CHAPTER V
A CURIOUS CASE
I had only just returned to my own rooms when Mrs. Peddar appeared.
"The young lady is up, sir, and wishes to see you, if it would be quite convenient."
Her words, her tone, her manner, told me that the housekeeper had not yet heard of what had happened to the occupant of No. 64. Atkins had explained that he had experienced some difficulty in finding a constable, and, apparently, had said nothing of his errand to any one upon the way. The story of Edwin Lawrence's ending had not yet been told. I was not disposed to be the first to inform Mrs. Peddar.
"How is the young lady?" I asked.
"Well, sir, she seems all right, bodily, if I may say so, and she certainly has slept sound, and looks better than ever; but that there's something the matter with her mind, I feel sure."
"Have you found out her name, or anything about her?"
"No, sir, not a word. I looked at her linen when she was in bed, and it's marked 'E.M.’"
"‘E.M'?"
"Yes, sir, 'E.M.' And there's a purse in her pocket with eighteen shillings; but that's all—no cards or anything, I was wondering if you wouldn't like Dr. Hume to see her. He's a clever gentleman, and might find out what's wrong with her; because, as I've said, that there's something wrong I'm sure."
I turned my back, being unwilling to let the woman see how strongly her reference to Hume had moved me. The idea that that man should have an opportunity to play any of the pranks, which he pretended were experiments, made in the interests of science, upon that helpless girl, made my blood boil.
"I don't think we will trouble Dr. Hume just yet, Mrs. Peddar."
"Very good, sir. I don't believe myself in doctors—not as a general rule; it's their bill they're thinking of, and not you, most of the time; but the young lady's seems such a curious case, and Dr. Hume has the reputation of being so clever, that I thought I'd just mention it."
"It's very kind of you, Mrs. Peddar. I cannot tell you how obliged I am to you for the interest you are taking in the matter; but then I know your good heart. Will you inform the young lady that I will come to her as soon as I have finished dressing?"
When I entered Mrs. Peddar's rooms the girl was standing by the window. As she turned to greet me I was positively startled by her loveliness. It filled me with a curious sense of exhilaration. Her face was illumined by that radiant smile which had struck me overnight as being one of her most striking characteristics. She extended both her hands.
"So it's you at last. I thought you were never coming."
"I have been detained, or I would have been here before. I hope you slept well, and that Mrs. Peddar's bed was as comfortable as she predicted."
"Slept! I seem to have slept all my cares away. Do you know, I think that something must have happened to me last night."
"What do you think it was?"
"That's just it—I can't think. I wonder if anything's the matter with my head."
"Perhaps you had some kind of a shock; try to remember."
She shook her head.
"I can't remember. And yet—I don't know. There's something in my head like a blot. It makes me feel so stupid."
"Can't you even remember your name?"
"No. I don't believe I have a name. Yet I suppose I ought to have a name, everybody does have a name; doesn't everybody have a name?"
She put this question with a little air of hesitation, as if she propounded a doubtful proposition.
"I should say so, as a general rule. It is rather an uncomfortable position for a young lady to be in—not to know her own name, nor the whereabouts of her home, nor who her friends are.
"Do you think so? Does it make me seem—silly?" She looked at me with a wistful expression, like a puzzled child. "I seem to remember people shouting; they were shouting at me. And clapping their hands—I can see them clapping their hands; then something happened."
"Where were the people—and why did they shout at you?"
"I can't think. I believe it's in my head somewhere, if I only knew where to find it; but I don't know where it is."
"Can't you remember what happened to you, and where you were just before you came to my room?"
"I remember coming through your window; I remember that quite well." A faint flush came to her cheeks. "But that is all. Everything seems to have begun then; nothing seems to have happened before."
I took a pair of white kid gloves out of my coat pocket.
"Are these your gloves?"
She eyed them askance.
"I don't know—are they? Where did you get them from?"
I did not care to tell her that I found them on a chair in the room in which Edwin Lawrence lay dead.
"You should know better than I, if they are yours."
"They may be—I can't tell. I'll try them on and see if they fit." She did try them on, and they did fit—to perfection. She held out her gloved hands. "They look as if they were mine—they must be; don't you think they are?"
"I have not a doubt that they are yours."
I turned my face away. A weight had become suddenly attached to my heart There was a choking something in my throat. She was quick to perceive the alteration in my demeanour.
"Why do you turn your face away from me? Have I said or done anything wrong? Aren't the gloves mine?"
I replied to her with another question.
"Do you know any one named Lawrence?"
"Lawrence? Lawrence? I can't remember. Is it a woman's name?"
"No; it is not a woman's name, it's a man's name. Edwin Lawrence."
"Why do you ask? Do you know him?"
"I do; and so do you."
"I! How do you know I know him?"
"Because, last night, it was from his room you came to mine."
I regarded her with what quite possibly were accusatory glances; but if I expected my words to take her by surprise, or to cause her to betray signs of guilt, I was mistaken. She met my glances with serenely untroubled countenance, as if she were wondering what exactly my meaning might chance to be.
"I came to your room from his? What was I doing in his room?"
"Think! Try to think! You must remember what happened in Edwin Lawrence's room to cause you to fly through his window, taking refuge anyhow and anywhere."
"You say that I came from his room to yours; how did I come?"
"Along the balcony. You must have rushed through his window straight to mine; whether you tried other windows as you passed I cannot say. Perhaps mine was the first which you found open."
"Then his room is in this house?"
"Of course it is; it's on the same floor as mine."
"Then take me to it—now! At once! If I were to see the room, and to see Edwin Lawrence, it might all come back to me."
"Take you to see Edwin Lawrence?"
"Yes; why not?"
"Why should I not take you to see Edwin Lawrence? You know why!"
I gripped her roughly by the wrist. She gave a cry of pain. I loosed her, ashamed. She eyed me as if bewildered.
"Why did you take hold of me like that? You hurt me."
"You should not play with me."
"Play with you? I was not playing. I only asked you to take me to see this room, and this Edwin Lawrence, of whom you keep on speaking—that was all."
"Yes, that was all."
"Why do you look at me like that You make me afraid of you. I thought you were my friend."
"How can I be your friend, to act a real friend's part, if you will not trust me?"
"Trust you? Don't I trust you? I thought I did."
She spoke like a child, and she was a lovely woman. I knew not what to make of her, what to answer. I had a hundred things to say, which, sooner or later, would have to be said. How was I to express them in words which would reach her understanding? Was she, naturally, mentally deficient? I could not believe it. Hers was not the face of an imbecile. Intellect, intelligence was writ large in every line. What then was the meaning of the cloud which had temporarily paralysed the active forces of her brain? Where was the key to the puzzle? As I hesitated she, coming closer, drawing up the sleeve of her dress, showed me her wrist, on which were the marks of my fingers.
"See how you have hurt me."
I was shocked; I had not supposed that I had used such force.
"I did not mean to do it—I beg your pardon. But this morning I'm afraid I am impatient; things have tried me."
"What things? Am I one of them? I am so sorry—please forgive me! I want you to be my friend, and more than my friend. You see how I am all alone."
"I see; I do see that."
The appeal which was in her eyes as they looked into mine stirred my pulses strangely. I know not what wild words were trembling on my lips; before they had a chance of getting spoken Mrs. Peddar put her head through the door and called to me—
"Mr. Ferguson, can I speak to you for a minute, please?"
I went to her at once. I perceived that the news had reached her. Her first words showed it.
"You have heard, sir, of the dreadful thing which has happened to Mr. Lawrence?"
"I have."
"From what I'm told"—we were in a small room which served her as a sort of ante-chamber; she looked about her furtively, as if she feared that walls had ears; the hand which she had laid upon my arm was trembling—"from what I'm told it seems that it must have been done just before the young lady—came—to your room."
"Such seems to be the case, from what I'm told."
"What shall we do?"
"At present, nothing. 'Sufficient,' Mrs. Peddar, 'unto the day is the evil thereof.’"
"Do you think she knows?"
"Just now, I am sure that she does not."
She came closer, speaking almost in a whisper. Her lips were twitching. I have seldom seen a woman so disturbed.
"Do you think—she did it?"
"Mrs. Peddar! I have not yet found the key to the puzzle; but I am going to look for it, and I, or some one else, will find it soon. And of this I am certain now, that that child—she's little more than a child in years, and, at present, she's as helpless as any child could be—has had, of her own initiative, no hand or finger in this matter; she is as innocent, and as blameless, as you or I. She has suffered, but she has not sinned."
"I hope so, I am sure."
"Your hope is on a safe foundation. There is one thing which you might do—keep your own counsel. Don't tell all the world that you have a visitor; and, in particular, tell no one how that visitor came to you."
"I'd rather she never had come. I—I'm beginning to wish that I'd never taken her in."
"Don't say that, Mrs. Peddar. You will find that it was not the worst action of your life when you took that young girl, when she had just escaped, by the very skin of her teeth, unless I am mistaken—from things unspeakable, from the very gates of hell, under the shadow of your wing."
Mrs. Peddar shook her head and she sighed.
"Poor thing! Whatever happens, and I tremble when I think of what may be going to happen to her and to us, and to every one—poor young thing!"