter P.

"Yes," said Josie, "Polly and Peter! You lived in Atlanta on Peachtree Street. Your wife is Mary and your name is Stephen. You enlisted in the United States Army at the first call to arms. Your wife is well and so are your children."

"Mary! Mary!" he cried, and clasping the porridge bowls to his heart he wept--great sobs shaking his frame.

When he could control himself he begged Josie to tell him more.

"Everything is coming back to me in leaps and bounds. It is just like the plots of the novels that I have read before. Now we must go and report to the Colonel. The funny thing is I remember now that I am a captain. At least I was. Perhaps I am dead in the eyes of the army. I reckon I was reported missing in action."

"Your wife believes you are alive." Then Josie must tell the poor man of all the trials his wife had undergone and of the perfidy of Chester Hunt. She did it in as few words as possible. He was deeply moved at the story of her sufferings.

"To think of her being so close to me all the time! Once I thought I heard someone calling me. I couldn't catch the name but there was a tone of voice that rang in my ears for days and days. It was while I was driving the truck, and bless me if it wasn't going along that road that leads near that sanitarium. I must report to the Colonel first and then I can go get my wife."

"Dr Harper may make some trouble, as his rule is not to let a patient out until the person who is responsible for her being there comes to remove her."

"We'll see about that," and his jaws snapped together much to Josie's admiration. She had great respect for a firm jaw.

"I am leaving my job now, as there is no use in my staying longer in the employ of the oily Dr. Harper. Perhaps I can help you. It is a pity for dear Mrs. Waller to spend another moment in this place where she has been so miserable. It would take some time for Mr. Hunt to reach here from Atlanta. When he comes he may make trouble about identifying you. He is so determined that you are dead, but I shall let your wife go into details concerning what that man hopes to gain by your death."

The Colonel was accessible and as delighted at the restoration of Stephen Waller's memory as Josie herself. Indefinite leave was given him and the Colonel advanced enough money from his own private funds to enable him to travel comfortably with his wife.

CHAPTER XVII HUSBAND AND WIFE

"I have come for my wife. I am Stephen Waller."

Those words were simple enough but Dr. Harper seemed to find them most confusing. He wagged his venerable beard like an angry goat and said nothing at first, but like a goat he looked as though he might be gathering his forces for a mighty b.u.t.ting.

"I don't know what you mean. I know nothing of your wife."

"Nothing of a Mrs. Waller who has been in your sanitarium for a year or more?"

"Nothing!"

"See here! I am not going to stand any foolishness. Do you mean to say you have not a patient named Mrs. Waller?"

"I do not! I have such a patient but she is a widow and I am sure she knows nothing of you. How am I to know who you are?" asked Harper.

"You can get out of here faster than you got in. I have plenty of men here who can put you out and none too gently. Mrs. Waller was put in my care by a Mr. Chester and he, and he alone, has the authority to remove her from my sanitarium."

Josie had slipped up to Mrs. Waller's room when she left Captain Waller at the door and there, as gently and with as much composure as she could command, she told her of her husband.

"I knew it, I knew it all the time. I must go to him." Lightly she ran down the stairs and into the office, past the wagging beard of the angry Harper and into the arms of the shabby soldier.

"Stephen!"

"Mary!"

Even the incredulous Dr. Harper could but be convinced that they really were husband and wife.

"Well, she can't leave until her board is paid," he bl.u.s.tered. "It is months in arrears and I have no idea of losing it."

Dr. Harper had not noticed that Josie had come in the office behind Mrs. Waller. Josie had a way of being able to efface herself almost entirely--she stood so still and was so silent.

At Dr. Harper's words she made herself seen and heard, however. From her pocket she produced a small note book filled with cryptic characters and from it she read solemnly like a recording angel. First was the letter to Chester Hunt from Dr. Harper. Date and all she gave with businesslike precision. Then she read Chester Hunt's answer to that letter, with a copy of the check which was enclosed with it.

"You can't deny then," Josie said severely, "that Mrs. Waller's board has been paid and paid in advance and also that you have been conniving with this Chester Hunt in unlawfully detaining this lady in your inst.i.tution after she has been entirely cured of any nervous malady she may have had."

Dr. Harper was speechless for a moment. He had tried to interrupt her but with a warning finger Josie had held him spellbound. At last he sputtered:

"You--you--why you are nothing more than a servant in my establishment.

Get out of my office!"

"I have been a servant in your establishment to further my own ends.

Now I am through with my job. I'll ask you, sir, to pay me off, as I am leaving. I have served you well in the capacity of servant and the laborer is worthy of his hire."

"Who are you, anyhow?" he exploded wrathfully.

"I am Josie O'Gorman. Perhaps you remember my father, Detective O'Gorman. He had certain dealings with you and had not he been cut off at the height of his career, his reckoning with you would have come, much to your undoing. As it is, he only scared you a bit. I am merely carrying on his work. I have scared you a bit more. Now I fancy you will let Captain Waller take his wife away unmolested. No doubt Mr.

Chester Hunt will soon be here to settle with you. You owe me $17.35. I prefer cash."

The angry old man counted out the money, his hand shaking and his beard wagging. He was loath to have them go without giving them his heartfelt curses, but he was speechless.

"Now I feel justified in having retained the room and bath at the hotel," Josie said to herself. "Captain and Mrs. Waller can be comfortable in it and no doubt my host can put me up in a smaller way."

The last train that might connect with the line going to Dorfield had gone and there was nothing to do but wait until morning.