The Man Without a Memory Part 8

I agreed to this like a shot, and we went into the drawing-room, where her mother was still reading her letters. Rosa glanced hurriedly at hers, locked them in a little bureau, and hurried off to tackle Nessa.

The Countess was standing by a very handsome cabinet, a drawer of which she had opened, and called me up to her. "Come here, Johann, I want you to see me put these letters away," she said to my astonishment, and, drawing my attention to the neatness with which her letters and papers were arranged, asked me to remember precisely where she put those which had just arrived, and to make sure that the drawer was locked. "I want to have a witness," she added.

Then she spoke of Nessa's behaviour to me, saying how it had grieved and surprised her.

"It is really not of the least consequence," I a.s.sured her.

"But I'm sorely afraid it is, Johann, and I'm very troubled. That's one reason why I wished you to do that just now. I was always against her coming to the house, but Rosa would have her;" and then by degrees the reason came out.

She was afraid that von Erstein's story was true, that Nessa was really a spy. Some one had a key to her drawer in the cabinet; she had found her papers disturbed more than once; she kept money in the same place, but none of it had ever been taken, so that it could not be the work of a thief; she believed that Rosa's bureau had also been tampered with; and as the servants were above suspicion, there seemed to be only one conclusion.

The dear little lady was more grieved than angry about it. "I'm very sorry for Nessa really, Johann, but we can't have a spy in the house; yet I don't know how to get rid of her. But I won't open that drawer again until you are with me, and then we shall both know that I'm not making a mistake. Meanwhile, don't say anything to Rosa or any one."

We went upstairs together, and she was telling me the address of Hans'

tailor and how I was to find it, when the old servant, Gretchen, pa.s.sed us. Rosa was waiting dressed to go out, and told me she had spoken to Nessa, who would come down to me in the drawing-room after the rest had left the house.

"She baffles me, Johann. She just jumped at your offer to help her get away--after her conduct just now, too! But she seems to have taken a violent dislike to you, and even declared she wouldn't stop in the same house with you," she said in a tone of consternation.

I pa.s.sed it off with a smile and some ba.n.a.l remark about feminine inconsistency, and went downstairs to wait for Nessa. There was a lounge at the end of the drawing-room, a big comfortable sort of winter garden, with lots of big plants, and rugs and easy chairs and so on, and I sat down there to think over the position. I didn't smoke; a lucky fact in view of things.

It worried me excessively that Nessa should be regarded as a spy, and I was puzzling over the explanation of what the Countess had told me when I heard the front door shut. That meant they had left the house and that Nessa would soon be down.

But she did not come for some time, and presently I heard a movement in the big room, the faint click of a key being turned and then of a drawer being cautiously opened.

The conclusion was obvious. The spy was at work, believing that I had gone to the tailor's and meaning to fix the thing on Nessa, should her little operation be discovered. So I got up noiselessly and, from the safe shelter of some plants, did a little spy work on my own account.

It was one of the servants, of course; but I could not at first catch sight of her face. She was at Rosa's bureau, reading a letter, probably one of those which had come just before. That did not occupy more than a minute, and she next opened the Countess's cabinet drawer, picked out a couple of letters, glanced at them rapidly, just tossed them back carelessly, relocked the drawer, and turned to leave the room.

I saw her clearly then, for she went out by a door which stood at my end of the room, near the big stove in the corner. It was Gretchen.

It would never do to have a possible eavesdropper when Nessa and I were together, and, being unwilling to let the woman know she had been seen, I crept over to the door we all used, opened it noisily, shut it with a bang, and began to whistle.

This had immediate results. I heard the door of the stove opened at the back, some logs were thrown in, and directly afterwards Gretchen came out, with an apology for disturbing me.

"It's my work to see to the stoves, sir," she explained with a smirk.

"And the door to our quarters is locked."

"All right, Gretchen. It's getting chilly, isn't it?"

"It gets cold in the evenings, sir, and my orders are to see that the stoves are kept going well." She was a little uneasy; and after she had been gone a while, I had a look at the hiding-place.

It was a pa.s.sage with cupboards on each side, and as the door at the other end was fastened, she had been compelled to return through the room when she had heard me. There was a bolt on my side of that door, and I shot it to prevent her coming back to listen while Nessa and I were together.

I was only a minute or two in the place, but when I left it I found Nessa already in the drawing-room. She had caught me apparently in the act of playing the spy, and her look left no doubt about her opinion.

I laughed. I really could not help it. It was such a preposterous misreading of the situation that the ludicrous absurdity of it appealed to me. Of course my laughter added to her indignation and also to the awkwardness of the meeting.

"You are practising your new profession, I see. It appears to rouse your sense of humour," she said icily.

"It would probably rouse yours also if you understood everything," I retorted, not at all relishing her prompt condemnation.

"I don't see anything particularly humorous in your sneaking into the house of my friends and spying in its holes and corners."

"Perhaps not, but I had a good reason," I said shortly, a bit rattled by her sneer.

"No doubt; but I have no curiosity on such a subject. Rosa has induced me to see you, so I----" She got so far in the same level, cutting tone, evidently putting a great restraint upon herself; but she could not keep it up. Her eyes blazed suddenly, her cheeks flushed, and raising her voice in her indignation she exclaimed: "How dare you come----"

I had to stop that, however, as the old eavesdropper might have followed her to the room and be on keyhole drill. "I am very glad to meet you, Miss Caldicott," I broke in in German loudly enough to be heard outside, and added in a low tone in English: "It is not safe to speak so loudly as you did. Come away from the door;" and I led the way into the conservatory.

She stared at me as if I were a dangerous lunatic, but after a moment's pause followed me. "Say what you like now, but lower your voice," I said, lowering my own tone.

She hesitated, but acted on the warning and returned to her former icy tone. "What I want to know is why you dare to come here in a false name, as the sham lover of my friend, and humiliate me in this way. If you must be a spy, haven't you enough decency to avoid blackening me by making me a partner in such treacherous baseness?"

I met her angry look for a second, realizing that this was the reason for her conduct to me; and it was all I could do to prevent myself smiling at her injustice, although it riled me considerably.

"Rather a rough judgment," I replied with a shrug, "and your manner doesn't smooth it out much; but as no one else can hear you now, I don't mind so much. I can explain----"

"Explain!" she broke in scornfully.

"Yes, explain. That's what I said. If you understood----"

"I do understand as it is--too well," she fired in again.

I really could not help smiling again, both at her words and flashing anger. "I must either smile or lose my temper as you have done; and it's better to smile."

This was like petrol on the fire. "Just what I should expect of you--to see nothing but a joke in my indignation."

"I'm not laughing at your indignation, but at your mistake. You always have been ready to make the worst of anything I do."

"What have you ever done that was worth doing?"

"Nothing much, I admit."

"If you were like other men you'd be doing what they are doing--fighting."

"Perhaps I should; but we can't all be soldiers."

Her lip curled. "Men can; but even you needn't have sunk so low as to be a spy!"

"Go on. I'm not ashamed of what I'm doing; and if you'll let me explain----"

She stopped me again with an impatient gesture. "I need no explanation, thank you. Aren't you here as Johann La.s.sen?"

"Yes."

"Pretending to be engaged to Rosa von Rebling?"

"Yes."