Rogues & Company/Chapter 3
CHAPTER III
During the next forty-eight hours Monsieur de Beaulieu, of innumerable aliases, scarcely knew whom he disliked most of the three people amongst whom circumstances forced him to move and have his being. Had they regarded him as a fellow creature in distress he might have liked them well enough—even James had his relenting moments, and the Inspector was of a refreshing hopefulness—but to them he was not a human being at all, but an Object, to James an Object of suspicion, to the Doctor an Object of Scientific Interest and to the Inspector a matter of a thousand pounds hard cash. All three were out to prove something at his expense, James that he wasn't what he seemed, the Inspector that he was what he wanted him to be, and the Doctor that the Inspector was an outrageous ass. Of the three the Doctor was undoubtedly the most dangerous. The Inspector at least played a straightforward game and at the worst he could only produce evidence from the outside against which Monsieur de Beaulieu could defend himself with some possibility of success. But Dr. Frohlocken was out for King's evidence. And the victim was to give evidence against himself.
"It doesn't matter what you are," was one of the Doctor's most disturbing dicta, "it's what you think you are that matters."
And his methods savoured of a perpetual Third Degree. By this time his patient had obtained a general and very unfavourable conception of the Doctor's theories. Life wasn't the relatively simple business he had supposed. It was an appearance, a disguise cloaking unspeakable possibilities. Nothing you did was innocent or insignificant. Everything pointed to something. The way you sneezed, the way you cut your bread and butter, your likes and dislikes, your harmless little idiosyncrasies were all symptoms—usually of something highly discreditable. As to dreams, Monsieur de Beaulieu learnt to lie about them after his second night. From thence on he invented them, but with very little success—a charming idyllic scene in which angels and heavenly choirs played the chief part proving itself to have an entirely unsuspected significance.
Under these circumstances it was impossible to know when and how the lurking Slippery Bill might be coaxed out into the open.
On the other hand, Monsieur de Beaulieu was steadying to his part. He was getting back something of the nerve which must have carried him safely through other forgotten adventures. By his fourth morning he had almost begun to enjoy himself. The mere fact that he had genuinely lost his memory did not trouble him at all. On the contrary, the inability to remember his past seemed to him a distinct professional advantage, conducing to a sincere innocency and ignorance of the world's ways, not to mention his own. In fact, but for the existence of the Pig he might honestly have believed himself a Count or anything else that the Inspector had chosen to suggest to him. As it was, he was able to approach his breakfast with zest. Even the unexpectedly early appearance of the Inspector himself did not prevent him removing the top of his second egg with a nice accuracy.
"I think," Inspector Smythe said, shaking hands firmly with the Doctor regardless of the latter's obvious unwillingness, "I think, gentlemen, that matters are coming to a head. Hence this visit. I have obtained what will prove to be conclusive evidence. Personally, I was satisfied at once, but of course we could not expect the late Lord Sudleigh's executors to look at it in that way. A few more formalities, however, my dear Count, and we shall be through."
Dr. Frohlocken smiled satirically, but the Inspector, who was considering Monsieur de Beaulieu with an almost tender solicitude, was unaware of the fact. Indeed the Count had an uncomfortable conviction that Slippery Bill himself could not have aroused a deeper feeling of pride and proprietorship in the breast of his captor. But he had no means of resisting this encroachment on his freedom. When a man wears another man's clothes and another man's name and is contemplating the use of another man's money, it is inappropriate to argue the Rights of Property, and Monsieur de Beaulieu resigned himself to his position and his breakfast.
"The reason I turned up so early," the Inspector explained, referring to his watch, "is that I'm expecting my evidence to turn up here. You'll excuse the liberty I'm sure, Doctor. From the point of view of your patient's health, you know—"
"Your consideration dumfounds me," Dr. Frohlocken interjected. "May I ask whom my unfortunate patient is to be confronted with this morning?"
"Well, in the first place there's Lord Sudleigh's lawyer—"
Monsieur de Beaulieu dropped his egg-spoon.
"In my present state of health, I consider that my feelings ought to be considered," he said, plaintively. "And I don't like lawyers."
"Memory returning, eh what?" the Inspector suggested.
"I think it's instinct," the Count explained.
"Well, anyhow he had to come. That's him ringing now, I've no doubt. Or maybe it's your nurse—"
"My what?" The Count had now definitely finished with his breakfast. The Inspector smiled reassuringly upon him.
"Your nurse, Count. I sent for her so that she could meet you together with the lawyer fellow. Identification, you understand. Nurse bound to recognise you—"
"But—look here—" the Count put his hand to his burning forehead. A lawyer was bad enough, but a nurse—the loving guardian of somebody else's tender youth—was too much. Discovery again loomed on the horizon, and he did not want to be discovered. Whether it belonged to him or not, the position of Count de Beaulieu suited him down to the ground, and he had not the slightest intention of surrendering it without a struggle. "Excuse me, Inspector," he said, "but if I have been travelling round the world for the last few years, how do you expect this—eh—person to recognise me?"
Inspector Smythe stopped half-way to the door.
"Recognise you—why shouldn't she recognise you? Why, only a week ago she was nursing you!"
Monsieur de Beaulieu drew himself up to his full height.
"It is quite true that I have completely forgotten my past," he said with dignity, "but one thing I'll swear to—I haven't had a nurse for the last twenty years and anybody who says she—"
"My dear Count," interrupted the Inspector. "I don't mean that sort—I mean a sick nurse,—a hospital nurse. But of course you've forgotten—the wreck, you know."
The Count put his hand to the back of his head which was still sensitive. A light had dawned, but it was scarcely a comforting one.
"So it's her!" he exclaimed, with a regrettable lack of grammar. "Good God!"
"Just you wait," said his protector, consolingly, "I'll bring the whole lot in and then we'll be through with it—"
"Look here!" the Count held out a detaining hand. "Supposing she says I'm not who you think I am—what's going to happen? It's not a hanging business, is it? I never thought of being a Count until you suggested it and I—"
"I take all responsibility," said the Inspector firmly. "And if you are not you then we must find out who you are. You must be somebody."
"I suppose so." The Count tugged at his small moustache. "On the whole though—if you don't mind and the worst comes to the worst—I think I won't bother any more about it. It's rather nerve-racking, you know—this sort of quick-change business. If I'm not the Count de Beaulieu I'll just start life again as—eh—anybody—Adol—Tom Smith—Brown—" He had suppressed the William with an effort which left him breathless and horror-stricken by the nearness of his escape. The Inspector wagged a playful finger.
"Now just you wait, Count," he said soothingly. "All you've got to do is to wait and keep cool—quite cool—"
He was out of the room before any further protest could be made, and the Count, having overcome the temptation to put an end to the situation by jumping through the window, prepared himself for the next dilemma, with a sangfroid which the events of the last few days had helped to develop in him. Nevertheless, as he heard returning footsteps, he had some difficulty in retaining his attitude of dignified and—he hoped aristocratic composure by the fireside. He knew that his face was redder than is considered elegant in good society and his high collar—his first purchase with the Count's money—had become uncomfortably tight and hot. Even his last resource, an eyeglass which he had accustomed himself to wearing in moments of extreme pressure, failed him by dropping as the door opened, with a nerve-jarring click against his waistcoat button.
The Inspector had left the room in a certain state of excitement. He returned with the pompous and funereal tread of a man conscious that the eyes of the world are upon you. Behind him loomed a Large Person in the garb of a hospital nurse and, behind her again, a ferret-like little man, in all the glory of the professional frock-coat, was endeavouring—not very successfully—to make himself visible.
There was a moment's potential silence. The Inspector made a solemn gesture of introduction.
"Permit me," he said. "Count Louis de Beaulieu—Nurse Bunbury—Mr. Simmons; Dr. Frohlocken—Nurse Bunbury—"
The Doctor removed his spectacles, placed them in an inner pocket and buttoned up his coat with the air of a man who refuses to contemplate a disgraceful scene. Count Louis, raised by the dignity of his full title, endeavoured to pull himself together. The Large Person was staring at him with a blankness which boded nothing good and the lawyer had evidently already summed him up and, from the expression of the small eyes behind the pince-nez, none too favourably. Hitherto Monsieur de Beaulieu had felt himself surprisingly at home in his position. Under this combined attack he began to slide rapidly down the social scale. There was no doubt that the game was up. It only remained for him to carry the rest of his brief glory to a gallant end.
"I'm awfully grateful to you both for coming to my assistance like this," he said. "Please sit down."
His manner was gracious and gentlemanly. The Large Person alone persisted in her uncompromising stare. The lawyer obviously softened.
"Thank you—thank you—" he was heard to murmur. "Delighted to be of any assistance." After which admission he sat down and produced a number of sealed documents which he laid on the table with an air of grave mystery and polished his pince-nez with a corner of his handkerchief. "You say you are the Count Louis de Beaulieu?" he asked—so suddenly and loudly that even the Large Person started.
The Count smiled and shook his head.
"I don't say so," he said. "I am told so."
"Ah, yes, of course. Loss of memory. Very awkward indeed."
"But very interesting," put in the Doctor satirically. Whereupon the Large Person testified her assent by a slow and twice repeated nod of the neatly bonneted head.
Mr. Simmons coughed.
"It is a case of identification by credible witnesses then," he said. "To all intents and purposes, Count, we might as well look upon you as a corpse."
"By all means," the Count agreed. "Barring anatomical researches there is nothing I should like better. Pray proceed."
"But it is not an easy case," Mr. Simmons went on, with the air of reproving unwarrantable levity. "Your inability to testify on your own behalf, and the difficulty in procuring witnesses, make the matter exceptionally complicated. I may remind you that you have no relative living to identify you. Your uncle, my late client, Lord Sudleigh, who has left you the property in question, died two months ago. His direct heir has never seen you. Your past mode of life, which, if I may say so, appears to have been somewhat roving, makes it practically impossible to procure reliable witnesses. Those who knew you on board the 'Melita' are unfortunately deceased. It remains to be seen whether Nurse Bunbury, who attended Count de Beaulieu, recognises you as her patient."
"Exactly!" said the Inspector.
The Count put his hand involuntarily to his collar. The great and critical moment had come. The only person who appeared indifferent to the fact was Nurse Bunbury herself. Her expression remained blank. "Come!" exclaimed the lawyer, sharply. "Is he or is he not the Count de Beaulieu?"
"I don't know," she said.
"Nonsense—you must know. He was under your charge for two days."
"I don't know," the Large Person repeated, stonily. "There doesn't seem to be anything the matter with him."
"Good heavens, woman—"
"Except a bit of fever perhaps," she interposed with the air of modifying an important statement, "but then most of 'em have that."
Mr. Simmons interposed with an air of exemplary patience.
"But, my good person—" he began, "nobody wants to know if there is anything the matter with him. You have come here—"
"If there isn't anything the matter with him," Nurse Bunbury interrupted, "I can't tell whether I know him or not. That's all I can say, but I would like to add that my name is Bunbury—Nurse Bunbury—and that I am not a person. I am a lady."
The Inspector looked at the lawyer and the lawyer stared at his documents. The Count replaced his eyeglass in a bright eye which was twinkling at that moment with completely recovered good-humour.
"You mean to say," Mr. Simmons began again sternly, "that you only recognise your patients by their diseases?"
"Diseases and haccidents," the Large Person assented. "I have ten of 'em under me this very day. No. I, dislocated knee joint. No. 2, broken leg. No. 3, amputated big toe. No. 4—"
"Thank you—" began the Doctor hastily.
"And last week I was in the infection ward," Nurse Bunbury continued undeterred. "Twelve of 'em I had—and every one of 'em diphtherias. Only knew them by their temperatures. No. 6, he died yesterday—"
The lawyer shifted his chair nearer the open window.
"Very interesting, Nurse," he said, "very interesting indeed, but scarcely to the point. Would you mind turning your attention to your late patient, Count Louis de Beaulieu? What was the matter with him, pray?"
"If you mean No. 7—" the Large Person began.
"I mean the patient who disappeared last Thursday week with somebody else's clothes."
"That's No. 7," she said at once. "Came in with a whole lot of 'em—half drowned, that's what they were. Couldn't tell tother from which. But 7, he was a scamp. He went off with No. 9's trousers and waistcoats. No. 9 died next day, which was a mighty good thing considering his nasty temper. If he had known that his trousers—"
By this time Dr. Frohlocken had replaced his spectacles, through which he was gazing at the Large Person with interest and satisfaction.
"I congratulate you, Madam" he said. "You appear to have the proper scientific point of view. You are not concerned with absurd personalities. It happens that I, too, regard him as No. 7. And No. 7 he remains until by reasonable methods—"
"I am asking you about your patient," Mr. Simmons put in with determined patience. "What was the matter with him?"
"Concussion, sir, with fever and a temperature—"
"Stop!" The Inspector pointed an accusing finger at her. "Did you say concussion?"
"I did, sir."
"From a blow?"
"On the back of the head. A nasty-looking thing—"
"Wait!" The Inspector crossed the room and taking the Count by the shoulders whirled him round and removed the bandage very much as a conjuror removes the cloth from the magic flower-pot from whence rabbits and other surprises are to make their appearance. "Look at that!" he commanded.
The Large Person looked. The lawyer looked. The Count blushed self-consciously.
"How about that?" the Inspector appealed.
"If it isn't it," the Large Person began solemnly, "then it's as like it as if it was its twin-brother."
The Count was permitted to turn round. He found the Inspector flushed with triumph, the lawyer dubious. Nurse Bunbury smiled upon him with delighted recognition.
"I knew it at once, No. 7," she said. "Couldn't have made a mistake about it. And now I believe I remember you, too. When I was bandaging your head I said to myself, 'If that young fellow has any sense left in him after that it's a wonder!' And how you talked! My gracious, you kept us all awake with 'her.' It was 'Theodora this' and 'Theodora that' till—"
The Count coughed. They were on thin ice again and though it was a satisfaction to know the lady's name he felt that there was something indiscreet in his discussion of another man's love-affairs.
"I think," he said with dignity, "that we can leave the lady out of the case."
"I should hope so," the Doctor muttered.
Mr. Simmons shook his head.
"It would be a great gain if we could find this 'Theodora,'" he observed. "I confess, Inspector, that though your theories are very ingenious I feel doubtful as to whether I should like to trust them to the extent of £10,000 a year and an estate in Norfolk. You will admit that the evidence is weak in the extreme—"
"Weak! What more do you want?"
"I want Theodora," Mr. Simmons returned with a dryness of manner which nullified the suggestion of tenderness in his words.
The Inspector shook his head and turned his eyes to the ceiling as though hoping to find there a sympathetic witness to so much unreasonableness. But before he had sufficiently recovered himself to protest the door was opened and James stood solemnly on the threshold.
"If you please, sir, a lady to see you," he announced.
The Doctor waved his hands distractedly.
"I do not want to see her. Can't you see I have enough fools here already. Send her away."
"If you please, sir, it is your consultation hour."
"What do I care, idiot. Send her away, I tell you!"
"If you please, sir, she said it was very important."
"What do you mean? Is she dying?"
"I don't know, sir. One never can tell."
"The healthiest-looking go first," the Large Person observed unexpectedly.
Dr. Frohlocken hesitated a moment, obviously torn between impatience at the interruption and a sense of professional duty.
"If you would wait but a few minutes—?" he suggested doubtfully.
Simmons bowed.
"By all means."
"My time is yours, Doctor," added Monsieur de Beaulieu graciously.
Thus encouraged, but with considerable ill-will, Dr. Frohlocken followed the stoical James in the direction of his consulting-room and, for a time, nothing was heard but the distant murmur of a woman's voice, interrupted occasionally by the Doctor's familiar grunts of disapproval.
The three listeners maintained a gloomy silence. The Large Person, having lost interest in her whilom patient, had collapsed into the most comfortable chair, and the lawyer was staring in front of him with an expression which forbade liberties. The Count felt he was suspected in that quarter and, warned by experience, refrained from touching on even such innocent topics as the weather. For the moment the danger of discovery was averted, but for how long? As long, probably, as the real Count chose to maintain his mysterious incognito. Or, perhaps the Count was dead. The gold pig lying at the bottom of his understudy's waistcoat suggested the glorious possibility with unction, but the understudy himself discountenanced it. He felt that to hope such a thing was indecent—almost criminal—a feeling which he knew to be ridiculous, but which, with the best will in the world, he could not altogether suppress. Anyhow, he had no grudge to speak of against the genuine Count, and none at all against the lovely Theodora. For he had made up his mind that she was lovely. The name suggested it and the Count's behaviour proved it. A man who can ramble on about a lady on the top of a shipwreck and concussion of the brain has usually method in his madness. The bogus Count fancied her at that moment in tears, weighed down by grief at the mysterious loss of her lover, and his heart went out to her in pity and considerable remorse.
"Theodora!" he repeated to himself. "Confoundedly pretty name! Theodora what, I wonder? Smith, probably—or perhaps Brown!" Whereupon he smiled ruefully.
It was at this moment that Dr. Frohlocken returned. It appeared at once that some of his scientific detachment had been lost in that brief interview. He was still angry, but also not a little moved by some gentler emotion. He regarded No. 7 for the first time as though he were something more than an interesting experiment.
"As my house has become a lunatic asylum," he said, "it is not inappropriate that mad events should take place in it. I am glad to think that at any rate I have washed my hands of all consequences. No. 7, Mademoiselle Theodora de Melville awaits you in my consulting room."