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 THE MAN 
 WITHOUT A SHADOW
 
 "I found myself standing face to face with Virginia." 
 
 [Page 131.]
 
 THE MAN WITHOUT 
 A SHADOW 
 
 BY 
 
 OLIVER CABOT 
 
 ILLUSTRATED
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1909, BY 
 D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 
 
 Copyright, 1908, by The Frank A. Munsey Co. 
 
 Published April, 1999
 
 1 1 seek myself and am but myself a shadow." 
 
 "The Pilgrim," FLETCHER.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 I. THE AWAKENING i 
 
 II. THE CORDS TIGHTEN 9 
 
 III. THE AMBUSH 19 
 
 IV. MR. DUGGLEBY 31 
 
 V. THE WOMAN IN THE CAB 41 
 
 VI. LOST 51 
 
 VII. I GET A JOB 58 
 
 VIII. A NEW FRIEND AND AN OLD ENEMY . . 71 
 
 IX. THE FLIGHT IN THE DARK .... 88 
 
 X. MONSIEUR BARRAS 99 
 
 XI. SUCH STUFF AS DREAMS ARE MADE OF . in 
 
 XII. THE ORDEAL 122 
 
 XIII. A CASTLE IN SPAIN 136 
 
 XIV. THE SPRING 147 
 
 XV. WHAT THE BREEZE BROUGHT ME . . . 158 
 
 XVI. THE PARIS Herald 171 
 
 XVII. THE SPY 180 
 
 XVIII. THE MYSTERIOUS PATIENT .... 193 
 
 XIX. THE MAN I WAS 206 
 
 vii
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 XX. IN THE ROAD 221 
 
 XXI. THE AFFAIR IN THE CLOAKROOM . . . 232 
 
 XXII. AN INTIMATE STRANGER 242 
 
 XXIII. DEJEUNER AT THE CHATEAU .... 256 
 XXIV. WHAT DR. LINOL TOLD ME . . . .267 
 
 XXV. VIRGINIA . 277 
 
 XXVI. MY LAST EXPERIMENT 285 
 
 XXVII. THE SECRET CHAMBER 302 
 
 XXVIII. A NIGHT IN JUNE 315 
 
 XXIX. THE LAST CARD 325 
 
 XXX "Mv ALL-THE-WORLD" . . . . .336
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 FAOIMG 
 PAGE 
 
 '* I found myself standing face to face with Vir- 
 ginia " Frontispiece 
 
 ff This is the sheet of music the gentleman wishes to 
 
 see'" 84 
 
 " I read it. ... My house of cards was demolished, 
 
 indeed" 178 
 
 ' There was something positively magnetic about her 
 
 hands" . . . 282
 
 EDITORIAL FROM THE NEW YORK PLANET 
 
 The control of one of the most important 
 single industrial organizations in this country 
 will pass within the next day or two into the 
 hands of a young man in his early twenties. 
 So far as is generally known, he will take up 
 this heavy responsibility with no better equip- 
 ment for it than is afforded by a large paternal 
 allowance and a dilettante's pursuit of the 
 fine arts in France. 
 
 The industry in question is the great ship- 
 building yard of the Morton Duggleby Com- 
 pany at Cleveport, N. J. The practical di- 
 rection of this company has been for many 
 years in the hands of its second largest stock- 
 holder, Mr. Thomas Duggleby, the late Chris- 
 topher Morton, the holder of the controlling 
 interest, having been for some time inactive. 
 
 Under the terms of the will, his entire prop- 
 erty goes with no restrictions whatever to his 
 son, the present Christopher Morton. The 
 property in question is worth more than a 
 score of millions, and the wisdom and skill 
 with which it is managed is a matter of 
 national concern. 
 
 After the lapse of four decades, the business 
 of building ships and the flying of the Ameri- 
 can flag on all the seven seas of the world 
 again bids fair to revive the glorious tradition 
 of the last century. Consequently, it is not 
 an impertinent intrusion into his private af- 
 fairs to warn young Mr. Morton of the heavy 
 responsibility that rests upon him. 
 
 This property is in good hands to-day; cer- 
 tainly in stronger and more successful hands 
 than his own. A large part of his inheritance 
 is of a sort that cannot be expressed between 
 a dollar sign and a decimal point. He has 
 inherited a name which deserves a large and 
 honorable place in our history among the 
 captains of peace. 
 
 If he shall prove negligent of this inheri- 
 tance and shall allow his own caprice to usurp 
 a better-grounded authority, he will have 
 added an argument of no light weight against 
 the unrestricted transference of property by 
 bequest.
 
 THE MAN 
 WITHOUT A SHADOW 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE AWAKENING 
 
 AFTER a glance about me, I turned to the 
 man who was seated at the other end of the 
 bench. He was dozing in the warm June sun, his 
 pipe dangling from his relaxed jaw. 
 
 " I beg your pardon," said I. " May I ask you 
 to tell me where I am? " 
 
 I am a man apparently about thirty years old, 
 though it may be that I am younger than I look, 
 but the moment in which I cast that glance around 
 and asked the question of the other occupant of 
 my bench, is my earliest conscious memory. 
 
 Back of that, except for some hazy, dreamlike 
 pictures, is an absolute void. I shall speak of those 
 pictures in detail presently. They are all I have 
 that afford any hope of success in the vast and al- 
 most impossible task which lies before me ; all that 
 supply any incentive for attempting the task at all. 
 
 i
 
 THE MAN WITHOUT A SHADOW 
 
 I know that some time, perhaps a month, per- 
 haps a year ago possibly longer than that a 
 man was lost. A man of education, certainly, and, 
 I am inclined to think, a man who occupied no 
 unimportant niche in the world's affairs. That 
 man lived in my body, thought with my mind, was 
 actually myself. It is my task to find him. 
 
 I feel, as I write this, like one who builds a 
 house of cards, which a breath or the brush 
 of a careless sleeve may bring to utter wreck. I 
 mean to commit to paper these memories of the 
 past few days and also those pictures, which I 
 hardly dare call memories, in order to have them 
 safe, in case the obliterating hand which has once 
 before passed over the tablets of my mind shall 
 come my way again. 
 
 I said my task was almost impossible. That 
 statement may have a strange sound. Surely, one 
 would say, I must have friends eager to welcome 
 me back to my old place. It may be. I have 
 found none yet, and I have found enemies or 
 an enemy, for the web around me seems to have 
 been woven by one master mind. If so, he will 
 have taken care that no friendly hand shall ever 
 be stretched out to my rescue. 
 
 If ever I escape from this cell into which malign 
 chance has delivered me, this cell of utter hopeless 
 oblivion, it will be through my own efforts; 
 
 2
 
 THE AWAKENING 
 
 through the shrewdness, courage, and, above all, 
 the patience which I may be able to command in 
 my own behalf. 
 
 And why do I do it at all? Why do I the 
 most helpless waif in all the world persist in a 
 campaign so nearly hopeless, so full, as the ad- 
 ventures of the past few days have already too 
 clearly shown, of dangers and discouragements? 
 Well, my pictures, my dream pictures I hardly 
 dare call them more than that are responsible. 
 For among them is a woman, one of the loveliest, 
 I verily believe her to be, of all the world. I see 
 her in a hundred different ways, each one more 
 charming, more alluring than the others; and 
 when her eyes turn toward me, as again and again 
 they do, there is love in them. To find those eyes, 
 not in my own dim dreams, but somewhere out in 
 God's bright day, I will search the world. 
 
 Now I will tell my story. 
 
 My question aroused the man on my bench 
 from his doze, but I had to repeat it before he 
 caught its import. 
 
 " Can you tell me where I am? " said I. 
 
 His pipe clattered on the brick-paved path. He 
 straightened up in a flash and looked at me aston- 
 ished. To give him time to gather his wits, I went 
 on talking. 
 
 " I suppose I must have been unconscious. Or 
 3
 
 was it worse than that? Mad, perhaps? If 
 that's the case, this building is an asylum, I sup- 
 pose. But have I been here long? " 
 
 " I can't tell you anything about that," said 
 the man ; " I am just a guard. I I'll go and call 
 the doctor." 
 
 I reflected that it could hardly be so very un- 
 usual that even the maddest patient should enjoy 
 an interval of sudden lucidity. This consideration 
 made the guard's excitement rather hard to ac- 
 count for. Astonishment was hardly the word to 
 describe the man's emotion, either. It seemed, 
 now I reflected on it, more like a sort of vicarious 
 alarm. He had bolted around the corner of the 
 building without another word to me. 
 
 I rose from my bench, walked two or three 
 paces, stretched my arms and looked myself over. 
 
 I was well dressed; there was no suggestion of 
 a uniform about my clothes and no restriction on 
 my moving about freely. Evidently I had been 
 well taken care of. I raised my hand to my face, 
 and somewhat to my surprise found a beard there. 
 That was all I could determine about myself for 
 the moment, so I walked a few paces down the 
 path and turned back to look at the building 
 against whose sunny wall we had been sitting. 
 
 It gave me, contrary to my expectations, a lit- 
 tle momentary feeling of pleasure. It was small, 
 
 4
 
 THE AWAKENING 
 
 one of a group arranged in quadrangular form, 
 and of a homelike architecture. If it were an asy- 
 lum, and so much my guard seemed to have ad- 
 mitted, it was clearly no public institution, but a 
 private affair, and I might be sure that the main- 
 tenance of every one of the inmates was hand- 
 somely paid for. 
 
 That conclusion might well have given me 
 grounds for uneasiness, but for the moment it did 
 not. My mind was taken up with the fact that I 
 had no idea who had been paying for me. In that 
 moment I made my first attempt to recover, out 
 of the past, my own identity. My failure did not, 
 just then, greatly alarm me. I was perfectly sane 
 again; of that I felt sure; and the recovery of my 
 memory could only be a matter of hours, possibly 
 moments. 
 
 My reflections were interrupted by the return 
 of the guard, evidently in disgrace for having left 
 me to myself, even for so short a time, and vastly 
 relieved to find me standing intact before him. 
 
 He was accompanied by another man, an au- 
 thoritative-looking person whom I took to be the 
 doctor he had gone to seek. 
 
 His face, like the guard's, was totally unfamil- 
 iar to me, though he had very likely been in con- 
 stant attendance on me for a long while. I bowed 
 to him. 
 
 5
 
 THE MAN WITHOUT A SHADOW 
 
 " Good morning," said I, and then I smiled a 
 little, " or should I say * good afternoon ' ? I have 
 no idea which it is. You are a doctor? " 
 
 He bowed in assent. " Berry is my name," he 
 said. 
 
 " I seem to have astonished your guard some- 
 what by asking him where I was," I went on, " for 
 he ran off post haste to find you, without stopping 
 to answer me." 
 
 After my first glance at him I had allowed my 
 eyes to wander from his face to the attractive 
 stretch of well-kept lawn which lay behind him, and 
 I did not meet his eye again till I had finished 
 speaking. When I did, I found a look there which 
 concentrated all my faculties at once upon the man 
 himself. 
 
 It was gone in a second, but while it lasted it 
 expressed more plainly than my words can express 
 it, the state of mind of a man alarmed and casting 
 about, desperately, for means to meet an utterly 
 unforeseen contingency; but his face was composed 
 into a look of mere solicitude for my welfare 
 before he spoke. 
 
 " I would not trouble about that, if I were you," 
 said he. ;t There is nothing in the world for you 
 to worry about. Look at the sky instead, and see 
 what a day it is. Did you ever see anything finer 
 than the young green on those trees yonder? " 
 
 6
 
 THE AWAKENING 
 
 " I share your enthusiasm for the day,'* said I, 
 " and I am not in the least worried, but I am in- 
 tensely curious. I will waive the question of 
 where I am, if you're afraid the answer would 
 disturb me, but I would like an answer to another 
 that's a good deal more important. That ques- 
 tion is, Who am I ? My memory for the moment 
 seems to be playing tricks with me." 
 
 This time I looked at him while I spoke, keen 
 to get what answer I could from his look as well 
 as from his words. A man less alert than I a 
 blind man might have understood the effect of 
 my question upon him. He simply gasped with 
 relief, and there flickered in his eye an evil look 
 of perfectly ruthless joy. 
 
 " I can answer that question," he said. He was 
 trying to keep a quiver of eagerness out of his 
 voice, but not succeeding very well. " You are a 
 a house painter," he said, " a sort of odd-job 
 man, employed by the owner of one of the large 
 country estates in this vicinity. You had an acci- 
 dent. A piece of staging gave way, and you fell 
 on your head, and have been in a state of only 
 semiconsciousness since. We were afraid that the 
 only hope for your recovery lay in a serious sur- 
 gical operation which would endanger your life. 
 The owner of the estate, your employer, a Mr. 
 a Thompson does the name bring anything 
 2 7
 
 THE MAN WITHOUT A SHADOW 
 
 back, by the way? sent you here to be under our 
 observation so that we might decide whether an 
 operation were necessary or not. Do you remem- 
 ber it at all now? Does nothing come back to 
 you?" 
 
 My first impulse was to laugh in his face. The 
 man was not only lying, he was lying clumsily, 
 desperately; for a second I was very near betray- 
 ing the fact that I knew it. 
 
 Then, as suddenly as though a warning finger 
 had been laid on my lips, I realized a little of the 
 true peril of my position, realized that I could not 
 afford to waste a single card in the game I found 
 myself called upon to play. 
 
 " This sun is a little hot," I said vaguely. " I 
 -don't think I want to talk any more now. May 
 I go to my room ? "
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 THE CORDS TIGHTEN 
 
 ACTING in the character of a man relapsing 
 into a stupor, I turned abruptly away from 
 them, and blundering a little in my walk, set out 
 for the nearest building. My guard would have 
 been at my side in an instant had not the doctor 
 detained him with an imperative signal. I heard, 
 as I walked away, the low murmur of voices, that 
 of the doctor betraying, though I could not hear 
 the words, a note of exasperation at the guard's 
 slowness in understanding his instructions. 
 
 Presently, however, the man overtook me, and, 
 guiding me by the elbow, turned me into the en- 
 trance of the building I had set out for. 
 
 The broad entrance hall with its polished floor 
 and graceful stairway contained as little to sug- 
 gest the purpose to which the building was put as 
 the exterior of it did. I caught a glimpse through 
 a doorway of a number of well-dressed people 
 reading, and heard educated voices carrying on 
 what seemed to me like perfectly normal, casual 
 
 9
 
 THE MAN WITHOUT A SHADOW 
 
 conversation. Evidently the place was a sani- 
 tarium rather than an asylum in the strict sense 
 of the word. 
 
 The guard led me up the stairs. At the head of 
 the first flight, obedient to an instinct of which I 
 was- perfectly unconscious, I hesitated, almost 
 stopped, in fact, before a doorway. 
 
 "Not there," the guard said sharply; "that 
 ain't where you go." 
 
 In a flash I realized that my instinct had been a 
 true one. I had stopped at the door of what had 
 been, up to this time, my room. Affecting not 
 to hear the guard, I opened the door, entered, and 
 blundered into the nearest chair. I knew, of 
 course, that I should not be allowed to stay there, 
 but I was curious to see in what sort of style I 
 had lived before the doctor had converted me, on 
 the spur of the moment, into a house painter and 
 odd-job man on a near-by estate. 
 
 The room was spacious, luxurious in its appoint- 
 ments, and I caught a glimpse of a white-tiled 
 bathroom opening from it. That was all I had 
 time to see, for the guard pulled me abruptly to 
 my feet. 
 
 14 Didn't you hear me tell you not to go in 
 there? " he demanded. 
 
 I only wagged my head stupidly, and went with' 
 him quietly enough. He conducted me up two 
 
 10
 
 THE CORDS TIGHTEN 
 
 more flights of stairs, quite to the top of the build- 
 ing, where, opening a door, he thrust me uncere- 
 moniously into a little cubicle of a room, made 
 up largely of a dormer window which looked down 
 upon the eaves. 
 
 The room was shabby and none too clean, and 
 I judged that it was usually occupied by one of the 
 servants. The guard seemed nervous lest I should 
 make an attempt to draw him into conversation, 
 and got out of the room as quickly as he could, 
 locking the door after him. 
 
 There was nothing in the place to warrant ex- 
 amination. I opened a closet door and found it 
 bare ; so I went to the window and looked out. 
 
 The first thing I saw was interesting enough; 
 two men on a hanging stage were busily at work 
 painting the side of the next building. They had 
 been working under the doctor's eye when my 
 guard had rushed up to inform him of my return 
 to consciousness. They had furnished him with a 
 hint for the lie he had told me, and were, I re- 
 flected with a smile, the unconscious and innocent 
 cause of the sudden change in my own estate. The 
 story of the house painter and odd-job man was 
 going to be lived up to. 
 
 My eye traveled past the edge of the building 
 and over the broad sweep of rolling lawn and 
 shrubbery to where the woods began. Presently, 
 
 ii
 
 THE MAN WITHOUT A SHADOW 
 
 getting my eyes focused to the distance, I made 
 out in a gap between the trees what I was sure was 
 the boundary wall of the property. It was hard 
 to judge its height from the distance, but I had no 
 doubt it was high enough to make scaling it a diffi- 
 cult or, perhaps, impossible feat, except for an 
 athlete. 
 
 I caught myself smiling there over the question 
 in my mind, whether I was an athlete or not. 
 When I went to bed to-night I would know more 
 about that. 
 
 The wall had not yet lost its interest for me, 
 however. Looking at it closely, I was sure that 
 I made out a fine veil of dust rising above it, which 
 was accounted for on the next favoring slant of 
 the wind by the steady thrum of a motor car. On 
 the other side of the wall, then, lay a highway. 
 That discovery might possibly prove important. 
 
 I was to find out one thing more before I left 
 that window. It came the next moment, and again 
 it was the breeze that brought it to me the long- 
 drawn, melodious chime of the sort of whistle 
 that is carried by our great racing passenger loco- 
 motives. The train was whistling for a stop, and 
 was going to stop not more than a mile or two 
 away. 
 
 Instinctively I felt for my watch, but there was 
 nothing of the sort in my pocket. I was disap- 
 
 12
 
 THE CORDS TIGHTEN 
 
 pointed, for though only half conscious of the 
 reason why, I wanted to know what time that train, 
 came in. Suddenly an expedient occurred to me. 
 The sun was slanting through my window at an 
 acute angle with the casement. With my thumb 
 nail I scratched on the sill the outline of the 
 shadow. 
 
 Some one was standing outside my door, watch- 
 ing me, no doubt, through the keyhole. An invol- 
 untary movement of his feet betrayed so much to 
 me, and a moment later, restless of espionage, I 
 crossed over to the farther corner of the room. 
 
 In doing so I caught a glimpse of another move- 
 ment, and looking up I saw what I wonder I had 
 not thought of looking for earlier a mirror. 
 The sight of it made my heart beat quickly. 
 
 " Of course," I thought, " that is all it needs. 
 A glance at myself will bring my memory back 
 to me." 
 
 I walked around and stood before the glass. 
 But the face I saw was absolutely strange to me, 
 as strange as the doctor's face or the guard's had 
 been. It was bewildering, uncanny, almost enough 
 indeed to drive a man mad, to see the haggard 
 look of pain and disappointment and something 
 not far from terror in that stranger's face; and 
 to realize that it was only the irrepressible emo- 
 tion of my own soul that I saw reflected there. 
 
 13
 
 Then, like a touch of the spur, rallying all my 
 courage anew, there came the faint sound of a 
 chuckling laugh from the other side of the door. 
 In standing before the mirror I had again come 
 under the observation of the man at the keyhole. 
 The same bewildered, disappointed face which I 
 had seen, he had seen, too. 
 
 I dropped down on the edge of my bed and 
 buried my face in my hands. I heard footsteps 
 tiptoeing away from my door, and then in a mo- 
 ment, as I half expected, returning noisily. 
 
 " Come in," said I, in answer to the knock. 
 
 It was the doctor, but this time the doctor with 
 his manner all prepared. It was at once good- 
 humored and patronizing. 
 
 ' Well, my good man," said he, " I hope you 
 feel no further ill effects from that warm June 
 sun." 
 
 " No," said I, " I guess I'm right enough." 
 
 Then, by way of experiment, I shot a quick 
 question at him. 
 
 " Is this my room, the room I have lived in right 
 along?" 
 
 His face seemed to stiffen a little in its false 
 mask of kindly humor. 
 
 " Of course," he said; "but you must not ex- 
 pect to remember anything about that. You have 
 been, as I said before, only half conscious since
 
 THE CORDS TIGHTEN 
 
 you came here. It would be altogether extraor- 
 dinary if you were to recognize the room or the 
 building or any of our faces. But does nothing 
 come back from beyond that time; nothing that 
 happened before your accident? " 
 
 I shook my head dully. 
 
 " What did you tell me I was? " I asked. 
 
 I dared not look at him, but I was aware that 
 he was uneasily balancing the probability of my 
 having forgotten his clumsy lie of the morning, 
 and the wisdom of taking this chance to tell me a 
 better one. He decided against it, however. 
 
 ' You were a man who did odd jobs; a house 
 painter by trade, I believe." 
 
 " I saw some men painting from my window," 
 I commented rather vacuously, but I glanced at 
 him quickly enough to see in his face that he recog- 
 nized a blunder in having put me in a room that 
 overlooked these operations. 
 
 " Did you tell me my name? " I asked. 
 
 He was ready with one; he did not say 
 " Smith." 
 
 " Andrew Meiklejohn." Then he added and 
 I could have throttled him for the sneer which I 
 heard underlying his friendly, solicitous words 
 " Does that bring nothing back? " 
 
 I simply shook my head. 
 
 " And is there nothing in your mind at all; no 
 15
 
 THE MAN WITHOUT A SHADOW 
 
 memory that seems like a dream? Nothing that 
 you can tell me? " 
 
 His voice was eager as he asked the question. 
 
 This time I made no answer, even by a sign. I 
 just sat on the edge of the bed, my head drooping 
 in sullen silence. 
 
 " Well, well, my good fellow," he said, rising 
 from his chair, " you must not be downhearted. 
 The moment any memory does come to you, send 
 for me. I will do all I can to help you." 
 
 Then I did a foolish thing. I allowed my anger 
 for the moment to get the better of me. 
 
 " Then I am to stay here," I said, " until I can 
 remember that my name is Andrew Meiklejohn, 
 and that I used to be a house painter? " 
 
 There was a cutting edge of satire in my voice. 
 It roused his quick suspicion like the flick of a whip. 
 I would have given much to unsay the words, but 
 it was too late. He gave me a venomous smile. 
 
 " Oh, don't be discouraged," he said, " and, 
 above all, don't lose sleep and appetite over it. I 
 will see you again to-morrow." With that he left 
 me abruptly. 
 
 He left me very nearly in despair. What did it 
 matter after all, that he had lied clumsily? The 
 cards were all in his hands. He had no need for 
 finesse. If I were to express disbelief in the pre- 
 cious tale he had told me, it would simply be tol- 
 
 16
 
 THE CORDS TIGHTEN 
 
 crated as the natural delusion of a madman. If I 
 remonstrated at his keeping me there, if I made 
 the faintest hint of resistance, there was, no doubt, 
 a strait-jacket on the premises which they could 
 rely on to bring me to terms. 
 
 And as for a chance of escape: I went to the 
 window and tried to open it. The sash rose a scant 
 six inches, and there was checked by a cunningly 
 contrived lock. There was a guard outside my 
 door. He was tramping up and down the corri- 
 dor quite frankly, like a sentry on a beat. 
 
 Even supposing myself safely over the wall and 
 on the highway, what chance had an absolutely 
 penniless man, who knew neither who he was nor 
 where he was, nor the name of one friend in all 
 the world, what chance had he to remain more 
 than a single night at liberty? 
 
 The sun was getting low when a faint clatter of 
 dishes and a knock at the door announced supper. 
 It was brought to me on a tray, daintily served, 
 and was an appetizing repast. 
 
 " Well," thought I, " the doctor gave me one 
 good piece of advice, anyway. I'll eat and I'll 
 sleep; I'll keep my health and I'll do the best I 
 can with my spirits." 
 
 For just a flicker there passed through my mind 
 the notion that it was somewhat curious that the 
 meal should show no traces of my recent fall to 
 
 17
 
 THE MAN WITHOUT A SHADOW 
 
 the estate of house painter. To match the room, 
 it should have been served on thick dishes, and 
 should not have comprised half the variety that 
 was here offered to me. But the thought went 
 away as quickly as it came, possibly because I was 
 really hungry, and I settled to my meal with the 
 expectation of enjoying it. 
 
 I was half through, when something brought 
 that disquieting notion back to me. There seemed 
 to be an odd taste to everything I had eaten. It 
 was no taste that I recognized. Everything was 
 perfectly cooked, but certainly every single article 
 on that tray had a faint suggestion of that same 
 curious flavor. 
 
 And then my knife and fork dropped with a 
 clatter from my nerveless hands. I knew now why 
 I had not suddenly been reduced to the coarse fare 
 of a laborer. I knew why the doctor had advised 
 me to eat. The food was drugged.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 THE AMBUSH 
 
 THE opium for it was this drug I have no 
 doubt that had been put into my food had 
 one effect which the doctor can hardly have an- 
 ticipated. To a certain extent it acted upon my 
 memory, as a developer acts upon 'an exposed 
 plate. 
 
 My dreams, from the time when I lost con- 
 sciousness over the supper tray until I awakened 
 in bed early the next morning, were far more vivid 
 than any I had any recollection of. They did not 
 tell me who I was, to be sure, but they gave me 
 two or three pictures so minutely outlined, that 
 I am sure I shall recognize them if ever I can get 
 the chance. The consolation of that thought, 
 however, did not come to me till afterwards. 
 
 When, with difficulty, I had roused myself from 
 my heavy sleep and was able intelligently to take 
 account of my present situation, it seemed a thou- 
 sandfold more desperate than it had the day be- 
 fore. They had come into my room, once they 
 
 19
 
 THE MAN WITHOUT A SHADOW 
 
 had found me safe asleep, stripped me and put me 
 to bed. This morning my clothes were gone. 
 That fact alone was enough to make the hope of 
 escape absolutely insane. 
 
 The plot was clear enough. They would keep 
 me here in solitary confinement, persistently drug- 
 ging my food, until hunger compelled me to eat 
 it; until I had established an appetite for the drug 
 itself; until at last I should be utterly and hope- 
 lessly mad indeed. 
 
 Well, I would fight off despair as long as I 
 could. So much I solemnly promised myself. 
 
 A dash of cold water out of the ewer, and a few 
 deep breaths of the young June air which came in 
 my partly opened window, revived me. Then, 
 more to provide myself with an occupation than 
 in any hope of gaining anything by it, I began a 
 most minute examination of the room. Not a 
 corner of it escaped me. A rickety little table 
 stood in the dormer, and I remarked what I had 
 failed to observe on the previous afternoon ; it con- 
 tained a drawer. I pulled it open half-heartedly. 
 Then seeing what it contained, I stood quickly 
 erect. 
 
 Hope was thrilling in my veins again. I saw 
 a way of escape opening up before me. 
 
 What was this great discovery that, in an in- 
 stant, had served to change the face of the world ? 
 
 20
 
 THE AMBUSH 
 
 Pathetically trivial it may seem. Nothing but a 
 well-gnawed stub of a pencil and a few soiled 
 sheets of pink and highly perfumed note paper. 
 They had become too soiled and shabby for the 
 housemaid, who had occupied the room before me, 
 to think it worth while to take them away with 
 her. 
 
 I did not have to cast about to find a use to 
 which this unexpected treasure-trove could be put; 
 it came to me complete in the half second between 
 the opening and shutting of that drawer. But I 
 went back to bed, and for an hour I tested my plan 
 by every contingency I could think of. 
 
 When they knocked at the door with my break- 
 fast, I was ready. I did not answer the knock. 
 When the man entered with my tray, I glowered 
 at him and roughly ordered him to be off. 
 
 " Take that stuff away," said I, " if you don't 
 want me to pitch it out of the window." 
 
 He seemed rather nonplused at this develop- 
 ment, but after a moment of hesitation, obeyed me. 
 I heard him tramping off down the corridor, and 
 knew with perfect certainty that inside of five min- 
 utes I should hear Dr. Berry's quiet, catlike tread 
 coming to take up his post of observation outside 
 my keyhole. That was what I wanted. 
 
 I let him wait a while. Then furtively, and as 
 silently as possible, I went over to my table, took 
 
 21
 
 THE MAN WITHOUT A SHADOW 
 
 the paper from the drawer, drew up a chair and 
 settled down to write. It was a mere tissue of 
 nonsense with which I covered sheet after sheet of 
 that soiled, perfumed paper. I worked slowly, 
 apparently with the greatest labor, for I meant 
 not to finish until the sun was within an hour of 
 where it had been yesterday when I had outlined 
 the shadow of the casement on the sill with my 
 thumb nail. 
 
 The excitement mounted higher and higher in 
 my veins as the time passed. It was hard to wait ; 
 hard not to risk throwing my great chance away, 
 out of sheer impatience, by putting my plan to the 
 test too soon. 
 
 My greatest fear was lest the doctor should 
 leave his post of observation, but I had calculated 
 rightly. He had too much at stake to take any 
 chances. 
 
 At last the hour had come. I rose from the 
 table, looked suspiciously all about and listened. 
 Then rolling my precious manuscript into the 
 smallest compass possible, I went over to the bed 
 with it. I turned up the mattress. The ticking 
 was none too strong and my fingers were not to be 
 denied. I had no difficulty in tearing a small hole 
 in the underside of the mattress. Then, as if in 
 a panic of fear lest I be interrupted too soon, I 
 thrust the manuscript through the hole, put the bed 
 
 22
 
 THE AMBUSH 
 
 to rights, crawled back into it and pretended to 
 fall asleep. 
 
 Almost immediately I heard the catlike footfalls 
 receding down the corridor, only to return again 
 frankly and noisily. Dr. Berry entered without 
 waiting for my invitation; indeed, I gave none. 
 He was radiating benign good humor from every 
 pore. 
 
 " What," he said, " in bed at this time of day? 
 It is much too fine for that. You ought to be up 
 and stirring, walking about the grounds." 
 
 I replied sulkily that I didn't want to. His eye 
 lighted up a little at that, and I knew I had him 
 fairly hooked. 
 
 " Come," he said brusquely, " no nonsense 
 
 now." 
 
 And then he called an order to the guard who 
 stood in the corridor, that he should bring my 
 clothes. When he came with them and I noticed 
 with joy that they were the same clothes that I had 
 worn yesterday I sulkily acquiesced in the doc- 
 tor's orders, and began to dress myself. 
 
 I protested against his staying in the room while 
 I did it, however. I said I didn't need any help, 
 and would let them know when I was ready. He 
 sent the guard away with some whispered instruc- 
 tions, whose purport I was to understand later, but 
 himself remained in the room. 
 
 3 23
 
 THE MAN WITHOUT A SHADOW 
 
 " Now, off with you," said Dr. Berry good- 
 humoredly, when my hasty toilet was completed, 
 and he called to the guard. 
 
 " Show him all about the place. Don't bring 
 him back for an hour. This air will be just the 
 thing for him." 
 
 Once outside the building with the guard at my 
 elbow, I paused for just an instant and sent up an 
 unspoken prayer of thanksgiving. I was clad 
 again, and I was out under the blue sky; and on 
 the other side of that distant wall ran a highway 
 that led to freedom. 
 
 Up in my little cell, under the eaves, the doctor 
 was already engrossed with my laboriously 
 scrawled " revelations." They would keep him 
 busy for an hour at least; for the hour that I 
 needed. 
 
 I turned to my guard and smiled a little. He 
 was a burly, low-browed brute, with " thug " writ- 
 ten large all over him ; but that did not distress me. 
 It was man to man between us. 
 
 He made no objection when I set out briskly 
 across the lawn in the direction of the wood and 
 the place where I knew the wall was. I noticed, 
 though, that every minute or two he cast a cau- 
 tious glance behind him. I dared not look, but 
 looking was unnecessary. It could not have been 
 apprehension that made him look back. After a 
 
 24
 
 THE AMBUSH 
 
 moment's thought the explanation occurred to me. 
 He was keeping an eye on his reserves. The doc- 
 tor's instructions had, no doubt, been that a sec- 
 ond man should follow us to give aid to my 
 companion, or to run and spread the alarm, as cir- 
 cumstances might indicate, in case I should prove 
 obstreperous. 
 
 The conclusion did not seriously disturb me. In 
 my present state of exalted confidence, two men 
 were hardly more seriously to be feared than one. 
 What was essential to my plan was that the re- 
 serves should be drawn in. The second man must 
 run to his comrade's aid, and not to headquarters, 
 to give the alarm. It would take a little maneu- 
 vering, but I felt sure that I could do it. 
 
 Walking briskly, and not attempting to disguise 
 the fact that I was evidently going somewhere, 
 with a purpose, I entered the woods which grew 
 alongside the wall. Then, instead of proceeding 
 straight toward the wall itself, I deflected the 
 course to a long diagonal. 
 
 I saw my guard give a little, almost Impercepti- 
 ble jerk of his head. He was signaling to the man 
 behind to pass us on the outside and to close in 
 a little ahead. I slackened my pace, as was nat- 
 ural, among the timber. 
 
 My guard was very alert and quite unable to 
 disguise his suspicion that I was about to make an 
 
 25
 
 THE MAN WITHOUT A SHADOW 
 
 attempt to escape. Secure in the knowledge that 
 his partner was just ahead of us, he fell a pace or 
 two behind me, partly in hope of encouraging me 
 to make my dash straight into the ambush the 
 other man had laid for me, partly to prevent my 
 whirling about and trying to make off in the op- 
 posite direction. 
 
 For the second time I paused, turned, and 
 looked quite frankly at my guard, and smiled a lit- 
 tle. I doubt somewhat if I shall ever again expe- 
 rience so keen a thrill of exactly that sort of joy. 
 I had a difficult thing to do, and I knew I should 
 be able to do it. 
 
 I was meeting them at their own game. There 
 is no doubt in the world that both of them were 
 hoping that I would make exactly the attempt I 
 planned. It would afford an excuse, if I were cap- 
 tured, to beat me insensible and put me in hand- 
 cuffs or a strait- jacket. Unless I was greatly 
 mistaken, my guard's free hand, half closed, was 
 holding the leather-covered, leaden knob of a 
 black-jack. And certainly there was something 
 hard in his side pocket that clanked when I brushed 
 against it. 
 
 I decidedly welcomed this state of affairs. It 
 would have been hard to attack a kindly disposed 
 and unsuspecting man, even for the purpose of 
 gaining my liberty. 
 
 26
 
 THE AMBUSH 
 
 Again I started on, affected to stumble on a 
 root, and went sprawling forward. That ruse 
 gave me just the added distance I needed from 
 the man behind. In a flash I was on my feet 
 again and rushing straight toward the other man, 
 who, in the concealment of a clump of bushes, was 
 waiting for me. 
 
 When he sprang from his hiding place and con- 
 fronted me, armed with a heavy bludgeon, I 
 stopped short, just out of striking distance, and 
 stood gazing, as if stupefied, straight into his face. 
 
 The other guard was coming up from behind. 
 Well, that was what I meant him to do. I waited, 
 waited, perhaps, three interminable seconds, until 
 my ears told me that the man who was stealing 
 up behind had come close enough. 
 
 The guard who, behind my defenseless back, 
 thought he had me at his mercy, had never heard 
 of the terrible " turning-kick " of the French 
 boxers. Whirling half around on one foot, the 
 whole weight of my body and the momentum of 
 my spring behind it, I sent my heavily shod heel 
 crashing against the side of his head. He went 
 down like a ninepin. 
 
 That accounted for one ; I had still to deal with 
 the other. 
 
 The terror in this man's face hinted flight, and 
 I could afford to take no chance of that. He was 
 
 27
 
 THE MAN WITHOUT A SHADOW 
 
 strong and big, and there was something to be 
 dreaded from his cudgel, no doubt, but once I 
 could get inside the sweep of it, I knew I should 
 be safe enough. 
 
 I moved quietly toward him, came near enough 
 to draw a blow, a whistling sidewise cut that I 
 had no trouble in dodging under. Then I knew 
 he was mine. He was no more than a child in my 
 hands, and in a moment I had him in the grip of 
 knee and elbow, and was slowly, remorselessly, 
 bending his body backward. At last, with a 
 groan, he let the cudgel slip out of his nerveless 
 hands and sank down, half fainting with pain and 
 terror, at my feet. 
 
 I tossed the cudgel away. " I don't need that 
 in dealing with you," said I. " I could kill you 
 with my hands if you were to make it necessary. 
 Lie still and don't attempt to cry out, or I will 
 do it." 
 
 I left him lying there, with no precaution 
 whatever further than keeping the corner of a 
 watchful eye on him, and bent over his fellow-com- 
 rade in some real concern. I was happy to dis- 
 cover that my " turning-kick " had struck upon 
 an unusually thick head. As a matter of fact, I 
 limped for three days as a result of that blow. 
 But the man on whom it had fallen showed signs 
 of coming rapidly to his senses. 
 
 28
 
 THE AMBUSH 
 
 Satisfied that I had done him no serious dam- 
 age, I rapidly explored his pockets. They con- 
 tained a pair of handcuffs, just as I had expected; 
 and now occurred to me a very good use to which 
 they could be put. 
 
 I glanced swiftly about me, and in a moment 
 found the thing that would answer my purpose; 
 a root to an oak tree, looping up out of the ground, 
 and then descending into it again. I tugged at 
 it and satisfied myself that it would hold. 
 
 " Carry him over there," I ordered the second 
 guard. He was still half dazed and wholly 
 cowed, and did as I said. 
 
 " Now," said I sharply, " stand still and you 
 won't be hurt." 
 
 I snapped one half of the manacle on the wrist 
 of the fallen man, slid the other one under the root, 
 and before he quite realized what had happened, 
 the second guard was fast on the other side. 
 
 " Now," said I, in a tone of satisfaction, " you 
 will be comfortable there for ever so long. Have 
 you any money? If you have, I want it. Will 
 you get it out yourself, or shall I search you? " 
 
 He blustered a little, but presently, with his free 
 hand, pulled out of his trousers pocket what I am 
 convinced was all he had, three dirty one-dollar 
 bills and some small change. 
 
 " What's your name? " I asked. 
 29
 
 THE MAN WITHOUT A SHADOW 
 
 " What do you want to know that for? " he de- 
 manded. 
 
 " So that I can send the money back, of course," 
 said I. " Did you think I was a pickpocket? " 
 
 He told me his name, at that; and I will say 
 here that I have sent him his money and I imagine 
 him to be an extremely surprised man. 
 
 " There," said I, " I am much obliged. Now 
 I will do you a favor. I suppose the minute I get 
 over that wall you mean to begin to shout for help. 
 This is the favor. Don't do It. Lie still; pretend 
 you are as unconscious as this other poor beggar 
 here. Let him come to and shout for help. Then 
 you will be able to let him explain to Dr. Berry 
 how it all happened. You have a chance to keep 
 your job if you act on that idea. If you begin 
 to bawl for help now, your job here will last you 
 just about till sundown." 
 
 He would not say that he meant to take my ad- 
 vice, and I had to scramble over the wall and set 
 out on the highroad, without knowing whether the 
 chase was to be hot on my heels or not.
 
 CHAPTER IV, 
 
 MR. DUGGLEBY 
 
 IT is, I suppose, a merciful paradox of human 
 nature that we never are actually in the depths 
 of despair when there is the most to despair about. 
 I had faced the task of outwitting a clever and 
 perfectly unscrupulous villain, and of overpower- 
 ing two of his hired thugs, with the most buoy- 
 ant confidence. By scrambling over the wall and 
 stepping out on the highway, a free man for the 
 moment, at least, I had given proof that my con- 
 fidence was not ill grounded. 
 
 My plan had succeeded beyond anything I could 
 have hoped, the surplus being represented by three 
 soiled dollar bills and the handful of change in 
 my pocket, and by the probability that my guard 
 would see it to his interest to take my advice and 
 give me a clear start. 
 
 Certainly, if any friendly prophecy could have 
 told me that morning when I had wakened naked 
 and helpless after my drugged sleep, that in so few 
 hours I should be tramping down a highroad,
 
 THE MAN WITHOUT A SHADOW 
 
 free, and in no momentary danger of pursuit, I 
 should have prophesied, on my part, that my soul 
 would have been singing with joy as I walked 
 along. 
 
 The truth was, however, that my case never had 
 seemed so hopeless as at that moment. The very 
 appearance of freedom that I had, seemed to mock 
 me. So long as I had remained inside that wall, 
 the other side of it had meant liberty to me. Now 
 that I had succeeded in scrambling over, the whole 
 affair seemed absurdly easy, while my present 
 difficulties loomed mountain high. 
 
 After all, I was as completely a prisoner as be- 
 fore. I was as far from knowing who or where 
 I was as I had been when I asked the question of 
 the man at the other end of the bench. Of what 
 lay at either end of the broad ribbon of the high- 
 way where I stood, I was as ignorant as a child 
 of three. I was certain to be pursued, and for all 
 I knew, the pursuit might at this moment be upon 
 my heels. 
 
 In addition to all that, there came for the first 
 time to my mind the thought faint, remote, like 
 the long-drawn baying note of a distant hound 
 that possibly, after all, I was mad! I, a man 
 without a memory, a man who believed himself to 
 be some one else, he knew not who! It might 
 be that in climbing that wall and setting off 
 
 32
 
 MR. DUGGLEBY 
 
 down the road, I was escaping from friends, 
 whom nothing but my own delusions had turned 
 to enemies. 
 
 The terror of that thought had a salutary effect. 
 It stung me into life and action again. The mere 
 intrinsic horror of it brought a healthy reaction 
 of feeling in its wake. I took a coin from my 
 pocket and sent it spinning into the air. 
 
 " Up the road, or down? " I questioned. 
 
 " Down," the coin decided it. I slapped it back 
 into my pocket, and set off obediently at a brisk 
 pace. 
 
 It was hard, once I had started, not to run, but 
 I had made up my mind that my best chance of 
 escape lay in remaining as inconspicuous as possi- 
 ble. So long as I had to trust my legs to carry 
 me away, I would walk along in the shade like any 
 other peaceful citizen out for an afternoon stroll. 
 
 I soon had the satisfaction of discovering that 
 my coin had decided right for me. I was ap- 
 proaching a town, and a town was what I wanted. 
 It was at towns that trains stopped, and I wanted 
 a train that would carry me to the utmost limit of 
 my three dollars. 
 
 I believe that this particular little city, whose 
 outskirts I was just entering, has some reputation 
 for beauty. Indeed, my own recollections of it 
 include beautiful residences and the grateful shade 
 
 33
 
 THE MAN WITHOUT A SHADOW 
 
 of renerable trees ; but to me it is, and I imagine 
 will always remain, a sort of nightmare. 
 
 It took every ounce of self-discipline that I 
 could bring to bear to keep me from bolting like 
 a frightened rabbit at sight of the first man who 
 came walking toward me on the sidewalk. I had 
 an absurd feeling that my looks must infallibly 
 betray me as one in flight ; more than that, as one 
 in flight from Dr. Berry's highly respectable in- 
 stitution. 
 
 When I had succeeded in passing that man, 
 without his stopping and saying to me, " Here, 
 you, come back with me to Dr. Berry," I drew a 
 great gasp of relief. But I had the same sen- 
 sation of terror, and only a little milder, for every 
 passer-by I met. 
 
 The windings of the streets confused me; yet 
 I dared not ask my way, for fear of betraying my- 
 self. If I were to summon my courage to the 
 point of asking some one to direct me to the rail- 
 way station, I should be quite at a loss, I reflected, 
 if he were to ask, " Which station? " If he were 
 to supplement that query by asking where I wanted 
 to go, my plight would be desperate indeed. I 
 had not the name of a single town in my mind. 
 If I were to attempt to answer my inquiring friend 
 truthfully, and say that I wanted to go anywhere 
 that was three dollars' worth away from here, I 
 
 34
 
 MR. DUGGLEBY 
 
 should offer him no alternative but to call the near- 
 est policeman. 
 
 For a while I have no means of estimating 
 how long I wandered aimlessly about, now 
 breaking into a run, and then checking myself 
 sharply to a more decorous pace. At last, when 
 I was nearly in despair, and all but exhausted, 
 I found myself approaching the place I had been 
 looking for. 
 
 My first glance about me, as I entered the men's 
 waiting room, was reassuring. The long line of 
 men before the ticket window was evidence that 
 a train was going to leave for somewhere before 
 very long. 
 
 I took my place in the line, relying on what I 
 should learn between there and the window for 
 the answer I was to make when the agent should 
 say, "Where?" 
 
 The conversation between the two men immedi- 
 ately in front of me, soon gave me what I wanted. 
 
 "How much is the fare, anyway?" said one 
 of them. 
 
 " Round trip or single? " inquired the other. 
 
 " Gracious ! " said the first man, " I don't want 
 to come back. 11 
 
 This was evidently a joke, for they both 
 laughed. The man who knew said: 
 
 " One way it is three dollars and a half." 
 35
 
 THE MAN WITHOUT A SHADOW 
 
 The change in my pocket amounted to fifty-six 
 cents. My destination was decided. I did not yet 
 know where it was, but the man just in front of 
 me was going there, and the cost of going lay just 
 within the limit of my worldly wealth. Whatever 
 he said to the agent, I would echo when my turn 
 came at the window. 
 
 There were, perhaps, twenty men between me 
 and the window when I stepped into line. It was 
 moving very slowly for some reason, and I had 
 not got more than a quarter of the way, when the 
 door by which I had entered opened with a bang 
 from the propellin'g thrust of some one in a hurry. 
 We all looked to see who the newcomer was. 
 
 The rest of the men in the line turned back 
 again after a mere glance. The person who had 
 come in meant nothing to them, one way or the 
 other, I suppose. But as for me, I stood rooted 
 in my place like a man in a nightmare, unable even 
 to turn my face away under the numb paralysis 
 of fear. 
 
 The man was Dr. Berry! 
 
 How he missed seeing my pale, terror-stricken 
 face, which stared straight at him, I do not know. 
 Of course I had no other idea at the time than that 
 he had come in pursuit of me. The event soon 
 proved me wrong ; proved that he had no idea that 
 I had escaped. Even at that I think he would 
 
 36
 
 MR. DUGGLEBY 
 
 probably have seen me, had it not been for the 
 fact that I was standing in line. For the eye treats 
 a long file of men, waiting as we were, with a com- 
 mon object, not as a series of individuals at all, 
 but simply as a thing which will require a given 
 time to pass a certain point. 
 
 The moment his glance had traveled over us 
 without lighting on me, I regained my nerve 
 again; turned quickly and held my place in the 
 line. 
 
 Dr. Berry walked straight to the window and 
 spoke to the agent, over the head of the man who 
 was buying a ticket. 
 
 " Has that special train come in yet? " he de- 
 manded. 
 
 I could not hear the agent's reply, but evidently 
 it was to the effect that it had not. 
 
 The doctor turned away from the window with 
 the air of one who, after a great hurry, finds that 
 he has arrived on time. He still showed traces of 
 excitement, however, and instead of settling down 
 to wait quietly, paced impatiently back and forth 
 the length of the waiting room. 
 
 He passed within an arm's length of me a dozen 
 times, I suppose, and his eye must have run over 
 me in my place in line fully as many times as that, 
 but his thoughts were elsewhere, and he never 
 looked. 
 
 37
 
 THE MAN WITHOUT A SHADOW 
 
 I realized that my danger would be much 
 greater after I had bought my ticket and had be- 
 come a detached individual again in the crowd 
 that was waiting for the gateman to open the door 
 and let us out on the station platform. Well, 
 there was nothing to do but to chance it. I had 
 taken longer chances during the past twenty-four 
 hours, when it came to that. 
 
 The man in front of me had reached the win- 
 dow. He laid down three dollars and a half, and 
 said, " New York." 
 
 The sound of those two words gave me an im- 
 mediate feeling of something near to joy. It was 
 a place that I knew ; I was sure of that. I had had 
 no conscious knowledge of that name a moment 
 before, but the mere sound of it lifted a little of 
 the blank from off my past. 
 
 I shoved my own money under the grill, and 
 was in the act of repeating the words myself, when 
 the agent, without a glance at me, craning his neck 
 to see beyond me, called aloud: 
 
 II Dr. Berry." 
 
 I swayed where I stood. Had I been able to 
 command the mere physical strength for such an 
 effort, I should no doubt have bolted; but, with 
 my knees giving way under me, such a thing was 
 clearly out of the question. 
 
 4 Yes ? " said the doctor interrogatively. 
 38
 
 MR. DUGGLEBY 
 
 " That special train you were waiting for is in," 
 said the agent. 
 
 "In the station now?" repeated the doctor 
 angrily; " why was I not told? " 
 
 " It has only just come in, sir," said the agent. 
 Then he called to the gate keeper: 
 
 " Let Dr. Berry out." 
 
 The doctor was shouldering his way through 
 the crowd to the door. 
 
 "Where did you say?" said the agent to 
 me. 
 
 " New York." 
 
 The words were only a whisper. I had to re- 
 peat them twice before he heard. Impatiently, he 
 slapped down a ticket before me. 
 
 The gate keeper was opening the door. Dr. 
 Berry started out, then stopped short in the door- 
 way. A man coming in at the same moment al- 
 most collided with him, but the doctor showed no 
 sign of anger. 
 
 " Mr. Duggleby," he exclaimed, " I am very, 
 very glad you have come ! " 
 
 I heard the name and saw the face of the man 
 addressed as Duggleby all in the same instant. 
 And somehow the sight and sound together 
 seemed to ring a little bell of recognition away 
 down within me. 
 
 I knew the name ; I knew the face. A shrewd, 
 4 39
 
 THE MAN WITHOUT A SHADOW 
 
 intelligent, rather cruel, deeply lined, middle-aged 
 face. That man belonged to my past. 
 
 Somehow, somewhere, the identity of the man 
 who had lost himself, the man who lived in my 
 body and thought with my mind, had crossed the 
 path of this formidable, almost sinister figure that 
 stood in the doorway.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 THE WOMAN IN THE CAB 
 
 THE crowd in the waiting room had forced 
 me so close, that either the doctor or Mr. 
 Duggleby could have touched me with his hands. 
 Luckily neither dreamed that I was anywhere but 
 in the safe-keeping of the two bruisers to whose 
 tender mercies I had been turned over. But I had 
 a monopoly of their thoughts; there could be no 
 doubt of that. 
 
 " It was utterly unexpected," the doctor was 
 saying, " his coming back to consciousness that 
 way. I really got a fright when the guard brought 
 me the news. I didn't entirely get over it until I 
 learned from him that, by some queer freak, his 
 memory had got left behind. That would have 
 been serious, and even as things stood, I thought 
 it well to send for you. He is extraordinarily 
 shrewd in a way. His mind seems to work all 
 the quicker for not having any memory to bal- 
 last it." 
 
 Mr. Duggleby frowned, and cast a quick glance 
 41
 
 THE MAN WITHOUT A SHADOW 
 
 about the crowd, which made me duck unceremo- 
 niously. 
 
 " This is not quite the place to talk about it," 
 he said in a low tone. " You have your carriage 
 here, I suppose? " 
 
 " My automobile is waiting," said Dr. Berry, 
 and a moment later they disappeared through the 
 other door. 
 
 Then the train we had been waiting for came 
 thundering in. It was something of a relief to me 
 to learn that it was an express. A man who could 
 afford to charter a special train to come on such 
 an errand as Mr. Duggleby's, was undoubtedly in 
 command of a large machinery which would be 
 used to the utmost to detect my whereabouts and 
 capture me. 
 
 Detectives would, in all probability, be waiting 
 for me at the terminal, but I thought of a plan 
 by which I hoped to be able to give them the slip. 
 Once it was decided upon, I leaned comfortably 
 back in my seat and went to sleep. 
 
 I had eaten nothing since my half-finished, 
 opium-drugged meal the night before, and already 
 the afternoon was well advanced. Sleep was the 
 best substitute for food that I could get, and, curi- 
 ously enough, it came to me readily. 
 
 I waked, as it happened, none too soon. The 
 car was all astir with the preliminary bustle which 
 
 42
 
 announced the expected arrival of a train at its 
 terminal. Already we were jolting over the 
 switches in the yard. 
 
 I sprang to my feet, hurried down the aisle, and, 
 in defiance of the protests of the brakeman, swung 
 myself off. 
 
 The air was alive with the shriek of whistles 
 and the clang of bells, and great blinding head- 
 lights peered this way and that, in what seemed in- 
 extricable confusion, through the gathering dusk. 
 
 I was shouted at, cursed, all but arrested by one 
 irate watchman, who must have thought I contem- 
 plated suicide ; and I had, no doubt, a good many 
 hairbreadth escapes that I know nothing about; 
 but I emerged, at last, into the comparative quiet 
 of a dingy, ill-paved street. 
 
 I had no idea where I was going; that is to say, 
 the man who was only a little over twenty-four 
 hours old had no idea, but I walked rapidly on, 
 with perfect confidence. I was just learning the 
 lesson which, in the next few days, was to be of 
 such inestimable service to me, namely, that I am 
 never so sure of going right as when I have given 
 myself over completely to instinct. When I do 
 that, I have a comfortable sense that the man I 
 once was a man who must have known many 
 aspects of the world wisely and well is in charge. 
 
 I went on so for some time, turning now to the 
 43
 
 THE MAN WITHOUT A SHADOW 
 
 right, now to the left, never under a moment's 
 hesitation as to my true course, and when, at last, 
 I found myself walking along another railroad 
 track into another station, I knew that the man I 
 once was had guided me right. 
 
 I had no money for a ferry ticket, but an arriv- 
 ing throng of passengers on a train that had just 
 pulled into the station saved me from embarrass- 
 ment on that head. Deliberately, and quite un- 
 challenged, I walked under a sign marked " Des- 
 brosses Street," and out upon a ferryboat. 
 
 A few minutes later I was threading my way 
 among the maze of streets in downtown New 
 York. 
 
 The first stage of my flight was at an end. I 
 was perfectly sure that I had eluded direct pursuit. 
 No stealthy figure was tracking my steps as I 
 made my way toward City Hall Park. I was in 
 one of the finest hiding places in the world, a great 
 city. 
 
 Yet I knew that a moment of overconfidence 
 and a single careless blunder might prove fatal, 
 even now. There was a combination of two 
 causes that led me to drop down upon a bench 
 in the crowded little square. One was the neces- 
 sity I felt for laying out a plan of action, and 
 the other, the sheer exhaustion of hunger. That 
 was really a great danger. 
 
 44
 
 THE WOMAN IN THE CAB 
 
 My enemies had no doubt learned from the 
 guard at least two hours ago exactly how much! 
 money I had set out with. If they were as shrewd 
 as I believed them to be, they would have in- 
 ferred, with reasonable certainty, that I had come 
 to New York. At any rate, they would know if 
 I had come to New York, that I had arrived pen- 
 niless. Acting on that chain of deductions, they 
 would certainly station their detectives at those 
 points where a half-starved and penniless man 
 might be expected to turn up, the police stations, 
 the hospitals, and the relief depots of the Salva- 
 tion Army. 
 
 I felt pretty sure after I had followed that line 
 of thought to the end, that if I were to faint from 
 hunger here where I sat and I knew I was not 
 far from it that act would mark the end of my 
 brief and illusory liberty. I must get food at once, 
 and get it without begging for it. 
 
 I rose somewhat stiffly from my bench, and 
 again put my affairs in the hands of the unknown 
 stranger, myself my real self, I mean whose 
 identity it was my task to seek. There was a cer- 
 tain peril in this proceeding, I was aware. My 
 instincts might be trusted to know this city, I was 
 sure, but could I be sure they would not take me, 
 like a homing pigeon, straight back into the very 
 citadel of my enemy? 
 
 45
 
 THE MAN WITHOUT A SHADOW 
 
 However, that danger was one I could not 
 possibly avoid. I would simply hope for better 
 luck. 
 
 I walked northward, past the bridge terminal, 
 and, with the perfect certainty of what must have 
 been old acquaintance, turned to the right and 
 plunged into the labyrinth of New York's lower 
 East Side. I walked a few squares and stopped in 
 front of a dingy little pawn shop. The only thing 
 I had to put in pawn was the clothing upon my 
 back, but that was of fine quality and perfectly 
 new. 
 
 The pawnbroker was doing a rushing business, 
 and I had a few moments of leisure to look him 
 over before he could attend to my needs. 
 
 He was a rare bird, I am sure, in that corner 
 of the world, anyway. There was no r ski " on 
 the end of his name, I knew without consulting the 
 sign. There was nothing Oriental in his looks. 
 His nose, in absolute defiance of precedent, curved 
 the wrong way, into an uncompromising, good- 
 natured pug. In a word, he was good red Irish, 
 and no mistake about it. 
 
 I felt pretty sure from the look in his gray eye 
 when he finally turned it upon me, that he knew 
 me, but he was far too discreet to acknowledge 
 it, and I, under the circumstances, dared not give 
 him a lead, dearly as I wanted to. 
 
 46
 
 THE WOMAN IN THE CAB 
 
 " I want to pawn these clothes," I said, when 
 he asked me what he could do for me. 
 
 " All of them? " he inquired, with a twinkle. 
 
 " The whole outfit," I assured him. 
 
 He took that reply with a roar of laughter. 
 " And go out naked? " he demanded. " Sure, I 
 couldn't allow that myself." 
 
 " Oh, there's another half to the bargain," said 
 I, " I want to buy some others. The best that I 
 can get that will still leave me three or four dol- 
 lars to boot in my pocket." 
 
 "You're not asking much, are you?" he said 
 satirically, but there was a kindly undertone to his 
 voice for all that. " Three or four dollars ! What 
 do you think I am going to allow you on them, 
 to say nothing of what you will wear away? Old 
 clothes is old clothes." 
 
 " These are not old, though," I told him. 
 " .You can sell them to a misfit house for ten dol- 
 lars to-morrow. The clothes you will give me 
 won't have cost you one. There is a hundred per 
 cent profit. That ought to suit you." 
 
 I surprised myself more than I did him by 
 my assurance in bargaining with him. If I were 
 an old customer of his, I was one who knew the 
 ropes. 
 
 We dickered about it for a while, and presently 
 I secured an outfit which would not absolutely 
 
 47
 
 THE MAN WITHOUT A SHADOW 
 
 condemn me as a vagrant at first glance, and two 
 dollars to boot. 
 
 "What name?" he asked when the bargain 
 was concluded. 
 
 I was prepared for that question. 
 
 " Andrew Meiklejohn," I said. 
 
 He shot me a quick look. Evidently it was not 
 the name he knew me by. 
 
 " And the address? " he went on. 
 
 That question I had not foreseen, and the result 
 was that I answered instinctively. At the answer 
 I gave, he broke, for a second time, into a full- 
 mouthed laugh. On second thought I could not 
 wonder at it, for I had told him I lived at the 
 Holland House. 
 
 I suppose I betrayed some confusion in the mo- 
 ment before I could take my cue from him and 
 treat my reply as a pleasantry. 
 
 " Getting it a bit mixed, ain't you? " he asked. 
 
 By that time I had recovered myself. 
 
 " Oh, let it go at that," said I. 
 
 I changed my clothes and walked out of the 
 shop. My legs were in charge again, and they 
 took me straight to a dingy little coffeehouse, 
 where I ate as, I am willing to bet, I had never 
 eaten before. There were no drugs in that food, 
 anyway. 
 
 I wonder if it was fate that took charge of my 
 48
 
 THE WOMAN IN THE CAB 
 
 wanderings after I left that little coffeehouse. It 
 was not instinct, not that well-informed stranger 
 myself who had led me so unerringly to the 
 good-humored Irish pawnbroker. For I was on 
 the track now of a discovery which, with all his 
 knowledge and experience, my unknown self could 
 never have foreseen. 
 
 I was strolling up the Bowery, too tired to think 
 or to lay my plans, forgetting the steady job which 
 I knew would be the only guarantee against my 
 falling, within a day or two, into the hands of my 
 shrewd and relentless enemies. 
 
 I suppose I took the Bowery because it was 
 pleasantly crowded with people who looked enough 
 like me in my transformed state to prevent my 
 being conspicuous. I was not even planning where 
 I should pass the night. That question would 
 solve itself, no doubt, in an hour or two. For the 
 present I was, perhaps, the most utterly idle, pur- 
 poseless waif on all that crowded thoroughfare. 
 
 I was strolling north on the west side of the 
 street, and had no recollection of how far I had 
 gone, when, after dodging across one of the 
 broader east and west streets it may have been 
 Grand, though I hardly think I had gone so far 
 I paused on the north curb. There was a little 
 huddle of vehicles there, delayed for a moment 
 to let the stream of crosstown traffic go by, and 
 
 49
 
 THE MAN WITHOUT A SHADOW 
 
 conspicuous among them by its comparative rarity 
 in that neighborhood, was a large, private, electric 
 hansom. 
 
 My eye rested on it, as it had rested on the 
 others, listless, indifferent, but in the space of that 
 single glance the face of the whole world changed. 
 My heart stopped dead still. Then, at the end 
 of a suffocating second, it leaped forward again 
 madly. 
 
 The interior of the carriage was brightly 
 lighted, and in the oval window I saw a woman's 
 profile. Even now, when the memory of it is a 
 week old, I can hardly command my pen to de- 
 scribe it sanely. A small head, delicately erect, a 
 mass of lustrous black hair which curved up under 
 her small black hat in a line unbroken by any stray 
 locks ; a face rather pale, and in its detail of nos- 
 tril, lips, and chin wonderfully finely chiseled. 
 The eyes, under their fine, even brows, and in the 
 shadow of their long, curving lashes, were lumi- 
 nous, frank, steadfast, but they had, or at least I 
 fancied they had, as I recalled the moment, later, 
 a hint of tragedy in them. 
 
 And I, on the curb, a homeless and all but 
 hopeless vagrant, stood staring through that little 
 oval window, spellbound. 
 
 The face was the face of the woman of my, 
 dreams! 
 
 50
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 LOST 
 
 THE cab had started on again, and it was, 
 perhaps, halfway down the next block 
 before I had recovered from the daze into which 
 the sight of her had thrown me. 
 
 Then, stifling back the outcry that rose to my 
 lips, I set out in mad pursuit, running, dodging in 
 and out among the vehicles, like a man demented. 
 
 Even at my best speed, of course the electric 
 carriage kept leaving me farther and farther be- 
 hind. I thought I had lost her, but at that mo- 
 ment a trolley car came flying along, its motors 
 screaming with the stress of full speed. It was 
 a distinctly hazardous proceeding to attempt to 
 board it thus in full flight, but I made it without 
 the least hesitation. I should have attempted to 
 jump aboard an express train under similar cir- 
 cumstances. 
 
 More by luck than anything else, I succeeded 
 in scrambling up onto the running board and into 
 the car, sustaining no more serious damage than
 
 THE MAN WITHOUT A SHADOW 
 
 a painful wrench to my arms and whatever shock 
 my feelings may have suffered under the impreca- 
 tions of the conductor, who assured me that I 
 deserved to have been killed. I paid him my fare, 
 and then leaned out to look ahead. We were 
 rapidly overtaking the hansom. 
 
 Once we ran alongside, and this time I noticed 
 that the lady of my dreams was not alone in the 
 carriage. A young man was sitting beside her, a 
 very smartly turned out young gentleman, of 
 somewhere about my own age. He was good- 
 looking, in the loose sense in which that term is 
 used, but he did not look very good. 
 
 The expression on his well-made features was 
 distinctly cynical and almost saturnine. If he had 
 caught a glimpse of me, straining out from my 
 seat in the trolley car that I might gaze to advan- 
 tage on the wonderful face of the girl who sat 
 beside him, and could have known the feelings 
 with which I was looknig at it, how he would 
 have laughed! Or would he, I wonder? Per- 
 haps his expression would have been grimmer 
 than that. 
 
 The hansom was delayed by some slowly mov- 
 ing vehicle in front, and our car darted ahead, they 
 turning in behind us on the track. We were near- 
 ing the bridge terminal where my car stopped, and 
 I, fancying they would turn west toward one of 
 
 52
 
 LOST 
 
 the downtown ferry stations, feared I was going 
 to lose them. 
 
 To my relief, and equally to my surprise, the 
 hansom stopped at the curb only a few paces away 
 from the terminal itself. I slipped off the car and 
 made my way back toward it. I came up well 
 within earshot before I stopped. If it was dishon- 
 orable to listen to their conversation, well, be the 
 dishonor on my own head. 
 
 He seemed to be protesting against her leaving 
 the vehicle. " Really, it is absurd, you know," he 
 said, " that I should put you down here and leave 
 you to make your way alone through all that crush. 
 At least, let me take you across the bridge. Then 
 I will let you go wherever you like, and, on my 
 word of honor, I will make no attempt to follow." 
 
 " No, no," she said, rising decisively, as if to 
 put an end to his persistence ; " it is a compromise 
 as it is, you know, and, really, I can't let you come 
 any farther." 
 
 He rose without any further insistence and 
 helped her down to the curb. 
 
 " I am sorry it has all turned out to be so fu- 
 tile," he said. " I didn't know myself that father 
 had gone until just a few minutes before you came, 
 and I had no means of letting you know. I am 
 sure he would not have broken the appointment 
 if he could have helped it. I don't know what it 
 
 53
 
 THE MAN WITHOUT A SHADOW 
 
 was that called him away; his message only said 
 that he had had some disquieting news and had 
 been obliged to go down into New Jersey for a 
 day or two. I know he took a special train, so you 
 may be sure it was important." 
 
 " Oh, I understand perfectly," she said. " Two 
 or three days don't matter much after all these 
 months." 
 
 The words evidently meant more to the young 
 man than appeared on the surface. 
 
 " You must not think too badly of us," he said. 
 " I don't wonder that your father is suspicious. 
 Inventors are nearly all like that. It is not a bit 
 surprising that he should go off and hide him- 
 self and not let us know his address. But you 
 must not share those suspicions yourself. That 
 would be too absurd. Come, just to show there 
 is no ill feeling, let me take you home. I won't 
 look where we are going, and you need not tell 
 your father I did it, so where would be the 
 harm?" 
 
 ' That's quite out of the question," she said, 
 and her voice had a cutting edge to it. " Good 
 night, Mr. Duggleby." 
 
 I think my memory must be trying to make up 
 to me for all the wrong it has done by being ex- 
 ceptionally vivid and accurate regarding the mi- 
 nute details of these days that have passed since 
 
 54
 
 LOST 
 
 I recovered my consciousness. If it had not been 
 so, I should never have been able to remember that 
 conversation, for my mind, until the very last 
 word of it, was hardly upon it at all. 
 
 What I was thinking of as I skulked there in 
 the shadow, was the question, what course I 
 should take when the other man had left her. 
 
 There she stood, the woman I had said I would 
 search the world to find. There was the face that 
 had come in my dreams; that had encouraged me 
 through every perilous moment during my escape 
 from the asylum ; and in my dreams, when she had 
 looked at me from under the shadow of those 
 curving lashes, there had been love in her eyes. 
 
 Would they brighten with the same fire now if 
 I were to stand before her, demanding recogni- 
 tion? The thing seemed absurd when I thought 
 of the difference between us. She, standing there 
 beside the electric hansom from which she had 
 just dismounted, clad in that beautiful tailored 
 simplicity, and patrician in every line of her; and 
 I, the shabby, penniless scarecrow which the events 
 of the last twenty-four hours had reduced me to, 
 shuffling off a few paces in the dark to avoid 
 being moved on by the suspicious policeman who 
 already had his eye on me. 
 
 My unknown self had been a gentleman, 
 whether she knew him or not, and it seemed 
 5 55
 
 THE MAN WITHOUT A SHADOW 
 
 rather cruel to him, as well as to her, to present to 
 her this travesty on him. Still, my overwhelming 
 eagerness kept me in doubt, held my decision trem- 
 bling in the balance, until the utterance of that last 
 word, the name of " Duggleby." 
 
 I shrank back at it, perfectly instinctively, and 
 for a few seconds my mind raced at lightning 
 speed. 
 
 There had been more than coldness in her man- 
 ner toward him; there had been dread. He was 
 her enemy as well as mine. Yet, in my present 
 state, the discovery of who I was would put an 
 added burden upon her, and I should be no better 
 than a coward if I were to ask her to assume it. 
 
 There was comfort in the discovery, though. 
 Her use of that man's name convinced me that 
 my dreams had not lied to me. I was sure that if 
 I were to go to her and say, " I am in flight. I 
 have just escaped from the asylum where Mr. 
 Duggleby has had me shut up and from which 
 he meant I never should escape," just those words, 
 and no more, I should see a flush of recognition 
 coloring that pale face, and should feel the clasp 
 of two friendly hands, friendly, if no more than 
 that. Yes, there was comfort in that thought at 
 least. 
 
 I had let her walk past me and get halfway up 
 the stairs to the elevated platform, before it oc- 
 
 56
 
 LOST 
 
 curred to me that though I could not call on her 
 for help, I might, at least, try to learn the secret 
 which was denied to the Dugglebys. I could fol- 
 low her home, and then when I was in a position 
 to bring help, not to ask it, I should know where 
 to find her. 
 
 I rushed up the steps, two at a time, but she had 
 been walking briskly, and I did not immediately 
 overtake her. The train was standing at the plat- 
 form, ready to depart, and all I saw was the dis- 
 appearing flash of her skirt as she entered it. 
 
 I had no time to reach the platform of the car 
 she had entered, only barely succeeded, in fact, in 
 squeezing past the closing gate of the car nearest 
 me. I made my way through the train as rapidly 
 as its crowded condition would permit, forward to 
 the foremost end of the front car, and then all the 
 way back again, scrutinizing every face. It was a 
 long time before I would admit to myself the pos- 
 sibility that I had been mistaken, but at last the 
 fact became so evident as to be beyond denial. 
 
 Heartsick, I sank into the nearest seat. My eyes 
 had played me false. I had taken the wrong train. 
 I had lost her!
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 I GET A JOB 
 
 IT struck me that fate had played a rather grim 
 joke on me, when I discovered that the des- 
 tination of the train I had taken was Coney Island. 
 While I sat there, heartsick that the little gleam 
 of hope which for a moment should have been 
 vouchsafed me had been so quickly extinguished, 
 I was listening, involuntarily and wholly auto- 
 matically, to the jokes, the giggles, the light- 
 hearted and rather empty-headed merriment of a 
 crowd of people who could apparently be made 
 perfectly happy by the simple process of shooting 
 the chutes or taking a ride on the scenic railway. 
 
 Why I did not get off the train and take another 
 back to New York, I hardly know. Probably be- 
 cause I simply lacked the initiative and the energy 
 to do anything; or, perhaps, again, it was what we 
 call " fate " that had the matter in charge. 
 
 At any rate, I did not move from my seat until 
 the train had made its last stop. Then I drifted 
 out with the crowd and was caught in the great 
 
 58
 
 I GET A JOB 
 
 current that flowed and eddied and swirled, but 
 never stagnated, along that remarkable thorough- 
 fare known as Surf Avenue. 
 
 But none of all its well-assorted wonders had 
 any power to divert or amuse me, even for a 
 moment. Presently, to escape from the blare and 
 the glare of it, I found my way down to the beach. 
 
 I did not find solitude even here, but there was 
 a good surf rolling in, and its thunderous dia- 
 pason drowned out the strident human noises 
 which had disturbed me. Under its influence the 
 mad circular whirl of my thoughts, which I feared 
 would drive me mad, if I were not indeed mad 
 already, was quieted. 
 
 One by one or two by two, to put it more ac- 
 curately the strollers who had shared the beach 
 with me went their ways, packed themselves into 
 clanking trains or noisy excursion steamers, and 
 sought their homes. 
 
 That strip of sand, with the great combers 
 creaming up beyond, was all the home I had, and 
 at last I had it to myself. With the solitude came 
 sleep, the heavy sleep of complete exhaustion. 
 
 In my former state, as I am coming to think, I 
 must have been a vagrant indeed, or else a million- 
 aire. When I wakened the next morning, and 
 pretty well on in the morning it must have been, 
 judging by the height of the sun, I was not in the 
 
 59
 
 THE MAN WITHOUT A SHADOW 
 
 least distressed by the fact that I had only very 
 little more than a dollar in the world, and no 
 notion in the world how I was going to earn an- 
 other. 
 
 I stretched myself, shook the sand out of my 
 hair, and then proceeded to invest nearly one 
 fourth of my worldly wealth in the luxury of a 
 sea bath. The attendant at the bathing house 
 looked at me curiously, and I don't wonder, for 
 the experience of encountering a tatterdemalion 
 figure like mine at ten o'clock in the morning at 
 Coney Island, wanting to spend twenty-five cents 
 for the rental of a bathing suit, must have been 
 rare, if not, indeed, unique. 
 
 It was no extravagance for me, however; per- 
 haps it was the most sensible investment I could 
 have made. I found I was a good swimmer, and 
 the experience of battling with those heavy surges 
 effectually washed away the doubts, fears, and dis- 
 appointments which had threatened to paralyze 
 my energy, and left me my own man again. 
 
 When it was over, when refreshed in mind and 
 body, I resumed, though somewhat ruefully, the 
 outfit of clothing which my friend O'Brien had 
 provided me with, I still had the price of a break- 
 fast in my pocket. What more could a man ask? 
 
 But Surf Avenue, as I soon found, is rarely 
 called upon to supply a casual wayfarer with 
 
 60
 
 I GET A JOB 
 
 breakfast. It was almost deserted, and I had to 
 walk perhaps two hundred yards before finding a 
 place that appeared to be open for business. 
 
 The one I came upon at last, a sort of combina- 
 tion concert-hall saloon, was just opening up. An 
 extremely dirty, blear-eyed waiter was wiping off 
 the sticky tops of the iron tables with a very ques- 
 tionable-looking mop. 
 
 The room was a large one. It contained, per- 
 haps, two hundred tables. At the farther end of 
 it, a gaudily painted and indescribably shabby 
 proscenium arch and drop curtain proclaimed the 
 existence of a stage. An upright piano stood be- 
 fore the center of it, and a battered bass viol and 
 a drum with cymbals attached, hinted at the ex- 
 istence of an orchestra. The whole place reeked 
 indescribably with the remains of the orgy of the 
 night before. 
 
 But for the vivifying preparation of a sea bath, 
 I could not have thought of breakfasting there. 
 Luckily, however, I was in no critical mood. 
 
 I approached the waiter: " Can I get some ham 
 and eggs and a cup of coffee here? " I asked. 
 
 He eyed me with mingled reluctance and sus- 
 picion. 
 
 " Yaas," he said in beery accents, " I subbose 
 you can if you have got the brice." 
 
 " Go ahead and order it, then," said I, and I 
 6l
 
 THE MAN WITHOUT A SHADOW 
 
 suppose that my manner must have carried convic- 
 tion, though my appearance did not, for without 
 further demur he walked away and disappeared 
 through a greasy door which I supposed led to the 
 kitchen. 
 
 The quality of the food when it came, after 
 considerable delay, was much better than appear- 
 ances had led me to expect, and I cleared my 
 platter with enthusiasm. 
 
 When I had finished, however, I was still con- 
 scious of a lack of something, and it was rather 
 puzzling to know what it could be. I was no 
 longer hungry, but I certainly felt that my break- 
 fast had been incomplete. The waiter himself 
 unconsciously gave me the cue by lighting up the 
 stump of a half-unwrapped cigar. That was it. 
 I wanted to smoke. It was simply another little 
 piece in the mosaic I was constructing of the iden- 
 tity of myself, and I welcomed it accordingly. 
 I paid for my breakfast, and bought a cigar, which 
 reduced my worldly capital to a few odd dimes 
 and nickels. 
 
 Well, it was high time that I should be 
 doing something. I ought to be back in New 
 York at this moment hunting a job. The reason 
 I did not go was simply that the instinctive man 
 in me the man who had just demanded a smoke 
 was still in clamorous rebellion, and what he 
 
 62
 
 I GET A JOB 
 
 was pointing toward now was the battle-scarred 
 piano at the other end of the hall. 
 
 " It's utterly absurd," I told myself. " What 
 if you can play the piano, is this the time and place 
 to try it?" 
 
 Yet he had led me right before, and perhaps he 
 deserved some concessions. The waiter was still 
 lingering near my table. I pushed fifteen cents 
 toward him. Then leaving him stupefied with as- 
 tonishment, I deliberately walked down the hall, 
 seated myself before the piano and began to 
 play. 
 
 I had no idea what I was playing, but I knew 
 that the row of white and black ivories beneath 
 my fingers accepted me submissively as their 
 master. 
 
 I don't know how much later it was, probably 
 not more than four or five minutes, when the 
 sound of heavy breathing at my elbow caused 
 me to look around. It was the waiter, but the 
 waiter strangely transformed. His eyes were 
 shining with excitement; there were tears in 
 them. 
 
 " Play that once more," he said, though his lips 
 were trembling so that he could scarcely command 
 the utterance. 
 
 " What was it I played? " I asked, and then by 
 way of explaining the apparent folly of the ques- 
 
 63
 
 THE MAN WITHOUT A SHADOW 
 
 tion, added: " I was thinking of something else, 
 and really don't know myself." 
 
 " That wonderful second variation," he said, 
 " I haven't heard it " and then he trailed off into 
 a jargon of speech in a language which I instinc- 
 tively called German, but could not understand. 
 
 His words were enough, however, to recall 
 what I had been playing, and as I proceeded to 
 obey him, the name Beethoven, and the opus 
 number of the sonata came clearly back to my 
 mind. I played on and on in a sort of daze. The 
 past was opening up behind me so rapidly; such 
 a horde of names and melodies, and strange un- 
 classified associations came pouring in on me, that 
 it is no wonder that I was bewildered. 
 
 The necessity for going out and finding a job 
 was forgotten. I had forgotten where I was. I 
 only knew that my old unknown self was awaken- 
 ing, was busy with his memories, was wandering 
 in the labyrinth of the past. Ah, if he could but 
 find his way out! 
 
 The sound of footsteps recalled me to the pres- 
 ent. My waiter was approaching in company with 
 another man, a stocky, low-browed person, with 
 a red face, a long, well-oiled mustache, and what 
 passed for a diamond in an expanse of very dirty 
 shirt front. 
 
 He did not speak to me at once, but began rum- 
 64
 
 I GET A JOB 
 
 aging through a heap of soiled and shabby music 
 sheets which lay on the piano. Presently he found 
 what he wanted, and spread it open before me on 
 the rack. 
 
 " Play that," he said. 
 
 I glanced at it indifferently. It appeared to be 
 a stupid and rather inane composition, in highly 
 syncopated time. 
 
 ' You really want to hear it? " I asked. 
 
 He stared at me. 
 
 " No, I don't want to hear it," he said, " I want 
 to hear if you can play it. This waiter here he 
 came to me and nearly throwed a fit about how 
 you could bang the box. If you can rattle off that 
 rag, you'll do." 
 
 " I get the idea," said I; "you want to see if 
 I can play it." 
 
 " That's what I want to see." 
 
 For a moment my mind worked fast. Obvi- 
 ously here was a chance for a job. But such a job ! 
 Yet, I reflected, what chance had I for anything 
 better? Where could I get employment, except in 
 some such way as this, without accounting for 
 myself; telling who I was, where I came from, 
 what previous employment I had had? I might 
 be able to invent a past, perhaps, but I could not 
 forge references. On the other hand, the piano 
 seemed to offer me a key that might serve to pick 
 
 6s
 
 THE MAN WITHOUT A SHADOW 
 
 the lock of my mystery. In a moment I had taken 
 my decision. 
 
 " I get a job, then, if I can play this? " I asked. 
 
 " That's what I am telling you," he said im- 
 patiently. " It ain't the regular job, though, you 
 understand. You're to spell off the other fellow 
 between shows." 
 
 " Wll and good," said I. 
 
 Then, on the spur of the moment, I decided 
 to dazzle him a little. I ran my eye over the 
 wretched composition on the rack before me, closed 
 it and tossed it back on top of the piano. I 
 checked his profane exclamation, with upraised 
 hand. 
 
 " Listen," said I; and then I played it through; 
 played it, I am moderately sure, as that particular 
 piece of claptrap had never been played before. 
 
 He listened, his eyes fairly starting out of his 
 head, until I had finished. Then what he took 
 to be the true explanation, occurred to him. 
 
 "Oh," he said, "you can't work that on me; 
 you know it." 
 
 " No," I said, " I have never seen it before, 
 or heard it, for that matter." 
 
 The waiter was nodding his head in solemn 
 wonder. I turned to him for confirmation. 
 
 '* The melody was stolen from ' The Blue 
 Danube,' ' I explained, " and the harmonies 
 
 66
 
 I GET A JOB 
 
 amount to nothing. Any man who knew his busi- 
 ness could do as much. Isn't that so? " 
 
 But the waiter was beyond words. He just 
 went on nodding his head portentously. 
 
 I also detected signs of excitement in the pro- 
 prietor. He made me play a dozen different 
 pieces, not, toward the end, so much to try my 
 powers, as to confirm his growing belief that he 
 had made a great find. 
 
 " You go on the regular show," he said, after 
 our impromptu musicale had lasted some little 
 time. ' You have got the other fellow skinned 
 alive." 
 
 That would have been satisfactory had he 
 stopped there, but, as it happened, in the rather 
 listless amusement of astonishing him, I had gone 
 somewhat too far. I realized this when I found 
 him considering the project of putting me, not in 
 his orchestra, but on the stage, billed as a great 
 discovery, " The Tramp Pianist." 
 
 I tried to argue him out of this idea, but my 
 remonstrances made him all the more determined. 
 
 " What're you beefin' about?" he demanded. 
 ' You'll get three times as much in your pay en- 
 velope, and then, maybe, one of those wise guys 
 from old Broadway will come dropping in here, 
 and the first thing you know, you will be drawing 
 a hundred a week at Keith & Proctor's. Didn't 
 
 67
 
 THE MAN WITHOUT A SHADOW 
 
 you never hear of Nettie, the Lady Barytone? 
 She got her start singing for me." 
 
 His view of the matter left me in a rather seri- 
 ous quandary. He had not quite the eye or the 
 bearing of a man upon whose candid good faith 
 one could rely implicitly. If I were even to hint 
 to him that there were reasons why I was anxious 
 to avoid attracting attention, he would probably 
 not be above using the hold upon me which this 
 knowledge gave him to reduce me to a position of 
 daily slavery and terror. 
 
 Already he was looking at me curiously, and I 
 could see a gleam of suspicion as to the cause of 
 my hesitancy alight in his eye. 
 
 Then suddenly the solution of the problem oc- 
 curred to me. It was so easy and so obvious that 
 I almost laughed aloud. 
 
 " See here," I said, taking him confidentially 
 by the elbow and drawing him off a little out of 
 hearing of the waiter, " you don't recognize me, 
 do you? " , 
 
 He looked a little startled. 
 
 " Well, that's not remarkable," I went on, " be- 
 cause I am pretty well disguised. I would not tell 
 it to anybody else, but I am really the Czar of 
 Russia. Now if you put me up on that stage with 
 my face to the audience, some of those nihilists 
 
 around here " 
 
 68
 
 I GET A JOB 
 
 I broke off here and glanced cautiously at the 
 waiter. 
 
 " Do you suppose he is one? " I asked. " Do 
 you suppose he is a spy? " 
 
 I could see by his eyes that the trick had 
 worked. He was looking at me with a mix- 
 ture of fear and contempt which an insane 
 person always inspires in one of his order of 
 mind. 
 
 I don't know that my story alone would have 
 convinced him, but it fitted in too well with my 
 unkempt appearance and my otherwise unaccount- 
 able performance at the piano for him to doubt 
 it. I was some harmless lunatic escaped from an 
 asylum. 
 
 If he could safeguard me from attracting too 
 much attention, he stood a chance to keep me and 
 get my valuable services at the piano at almost no 
 expense; but to put me up on the stage and make 
 a feature of me, would, of course, be fatal. No 
 contract that he could get me to sign would safe- 
 guard him against losing me the moment my real 
 identity was discovered. 
 
 Presently he came back to me. " Where do 
 you live? " he demanded. 
 
 I made a vague gesture. 
 
 " I am not at my palace now," said I. 
 
 " Well, now," he said, using, grotesquely 
 69 N
 
 THE MAN WITHOUT A SHADOW 
 
 enough, the coaxing tone which people address to 
 children, " well, now, you stay here and live with 
 me. I will board you free and I will pay you two 
 dollars per day. Does that go? " 
 And that was how I got a job.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 A NEW FRIEND AND AN OLD ENEMY 
 
 IT was during the leisure moments of the two 
 weeks that I worked as pianist in Mike Lynch's 
 saloon that I wrote the account of my adventures 
 up to the point where I now resume it. 
 
 An extended account of that engagement would 
 have no place in this narrative. As I think of that 
 time now, I wonder alternatively how I endured it 
 as long as I did, and, on the other hand, whether 
 I might not be there still if fate had not, in her 
 drastic and unexpected way, taken a hand in the 
 game. 
 
 For a man of any refinement of musical feeling, 
 the experience of banging away, night after night, 
 the same inane, vulgar songs and dances could 
 be nothing but torture. The spent, malodorous 
 moral atmosphere of the place, the leers and jests 
 in the strident voices of red-legged soubrettes, the 
 vulgar antics of clowns disfigured to the point of 
 nausea by what is known as " comic makeup," the 
 brawlers in the audience, besotted with drink, all 
 these were subsidiary evils. 
 6 7 1
 
 THE MAN WITHOUT A SHADOW 
 
 Much as I hated it, however, it is easy to see 
 why I stayed. Any preliminary toward finding 
 other work would involve quitting this job I had, 
 for Lynch, during the time I was not at the piano, 
 hardly allowed me out of his sight. 
 
 The violent adventures of the first two or three 
 days following my return to consciousness had 
 left me in a sort of lassitude, where any routine 
 which comprised food and shelter and bade fair 
 to keep me out of the hands of those two dreaded 
 Dugglebys, father and son, was hard to exchange 
 for another fierce tussle with the world. 
 
 The night that was destined to be the last of 
 that experience, the night when fate took her hand 
 in the game, began like all the others. It was a 
 stifling hot Saturday night. All Coney Island was 
 gorged with restless pleasure seekers, and, as 
 usual, the dregs of that great teeming mass of hu- 
 manity settled in Lynch's saloon. 
 
 Indeed, the notoriety of this unsavory resort 
 was what provided the only mitigating feature of 
 its audiences. It was so bad that decent people 
 often came to see how bad it was. These amateur 
 sociologists never failed to afford me a good deal 
 of quiet amusement whenever they sat where I 
 could see them or hear them talk. 
 
 There had been no such pleasant diversion to- 
 night, however, and at ten o'clock, when the orgy 
 
 72
 
 A NEW FRIEND 
 
 had got fairly into full swing, I was pounding 
 away, resolved to get through the evening by sheer 
 brute endurance. 
 
 Suddenly, during a lull in the noise, coincident 
 with the appearance of an alleged comic monol- 
 ogist, I heard the sounds of an altercation at a 
 table just behind me. There was nothing unusual 
 in that, Heaven knows, and I should not even have 
 turned my head, had it not been that the voice and 
 speech of one of the disputants were such as I had 
 never heard before in that place. 
 
 He was a gentleman, evidently one of those 
 amateur sociologists I have spoken about, and he 
 was laboriously trying to express himself in very 
 broken and insufficient English. 
 
 I whirled about on my stool to see what it was 
 all about. The man, whose explanation seemed to 
 be making so little headway, was a gentleman of 
 middle age, of highly intelligent appearance, but 
 somewhat unfortunately for him, he was in full 
 evening dress. By the time that I had turned 
 around, so many people were talking to him at 
 once, and with such unnecessary wealth of 
 gesture and expletive, that it took me a mo- 
 ment to discover the true cause of his offense 
 myself. 
 
 It was no wonder that he was utterly bewil- 
 dered. It seemed he had seated himself, in all in- 
 
 73
 
 nocence, in a chair which had been only tempo- 
 rarily relinquished by a lady of the party which 
 occupied the other seats at the table, a lady whose 
 reappearance was momentarily to be expected. 
 
 The noise of expostulation swelled rapidly; two 
 or three waiters were coming up ; the comic monol- 
 ogist from the stage lent his voice to the al- 
 tercation, and there seemed to be all the material 
 for a fair-sized row. Once more the gentleman, 
 in his halting, laborious way, attempted to in- 
 quire what was wrong. Then suddenly, to my 
 amazement, he broke into most rapid and fluent 
 speech. 
 
 There was an instant of silence, and then from 
 all the tables about came guffaws of laughter. As 
 for me, I sat there on my piano stool spellbound 
 for the moment by the double realization that he 
 was speaking another language than English, 
 which my inner man instinctively labeled French, 
 and that I understood what he was saying. 
 
 I rose and walked over to him. 
 
 " Monsieur," said I, in his own tongue, " pos- 
 sibly I may be able to clear up this little misun- 
 derstanding." 
 
 He looked up at me and gasped with relief. 
 
 "Thank God! "he said. 
 
 I explained the situation to him, whereupon he 
 arose, of course, with a comprehensive bow of 
 
 74
 
 A NEW FRIEND 
 
 apology. I accompanied him to another vacant 
 chair, not far away, and ascertained for him that 
 no one else had a prior claim to it. 
 
 " I am a thousand times obliged," he said. 
 " There were all the materials for a very unpleas- 
 ant few moments, from which you, sir, were good 
 enough to rescue me. I should not have ventured 
 in here alone if I had suspected that my command 
 of English would fail me in that ridiculous way 
 at a crisis." 
 
 Unconscious of what I was doing, I drew up 
 another opportunely vacated chair, and seated my- 
 self beside him. I was as oblivious to my pres- 
 ent surroundings as I had been that morning two 
 weeks before when I first seated myself at the 
 piano. 
 
 My old self absolutely dominated me. I was 
 struggling again to organize, to coordinate, the 
 horde of memories, associations, pictures, which 
 the sound of this fine, pure French speech awak- 
 ened within me. 
 
 I found him looking at me curiously. 
 ' You will pardon my asking the question," he 
 said, " but are you not the gentleman who was 
 seated at the piano when I came in? " 
 
 That question brought the present back to me. 
 I rubbed my hand vaguely across my forehead. 
 
 " Yes," said I. " Yes I was." 
 75
 
 THE MAN WITHOUT A SHADOW 
 
 " In that case," he said, " I am obliged to you 
 for more than rescuing me from the consequences 
 of my stupid blunder. It was a delightful, though 
 somewhat mystifying experience to have heard 
 one of Tschaikowsky's waltzes played as you 
 played it, in a a " 
 
 " A hell of this sort," I finished for him. 
 
 He shrugged his shoulders in mild deprecation. 
 
 " I hardly realized where my sentence was tak- 
 ing me when I began it," he said, " but I am 
 obliged to confess that you have greatly piqued 
 my curiosity." 
 
 " Apparently it takes a certain number of mys- 
 teries to make up a world," said I. " Shall I strain 
 your curiosity too far if I ask a question? " 
 
 " Proceed, monsieur." 
 
 " I believe," said I slowly, " that I am at this 
 moment carrying on a conversation with you in 
 French?" 
 
 His eyes widened. 
 
 " But most assuredly," he said. 
 
 " And further," I went on, " if it is a question 
 you are willing to give me a candid answer to, is 
 my speech in French the speech of a gentleman of 
 education? " 
 
 I had simply surprised him before ; now he was 
 interested. He looked at me more closely, with a 
 puzzled frown. 
 
 76
 
 A NEW FRIEND 
 
 " How can monsieur ask that? " he said. u You 
 certainly are of French birth, are you not? " 
 
 I shook my head. " It may be," I said, " I do 
 not know." 
 
 He, as well as I, had forgotten for the moment 
 where we were, but in the next moment we got 
 a sharp reminder. 
 
 My comic monologist had come to the end of 
 his string of pleasantries, and had given me the cue 
 to the introduction of one of his songs. There 
 was a moment of confusion when I failed to 
 respond. He peered over the footlights into 
 the little well where I was supposed to sit and 
 remarked my absence; and at the same time 
 Lynch, from his post of general observation, dis- 
 covered where I was. He bore down upon me in 
 a rage. 
 
 "What are you doin' here?" he demanded, 
 seizing me roughly by the arm. " This is no time 
 for you to get luny. Go back to that piano, and 
 be quick about it." 
 
 To make sure his orders were carried out, he 
 retained his hold on my arm, and piloted me down 
 the aisle. There was a general craning of necks 
 and scraping of chairs. The crowd seemed to be 
 scenting another row. 
 
 Rather humiliated by the situation in which I 
 found myself, I asked Lynch to let go my arm, 
 
 77
 
 THE MAN WITHOUT A SHADOW 
 
 saying that I would go directly to the piano my- 
 self. 
 
 The sound of my voice had a curious effect on 
 one of the men whose table I was passing. He 
 was one of a party of three, and the other two 
 were facing me. They were clearly of a much 
 higher social order than the average frequenters 
 of the resort, but this fact was not apparent from 
 their manner, for they were drunk to the point of 
 being boisterous. 
 
 The third man, whose face I could not see, was 
 presumably in the same condition, but at the sound 
 of my voice as I spoke to Lynch in passing him, 
 he started, as if stung, and slued half around. 
 
 Luckily for me, he turned the wrong way, and 
 was balked in his evident intention of getting a 
 look at me, but I caught a quarter view of his face, 
 and that was enough to bring the old numbing ter- 
 ror back over me again. The man was young 
 Duggleby ! 
 
 The table where he and his companions sat was 
 not more than three or four paces from my piano. 
 I must have played the song perfectly automati- 
 cally, for I have no recollection whatever of any- 
 thing going on during the next few minutes, except 
 the conversation of those three men. My ears 
 picked it out from the midst of all the tumult; the 
 noise I myself was making at the piano, the rau- 
 
 78
 
 A NEW FRIEND 
 
 cous voice of the comedian, the clatter of glasses 
 and of plates, were all to me as if they had been 
 silence. 
 
 " I tell you I know him," Duggleby kept re- 
 peating, emphasizing his remarks by pounding 
 with his stein upon the table. " Know him? I'd 
 know him in Egypt." 
 
 "Oh, you're drunk," said one of his friends; 
 " shut up." 
 
 And the second man said : 
 
 " They will chuck us out in a minute. You 
 know they're glad of the advertisement they get 
 by throwing a gentleman out of a sty like this." 
 
 " I know I'm drunk," said Duggleby. " Have 
 I said I wasn't? Is there any man here who can 
 tell me that I'm not drunk, or that I said I wasn't? 
 But I'm not going to be drunk any more; I can't 
 afford to." 
 
 " Oh, come," laughed one of the others; " the 
 night's young. Have another." 
 
 " No ! " said young Duggleby. " You two can 
 make blind fools of yourselves if you like, but I 
 tell you I can't afford it. Drink what you like. 
 I'm going to have coffee. I mean to be sober in 
 ten minutes." 
 
 And it soon became evident that by sheer will 
 power he was doing exactly as he said. My heart 
 sank deeper and deeper, as every succeeding sen- 
 
 79
 
 THE MAN WITHOUT A SHADOW 
 
 tence he uttered showed that he was bringing his 
 wandering wits into better and better control. 
 
 It was evident to me then, if it had not been 
 before, how seriously my escape had alarmed those 
 two rich, formidable Dugglebys. Evidently my 
 success in finding the man I sought and reestab- 
 lishing my own identity would spell disaster to 
 both of them. 
 
 Duggleby was speaking again. 
 
 " Now listen, you two," he said. " I am sober. 
 Understand that, and don't start a row when I get 
 up to do what I am going to do now. There won't 
 be any row, unless you start it. But if one of you 
 tries to hold me, he's going to get hurt. I'm going 
 up to have a look at that man at the piano. When 
 I leave this place, you get up and follow me out. 
 I shall want your help." 
 
 And still I sat there playing over and over 
 again the jigging bars of the dance tune that ac- 
 companied the flying feet of the comedian. What 
 else was there to do ? Evidently he never dreamed 
 that I could have overheard what he was saying 
 to his friends, for the trick he played could do him 
 no good, except as he believed that he was de- 
 ceiving me. 
 
 He deliberately assumed the condition he had 
 verily been in not a quarter of an hour before. 
 He staggered as he rose from his chair, and came 
 
 80
 
 A NEW FRIEND 
 
 reeling down the aisle, smiling with the drunken 
 satisfaction of one who thinks he is about to do 
 something exquisitely funny. 
 
 That reeling gate is deceptive. A man can go 
 faster that way than he can walk, except with the 
 obvious appearance of haste. 
 
 Before any of the waiters or bystanders could 
 come to my assistance, he had pulled me around 
 on the stool, flung his arms around me and em- 
 braced me as if I had been his long-lost brother. 
 The maneuver gave him time enough to shoot one 
 blazing, searching glance straight into my face, a 
 look as little drunken, as swift, as purposeful as 
 a fencer's. 
 
 Of course it was over in a minute. Lynch him- 
 self was only half a dozen paces off, and before 
 I could get my breath, he and one of the waiters 
 were bundling Duggleby off down the aisle. 
 
 I saw through the trick, but I am sure it 
 would have deceived me had I not overheard his 
 previous conversation. He wanted to avoid 
 alarming me unnecessarily, and hoped that even 
 if I recognized him and knew how much I had 
 to fear from him, I should still believe his act to 
 have been one of mere drunken folly, of which he 
 would have no recollection when he should wake 
 up with a bad headache to-morrow morning. 
 
 If that interpretation of his action were correct, 
 81
 
 and I could think of no other, I felt with sicken- 
 ing certainty that he must be, at that very moment, 
 laying his plans to capture me before the night 
 was out. I was safe, in all probability, for just 
 so long as the crowd remained in the saloon and 
 I stuck to my piano stool. 
 
 When I reached that conclusion, the time, 
 which had crept so slowly, suddenly began to fly. 
 The minutes, the fives, the quarters, marked by the 
 small clock which stood upon the piano, sped by 
 as if on wings, and still I could think of no plan 
 that seemed to promise even a faint hope of 
 escape. 
 
 There were three of them, and undoubtedly 
 Duggleby would be able to enlist more in his serv- 
 ice, if he felt them necessary to make assurance 
 doubly sure. 
 
 They were clad in motoring clothes, I vividly 
 remembered, and that meant an automobile. It 
 turned me sick to think that that automobile was 
 likely to make a record run out to Dr. Berry's asy- 
 lum this very night. 
 
 I ran over in my mind the list of acquaintances 
 I had made here in the saloon during the past two 
 weeks, in the hope of finding some one to whom 
 I could appeal for help. 
 
 Lynch himself was out of the question. The 
 man, I was convinced, was a thorough-going 
 
 82
 
 A NEW FRIEND 
 
 rogue. I had very little doubt that Duggleby had 
 fixed him already. He was nowhere in sight. 
 
 I turned about for a second, and cast a glance 
 at the entrance to the saloon, at the far side of the 
 hall. People were going out already in streams, 
 but I fancied, amidst the crowd, that I saw one 
 figure holding its place, a figure clad in a long 
 motoring coat. 
 
 My margin of safety now could only be reck- 
 oned by minutes. The waiters were yawning ; the 
 performers who came on the stage were of a sort 
 known in the slang of that world as " chasers." 
 In another half hour, at the most, I should be 
 abandoned to the mercy of my enemies. 
 
 And then, from a source from which I never 
 dreamed of expecting it, aid came. A waiter 
 brought a visiting card and laid it on the piano 
 rack. It was engraved with the name and title of 
 Dr. Charles Marie de Villiers of Paris, Member 
 of the French Academy of Medicine. On the 
 back was written in French : 
 
 I believe you are in difficulty. Will you accept such 
 aid as I may be able to render you ? 
 
 It was indiscreet, but I could not help swinging 
 abruptly around on the piano stool. There sat 
 the Frenchman, the man in evening dress, whom I 
 had assisted earlier in the evening. It had never 
 
 83
 
 THE MAN WITHOUT A SHADOW 
 
 occurred to me that he had not left the place hours 
 before. 
 
 I caught his eye, and he shot me an almost im- 
 perceptible signal to turn back again to the piano. 
 He, too, had probably seen the man in the motor 
 coat waiting in the doorway, and he had perceived 
 that his aid would be immensely more valuable to 
 me if the spy had no suspicion that it was about 
 to be given. 
 
 The mere knowledge that he was there, that he 
 had waited to help me, that I was no longer alone 
 with my back against the wall, acted on me like 
 a powerful stimulant. A plan flashed into my 
 mind on the instant. Pulling a sheet of music 
 from the top of the piano, I wrote upon it, as fast 
 as I could make my fingers fly : 
 
 A thousand thanks. I am going through the door 
 that leads into the kitchen. I will wait at the other side 
 of it. If the spy at the door disappears, or if he comes 
 down the aisle, as if in pursuit of me, pound on the table 
 with your glass. They will think you are calling a 
 waiter. 
 
 I wrote, of course, in French. Then I nodded 
 to the waiter who had brought me the card. 
 
 " This is the sheet of music the gentleman 
 wishes to see," said I; " take it over to him." 
 
 I figured that upon seeing me disappear, the spy 
 84
 
 
 ' This is the sheet of music the gentleman wishes to see.'
 
 A NEW FRIEND 
 
 would do one of two things: either bolt around 
 outside the saloon to the rear entrance to warn the 
 people there to be ready for me, or else that he 
 would pursue me through the saloon itself. In 
 either case, I should answer the doctor's signal by 
 coming immediately back into the saloon. If the 
 spy had rushed around to the back door, as I 
 thought it more than likely he would, the doctor 
 and I could walk out of the front entrance unmo- 
 lested. In case he pursued me well, it would be 
 only man to man, and I imagined that I could give 
 a good account of him and still make my escape 
 through the main door. 
 
 It was only a moment before I heard the doc- 
 tor's signal. The spy had disappeared, as I 
 thought it more than likely he would. The doctor 
 and I walked rapidly toward the door. 
 
 " You have repaid my small favor a thousand- 
 fold," said I, " for unless I am altogether insane, 
 I was in a very serious difficulty when you came 
 to the rescue. I hope soon to have a chance to 
 thank you more adequately for having got me out 
 of it." 
 
 " I have not got you out of it yet," he said 
 shortly. " Don't make that mistake. That young 
 man who sobered himself up by sheer force of 
 will, and then shammed drunk to get a look at 
 you, is no fool, and it was he who stood guard at 
 
 85
 
 THE MAN WITHOUT A SHADOW 
 
 the door yonder. He had put on his friend's 
 motor coat and cap. Oh, no, we are not done with 
 him yet." 
 
 There was a sort of repressed thrill of joy in his 
 voice, as if, except for his sympathy for me, he 
 found an adventure of this sort very much to his 
 taste. 
 
 " Well," said I, " if you will walk with me as 
 far as the platform where the rapid transit ex- 
 press leaves for Brooklyn, that will make my 
 safety secure enough." 
 
 " I won't put you on a train," he said. " I 
 have an automobile here, and I shan't leave you 
 until I have got you home, wherever that may be." 
 
 I laughed. " I have no home in the world," 
 said I. 
 
 He made a sort of grimace at that, but rather 
 as though my admission made the adventure all 
 the more agreeable to him than otherwise. 
 
 We had got out into the street without molesta- 
 tion. Surf Avenue was emptying fast, but there 
 was still enough of a crowd to make the picking 
 out of any individual a difficult matter. 
 
 " He's lost us, I think," said I. 
 
 The Frenchman only shook his head. 
 
 ;< Well, then, what do you think he means to 
 do? " I questioned. 
 
 " If I knew," he said shortly, " the excitement 
 86
 
 A NEW FRIEND 
 
 of this affair would then be at an end." Then he 
 added : " Don't talk any more ; don't say another 
 word. My automobile is in the shed there, just 
 past the entrance to Luna Park. Here's where 
 we lose or win." 
 
 The entrance was still ablaze with light, which 
 made the little alley just beyond all the blacker. 
 This circumstance seemed to trouble the doctor. 
 
 " I was fool enough not to have crossed the 
 street," he whispered, " and come up from the 
 other side." 
 
 We turned to the left and started down the alley 
 toward the automobile shed. I noticed there 
 were two cars there. A second later the doctor 
 uttered an exclamation of alarm; and the next 
 moment my arms were pinioned from behind.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE FLIGHT IN THE DARK 
 
 DUGGLEBY'S two friends had me in a grip 
 which no man not a Hercules could break. 
 
 In the light of calm reflection, it is easy to see 
 how my keen-eyed enemy had been able to spring 
 his trap with such certainty of success. He had 
 no doubt detected the interest the French doctor 
 was taking in me, long before I received the offer 
 of aid on the visiting card. 
 
 He had recognized in the doctor a man of ex- 
 ceptional intelligence, and had not made the mis- 
 take of leaving him out of his calculations. He 
 had, no doubt, guessed that a French gentleman, 
 in full evening dress, would not have been likely to 
 come to Coney Island by so plebeian a method of 
 transportation as the elevated railway or the Iron 
 Steamboat. A half hour's search among the gar- 
 ages at the Island would have sufficed to verify his 
 guess and locate the doctor's automobile. 
 
 Then, when, from his position at the door, he 
 had seen the signal pass between the Frenchman 
 
 88
 
 THE FLIGHT IN THE DARK 
 
 and me, he had done an audacious, but perfectly 
 reasonable thing. He had withdrawn his two 
 friends from their now unnecessary watch at the 
 other entrances to the building, and the three of 
 them together had lain in wait in the dark little 
 alley where they were sure we would come out of 
 our own accord. 
 
 Duggleby's own automobile, a big red Ameri- 
 can car, stood alongside the trim gray demi-limou- 
 sine Panhard which was waiting for us. 
 
 Duggleby himself had taken no part in my cap- 
 ture, and stood drawing on his gloves, ready to 
 mount to his seat at the steering wheel. He was 
 disposed to be ironically polite to the doctor. 
 
 " This gentleman is going to ride with us," he 
 said, nodding to me. " I am sorry to deprive you 
 of his company, but I expect to enjoy it greatly 
 myself." 
 
 The doctor shrugged his shoulders. His man- 
 ner expressed a slight shade of annoyance, but 
 nothing more than that, and his words made my 
 heart sink like lead. 
 
 " I have no serious claim to oppose to that of 
 monsieur," said he, " especially since his seems so 
 pressing." 
 
 Then he turned to me with another shrug, and 
 an expressive little gesture of his hands y He spoke 
 to me in French, and everything about his man- 
 
 89
 
 THE MAN WITHOUT A SHADOW 
 
 ner and his inflection seemed to indicate that he 
 was making a polite apology for leaving me in 
 the lurch. But his words were : 
 
 " Be of good heart; when I range alongside, be 
 ready." 
 
 As he turned away, he made a small blunder, or 
 what looked like it, which, after the perfect sang- 
 froid he had shown in his connection with the 
 whole affair, took us all a little by surprise. 
 
 He turned and made as if to enter Duggleby's 
 car instead of his own. Then, perceiving his mis- 
 take with some appearance of embarrassment, he 
 turned away and clambered into the Panhard. 
 
 Simultaneously, I was bundled, with scant cere- 
 mony, into the tonneau of Duggleby's car, his two 
 friends taking their positions one on either side 
 of me. 
 
 " No ! " said Duggleby emphatically, in answer 
 to the whispered suggestion from one of his 
 friends, " it's no use, I tell you ; we can't tie him. 
 How should we go through town like that ? Keep 
 your shoulders behind his; that's all that's neces- 
 sary." 
 
 The doctor's chauffeur was still cranking unsuc- 
 cessfully at the Panhard as we shot out of the alley 
 and into the broad, almost deserted street. The 
 plight of the French car seemed to afford some 
 amusement to my two captors in the tonneau. 
 
 90
 
 THE FLIGHT IN THE DARK 
 
 " He won't get away in a hurry," said one. 
 
 " Trust Duggleby for that," said the other. 
 
 " What was it he did to it? " 
 
 The first man leaned behind me and whispered 
 hoarsely behind his hand : 
 
 " The cock between the gasoline tank and 
 the " he began, but his beery whisper, which 
 was easily audible to me, had reached Duggleby's 
 ears also. 
 
 " Shut up, you fool," he said. 
 
 The epithet would have applied with equal 
 truth to both these young men who held me pris- 
 oner between them. All I had to fear from either 
 of them, it was clear, was their muscles. There 
 was silence until Duggleby himself broke it. 
 
 " Do you know? " he asked " I don't suppose 
 you care to tell me, but you really might as well 
 do you know why the doctor pretended to make 
 a mistake so that he could get a look into my 
 car?" 
 
 None of us answered ; he laughed shortly. 
 
 "You want a name to be called by, do you? 
 Well, then, do you know, Mr. Andrew Meikle- 
 john?" 
 
 Of course he had no idea that he could get any 
 information from me, even if I had it. I think his 
 only purpose in addressing me at all was, if pos- 
 sible, to engage me in conversation. He must
 
 THE MAN WITHOUT A SHADOW 
 
 have been intensely curious as to what sort of 
 thoughts and memories were in my head. Even a 
 deliberate attempt to mislead him might reveal 
 much. So I maintained an unbroken silence. 
 
 He drove that car, as I imagine he did every- 
 thing else, with a fine blend of judgment and au- 
 dacity, and a very high degree of manual skill. 
 Fields, hedges, buildings, clumps of trees, were 
 pouring past us in a confusion which proclaimed, 
 all too plainly, the speed at which we were run- 
 ning. 
 
 Up over our heads the big arc lamps which 
 lighted the driveway rushed over us like an or- 
 derly procession of comets. If we kept up that 
 pace it seemed unlikely that any car in the world 
 would ever range alongside; but I kept up my 
 courage and blindly pinned my faith to the doctor. 
 
 Suddenly I became aware that I could see my 
 own shadow on the polished back of the seat in 
 front of me. The arc lamps overhead could not 
 cast that shadow. It could only come from a light 
 near the level of the road, from the searchlight of 
 an automobile. Slowly the shadow grew more 
 distinct, as the light which defined it became 
 brighter. 
 
 Fast as we were flying, a silent gray car behind 
 us on the road was flying faster still. 
 
 I did not turn my head, did not move my quietly 
 92
 
 THE FLIGHT IN THE DARK 
 
 relaxed body in the smallest degree, but every 
 nerve, every muscle, every thought, every faculty 
 of mind and body was ready. I found it easy to 
 be of good heart now. Neither of the two men 
 beside me appeared to notice anything. One of 
 them, indeed, seemed half asleep. But the man 
 at the wheel was alert enough to make up for it. 
 
 The first flash of silver light on the corner of 
 his mud guard, of a light that could only come 
 from behind, was enough to tell him the whole 
 story. He did not turn his head any more than 
 I did. 
 
 " Look out behind, one of you," he com- 
 manded, " and see if you can see anything." 
 
 At that, both men turned with a start. 
 
 " There's a pair of headlights," said one, " com- 
 ing down the road after us, to beat hell." 
 
 " Is it the Panhard or is it not? " demanded 
 Duggleby. " That's what I want to know." 
 
 " It don't say anything about that on the head- 
 light," replied my other guard, " but he's burning 
 up the road all right. We're not exactly standing 
 still ourselves." 
 
 We were going so fast that the pressure of air 
 on our faces made it difficult to breathe, and the 
 man's words were torn from his mouth and blown 
 away, like a smoke wreath in a hurricane. But 
 with all our speed the reflection on the polished 
 
 93
 
 THE MAN WITHOUT A SHADOW 
 
 seat in front of me grew brighter and brighter. 
 How that car was rushing on! 
 
 My two guards, breathless, hatless, were cran- 
 ing around to look. They seemed to have quite 
 forgotten me. I never stirred from my upright 
 position between their knees, never moved my 
 head, never took my gaze from the shadow of 
 myself on the seat in front. 
 
 Its position with reference to my own made it 
 perfectly clear that the car was coming up exactly 
 behind us, which seemed a curious thing to do if 
 it hoped to pass. I suspect the maneuver puzzled 
 young Duggleby not a little, for he asked irritably : 
 
 "What's he doing back there? Can't you 
 make out? " 
 
 Before either of them could answer, I saw my 
 shadow move suddenly to the right. Our pursuer 
 was pulling out to the left, with the evident inten- 
 tion of passing us. The new position of the shad- 
 ows told Duggleby exactly what it had told me. 
 It was the move that he had been expecting, and 
 he was ready for it. Our car deflected to the left 
 also. 
 
 The next moment, by a trick of steering which 
 would have done honor to a prize contestant for 
 the Gordon-Bennett cup, a trick which would have 
 spelled instant disaster had it not been executed 
 with consummate skill, the driver of the pursuing 
 
 94
 
 THE FLIGHT IN THE DARK 
 
 car made a sharp reverse curve and ranged along- 
 side of us on the right. 
 
 The two men in the tonneau with me were gasp- 
 ing in plain undisguised terror. The car was pass- 
 ing us so close, even at that appalling rate of 
 speed, that the hubs of our wheels could hardly 
 have been three inches apart. 
 
 " Be ready when I range alongside." 
 
 That sentence of the doctor's was ringing in my 
 mind. Well, I was ready, and one or more long 
 seconds would probably reveal to me what I was 
 to be ready for. 
 
 Suddenly the man at my right uttered a horri- 
 fied outcry, and in that instant I saw an uplifted 
 hand shoot out from the limousine, a hand that 
 held, poised and ready to deal a terrible blow, a 
 heavy steel spanner. 
 
 The thought in all our minds at that instant 
 was that the doctor meant to brain Duggleby with 
 it as he passed by. If he did, that blow would 
 kill five men. At the pace we were going, at least, 
 it would be a miracle if any one of us in either car 
 escaped alive. 
 
 The blow fell, but not upon Duggleby's de- 
 fenseless head. 
 
 I knew now why the doctor had wanted a look 
 at the dashboard of the big American car. The 
 spanner fell, with terrific force, upon the little 
 
 95
 
 THE MAN WITHOUT A SHADOW 
 
 mahogany box containing the spark coil and vi- 
 brators, wrecking it utterly. There would not be 
 another explosion in one of Duggleby's cylinders 
 that night. The car would keep going on just so 
 long as its momentum lasted, and not another foot. 
 Already our speed was slackening rapidly. 
 
 I have said my two captors had forgotten 
 all about me in the excitement of the moment. 
 When the blow fell, I was braced for the effect of 
 it, and thrust myself sharply backward. Duggle- 
 by's command that my guards should keep their 
 shoulders behind mine had not been lost on me. 
 But it had apparently been lost on them. The 
 sudden slackening of our speed and their curiosity 
 to see what had happened, combined to make them 
 lean far forward. 
 
 In that instant, Duggleby showed his true met- 
 tle. He did something that neither the doctor nor 
 I had foreseen, something that, except for the stu- 
 pidity of his two friends, might have foiled the 
 doctor's plan for my rescue. 
 
 Across the road, in the shadow of the trees, a 
 narrow driveway, flanked by two heavy stone pil- 
 lars, led into what appeared to be a large private 
 yard, surrounded by a high brick wall. A second 
 after the blow was struck which disabled his car, 
 Duggleby turned sharp to the left and made for 
 this driveway. 
 
 96
 
 THE FLIGHT IN THE DARK 
 
 For a moment it looked as though we were to 
 be dashed to pieces against the farther pillar; but 
 the man at the wheel had calculated better than 
 that. The thing was only just possible, but he 
 made it. The doctor's chauffeur, evidently un- 
 prepared for such a maneuver, was holding straight 
 on down the road. 
 
 Duggleby's plan was at once apparent. Before 
 the doctor's car could be stopped, and before he 
 and the chauffeur could come in pursuit of us, I 
 was to be dragged out of the car, tapped on the 
 head with something heavy, if necessary, and hid- 
 den away in the woods behind the house. In the 
 game of hide and seek which would ensue, the 
 odds would be in my enemy's favor again. 
 
 But, as it happened, I was ready, and my two 
 guards were not. I was pressed against the back 
 of the tonneau seat, and they were both leaning 
 forv/ard when our car made its unexpected and 
 violent swing to the left. That alone would have 
 been enough to throw them off their balance for a 
 moment, but I did not rely on that. Seizing the 
 man at my left about the waist, I flung him with 
 all my might against his fellow, who went half- 
 way out of the car with the violence of the shock. 
 
 Then, like a flash, I sprang to my feet on the 
 seat of the tonneau and vaulted out behind into 
 the road. Of course I had a bad fall, but that was 
 
 97
 
 only to be expected. In a second I was on my feet 
 again. 
 
 Before Duggleby knew what had happened, I 
 was outside the gate and running down the road 
 to meet the doctor, who was already coming back 
 for me. In two minutes more I was leaning back 
 among the luxurious cushions of the Panhard, and 
 skimming like a bird toward Brooklyn. 
 
 My Frenchman leaned forward and spoke to 
 the chauffeur: 
 
 " Drive a little slower," he said; " there is no 
 hurry in the world, and I dislike reckless driving 
 extremely." 
 
 Then, with a smile, he leaned back beside me.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 MONSIEUR BARRAS 
 
 I EXPECTED my rescuer to begin at once ply- 
 ing me with questions, and somewhat wearily 
 I rallied my wits and prepared to answer them. I 
 soon found, however, how far I had underrated 
 the tact and the consideration of the French doctor. 
 
 " Oh, of course I am curious," he said, as if he 
 had read my thoughts, " but my curiosity can wait. 
 You're not to talk at all until I give you leave. 
 Just lean back and take it easy." 
 
 I was only too glad to obey him, and I never 
 even looked out to see where we were going, until 
 at last the car stopped at what appeared to be 
 his destination. Then I looked up and laughed a 
 little. 
 
 "Well?" said the doctor interrogatively. 
 
 " This is the Holland House, is it not? " said 
 I. " I happened to give that address as mine to 
 a pawnbroker two weeks ago. Why the words 
 came into my head then, or why I recognize thig 
 as the Holland House now, I don't know." 
 
 99
 
 THE MAN WITHOUT A SHADOW 
 
 A liveried lackey was opening the door for us, 
 but the doctor, who was sitting nearest the door, 
 did not at once move to dismount. He leaned for- 
 ward first and spoke to the chauffeur, addressing 
 him in French. 
 
 " You may tell the consul general, with my com- 
 pliments," he said, " that you are unquestionably 
 a jewel of the first water. There is no doubt in 
 my mind that he has in his employ the finest auto- 
 mobile driver in America. When I see him to- 
 morrow, I shall dilate on that theme at length," 
 with which words he handed the man a gold piece. 
 
 " You are quite right," I said in confirmation, 
 " I never saw such a piece of driving in my life." 
 
 I think my appearance must have shocked even 
 the doctor when he first saw me in the light, and 
 its effect upon the staid and dignified servitors of 
 the hotel was simply indescribable. Nothing but 
 the commanding authority of the doctor's air 
 would ever have got me through the lobby, into 
 the elevator, and up to his suite, without challenge. 
 
 I was hatless, and still wore the clothes with 
 which the Irish pawnbroker had supplied me. 
 They had been shabby enough when we left the 
 saloon at Coney Island, and my fall in the road 
 from Duggleby's automobile had completed their 
 ruin. They just held together upon me, and that 
 was all. I had sustained some minor scratches 
 
 100
 
 MONSIEUR BARRAS 
 
 and abrasions about the face and hands, at the 
 same time, and dusty clots of blood here and there 
 about me completed the picture of calamity which 
 I presented. 
 
 Once he had got me safe into his room and into 
 an easy chair, the doctor ran his hands over me 
 with a practiced touch, then rang for his valet. He 
 absolutely forbade me to attempt any explanations 
 or to ask any questions whatever. He and the 
 valet, between them, got me out of my rags, into 
 a warm bath and thence to bed; and I must have 
 been asleep before my head fairly touched the 
 pillow. 
 
 The next thing I knew it was broad day. The 
 doctor, standing with his back to me, was gazing 
 meditatively out of the window. When I spoke 
 to him he wheeled around, cast a brief, though 
 searching glance over me, and remarked: 
 
 " No need to ask you how you are. Do you 
 realize that you are an extremely resilient young 
 man?" 
 
 " I will confess to being a hungry one," said I. 
 
 " Naturally," he observed, " since it is three 
 o'clock in the afternoon." 
 
 He promptly telephoned for luncheon, order- 
 ing it served in his sitting room; and until I had 
 finished eating it, did most of the talking himself, 
 amusing me greatly with his impressions of his 
 
 101
 
 THE MAN WITHOUT A SHADOW 
 
 brief visit to America, with conversation about 
 everything under the sun, in fact, except the sub- 
 ject of myself. 
 
 I was aware all the time that nothing I said or 
 did escaped his close, intelligent scrutiny, but the 
 manner of it made it pleasant rather than other- 
 wise. 
 
 When at last, clad in a suit of his silk pajamas 
 and a Japanese kimono, I leaned back in my easy 
 chair and lighted one of his exquisite cigarettes, 
 he brought the subject of our conversation sud- 
 denly around to myself. 
 
 " I will confess," he said, " that at eleven 
 o'clock last night I thought myself too old and too 
 wise ever to hope to find another completely in- 
 soluble enigma. But you have baffled me at every 
 point. Every theory that I have formed concern- 
 ing you has promptly broken down. I am as ex- 
 cited about you as a ten-year-old boy about a box 
 of chemicals. Are you going to be able to solve 
 yourself? " 
 
 " No," said I. " I hoped you were going to do 
 it for me. But it won't take me very long to tell 
 you all I know about myself. I mean that liter- 
 ally," I went on. " All I know, every memory, 
 every conscious memory, that is inside my head 
 I can tell you in the course of an hour." 
 
 " Good! " said the doctor; " go ahead." 
 102
 
 MONSIEUR BARRAS 
 
 I was about to begin my narrative when I 
 thought of something better. 
 
 " In one of the pockets of that vile bundle of 
 rags you stripped me of last night, you will find 
 the whole thing written down. I did that because 
 I no longer regard my memory as a very safe de- 
 pository." 
 
 "Written in English?" asked the doctor 
 quickly. 
 
 " Yes," said I, " I had no idea I could talk 
 French until I heard you talking it." 
 
 " Better and better," said the doctor; and in two 
 minutes he was lost in the eager perusal of the 
 manuscript which makes up the first chapters of 
 this story of mine. 
 
 For perhaps a quarter of an hour after he had 
 finished reading, he sat in a profound abstraction, 
 smoothing out the pages of my manuscript with 
 his nervous fingers. It was with a good deal of 
 difficulty that I suppressed the questions that were 
 trembling on my lips. 
 
 At last he looked up at me, with a smile of sin- 
 gular charm. 
 
 " I have asked a great deal of you," he said at 
 last, " and have given you a very little in re- 
 turn. Nothing, in fact, beyond what you may 
 have inferred, and what small information you 
 could get from my visiting card. That told 
 8 103
 
 THE MAN WITHOUT A SHADOW 
 
 you that I am a physician. I may add that I am 
 a man of " 
 
 He hesitated a moment; then, conquering a 
 modesty which he regarded as false, went on 
 straightforwardly " a man of some reputation 
 as a scientific investigator; that my studies have 
 been along the line of abnormal psychology, dis- 
 eases of the mind from the most serious and fatal, 
 down to the no, I cannot use the word ' trifling ' 
 regarding any of them. And you will not misun- 
 derstand me, I hope, nor think it indicates any lack 
 of sympathy for you as a human being in deep dis- 
 tress, when I say that as a ' case ' you give promise 
 of being one of the most curious and stimulating 
 in all my experience. I am absolutely delighted 
 with you." 
 
 He shot a quick glance into my face to detect, 
 if possible, the effect of his words upon me. 
 
 " You want to ask me something," he said; 
 41 go ahead." 
 
 " You can guess, I think, after reading that 
 manuscript of mine. Am I mad indeed, or am I 
 sane? In trying to find out the identity of the 
 man I was, am I pouring water into a sieve ? build- 
 ing a house with cards? Am I to live momen- 
 tarily in dread of the same obliterating hand that 
 has once been laid upon me? " 
 
 His eyes glowed with purely human sympathy. 
 104
 
 MONSIEUR BARRAS 
 
 I was not a case to him then, I was a man; I felt 
 sure of that. Yet his manner, when he spoke, was 
 quite detached, quite impersonal. 
 
 " In the first place," he said, " as you sit there 
 talking to me now, the machinery of your mind 
 works as perfectly as mine. It has worked abso- 
 lutely without a flaw from the first moment of our 
 acquaintance. This manuscript in my hand shows 
 a far more normal mind than that of many a man 
 high in the world's affairs. Your handwriting, all 
 your physical reactions that I have had the oppor- 
 tunity of observing are those of a man in perfect 
 health of mind and body. You may be sure I 
 should not have taken you so completely into my 
 confidence regarding your own case if this were 
 not true." 
 
 " Then," I said, " you pronounce me a per- 
 fectly sane, normal man? " 
 
 He laughed. 
 
 " If you were that," said he, " I should have no 
 interest in you at all, except as an exceedingly 
 pleasant acquaintance whom I have been instru- 
 mental in rescuing from embarrassment. I can- 
 not pretend for a moment that you are normal." 
 He leaned forward and went on somewhat more 
 rapidly: 
 
 " You recognized this building instantly when 
 we stopped before it last night. Have you any 
 
 105
 
 THE MAN WITHOUT A SHADOW 
 
 recollection of ever having been here before? 
 You remarked that my friend's chauffeur had done 
 the finest piece of driving that you had ever seen. 
 Can you recall a single instance when you have 
 ever ridden in a motor car before last night ? You 
 recognized the face of Monsieur Duggleby, the 
 face of the woman in the cab, but your own, which 
 you see in the mirror every day, is totally unfa- 
 miliar. Yet your mind, in dealing with affairs of 
 the present, is sane enough; perfectly enough bal- 
 anced to make it safe for you to face the situation 
 as it stands." 
 
 " And do you believe," I asked, " that I shall 
 ever succeed in putting these two parts of myself 
 together? " 
 
 " Oh, let us not ask for prophecies," he said, 
 " nor look for miracles. It's much healthier to 
 look back over the progress you have already 
 made. Think how much you have learned by 
 sheer observation and deduction, in the little more 
 than two weeks that have elapsed since you asked 
 that first question of the man who was dozing at 
 the other end of the bench in Dr. Berry's asylum." 
 
 I rose and extended my hand to him. 
 
 " Thank you," said I. " I will at least keep up 
 the fight. If patience and courage can win it, I 
 will win." 
 
 " Now," said he, after I had relinquished his 
 1 06
 
 MONSIEUR BARRAS 
 
 hand, " listen to what I have to propose : I want 
 your permission to make your case my life work 
 until I have solved it. I am returning to France 
 in two or three days on Wednesday, to be exact. 
 I wish to take you with me. I cannot remain here, 
 nor, so long as that very resourceful young Mon- 
 sieur Duggleby is at large, can you remain here, 
 either, with safety. 
 
 " Besides that, I am strongly inclined to think 
 that in France you will find more of the materials 
 which go to make up your lost past than you can 
 discover in America. I reached that conclusion 
 largely, though not entirely, from the perfection 
 of your French speech. I have an extremely sen- 
 sitive ear; yet not a sentence, an idiom, an inflec- 
 tion of yours has ever rung false upon it." 
 
 I was profoundly moved. 
 
 " I did not know there was such kindness in the 
 world," said I. " Yet I am afraid I cannot do- 
 as you suggest." 
 
 He wheeled upon me suddenly. 
 
 " As you are a sane man, monsieur, give me a 
 reason, one serious reason." 
 
 " There is an obvious one," said I. " I have 
 no money." 
 
 He frowned with the first appearance of dis- 
 pleasure he had shown. 
 
 " I am not drumming up trade," he said. 
 107
 
 THE MAN WITHOUT A SHADOW 
 
 " Neither had I in mind any fees for your pro- 
 fessional services. It was the ordinary expenses 
 of my daily life that I was thinking about. I have 
 nothing. Except for that impossible bundle of 
 rags over there, I am literally naked." 
 
 " On the other hand," said he, " I have the 
 good fortune to be rich oh, not as you Americans 
 understand the word, but plenty rich enough. I 
 am a bachelor, never having had time to marry in 
 my youth, and now that I find my hair turning 
 gray, I am forced to confess to occasional mo- 
 ments of loneliness. Both as a human companion 
 and as quite the most interesting psychological 
 specimen I have found, you will roll a load of 
 years off my back. Come ! Is it agreed? " 
 
 Still I was silent ; and then his quick wit divined 
 the true cause of my hesitation. 
 
 " Ah! the lady in the cab? " said he. 
 
 I nodded feebly. 
 
 " Duggleby is her enemy as well as mine," said 
 I, " and after the display of his resources with 
 which he favored us last night, I dread more than 
 ever leaving her to the machinations of himself 
 and that precious father of his." 
 
 " Answer me," commanded the doctor, with a 
 smile. ' Which of these two weapons would 
 young Monsieur Duggleby find the more formi- 
 dable, quixotic chivalry or plain common sense? 
 
 1 08
 
 MONSIEUR BARRAS 
 
 How much tangible service can you render that 
 young lady in your present condition? It is not 
 you as you stand to-day ; it is your lost self, the self 
 you must find, who will be able to be of assistance 
 to her. If you remain here and permit your enemy 
 to turn you over into the hands of that villain who 
 calls himself a doctor have you thought of that, 
 my friend? you will leave her defenseless, in- 
 deed." 
 
 He was so clearly right about it, that I yielded 
 without further demur. 
 
 " I can't begin to thank you," said I. 
 
 "Don't," he said; "no thanks are necessary. 
 As I have already explained to you, our arrange- 
 ment is perfectly reciprocal." 
 
 Then he allowed his smiling gaze to travel over 
 me, from head to foot. 
 
 " A pair of scissors for your hair and beard," 
 he said; " that my valet can furnish you at once. 
 Clothing that will have to wait, in your puri- 
 tanical New York, until to-morrow morning when 
 the shops open. Your passage to Paris, that I can 
 contrive to engage to-night. What remains?" 
 
 " It seems to me a fairly exhaustive catalogue," 
 said I, " already." 
 
 " No, no," he said, " there was something else; 
 I had thought of it a moment ago. Ah, I have 
 it! A name!" 
 
 109
 
 THE MAN WITHOUT A SHADOW 
 
 He led me over to the mirror. 
 
 " Monsieur," he said, bowing with playful cere- 
 mony, " I do myself the honor to present to you 
 Monsieur Monsieur Simon Barras." 
 
 " I am honored, indeed," said I, bowing to the 
 figure in the glass; " I trust our acquaintance may 
 prove a pleasant one." 
 
 " Soit" said the doctor.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 SUCH STUFF AS DREAMS ARE MADE OF 
 
 THAT was Sunday. By Tuesday night my 
 transformation from a nameless waif of a 
 Coney Island music hall into Monsieur Barras, 
 nephew (for that was the relationship we had de- 
 cided upon) to the famous French physician, was 
 complete. 
 
 I was surprised and somewhat amused to find 
 how deep the transformation went. Of course 
 it is true that clothes do not make the man, but 
 they can make a much larger part of him than is 
 generally admitted. When the Frenchman's valet 
 had attended to my hair and beard, when the 
 tailor, the haberdasher, the bootmaker, had all 
 added their quota to the equipment of a well-to-do 
 young gentleman of France, I found I felt the part 
 as well as looked it. 
 
 The doctor came into my room just before din- 
 ner-time on Tuesday evening, and surprised me 
 before the glass. 
 
 "Will it do?" I asked him. 
 in
 
 THE MAN WITHOUT A SHADOW 
 
 " Perfectly, perfectly," he said with enthusiasm. 
 1 You talk French now with your shoulders and 
 your hands as well as with your voice. Abso- 
 lutely, there is no flaw about you anywhere." 
 
 He had been absent from the hotel since early 
 morning, and I commented on that fact. 
 
 " I am afraid," said I, " that with my affairs 
 sandwiched in among your other engagements, 
 you must have found these last days uncomfort- 
 ably busy." 
 
 " I had no other engagements worthy of the 
 name," said he. " I have merely been idling here 
 in New York. But you, my young friend, have 
 kept me busy indeed. I have spent two days study- 
 ing over you at the Astor Library." 
 
 " Indeed," said I, " I didn't know that the medi- 
 cal library at the Astor " 
 
 "Medical library!" he interrupted; "I have 
 been reading the files of the New York Tribune, 
 assisted by that useful little volume the * Tribune 
 Index.' " 
 
 " I see," said I, " you took the name of Dug- 
 gleby for a clew, and worked out from that. You 
 should have let me help you. I could have 
 borrowed a suit of your clothes to go to the 
 Astor in." 
 
 " That was exactly what I did not want you 
 to do," he said. " I have already a clew to your 
 
 112
 
 SUCH STUFF AS DREAMS 
 
 identity which I think may lead somewhere, 
 but I would not hint to you what it is for the 
 world." 
 
 " I am afraid I don't understand you," said I, 
 a little puzzled, and possibly just the least bit 
 nettled, too. 
 
 " You shall know in good time," he assured me. 
 " Meanwhile, I am anxious to try some experi- 
 ments. They will be valuable so long as you are 
 relying on your instincts and your memories for the 
 past. The moment you begin to be influenced by 
 the seeming probability that you are this person 
 or that, your instinct will become corrupted by an 
 irresistible tendency to try to make a case, and 
 my experiments will be nearly valueless." 
 
 " I see," I assented somewhat ruefully. " You 
 mean to be sure of getting the truth from me, 
 whether it entirely destroys the fabric of the case 
 you have been building up, or not." 
 
 " Precisely," said he. " Furthermore, if ever 
 I betray, by my way of asking a question, the sort 
 of answer that I wish or expect, you must utterly 
 disregard that involuntary hint." 
 
 Naturally, I was extremely curious as to what 
 form these experiments would take, but I saw that 
 he did not wish to be questioned in the matter, 
 and resolutely attempted to dismiss all speculation 
 upon the subject from my mind.
 
 THE MAN WITHOUT A SHADOW 
 
 His preparation for one of them, I could not 
 help observing. We were to sail from the White 
 Star pier at one o'clock, yet he asked me to be 
 dressed and ready at eleven. I was sure that this 
 unusual allowance of time was not due to any ex- 
 cessive precaution against our being late. 
 
 There were two cabs at the entrance when we 
 came out, a four-wheeler, with all our luggage 
 piled upon it, into which the doctor consigned the 
 valet, with instructions to drive straight to the 
 pier. 
 
 Our own vehicle was an electric hansom, and it 
 the doctor commanded to drive north. We rolled 
 rapidly up the Avenue to the Park entrance, crossed 
 over to Central Park West, where we rode north 
 to Seventieth ; turned west again, and finally again 
 turned north on West End Avenue. 
 
 The doctor's only instructions to me were to 
 keep my mind as blank as possible, and, above all, 
 not to try to remember things nor to recognize 
 them. If they came into my mind of their own 
 accord, well and good; but I was not to attempt 
 to push my discoveries farther than they would 
 go of themselves. 
 
 Finally, at a signal from the doctor, our cab 
 stopped before a large, fashionable, modern house. 
 
 " Come," said he, " I have no great confidence 
 that my friend Monsieur Vidal is at home, but if 
 
 114
 
 SUCH STUFF AS DREAMS 
 
 he is, we shall have time for a few minutes' call 
 upon him." 
 
 We ascended the steps together, and the doctor 
 rang the bell. When the butler opened the door 
 he stepped promptly inside and presented one of 
 his cards together with one of my own. I may 
 say, in parenthesis, that the doctor had not for- 
 gotten that detail in the equipment of his new 
 nephew. 
 
 " Monsieur Vidal is at home, is he not? " said 
 the doctor. 
 
 The butler looked blank. " What name did you 
 say, sir? " he asked. 
 
 " Monsieur Vidal, Monsieur Hector Vidal," 
 said the doctor in apparent surprise. 
 
 " You must have mistaken the address, sir," said 
 the man respectfully; " he does not live here, nor, 
 so far as I know, in the block." 
 
 " I have made an extremely stupid blunder," 
 said the doctor; " thank you." 
 
 As he preceded me out of the door, I thought 
 I heard him give a short laugh, which seemed 
 compounded of amusement and annoyance about 
 equally. A young man was running up the steps ; 
 to my extreme astonishment he was no less a per- 
 son than my would-be abductor of a few nights 
 previous, Mr. Alexander Duggleby. 
 
 He seemed as astonished as I was. The doctor 
 
 "5
 
 THE MAN WITHOUT A SHADOW 
 
 alone of the three of us preserved an attitude of 
 perfect composure. 
 
 Young Duggleby had only cast the briefest sort 
 of a glance at me, and, as was natural enough, had 
 failed utterly to recognize me. He was looking 
 at the doctor with an ironical smile, which could 
 not wholly veil a certain grudging admiration. 
 
 " This is an unexpected pleasure," he was say- 
 ing; " can't I prevail on you to come back into the 
 house, you and your friend?" 
 
 With that half-amused smile still on his lips, he 
 turned toward me, as he included me in the in- 
 vitation. The smile disappeared. He stared at 
 me a moment in perfectly blank astonishment, and 
 then, as he recognized me, a look of downright 
 hatred spread over his handsome face. 
 
 The doctor remained quite unmoved. If his 
 hand tightened a little on the walking stick he 
 carried, the action was not perceptible. 
 
 " My nephew," he corrected politely, " Mon- 
 sieur Simon Barras. I am sorry we cannot accept 
 your invitation, sir." 
 
 Young Duggleby stood rooted where he was on 
 the steps. We got into our hansom and began to 
 roll smoothly away. Looking back through the 
 little window, we could see him standing there 
 when we rounded the corner, the look of vindic- 
 tive hatred still upon his face. 
 
 116
 
 SUCH STUFF AS DREAMS 
 
 " Of course the object of my experiment is ap- 
 parent to you now," said the doctor, as we sped 
 on toward the steamer pier; " I wished to see if 
 you recognized the Duggleby house. I was watch- 
 ing you rather closely, and I think you did not. 
 Am I right?" 
 
 " Yes," said I, " it was quite unfamiliar to me." 
 
 " The encounter with Monsieur Duggleby," he 
 went on, " was quite unlocked for. I had even 
 taken the precaution of making sure he was out of 
 the house before we started." 
 
 " Well," said I, " there is no serious harm done, 
 is there?" 
 
 " I am not sure," said the doctor thoughtfully; 
 " he is a resourceful young man most resource- 
 ful." 
 
 I was more than ever inclined to agree with the 
 doctor an hour or two later when, standing upon 
 the promenade deck, watching with interest the 
 process of getting the marine leviathan away from 
 her berth, I saw among the crowd on the pier that 
 had assembled to see us off, the figure of the young 
 man in question. I pointed him out to the doctor. 
 
 " Yes," said he thoughtfully, " we are by no 
 means done with him." 
 
 We had almost continuous rough weather, but 
 as the doctor and I were excellent sailors, this fact 
 
 117
 
 THE MAN WITHOUT A SHADOW 
 
 did not detract from our pleasure in the voyage. 
 Indeed, if anything, it added to it, for it left us 
 the decks pretty much to ourselves, and we had too 
 much to think about and discuss to care for other 
 companionship. Before we left the Hook, our 
 ship settled into a steady roll, which drove per- 
 haps three fourths of the passengers below, and 
 many of them never emerged on deck until we had 
 sighted land again. 
 
 The doctor and I spent our days either in buf- 
 feting with the wind and spray on the weather side 
 of the deck, or in chatting and dozing in our 
 steamer chairs in a sheltered corner. 
 
 I found the light, half slumber, such as one 
 takes in a steamer chair, more conducive to dreams 
 than the heavier sleep of the night. In fact, my 
 day dreams soon came to have an almost regular 
 place in our daily programme. Some days, for 
 hours at a stretch, I would waken from one dream 
 adventure, tell it to the doctor, and drift off forth- 
 with into another. 
 
 " They are curiously difficult to classify, these 
 reminiscences of yours, whether you're awake or 
 asleep," he said with a puzzled air, one day. " You 
 seem to sweep pretty much the whole gamut of 
 society. You dream of squalid streets, of hungry 
 children, of lurid places full of smoke and flame 
 and half-naked men toiling in them, and the next 
 
 118
 
 SUCH STUFF AS DREAMS 
 
 moment you jump to what appears, from the de- 
 scription, to be a French chateau ; and you are no 
 better when you are awake. You were sure the 
 Irish pawnbroker knew you, yet you instinctively 
 gave your address as the Holland House. Oh, 
 it will all fit in, I dare say, but it makes the puzzle 
 a complicated one." 
 
 A moment later he asked, quite unexpectedly: 
 
 " By the way, do you feel particularly at home 
 aboard ship? I mean, is there anything about 
 marine architecture that strikes you as particularly 
 familiar? " 
 
 " You are thinking of the Morton-Duggleby 
 shipyard, I suppose," I said. 
 
 " No inferences," he said quickly. 
 
 " Well," I said," I do know my way about, but I 
 fancy my familiarity is no more than a few trips as 
 a passenger in transatlantic liners would give me." 
 
 " How did you ever hear of the Morton-Dug- 
 gleby shipyard? " he asked. 
 
 " I read about it in a magazine," said I; " some- 
 thing about building a battleship." 
 
 " Well, don't read any more magazines," he 
 said, almost irritably, " until we get to Paris. The 
 ones you will find there won't do you any harm." 
 
 That was our last day out, a much calmer one, 
 by the way, than any we had had previously, and 
 for the first time my view of the horizon was 
 9 119
 
 THE MAN WITHOUT A SHADOW 
 
 interrupted by a steady procession of passing 
 figures. 
 
 The doctor resumed his reading, and presently 
 I dozed off to sleep. The dream that came to me 
 in that half-submerged slumber was one I shall 
 never forget. It was nothing much to tell about, 
 but its amazing vividness and the thing that hap-' 
 pened immediately upon my waking from it, are 
 enough to write it indelibly across my memory. 
 
 I was in a small, very plainly furnished room, 
 kept with extraordinary neatness, which evidently 
 served as a general living room for more than one 
 person. A simple supper, with places laid for 
 three, was spread in the center of it, beneath a 
 shaded lamp. I was seated at a small, upright 
 piano in the corner of the room, and at my right 
 hand, and facing me, She sat, the lady of my 
 dreams, the girl whose face I had seen through the 
 cab window. 
 
 There was an anxious look in her face, and at 
 last, giving over pretending not to notice it, I 
 stopped playing. 
 
 " Don't worry about it, Virginia," said I; and 
 that was the first time in all those dreams that ever 
 I had found a name for her. What " it " was, 
 I did not know. 
 
 " I know," she said, " I shouldn't; at least I 
 shouldn't let him see I am worrying." 
 
 1 20
 
 SUCH STUFF AS DREAMS 
 
 Before I could answer her, we heard a step on 
 the stairs. 
 
 " There he comes," she said, and then called 
 out, with assumed gayety: 
 
 " Supper's been waiting for you ever so long, 
 father. I am in doubt if I will give you any." 
 
 It was an old man who entered, an old man 
 with a long gray beard, and the sight of his face 
 horrified me. It was blazing with anger, but be- 
 neath the anger I could see, strongly marked, the 
 lines of despair. 
 
 " They have tried to steal my secret," he cried. 
 " They rifled my laboratory last night." 
 
 I wakened at that, and sleepily sat half erect 
 in my steamer chair. Then, with a start, I leaned 
 forward, sank back again, and rubbed my hand 
 over my eyes. Had I truly wakened after all? 
 
 There, passing right in front of me, was the man 
 with the long gray beard. A woman was walking 
 beside him, on the side away from me, where I 
 could see no more of her than an elbow and a 
 wind-blown skirt. Trembling so that I could 
 hardly stand, I, nevertheless, managed to get to 
 my feet and look after them. 
 
 She was there! Virginia, the woman of my 
 dreams. Unless, indeed, I was dreaming still, or 
 unless unless I was mad, after all.
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 THE ORDEAL 
 
 I TURNED to the doctor, my face working 
 with uncontrollable agitation. 
 
 "Do you see them?" I asked wildly, "those 
 two figures walking there? An old man and his 
 daughter? " 
 
 " Yes, certainly I see them," said the doctor 
 quietly. "Why not?" 
 
 " And they have been here all the while, passen- 
 gers on board this ship with us? It is impos- 
 sible!" 
 
 " Not at all," said the doctor. " We are see- 
 ing plenty of new faces to-day. The bad weather 
 has kept them below, that's all. Do you recognize 
 them?" 
 
 He spoke with as little apparent interest as 
 though we had been talking about the weather. 
 But it would have taken more than a quiet manner 
 to calm the mad whirl of my thoughts just then. 
 
 " I was dreaming of them," said I, " dreaming 
 of Virginia and her father, and then I opened my 
 eyes and saw them standing before me." 
 
 122
 
 THE ORDEAL 
 
 " Is she the young lady you have dreamed about 
 before? " he asked calmly. Then, as I only stared 
 at him, he added: 
 
 " You had never told me her name." 
 
 I dropped back limp in my chair. 
 
 " I suppose I couldn't have told you her name 
 before," said I. " It came to me in the dream and 
 I repeated it unconsciously." 
 
 From a pocket in his coat the doctor drew out 
 a passenger list, and began a methodical examina- 
 tion of it. 
 
 " There is a Miss Virginia on board, certainly. 
 Her father's name is Heatherfield. Does that 
 bring anything back to you? " 
 
 " No," said I, and my voice broke in a sob of 
 despair. 
 
 "Softly, softly," said the doctor; "we are not 
 asking for miracles, you know. When your mem- 
 ories classify themselves and become consistent, my 
 task will be done. Be glad of the name you know, 
 and don't despair over the one you have forgotten. 
 The fact that you don't know your own doesn't 
 trouble you." 
 
 He broke off abruptly, for a deck steward 
 stood before us, offering beef tea. I shook my 
 head in refusal of it, but the doctor ruled other- 
 wise. 
 
 " Drink it," he said, " and then get yourself 
 123
 
 THE MAN WITHOUT A SHADOW 
 
 together. I want you composed to try an experi- 
 ment." 
 
 " What is it? " I asked unsteadily; but already 
 I was doing his bidding. 
 
 " Simply to indulge in a short promenade here 
 on the deck with me," he answered. 
 
 As I foresaw, we set out in a direction opposite 
 to that taken by the two figures of my dream, and 
 the object of the experiment was to see if we could 
 detect in them any corresponding recognition of 
 me. I felt my whole fate was hanging in the bal- 
 ance ; the whole question, whether I was essentially 
 a sane man or a lunatic. If they knew me, then, 
 of course, I was a sane man. More than that, it 
 would mean that my search for my lost identity 
 was at an end, or practically so. 
 
 The other alternative, I hardly dared contem- 
 plate. If they were to walk past me on the deck 
 without a sign, it would make it almost certain that 
 my identification of them with persons who had be- 
 longed in my almost obliterated past was the mere 
 delusion of a madman. 
 
 They were coming down the deck toward us 
 now. Rapidly the distance was narrowed, to ten 
 paces, to five. Now we were almost face to face ; 
 and now I was searching those faces with an eager- 
 ness that must almost have cried aloud from my 
 agonized eyes. 
 
 124
 
 THE ORDEAL 
 
 For an instant her glance rested on my face. A 
 very faint flush colored her cheeks. Her finely 
 marked, expressive brows moved a little with dis- 
 dainful annoyance under my undisguised stare. 
 And that was all. 
 
 They were gone ! In her mind I figured at this 
 moment simply as an underbred, impertinent young 
 person, who stared in an unmannerly way at pretty 
 girls. 
 
 The doctor's strong, steady arm locked itself in 
 mine to give me support, and God knows I need- 
 ed it. 
 
 I walked on stiffly like an automaton. When 
 we got opposite where our chairs were, I stopped, 
 but the doctor, with a light pressure on my arm, 
 signified that I was to keep on walking. 
 
 " Not again," I said; " I can't do it again." 
 
 " Think a minute," said he. " Think how your 
 appearance must be changed. You look like an 
 authentic Frenchman; you are walking with one 
 whose authenticity cannot be denied. You have a 
 French name on the passenger list. Don't look at 
 them when we meet again, but talk, talk to me 
 casually, about anything at all. Tell me how you 
 escaped from Dr. Berry's asylum, or how you 
 played the piano at Coney Island. And talk in 
 English," he added, after a moment's pause. " I 
 had nearly forgotten that detail myself." 
 
 125
 
 THE MAN WITHOUT A SHADOW 
 
 Again they were approaching us down the deck. 
 
 " Don't look at them," he repeated; " trust me 
 for that." 
 
 Somehow, I do not know how, I managed to 
 rally my faculties for this second ordeal. I felt my- 
 self moving forward with the casual gait of a mere 
 stroller upon the deck. I found myself talking in 
 English, though I have no idea at all what it was 
 I said. Again, the distance narrowed between us. 
 Still my voice kept its even, casual, conversational 
 accent. 
 
 The doctor often said that we must not ask for 
 miracles, but certainly he asked one from me then, 
 and some power gave me the ability to perform it. 
 Owing to the direction of the wind, they had come 
 within two paces of us before the sound of my 
 voice fairly reached their ears. 
 
 When it did, they stopped with one accord, and 
 now it was they who stared, stared as if it had been 
 the figure of one long dead that stood before them. 
 I did not look, could not look, for the whole world 
 was whirling around me in a mad reel. 
 
 The gentle compulsion of the doctor's arm 
 walked me on, and in a second we had passed them. 
 He has told me since, though I find it difficult to 
 believe, that my voice never broke; that the even 
 flow of my narrative never faltered until they were 
 out of hearing, behind us. 
 
 126 .
 
 THE ORDEAL 
 
 " Well," said the doctor, as we dropped into our 
 chairs again, " that is settled. Those people know 
 you, the real you that we are trying to find. I 
 would raise my hand in affirmation of that before a 
 crucifix." 
 
 For once his quiet professional reserve had 
 melted. There was a thrill of excitement in his 
 voice which matched my own. He drew a little 
 flask of cognac from his pocket. 
 
 " Here," he said, " I think we both deserve a 
 little drink on the strength of that." 
 
 Presently, however, he undertook to moderate a 
 little the transports of hope which the look in my 
 face and the excited inflection of my voice betrayed. 
 
 " Don't promise yourself too much," he said. 
 " Don't think that this mystery of yours is going to 
 be solved in the twinkling of an eye. To do that 
 is simply to court disappointment." 
 
 "But they know me," I insisted vehemently; 
 " you yourself admit as much, said you would 
 swear to it. You cannot believe that they would 
 refuse to tell?" 
 
 He made no reply, and after a moment of si- 
 lence I went on: 
 
 " Unless you believe that they, like the Duggle- 
 bys, are among the number of my enemies ; unless 
 you believe that that girl, a girl who looks out on 
 the world with those eyes, could bear a deliberate 
 
 127
 
 THE MAN WITHOUT A SHADOW 
 
 part in the conspiracy to rob me of myself, and 
 that's unthinkable." 
 
 Still he was silent. 
 
 " Isn't it unthinkable? " I persisted. 
 
 " Oh, yes," he said, " but it is not the only alter- 
 native." 
 
 " I can conceive of no other." 
 
 " It is possible," he said thoughtfully, " that this 
 Mr. Heatherfield and his daughter regard you, in 
 turn, as one of their enemies." 
 
 " How could that be? " I demanded. 
 
 " When I know that," he said gravely, " I shall 
 know your secret." 
 
 " At any rate," he went on, " you can hardly go 
 to this gentleman and ask him if he will not be 
 good enough to tell you your own name. The sit- 
 uation requires tact and some slight preliminary 
 acquaintance. Remember, too, that we expect to 
 land within a few hours. 
 
 " I am not trying to discourage you," he con- 
 cluded, seeing how my face had fallen at these con- 
 siderations. " We have really made an inestimable 
 gain, but I do not want you to be disheartened in 
 case the solution of your problem should prove to 
 be not quite the simple matter that it looks." 
 
 In spite of the obvious wisdom of his counsels, 
 it was some little time before I could bring myself 
 to the point of accepting them. 
 
 128
 
 THE ORDEAL 
 
 The course we finally agreed upon was that I 
 should wait for a chance to approach Mr. Heather- 
 field when he was alone, and begin a conversation 
 with him, after the manner of casual deck acquaint- 
 ances. If I could succeed in doing this, and should 
 find him kindly disposed toward me, then I might 
 tell him as much of my story as was necessary, and 
 ask him my great question. 
 
 Of course it was indispensable to such a pro- 
 gramme that I should approach him at a moment 
 when his daughter was not at his side. The two 
 seemed to be absolutely inseparable, and one after 
 another of the precious hours crept away, driving 
 me almost into a frenzy of impatience, as they de- 
 nied me the precious opportunity I sought. 
 
 Well along in the afternoon, however, when the 
 sight of our tender approaching from the harbor at 
 Cherbourg almost drove me to disregard the doc- 
 tor's advice and chance everything on more drastic 
 measures, at that final moment the opportunity 
 came. 
 
 She left him to go in momentary search for 
 something, and would doubtless be back almost be- 
 fore I could begin the conversation I hoped to draw 
 him into. He was standing at the rail, gazing 
 landward, with thoughtful eyes, troubled eyes I 
 imagined, in an abstraction which it seemed an im- 
 pertinence to break. Indeed, I took my place at 
 
 129
 
 THE MAN WITHOUT A SHADOW 
 
 the rail beside him without his appearing to be 
 aware of my presence. 
 
 " There is some compensation for our stormy 
 voyage in a day like this," said I. 
 
 The sound of my voice and my presence there 
 at his elbow seemed to startle him. The look he 
 cast at me brought vividly to my memory the doc- 
 tors hypothesis that they might regard me as an 
 enemy. He barely answered my question with a 
 curt monosyllable, and turned as if to move away, 
 but I had too much at stake to be easily discour- 
 aged. 
 
 " It is rather tantalizing, though, this pleasant 
 day," I went on, " coming right at the end of the 
 voyage as it does. It only serves to show us how 
 many opportunities for pleasant acquaintanceship 
 we have lost." 
 
 He wheeled upon me, dignified, irate, formi- 
 dable. 
 
 " There are some of us, sir, who neither lament 
 those lost opportunities, as you term them, nor de- 
 sire to make up for them now." 
 
 His meaning was too pointed to be disregarded, 
 yet in my despair at the thought of letting them go 
 away out of my knowledge, carrying my secret with 
 them, I made one more attempt. I dropped all 
 pretense at merely casual conversation. 
 
 " I hope, sir," said I, very gravely, " that you 
 130
 
 THE ORDEAL 
 
 are not among those who feel that way, at least 
 as regards myself. I have a most serious reason 
 for wishing to become acquainted with you." 
 
 He gave me a long, searching look. Suspicion 
 was fully alight in his eyes now, and anger spoke 
 in the tone of his deep voice. 
 
 " If you do not know me already," he said, " if 
 you are indeed the stranger to me that you wish to 
 appear, then permit me to tell you that you are an 
 impertinent intruder. If, on the other hand " and 
 now, though he lowered his voice, anger spoke 
 louder in it than it had spoken in it before yes, 
 and dread, too " if, on the other hand, you are 
 the man whom I suspect you to be, a man who 
 knows me well, then let me tell you that I know 
 you, also, know you for the coward and knave that 
 you are." 
 
 " Monsieur," said I, " my impertinence and my 
 intrusion I can scarcely deny. It is so if you regard 
 it so." 
 
 He was looking at me with a puzzled expression 
 that caused me to interrupt myself. The next mo- 
 ment I realized that, in my excitement, I was speak- 
 ing in French instead of English. I apologized, 
 and repeated my words in a language he could un- 
 derstand. 
 
 " As to my being a coward and a knave," I con- 
 cluded, " you can only have applied such terms to
 
 THE MAN WITHOUT A SHADOW 
 
 me under a serious misapprehension. For my in- 
 trusion, since it has seemed such to you, I make my 
 apology." 
 
 As I turned away to leave him, I found myself 
 standing face to face with Virginia. In that mo- 
 ment, as our eyes met, there flashed across between 
 them an instantaneous electrical recognition. It 
 was literally papable. I felt it tingling clear to my 
 finger tips, and I think she must have felt it, too, 
 for a wave of glowing, transparent color came 
 surging up into her face, bathing it from neck to 
 forehead. When her eyes wavered away from 
 mine and sought her father's, it was as if her will 
 power had been barely sufficient to enable her to 
 look away. But then, as suddenly as it had come, 
 the glow died out and left her very pale, paler 
 than she had been before. Her eyes widened with 
 wonder, with dread, and yet it seemed to me, 
 for the space of one heart beat, with hope as 
 well, as she scanned her father's face and mine 
 alternately. 
 
 It was absolutely impossible that I remain. Her 
 father's reception of my advances settled that. I 
 bowed gravely to him, and then to her as I took 
 my leave; and as I did so, in that last glance at 
 her, I saw that all the light had died out of her 
 face, and in its stead had come a look of abstrac- 
 tion. It was as if I was forgotten I and her 
 
 132
 
 THE ORDEAL 
 
 father, too ; as if her thoughts had suddenly gone 
 voyaging half a world away. 
 
 I had returned to my steamer chair and was in 
 the act of reporting to the doctor the complete fail- 
 ure of my attempt, when he checked me with an 
 imperative signal, and turning, I saw her coming 
 toward us. Her manner made it plain that she 
 was coming to speak to me, so I rose and went to 
 meet her. 
 
 " I am afraid we owe you an apology, mon- 
 sieur," she said, " or, perhaps, not so much an apol- 
 ogy as an explanation. My father " She hesi- 
 tated an instant and glanced behind her, in evident 
 apprehension lest he should come upon us in con- 
 versation together. Then she went on more col- 
 lectedly: " My father has had many troubles of 
 late, troubles heavier than a man of his age should 
 be called upon to endure. He believes he owes 
 them, or many of them, to a man whom we 
 thought, whom I, at least, thought dead." Her 
 voice quivered a little over the word, and it was 
 with obvious difficulty that she got it under control 
 again. 
 
 ' You have reminded my father yes, and me, 
 too somewhat strongly of that man." 
 
 Her eyes were widening as she looked at me. 
 " I am afraid," she went on breathlessly, " that 
 that resemblance may have caused you some em- 
 
 133
 
 THE MAN WITHOUT A SHADOW 
 
 barrassment. I hope that this explanation will 
 serve for an apology." 
 
 Had I been the cool, collected man I wished to 
 be, I never would have uttered the question that 
 rose to my lips; but standing there, face to face 
 with her, her voice thrilling me with every word it 
 uttered, I was far from cool. 
 
 " If," said I, " if I were indeed the man whom 
 you thought dead " 
 
 She caught her breath in a great gasp, and once 
 more the color came blazing into her cheeks. 
 
 " You you mean But you cannot be that 
 man ! You cannot ! " 
 
 And yet eyes and voice, the agonized question- 
 ing in her tone, belied the certainty of her asser- 
 tion. 
 
 "If you were he if you were that man whom I 
 thought dead, you would not dare to stand before 
 me now and look into my face, mine or my father's. 
 Or if you did, if there was some reason which we 
 do not understand " 
 
 Her voice faltered and stopped, but her hands 
 completed her meaning more expressively than any 
 words could have done, for she had stretched them 
 out to me, eager, imploring. 
 
 But the next instant, by sheer will power 
 and with the aid of a couple of deep-drawn 
 breaths, she recovered her self-control. Her hands 
 
 134
 
 dropped to her sides and she forced a smile to 
 her lips. 
 
 " I am afraid," she said, " I was very near re- 
 peating the offense I came to apologize for, but I 
 will not make you suffer a second time for a chance 
 resemblance of which you are as innocent as I. 
 You will pardon us, monsieur? " 
 
 Before I could force an answer to my lips, she 
 was gone, and I I was left in a daze behind. I 
 had found her, my dream girl. Every inflection 
 of her beautiful voice doubled the strong assur* 
 ance I had already. 
 
 I had found her ! She was she, and I was I ; and 
 yet if that were true, I was her enemy. No, not I; 
 the lost man I had been. Standing there with my 
 elbows on the rail, I buried my face in my hands. 
 But at last I roused myself. 
 
 " Thank God for the French doctor," said I. 
 His strong, cool intelligence was the only stable 
 thing in all my universe. 
 
 10
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 A CASTLE IN SPAIN 
 
 WE had not been in Paris half an hour be- 
 fore I satisfied the doctor that I knew the 
 city, as he expressed it, " like the palm of my 
 hand." 
 
 Almost every other minute during our long cab 
 drive from the Gare du Nord to his apartment 
 overlooking the Seine and the Quai St. Michel, I 
 had recognized and instinctively called by their 
 right names the interesting streets, squares, and 
 public buildings of that lovely city. 
 
 The doctor hailed every one of these discoveries 
 with a delight which showed me how seriously he 
 would have been disappointed had I failed in this 
 particular. 
 
 I put the capstone upon his enthusiasm when he 
 told me that he was planning to dine at one of the 
 restaurants on his way home. It was his usual 
 practice, he said, for he detested dining in solitary 
 state in his bachelor's apartment, which was the 
 only home he possessed. 
 
 136
 
 A CASTLE IN SPAIN 
 
 " In that case," said I, signaling the driver to 
 stop, as I spoke the word, " we cannot do better 
 than to dine right here." 
 
 The doctor laughed like a boy. 
 
 " No truer word was ever spoken," said he. 
 For the place I had indicated was a little restaurant 
 which makes up for its modest pretensions by a 
 world-wide reputation among true epicures. The 
 average tourist, with his nose in a Baedeker, goes 
 by it without a glance. 
 
 When the serious business of ordering dinner 
 was out of the way and it may be noted that the 
 doctor delegated this task to me we settled down 
 to talk over our plans for the future. 
 
 " Your evident knowledge of the city," said the 
 doctor, " makes our course, for the next few days, 
 at least, a plain one. I mean to leave you to your- 
 self. I want you to assume the most irresponsible, 
 care- free attitude of mind of which you are capable, 
 and wander about the streets alone wherever your 
 fancy or your instinct takes you." 
 
 " I don't know that I can guarantee the care-free 
 mind," said I, " but I will do my best." 
 
 The doctor's eyes twinkled. 
 
 " It won't be so hard as you think," said he; 
 " Paris is Paris, and you are a well-dressed, pre- 
 sentable young man with money in your pocket. 
 From time immemorial, this city and young men 
 
 137
 
 THE MAN WITHOUT A SHADOW 
 
 such as I describe you to be, have proved mutually 
 attractive. Don't seriously try to make discov- 
 eries, but when you see an omnibus that has a fa- 
 miliar look, climb up on the roof of it and ride 
 until you feel like climbing down. When you hear 
 the name of a place that sounds familiar, hop into 
 a cab and drive there. That may seem a rather 
 methodless course of procedure to you, but I shall 
 "be surprised if we do not develop something valu- 
 able that way." 
 
 " Likely enough," said I ; " but it seems to me 
 the time you allow for it is rather short. If you 
 had said a month, I should feel more sanguine." 
 
 ' That is quite true," said the doctor; " but by 
 the end of the week I shall feel strongly disinclined 
 to let you go wandering about this city without a 
 companion." 
 
 " You mystify me completely," I exclaimed. 
 " Why should Paris be safe for me the first week 
 and unsafe thereafter? " 
 
 " There is too little mystery about it," he said. 
 " We are quite sure, you and I, that we saw your 
 friend Mr. Duggleby left safely behind us on the 
 pier when the steamer sailed. We are quite sure 
 that he did not take the same ship. No other fast 
 ship sailed from New York till Saturday. There- 
 fore, I think it very doubtful that any serious at- 
 tempt will be made upon your personal safety be- 
 
 138
 
 A CASTLE IN SPAIN 
 
 fore either Mr. Duggleby himself or a letter from 
 him can reach Paris. He would hardly attempt to 
 negotiate such a matter by cable. Allow that he 
 or his letter reaches Paris next Sunday, and then 
 add two or three days more for the delay he or his 
 agents would probably experience in finding out 
 your whereabouts, and you have the week of com- 
 parative security that I spoke of." 
 
 " Do you seriously imagine " I began, but he 
 interrupted me brusquely. 
 
 " I seriously think," he said, " that the only 
 thing which can baffle us in our search for your 
 lost identity, the only absolutely fatal blunder we 
 could make, would result from a too-negligent dis- 
 missal of that very remarkable young man from 
 our calculations. We can defeat him, we can out- 
 wit him, but a man who can sober himself out of 
 an advanced state of intoxication by sheer will 
 power, a man who can think quickly enough and 
 act courageously enough to do the thing he did 
 after I disabled his automobile that night on the 
 road, that man is not one to be neglected." 
 
 I had a feeling, inevitable perhaps to one of the 
 Anglo-Saxon temper of mind, that the doctor's esti- 
 mate of young Duggleby was a little theatrical, 
 even melodramatic, but a few moments' quiet 
 thought, which his Gallic tact took care not to in- 
 terrupt, convinced me that he was probably more 
 
 139
 
 THE MAN WITHOUT A SHADOW 
 
 nearly right than I. His judgment, at any rate, 
 would lead one to err on the safe side. 
 
 " Well," said I finally, " I promise you this: he 
 may beat me, but if he does, it will be face to face. 
 He shall never have another chance to pinion my 
 arms from behind." 
 
 " Good," said the doctor. " And now as a re- 
 ward for your docility, I will tell you something; 
 I will tell you something which I hope will bright- 
 en a little the cloud which I have seen hanging over 
 you like a thundercloud ever since we lost sight of 
 the venerable Mr. Heatherfield and his charming 
 daughter." 
 
 " You know where they are? " I asked quickly. 
 
 " Thanks to a little innocent eavesdropping, I 
 do," he replied. ' They are here in Paris. I know 
 the address of the pension where they are stopping, 
 and I infer from the fact that it is a pension in- 
 stead of a hotel, that their stay will be of moder- 
 ately long duration." 
 
 " Where is it? " I asked eagerly. 
 
 He smiled in a rather staid, elderly way over 
 my enthusiasm. 
 
 " When one places a compass in a ship," he said, 
 " one takes care not to place a magnet too near it. 
 I want you to discover your own Paris, not to ro- 
 tate in the orbit of a planet about a certain number 
 on a certain street." 
 
 140
 
 A CASTLE IN SPAIN 
 
 I was none too well pleased with his decision, but 
 I saw the justice of it and said so. 
 
 " You are a good child," he said affectionately, 
 " and you may be sure of this : I shall keep careful 
 watch. If they change their place of residence, I 
 shall know it. You shall not lose them again ; you 
 may trust me for that." 
 
 Three days later, over the same little table, in 
 the same restaurant, I reported progress to the doc- 
 tor. I had seen little of him in the interval, for the 
 simple reason that I had spent every day, from 
 early morning, or what passes for early morning 
 in Paris, until late at night, which is very late in- 
 deed, in driving about the city in accordance with 
 his instructions. As a result of this, I had come to 
 a certain curious conclusion, of which I wished to 
 inform the doctor. 
 
 " I have been a model tourist," said I. " I am 
 confident that no man at present within the circle 
 of the fortifications has spent so idly busy, or so 
 busily idle, a three days. I have wandered from 
 Pere Lachaise to the Bois de Boulogne; from the 
 Lion of Belfort to Montmartre. I have visited the 
 Louvre and the Moulin Rouge, and pretty much 
 everything that comes between. In the course of 
 my wanderings, I have found what is, beyond 
 doubt, the most attractive place in Paris to me; 
 to the instinctive man, that is, whom I have been 
 
 141
 
 THE MAN WITHOUT A SHADOW 
 
 trying to experiment with. I will give you a mil- 
 lion guesses as to what that most attractive place 
 is." 
 
 " As if I had the patience to waste even three," 
 said the doctor. " Tell me." 
 
 " A railway station," said I; " the Orleans sta- 
 tion on the Quai d'Orsay." 
 
 The doctor's face fell, as I was sure it would. 
 
 " I am disappointed in you," he said, half play- 
 fully. " The inference is all too clear. The man 
 you were had not the good taste to live in Paris, as 
 he undoubtedly might have done. Well, we must 
 follow your elusive self, if it takes us to the world's 
 end. Have you any plan for setting about it? " 
 
 " Yes," said I; " it is a very simple one, but I 
 think it ought to work. I shall have to trespass 
 upon an hour of your time to-morrow morning, 
 though." 
 
 " An hour! " he said. " But I am going with 
 you." 
 
 " No, that will not be necessary," I assured him. 
 " All that I shall need of you is your company to 
 the station and your highly diverting conversation 
 up to the moment when I ask the man inside the 
 window for my ticket. I want to approach that 
 window without a single idea of my journey or my 
 possible destination in my mind. Of course, if my 
 instinctive self fails to come up to the scratch at 
 
 142
 
 A CASTLE IN SPAIN 
 
 the critical moment, we shall have to follow some 
 other and more laborious course, but if the name 
 of some city on the railway line does pop into my 
 mind at the critical moment, I shall be able to ex- 
 plore that place, wherever it may be, quite as well 
 without your help as with it." 
 
 He assented enthusiastically to the plan as a 
 whole, but demurred a little to the last part of it. 
 
 " I suppose you are right," he admitted grudg- 
 ingly, " though I should have liked an excuse to 
 run off with you." 
 
 " You may get it before I am very many hours 
 away," said I. " If I find I need you, I shall tele- 
 graph." 
 
 With that proviso, he assented heartily to my 
 plan, and the next morning we put it into opera- 
 tion. 
 
 As I had learned from previous experience con- 
 fidently to expect, my lost inner self responded in- 
 stantly to the test I had put upon it. I had taken 
 my place in the line before the window, chatting 
 enthusiastically with the doctor about a certain 
 singer who was making her reputation at the 
 Opera Comique, my mind in a state of perfect 
 blank as to my present surroundings. When I 
 reached the wicket, I confidently shoved thirty 
 francs across the counter to the man inside, and 
 said: 
 
 143
 
 " One first class to Tours." 
 
 I had accepted the ticket and the change which 
 he returned to me, and come away from the win- 
 dow, my mind still so fully occupied with the previ- 
 ous subject of our conversation, that I failed to 
 realize how completely the experiment had worked, 
 until the excitement shining in the doctor's face 
 recalled it to me. 
 
 There was an express starting almost at once, so 
 I took my leave of the doctor, promising to return 
 soon in any case, and to telegraph for him the mo- 
 ment I felt his presence would be of the slightest 
 assistance to me. 
 
 I was conscious during that four hours' ride to 
 Tours of an excitement that mounted higher and 
 higher in my veins as we rushed on through the 
 strangely familiar landscape. At every stop we 
 made, the hoarse voices of the men on the plat- 
 form, proclaiming the names of the stations, re- 
 called new floods of memories. The picture of the 
 home, which I had crossed the seas to seek, etched 
 itself more vividly and in more minute detail upon 
 my mind. 
 
 When I dismounted from the train at Tours, I 
 was so excited that I could hardly hold myself 
 back to accompany the languid pace of the porter 
 to whom I handed my bag. 
 
 One sensible consideration did occur to me. I 
 144
 
 A CASTLE IN SPAIN 
 
 stopped in the station long enough to deposit the 
 bag in the cloakroom and to take a check for it. 
 Where my explorations were going to take me, I, 
 of course, had no idea, but I felt reasonably sure 
 that I should return to Tours for the night. 
 
 I feed my porter, thrust the check for my bag 
 into a pocket, along with my loose change, and 
 hurried out to spring into the nearest cab. 
 
 " Rue Nationale," I said to the driver, " and out 
 across the stone bridge. After that, I will tell 
 you." 
 
 Paris had been familiar, exceedingly so; but 
 Paris was nothing to this. Over nearly every shop 
 front was a name that went to my heart like the 
 hand clasp of an old friend. The very signs on the 
 tram cars, as they went filing past me on their sin- 
 gle track, tooting their absurd little horns, were 
 poignant with association. 
 
 By the time we had reached the end of the street 
 and passed between the two seated monumental 
 figures that flanked the approach to the bridge, the 
 tears were streaming down my face, and every 
 nerve in my body was tingling. Ah ! I had nearly 
 reached my journey's end now, there could be no 
 doubt of that. 
 
 The broad, rambling Loire, with its low, sandy 
 Islands rising from its shallows, was behind us. 
 Our meager little horse was climbing laboriously 
 
 145
 
 THE MAN WITHOUT A SHADOW 
 
 up the road through the Tranche. Presently we 
 emerged at the crossroads beside the St. Sym- 
 phorien post-office. With my walking stick I 
 pointed out the road we were to take. I could not 
 command my voice to utterance. 
 
 For perhaps a mile we drove on. Then, as we 
 reached the crest of a little hill, I cried out to the 
 driver to stop. With trembling fingers I thrust a 
 twenty-franc piece into his hand. 
 
 " Go back," I cried; " I am through with you." 
 
 He stared at me as though he thought me mad, 
 for we were upon a country road with no building 
 whatever within, perhaps, a quarter of a mile of 
 us; but the gold piece in his hand was a powerful 
 argument to do my bidding. The little horse 
 wheeled around and clattered away in a cloud of 
 dust and I was left alone; alone, as for a little 
 while, I wished to be. 
 
 For, from the little eminence upon which I 
 stood, I saw before my eyes, rising from the fer- 
 tile little valley, like a solitary jewel in its setting, 
 the chateau of my dreams, the home which, in any- 
 thing but my dreams, I had hardly dared hope to 
 find.
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 THE SPRING 
 
 IT was nearly an hour later that I rang the bell 
 at the great gate of the main entrance to the 
 park surrounding the chateau. 
 
 In that interval of time, by thinking hard about 
 my French doctor, and what his advice to me on 
 such an occasion would certainly have been, I had 
 calmed myself sufficiently to appear before who- 
 ever opened the gate in the character of a casual 
 sight-seer. 
 
 I had a wild hope that the assumption of this 
 character might not prove necessary ; that the per- 
 son who opened the gate at my summons would 
 greet me with a welcome home, would cry out, in 
 that instant of recognition, the name I once had 
 borne. I dared not entertain such a hope as that, 
 and it proved well I did not. 
 
 The figure I presently saw approaching to un- 
 lock the gate was a totally unfamiliar one to me. 
 Furthermore, it became plain the next moment 
 that he had never seen me either. Clearly, all he 
 
 147
 
 THE MAN WITHOUT A SHADOW 
 
 saw in me was the omnipresent touring sight-seer, 
 and all that he welcomed about me was the pros- 
 pect of a liberal tip. 
 
 He was a youngish man, very thin, this thin- 
 ness extending to his dust-colored hair and his 
 weak, patchy beard. He had a rather sinister 
 look, I thought, but attributed it, and perhaps 
 rightly, to his misfortune in being extremely wall- 
 eyed. 
 
 I told him that I wished, if I could without tres- 
 passing, to have a look at the place. 
 
 " But most assuredly, monsieur," he said with 
 enthusiasm. 
 
 " My guidebook appears not to mention the 
 chateau," said I, as I entered the gate, " or, if it 
 does, I have overlooked it. May I ask the name 
 of it and to whom it belongs? " 
 
 " It is called Chateau la Mesle," said the gate 
 keeper. " It was the property of foreigners. The 
 wife of an American monsieur and her son lived 
 here for many years. But she died and he went 
 away. Since that time the chateau has been 
 closed." 
 
 " Americans, you say? " I commented. His an- 
 swer fitted so exactly into the frame of my hopes, 
 that I craved additional assurance of hearing him 
 repeat it. 
 
 " .Yes, monsieur," he said. 
 148
 
 THE SPRING 
 
 " And their name? " I asked. 
 
 My heart was racing so fast it almost suffocated 
 me, but I dare say the tone of my query sounded 
 casual enough. 
 
 " I was not here; I did not come here until after 
 they had gone away," said the lodge keeper. " It 
 was a foreign name and difficult to remember." 
 
 " An American lady and her son, you say. What 
 did the name sound like, even if you can't recall 
 it exactly? " 
 
 " As I saioV' he answered, " I was not here, and 
 did not come till after they had gone " 
 
 It may have been the obliquity of his eyes which 
 gave me the impression, but I thought that my 
 interest in the name of these foreigners caused 
 him to glance at me a little suspiciously. 
 
 " I am sorry I can't remember," he continued. 
 " Has monsieur any special interest in the mat- 
 ter? " 
 
 If by pretending he was about to repeat the 
 name, he had deliberately planned to trap me into 
 an expression of impatience over his failure to do 
 so, the trap worked. His quick glance caught, I 
 was sure, my shrug of irritation. There was noth- 
 ing for me now but to assume the casual sight-seer 
 again as best I could. 
 
 " Not an interest in the world," said I. " I was 
 merely curious as to your reason for making a 
 
 149
 
 THE MAN WITHOUT A SHADOW 
 
 secret of what I could learn at any neighboring 
 farmhouse." 
 
 I set out briskly up the driveway as I spoke, and 
 he, after what appeared to be a moment of inde- 
 cision, came hurrying on after me. 
 
 " One moment, monsieur," he called; " one mo- 
 ment, and I will be with you." 
 
 He disappeared with that into the lodge. With- 
 out waiting for him, I strolled slowly up the drive. 
 When I heard him come out, I quickened my pace, 
 expecting him to hurry on at once and over- 
 take me. 
 
 He was still two or three yards behind me 
 when I reached a point where a comparatively 
 obscure path left the drive at a sharp angle. The 
 chateau was hidden from view at this point by 
 trees and shrubbery, but without hesitation, and 
 completely without thought, I turned up the nar- 
 row path. 
 
 It was a complete betrayal of my role of casual 
 sight-seer, but I did not realize it at the time. My 
 instinctive self had simply walked me up that path, 
 and when the lodge keeper from the driveway 
 called me back, I stood for a moment bewildered 
 between my two personalities, the old and the new. 
 I even started to ask the question, " Has anything 
 been changed? " so certain was I that my narrow 
 path would lead me right, so clearly had I in mind 
 
 150
 
 THE SPRING 
 
 the picture of the carved stone doorway at the end 
 of it. 
 
 " This way, monsieur, this way," called the 
 lodge keeper insistently. 
 
 What served better than anything else to rouse 
 me was my discovery of the fact that he had a 
 small hand camera with him. 
 
 "What are you doing with that?" I asked 
 sharply. 
 
 " Oh, I make photographs of the grounds to 
 sell to tourists," said the man. " I thought my 
 stroll about the place with you would afford a 
 good opportunity." 
 
 Of course he was lying, and I experienced for 
 a moment a hot-tempered man's impulse to kick 
 his precious camera to pieces. I felt morally cer- 
 tain that he had seized the moment of my hesita- 
 tion there on the path to take a picture of me. The 
 sun had been shining straight in my face at the 
 time, I remembered. 
 
 I conquered the impulse, however, and as best 
 I could held down my rising suspicion of the man. 
 It would be rather absurd for me to go through 
 life suspecting every person I saw of being an 
 agent in a dark conspiracy against myself. If I 
 was not mistaken, that sort of idea was character- 
 istic of a well-known form of insanity. 
 
 The lodge keeper and I walked on up the main 
 11 151
 
 THE MAN WITHOUT A SHADOW 
 
 driveway. Presently we came in sight of the 
 chateau. There, off at a corner to the left, was 
 the doorway to which my path had offered a short 
 cut. I started toward it, but again the lodge 
 keeper stopped me. 
 
 " Pardon, monsieur," said he, " it is not per- 
 mitted to show visitors the house." 
 
 I stared at him. 
 
 " That was not what you said at the gate," I 
 observed. 
 
 " Monsieur misunderstood me," said he. " The 
 grounds are all I am at liberty to show." 
 
 He was speaking in the dogged, defiant man- 
 ner of one who knows the weakness of his posi- 
 tion. 
 
 ' You say the house has been unoccupied a long 
 time? " I asked. 
 
 " Yes, monsieur." 
 
 " Is there a single living person inside it 
 now? " 
 
 The outward appearance of the place was 
 enough to provide an answer. After a moment's 
 hesitation, he decided to tell me the truth. 
 
 " No," he admitted. 
 
 I plunged my hand in my pocket where I had 
 some gold along with my loose change. It was no 
 time for half measures. I drew out a napoleon. 
 
 " For all I can see," said I, " you can still tell 
 152
 
 THE SPRING 
 
 your employer that you have obeyed his rules. I 
 don't know who can contradict you." 
 
 As I had withdrawn my hand from my pocket, 
 a bit of paper had fluttered away on the grass. It 
 blew in his direction, and he picked it up, stealing 
 a good look at it before he returned it to me. It 
 proved to be nothing but the check for my bag 
 in the consigne at the station, so I thought the 
 insolence of his action hardly worth resenting. 
 
 " Come," said I, " am I to see the interior? " 
 
 Cupidity was urging him strongly in one direc- 
 tion, but it was evident that fear was operating 
 even more strongly in another. He made a ges- 
 ture of resignation and finality. 
 
 " Monsieur, it is impossible," he said. " But," 
 he continued, as I was about to put my napoleon 
 back into my pocket, " but there is a summer- 
 house here on the lawn that is occasionally shown 
 to visitors. If monsieur cares to see that, I will 
 take the risk of disobeying my instructions." 
 
 I looked up once more at the chateau. Every 
 carving in the broad arch which formed the door- 
 way was as familiar to me as if I had seen it but 
 yesterday. This old chateau could represent no 
 mere incident in my past life. It must have been 
 the scene of the greater part of it. When I re- 
 flected that the only thing which lay between me 
 and the complete establishment of my identity was 
 
 153
 
 THE MAN WITHOUT A' SHADOW 
 
 this lodge keeper's stubborn refusal to admit me to 
 this house and to tell me the name of its owner, 
 which I was sure must both have been mine, I was 
 very near taking him by the throat and squeezing 
 the words out of him. I doubt if I could have re- 
 sisted that impulse had I not felt sure that a very 
 few minutes or hours, at the most, of patient in- 
 quiry after I had left the place would tell me all 
 that I wanted to know. 
 
 " Well," I assented grudgingly, " show me the 
 summerhouse, then," and I handed him the napo- 
 leon. 
 
 The building in question was of no great archi- 
 tectural pretensions; built all in one story, and 
 comprising but a single room. It was a charming 
 room, however, blazing with sunshine, and nearly 
 surrounded by windows. It was entirely disfurn- 
 ished and bare, but even at that, in the very way 
 the shadows from the leaded windowpanes flung 
 themselves across the stone-flagged floor, I seemed 
 to read a sort of welcome home. 
 
 On the floor toward one end of the room was a 
 tattered square of matting. I walked away from 
 my guide, who had lingered near the door, and, 
 hardly conscious of what I was doing, slipped the 
 matting away with my foot from the spot of the 
 floor which it covered. The action revealed the 
 fact that one of the flagstones had been replaced 
 
 154
 
 THE SPRING 
 
 by an accurately fitting wooden cover with a ring 
 in it. 
 
 I stooped down and tugged at this ring. The 
 cover came up easily, and beneath it I saw what 
 appeared to be a mirror. I knew what it was, 
 though, without dipping my finger into it a tiny 
 spring at the bottom of a cup-shaped cavity in a 
 rock. It was not much below the surface of the 
 floor, and within quite easy reach if one knelt 
 down upon the flagging. 
 
 I also saw, just where I had expected to see it, 
 a battered pewter mug, dangling from a chain. 
 
 The whole of my action had been mechanical 
 and wholly unconscious. The only thing about it 
 that afforded me any surprise was the look of my 
 own face, which I saw mirrored there. That 
 looked a little strange to me. 
 
 I was brought sharply back to the present, how- 
 ever, by an exclamation of surprise on the part of 
 my guide. Apparently he had not known that the 
 spring was there. He stared at me for a moment 
 in utter amazement. Then, without saying a 
 word, he whirled about, ran out of the house, 
 slammed the door after him and locked it. For 
 a moment the thought that he meant to keep me 
 a prisoner here alarmed me somewhat, but that 
 feeling passed away presently. It is easy to lock 
 a man out of a house, but hard to lock him into it, 
 
 155
 
 THE MAN WITHOUT A SHADOW 
 
 unless it has been especially prepared for such a 
 purpose. 
 
 I walked over to a window from which I could 
 command a considerable portion of the driveway. 
 The lodge keeper was still running when I 
 got my first view of him. Then his pace slack- 
 ened, and presently he stopped. He seemed 
 to be trying to decide between two courses of ac- 
 tion. It took him only a moment to make up his 
 mind, however, and the next I saw of him he was 
 walking briskly away down the drive like a man 
 who knows exactly what he is going to do and has 
 no reason to exhaust himself with excessive haste. 
 
 I was strongly tempted to remain there in the 
 summerhouse a while longer. Possibly some- 
 where, even within those four narrow walls, I 
 could find the answer to my secret ; but my prom- 
 ise to the doctor occurred to me. I had told him 
 I would not permit myself to be caught in a trap ; 
 that I would not underestimate either the audac- 
 ity or the cleverness of my enemies. Really, my 
 secret was solved already. I knew I was ready 
 to take my oath that I was the American young 
 gentleman who had lived in this chateau. His 
 identity I could learn anywhere, and quite without 
 risk. So, rather regretfully, I let myself out of 
 one of the windows and made my way down the 
 drive. 
 
 156
 
 THE SPRING 
 
 I had nearly reached the gate, though I was 
 quite hidden from the view of it by a turn in the 
 driveway and a heavy growth of shrubbery and 
 timber, when I heard the sound of voices. The 
 first was old, cracked, and obsequious, and I haz- 
 ard a guess that it belonged to the mother of my 
 friend, the lodge keeper. She seemed to be tugging 
 at the gate and apologizing for her slowness in 
 getting it open. Apparently I was not to be the 
 only visitor at the chateau to-day. 
 
 " It is not permitted for the carriage to enter," 
 she was saying, " but monsieur and mademoiselle 
 are most welcome. My son has gone away, but 
 myself I can show you everything as well as he, 
 though I am old." 
 
 And then came a voice that startled me. I had 
 been on the point of walking out into view around 
 the curve, but at the sound of it I stopped short 
 where I was. It was a man's voice an old voice, 
 too, I thought, and though I did not immediately 
 place it, there was no doubt that it was familiar. 
 He was speaking laboriously in very broken 
 French. 
 
 " We are not sight-seers, madam," he said. 
 " We have come to see Mr. Christopher Morton. 
 Will you take him my card? This is his house, 
 is it not?"
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 WHAT THE BREEZE BROUGHT ME 
 
 HRISTOPHER MORTON ! At the sound 
 of the words my mind began racing madly 
 like the propeller of a steamship when some great 
 wave lifts it out of the water. 
 
 " Morton, Morton," I whispered to myself. 
 What was my association with that name? The 
 next moment I had it. 
 
 Morton-Duggleby ! Christopher Morton, the 
 great shipbuilder! 
 
 The next moment my mind added something to 
 the phrase; I was saying to myself: "The late 
 Christopher Morton! " 
 
 He had been my father and he was dead, and I 
 must be the son who had lived with his mother in 
 France. 
 
 As I recall that incident now, I am aware that 
 it was my new self, not my old, who was fitting 
 together the pieces of this puzzle for me, fitting it 
 together out of that magazine article which my 
 French doctor had been so annoyed to learn that I 
 
 153
 
 WHAT THE BREEZE BROUGHT 
 
 had read. In other words, I was deliberately 
 thinking who I must be, instead of listening for the 
 chime of unconscious recognition from my inner 
 self. 
 
 That may seem a rather fine-spun distinction, but 
 it was an important one to me. Then came a time 
 during the next few hours when I lamented the 
 fact that my mind had offered me no fresh white 
 page for the recording of the impressions of that 
 moment, but one instead that was written all over 
 with a strong prejudice. 
 
 At the moment when I walked out around the 
 curve of the drive and into view of the persons 
 standing at the gate, at that moment I believed my 
 mystery to be fully solved. 
 
 The next moment my ingeniously constructed 
 edifice of inference and deduction came tumbling 
 about my ears. The two new visitors to the cha- 
 teau, who had come, not to see it but to interview 
 its owner, Christopher Morton, these two visitors 
 were Virginia Heatherfield and her father. 
 
 At first they did not see me. They were listen- 
 ing, evidently with the keenest disappointment, to 
 the old woman's voluble denials that Christopher 
 Morton lived here. He had not been here since 
 his mother's death, a year two years ago; the 
 chateau was closed vacant. If they did not be- 
 lieve her, they could go and see for themselves. 
 
 159
 
 THE MAN WITHOUT A SHADOW 
 
 I doubt if they understood her words, but the 
 purport of her speech was plain enough. As they 
 listened to it, the look of disappointment in their 
 faces was plain to see. Presently, perceiving this 
 look in her father's face, seeing how pale he was 
 and how his hands were trembling, Virginia forced 
 a smile to her lips. 
 
 " It is only what we might have expected, fa- 
 ther," she said, " and it is really our first attempt. 
 We shall find him yet." 
 
 Then, with faltering, stammering words, she 
 tried to ask the old woman if she could not afford 
 them some sort of clew, however indirect, to Mr. 
 Morton's whereabouts. 
 
 Meanwhile, there stood I, not a dozen paces 
 away, I who had felt absolutely certain a moment 
 before that I was Christopher Morton himself ! 
 
 At the sight of them, of course, my confidence 
 that I had solved the secret of my identity received 
 a staggering blow. They had seen me on ship- 
 board and had identified me, either rightly or 
 wrongly, with a man who must have played an im- 
 portant part In their lives, a man they must have 
 known well. Whether they were right or wrong, 
 their presence here at the chateau, their errand, 
 and their obvious disappointment in its failure 
 made it pretty clear that the man they had 
 identified me with was not Christopher Morton. 
 
 1 60
 
 WHAT THE BREEZE BROUGHT 
 
 Whoever I might be, it was evident that I was 
 not the very man they had come across the sea to 
 find. 
 
 I do not pretend that in the moment while I 
 stood there, unremarked either by the old French 
 woman or by the Heatherfields, I was capable of 
 any such close reasoning as that. All I was con- 
 scious of was a vague disquiet in place of the elated 
 certainty of the moment before. 
 
 The next moment the sound of my approaching 
 steps caught the girl's ear. She turned and looked 
 at me. Astonishment at first was all there was in, 
 her face, almost the look of one who sees a ghost, 
 but that expression was quickly succeeded by one 
 of incredulous dread, dread mingled with hot, 
 scornful anger. Her eyes blazed as she looked at 
 me. 
 
 "You!" she said. 
 
 The word was hardly voiced at all ; hardly more 
 than a whisper, but its thrilling intensity made it 
 cut like a whiplash. 
 
 "You!" she repeated, "here!" 
 
 Before I could have said a word, even if I had 
 had a word to say, her attention was sharply di- 
 verted from me back to her father. He, I am sure, 
 had not seen me at all, but the heat of the day, 
 combined with his disappointment over the utter 
 fruitlessness of his visit to the chateau, was too 
 
 161
 
 THE MAN WITHOUT A SHADOW 
 
 much for him. He had been reeling when she 
 spoke to me, and now, in spite of the clasp of the 
 strong arms which she flung about him, he sank 
 down to the ground, in the roadway at her feet, 
 in a dead faint. 
 
 She was down beside him in an instant, pillow- 
 ing his head on her arm, while with her free hand 
 she tried to loosen the knot of his cravat and unbut- 
 ton his collar. 
 
 " Bring some water quickly," she commanded 
 the old woman. 
 
 Her manner was calm, collected enough, but 
 what few words of French she may have possessed 
 failed her in the emergency, and she spoke in Eng- 
 lish. 
 
 The old woman was quite beside herself with 
 excitement. 
 
 " Fetch some cold water quickly," I commanded 
 in a language she understood; and I called after 
 her as she disappeared into the house, " and bring 
 some cognac, too." 
 
 Then I stripped off my coat. " Lay his head 
 back on this," I told Virginia as I placed it beside 
 her. " He should lie flat." 
 
 She obeyed me mechanically, but when a mo- 
 ment later I offered to help her with the stiff but- 
 tonholes of the old gentleman's collar, she spoke 
 so fiercely that I started back. 
 
 .162
 
 WHAT THE BREEZE BROUGHT 
 
 " Don't touch him," she said. " Not with those 
 hands of yours ! " 
 
 I turned away rather giddily, reeling a little as 
 one might who had received a knife thrust. What- 
 ever there had been in her eyes when I had last 
 confronted her on shipboard, of doubt, of wonder, 
 of a half-dared hope, that was all gone now. My 
 presence here in the grounds of Christopher Mor- 
 ton's chateau seemed to settle in her mind all doubt 
 as to my identity and all question as to my guilt. 
 
 I turned away, as I say, and in spite of my effort 
 to steady myself, to check the whirl of my thoughts, 
 they propounded a question to me which shook me 
 to the very bottom of my soul. " What if the girl 
 is right; what if this lost man for whom you are 
 seeking is, indeed, the knave, the coward, the 
 traitor that her father declared him?" "Not 
 with those hands of yours ! " 
 
 For the sake of doing something I went to the 
 lodge door to urge additional haste from the old 
 woman. She came almost at once, and within a 
 minute or two the restoratives she brought proved 
 efficacious. The old gentleman opened his eyes, 
 and the next moment, with his daughter's assist- 
 ance, rose slowly to his feet. With dignified cour- 
 tesy, though his expression of it was somewhat 
 stammering, he declined the old woman's invita- 
 tion to go into the house and rest. 
 
 163
 
 THE MAN WITHOUT A SHADOW 
 
 ** It was a mere momentary weakness," he 
 said. " I should not have remained standing so 
 long in the sun. The little drive, such as I 
 have before me, will restore me completely. I 
 thank you," he concluded, with a stately bow, 
 " both for your assistance and for your hospi- 
 tality." 
 
 Then, as he turned away from her, his eyes 
 rested upon me where I stood, coatless and high- 
 ly uncomfortable in the background. I fully 
 expected, and dreaded equally, to see the same 
 amazed expression in his face which had appeared 
 in Virginia's, but to my great surprise and relief 
 he appeared not to recognize me. 
 
 He noted that I was without my coat, however, 
 and a glance at it lying in the driveway showed him 
 the use to which it had been put. 
 
 " And I thank you, sir, also," he continued. 
 
 Relying on his failure to recognize me, I stepped 
 forward and offered him my assistance into his car- 
 riage. It was the only decent thing I could have 
 done, though I rather dreaded its possible effect on 
 Virginia. But when I had got him safely seated 
 and had turned away, with a bow which matched 
 his own, it was only to find her confronting me, 
 my dusty coat in her hands. 
 
 The look in her eyes, the look of tragic despair 
 which underlay her anxiety over this most recent 
 
 164
 
 WHAT THE BREEZE BROUGHT 
 
 episode, went straight to my heart. I felt I could 
 not let her go like that. 
 
 " Miss Heatherfield," said I, " may I have just 
 a word, just a moment? It is for your sake and 
 for his that I ask it. I would not thrust my own 
 needs upon you at a moment like this." 
 
 The mere sound of my voice seemed to agitate 
 her almost uncontrollably, but mastering herself 
 with obvious effort, she nodded assent, and drew a 
 pace or two away from the carriage. Making a 
 pretense at brushing some of the dust from my 
 coat, before she handed it back to me, served as 
 the opportunity for what I wanted to say. 
 
 " For some reason," said I " and I give you 
 my word I can form no guess what it is for some 
 reason my presence here convinces you that I am in- 
 deed the man your father thought I was on ship- 
 board. Who that man can be I do not know, 
 and I have no dearer wish than to find out." 
 
 Her eyes widened with clear astonishment. 
 
 " If you do not know, then you are not the man, 
 monsieur. But if you are not the man, then then 
 why did you come here ? How did you know that 
 we were coming here? " 
 
 " That I did not know. I am still only halfway 
 out of the daze of astonishment which the sight 
 of you and your father here in the driveway caused 
 me." I paused there a moment, then went on: 
 
 165
 
 THE MAN WITHOUT A SHADOW 
 
 "As to the reason why I came, that is a part of a 
 story which I want to tell you some day. I have a 
 belief that you, of all people in the world, may be 
 able to help me." 
 
 She pressed her hands to her face with a gesture 
 of agonized bewilderment. " I can't understand. 
 My whole world seems seems to be whirling 
 around." 
 
 " I know," I answered. " I understand your 
 sensation, perhaps, as well at this moment as any- 
 one who ever lived. For these many weeks I have 
 been trying to hold fast to courage and keep going 
 forward in the dark. I have seen many a false 
 dawn, and I am still waiting for the day to break. 
 Yet I believe that it will break at last my day 
 and and yours, too." 
 
 My words, and I think still more the mere sound 
 of my voice, kindled in her eyes that same wild, 
 incredible surmise which I had seen there once be- 
 fore. She was looking at me with an intensity 
 which threatened to annihilate the iron control I 
 had put upon myself. I could not tell my story 
 now, as we stood here in the road, with an impa- 
 tient horse and a still more impatient cabman wait- 
 ing to take her and her father away from me. No, 
 my story must wait. But her eyes were still on 
 mine, and their gaze seemed to search the very 
 bottom of my soul. 
 
 166
 
 WHAT THE BREEZE BROUGHT 
 
 " Who are you?'" she asked, her voice trembling 
 with uncontrollable excitement. " You must tell 
 me who you are I " 
 
 " Oh " I answered, with what was almost a 
 sob, " that I do not know ! " Then, with a deep- 
 drawn breath I mastered myself again. 
 
 " Whoever I may be," said I, " as I stand here 
 before you, I have no thought but to be of service 
 to you. My needs and my questions can wait. 
 But your father is weak, and I fear he is ill. He 
 needs, for the next few hours at least, a better pro- 
 tection than you alone can afford him. I want you 
 to take me into your service. Are you planning to 
 go back to Paris to-night? " 
 
 " Yes," she said, " I suppose that is all we can 
 do now." 
 
 " Then let me go with you," I pleaded. " I 
 may be of more service than you think. Can't you 
 simply trust me," I continued, " and let the ex- 
 planation wait? Heart and soul I offer you my 
 service. Can't you accept it? " 
 
 There came a rush of tears into her eyes, and 
 she held out her hand. 
 
 " Whoever you may be," she said, " yes, I ac- 
 cept it." Then, " Will it be safe for us to try 
 it? " she questioned. And the linking of our two 
 identities in one pronoun brought my heart into 
 my throat. " Won't my father recognize you? " 
 12 167
 
 THE MAN WITHOUT A SHADOW 
 
 " He has not so far," said I. " I don't think he 
 will. At any rate, I can't let you go off alone." 
 
 " Come then," she said, and took her seat in the 
 carriage beside him. 
 
 I climbed on the box with the driver. Her 
 father manifested no alarm whatever over this 
 proceeding. He seemed to take the fact of my 
 having joined the party as a matter of course. 
 
 As for me, I was glad that my isolated seat 
 gave me the opportunity for a little calm reflec- 
 tion, or as good an imitation of it as the excitement 
 and suspense of my situation would permit. 
 
 I stole an inquiring glance now and then at Vir- 
 ginia to learn how the ride was affecting her 
 father. Three or four times I did this and re- 
 ceived from her each time a reassuring signal that 
 all was well with him. 
 
 I had begun to doubt a little the real necessity 
 of my presence in the party, when she leaned for- 
 ward and spoke so low that the sound barely 
 reached my ear. 
 
 I motioned to the cabman to stop his horse, dis- 
 mounted, and came around beside her. We were 
 then within only a short distance of the post and 
 telegraph office at St. Symphorien. Her father 
 seemed to have fallen into a sort of a doze, from 
 which the stopping of the vehicle did not rouse 
 him. 
 
 168
 
 WHAT THE BREEZE BROUGHT 
 
 " It is not the least like him to fall asleep like 
 that in the middle of the afternoon," she said. 
 " Do you think he is seriously ill or going to be? " 
 
 " I am not a physician," said I, " and I don't 
 know. It may be just the natural reaction from 
 the stimulants we gave him to revive him after his 
 faint." 
 
 She seemed only half reassured, and I myself 
 was in some perplexity as to what we ought to do. 
 The sight of the telegraph office suggested some- 
 thing to me. 
 
 " As I said, I am not a physician," I continued, 
 when this thought struck me, " but one of the 
 greatest physicians in France is my friend and 
 benefactor. If I telegraph to him he will come 
 at once. There must be a hotel in Tours where 
 we can stay comfortably until he arrives. Of 
 course, if your father should need medical assist- 
 ance in the mean time we can get it, but I should 
 prefer losing no time dispatching that telegram. 
 The office is right here," I continued, nodding to- 
 ward the little building; " if you will excuse me a 
 moment, I will go in there and send off the wire." 
 
 She nodded assent. 
 
 " I am very glad you have come with us," she 
 said. 
 
 The entrance to the post-office was around at 
 the other side of the building. Taking the short- 
 
 169
 
 THE MAN WITHOUT A SHADOW 
 
 cst line to it, I skirted the side wall closely. As I 
 passed under the open window, I heard an excla- 
 mation from within that made me shrink up close 
 to the wall and stand dead still. The voice that 
 uttered that exclamation was the voice of the 
 lodge keeper. Evidently he had run away and 
 left me for the purpose of sending a telegram and, 
 having had to go afoot, had reached his destina- 
 tion only a few minutes ahead of us. 
 
 The cause of his exclamation was revealed al- 
 most simultaneously with the sound of it. A piece 
 of white paper, propelled by the lusty summer 
 breeze, came blowing out of the window. In a 
 flash I recovered it and shrank back close against 
 the wall. I heard footsteps approaching the win- 
 dow, and imagined that he was looking out to see 
 where his telegram had gone. Finding no trace 
 of it, he returned to the writing desk, presumably 
 to compose another. 
 
 Meanwhile, I, my nerves tingling with excite- 
 ment, was reading the message he was about to 
 send.
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 THE PARIS HERALD 
 
 II est venu aujourd'hui. C'est lui, j'en suis sur. J'en 
 ai fait un cliche sans sa connaissance. Sa valise est 
 au consigne a Tours. Je vais le suivre. Aussi j'ai ren- 
 contre en chemin une Americaine avec un vieillard, son 
 pere. Ces sont, peut-etre, les autres. 
 
 PIERRE BOTTIN. 
 
 THIS is what I read after I had shrunk back 
 against the wall and smoothed out the 
 crumpled paper which the breeze and a stroke of 
 good fortune had brought me. 
 
 For just a moment after I had finished, I stood 
 where I was, thinking as fast as I have ever 
 thought in my life. The message was badly writ- 
 ten, with many blots and erasures, and it would 
 evidently take the author of it some little time to 
 compose another. 
 
 I slipped around the corner of the building, and 
 assured myself that neither the carriage nor my 
 path to it was commanded by any window. 
 
 At the sight of me, Virginia's eyes widened, and 
 171
 
 THE MAN WITHOUT A SHADOW 
 
 I knew that some hint of the strange tale I had to 
 tell must be written in my face. 
 
 "What has happened?" she asked, a little 
 breathlessly, as I came up beside her. 
 
 " Let me ask you three questions first," said I, 
 " and then I will tell you. On your way out to 
 the chateau, to Mr. Morton's chateau, did you 
 meet a man in the road walking as if he were in a 
 hurry? " 
 
 "A rather evil-looking young man? A man 
 with queer eyes? " she asked, and I nodded. 
 
 " Yes," she said, " and he stared hard at us. 
 He turned around to look after we had passed 
 him." 
 
 " Another question. Did you come from Paris 
 this morning, and if you did, where did you leave 
 your luggage? " 
 
 " At the railway station," she said. 
 
 " Now my last question," said I, " and that's 
 the important one. Unless you trust me fully you 
 must not answer it." 
 
 " I trust you," she said quickly. " I told you 
 that." 
 
 " Well, then,' 1 said I, speaking as fast as I 
 could, "have you any enemies? Is there anyone 
 who might anticipate this attempt of yours to see 
 Christopher Morton; who might, perhaps, wish 
 to prevent your meeting him? " 
 
 172
 
 THE PARIS HERALD 
 
 She did not pale at my question, as I half ex- 
 pected she would. Instead, the color ran high in 
 her cheeks. 
 
 " Yes," she said, " there is." 
 
 Without another word, I held my telegram be- 
 fore her eyes, and, at the risk of doing something 
 superfluous, translated : 
 
 He came to-day. It is he, I am sure of it. I made a 
 photograph of him without his knowing it. His valise is 
 in the cloakroom at Tours. I am going to follow him. 
 Also I met on the road an American girl with an old man, 
 her father. Perhaps they are the others. 
 
 " Now," said I, " I am the person to whom the 
 first part of the message refers. The man who 
 wrote it is in that building there composing an- 
 other to take its place. This blew out of the win- 
 dow and I caught it. He will go to the Tours 
 station and wait for me there. He means to fol- 
 low me, but if he sees you, he will undoubtedly 
 have you followed also." 
 
 She frowned in some perplexity, and glanced 
 from me to her father. 
 
 " I don't know what we are going to do, mon- 
 sieur," she said. " Do you? " 
 
 " You leave it in my hands? " I asked eagerly. 
 
 For an instant a troubled look of doubt clouded 
 her eyes, but if the doubt were there, she con- 
 
 173
 
 THE MAN WITHOUT A SHADOW 
 
 quered it resolutely. She indicated her father with 
 a grave inclination of the head. 
 
 " I put him in your hands, monsieur," she said. 
 " I will do whatever you say." 
 
 I turned to the driver. 
 
 " Wheel around," I commanded, " and drive us 
 to Mettray." 
 
 He growled a little at that a city cabman 
 never relishes excursions into the country and 
 said something about the color of my money. 
 
 " You shall be paid," said I, " paid so well that 
 you will forget you have ever been to Mettray." 
 
 That little hint of mystery went straight to his 
 heart. He grinned in perfect comprehension. 
 
 " Allans, monsieur," said he. 
 
 I was no longer seated on the box, but on the 
 cramped little extra seat, facing the one occupied 
 by Virginia and her father. His condition did 
 not seem to be growing any more serious, and, in- 
 deed, several times during the course of our drive 
 he roused himself sufficiently to take part in our 
 conversation; but even during those moments of 
 comparative brightness he did not seem disturbed 
 or even puzzled by my presence in the carriage. 
 
 As Virginia's alarm about his condition less- 
 ened, I noticed her casting an occasional anxious 
 glance down the road behind us. 
 
 " There is nothing to be apprehended from that 
 174
 
 THE PARIS HERALD 
 
 quarter," said I. " We were safe from our wall- 
 eyed friend, the lodge keeper, the moment we got 
 around the first bend of the road. He has reflected 
 that I would certainly go to the Tours station to 
 recover my hand bag, and has hurried down there 
 as fast as his legs will carry him, to wait for me. 
 It will be hours before he even suspects that he 
 has gone off on a false scent, and when he does, 
 he will never think of Mettray. There is proba- 
 bly a very decent little inn there where we can 
 make your father quite comfortable, and as soon 
 as that is attended to, I will telegraph my doctor 
 to come down from Paris in his automobile." 
 
 She glanced at her father, who was dozing be- 
 side her. 
 
 "Do you think that will be necessary?" she 
 asked anxiously. 
 
 " For his medical services, very likely not," 
 said I, " but if you are really the ' others ' of 
 whom Monsieur Pierre Bottin speaks in his tele- 
 gram, why, that same doctor is likely to prove of 
 more service to you than any other man in the 
 world." 
 
 " Do you think he will relish having so heavy 
 a demand made upon him? " 
 
 " He will be coming for me quite as much as 
 for you," said I, " for I feel the need of his wis- 
 dom and his intelligence as much as I ever felt it 
 
 175
 
 THE MAN WITHOUT A SHADOW 
 
 before, which is saying more than you can possibly 
 realize." 
 
 Her father roused from his doze just then, and 
 put an end to our conversation, and from that mo- 
 ment until we got into Mettray we talked about 
 the gold-green valleys, the lines of slender poplars, 
 their tops, golden in the light of the declining sun, 
 the streams and pools and the great black-belted 
 cattle, the lovely landscape of the Touraine that 
 passed before our eyes as we drove on. 
 
 Before I dismissed our driver at the door of the 
 little inn, I paid him with a liberality which I 
 thought would insure his silence regarding us, in 
 the unlikely case that he was questioned, and which 
 also wakened the warm interest of the concierge 
 who had come out from his cubby-hole to assist 
 us to alight. It counteracted fully, in his mind, 
 the drawback of our having arrived without 
 luggage. 
 
 I promptly called for the proprietor of the es- 
 tablishment, and when he appeared, demanded the 
 best rooms he had, explaining that the elderly 
 monsieur was too weak and ill to be taken back to 
 Tours to-night. 
 
 Whatever discrepancies the story may have pre- 
 sented in his mind, the authority of my manner 
 and the twenty-franc piece I gave him were suffi- 
 cient to blind him to them. 
 
 176
 
 THE PARIS HERALD 
 
 He set about getting things ready with tremen- 
 dous good will, shouting directions to servants all 
 over the inn, and presently he assured us that our 
 rooms were ready for us. 
 
 As for dinner, we could either partake of the 
 excellent repast which was already in preparation 
 for the other guests at the inn, or, if we desired, 
 he would prepare us, with his own hands, a quite 
 particular meal which should be served to us pri- 
 vately. All that he needed was a little time for 
 preparation. I clinched my position in his good 
 graces by electing the latter alternative. 
 
 It required the combined efforts of the landlord 
 and myself to get Mr. Heatherfield up the steep 
 stairs to his chamber, for he was almost a dead 
 weight, and no inconsiderable one at that. Once 
 there, however, and fortified by a little cognac 
 and milk, he rallied somewhat, and we were able 
 to leave him to Virginia's ministrations. 
 
 The moment I was relieved I went to the tele- 
 graph office and sent off my message to the doctor. 
 I asked him to come at once and suggested that 
 he travel in his automobile. 
 
 " They have left you and come to me," I said, 
 feeling sure he would understand this as a refer- 
 ence to Virginia and her father, " and all three of 
 us have been obliged to come here to escape the 
 delegated attentions of the young man whom we 
 
 177
 
 THE MAN WITHOUT A SHADOW 
 
 last saw on the White Star Pier. So the sooner 
 the better, if you don't mind taking to the road 
 to-night." 
 
 That done, I visited two or three shops and pur- 
 chased such toilet articles as would enable us all 
 to pass the night in comparative comfort without 
 our luggage. Then, followed by a small boy with 
 his arms full of my purchases, I returned to the 
 hotel. 
 
 The landlord met me with the intelligence that 
 the young American lady wished me to come up 
 to her father's room as soon as I had returned. 
 
 I hurried thither in some alarm, but Virginia's 
 face reassured me. 
 
 " He is asleep," she said quickly, " and he seems 
 to be perfectly comfortable. When he wakens, I 
 shall have some good news for him." 
 
 " Good news? " I repeated somewhat surprised. 
 "What news can have reached you here?" 
 
 " It was by a strange chance," she said. " That 
 newspaper was lying on the center table. The 
 maid who had cleared up the room was starting 
 to carry it away with her, when I noticed that it 
 was printed in English, and told her to leave it. 
 I thought it would keep me company while I was 
 waiting for you to come back." 
 
 I took it up and examined it. It was the Paris 
 New York Herald, with yesterday's date line. 
 
 178
 
 "I read it. ... My house of cards was demolished indeed."
 
 THE PARIS ^HERALD 
 
 She pointed out a single paragraph in one of its 
 interminable chronicles of the movements of so- 
 ciety. 
 
 "You may read it," she said; "but, oh, you 
 cannot imagine what it will mean to us if it is 
 true!" 
 
 I read it, and then for a moment I turned my 
 face away from her. My house of cards was de- 
 molished, indeed. It read: 
 
 Mr. Christopher Morton, who has been living in re- 
 tirement since the death of his mother, nearly three years 
 ago, has revisited Paris, and is stopping at the Ritz Ho- 
 tel. Mr. Morton inherits, under the terms of his father's 
 will, the immense estate of the late Christopher Morton 
 of New York.
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 THE SPY 
 
 OF course the words that paragraph contained 
 completed the wreck of the theory which 
 I had held so strongly for just one moment this 
 afternoon that I was Christopher Morton. But 
 the presence, here alone with me, standing close 
 beside me, of the woman of my dreams, her readi- 
 ness to help me and to accept my help was too 
 poignant to allow me to waste any regret over the 
 mere theory. 
 
 I found her looking at me when I laid down the 
 paper. Her eyes followed the hand that held it 
 as it moved toward the table, and then, returning, 
 clasped the other hand. 
 
 She caught her breath then, as if even in that 
 trivial gesture she had read a significance. " The 
 same hands," I heard her whisper. "The same " 
 and then she checked herself. 
 
 " You said back there at La Mesle," she went 
 on, " when we were standing by the roadside, that 
 you wanted me to hear your story; that you 
 
 1 80
 
 THE SPY 
 
 thought I could help you I, of all people in the 
 world. And now now we're alone, and I'm 
 waiting to hear it. You said you did not know 
 who you were." 
 
 I shook my* head; my throat was dry and my 
 lips were trembling. 
 
 V You mean," she asked unsteadily, " that the 
 memory is gone the memory of all the past? " 
 
 I made a sign of assent. I was capable of no 
 other answer. 
 
 " And yet," she said, " you told me that I I, 
 of all people in the world, might help you. 
 And that day on shipboard you spoke, to my 
 father, you told him that you had a most earnest 
 wish How could you have that wish if you 
 had forgotten ? " 
 
 I think I might have made a beginning at an 
 answer but for that last reference of hers, for un- 
 derlying the doubt and fear which spoke in her 
 unsteady voice and cried out from her eyes, there 
 was hope, and, though I dared not call it that, 
 a great love. But her reference to her father and 
 to my short and altogether disastrous interview 
 with him that day on deck, recalled the paralyzing 
 dread which had first assailed me on that occasion, 
 and which I had struggled with only this after- 
 noon; the dread lest the lost man I sought might 
 prove to be, in truth, the knave and the traitor her 
 
 181
 
 THE MAN WITHOUT A SHADOW 
 
 father believed him to be. It was not plain cow- 
 ardice, no fear of present consequences to myself, 
 but a fear that shook the very foundations of my 
 being, that threatened my actual possession of 
 an identity and hinted a denial of my right to the 
 use of a first-person pronoun. There was nothing 
 but stark madness at the end of that train of 
 thought. 
 
 " I thought I could tell you my story," said 
 I at the end of a little silence, " but I find I 
 can't. It must be told to you in a more detached 
 way than I could possibly tell it. It must be 
 told you by some one whose disinterestedness, 
 yes, and whose perfect sanity you cannot possibly 
 doubt." 
 
 Her eyes widened at that, and I saw the look 
 come into them that I dreaded to see. 
 
 " I'm not mad," I went on; " at least the great 
 doctor who is helping me through this tangle of 
 mysteries says that I am not. He is on the way 
 here now. When he comes, he can tell you my 
 story." 
 
 " I wish he were here," she said. 
 
 " He'll not be long," I assured her. " He's 
 coming now as fast as an automobile can travel. 
 And, in the mean time, can't we shut out the past 
 altogether? Can't we pretend, for this hour or 
 two, that the man you knew is dead and that I am 
 
 182
 
 THE SPY 
 
 some other man ? Even at that, our present fates 
 are woven together. We have the same enemies 
 and we have the same friends. Whatever I may 
 have been, the man I am now has only lived a 
 month. I know him and I can vouch for him. 
 Pie wants to serve you. He wants your friend- 
 ship. And that, he understands quite well, is all 
 he has the right to ask. You can trust him." 
 
 " I have already trusted him," she answered, 
 " and given him my friendship. And I accept 
 his terms." 
 
 I ordered our dinner served in the room adjoin- 
 ing the one where her father lay asleep. The 
 door was left open so that we could hear if he so 
 much as stirred, and, to avoid disturbing him, we 
 talked almost in whispers and took elaborate pre- 
 cautions against making any noise. 
 
 The circumstances made it curiously easy to 
 carry out our compact. Sitting down thus with 
 her at dinner, we two alone, made natural and 
 accountable the haunting, poignant feeling of in- 
 timate familiarity I had, a feeling which without 
 such excuse would have been acutely distressing. 
 As it was, the homelike coziness relaxed the ten- 
 sion on nerves and emotions. We chatted together 
 like children. 
 
 The meal itself, a work of art quite peculiar to 
 the Touraine, was all that the landlord had prom- 
 13 183
 
 THE MAN WITHOUT A SHADOW 
 
 ised it would be, and it provided her with a fresh 
 surprise for every course. 
 
 " I am not always such a child as this over the 
 things that are given me to eat," she said at last. 
 " I suppose it is the whispering that makes me feel 
 like a little girl in school again." 
 
 " Be glad of the chance," said I. " Both of us, 
 I imagine, have earned a good many compensa- 
 tions along this line. So far as I can remember, I 
 have never been so happy before, so thoroughly, 
 boyishly happy." 
 
 " * Never ' is a pretty big word," she objected. 
 
 I did not remind her that " never " in my case 
 covered a period of a little less than a month, but 
 the look I caught in her eyes told me that she had 
 thought of it. 
 
 " Would you mind telling me a little of your 
 own story," I asked, " while we're waiting for the 
 French doctor to come? Tell me why you may 
 be ' the others ' in that message I intercepted, and 
 in which I am the one. I don't mean to ask for 
 more than you want to tell me, for more than you 
 feel like telling a man whom you know so little." 
 
 She colored. " I don't think I deserve that im- 
 plication," she said. " I showed this afternoon 
 how completely I trusted you. I put myself and, 
 what means a good deal more to me, my father, 
 entirely into your hands without waiting for any 
 
 184
 
 explanation at all. I knew you were telling me 
 the truth when you said you wished to be of serv- 
 ice to us, and I don't question that knowledge now. 
 As for my story, or, rather, my father's, for it is 
 not mine, if you wish, you may hear the whole 
 of it." 
 
 " Tell it, please," said I. 
 
 " Father " she began. She had not been look- 
 ing at me for the past moment or two. Now as 
 she spoke, she glanced up into my eyes and her 
 sentence broke off short. " It it seems so strange 
 to begin telling this to you," she said. " You 
 don't know none of the story at all? " 
 
 " Not one word. I got your father's name out 
 of the passenger list. I knew yours. I dreamed 
 it." 
 
 She looked away with an effort, drew a long 
 breath to steady herself, then began again: 
 
 " Father is an inventor; not the sort of an in- 
 ventor who lives in a garret and thinks that he 
 is about to discover perpetual motion. He is a 
 real inventor, a man who discovers things. The 
 things he discovers are really valuable, and men 
 pay a lot of money for the right to use them. Ten 
 years ago we were what anyone but a millionaire 
 would call rich. 
 
 " It was about that time that he found himself 
 on the track of the greatest discovery of all, some- 
 
 185
 
 THE iMAN WITHOUT A SHADOW 
 
 thing about the chemistry of steel. He had found 
 a way to make it a good deal stronger, a great 
 deal tougher. Of course that meant that you 
 would not have to use near so much of it to get 
 the same results. You could make armor for 
 battleships out of quite thin plates of it." 
 
 I am afraid I must confess that only about half 
 my mind was on her words. Not because I was 
 not interested; there was no estimating what the 
 story she had begun to tell might mean to me. But 
 the mere presence of her there, the wonder of her, 
 the magic of the mere sound of the words she used 
 cast a sort of spell over me. 
 
 She was leaning forward, her elbows on the 
 table, her clasped hands lying upon it, within 
 reach, such tantalizingly easy reach, of my own. 
 I thrust back my chair and, walking over to the 
 window, stood staring at my own reflection in the 
 black pane. For the feeling had suddenly swept 
 over me that those hands of hers were groping, 
 unconsciously, for mine. 
 
 " Oh, I wish he could tell it to you," she said, 
 with a little gesture of impatience. " I can't make 
 it sound interesting. I am too ignorant to talk 
 about it." 
 
 " That was not why I walked away," said I. 
 " Go on. You may be sure that I am listening." 
 
 " Well," she said, " he found the thing he was 
 186
 
 THE SPY 
 
 looking for, found that it would do all he had 
 hoped from it, and even more. It would revolu- 
 tionize, he used to say, the whole science of engi- 
 neering. But it applied most particularly, he 
 thought, and other people agreed with him, to 
 the building of ships. Of course a revolutionary 
 discovery like that wants a lot of proving out, so 
 he went to Cleveport, where the great shipyards 
 are, and built a special laboratory. He had known 
 Mr. Morton the old Mr. Morton, that is for 
 a great many years, so it was to the Morton-Dug- 
 gleby Company he went with the news of his dis- 
 covery. But Mr. Morton had retired from his 
 active connection with the business then, and the 
 men father talked to about it were Mr. Duggleby 
 and his son. They were greatly interested, of 
 course, for father's word in a matter of that sort 
 carried a great deal of weight. Still, they pro- 
 fessed themselves to be very cautious, wanting new 
 tests, and tests on a larger scale all the time. And 
 at last father got to thinking they were not acting 
 in perfectly good faith." 
 
 I laughed shortly, and Virginia cast a quick, 
 puzzled glance at me. 
 
 " You do know them? " 
 
 " To my cost," said I, " but my acquaintance is 
 confined to the past month. Go on; I don't mean 
 to interrupt you." 
 
 187
 
 THE MAN WITHOUT, A SHADOW 
 
 " I suppose it is partly my fault," said she, 
 " that father didn't come to that conclusion sooner. 
 He is a very unsuspicious man, almost childlike 
 in such ways, and it is always hard for him to 
 believe that other people are not as candid as he. 
 That is where I failed him. I knew very little 
 about what he was doing. He seemed such a great 
 man, and such a successful one, that it never oc- 
 curred to me that he could need me. And then 
 well, I was pretty well taken up with other things. 
 I thought I was being very philanthropic and 
 charitable, and all that, working among the poor 
 people at Cleveport, teaching in night schools, and 
 so on " 
 
 I did not hear how she finished the sentence. 
 The words " night schools " had fascinated me. 
 It brought a picture flashing into my mind of a 
 shabby room a disused store it must have been, 
 judging by the show window which I remembered 
 at the front of it. I felt pretty sure, somehow, 
 that I had taught there, too. I resolutely banished 
 the picture from my mind, however, and concen- 
 trated on what she was saying. 
 
 " So, though I had met both the Dugglebys 
 and distrusted them exceedingly, yet I never 
 warned my father to be on his guard. They al- 
 ready knew all the preliminary processes of his dis- 
 covery, and all that he had held back from them 
 
 188
 
 THE SPY 
 
 was the one substance a reagent I think is the 
 word for it that was essential to make it com- 
 plete. It was not until he had gone so far that 
 he became convinced that they did not mean to 
 pay him for his discovery if they could help it. 
 They meant to steal his secret if they could. 
 
 " By that time, though I didn't know it until 
 the crash came, we were almost as poor as the 
 kind of inventor I told you my father was not. 
 The tests on which the Dugglebys had insisted 
 had been immensely expensive, and father had put 
 about everything he had into them. Of course he 
 could have turned to something else, but the end 
 always seemed so near and the whole matter was 
 so immensely important that he never thought of 
 anything else." 
 
 " You say they tried to steal his secret," said I, 
 and now my own voice was trembling with excite- 
 ment. " I should think that would have been a 
 pretty difficult thing to do. How did they set 
 about it? " 
 
 At my question, she turned in her chair and sat 
 looking at me wirfi a strange intensity. 
 
 " There was a man," she said, " a young man 
 who had been working with me among the poor 
 people in Cleveport a young man whom my 
 father trusted implicitly and admired very highly. 
 He did not tell him his secret, merely because he 
 
 189
 
 THE MAN WITHOUT A SHADOW 
 
 told it to no one, not even to me. But if he had 
 told it at all, he would have confided it to that man 
 with as little hesitation as he would have felt in 
 confiding it to me. 
 
 " One night my father's laboratory was looted. 
 His safe was broken and everything in the place 
 systematically searched. An attempt was made to 
 give the work the appearance of an ordinary bur- 
 glary, but it was such an attempt as could not de- 
 ceive a child, could not even deceive as unsuspi- 
 cious a man as my father; and the very next day, 
 the man I told you about, the man who had been 
 almost like a like a a son to him, disappeared. 
 
 ' We have never heard from him since. My 
 father believed, and still believes, that that man 
 was the hired spy of the Dugglebys; that he came 
 to our home with no other purpose than to steal 
 his secret from him." 
 
 I knew what the answer must be to the question 
 that was on my lips, but I could not hold back 
 from asking it. 
 
 " Is that the man," I asked, " the man your 
 'father called a coward and a knave, the man whom 
 you thought dead, is that the man of whom my 
 voice and face remind you? If I have lived in 
 your life at all, is that the place I have in it? " 
 
 It was only with a painful effort that she an- 
 swered me. 
 
 190
 
 THE SPY 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 I did not speak. There was nothing I could trust 
 myself to say. But I looked up and I saw in her 
 face a look of pain, yes, and of terror, the pain 
 and terror that were in my own soul. 
 
 " Can't you tell me? " she asked a little wildly. 
 ' You know something about yourself. It's too 
 unbearable to try to wait." 
 
 The sight of her suffering brought back my own 
 self-command. 
 
 " No," I said quietly, " my story is too incredi- 
 ble. I have moments I have been going through 
 one now of doubting myself. But the man who 
 is on his way to us, and he will soon be here, will 
 have no doubts. He will tell the truth, and he will 
 tell everything I know." 
 
 She drew a long, tremulous breath in mute ac- 
 quiescence. 
 
 "Come," said I, "your father is asleep; the 
 square out yonder is deserted. Let us go out and 
 walk a little and have a pair of quiet minds ready 
 for the doctor when he comes. Our situation de- 
 mands all our wits, and he will demand them, 
 too." 
 
 She hesitated only a minute, and then assented. 
 
 It was a wonderful moonlit night of early sum- 
 mer, and under the charitable mantle which the 
 luminous darkness had thrown over it, the little
 
 THE MAN WITHOUT A SHADOW 
 
 town was a thing of entrancing beauty. It would 
 look shabby and ordinary enough to-morrow 
 morning, perhaps, but for the hour it was trans- 
 figured. 
 
 The moonlight laid a spell upon us, too, I think. 
 After the stress of that long day there was a quiet- 
 ing virtue in its still, silver-like serenity. Just 
 now, at least, it offered a respite from doubt and 
 questioning and mysteries. 
 
 For a while, half an hour, perhaps, we walked 
 slowly back and forth along the stretch of broad 
 flagstones which lay before the inn, and in all that 
 time we did not speak, together, a dozen words. 
 But at last she slipped her hand through my arm. 
 
 4 You are being very good to me, my friend," 
 she said. 
 
 My slow step faltered and I caught my breath. 
 
 " What is it? " she asked. 
 
 " The girl of my dreams did that once." 
 
 " The girl of your dreams ! " she repeated in a 
 whisper. And then we walked on again together, 
 and again in silence. But her arm stayed in mine. 
 
 Presently we heard through the sleepy, sound- 
 less air the purring throb of a motor. A pair of 
 white headlights soon were flashing among the 
 shadows of the crooked little street. 
 
 " We can complete our story now," said I. 
 " My doctor has arrived from Paris." 
 
 192
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 THE MYSTERIOUS PATIENT 
 
 WE were standing at the curb as the doctor's 
 automobile drew up. I presented him to 
 Virginia, and then started to lead the way up the 
 stairs to our apartments, but the doctor stopped 
 me. 
 
 " I am an old man and I don't like to wait," 
 he said. " Tell me how you have fared to-day. 
 If there were light enough to see your face, I 
 should not have had to ask." 
 
 " You would see nothing in my face but per- 
 plexity, tenfold deeper than ever," said I. " And 
 to make it worse, there was a moment this after- 
 noon when I really thought I knew who I was." 
 
 He made no reply whatever, except with a ges- 
 ture that told me to lead the way to our apart- 
 ments. But every line of his body showed me 
 how profound his disappointment was. On the 
 way upstairs we mentioned Mr. Heatherfield's 
 illness, and the first thing the doctor did was to 
 go alone to the invalid's bedside. He was not 
 
 193
 
 THE MAN WITHOUT A SHADOW 
 
 gone a moment. On his return he spoke first to 
 Virginia. 
 
 " You need feel no alarm on your father's ac- 
 count," he said to her. " He is at this moment 
 taking the only medicine he needs, which is quiet 
 sleep. And that is well," he went on, including 
 both of us in his glance, " because, unless I am 
 mistaken, we others, for the next few hours, shall 
 find plenty to occupy our minds, and possibly our 
 hands, too." 
 
 He stood silent for a moment and directed a 
 long look into each of our faces. Virginia's was 
 rather pale and her eyes burned unnaturally bright. 
 A keen observer like the doctor could hardly have 
 failed to note that she was laboring under a stress 
 of anxiety and doubt as great as my own. 
 
 The first thing he did after slipping off the light 
 dust coat which he had worn in the motor was to 
 go to the table and pour out three glasses of wine. 
 He nodded to me to help myself, offered the sec- 
 ond glass to Virginia, which, after a moment of 
 hesitation, she accepted, and carried the third with 
 him to a chair in a corner of the room. 
 
 " Now," said he, " let us all sit down and be as 
 comfortable as we can. Each of you has encoun- 
 tered disappointments and perplexities to-day, and 
 I myself have found a puzzle, the correctness of 
 whose solution I begin to doubt. But with a lit- 
 
 194
 
 THE MYSTERIOUS PATIENT 
 
 tie patience, a part of our mystery may be cleared 
 away in a very few minutes." 
 
 It was not an easy thing that he asked of us, 
 but the calm confidence of his manner won the day. 
 When we were all seated, the doctor took a sip of 
 his wine, and asked me for the story of my day's 
 adventures. 
 
 " Before I do that," said I, " I want you to tell 
 Miss Heatherfield what you and I know about 
 myself up to this point. I have told her nothing, 
 except the obvious fact that I do not know who 
 I am. I preferred she should hear the story, in 
 detail, from your lips, rather than from mine." 
 
 " The story, in detail, will have to wait," said 
 the doctor. " The events which seem to be sched- 
 uled for the next few hours will hardly leave us 
 leisure for unnecessary reminiscences; but enough 
 of the broad outline of it to make your to-day's 
 adventures and hopes and disappointments intel- 
 ligible can be told in a very few minutes." 
 
 The doctor emptied his glass and set it down on 
 the table. " A month ago," said he, " this young 
 man found himself, after a period of total uncon- 
 sciousness, in possession of a perfectly normal 
 mind, if I may term it so, and a totally obliterated 
 memory. He knew neither who he was nor where 
 he was. He discovered, by extraordinary shrewd- 
 ness of deduction, that he was in an asylum, and 
 
 195
 
 THE MAN WITHOUT A SHADOW 
 
 that his enemies meant to keep him there. With 
 extraordinary shrewdness, and almost incredible 
 courage, he escaped from the asylum and, for the 
 moment, from the clutches of his enemies. With 
 sanity and fortitude he took up the task of piecing 
 together, from such fragmentary memories as 
 came to him, the identity of his lost self. 
 
 " That problem is still almost as complete a 
 mystery to him as it was a month ago. He knows 
 the name of two of his enemies; that name is 
 Duggleby. He recognized your face and that 
 of your father, and placed them among the num- 
 ber of his friends. He knows himself to have 
 been a man of education and breeding and wide 
 experience with the world. Beyond that, except 
 for what he may have learned to-day, he knows 
 nothing. 
 
 "He set out this morning from Paris in search of 
 the chateau that has been in his dreams ever since 
 he can remember. When I got his telegram this 
 afternoon saying that he had found you and had 
 learned that his enemies were your enemies also, 
 I entertained a high hope that he had solved his 
 problem. And I still feel that when we have 
 pieced together all the data we possess we three 
 here in this room we shall find ourselves out of 
 the labyrinth and in the straight road at least, 
 though perhaps not at the end of our journey. I 
 
 196
 
 THE MYSTERIOUS PATIENT 
 
 do not ask if you are willing to help. I can see 
 by your face that you are." 
 
 It was with a little difficulty that she answered 
 with the single word " Yes." 
 
 " In the first place," questioned the doctor, " is 
 it an impertinence to ask what was the nature of 
 your errand here in the Touraine that brought you 
 under the displeasure of young Duggleby? " 
 
 " My father had had some business dealings 
 with the Dugglebys," she said, " and had suffered 
 as a result of their bad faith. We came here to 
 make an appeal to the only man who could effect 
 anything in our behalf young Mr. Christopher 
 Morton." 
 
 The doctor started a little and his eyes caught 
 mine. There was a moment's silence. 
 
 " You did not find him? " he asked. 
 
 " No," she said, " but I know now where he is, 
 or think I do. According to the Paris Herald, he 
 is in that city." 
 
 The doctor rose from his chair, frowning in 
 deep perplexity, and began pacing the floor. Fi- 
 nally he stopped before her. " Are you quite sure, 
 Miss Heatherfield," he asked very slowly " quite 
 sure that Mr. Christopher Morton is not, at this 
 moment, in this very room? " 
 
 She started and cast a half-frightened glance 
 into the shadows at the farther end of the room, 
 
 197
 
 THE MAN WITHOUT A SHADOW 
 
 as if half expecting to see some lurking presence 
 there. Then her gaze traveled to the doctor, on 
 to me and back to the doctor again. 
 
 " No," she said in a whisper, " he is not 
 here." 
 
 The doctor began his slow patrol of the room 
 again. Virginia turned to me : " Was that what 
 you thought? " she asked. " Did you believe that 
 Christopher Morton was the man you had lost? " 
 
 The doctor answered for me. " I was satisfied 
 of it," he said. " I thought so from the first. 
 When he bought his ticket for Tours this morning, 
 I thought that settled it, for I knew that Morton 
 had a chateau in that vicinity." 
 
 " It went even nearer than that," said I. " I 
 drove out of the city, guided by an unmistakable 
 instinct; I saw my chateau, the home of my 
 dreams, perfect in every little detail." 
 
 In his excitement the doctor addressed Virginia 
 in French. 
 
 " You are quite sure," I asked, translating for 
 him, " quite sure that I am not Christopher Mor- 
 ton? Have you ever seen him? " 
 
 "No," she said, " I have never seen him; but 
 if you are the man I remember " she paused and 
 choked a little over the words " that man could 
 not have been Christopher Morton, monsieur," 
 she said. 
 
 198
 
 THE MYSTERIOUS PATIENT 
 
 " Well," said the doctor, running his hands 
 through his hair, " I suppose we must give it up. 
 Our theory has endured two blows to-day. One 
 from you, mademoiselle, who believe him to be 
 another man, and the other from a man who ap- 
 parently believes himself to be Christopher Mor- 
 ton. In my blind prejudice in favor of my theory, 
 I set that gentleman down for an impostor, and 
 the coincidence of his coming to see me at that 
 time strengthened my confidence rather than weak- 
 ened it. He was in my office when your telegram 
 came. 
 
 '* That, however, is the beginning of a longer 
 story than I propose to elaborate on now. I have 
 been spending what, for a quiet, elderly persoa 
 like myself, will pass for an adventuresome day. 
 But time presses a little, and I have an idea that 
 your experiences will be more to the point than 
 
 mine." 
 
 As briefly as I could frame the words I told him, 
 then, of my visit to the chateau grounds, my en- 
 counter with the wall-eyed lodge keeper, and the 
 meeting with Virginia and her father at the 
 gate; and gave him, in bald outline, Virginia's 
 story of the events which led up to their coming 
 to Europe to seek an interview with young Mr. 
 Morton. Then, in conclusion, I spread before 
 him the intercepted telegram which had diverted 
 14 199
 
 THE MAN WITHOUT A SHADOW 
 
 us to Mettray. The doctor's eyes sparkled as 
 he read it, with the same look which I had seen 
 in them when we had walked together out of 
 Mike Lynch's saloon, a look which portended any- 
 thing but a quiet, uneventful life for the next ten 
 hours. 
 
 " Your lodge keeper," said he, " undoubtedly 
 went back and wrote a similar message after you 
 had captured this." 
 
 Then, curiously enough, he turned and shot at 
 Virginia one of the same questions I had asked 
 immediately after I had read it : 
 
 " Your luggage yours and your father's is 
 that in the cloakroom at the Tours station? " 
 
 He barely waited for her affirmative nod before 
 he asked another question : 
 
 " And the chemical formula for your father's 
 secret, is that, by any unlucky chance, contained 
 in those hand bags? " 
 
 " No," said she, " that has never left my; 
 father's person." 
 
 " That's well for the present," said he. " We 
 shall have a few hours of leisure. Because, unless 
 I am greatly mistaken, that cloakroom will be 
 looted to-night. We can count on the preoccupa- 
 tion of our friend, the enemy, until to-morrow 
 morning. But after to-night " he broke off 
 abruptly " well," he concluded, with a return to 
 
 200
 
 THE MYSTERIOUS PATIENT 
 
 his quiet, half-amused manner, " to-morrow we 
 will discuss what we shall do to-morrow." 
 
 He paused there a moment and looked at me 
 with a smile. Then, as if it were the simplest 
 thing in the world, he said : 
 
 " Young Mr. Duggleby arrived this morning 
 in Paris. He took the road to Tours this after- 
 noon, and he is now, in all probability, not a dozen 
 miles away." 
 
 "What!" I gasped. 
 
 " Did you not expect it," he asked, still smiling, 
 " when I ventured the prediction that the cloak- 
 room in the Tours station would be looted to- 
 night? Yes," he went on, " a man I employed to 
 provide me with an extra pair of eyes informed 
 me of his arrival this morning. And this after- 
 noon, just beyond Orleans, I passed a car en panne 
 at the roadside. I was keeping a sharp lookout, 
 and though I flashed by rather quickly, I was sure 
 of what I saw. There were three men in the car, 
 and one of them was swearing in English, and in 
 a most terrifying manner, at the chauffeur, who 
 was at work on the tire. Mr. Duggleby is a very 
 remarkable young man, and I think I should know 
 him anywhere. At any rate, I knew him to-night." 
 
 ' You didn't recognize any of the other men in 
 the car, did you? " I asked. 
 
 " I don't know," he said. " At the time, I 
 201
 
 THE MAN WITHOUT A SHADOW 
 
 thought I did, but I would not give five sous for 
 that opinion now." 
 
 " What do you mean? " Virginia asked. 
 
 " I mean," said he, " that I have failed most 
 lamentably in practicing the very thing that I have 
 been preaching to my young friend here for the 
 past month. I have permitted my prejudices to 
 render me absolutely incompetent to observe ac- 
 curately." 
 
 " Go on," said I; " tell me what you mean." 
 
 " Let me tell you my whole story from the be- 
 ginning. A patient called upon me this afternoon. 
 He did not send in his card by my valet, but re- 
 mained, anonymously, in my reception room until 
 I came out to see him. Then he handed me his 
 card. Upon it was engraved the name of Mr. 
 Christopher Morton. 
 
 " The instant I read the name it flashed into 
 rny mind that this unusual procedure of handing 
 me his card in person was a deliberately laid 
 trap to betray me into an exclamation of surprise. 
 I doubt now that it was a trap at all. If it was, 
 I did not fall into it. I quietly asked my visitor 
 what he wanted of me. He told me that his 
 nerves were troubling him; that he had come to 
 me on the recommendation of his family physician, 
 a man I knew. He was a model patient, if he was 
 a patient at all, for he gave me an exhaustive list 
 
 202
 
 THE MYSTERIOUS PATIENT 
 
 of symptoms, without adding any that were irrele- 
 vant and without repeating any of those that he 
 had enumerated. The symptoms made an almost 
 perfectly typical case of neurasthenia. 
 
 " Now, as I tell you, I was convinced from the 
 beginning that the man was an impostor. I should 
 have believed anyone to be an impostor who 
 handed me a card with that name engraved on it, 
 for since you had bought that ticket for Tours this 
 morning I had not entertained the slightest doubt 
 that you were Christopher Morton himself. I sus- 
 pected his list of symptoms because they were all 
 so perfectly typical. I believed he had committed 
 them to memory out of a text-book of my own 
 upon the subject of that disease. 
 
 " Now, not to bore you with unnecessary details 
 and technicalities, there was, I think, a certain 
 ground for suspicion in what he told me, quite 
 apart from my own prejudices. There is nothing 
 in nature so rare as the perfectly normal. When 
 you find symptoms of a disease running absolutely 
 true to type, there are moderate grounds for the 
 presumption that the disease is simulated, hyster- 
 ically or otherwise." 
 
 " I suppose," I remarked, " that the man may 
 have been an impostor from a medical standpoint 
 and still be the real Christopher Morton." 
 
 " Yes," he said, " you are right. That is eii- 
 203
 
 THE MAN WITHOUT A SHADOW 
 
 tirely possible. I did try one experiment on him. 
 I told him he was undoubtedly suffering from 
 neurasthenia; that rest from the distractions of 
 Paris was what he needed, and I advised him to 
 retire to his chateau in the Touraine in search of 
 it. Undoubtedly, at that he flashed at me a little 
 glance of surprise. But he recovered himself in- 
 stantly. ' Oh,' he said politely, ' I wasn't aware 
 that I had the honor to be so well known to you.' 
 With that he promised to put my advice into im- 
 mediate effect, and shortly thereafter took his 
 leave." 
 
 " What did he look like? " I asked. 
 
 " About your age, about your size and coloring. 
 He was clean shaven, but he bore what might pass 
 for a family resemblance to yourself. He was ob- 
 viously a gentleman. He spoke good French 
 almost as good as yours." 
 
 " And," I prompted him, " you thought that 
 you saw him in the car with Duggleby on the way 
 down here? " 
 
 The doctor shrugged his shoulders. " How do 
 I know? " said he. " I thought I did, but when I 
 thought that, I was under the impression that he 
 was a mere tool or accomplice of the Dugglebys. 
 I never should have thought of it but for that 
 prejudice. I had only time for one look as I 
 went flying by, and that look I directed at Dug- 
 
 204
 
 THE MYSTERIOUS PATIENT 
 
 gleby. Well, we are sure of him, at any rate. 
 We know he is at hand and that he means mis- 
 chief." 
 
 At that he rose and came over toward me. 
 
 " There is the end of my adventure," he said.
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 THE MAN I WAS 
 
 THEN, resting his hand affectionately on my 
 shoulder, he went on: 
 
 " I hope that in after years you may not think 
 of me, Monsieur Barras, as a person entirely with- 
 out mercy ; but I have asked difficult things of you 
 before, and I am afraid I must ask another now. 
 I want to hear what Miss Heatherfield can tell 
 me, or what she is willing to tell me of the man 
 she believes you to be. And I am going to ask 
 her to tell it to me alone." 
 
 The request was altogether unexpected, and I'm 
 afraid that in the first moment of my surprise I 
 did not receive it with very good grace. 
 
 " If I have done difficult things before, mon- 
 sieur," I said, " it has been because I was able to 
 see the reason. But what possible reason can there 
 be for keeping me in the dark any longer than 
 necessary ? " 
 
 " Answer me a question first," he said. " An- 
 swer it truly and without regard either to your 
 
 206
 
 THE MAN I WAS 
 
 hopes or to the presence of Miss Heatherfield 
 there beside you. What has been the effect upon 
 your memory of these hours you have had with 
 her to-day? Does the sight of her, the sound of 
 her voice, bring up old associations, however 
 vague? " 
 
 I had to think a minute before I could answer 
 him, and when I did, the nature of the answer I 
 must make surprised me. 
 
 "No," said I; "if anything, it has been the 
 other way about. Her actual presence, the sound 
 of her voice, seem to make my old pictures and 
 dreams recede and grow fainter." 
 
 He nodded. " Then you see the reason now for 
 yourself, Monsieur Barras. But you're a good 
 lad. Ninety-nine out of a hundred honest men 
 would have lied then. And I'll promise you this. 
 If I think, as your medical adviser, that you may 
 hear the story, then you shall hear it to-night, only 
 I must hear it first and have the opportunity to 
 determine." 
 
 I bade Virginia a reluctant good night and 
 nodded to the doctor. 
 
 " Come to my room when you've finished, any- 
 way, even if it's only to tell me that I'm not to 
 be told anything. I'll wait up for you." 
 ' Very well," said the doctor. 
 
 He had asked Virginia for half an hour, but 
 207
 
 ,THE MAN WITHOUT A SHADOW 
 
 for more than twice as long as that I paced my 
 solitary chamber restlessly, glancing impatiently at 
 my watch every other minute. It seemed impos- 
 sible that any human communication could take 
 so long at least my petulant resentment told me 
 that. 
 
 I was beginning to wonder whether he had not 
 forgotten the last half of his promise altogether 
 and gone to bed without even coming to tell me 
 that he thought it best to tell me nothing, when 
 I heard a light tap on the door. I had not even 
 heard the footfall which preceded it. 
 
 " Come in," I called rather gruffly. 
 
 " May I? " said a voice. " Are you sure you 
 want me to ? " 
 
 And then the door opened slowly and I saw, not 
 the doctor, but Virginia herself. No picture that 
 my dreams reported, and no sight my waking eyes 
 had seen, had ever been as beautiful as was the 
 woman who stood there now in my doorway, wait- 
 ing my invitation to come in. She seemed to read 
 it in my face, for without another word from me 
 she entered and closed the door behind her. 
 
 " You've come yourself, to tell me what 
 you've been telling the doctor? " I questioned, 
 wondering and half in doubt, for the thing seemed 
 too good to be true. 
 
 " I'm not sure," she answered. " That shall 
 208
 
 THE MAN I WAS 
 
 be as you say, after I have told you what I shall 
 have to tell you first." 
 
 " I don't want to be selfish," said I. " I mustn't 
 ask you to tell me anything that will be painful 
 to you to repeat. I shouldn't want to hear from 
 you more than you want to tell, Virginia." 
 
 Her color had been high before, but now, for 
 just an instant, it flamed still higher and her eyes 
 burned with a sudden light. 
 
 " I know," I went on, " I ought to apologize 
 to you for calling you by that name, but I want to, 
 somehow. It's the only name I really know you 
 by." 
 
 " Yes," she said; " I want you to call me that, 
 too. And it isn't the fear of the pain that makes 
 me hesitate about telling you the story I just told 
 M. de Villiers. I I begged him to let me tell 
 you, and he consented, at last, only very reluc- 
 tantly. He said, when he had heard it all, that, 
 as your doctor, he couldn't advise my telling 
 you. He feared it might retard your recovery. 
 But on personal grounds, he said, if you wished 
 still to know and I was anxious still to tell 
 you, he felt that he couldn't refuse. Only he 
 wanted me to give you that message first and let 
 you decide." 
 
 She had spoken in a rather abstracted manner, 
 as one repeating something, something that her 
 
 209
 
 THE MAN WITHOUT A SHADOW 
 
 own heart was not in. 'And at the end she waited, 
 rather tensely, I thought, for my decision. I did 
 not keep her waiting long. 
 
 " That's understood, then," said I. " For this 
 little half hour I'm going to cease to be a case 
 of M. de Villiers's. I want for once to be a hu- 
 man being instead." 
 
 Her eyes brightened with sudden tears. " It 
 takes a word like that to make me realize the cour- 
 age you show every hour," she said. 
 
 The night was warm, and my room, lighted by 
 guttering, smoky candles, had become close. I 
 pulled my great window wide open upon its 
 creaking hinges, and placed the one chair which 
 the room boasted in the embrasure. The moon 
 was still an hour high in the sky and shining slant- 
 wise upon the white walls and tiled roofs of the 
 little village. 
 
 " Sit here," I told Virginia. 
 
 I extinguished the candles, and the room was 
 hardly darker thereby. Then, opposite to where 
 she sat in the embrasure of the window, I brought 
 the little pair of carpeted steps that gave access 
 to my tall four-poster bed, and seated myself 
 facing her. 
 
 " Now tell me the story," said I. 
 
 But she sat for a while in silence, gazing out 
 over the house tops, before she began. 
 
 210
 
 THE MAN I WAS 
 
 " The man I knew lived in Cleveport, that hor- 
 rible, horrible city that has grown, like a fringe, 
 about the great shipyards of the Morton-Dug- 
 gleby Company. He was very poor. When my 
 father first became acquainted with him he was 
 working as a laborer a common, unskilled laborer 
 in one of the steel mills. Afterwards, at my 
 father's suggestion, almost at his insistence, he 
 taught himself shorthand and secured a clerical 
 position. He talked very little about himself, 
 even to my father and to, me, and not at all to 
 anyone else, but it was evident that he was educated 
 far above the position in which we found him. 
 The whole passion and purpose of his life seemed 
 to be to share the labors and sorrows of the un- 
 fortunate people who lived and worked in that 
 dreadful city. He seemed to try to bear the whole 
 load upon his single shoulders, and it seemed 
 sometimes to my father, as well as to me, that the 
 effort would kill him. 
 
 " I told you this evening how I tried to play 
 the philanthropist there in Cleveport, to the neg- 
 lect of my father; how I worked and taught 
 and did the little I could among the poor there. 
 Well, it was his interest in those unfortunate 
 people that excited mine. He taught me 
 taught me, I believe, all the real humanity I ever 
 knew." 
 
 211
 
 THE MAN WITHOUT A SHADOW 
 
 " How long did you know him there at Cleve- 
 port? " I asked. 
 
 " It is about two and a half years since I first 
 met him. It is about a year since he disap- 
 peared " 
 
 " After having betrayed your father's trust in 
 him? " I asked. 
 
 " I never could believe that," she said quickly. 
 " I believed him dead. It was only for a moment 
 when I saw you, alive, and thought you were he, 
 that my father's explanation occurred to me. But 
 I do not believe in it now." 
 
 " You told the doctor," said I, " that the man 
 you knew was not Christopher Morton. Might 
 he not have been, after all? " 
 
 " Oh you don't know Cleveport," she said, 
 a little irrelevantly it seemed to me. " You can't 
 even dream of the horrors of a place like that. It 
 needn't have been horrible if there had been a 
 grain of humanity in the men who were respon- 
 sible for the conditions. Christopher Morton was 
 contented to live in Paris upon the wealth that 
 these poor, oppressed, wretched people were earn- 
 ing for him. Oh, I know that sounds altruistic 
 and absurd, but Cleveport would make anyone talk 
 that way. And when you ask me to believe that 
 the man I worked with there for a year and a half 
 the man who was giving his life to accomplish 
 
 212
 
 THE MAN I WAS 
 
 what amounted to so little in that great total of 
 misery " She broke off, and completed the sen- 
 tence with a shiver. 
 
 " Is there any other reason why you are so 
 sure? " I asked. 
 
 She hesitated a little and her lips trembled. 
 " Yes," she said, " there is. I think if that had 
 been his secret, he he would have told me." 
 
 " Did he ever tell you anything, that man you 
 knew, about what his life had been before he came 
 to Cleveport about his childhood or the circum- 
 stances which had put him into that place in life 
 where you found him? " 
 
 " No," she said. " He never told us anything 
 at all. When we first met him, we asked him some 
 innocent questions, but it seemed that they hurt 
 him; that the subject was, for some reason, pain- 
 ful to him; so, of course, we never pressed him 
 for answers. And after we had come to know 
 him as we did, the man himself was enough with- 
 out any past." 
 
 There was another silence between us after that. 
 It was I who finally broke it. 
 
 " Virginia," I began, " was it one evening, later 
 than usual, that your father came home to tell you 
 that his laboratory had been robbed? Was sup- 
 per for three people set ready on the table? Was 
 the man you have been telling me about playing 
 
 213
 
 THE MAN WITHOUT A SHADOW 
 
 the piano while he waited with you for your father 
 to come home? Was the thing he played a string 
 of extempore variations of his own on the old 
 nursery tune ' London Bridge ' ? " 
 
 At the first of my questions her face, there in 
 the moonlight, had turned chalk white. Her eyes 
 burned brighter and brighter, and her gaze seemed 
 to be searching the innermost recesses of my soul. 
 And as I finished, she cried out, half voicelessly: 
 
 " Morton ! Morton ! " and flung herself upon 
 her knees beside me and held me fast, fast in the 
 embrace of her young arms. 
 
 " Morton " she repeated in a whisper. She 
 was sobbing, shuddering, but it was with the ex- 
 cess of an overwhelming joy. 
 
 For a moment, giddy and unresisting, I let the 
 force of that current sweep me away. I loved her 
 and she loved me. And love was all that mat- 
 tered. What other fact could there be in all the 
 universal cosmos that could matter ; that could dare 
 to raise its head and hiss dissent, in the face of 
 this one stupendous verity? 
 
 Holding her tight in my own arms now, I kissed 
 her hair, her forehead, her eyes, and, last of all, 
 her warm, responsive lips. The rest of the world 
 was nothing but a pretense, a picture. We two, 
 alive, fast in each others' arms we were the 
 world. 
 
 214
 
 THE MAN I WAS 
 
 Suddenly, with her hands upon my shoulders, 
 she thrust herself a little away, out at arm's length, 
 where, once more, she could look into my face. 
 
 " Is that all you remember," she whispered un- 
 steadily, " all you remember of that day? " 
 
 " It was not memory," said I; "at least I dare 
 not call it that. It was a dream I had on ship- 
 board, a dream from which I wakened to see you 
 and your father passing by me on the deck." 
 
 " And the dream tells you no more than that? " 
 
 " No," said I. " What is there more to tell, 
 Virginia? " 
 
 : ' There is this " Her eyes widened and she 
 searched my face. " Oh, try, try to remember ! 
 Now as I tell you, try to call the memory back! 
 There is this. On that day, that very same day, 
 in the old brick church in Cleveport, you and I 
 were married! " 
 
 My hands dropped away from her, lifeless, and 
 I reeled a little bit giddily. For a moment her 
 hands remained on my shoulders, and her implor- 
 ing eyes searched mine for the spark that was not 
 there. 
 
 Then, with a sob, she sank down, crouching, on 
 the floor and buried her face in her hands. 
 
 With all the force of my will I steadied myself, 
 fought my way back out of that welter of emotion 
 to solid rock again. If I were anything that de- 
 15 215
 
 THE MAN WITHOUT A SHADOW 
 
 served to be called a man, I must be strong now; 
 for her as well as for myself. I did not speak to 
 her, did not try any of the conventional ways to 
 calm her. Instead, I went to the window and, 
 leaning against the casement, stood looking out. 
 
 After a while she rose and came and stood be- 
 side me. ' You understand the virtue of silence, 
 Morton," she said. " You always did." 
 
 " Why do you call me that? " 
 
 " It was the name I learned to call you by," she 
 answered unsteadily. " The name of the man in, 
 Cleveport was Morton Smith." 
 
 I saw by the suddenly renewed tension of her 
 figure and the way she caught her breath that she 
 had not pronounced that name without a hope that 
 it would serve to call back the past, or at least 
 some part of it, to me. But it did not bring even 
 the faintest gleam, not even a half-placed feeling 
 of familiarity. And seeing that this was so, sud- 
 denly, and I think involuntarily, she shrank a lit- 
 tle away from me. 
 
 " Oh," she breathed hardly above a whisper, 
 " how can you be you, if you've forgotten all 
 that? There's nothing?" she went on in a tone 
 of hopeless questioning, " no memory that comes 
 back now after I've told you all? No gleam that 
 suggests a returning memory? " 
 
 "Nothing," said I; "nothing but those faint, 
 216
 
 THE MAN I WAS 
 
 half-lighted dreams that I told you of. And even 
 they seem fading." 
 
 I had answered her with only half my mind. 
 The other half was still busy with that despairing 
 exclamation of hers: "How can you be you!" 
 And dimly, then, there came the suggestion of an 
 answer. And the answer was, that I might not 
 be one man, but two. Nay, if that were true, why 
 not three or half a dozen ? There were tragedies 
 like that in the world, I knew ; figures of men com- 
 plete in body and mind, but body and mind not 
 a permanent habitation for a human soul for 
 that essential, innermost thing that calls itself I, 
 but a mere temporary lodging, a house to let, occu- 
 pied now by one fugitive spirit and now by an- 
 other. 
 
 What if that were true? What if this counter- 
 feit presentment of a man who stood beside Vir- 
 ginia now, the image of the man she loved, talk- 
 ing to her in his voice, reminding her of him with 
 his unconscious, characteristic actions, were really 
 and in truth nothing more than the temporary 
 " Simon Barras " that the doctor so playfully 
 christened him that day in his room at the hotel? 
 Morton Smith had occupied that body once and 
 gone away. Had there been any previous occu- 
 pants? It was likely enough. 
 
 That was my train of thought, and I stopped 
 217
 
 THE MAN WITHOUT A SHADOW 
 
 it short. It might be true, but it was inconceiv- 
 able. A man cannot doubt his own identity and 
 remain sane. Even as I stood there, shaken and 
 horrified with the idea that had come over me, I 
 was conscious of a clamorous, turbulent ego that 
 would not be denied who intended to assert his 
 rights and insist upon them. 
 
 " Yet," Virginia said, " you did not forget it 
 all. You remembered my face, my name ; remem- 
 bered that you loved me didn't you? " 
 
 At that I caught up her hands and kissed them. 
 
 " It was the picture of your face and the love 
 that went with it which gave me the courage and 
 the determination to escape from Dr. Berry's 
 asylum, that set me trying to find my lost self. 
 And now that I know that that lost self is the man 
 you loved and married, I have twice the courage 
 and twice the determination to find him. We shall 
 find him, Virginia, somewhere in the world, and 
 we shall bring him back." 
 
 She raised my hands, which still were holding 
 hers, and pressed them against her breast. 
 
 "That's all I want," she said "to know, I 
 mean, that you remembered me and that you loved 
 me. What does anything else matter but that? 
 Isn't that enough to know ; that we love each other 
 and that we're married, Morton, dear? " 
 
 How could I make her understand that I was 
 218
 
 THE MAN I WAS 
 
 not the man she married? That until I could 
 summon back the hours which must live in that 
 lost man's memory, of casual acquaintance with 
 her, and friendship and love and intimacy, I was, 
 in spite of my dream pictures, hardly more than a 
 stranger to her! 
 
 I tried, but my words went wide of the mark. 
 She listened, untroubled, uncomprehending, for a 
 while to the thing I was trying to tell her. Finally, 
 with a little laugh, she laid her hand upon my lips. 
 
 " What does it matter? " she said. " I can re- 
 member for both of us. You're not to worry any 
 more, not now at least." 
 
 Both her palms were pressing against my tem- 
 ples then. The next moment she slipped them 
 back and clasped her fingers behind my head, drew 
 it forward and laid her cool cheek against my 
 bearded one. 
 
 " You feel a little feverish," she said. " I don't 
 want you to be ill, Morton, but if you were ill, 
 oh, how I should love nursing you." 
 
 " No more! " I said hoarsely. " No more to- 
 night! To-morrow to-morrow we will talk." 
 
 She drew back and looked at me, wondering, 
 but still untroubled. Then, with a smile of divine 
 maternal tenderness, she kissed me, once more, 
 upon the lips, and was gone. 
 
 For a while, a minute, perhaps, or perhaps a 
 219
 
 THE MAN WITHOUT A SHADOW 
 
 half hour, I stood staring at the shadowy door 
 which had closed behind her. At the end of it I 
 went out into the corridor, and seeing a light in 
 the doctor's room, I entered without ceremony. 
 
 " I want something that will make me sleep," 
 said I. " I can't answer questions to-night. I 
 must sleep first." 
 
 He had been pacing the room, clad in his dress- 
 ing gown, when I entered. Without a word, with 
 no more than a keen, penetrating glance, he went 
 to his bag and drew out a hypodermic syringe. I 
 did not speak, either, until he had filled it, and I 
 had silently bared my arm for the needle thrust. 
 
 " Doctor," said I, as the little plunger went 
 home, " if a man has two personalities, each dis- 
 tinct from the other, is he justified in acting as if 
 he had any right to either of them? " 
 
 He started; looked me full in the face. 
 " Where did you pick up a morbid idea like 
 that? " he demanded, with signs of a more severe 
 displeasure than he often showed. " Drop it! It 
 isn't a safe sort of toy to play with, a notion like 
 that. It is with such ideas that men go mad." 
 
 And yet could he have disowned the same idea 
 himself? Something I had seen in his face made 
 me doubt it.
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 
 IN THE ROAD 
 
 CONTRARY to my expectations, I must have 
 gone off, almost immediately, to sleep, for 
 the next thing I knew, after my head had touched 
 the pillow, I was sitting bolt upright in bed lis- 
 tening to the roar of a motor car in the street, out- 
 side my window. It had come to a stop before 
 the inn entrance, but, as if their pause were to be 
 but momentary, the chauffeur had merely thrown 
 out his clutch, and had not killed his engine. 
 
 Presently, above the throb of the racing pistons, 
 I heard a voice cry out in French : 
 
 " Look alive in there, somebody! How far is 
 it to Tours?" 
 
 It was only just past dawn, on an early July 
 morning, and the little village of Mettray, includ- 
 ing our inn, was still fast asleep. The shouted ques- 
 tion received no response. But evidently the trav- 
 elers were in earnest. The jingle of the inn bell 
 told me that one of them had dismounted from the 
 car. 
 
 221
 
 THE MAN WITHOUT A SHADOW 
 
 " How far is it to Tours? " the voice repeated. 
 
 Then I heard a window opening somewhere 
 and the landlord's sleepy voice speaking in reply. 
 
 " Nine kilometers. Can't you read the sign- 
 board, imbecile? " 
 
 Evidently the travelers saw fit to ignore the epi- 
 thet. There was a murmur of voices in- inaudible 
 discussion, and then the chauffeur stopped the 
 motor. 
 
 " Well," said the man who was doing the talk- 
 ing for the travelers, " with two flat tires, even nine 
 kilometers seems a long way. Can you give us a 
 decent breakfast? " 
 
 " But most assuredly," said the landlord, becom- 
 ing affable at once at the prospect of profit. 
 " Wait just a moment, messieurs, and I will open 
 the door." 
 
 " Well, be quick about it," said the other man. 
 " We have been all night coming here from Char- 
 tres and have lost our way a dozen times. We are 
 famished with hunger, and one of our party has 
 met with an accident." 
 
 The window closed with a slam. Then, after a 
 rather long delay, I heard the creaking of the great 
 inn door. Evidently the landlord had succeeded in 
 rousing a porter, whose tardiness he was berating 
 by way of apology for his own. 
 
 " They sleep like the dead, these servants," he 
 222
 
 IN THE ROAD 
 
 said. Then, apparently addressing the man him- 
 self, he exclaimed ferociously : " Come, thou, great 
 camel that thou art, and take the luggage of these 
 messieurs up to the grand apartment on the first 
 floor. They will wish to make a toilet before 
 breakfast." 
 
 " We have no luggage with us," said the spokes- 
 man, after a moment's hesitation. And then he 
 added: "We had it sent on from Chartres by 
 grande vitesse" 
 
 Then I heard steps mounting the stairs, and my 
 interest in the little episode seemed about over. I 
 lay back in bed and tried to go to sleep again, but 
 just then something occurred to me that struck me 
 as a little curious. The discussion between the two 
 men in the car had been too low to be audible 
 through my open window, but from the inflection 
 of it I suddenly became convinced that it had been 
 carried on in English. Well, even if it were, I 
 told myself, there was nothing really strange about 
 that. 
 
 Trifling indeed as the whole incident was, no 
 doubt it proved sufficient to put an end to my very 
 brief night's sleep. After a quarter of an hour of 
 restless tossing had convinced me that this was so, 
 I rose, dressed as quietly as possible in order not to 
 disturb my companions in the adjoining rooms, and 
 made my way down the inn stairs to the street. 
 
 223
 
 THE MAN WITHOUT A SHADOW 
 
 The car stood there in the road, just where the 
 chauffeur had stopped it, and that functionary was 
 hard at work upon the tires. The car was a big 
 limousine, evidently intended for town rather than 
 for country use. But there could be no doubt that 
 it had been making a wild night of it. At the sound 
 of my step the chauffeur started a little, looked 
 quickly around, and directed a rather searching 
 glance at me. Then, quite as quickly, he turned 
 his back and went on with his work. 
 
 I tucked my walking stick under my arm and set 
 out rather aimlessly down the road, over which I 
 had driven with Virginia and her father the after- 
 noon before. It was an absolutely entrancing 
 morning; cool, sparkling, fragrant, and with that 
 curious quality which can only be described by the 
 word " intimate," which to me, at least, always dis- 
 tinguishes the French out of doors from out of 
 doors anywhere else. 
 
 Strange as it may seem, I trudged along in a 
 happy and rather careless mood. The gray cloud 
 of mystery, which hung so heavily over my past, 
 and out of which I had seen so many lurid, menac- 
 ing flashes, seemed this morning to have shrunk 
 and withdrawn itself, till it was no larger upon 
 my horizon than a man's hand. Everything would 
 come right, somehow, and soon at that. There was 
 nothing to worry about. In an hour or two I 
 
 224
 
 IN THE ROAD 
 
 should see Virginia and should be sharing this en- 
 trancing day with her. 
 
 I increased my pace a little to keep time with the 
 jigging nursery tune which was running through 
 my head, and with my walking stick decapitated 
 the crimson poppies which flowered along the road- 
 side. 
 
 The sound of a motor car coming down the road 
 behind me had been in my ears for some time be- 
 fore I became fully aware of it. It was running 
 at a great pace, as motor cars do along the white, 
 smooth national roads of France. When I did 
 become aware of it I was startled to find it so near, 
 and had no more than comfortable time to step 
 out of the roadway before it flashed past me. The 
 cloud of dust which it sucked up behind itself 
 screened it almost immediately from my eyes, but 
 I had time to see that it was the same car whose 
 occupants had breakfasted at our little inn at Met- 
 tray. I thought I saw, through the veil of dust, a 
 face gazing at me through the little back window, 
 and the sight of the face made me think instantly 
 of Alexander Duggleby. 
 
 But I dismissed the thought impatiently. It had 
 been absolutely impossible to distinguish the fea- 
 tures, and the likeness I had seen was probably 
 wholly imaginary and fanciful. Of course it was 
 not in the least impossible that Duggleby might be 
 
 225
 
 in the car, but there was no sane and valid reason 
 for thinking so. I told myself, with a shrug, that 
 I was not going to begin seeing goblin Dugglebys 
 in every dark corner and behind every bush, like a 
 frightened child. 
 
 So I walked on, steadily enough, down the road, 
 though the careless gayety of my mood had de- 
 parted. 
 
 Presently there arose on one side of the roadway 
 a high stone wall, forming the boundary of some 
 large private park, and near the corner of it was a 
 great solid wooden gate. A sense of complete 
 familiarity with it prevented its attracting my at- 
 tention very strongly, but as I was passing by the 
 gate I saw something that did, namely, the curving 
 tracks of the automobile which had passed me so 
 short a time before on the road. Evidently it had 
 turned in here. Even then my mind occupied itself 
 with the phenomenon only in a purely mechanical 
 way. It registered the observation without inter- 
 preting it at all. If I had given one thought one 
 single thought to the significance of the thing that 
 was under my eyes, I should never have done what 
 I proceeded to do never should have gone walk- 
 ing on, careless of danger, fatuous in the fancied 
 security of broad daylight and the public road. 
 
 The wall, which continued as far as my eye could 
 reach on the left side of the road, now had a coun- 
 
 226
 
 IN THE ROAD 
 
 terpart to itself on the right. So that ahead of me, 
 at least as far as the next curve, a quarter of a mile 
 away, my road was, in fact, nothing but a trench 
 with sheer walls, eight feet high, or so, on both 
 sides of it. 
 
 I had gone, perhaps a hundred yards past the 
 gate, when I heard it creak and, simultaneously, 
 the racing whir of the motor came to my ears. 
 Looking round, I saw the big limousine come back- 
 ing out into the road. Then it reversed, and re- 
 sumed its original direction, coming along toward 
 me, upon the walled-in road, innocently enough, 
 and not very fast. 
 
 It is curious how the mind endeavors to com- 
 pensate for its deficiencies, either occasional or per- 
 manent. A moment ago when I had passed that 
 gate the whole enginery of my thought had lain 
 dormant. My eyes had reported certain facts, but 
 my mind had stuffed them into the first pigeonhole 
 without looking to see what they meant. But now, 
 as if to atone for that folly, it sprang into a state 
 of most unnatural activity. 
 
 The occupants of that car had stopped and 
 breakfasted at the little inn at Mettray, giving as 
 a reason that the nine kilometers between them and 
 Tours seemed too far. They would not have done 
 that if their destination at that time had been this 
 green wooden gate in the wall. They could have 
 
 227
 
 THE MAN WITHOUT A SHADOW 
 
 turned in there for no other purpose, then, than to 
 give themselves, once more, an opportunity which 
 they had wasted when they flashed by me on the 
 road a few minutes earlier. They had turned into 
 that gate to wait for me to go by, simply in order 
 that they might come up behind me again. That 
 was what they were doing now. There was noth- 
 ing alarming about their appearance or about the 
 speed of the car. They were running well in the 
 middle of the fairly broad road, and the natural 
 thing for a pedestrian to do would be to turn out 
 a little to one side to give them room to pass, and 
 walk on at his own gait, without even so much as 
 turning his head. 
 
 But I knew knew all in a flash that if I ven- 
 tured to do that, my battered body would be found 
 lying, crumpled up, in the road by the next passer- 
 by; and Alexander Duggleby would have accom- 
 plished his purpose. 
 
 The whole of that train of thought flashed 
 through my mind in an instant. I had seen and 
 comprehended the entire situation before the auto- 
 mobile was twenty paces nearer me than it had 
 been when it started toward me in the road. 
 
 But, even understanding fully what was in my 
 enemy's mind, what was I to do ? The road, as I 
 have said, was nothing but a trench, and it con- 
 tinued so for a full quarter of a mile ahead. The 
 
 228
 
 IN THE ROAD 
 
 first instinctive plan that suggested itself to me 
 was to run. And yet I saw instantly that if they 
 were seriously determined to kill me, I had about 
 as much chance to escape them in that way as a 
 man pursued down a railway tunnel by a loco- 
 motive. They would overtake me and run me 
 down, at leisure, before I could cover half the 
 distance. 
 
 An automobile steers more easily and accurately 
 when it is running fast than when it is running 
 slowly. My flight would only give them the hun- 
 dred yards or so that they needed to get up speed. 
 Its speed was increasing now, but still it was not 
 going very fast. 
 
 After my one brief glance at them when they 
 turned out into the road, I had not looked back nor 
 shown, in any way, that I suspected them of any 
 evil intent toward me. I had turned out a little to 
 the right, though not to the edge of the road by 
 any means, and had walked along without quicken- 
 ing my pace in the least. By the time they had 
 come up to within ten paces of me, my plan was 
 fully formed. When they got a little nearer, I 
 would look suddenly around, as if startled to find 
 them so close, and would then spring quickly to 
 one side; but instead of springing away from the 
 car and toward the edge of the road, as I knew 
 they would expect me to do, I would make my leap 
 
 229
 
 THE MAN WITHOUT A SHADOW 
 
 in the other direction, toward the car, and into the 
 middle of the road. 
 
 The curious feature about this plan was, that 
 while it offered, probably, the best hope of escape 
 if I were right in thinking that they meant to kill 
 me; on the other hand, if I were wrong, if all they 
 meant to do was to pass harmlessly by, my plan 
 would frustrate that attempt as well as the other, 
 and I should meet a certain death under their 
 wheels. The man driving that car would certainly 
 wrench his steering wheel around, one way or the 
 other, when I stood still in the road and looked 
 back, and the direction of my leap would equally 
 certainly surprise him. I should owe my life, 
 should I succeed in saving it, to the mere fact that 
 he deliberately intended to kill me. 
 
 For about the period of the sharp spit of a 
 lightning flash my mind hesitated; then took its 
 decision. I stopped short, turned about rather 
 wildly, and made my spring toward the middle of 
 the road. 
 
 Well, I had guessed right. For the car, at the 
 same instant, made a sharp swerve toward the edge 
 of the road where the driver had expected my 
 spring to have landed me. He had increased the 
 speed at the same instant increased it so suddenly 
 that the great car gave a bound like the leap of 
 a wild animal. It was as clear and remorseless an 
 
 230
 
 IN THE ROAD 
 
 attempt at assassination as it would have been if 
 they had opened fire upon me. 
 
 I stood quite still in the road and watched them 
 as they flashed past, half expecting to see the car 
 stop, turn around and make another rush at me. 
 But such an attempt must have resulted in inevi- 
 table failure. I should have plenty of time to get 
 out of the other end of the trench before they could 
 overtake me, and Duggleby was too clever a man 
 to do anything futile. The car rode straight on, 
 without a pause. In a moment it had flashed 
 around the curve at the farther end of the trench. 
 
 I suppose the whole episode, from the time when 
 the car had first emerged from the green gate until 
 I had thus lost sight of it, had occupied something 
 less than a minute, but I should never pray for a 
 long life if it were to contain many minutes like 
 that. A short one would seem plenty long enough. 
 
 16
 
 CHAPTER XXI 
 
 THE AFFAIR IN THE CLOAKROOM 
 
 IT was about an hour later that I climbed the 
 stairway in the inn and knocked at the doctor's 
 door. The quick relief with which his face lighted 
 up at the sight of me convinced me that my un- 
 explained absence had worried him. 
 
 He admitted as much when I taxed him with it. 
 " I fell asleep on my sofa just about dawn. When 
 I wakened I was conscious that an automobile had 
 stopped here before the inn for a while, and then 
 gone on again. And when a little later I went to 
 your room and found it empty, my mind began to 
 play fantastic variations for me upon the theme. I 
 imagined that, by some superhuman power, Dug- 
 gleby had tracked me here and found you, and si- 
 lently made way with you. In spite of the com- 
 mon-sense explanation that you had merely gone 
 for a walk, I was strongly tempted to send out a 
 searching party." 
 
 " Well," said I, dropping into a chair, " you 
 predicted last night that our friend Duggleby 
 
 232
 
 THE AFFAIR IN THE CLOAKROOM 
 
 would soon give us an evidence of his activities; 
 that prediction was right, although you went wrong 
 in selecting the Tours station as the scene of it." 
 
 " What I " cried the doctor. " Have you seen 
 him?" 
 
 " Neither seen him nor heard the sound of his 
 voice, but, for all that, he made an attempt to as- 
 sassinate me not more than an hour ago, out here 
 in broad daylight and on the public road. I am 
 as sure it was he as I would be if I had seen him." 
 
 With that introduction, I gave the doctor a mi- 
 nute account of my adventures since I had heard 
 the automobile arrive in front of the inn. He was 
 gravely silent for a moment after I had finished. 
 Then he came across to me and rested his hand 
 affectionately on my shoulder. 
 
 " Thank God for a quick mind and a good cour- 
 age," he said, " for they evidently saved your life. 
 But the next thing on our programme is breakfast. 
 You must be famished, and even I am quite ready 
 for something." 
 
 " Have you seen the Heatherfields this morn- 
 ing? " I asked. 
 
 " Just for a word of inquiry about Mr. Heather- 
 field's condition," he said. " He seems quite him- 
 self again this morning. They are breakfasting 
 together now, I believe. It seemed better, both 
 to Miss Heatherfield and to me, that she should 
 
 233
 
 THE MAN WITHOUT A SHADOW 
 
 remain quite alone with him for a few uninter- 
 rupted hours, as she will have much to explain to 
 him, and the explanation might be made more diffi- 
 cult by the intrusion of either one of us." 
 
 The doctor had already rung the bell, and pres- 
 ently there knocked at the door a man, half por- 
 ter, half waiter, probably the same one whom the 
 landlord had summoned from his early morning 
 slumbers to assist in receiving the untimely guests. 
 There was nothing sleepy about him now, however. 
 He fairly bristled with excitement. Thinking he 
 might have some news for us, I was about to draw 
 him into conversation, but the doctor took the af- 
 fair out of my hands. 
 
 " An omelette for two," he said, " and coffee. 
 Serve it here as quickly as you can. That's all." 
 
 " Yes, monsieur," said the man submissively, 
 and he disappeared. 
 
 " I had an idea," I ventured, " that he might 
 have told us something we should have found in- 
 teresting." 
 
 " He might and he will," said the doctor, 
 " when he comes back with the breakfast. He will 
 tell us all the more if he has no idea that we are in 
 the least interested to hear his tale." 
 
 The doctor had rightly estimated his character. 
 This became evident a few minutes later when the 
 man returned. He bustled about, setting the table 
 
 234
 
 THE AFFAIR IN THE CLOAKROOM 
 
 in our sitting room what an age it seemed since 
 Virginia and I had dined in that same room the 
 night before clattering the plates, making all 
 sorts of little motions to draw our attention, and 
 evidently only waiting to catch the eye of one of us 
 to burst out into the story he had to tell. But 
 neither of us would so much as look at him. At 
 last he said, in a feeble, apologetic sort of way: 
 
 " Of course messieurs have heard the news? " 
 
 " I dare say we have," said the doctor serenely. 
 
 " Pardon, monsieur," said the waiter; " I think 
 that is scarcely possible. It only happened last 
 night, and very late." 
 
 " Indeed," said the doctor, "what is it? Has 
 the housemaid eloped with the cook? " 
 
 " No, monsieur," said the waiter, " I am the 
 housemaid myself, and monsieur the proprietor, he 
 is the cook." 
 
 " Proceed with your news," said the doctor. " I 
 suppose you will be incapable of serving breakfast 
 until you have rid yourself of it." 
 
 " It occurred in Tours, messieurs, a most aston- 
 ishing outrage. It occurred in the railway station 
 .very late at night, when there were but few people, 
 and those but half awake, in the waiting room. But 
 there might have been a thousand, for these men 
 showed the cunning and resource of the devil him- 
 self." 
 
 235
 
 THE MAN WITHOUT A SHADOW 
 
 " Apaches from Paris, I suppose," said the doc- 
 tor. "What did they do?" 
 
 " No doubt monsieur is right," assented the 
 waiter. " One of them appeared at the door of the 
 consigne, which at that hour is tended by an old 
 woman. The wicket was unlocked, and he en- 
 tered, fumbling in his pockets as if to find his re- 
 ceipt. A companion of his appeared at that mo- 
 ment in the doorway. ' Come in here,' said the 
 first man. * I shall find the receipts in a moment 
 and we have no time to waste ; it will take this old 
 woman an hour.' Whereupon the second man, 
 who had the strength of three, monsieur, and the 
 cunning and quickness of the devil the second 
 man entered the room. At that same moment a 
 third man appeared in the doorway, thus prevent- 
 ing the persons in the waiting room seeing what was 
 going on. At that, the second man, slipping 
 around behind the old woman, seized her, and be- 
 fore she could cry out, clapped a handkerchief sat- 
 urated in chloroform over her mouth and nose. 
 When she became unconscious, they selected three 
 or four of the bags and went away. No one knew 
 anything whatever about the affair until, in the 
 course of time, the old woman recovered conscious- 
 ness. They were most frightful savages, she said ; 
 men of indescribable brutality. It is thought they 
 went away in an automobile. In that case they are 
 
 236
 
 one hundred miles away at least. But the arm of 
 the police is long, monsieur, and the telegraph is 
 swifter than their automobile. They will be inter- 
 cepted, depend upon it." 
 
 " Did the old woman make any resistance? " in- 
 quired the doctor. 
 
 The waiter shrugged his shoulders. " What 
 could she do against that emissary of the devil? " 
 he said. " She had a pair of scissors in her hand, 
 and with them she struck repeatedly at the hand 
 which was clapped over her mouth and nose, but 
 he minded that no more than pin pricks." 
 
 That appeared to be the substance of the wait- 
 er's story, for though he continued talking about 
 it all the while he was serving our breakfast, he 
 added nothing to the first recital. The thing most 
 strongly impressed upon his mind seemed to be the 
 opportunity for the flight offered by the automo- 
 bile. 
 
 " They will be arrested," he prophesied confi- 
 dently; " but mark my words, it will be at Brest or 
 Bordeaux or the Spanish frontier. They had a 
 long start; but the arm of the police is longer." 
 
 It was a relief when the waiter had gone and 
 we were able to talk over the extraordinary tale 
 which had interested us so much more than we had 
 dared allow him to see. If anything more than the 
 waiter's account had been needed to convince us, 
 
 237
 
 THE MAN WITHOUT A SHADOW 
 
 beyond the possibility of a doubt, that Alexander 
 Duggleby was responsible for the outrage, my own 
 adventure with him that morning made it abso- 
 lutely clear. They had driven out of town, prob- 
 ably in the general direction of Paris, stealing 
 softly, no doubt, past the sleeply little octroi sta- 
 tions of the towns along their route. Then, hav- 
 ing gone perhaps half way to Paris, they had 
 played the old trick of doubling, and had come 
 back openly and ostentatiously to Tours. 
 
 " He was less than an hour from Tours when I 
 passed him on the road at eight o'clock last even- 
 ing," said the doctor. " He has had plenty of 
 time." 
 
 " And then there's this," I added, " that makes 
 it conclusive. The man who did the talking out 
 there in the road to the landlord of this inn men- 
 tioned that one of his party had had an accident. 
 That must have been Duggleby, for you will re- 
 member the waiter said the old woman had at- 
 tacked him with the scissors. She probably did 
 more damage than the waiter gave her credit for. 
 All the same," I concluded, after a moment's pause, 
 " I wish I might have been peeping out through 
 my shutters when they left their car to come into 
 the inn. I am absolutely sure it was Duggleby, 
 but, at the same time, it would be satisfactory to 
 have enjoyed one good look at him." 
 
 238
 
 THE AFFAIR IN THE CLOAKROOM 
 
 " He's not the man I should have looked at," 
 said the doctor. " I am most interested in the 
 identity of the others. What I should like to know 
 is whether my patient of yesterday afternoon is one 
 of the occupants of that car." 
 
 Before I could answer him, I heard a knock at 
 the door, and somehow I knew who it was who 
 sought admittance. I opened the door myself and 
 stood face to face with Virginia. At sight of me 
 the color came mantling up into her cheeks and 
 forehead, and her eyes brightened and dimmed at 
 once. 
 
 " Morton ! " she said, " I did not know you had 
 come back from your walk. I wish you had come 
 and called me, and taken me with you." 
 
 In my heart I thanked God that I had not, 
 although the sweet intimacy of the suggestion 
 made me catch my breath and set my heart to 
 racing. 
 
 " It is such a heavenly morning," she went on. 
 ' Was it a good walk? And did you have any 
 adventures? " 
 
 I was reluctant to tell her, just then at any rate, 
 so I laughed as easily as I could, and asked what 
 adventures a man was likely to have walking down 
 a French highway in the light of an early morn- 
 ing. 
 
 She looked at me rather searchingly, then slipped 
 239
 
 her hand into mine and interlocked her fingers 
 with it. 
 
 " You've come back safely, anyway," she said. 
 
 It was done quite frankly, quite simply; just as 
 a wife might do it. Her love and her conviction 
 left no room for doubt. I was hers and she was 
 mine, mine altogether. And yet I could not take 
 the gift she offered. It belonged to the other man, 
 the lost man, to Morton Smith, if that was his 
 name, a man to whom I was a total stranger. 
 
 She did not relinquish my hand as she turned 
 to the doctor. 
 
 " I came on an errand," she said. " This note " 
 she held it out in her other hand " came to my 
 father by a special messenger only a few minutes 
 ago. He is overjoyed in getting it, but I persuaded 
 him to let me show it to you " her glance, when 
 she said the words, included me with the doctor 
 " to let me show it to you before he should act 
 upon the invitation it contains." 
 
 As she spoke she handed a large square envel- 
 ope, already torn open, to the doctor. He drew 
 out the folded sheet of note paper which it con- 
 tained, and read it aloud: 
 
 "Mv DEAR MR. HEATHERFIELD: 
 
 " By a very strange, and to me fortunate, chance, I have 
 just learned that you and your daughter are, unless this 
 comes too late, at the inn in Mettray, where I address this 
 
 240
 
 THE AFFAIR IN THE CLOAKROOM 
 
 note; and I have also learned that you called, unsuccess- 
 fully, upon me at Chateau la Mesle yesterday afternoon. 
 " It will give me great pleasure if you and Miss Heather- 
 field will take lunch with me at the chateau at one to- 
 day. I came down quite unexpectedly yesterday after- 
 noon, upon my physician's advice. The house, which 
 has long been closed, is in a deplorable state of confusion, 
 but if you can pardon the exiguity of a nomadic bache- 
 lor's hospitality, you will give me a great deal of pleas- 
 ure. You were, as I think you must know, one of my 
 father's most valued friends, and I have often heard 
 him speak of you. 
 
 " Believe me, 
 
 "Yours most sincerely, 
 
 "CHRISTOPHER MORTON. 
 
 " P.S. The messenger who brings this will take your 
 answer. I hope very eagerly that it may be a favorable 
 one for me."
 
 CHAPTER XXII 
 
 AN INTIMATE STRANGER 
 
 THE doctor looked from Virginia's face to 
 mine and back to hers again. 
 
 " The messenger is still waiting? " he asked. 
 
 " Yes," she said. 
 
 " This wants thinking over," he observed, plow- 
 ing his fingers through his thick white hair. He 
 moved an extra chair up to the table and invited 
 us both to be seated. " I take it," he resumed, 
 " from what you say of your father's feelings that 
 he entertains very little doubt as to the good faith 
 of the invitation, and the genuineness of the sig- 
 nature attached to it." 
 
 Her face betrayed a certain amount of disap- 
 pointment, but no surprise. 
 
 "Then it doesn't seem genuine to you?" she 
 asked. " Do you think it is nothing more than a 
 trick?" 
 
 " I don't know what to think," said the doctor. 
 " It's a just punishment upon me for the preju- 
 dices I entertained yesterday. But it is quite 
 
 242
 
 clear," he went on, turning to me, " that we must 
 first inform Miss Heatherfield of the news we have 
 just had thrust upon us by the waiter; and must 
 also tell her of the experiences which befell you on 
 the road. We can't come to a decision in the pres- 
 ent matter without taking both those episodes into 
 account." 
 
 " I'd rather you told it," said I. 
 
 With admirable brevity he told her how the 
 cloakroom in the Tours station had been looted, 
 and followed the narrative with an account of my 
 own matutinal adventure. 
 
 " And now for the note," he concluded. 
 
 " One thing is quite clear," said I. " There is a 
 certain amount of ground for suspicion. In the 
 first place, how does Christopher Morton know 
 that you and your father are here at Mettray? 
 And if he came by that information accidentally, 
 why doesn't he explain in his note how he came 
 by it?" 
 
 " On the contrary," said the doctor, " that, to 
 me, is one of the strongest indications of his good 
 faith. Any rogue could pump up an explanation 
 that would sound plausible. Your wall-eyed lodge 
 keeper and his mother may, very easily, have rec- 
 ognized the cabman who drove you out here, and 
 a single question from a person of Mr. Morton's 
 consequence the real Mr. Morton would have 
 
 243
 
 THE MAN WITHOUT A SHADOW 
 
 got him the whole story. But a man who had no 
 idea that his good faith would be questioned would 
 not have been likely to put a long cumbersome ex- 
 planation into a note. He'd save that until you 
 met." 
 
 I interrupted: "Unless, of course, he was a 
 clever enough rogue to rely upon our making that 
 rery interpretation." 
 
 " Yes, that's possible," admitted the doctor. 
 
 " And then add this," I continued. " Note the 
 connection between his moves and Duggleby's. 
 Duggleby comes to Paris. On that same day Mor- 
 ton comes to your office to consult you. Morton's 
 lodge keeper sends a telegram to Duggleby's 
 agent, with the result that Duggleby comes to 
 Tours. On that very same day Morton comes to 
 Tours also. Duggleby conies to this inn at dawn 
 this morning, and at nine o'clock comes this note 
 from Morton." 
 
 " He's telling the truth, though, when he says 
 that M. de Villiers advised him to come down 
 here." This was Virginia's first contribution to 
 the talk. " That certainly wasn't Mr. Duggleby's 
 doing." 
 
 The discussion ran on for half an hour. At the 
 end of that time we were no nearer a decision than 
 we had been at the beginning. It was, the doctor 
 pointed out, perfectly possible, hardly even im- 
 
 244
 
 AN INTIMATE STRANGER 
 
 probable, that the parallel between Duggleby's 
 movements and Mr. Morton's was purely the re- 
 sult of accident. The fact that the doctor's patient 
 had taken his advice and come straight to the cha- 
 teau, which we knew belonged to Mr. Christopher 
 Morton; that he wrote a note on the house sta- 
 tionery, inviting guests there to lunch with him, all 
 established a strong presumption in his favor. No 
 mere hired spy in Duggleby's service would have 
 ventured to do that. 
 
 On the other hand, it was Morton's own lodge 
 keeper who had betrayed us. And he could not 
 have learned of our presence at the inn any more 
 easily or promptly than through Duggleby him- 
 self. 
 
 " It's no use," said the doctor at last. " Which- 
 ever way your father acts, whether he accepts the 
 invitation or declines it, he will leave us with a 
 strong misgiving that he may have done the wrong 
 thing. And the whole question comes down to 
 this : On which side will it be wise for him to run 
 the risk of error? How much does he stand to 
 lose, in either case, if he goes wrong, or to win, in 
 either case, if he goes right?" 
 
 ' There certainly can't be much doubt of that," 
 said I. u If the letter is written in bad faith, it 
 is written, in all probability, at the dictation of 
 Alexander Duggleby. You certainly would not 
 
 245
 
 THE MAN WITHOUT A SHADOW 
 
 advise Miss Heatherfield and her father to risk 
 their lives in that man's clutches." 
 
 " Certainly not," said the doctor. " But, as a 
 matter of fact, is that the risk which will be in- 
 volved ? I am inclined to think not. Come, let us 
 be methodical about it. Let us suppose two cases. 
 In the first place, suppose this note to be written 
 in perfectly good faith. Mr. Morton has heard 
 that Mr. Heatherfield and his daughter are here. 
 He is anxious to see his father's old friend. If 
 Mr. Heatherfield accepts the invitation, his trou- 
 bles are almost certainly at an end. This young 
 man has the power, and evidently the inclination, 
 to do him justice ; to destroy absolutely the whole 
 ingenious plot which the Dugglebys have con- 
 structed to defraud him. Now, still supposing the 
 invitation to be written in good faith, what if Mr. 
 Heatherfield declines it? He throws away an op- 
 portunity which it is highly unlikely will ever 
 come again. 
 
 " But suppose the other case : This man, who 
 signs himself Christopher Morton, is a mere tool 
 of young Alexander Duggleby ; the letter is written 
 to entice your father to the chateau. Duggleby 
 has already made one attempt to get possession of 
 that secret formula. He made it last night when 
 he looted the Tours station. As a result of that 
 escapade he knows that that formula is, in all 
 
 246
 
 AN INTIMATE STRANGER 
 
 probability, concealed upon Mr. Heatherfield's 
 person. The easiest way to get it would be to lure 
 him to the chateau and take it away from him. 
 If Mr. Heatherfield declines the invitation, he 
 escapes that trap and tells the enemy that he sus- 
 pects him. He shows his cards to the enemy with- 
 out getting a compensating glimpse of his. He is 
 ignorant as to whether he has disappointed a 
 friend or foiled an enemy, and waits for that ene- 
 my's next move." 
 
 " At least," I interrupted, " at least he avoids 
 walking straight into the clutches of a thoroughly 
 remorseless villain ; for a man who has already at- 
 tempted one assassination to-day will hardly hesi- 
 tate to attempt another." 
 
 " My dear young friend," said the doctor, 
 " pray distinguish. Mr. Duggleby wishes to mur- 
 der you. Whoever you may be, whatever your 
 connection with his life may be, he seems to find 
 it impossible to remain in the same world with you. 
 I should never allow you to go into that chateau 
 with a less efficient protection than that of a squad 
 of police. But Mr. Heatherfield's is an entirely 
 different case. All that Duggleby wants from him 
 is his formula. He would infinitely prefer taking 
 it by fraud to taking it by force. He is no fool. 
 He knows perfectly well that one murder is about 
 all a man can hope, successfully, to bring off. I 
 17 247
 
 THE MAN WITHOUT A SHADOW 
 
 will admit, on the supposition that this letter is a 
 trap, that Mr. Heatherfield runs a chance of losing 
 his formula, provided he carries it with him to the 
 chateau ; but that he runs any personal risk or that 
 Miss Heatherfield would run any by accompanying 
 him, I cannot admit to be possible." 
 
 " Then," said Virginia, " you think that father 
 might go if he left his formula behind him, here 
 in the inn? " 
 
 "Not here," said the doctor. " I would advo- 
 cate no such risk as that. But if before venturing 
 into the park at la Mesle he has first consigned his 
 formula to the security of the vaults of the Credit 
 Lyonnais at Tours, he would be safeguarded in 
 case this invitation is a trap, and would be still in 
 a position to take advantage of the opportunity it 
 offers, provided it turns out to be genuine." 
 
 Virginia's delight in this plan was manifest. I 
 could see she was inclined to share her father's be- 
 lief in the genuineness of the note, and his delight 
 at the prospect of a successful termination to his 
 mission. 
 
 " I am so glad you think we can go," she said. 
 
 Suddenly the doctor sprang to his feet. " I have 
 it ! " he cried. " The true plan the only true 
 plan. Your father shall not go to la Mesle with- 
 out a formula. He shall construct it now before 
 he starts, a beautiful, interesting looking series of 
 
 248
 
 AN INTIMATE STRANGER 
 
 chemical reactions, which shall suffice to keep our 
 friend Duggleby's mind occupied for a long time, 
 supposing his hand is really in the business. The 
 real formula will be safe in the bank. The amus- 
 ing bit of chemical fiction will be in a packet upon 
 your father's person where, until now, he has kept 
 the real one, and the real one will be safe in the 
 bank all the while. 
 
 " Don't you see," he demanded, turning upon 
 me for corroboration, " don't you see how we shall 
 unmask their batteries? We do not expose our 
 own head above the intrenchments. We elevate 
 an empty hat upon a stick." 
 
 It was impossible for me to feel any enthusiasm 
 in his scheme, and I was a good deal surprised at 
 Virginia's. " Don't you think," I ventured, " that 
 even the doctor's scheme of drawing the enemy's 
 fire may prove rather dangerous to your father? 
 Do you think he will be equal to the excitement 
 and danger of going to that chateau on purpose to 
 be robbed, even of an imitation formula ? " 
 
 Virginia shot at me a quick look of surprise. 
 " But surely," she said, " you know father well 
 enough " And then she flushed to the forehead 
 and bit her lips. " I am sorry," she resumed. " It 
 is hard to to remember. My father is not the 
 weak old man that he must seem to you after what 
 happened yesterday. That momentary weakness 
 
 249
 
 THE MAN WITHOUT A SHADOW 
 
 was altogether exceptional with him. He has quite 
 recovered this morning; he is his old self again. 
 His only weakness his only need of special care 
 is, ordinarily, the mere result of his preoccupation. 
 When anything commands his full attention the 
 way this note does, one can count on his being cour- 
 ageous, prompt, and quick-witted. Except for ac- 
 tual force, I have no fear on his account. That 
 fear M. de Villiers has done away with." 
 
 The doctor nodded approvingly, and after a 
 further word or two, Virginia left the room 
 to communicate to her father the result of our 
 conference. 
 
 I had consented to the plan rather reluctantly, 
 and now I added something to it. " There is this 
 thing we can do, at any rate," said I. ; ' We can 
 act as a bodyguard to to Miss Heatherfield and 
 her father until the true formula is safely depos- 
 ited in the bank. Whether Duggleby has any- 
 thing to do with sending this note or not I still 
 believe he has it would be fatuous folly to allow 
 an old man to go about unprotected with such a 
 piece of wealth upon his person while my would-be 
 assassin was at large in the neighborhood." 
 
 The doctor assented heartily to this suggestion 
 of mine, and, thus amended, we put the plan into 
 execution. A little before noon, in the doctor's 
 car, we set out, all together, from Mettray for 
 
 250
 
 Tours, taking a circuitous route in order to avoid 
 passing la Mesle on the way. 
 
 I met Virginia's father for the first time that 
 day just before we started. He was, indeed, 
 greatly changed from the day before. He seemed 
 strong and vigorous, and in excellent spirits. I had 
 wondered, rather uncomfortably, what his attitude 
 toward myself would be. His manner instantly 
 reassured me. Virginia, as the doctor had sug- 
 gested, had evidently told him the whole of my 
 story so far as any of us knew it. He was very 
 grave, and rather distant and ceremonious, but this 
 I took as springing rather from a fear of embar- 
 rassing me by a display of too lively a curiosity on 
 his part, than from any lingering hostility or dis- 
 trust. 
 
 The doctor's car devoured the miles between us 
 and Tours in a very few minutes, and, at the end 
 of a perfectly uneventful ride, we pulled up before 
 the door of the Tours branch of the great bank 
 which the doctor had suggested was the only safe 
 depository for Mr. Heatherfield's formula. We 
 accompanied him into the bank, and did not leave 
 him till the precious envelope which contained it 
 had been put into a steel box and consigned to the 
 vault. Mr. Heatherfield's interest in the imitation 
 formula, which now occupied its place in the oiled- 
 silk bag which hung from around his neck, seemed 
 
 251
 
 THE MAN WITHOUT A SHADOW 
 
 rather amused than serious. He regarded it, quite 
 frankly, as a concession to the French doctor's love 
 for romance, although he admitted, rather reluc- 
 tantly, that it might turn out to have been a very 
 wise precaution. 
 
 We saw them off, in the best of spirits, from the 
 bank steps, watching them until the fiacre in which 
 they were driving down the rue Nationale had 
 disappeared. Then, left to our own resources, the 
 doctor and I rather lazily set about our own af- 
 fairs for the day. 
 
 We made a few purchases along the main street 
 of the town, chiefly to supply the losses I had suf- 
 fered in the theft of my hand bag. And then, as 
 we were passing a barber shop, the doctor suddenly 
 halted me. 
 
 "For the sake of an experiment," he asked, 
 " should you be willing to sacrifice that rather be- 
 coming beard of yours? Mr. Christopher Morton 
 is clean shaven. It might do no harm to pay him 
 the compliment of imitating him." 
 
 " I am perfectly willing to sacrifice my beard," 
 said I, " even in a less worthy cause. But are you 
 still playing with that idea? I thought you had 
 given it up utterly." 
 
 " Never mind the idea," said the doctor. " If 
 you are willing to make the sacrifice, that's all I 
 ask. It's curious we haven't thought of cutting it 
 
 252
 
 AN INTIMATE STRANGER 
 
 off before. I remember in your notes on the first 
 days of your adventures the notes you so kindly 
 permitted me to read that morning in the Holland 
 House you remarked that you had experienced a 
 sort of vague surprise on finding that your face was 
 bearded. You may look more natural to yourself 
 without it." 
 
 We carried out his suggestion at once. But so 
 far as immediate results were concerned, it pro- 
 duced nothing but a disappointment. When the 
 barber was through with me, I took the hand glass 
 he put into my hand, with a thrill of expectancy. 
 But the face I saw there brought nothing back to 
 me. It did not look strikingly unfamiliar, which 
 promised us something, since I had never, since the 
 recovery of my memory, seen myself without a 
 beard. 
 
 I met the doctor's eye as I laid the glass down, 
 and shook my head. That was all the answer he 
 needed, though his face clouded for a moment with 
 disappointment. But that expression soon disap- 
 peared, and the calm, alert, kindly look I knew so 
 well replaced it. When we turned into the street 
 again his one idea seemed to be to make me forget 
 that we had tried any experiment at all. 
 
 We wandered, rather aimlessly, up the rue Na- 
 tionale toward the hotel. " First impressions are 
 the only things I can ever hope anything from," 
 
 253
 
 THE MAN WITHOUT A SHADOW 
 
 said I. ' Yesterday when I drove down this street, 
 on the way to la Mesle, everything I saw the 
 buildings, shop signs, the tram cars, the very loaf- 
 ers, and the stray dogs seemed to awaken what 
 were almost memories seemed only to lack, by a 
 mere hairbreadth, the power to bring my whole 
 past back to me. To-day I am walking here com- 
 pletely unmoved. I might be in Pittsburg so far 
 as memories and associations are concerned." 
 
 He seemed about to make me an answer, then 
 suddenly checked himself. Turning to see what it 
 was that attracted his attention, I noticed a man 
 hurrying across the street, with the evident inten- 
 tion of accosting us. He was a large, rather digni- 
 fied man, inclined to be corpulent, clad in the sort 
 of clerical black coat which distinguishes the Prot- 
 estant clergy in France. Dignified as he was, and 
 a clergyman into the bargain, he was almost run- 
 ning across the street in his eagerness to address 
 me. And he had his hat in his hand. 
 
 His face was absolutely unfamiliar to me, but 
 it was simply beaming with delight at the sight of 
 mine. " My dear boy! " he cried, clapping on his 
 hat in order to grasp me with both arms. Then he 
 went on speaking in English, but with a decided 
 French accent: " My dear Christopher! I cannot 
 express how good it is to see you, after all these 
 years. I had about given up hope of you." 
 
 254
 
 AN INTIMATE STRANGER 
 
 He stood off a little, to take a good look at me, 
 and then embraced me, French fashion, on both 
 cheeks. " My dear boy! " he repeated, this time 
 in French. Then he seemed to realize, for the first 
 time, that I was not alone. He turned to the doc- 
 tor, with a little bow of apology : " You must for- 
 give the intrusion, monsieur. It's a long time since 
 Mr. Morton went away from us, and I have never 
 seen him since the day he left Tours."
 
 CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 DEJEUNER AT THE CHATEAU 
 
 FROM the moment when the pastor of the 
 Protestant church at Tours greeted me there 
 in the street as Christopher Morton, my own 
 story runs on with hardly a momentary interrup- 
 tion. At the same time, another set of events, 
 equally important to all of us concerned, was hap- 
 pening out at la Mesle. Of course the doctor and 
 I knew nothing of Mr. Heatherfield's and Vir- 
 ginia's adventures until considerably later in the 
 day. But this is, perhaps, the most convenient 
 point in the narrative for relating them. It shall 
 be done as briefly as possible. 
 
 The drive out to the chateau was accomplished 
 without incident. Virginia herself felt a little un- 
 easy when she saw the great carriage gate being 
 opened by no less a person than the wall-eyed 
 lodge keeper, the man she and her father had met 
 hurrying down the road toward the telegraph 
 office when they had driven out the day before. 
 Mr. Heatherfield, however, refused to be alarmed 
 by the circumstance. 
 
 256
 
 DEJEUNER AT THE CHATEAU 
 
 At the chateau itself they found the great doors 
 of ceremony thrown wide open in anticipation of 
 their coming, and the man who called himself 
 Christopher Morton waiting in the doorway to 
 welcome them. 
 
 Luncheon was announced almost immediately 
 upon their arrival and was served in a pleasant 
 little morning room, whose French windows gave 
 upon a shady terrace. Before the meal had pro- 
 ceeded very far, Virginia was quite ready to in- 
 dorse her father's belief in the genuineness and 
 good faith of their host. He was a man, indeed, 
 whom it would have been hard to disbelieve. His 
 manners were affable, unaffected, charming. He 
 was precisely what a man of Christopher Morton's 
 wealth, position, and long knowledge of the world 
 could be expected to be unassuming, and yet, in a 
 subtle way, authoritative. 
 
 As the doctor had prophesied, he explained al- 
 most at once how he had learned of their presence 
 in Mettray. " The old woman who lives in my 
 lodge down at the gate told me of your call as 
 soon as I had arrived last night. She is an ex- 
 cellent old creature and very faithful, though she 
 is cursed, I fear, with a thoroughly worthless son. 
 Well, as I had already dined, I turned about, then 
 and there, and drove back to Tours to look you 
 up, having no doubt at all that I should find you 
 
 257
 
 THE MAN WITHOUT A SHADOW 
 
 at the Hotel de 1'Univers. When I discovered 
 that you weren't there, I came out, a little at a 
 loss, and stood still beside the curb for a moment, 
 meditating where I should try next. While I 
 stood there, I heard a conversation between two 
 cabmen, one of whom was expatiating upon his 
 luck and showing a couple of gold pieces to the 
 other. He said he had got them for driving a 
 party to la Mesle and then to Mettray. At that 
 I, of course, pricked up my ears. A question or 
 two, accompanied by as many francs, gave me the 
 rest of the story complete, and satisfied me that 
 I had really found you." 
 
 The explanation satisfied Mr. Heatherfield 
 thoroughly, and almost carried conviction to Vir- 
 ginia herself. The only thing she did not like 
 about it was the somewhat gratuitous reference to 
 the worthlessness of the wall-eyed lodge keeper. 
 The last of her misgivings, however, disappeared 
 when their host brought the conversation around 
 to the man he called his father. 
 
 The late Christopher Morton, who had been, 
 as their note of invitation stated, one of Mr. 
 Heatherfield's most valued friends, was, in his life- 
 time, a most interesting and peculiar character. 
 Their host began talking about him now with an 
 intimacy of understanding which could hardly 
 have been possible to anyone but a son. He told 
 
 258
 
 DEJEUNER AT THE CHATEAU 
 
 stories about him; spoke of his early struggles; 
 of the qualities that had brought him his enor- 
 mous success. He recalled periods of his life 
 which Mr. Heatherfield himself could remember, 
 and mentioned even some incidents in which Mr. 
 Heatherfield had been concerned. He seemed to 
 like to dwell upon the subject, and even when it 
 changed, reintroduced it. 
 
 In the light of all he said, any idea that he was 
 an impostor that he was a mere tool of Alexan- 
 der Duggleby that he sat here in this chateau in 
 a place to which he had no right any such ideas 
 as those must seem not only improbable but ab- 
 solutely grotesque. 
 
 By the time when the arrival of the coffee 
 marked the conclusion of the meal, Virginia was 
 assured that they had found the man they sought; 
 as sure that their mission to him was to have a 
 successful termination, as her father was. She 
 told me afterwards that she blushed every time she 
 thought of our elaborate precautions for safe- 
 guarding the true formula, and of the presence of 
 the imitation one in the oiled-silk bag which was 
 hanging from about her father's neck. 
 
 Up to this moment nothing whatever had been 
 said about the formula, nor of the attempt the Dug- 
 glebys had made to steal it. But when she had fin- 
 ished her coffee, her father turned to her: 
 
 259
 
 THE MAN WITHOUT A SHADOW 
 
 " My dear," he said, " there is a matter of busi- 
 ness which I want to talk over with Mr. Morton. 
 It needn't take very long, I think. You will prob- 
 ably find that big white peacock out there on the 
 lawn entertaining enough to keep you until we 
 join you there." 
 
 Once more, for just a moment, she experienced 
 a feeling of misgiving, but she conquered it at 
 once. She knew her father well enough to feel sure 
 that her presence in the room would embarrass 
 him and make it difficult for him to tell Morton 
 the story of his wrongs. Perhaps the thing that 
 made it easiest for her to go was the apparent 
 fact that Morton seemed not in the least anxious 
 that she should. He went to the length of making 
 a tentative suggestion that she might remain. 
 That satisfied her completely. 
 
 She allowed him to conduct her out through one 
 of the French windows and across the terrace to 
 the lawn. He was very gallant, and earnestly 
 promised that they would join her with as little 
 delay as possible. 
 
 It was about two hours later that they did 
 come out after her. She saw at once, by her 
 father's face, that something had gone wrong, but 
 did not know what it was till they were in their 
 carriage driving back to Tours again, where they 
 had arranged to meet us at the hotel. 
 
 260
 
 DfejEUNER AT THE CHATEAU 
 
 What had happened was this: Mr. Heather- 
 field, as soon as the man called Morton had re- 
 turned to the room, after escorting Virginia out 
 of it, began to tell him the story of his discovery 
 and of his subsequent dealings with the Duggle- 
 bys. The recital took a good while and Morton 
 listened throughout with every appearance of in- 
 terest. Before Mr. Heatherfield could finish his 
 account, however, he was surprised, and rather 
 annoyed, to find himself becoming sleepy. He had 
 long been in the habit of taking a nap after lunch, 
 and did not at first think of attributing this feel- 
 ing to foul play on the part of his host. 
 
 Morton, with what, but for the sequel, would 
 have passed for the most delicate tact, when he 
 saw signs of Mr. Heatherfield's sleepiness, took 
 the burden of the conversation upon himself, and 
 began to speak of his own ignorance of the busi- 
 ness, and his slight acquaintance either with the 
 elder Duggleby or his son. 
 
 His low, smooth monotone as he talked along 
 was the last thing Mr. Heatherfield could re- 
 member, until he became aware of a twitch at his 
 coat. He had then, apparently, been heavily 
 asleep, but not, he thought, for a very long time. 
 Even now, he was only half awake, and in a very 
 curious way at that. His mind resumed its normal 
 waking activities and his ears were alert for every 
 
 261
 
 THE MAN WITHOUT A SHADOW 
 
 sound that took place in the room. But a feeling 
 as of a heavy weight upon his eyelids prevented 
 his opening them, and an intense lassitude all over 
 his body kept him lying back in his chair in the 
 attitude of a man still profoundly asleep, without 
 cither the power or the inclination to stir himself. 
 
 When the doctor heard the story afterwards, 
 he stated that, in all probability, the drug which 
 had been administered which caused Mr. Heather- 
 field to go to sleep was chloral. The motor tract 
 of the spinal cord is much more sensitive to this 
 particular drug than is the sensatory tract. That 
 was the drug they would most naturally have used, 
 anyway, as its ordinary effect is most nearly that 
 of natural slumber; which was what the conspira- 
 tors wanted. It was to their own interest, if pos- 
 sible, to get Mr. Heatherfield away without his 
 suspecting that anything had gone wrong. 
 
 After the twitch at his coat had roused him, 
 Mr. Heatherfield next became aware of a current 
 of cool air upon his chest. Evidently his coat, his 
 collar, and his shirt had been unbuttoned. He 
 might have supposed he had fainted and that the 
 disorder in his dress was the result of an attempt 
 to revive him, but at the same moment he heard 
 a voice speaking softly, from some little distance 
 away. 
 
 "Well," it asked, "have you got it?" He 
 262
 
 DEJEUNER AT THE CHATEAU 
 
 recognized the voice instantly as belonging to 
 young Alexander Duggleby. 
 
 By that time Mr. Heatherfield was able to open 
 his eyes a little, not fully, but enough to make out 
 a form bending over him, and to recognize that 
 form as belonging to the man who called himself 
 Morton. Apparently the other voice had come as 
 a surprise to him, for he started at the sound of 
 it, But he straightened up, and replied in a 
 whisper : 
 
 " Yes, I have it. Here it is." 
 
 Duggleby came nearer, reached across Mr. 
 Heatherfield's recumbent body and took in his 
 hand the sealed envelope which Morton was hold- 
 ing out to him. Then, in spite of Morton's quick 
 gesture of protest, he tore it open and drew out 
 its contents. 
 
 ' You will waken him," said Morton uneasily. 
 
 " Not after he's had two cups of that coffee," 
 Duggleby replied, coolly enough, unfolding the 
 papers as he spoke. " Even if he does wake up, 
 he'll know enough to lie still and pretend that he 
 isn't." 
 
 Morton, however, showed himself to be ex- 
 tremely uneasy, edged away a little from Mr. 
 Heatherfield, and kept casting quick little glances 
 out of the French window. 
 
 Suddenly, to Mr. Heatherfield's intense sur- 
 18 263
 
 THE MAN WITHOUT A SHADOW 
 
 prise, and equally to his alarm, Duggleby strode 
 swiftly across to his accomplice and thrust the 
 papers in his face. " Give me the real formula," 
 he demanded in a voice which, though not loud, 
 was concentrated with passion. 
 
 " I don't know what you mean," said Morton. 
 " For Heaven's sake ! don't make a noise. That's 
 the real formula; at least it's what I took from 
 Heatherfield." 
 
 " You liar ! " Duggleby whispered. And with 
 that he caught him around the throat with both 
 .hands and shook him as a dog shakes a rat. The 
 man turned perfectly limp and fell, groveling, at 
 his feet; crawled away a little, and finally sat up, 
 feeling of his throat. 
 
 " I don't know what you mean," he protested. 
 
 " Yes, you do," said Duggleby. " It was a 
 rather bright idea of yours, if you had only had 
 sense enough to execute it decently. You thought 
 if you had the foresight to prepare a formula of 
 your own to amuse me with, you could keep the 
 real formula for yourself and dictate terms to me 
 when you got away to a safe distance. I should 
 really begin to respect you if you had had sense 
 enough to execute it decently. The next time you 
 try to play a trick like that, don't offer a chemist a 
 formula that wouldn't deceive a schoolboy." 
 
 His rage seemed to be rapidly passing. " Come, 
 264
 
 DEJEUNER AT THE CHATEAU 
 
 get up," he said. " Give me the real papers. It 
 was a clever idea clever enough to forgive." 
 
 Mr. Heatherfield had witnessed this scene in 
 constantly growing alarm. He was amazed at 
 Duggleby's shrewdness in detecting the fraudulent 
 nature of the formulae, for he had prepared them 
 with great care, and had felt perfectly confident 
 that they would deceive even an expert. He could 
 not foresee exactly what would happen to him 
 when Duggleby should become convinced that 
 Morton was telling the truth, but he was, plainly 
 enough, in serious danger. The next moment his 
 astonishment increased tenfold, and his alarm 
 ceased at the same time. 
 
 For Morton confessed. 
 
 He rose clumsily to his feet, fumbled in his 
 pocket and drew out an envelope, which Mr. 
 Heatherfield was now able to recognize as the one 
 he himself had brought to the chateau in the oiled- 
 silk bag. 
 
 ; ' When a man's in as deep a hole as you've got 
 me in," he murmured resentfully, " you can't much 
 wonder that he tries to wriggle out." 
 
 " Well, don't wriggle any more," said Dug- 
 gleby rather grimly. " Here, let's see that you're 
 not lying to me this time." 
 
 He took Mr. Heatherfield's envelope from 
 Morton's hand, opened it and cast a single glance 
 
 265
 
 .THE MAN WITHOUT A SHADOW 
 
 at its contents, and then quickly placed it in his 
 pocket. 
 
 " That's more like," he said. " Now take 
 the others your silly sulphuric acid and common 
 salt and put them in Heatherfield's bag. There 
 is no use in confessing that we are the people who 
 robbed him, though he'll probably suspect it." 
 
 He left the room then, apparently, for Morton, 
 unassisted, carried out his instructions, putting the 
 old gentleman's clothing to rights as best he could, 
 with hands that were clumsy with eagerness and 
 haste. Then he went away to the French window 
 to wait till the effect of the drug should have passed 
 off. 
 
 When Mr. Heatherfield roused, he did his best 
 to apologize for his nap and to affect total igno- 
 rance of all that had passed in the meantime. But 
 he was in a hurry to get away, and Morton was 
 not eager to detain him. A few minutes later they 
 joined Virginia on the lawn. 
 
 On the way home she heard her father's story. 
 
 What happened when they reached the hotel 
 shall be told a little later.
 
 CHAPTER XXIV 
 
 WHAT DR. LINOL TOLD ME 
 
 FOR a moment the doctor and I stood per- 
 fectly speechless with astonishment before 
 the corpulent clerical gentleman who had just 
 called me " Christopher," and spoken of me as 
 " Mr. Morton." A long, searching look into his 
 face brought me absolutely nothing in the way of 
 recognition; yet I knew that unless this stranger 
 had made an almost inconceivable mistake, he must 
 be among the most intimate of my friends. The 
 use of the Christian name as a term of address 
 implies much greater familiarity in France than 
 in England or America. 
 
 It would be absolutely brutal to confess to this 
 man that I did not know him. To avoid this, I 
 told what I am pretty sure was a lie. 
 
 " You have met M. de Villiers before, I think," 
 said I, bowing with the air of one who performs 
 a superfluous introduction. 
 
 The doctor, who realized my predicament, did 
 not deny an already existing acquaintance. Luck- 
 
 267
 
 THE MAN WITHOUT A SHADOW 
 
 ily for us, the stranger was a man of garrulous 
 habit, and his ready flow of speech prevented the 
 conversation from getting stranded right from the 
 start. 
 
 " Your friends here had about given you up," 
 he said. " When we first heard that you had re- 
 turned to Europe after your big-game hunt 
 in West Africa, we entertained an almost daily 
 expectation of seeing you here at Tours, but as 
 months went by and we heard nothing from you 
 heard nothing of you except what was current in 
 the newspapers we began to think that you had, 
 indeed, abandoned us." 
 
 " Believe me," said I, " I took my first oppor- 
 tunity to come back." 
 
 He smiled with a pleasant sort of skepticism. 
 " Well," he said, " don't hurry away again till 
 you have given your friends a chance to see some- 
 thing of you and to hear your budget of news." 
 
 The cadence of his voice suggested that he was 
 about to take leave of us, and that I was deter- 
 mined to prevent. " We are at the hotel for the 
 present," said I. " Won't you come back there 
 now and lunch with us? " 
 
 My words seemed to surprise him a little, but 
 he accepted the invitation very promptly. 
 
 We started up the street together, three abreast. 
 Before we had gone a hundred paces I became 
 
 268
 
 WHAT DR. LINOL TOLD ME 
 
 aware that we were creating a mild sensation, and 
 that I was evidently the cause of it. The people 
 turned about as we passed, looked after us, point- 
 ing me out when they thought I was not looking. 
 Dozens of people were bowing to me sleek-look- 
 ing men of affairs, tradesmen from their shop 
 doors, and one extremely pretty woman who was 
 driving in a victoria. Her bow suggested that if 
 I had checked my pace ever so little, her coach- 
 man would have received instructions to pull up to 
 the curb. There could be no doubt at all that I 
 was, or was mistaken for, a local celebrity of con- 
 siderable importance. It was not altogether the 
 absence of my beard that made the difference. 
 The presence of my new companion put the recog- 
 nition of me beyond a doubt. 
 
 Important as all these facts were, however 
 much as they would have interested me in ordinary 
 circumstances they were now relegated to the 
 background of my thought. My unknown friend's 
 conversation left me very liMe leisure to speculate 
 upon other things. 
 
 " I heard this morning," he said as we strolled 
 along, " that your cousin, Mr. Arthur Morton, 
 had arrived in Tours." He spoke rather hesita- 
 tingly, as if hardly knowing whether he were in- 
 troducing a theme that would be welcome or not. 
 Neither the doctor nor I made any comment. And 
 
 269
 
 THE MAN WITHOUT A SHADOW 
 
 presently he continued: "I should have expected 
 his presence here to act as a deterrent to your own 
 return rather than as an incentive to it, but pos- 
 sibly you did not know he had come." 
 
 " No," said I, " I knew nothing of it." 
 
 Then the doctor spoke. His contribution to 
 the talk surprised me. " Mr. Arthur Morton 
 bears a rather striking resemblance to our friend 
 here, does he not? " he remarked. 
 
 " I am afraid it must be admitted that he does," 
 said our new friend reluctantly, " although I my- 
 self have never been able to see it. I suppose, 
 however, long acquaintance with both of them is 
 what prevents me. There must, however, be a 
 family likeness, because strangers are repeatedly 
 mistaking one for the other." 
 
 We were at that moment crossing the square 
 in front of the Hotel de 1'Univers, and at the risk 
 of being run down by a casual cab, the doctor 
 stopped short and looked our new acquaintance 
 squarely in the face. ' You are perfectly satisfied, 
 are you, monsieur," he asked, " that that resem- 
 blance is not now misleading you? You are quite 
 sure you are talking to Mr. Christopher Morton 
 and not, in fact, to his cousin, Mr. Arthur? " 
 
 The clergyman returned his look with a stare 
 of the blankest astonishment. " Can it be possible 
 that you are serious, monsieur? " he asked. 
 
 270
 
 WHAT DR. LINOL TOLD ME 
 
 " I never was more serious in my life. It is a 
 matter of enormous importance." 
 
 " I am perfectly ready," said the stranger, 
 speaking rather formally and stiffly, and with the 
 air of choosing his words, " I am perfectly willing 
 to take my oath, upon the name of God, that this 
 young man, upon whose shoulder my hand rests, 
 is Christopher Morton, and none other. The re- 
 semblance between himself and his cousin could 
 never confuse a friend hardly an acquaintance 
 of any standing. And if I needed further proof, 
 which I do not, my recollection of the day when 
 he received the wound that left that white scar 
 upon his chin would settle the matter beyond 
 cavil." 
 
 He paused a moment there, and his look of 
 astonishment deepened. " But this is childish," 
 he continued. " Certainly you cannot doubt the 
 word of our friend himself that he is Christopher 
 Morton." 
 
 " My friend," said the doctor soberly, " is un- 
 able to give me his word. He does not know who 
 he is. Come, let us go into the hotel. This is too 
 serious a matter for the curbstone." 
 
 We secured a little private dining room in the 
 hotel, and I suppose we ordered luncheon and 
 went through the motions of eating it. At any 
 rate, we must have remained at the table for hours 
 
 271
 
 after all pretense of eating lunch had been aban- 
 doned, for it was late in the afternoon when, at 
 last, we pushed back our chairs and looked at each 
 other in blank silence. 
 
 Our new friend had done most of the talking. 
 He proved to be, as I had surmised, the pastor of 
 the Protestant church of Tours, by name and title 
 Dr. Etienne Linol. He had, it seemed, for many 
 years resided at la Mesle in the capacity of tutor 
 to the boy Christopher Morton. 
 
 His conviction that I was that boy remained 
 completely unshaken all the afternoon. He spoke 
 of him, when addressing me, always as " you." 
 " But you certainly remember how you " he 
 would begin, again and again, prefacing the ac- 
 count of some new event, sometimes important, 
 sometimes trivial; and with each new beginning 
 he would always be just as confident that this time 
 he was going to strike the chord of memory with- 
 in me. 
 
 He was telling me the life history of a mildly 
 interesting and decidedly likable young man. He 
 insisted that that young man was I, and, so far as 
 such a thing could be proved, he proved it. And 
 yet, all the while, the inner thing that was I, that 
 was the only / there could be, looked on as a 
 stranger. 
 
 There is no need of retelling here the circum- 
 272
 
 WHAT DR. LINOL TOLD ME 
 
 stantial biography he gave us. In very broad out- 
 line, here is the life and character of the young 
 man he believed me to be: 
 
 His mother was a Frenchwoman, intensely 
 French, capable of being happy nowhere but in 
 France. So here in France, at Chateau la Mesle, 
 which was hers by inheritance, she had lived, while 
 her husband had been living and working and 
 piling up his colossal fortune in America. There 
 was no ill feeling between them. He had spent 
 his brief vacations with her until the time of her 
 death. 
 
 The boy, who was their only child, she had ap- 
 propriated for her own. She had given him a 
 good education, in a way, though hardly one to 
 fit him for the responsibilities that would come to 
 him upon his father's death. He had grown up 
 a rather typical French aristocrat of the better 
 sort, fond of sports and games, a good boxer, 
 fencer, and horseman. The only thing that he 
 carried to excess, from the point of view of his 
 friends, was his passion for music. He was a bet- 
 ter pianist than a gentleman had any right to be. 
 
 His cousin Arthur had started out in life side 
 by side with him ; had shared Dr. Linol's tutelage 
 at the chateau, but before he was fairly out of his 
 boyhood he had developed all of the well-marked 
 characteristics of the black sheep. Finally he 
 
 273
 
 THE MAN WITHOUT A SHADOW 
 
 drifted away altogether, coming back only when 
 in trouble, and only staying until he had persuaded 
 Christopher and his mother to satisfy his needs. 
 
 This was the story Dr. Linol told, dropping 
 his eager narrative in one place where it had failed, 
 only to pick it up in another that seemed to him 
 to promise more success. So far as the facts went, 
 they tallied absolutely with what data the doctor 
 and I had got together about myself. 
 
 Christopher Morton had left Tours about 
 three years ago. He had appeared for the last 
 time at a hunt-club dinner on the eve of his de- 
 parture for West Africa to hunt big game, a proj- 
 ect which his friends knew he had been preparing 
 for for several months. Nothing was heard of 
 him at all for nearly two years, at the end of which 
 time the newspapers simultaneously reported his 
 father's death and his inheritance of the entire for- 
 tune, and then began recording his appearance at 
 various resorts of frivolity in different corners of 
 Europe. So far as I knew, there was no particu- 
 lar significance about these dates, but M. de Vil- 
 liers evidently saw more in them than I did. 
 
 As I said, at last we all fell silent. During 
 all those hours we had spent there I had listened, 
 at first with hope but later with the apathy of 
 complete despair. It was not only that my old 
 tutor's words called back nothing of the past to 
 ' 274
 
 WHAT DR. LINOL TOLD ME 
 
 me, that failure would have been merely one of 
 those negative disappointments to which I was be- 
 coming hardened, but in telling me this story, he 
 had built up a character antipodally different, ut- 
 terly irreconcilable, it seemed to me, with the man 
 Virginia knew me to have been. Neither Vir- 
 ginia nor Dr. Linol could possibly be mistaken re- 
 garding my physical identity. They had known 
 two men who had no trait in common, and no 
 sympathy or interest in common; and here I sat, 
 possessing the body and mind that had once served 
 the uses of those two men. 
 
 While I was too numb, too completely dazed 
 with bewilderment to feel the full tragedy and hor- 
 ror of it then, I did realize, wearily, that some 
 return, some acknowledgment, was due to Dr. 
 Linol for his kindness. It was I who finally broke 
 the silence, and it was to him I spoke. 
 
 " I think you have proved," said I, " that I once 
 was Christopher Morton. That there could be 
 any other explanation of the facts we have heard, 
 seems almost inconceivable ; at any rate, I have no 
 doubt of it. I once was Christopher Morton. But 
 as certainly as that is true, it is equally certain 
 that I am not he now. I have been listening for 
 hours to the life history of a total stranger. You 
 have been very kind to me, and I thank you, thank 
 you more warmly than I can express at this mo- 
 
 275
 
 THE MAN WITHOUT A SHADOW 
 
 ment, for the eagerness you have shown to be of 
 assistance to me. You have offered me my past, 
 or by far the greater part of it, complete in every 
 detail, but I cannot open my hands to receive it." 
 
 I did not look at my doctor. I felt in that 
 moment that I could not support his eye. I knew 
 that he understood, as fully as I could, the tragic 
 inference which Dr. Linol's words had made un- 
 escapable. 
 
 The clergyman would have said something 
 sympathetic, would have condoled with me upon 
 my misfortune. I saw him trying to think of 
 words of comfort and of hope. But the other 
 man knew me better. 
 
 " What Dr. Linol has told us just now," he said 
 quietly, " has been of inestimable assistance to us, 
 in one way; a way which you, my young friend, 
 have, I think, for the moment forgotten. Mr. 
 Heatherfield and his daughter are almost as vitally 
 concerned in this story which we have just heard 
 as you are yourself. His explanation has made it 
 perfectly clear that the rascal who invited them to 
 Chateau la Mesle to-day was Arthur Morton, and 
 not Christopher. Whether you feel that you can 
 assume that name or not, it is clearly your duty to 
 society to strip him of it. And you can strip the 
 Dugglebys, father and son, of the power they have 
 usurped." 
 
 276
 
 VIRGINIA 
 
 HIS words were instantly efficacious in rous- 
 ing me from my apathy. The invitation 
 which had taken Mr. Heatherfield and Virginia to 
 la Mesle was a lure, and there could be no doubt, 
 now, that it had been a lure of Duggleby's con- 
 triving. The thought of their danger brought me 
 at once to my feet. 
 
 Our arrangements had been that they were to 
 return from la Mesle to this hotel and meet us 
 here some time in the afternoon. The first thing 
 to find out was, whether they had, in fact, returned. 
 
 With a word of excuse to M. de Villiers and 
 the clergyman, I hurried downstairs and sought 
 the concierge. I learned from him, to my intense 
 relief, that Virginia and her father had been back 
 more than an hour. The old gentleman had 
 seemed greatly fatigued and excited, the concierge 
 said, and his daughter had engaged rooms for 
 both of them. They had inquired as to the where- 
 abouts of M. de Villiers and myself, but, learn- 
 
 277
 
 THE MAN WITHOUT A SHADOW 
 
 ing that we were engaged with a stranger, had 
 given orders that we were not to be interrupted. 
 
 Two minutes later I was knocking on Virginia's 
 door. She opened it almost instantly and without 
 a question. 
 
 " You see," she commented rather breathlessly, 
 " I haven't forgotten your step, and well, I knew 
 you would come to me as soon as you could." 
 Then, with a little gesture which called my atten- 
 tion to the condition of the room, she added: 
 "You don't mind, do you? I've been shopping. 
 I had to replace some of the contents of my hand 
 bag." 
 
 There was a litter of packages and wrapping 
 paper on the bed and on the floor. Some of the 
 packages had been opened, and, as a result, Vir- 
 ginia herself, instead of being clad in the trim 
 severity which had characterized her before, was 
 wrapped now, from her white neck to the pompons 
 on her soft red slippers, in a long kimono of flow- 
 ered silk. 
 
 Her apology was clearly intended only to cover 
 the condition of the room. The informality of 
 her own appearance left her untroubled. 
 
 She closed the door behind me; then with 
 both hands brushed her hair back out of her eyes. 
 There was something delicious, luxurious about 
 the gesture, and she concluded it by stretching 
 
 278
 
 VIRGINIA 
 
 those two white arms out toward me and resting 
 her hands upon my shoulders. 
 
 " We've had all sorts of exciting adventures, 
 Morton," she said; "but the sight of you here, 
 alone with me again, makes it hard to begin." 
 
 Then she drew me a little closer. 
 
 u You look more natural, somehow. Some- 
 thing's happened. What have you done? Oh, 
 you've shaved off your beard." 
 
 She interrupted herself to laugh, and moved a 
 little nearer yet, and lay her cheek against mine. 
 
 " I like you better this way," she concluded. 
 
 Then she slipped her hand into mine and led 
 me across the room. 
 
 " Sit down beside me on the sofa, here," she 
 said, " and let's talk. I suppose I must tell you 
 the tale of our adventures." 
 
 The sweetness of her, the frank simplicity which 
 went along with this complete self-surrender, was 
 poignant enough to turn me a little bit giddy. 
 From her point of view I was her husband, and it 
 was clear enough that no words of mine could 
 make me seem anything else to her. And yet, from 
 my point of view, except that I loved her, I was al- 
 most a stranger to her. I had seen her once, for a 
 few moments, in New York, in an electric cab with 
 Duggleby, from which she had dismounted at the 
 Brooklyn Bridge terminal. For another few mo- 
 19 279
 
 ments I had seen her, and had spoken half a dozen 
 words to her on shipboard. Except for those two 
 meetings, my whole acquaintance with her, all my; 
 conscious memories of her, dated no farther back 
 than yesterday. 
 
 And, curiously and paradoxically enough, my 
 unconscious memories, my dream pictures of her 
 were growing fainter every hour, just in propor- 
 tion as her vivid, present personality etched itself 
 more deeply in my present consciousness. 
 
 I dropped down beside her on the sofa, in the 
 rending grip of violently conflicting emotions. A 
 savage, relentless instinct in me told me that I was 
 violating her confidence and privacy by being there 
 alone with her on those terms ; that I had no right, 
 no more right than a mere masquerading impostor 
 would have, to take this gift which she so frankly 
 offered me. And yet I longed for it, with a long- 
 ing that fairly hurt. I was tired, disheartened, at 
 the end of my hopes, and I had a tired child's im- 
 pulse to seek asylum in her arms and slacken for a 
 while my grip upon the world. And I knew how 
 eagerly those arms would grasp me into that 
 haven. 
 
 I bent forward and buried my face in my hands. 
 
 ' You've news, too," she said with a sudden 
 flash of intuition. " Something has happened to 
 you. Something has happened to you here in 
 
 280
 
 VIRGINIA 
 
 Tours to-day. It's not bad news, is it? It can't 
 be very bad news can it, Morton, dear? " 
 
 4 Virginia," said I, looking up at her suddenly, 
 " do you remember the old story of the man who 
 had no shadow? Well, that story has come true 
 now, and it is my own. I'm as unsubstantial as a 
 ghost. You think that I am the man you knew 
 and loved and married, a man you learned to love 
 for his humanity, for the love which he, in turn, 
 bore his neighbors, a man who worked his life out 
 for them. And it's true that that man lived in 
 my body, and thought, to some extent, with my 
 mind. But in spite of that, do you know what 
 has happened to me to-day, here in the streets of 
 Tours? I have seen dozens of people lifting 
 thir hats to me, welcoming me back; I have been 
 identified by a man, who knew Christopher Mor- 
 ton intimately for years, as Christopher Morton 
 himself." 
 
 " Christopher Morton " she repeated wonder- 
 ingly. " But that's impossible ! " 
 
 " No," said I. " So far as such a case can be, 
 that case is proved. And yet, all he told me of the 
 life which must once have been my own has not 
 kindled one spark of recognition in my own mind. 
 What good will it do to prove, by inference and 
 deduction and documents, who the man was who 
 was lost Christopher Morton or Morton Smith? 
 
 281
 
 (THE MAN WITHOUT A SHADOW 
 
 That won't give him back to me. That can't give 
 me back the only thing that makes a man himself. 
 Though I prove it a thousand times, I shall always 
 be unreal, a man without a shadow." 
 
 She had drawn a little away from me when I 
 had spoken of Christopher Morton, startled, half 
 frightened, and gazed at me, wide eyed, as a child 
 might gaze at a stranger whose hand he had con- 
 fidingly taken, thinking it to be his father's. 
 
 But as I finished speaking, with a sudden rush 
 of tears, she came close to me again, slipped her 
 arm around my neck, pulled my head down and 
 cradled it where it so longed to be. 
 
 " I won't have you tortured any more," she 
 cried, half fiercely. " I won't have you submitted 
 to any more experiments. Do you think I would 
 let a mere trick of memory take you away from me 
 now that I know you're you take you away, or 
 even threaten to ? " Then her voice dropped to a 
 whisper. " 7 know you. I know who you are and 
 what you are, and that's enough. I know your 
 hair, your eyes, and every line about them, only 
 some are deeper than they were. I know your 
 hands and every gesture you make with them. I 
 know your step, your voice." 
 
 " Dr. Linol knew them, too." 
 
 She laughed softly at that. " Not the way I do 
 not the way I do," she repeated. 
 
 282
 
 "There was something positively magnetic about her hands.'
 
 " Yet he was right; he is right, just as much as 
 you are." 
 
 "Listen ! " she commanded. " What if he is, or, 
 rather, what if you believe he is? What if you 
 can't help believing that once you were Christopher 
 Morton, and that at another time you were Mor- 
 ton Smith? Let the whole past go together and 
 stop worrying. It will come back some day. 
 Meanwhile, you are somebody now. You cast a 
 shadow yourself Monsieur Barras Monsieur 
 Barras whom I've known only two days." 
 
 Her face was full of laughing mockery as she 
 said those last words and she pointed the absurdity 
 she had pictured by bending down suddenly and 
 kissing me. 
 
 The answer to her sweet fallacy was altogether 
 too clear. I had no guarantee that Simon Barras 
 would be more permanent than his two predeces- 
 sors. He might revert to either one of them, or to 
 another man completely, if the horrible theory 
 which explained my mystery should prove true. 
 
 But I could not answer her while I lay there in 
 her arms. I only drew a long breath and lay still. 
 
 After a little silence, she asked: " Don't you 
 want to hear what happened to us at the chateau 
 to-day?" 
 
 I think she began the narrative more for the pur- 
 pose of diverting my own thoughts from the circle 
 
 283
 
 THE MAN WITHOUT A SHADOW 
 
 in which they spun than from any very present 
 interest of her own in it, for she talked rather ab- 
 sently. 
 
 As for me, while I heard, it could hardly be said 
 that I listened, though, as it was afterwards 
 proved, I remembered. 
 
 After she had finished, there was a silence be- 
 tween us. Finally, bending down over me she met 
 my eyes. 
 
 " I hoped that I had talked you to sleep," she 
 said. " I am going to put you to sleep now, and 
 then it will be time for me to dress and go down 
 to dinner. You're not to go. You've seen enough 
 of people for one day, and I'd rather like to talk 
 with your Dr. Linol myself." 
 
 She rose from her place on the sofa and, with 
 gentle compulsion, made me lie out flat upon it. 
 And then, crouching near, she began stroking my 
 forehead and temples with a light, rhythmic touch. 
 There was something positively magnetic about her 
 hands, and in spite of my expressed incredulity as 
 to her powers, she actually did as she prophesied. 
 
 The quiet closing of the door after her as she 
 left the room to go down to dinner was what wak- 
 ened me.
 
 CHAPTER XXVI 
 
 MY LAST EXPERIMENT 
 
 FOR an hour after I was roused by the faint 
 click of that closing door behind Virginia I 
 lay quite still there on the couch where she had left 
 me. It is no exaggeration to say that, for the 
 length of that interminable hour, I suffered the tor- 
 tures of the very damned. The most excruciating 
 physical pain to which I could have subjected my- 
 self would have been a pleasant relief from the 
 agony of my thoughts. 
 
 The quest I had set out upon a month ago, ac- 
 tuated by the fond belief that there was a man 
 somewhere who had a right to call himself I ; the 
 quest which had so grotesquely terminated to-day 
 with the discovery that I was not one man, but ap- 
 parently two, that was hardly in my thoughts at 
 all. Not directly in my thoughts, I mean. The 
 events of that month and the conclusion they had 
 led me to formed a somber background to the one 
 incandescent fact which tortured me. 
 
 That fact was, that before long now, in another 
 285
 
 THE MAN WITHOUT A SHADOW 
 
 hour, perhaps, or less than that, Virginia would be 
 coming back, back to this room of hers, whose pri- 
 vacy I had violated, back to a man who loved her, 
 and yet barely knew her, a man she believed to be 
 her husband. 
 
 I tried to wonder what that man had been like. 
 The notion I had of him, from the meager ac- 
 counts she had given me, made him out a rather 
 austere figure; a sort of St. Francis of modern in- 
 dustry; the sort of man that most of us nowadays, 
 even I well, Simon B arras, then would call a 
 fanatic. He chilled me a little, repelled me, that 
 man who had once been I, the man Virginia loved. 
 I felt that if Simon Barras were to succeed in recon- 
 ciling himself with either of those two men who 
 had preceded him in the tenancy of this body and 
 mind, it would be with the French aristocrat more 
 nearly than with the American altruist. Chris- 
 topher Morton had, at least, conducted himself 
 very much as Simon Barras might have done had 
 he ever been young and untrained, and spoiled by 
 a too indulgent mother. But at the very mention 
 of Christopher Morton's name, Virginia had 
 shrunk a little. 
 
 And yet in an hour she was coming back to me. 
 And when she came In the sweet frankness of 
 her innocence she had already tempted me clear 
 to the edge of human endurance. The appeal of 
 
 286
 
 MY LAST EXPERIMENT 
 
 those eyes of hers, of those warm red lips and white 
 arms was one I could not hope to resist indefinitely. 
 And yet to surrender, to yield to the sweet fallacy 
 of her reasoning, would brand me in my own eyes, 
 in the eyes of Simon Barras, as a vile and contemp- 
 tible scoundrel. 
 
 I got to my feet at that, switched on the light, 
 and stared at my shaven face in one of the mirrors. 
 For aught I knew, I might be, to-morrow or next 
 week, the sort of greedy villain who would take 
 all that she, in her innocent bounty, was holding 
 out to me. But now, to-night, I thanked God that 
 I was a man, a gentleman. And to-night, in one 
 way or another, I would solve my problems ; would 
 find an answer to my questions. 
 
 Silently, and with infinite precaution that none 
 of my friends should become aware of my flight, I 
 slipped from the room, stole down the corridor to 
 an unused stairway, made my way to the street and 
 sprang into a passing cab, whose driver responded 
 to my signal. I did not speak one word to him, 
 but pointed with my stick down the rue Nationale 
 toward the bridge. I was on my way to try one 
 last experiment, an experiment which, at least, had 
 this advantage that it would be conclusive. 
 
 Long before we reached the bridge I was sur- 
 prised to find myself curiously calm. It may have 
 been that the breath of the cool night air had some- 
 
 287
 
 THE MAN WITHOUT A SHADOW 
 
 thing to do with this result, as also the fact that I, 
 at last, was doing something, not merely thinking. 
 But more than either, I think, was due to this, that 
 such thoughts as I had been wrestling with during 
 the past hour carry, in a measure, their own ano- 
 dyne with them. For a man to try to realize a 
 doubt about his own identity, to question his right 
 to use the pronoun I, is very much such a mental 
 exercise as trying to think in terms of a fourth di- 
 mension. The conception lies the other side of a 
 fixed boundary which the human reason cannot 
 cross. 
 
 As I settled back against the cushions of the cab, 
 my tired mind reverted to the old conviction that I 
 was I, and that in some way it must be possible for 
 me to recover my lost self. 
 
 When I had succeeded in calming myself with 
 that reflection, I was able to see some things which 
 held out a promise of hope. Never since the mo- 
 ment when I cast that first glance at the man sit- 
 ting at the other end of the bench in the yard at 
 Dr. Berry's asylum had I been helped in any way 
 by any facts which had been related concerning my 
 lost past. Indeed, the use of my mind upon the 
 problem my present mind I mean had always 
 served to blunt and deaden the action of the only 
 thing which had ever helped me the thing which 
 I must call my instinct. 
 
 288
 
 MY LAST EXPERIMENT 
 
 Left to itself, that instinct had shown itself 
 capable of important discoveries. It had taught 
 me the trick of the foot by which I had overcome, 
 my guards in Dr. Berry's asylum. It had guided 
 me through the maze of streets in east side New 
 York. It had recognized Virginia. It had got 
 me my job at Coney Island and secured for me the 
 friendship of the French doctor. It had guided 
 me to the Quai d'Orsay ; had led me here to Tours ; 
 had conducted me through this city, without a mo- 
 ment's halt or hesitation, straight to the door of 
 what I knew now had for many years been my 
 home. But it could only work when my active, 
 present mind suspended operations and gave it a 
 clear field. 
 
 To-day I had been giving it no chance. It 
 should not, after all, have made me despair that 
 Dr. Linol's eager reminiscences had met with no 
 response, nor even though this was harder to rea- 
 lize that I could have sat beside Virginia, my 
 heart and soul thrilling with her mere presence 
 there beside me, and yet without the responsive 
 vibration of one single chord of memory. It was 
 not in the eager appeal of friendly and loving 
 voices that I should find the answer to my secret. 
 But the thing that I was doing now, that offered a 
 chance. 
 
 As a plan, it possessed the virtue of a perfectly 
 289
 
 THE MAN WITHOUT A SHADOW 
 
 rudimentary simplicity. I was going home. That 
 was all home to Chateau la Mesle. I was going 
 alone, unarmed, unprovided with any safeguard 
 against attack, just as I might have gone three 
 years ago after that last hunt-club dinner that Dr. 
 Linol had told about. 
 
 The presence in the chateau of a man who had 
 determined to murder me who had made an at- 
 tempt to murder me only that morning, and of a 
 gang of rascals, who were his mere hirelings, on 
 whom he could rely to do his bidding to the utmost 
 all of these facts played a very small part in my 
 calculations. What part they did play was favor- 
 able to my plans, rather than otherwise. For I be- 
 lieved that necessity, danger, the peril, perhaps, of 
 instant death might avail to bring back my past to 
 me where milder measures had failed. I laid ab- 
 solutely no plans to meet these dangers, took no 
 precautions whatever against them. So far as pos- 
 sible I wiped my mind, clean as a schoolboy's slate, 
 of all records of the past twenty-four hours in- 
 deed, of all records whatever. I was going home. 
 That was all. 
 
 It was a little surprising how easy of accomplish- 
 ment this feat proved to be. Body and mind re- 
 laxed together. I leaned back against the cushions 
 of my cab and lighted a cigarette, inhaling the fra- 
 grant smoke with lazy pleasure. My cab rolled 
 
 290
 
 MY LAST EXPERIMENT 
 
 out between the stone parapets of the long white 
 bridge. 
 
 Then, as I looked out along the silvered, sandy 
 reaches of the Loire, illumined, and yet caressingly 
 concealed by the veiled half moon and its shadows, 
 there came to me a sense of repetition, very vague 
 at first, but growing stronger every second. The 
 moonlight, the fragrance of my cigarette, the hol- 
 low rhythm of the horse's hoofs all played their 
 perfect part in it. 
 
 Suddenly, without intention, without in the least 
 understanding the thing I did, I ordered my driver 
 to stop, dismounted from the cab, handed him a 
 five- franc piece and told him to go back to Tours. 
 The act was so completely against the intent with 
 which I had set out, namely, of driving to the cha- 
 teau, that, for just an instant, my mind resisted 
 my unconscious impulse. But I thrust this hesita- 
 tion from me almost passionately. It was the last 
 act of resistance my mind made. From then on, 
 my inner man had full control. 
 
 I walked to the parapet of the bridge and looked 
 over. There were strange bits of driftwood float- 
 ing down the submerged current of my thoughts. 
 There was something about a man trying to jump 
 into the river below me a man not myself. There 
 was something, curiously enough, about two thou- 
 sand francs. 
 
 291
 
 THE MAN WITHOUT A SHADOW 
 
 Presently, in obedience to an automatic impulse, 
 I resumed my way on foot across the bridge, 
 trudged steadily on up through the Tranche, and 
 turned off to the left at the St. Symphorien post- 
 office. I was following the road to Chateau la 
 Mesle. But no thought of my destination was in 
 my mind. It was occupied altogether with that 
 faint, curious echo of something that once before 
 had happened on that bridge on such a night as 
 this. What the circumstance was I did not know, 
 but it must have left me in a strange state of exulta- 
 tion, for that was the feeling I was conscious of 
 now conscious of some great resolve I had just 
 taken of some unworthy thing I had just re- 
 nounced. 
 
 Swinging along the moonlit road, I felt the ex- 
 citement of these emotions without being aware of 
 their cause. Of any thoughts of Virginia and her 
 father, of the French doctor, of Duggleby and his 
 accomplice, my mind was absolutely clear. They 
 were as if they had never been. 
 
 Presently I found myself turning off the road 
 into a little bypath. The great gate which gave 
 access to the park at la Mesle was still half a mile 
 away down the road, but I felt no misgivings about 
 turning aside. The instinct which had prompted 
 me was absolutely authoritative. 
 
 The path was a mere track at first, between two 
 292
 
 MY LAST EXPERIMENT 
 
 unfenced, cultivated fields. Presently it crossed a 
 heavily wooded pasture. Here, under the trees, 
 there was no light by which to make out the path, 
 but my feet never faltered. I hardly checked my 
 pace, and at last I found myself walking along 
 beside a high stone wall. Twenty paces ahead of 
 me was a gate, and at that gate I stopped. 
 
 I seemed to know somehow that the gate would 
 not be locked; at any rate, I experienced no sur- 
 prise when it swung open, with protesting creaks, 
 upon my shooting the wooden bolt. I closed the 
 gate after me, and set out briskly across the broad, 
 wooded lawn. Right before me rose the dear, 
 familiar outlines of Chateau la Mesle. 
 
 Evidently the creaking of the little gate had at- 
 tracted somebody's attention, for a man came hur- 
 rying across the lawn to meet me. His air was 
 rather menacing, but it did not occur to me to feel 
 in the smallest degree alarmed, and, as it turned 
 out, my confidence was justified. He came quite 
 close, and looked into my face; then with a grum- 
 ble of apology, touched his hat and walked away. 
 
 If my mind had been working, this action of his 
 would have given me something to think about. 
 My instinct, however, took the man's action abso- 
 lutely for granted. Why should a guardian of my 
 own grounds be expected to act in any other way 
 at sight of me?* 
 
 293
 
 THE MAN WITHOUT A SHADOW 
 
 I turned presently into the path up which I had 
 started to walk once before could it be possible 
 that it was only yesterday that the wall-eyed lodge 
 keeper had turned me back ? the path that led to 
 the little door under the low gray stone arch. 
 
 This door, like the gate, I found unlocked. I 
 stepped within and closed it behind me. I was in 
 total darkness, but not for a single instant did I 
 hesitate. I walked forward a little way, found a 
 familiar post with my outstretched hand, and be- 
 gan ascending a long spiral stair. At the head of 
 it I found another door, which I opened and en- 
 tered. 
 
 I explored the wall at my left, and six inches 
 from the point where my hand had touched it, 
 found a wall switch which I turned on, flooding 
 the room instantly with light. 
 
 From the moment when I had dismissed the cab 
 on the bridge, until the present moment, my in- 
 stinctive mind had not committed a single error, 
 and yet, at no instant of that time could I have 
 predicted what my next move was to be. There 
 was no expectation, when I turned into the bypath, 
 of finding the gate; no expectation, when I entered 
 the doorway, of finding the stairs. I had done 
 everything as methodically and unconsciously as if 
 it had been a part of my daily routine for the past 
 three years. 
 
 294
 
 MY LAST EXPERIMENT 
 
 But with the turning on of the light there came 
 a change. I was no longer calm ; no longer mat- 
 ter-of-fact. The very first sight of the outlines of 
 that room, of its heavy-beamed ceiling, of the tap- 
 estries on the walls, of the deep-embrasured win- 
 dows, the articles of furniture, the first glance at 
 all that brought me a feeling of buoyant delight 
 that almost overwhelmed me. I was home ! home ! 
 home after a long pilgrimage! 
 
 I laid aside my hat and stick and dropped rather 
 limply into a big easy chair. I think I must have 
 sat there for more than half an hour, my mind 
 all the while in a perfectly passive state, sat- 
 isfied simply with a sensation of rest and of home- 
 coming. 
 
 At last, however, I rose and crossed the room 
 to a small door at the other side of it. I wanted 
 my dressing gown and slippers and I knew, in ad- 
 vance this time, that this was the place to go for 
 them. Here, for the first time, I was wrong. My 
 expectation, at least, was disappointed. The room 
 had been a wardrobe once, but it was now empty 
 except for a couple of large packing boxes. 
 
 I turned away with a slight feeling of bewilder- 
 ment, crossed my broad sitting room once more, 
 and halted before a small cellaret. Here again 
 I knew in advance what I wanted, and here again 
 I was disappointed. Whatever the thing might 
 20 295
 
 THE MAN WITHOUT A SHADOW 
 
 contain it was locked, and a search of my pockets, 
 of course, failed to produce a key. 
 
 It shows how strong, how perfectly complete 
 in fact, the dominance of the instinctive Christo- 
 pher Morton was, when I point out that these two 
 failures did not at all serve to throw me back into 
 the personality of Simon Barras. My present 
 man, if such I may call him, was as completely 
 submerged as ever my lost man had been. 
 
 My next act was to stride impatiently over to 
 the bell, which was in the wall not far from the 
 fireplace, and ring. I expected an immediate an- 
 swer, but did not get it. In a very few seconds I 
 rang again, and this time louder. At last I heard 
 footsteps approaching down the corridor. The 
 door opened a little way and a strange face peered 
 in at me. 
 
 "What are you doing here?" I asked. 
 "Where is Lauth? " 
 
 " Who? " said the man at the door. His man- 
 ner certainly was not that of a well-trained servant. 
 
 " My valet Lauth," I answered. " Why 
 doesn't he answer the bell ? " 
 
 The man stared at me for a moment, then closed 
 the door with a bang, and I heard him hurrying 
 away down the corridor. 
 
 Of what followed in the next half hour it is 
 not easy to give a perfectly intelligible description. 
 
 296
 
 MY LAST EXPERIMENT 
 
 I was really two men Christopher Morton and 
 Simon Barras, and you will remember that these 
 two men were almost total strangers to each other. 
 To Morton, at least, Barras was a total stranger. 
 In the first few minutes of the scene that followed 
 sometimes one had 'possession of my voice, and 
 sometimes the other. 
 
 When I heard steps returning along the corri- 
 dor, when I heard a knock at the door, and a voice 
 asking, "Are you in there, Morton?" it must 
 have been Christopher Morton who answered, au- 
 tomatically, " Yes, of course. Come in." It must 
 have been Christopher Morton who looked, un- 
 moved, except for a slight feeling of disdainful 
 surprise, into the face of his visitor. That visitor 
 was Alexander Duggleby. He said: 
 
 " What the devil is the matter with you? Have 
 you gone out of your head? " started to say it, at 
 any rate, but the sentence died unfinished upon a 
 pair of pallid lips. He shut the door after him 
 quickly and leaned back against it. 
 
 I did not understand at the time the reason why 
 the sight of me there in my room should affect him 
 so strangely, but in the light of after events it was 
 clear enough. 
 
 I had shaved off my beard since he had seen me 
 in the morning, and by doing so had accentuated 
 my likeness to my cousin Arthur the likeness. 
 
 297
 
 THE MAN WITHOUT A SHADOW 
 
 which had deceived both the man I had met in 
 the park and the man who answered my bell. This 
 latter rascal had gone to Duggleby and told him 
 that Mr. Morton (meaning Arthur, of course) 
 was up in the tower room, and apparently out of 
 his head. Duggleby had, indeed, addressed me 
 under the impression that I was Arthur. It took 
 the second look to reveal to him his mistake. 
 
 " I didn't know," said I quietly and rather con- 
 temptuously, " that I enjoyed the honor of having 
 you for a guest here at la Mesle." 
 
 At that I saw the light come back into his face. 
 His brows drew together ominously. 
 
 Something about his expression brought me 
 back momentarily into the present. I passed my 
 hand confusedly over my eyes, and for an instant 
 groped to find myself. 
 
 " I was mistaken," I continued. " I believe I 
 was aware that you used my father's house to-day 
 as a trap for one of his old friends. It was in my 
 morning room, I believe, that you picked Mr. 
 Heatherfield's pocket." 
 
 Duggleby smiled. " You think you are aware 
 of it ? Well, luckily for you I have got something 
 to bargain with. This morning I hadn't. This 
 morning I'd have been glad of a chance to kill 
 you." He was smiling now, in open derision. 
 " Possibly you suspected as much. But now, luck- 
 
 298
 
 MY LAST EXPERIMENT 
 
 ily for you, I can drive a bargain. I couldn't the 
 last time you and I discussed your father-in-law's 
 affairs. You were very moral and very high- 
 handed. You were going to do a great many 
 things." 
 
 He would have gone on, but I interrupted him, 
 and in doing so I committed an indiscretion which 
 might well have cost me my life. It resulted from 
 a curious confusion between my two persons. The 
 events of the day were perfectly clear in my mind 
 his attempt to assassinate me in the road that 
 morning the conference between Virginia, the 
 doctor, and me concerning the wisdom of accept- 
 ing the invitation of the man who pretended to 
 be Christopher Morton the precautions we had 
 taken to avoid the very trap which was laid for 
 Mr. Heatherfield the account of their adventures 
 at the chateau that, I say, was as clear to me as 
 if I had been Simon Barras and no one else. 
 
 Yet, in spite of all that, as I stood there, facing 
 my angry, dangerous enemy, I was Christopher 
 Morton. My feelings were those of a man stand- 
 ing on his own hearthstone, surrounded by his own 
 friends and servants. And, in consequence of the 
 strength of that feeling, I interrupted him to tear 
 away the only real defense I had against his vio- 
 lence. 
 
 " You need not trouble to state the terms of 
 299
 
 THE MAN WITHOUT A SHADOW 
 
 your bargain," said I, " because there is no bar- 
 gain you could make. You picked a man's pocket 
 this afternoon, and what you got was a little ficti- 
 tious document which had been prepared in antici- 
 pation of the very attempt you made." 
 
 He laughed. " You knew about Morton's trick, 
 did you? Well, I saw through it. It failed to 
 work." 
 
 " Yes," said I, " you saw through Morton's 
 trick, but not through Mr. Heatherfield's. There 
 was no common salt and sulphuric acid in Mr. 
 Heatherfield's formula, but, for all that, it was 
 just exactly as valuable as Morton's, and not one 
 bit more." 
 
 His face went perfectly black at that. " I know 
 you are telling me the truth," he said, " but 
 whether you are a lunatic or only a fool, I don't 
 know. Perhaps you are a sensible man looking for 
 an easy way to commit suicide, for I swear to you 
 you shall never leave this room alive." 
 
 " Don't be theatrical," I said sharply. " YouVe 
 had two chances to assassinate me and have failed 
 twice, but this isn't exactly the place to make the 
 third attempt." 
 
 As I spoke, I reached out my hand and pressed 
 the button. Until I heard the sound of the bell 
 ringing, my delusion was complete. I as fully ex- 
 pected that it would be instantly answered by one 
 
 300
 
 MY LAST EXPERIMENT 
 
 of my former servants, as that my own hand would 
 obey my will. But, with the sound of the bell it- 
 self, the delusion, somehow, fell away from me 
 fell away instantly. I was standing with my logi- 
 cal feet squarely on the ground, with the complete 
 realization of the acute peril into which I had 
 plunged. 
 
 And I was looking down the barrel of Alexan- 
 der Duggleby's revolver.
 
 CHAPTER XXVII 
 
 THE SECRET CHAMBER 
 
 THE bell I had rung was answered instantly. 
 So far my expectation was verified. But it 
 was no servant of mine who stood there in the 
 doorway. It was the wall-eyed lodge keeper. 
 Duggleby summoned him into the room, and bade 
 him close the door after him, still keeping me cov- 
 ered with his revolver. 
 
 " Go over and search him," he commanded, 
 " and see if he is armed." 
 
 The man did his bidding, swiftly, expertly, but 
 without unnecessary roughness. The result of his 
 search produced nothing more formidable than a 
 pocketknife. 
 
 The position to which I had moved in order to 
 ring the bell was in an angle formed by the great 
 chimney; a solid oak wainscoting, shoulder high, 
 behind me and np window within ten paces. To 
 express my situation with literal accuracy, I was 
 cornered. 
 
 " Now," said Duggleby, when the man had fin- 
 302
 
 THE SECRET CHAMBER 
 
 ished searching me, " move that table across in 
 front of him, corner ways. Do you understand? " 
 His French was rudimentary, but his pantomime 
 was expressive. 
 
 The man swung the heavy table around, and I 
 was penned into my corner a little more effectually 
 than before. The man then turned to Duggleby 
 for further instructions. 
 
 " Go and find Mr. Morton," said my captor 
 curtly, " and tell him to come here at once." 
 
 The man replied with an expression not to be 
 found in the lexicons, and Duggleby looked puz- 
 zled. " He says," I translated, " that the man you 
 call Morton has skipped." 
 
 He looked at me thoughtfully, curiously, but 
 evidently it did not occur to him to doubt the truth 
 of what the man said, nor the accuracy of my 
 translation. 
 
 There was a long minute of silence. My captor 
 was looking neither at me nor at the villainous 
 young man who was in his hire. It was to the 
 latter that he finally spoke: 
 
 " That's all for the present," he said. " I'm 
 not to be disturbed on any pretext. But go to the 
 lodge, and if anyone tries to get in at the park 
 gates, ring the house bell." 
 
 The man left the room without a word. Dug- 
 gleby locked the door after him and tucked the 
 
 303
 
 THE MAN WITHOUT A SHADOW 
 
 key in his pocket. " You understand, of course," 
 he then said to me, " that if you try to get out of 
 that corner I shall kill you instantly. I'm a good 
 shot. It won't need but one." 
 
 I made no reply. The footsteps of the man 
 who had searched me receded and became inau- 
 dible down the corridor. 
 
 So I and my enemy were left alone together. I 
 might almost say that Duggleby was left alone, 
 for he seemed hardly to count me as a living hu- 
 man person at all. The coolness, calmness, the 
 recklessness which always seemed to characterize 
 him before, somehow disappeared. His face 
 looked gray; his eyes were somber with tragedy. 
 He made me think, somehow, of Macbeth when, 
 at the end of his futile career of slaughter, he sat 
 waiting till Birnam Wood should move on Dun- 
 sinane. I was completely in his power. I felt per- 
 fectly sure that he meant to take my life. And 
 yet my feeling toward him was not of loathing, 
 nor anger, nor fear, but almost of pity. 
 
 For quite a while I had no means of measur- 
 ing the time, but probably not less than a quarter 
 of an hour he paced restlessly and moodily about 
 the room. Finally I found him gazing at me 
 meditatively, as if I had spoken aloud the thing 
 that was in my mind. 
 
 " Yes," he said, " you are right about it. 
 
 34
 
 THE SECRET CHAMBER 
 
 You know I am going to kill you, but you are 
 thinking that, after all, you had rather be in your 
 shoes than in mine. And, as I say, you are 
 right." 
 
 I can pretend to none of that supernatural cour- 
 age of which I have sometimes read in books. 
 With any possibility of action before me, with an 
 even chance of escape, nay, with a chance of one in 
 a hundred, provided that chance depended upon 
 my own exertions, I think I could have faced death 
 with fortitude. 
 
 But standing there, unarmed, penned in, wait- 
 ing only for the moment that suited his pleasure, 
 to be shot to death, I felt the chill and the nausea 
 of crude terror assail me; I felt the sweat gather 
 on my forehead and run down into my eyes. I 
 struggled against it with the utmost power of my 
 will. There was something indecent about a ter- 
 ror like that, I said to myself. I wanted to die 
 like a man, not like a dog. Even the most de- 
 graded criminal, I reflected, walked out on the trap 
 and submitted to the noose with a decent appear- 
 ance of composure. 
 
 Strangely enough, while that agonized struggle 
 was going on in my soul, I could hear my own voice 
 talking. It was mine, undoubtedly, but it sounded 
 remote, uncannily calm. 
 
 " That's an audacious assumption of yours," it 
 305
 
 THE MAN WITHOUT A SHADOW 
 
 was saying quietly, in answer to Duggleby's last 
 words. " Have you ever stood in the shoes of a 
 man who was waiting to be murdered? " 
 
 " On the other hand," said Duggleby, " have 
 you ever stood in the position of a man trying to 
 get up his courage to commit a murder? " 
 
 " That suggests the one thing that I am really 
 curious about," the voice that was not mine replied. 
 " I can understand that, with affairs in the posi- 
 tion they have reached to-night, there is nothing 
 else that you can do. But what possible compul- 
 sion were you under at first ? What incomprehen- 
 sible force was it that drove you to try to kill me 
 that night in your father's library?" 
 
 Strangely enough, I, myself, did not understand 
 the question that I asked; did not know at all to 
 what event it referred. The question asked itself, 
 mechanically, somehow, out of the inward recesses 
 of Christopher Morton's mind. 
 
 But Duggleby understood. He looked at me 
 gravely. " I'd really like to tell you about that," 
 he said, " but I'm afraid I haven't time. If that 
 rascally cousin of yours hadn't given me the slip, 
 I think I should have chanced it." 
 
 Mechanically the voice that I hardly recognized 
 asked another question : " How long ago was that, 
 by the way that night, when, without warning, 
 you flung yourself upon me ? " 
 
 306
 
 THE SECRET CHAMBER 
 
 " About a year," he answered absently. " Do 
 you mean to say you didn't know? " 
 
 He interrupted himself there and turned upon 
 me furiously as he did so : " Damn you ! " he cried. 
 " Don't you suppose I know what you are doing? 
 Trying to make me talk asking me questions 
 taking up time. Well, time is up now. Do you 
 understand that ? " 
 
 " The decision apparently rests with you," 
 said I. 
 
 " Listen," said he. " You are to turn your face 
 to the wall, and I will count ten, slowly, at inter- 
 vals, as nearly as I can guess, of a second. At the 
 count of ten I shall fire, and well, you needn't be 
 uneasy about my marksmanship." 
 
 I reeled a little as I turned, for the old horror 
 was coming over me again. To steady myself, I 
 clutched at a narrow ledge which ran around the 
 top of the wainscoting. 
 
 Something familiar about the touch of it led my 
 fingers over the surface of its carvings, led them 
 along, and presently arrested them. Duggleby by 
 that time had counted three. One of my fingers 
 pressed its way into a little hole in the carving over 
 which it had stopped, and with that pressure the 
 bit of wood yielded. 
 
 And then something happened I 
 
 With that tiny mechanical response to an old 
 
 307
 
 THE MAN WITHOUT A SHADOW 
 
 familiar touch, my miracle the miracle I had de- 
 spaired of was wrought. 
 
 Ever since I had stood by the bridge parapet, 
 two hours ago, my past had been drifting down to 
 me. But it had been fragmentary, illusive, incon- 
 sequent, and had confused, bewildered me, giving 
 me the feeling of a man slipping in and out of a 
 dream. 
 
 What happened now was different altogether. 
 It was absolutely instantaneous. One moment it 
 was not. The next it was complete. It was so 
 simple, and yet so miraculous, as to leave me at a 
 loss to describe it. All I can say is, that somehow, 
 in that extreme moment, a long interrupted cur- 
 rent flashed round its circuit again. The thing 
 that makes a man himself, the knowledge that I 
 was I, the vivid electric spark of identity shot 
 across the poles of my consciousness. It was too 
 quick for memories. I made no effort to remem- 
 ber; nay, like the traveler on the road to Damascus, 
 in the illumination of that moment I was blinded 
 by the excess of light. I was a man now; not a 
 ghost. I saw my shadow. 
 
 And in the dazzling consciousness of that 
 supreme fact I forgot the fear of death; for- 
 got that Duggleby was counting there behind 
 me. 
 
 Whether I should have let him count ten and 
 308
 
 THE SECRET CHAMBER 
 
 kill me without availing myself of the means of 
 escape, or the good hope of it, at any rate, that 
 was beneath my finger, I do not know. But in that 
 very moment we heard the clanging of a great bell. 
 Some one was at the park gates. 
 
 Duggleby had just counted six. " Don't be 
 afraid," he said. " I promised you ten. You shall 
 have it." 
 
 And then he counted seven. As he did so I 
 pressed again, and this time harder, against the 
 little spot in the carving that had yielded before. 
 
 Silently, screened from his view by my interpos- 
 ing body, a panel in the wainscoting began sliding 
 backward. When it had opened wide enough to 
 admit my body, I crouched suddenly and sprang 
 through. 
 
 Duggleby fired, and fired quickly, but the big 
 table, behind which he had had me penned, 
 screened me and deflected the bullet. 
 
 He fired a second shot that grazed my shoulder, 
 just as I was getting out of range, sideways. I shot 
 the heavy panel back and from behind its protec- 
 tion I heard a moment later a third shot fired, but 
 did not hear it strike. 
 
 Strangest of all, just as that third shot was fired, 
 I thought I heard a man's voice cry out : " Thank 
 God ! " And the voice sounded like Duggleby's 
 own. 
 
 309
 
 THE MAN WITHOUT A SHADOW 
 
 I fear I must once more interrupt my narrative 
 to tell what my friends had been doing since I had 
 so unceremoniously taken French leave of them in 
 the hotel. M. de Villiers and Virginia discovered 
 my absence after I had been gone perhaps an hour. 
 He already knew from her own lips something of 
 what had passed between us. He understood, bet- 
 ter than it was possible for her to do, the horrible 
 inference which must result from the double yet 
 diverse identification of myself which she and Dr. 
 Linol had made. On discovering my flight, an in- 
 stantaneous fear sprang up in him, which amounted 
 almost to conviction, that I had left the hotel with 
 the idea of destroying myself. 
 
 He said nothing of this fear to Virginia or her 
 father, and he induced Dr. Linol, who had re- 
 mained for dinner with them, to return to them 
 and wait until he came back. He then went 
 straight to the prefecture, where he communicated 
 to the police the account of my disappearance, and 
 had an organized search for me, or for my body, 
 started at once. Telling his tale there consumed 
 some little time, and when he returned to the hotel 
 it was to find Virginia and Dr. Linol, together with 
 no less a person than my cousin, Arthur Morton, 
 on the point of setting out for the chateau. 
 
 It appears that the man who had met me on the 
 lawn had mistaken me for my cousin. He had en- 
 
 310
 
 THE SECRET CHAMBER 
 
 countered Arthur himself not three minutes later, 
 and the evening dress which Arthur wore convinced 
 the man that he had made a mistake regarding my 
 identity. This he confided to Arthur. Arthur's 
 loyalty to Duggleby had been wavering all day, 
 more especially since lunch time. Guessing that it 
 was I who had come to the chateau, and convinced 
 that if Duggleby encountered me there he would 
 murder me in cold blood, he decided on the spot 
 to take the most effective measure he could think 
 of to avoid complicity in the deed. 
 
 He jumped on a horse which was already sad- 
 dled and rode posthaste into Tours, intent on find- 
 ing M. de Villiers, warning him of my danger, 
 and making an appeal for mercy for himself. This 
 intention being frustrated by the doctor's absence, 
 he next asked for Virginia. Dr. Linol's presence 
 in the room with her was, of course, completely 
 unexpected and reduced him to a condition of 
 downright servility. He would do anything; he 
 would change sides; he would confess all he 
 knew. What was more to the point, he would 
 go with them to the chateau in the hope that they 
 might not prove too late to save me from Dug- 
 gleby. 
 
 Virginia, on her own responsibility, ordered out 
 the doctor's car and positively insisted on accom- 
 panying the party. M. de Villiers, returning just 
 21 311
 
 THE MAN WITHOUT A SHADOW 
 
 as they were about to set out, of course joined 
 them. 
 
 Over the smooth, empty roads the car burned 
 up the four or five miles between the hotel and the 
 chateau in hardly more than as many minutes. 
 They found the park gates open and came flying up 
 the driveway with scarcely a pause. They were 
 not aware until afterwards that anyone in the lodge 
 had given the alarm as they passed. 
 
 When they reached the chateau it was to all 
 appearances, and in fact, completely deserted ex- 
 cept for the presence of myself, hidden behind the 
 paneled door of the secret chamber, and Duggleby 
 lying on the floor of my sitting room, dying from 
 the effect of the third shot which I had heard and 
 which he had fired into his own body. It was, 
 perhaps, three or four minutes after Duggleby had 
 fired that last shot when the doctor, his chauf- 
 feur, an absolutely faithful man, and my renegade 
 cousin rushed into the room. Virginia had been 
 left downstairs in the morning room under the 
 protection of Dr. Linol. 
 
 Chateau la Mesle has no historic right to possess 
 a secret chamber with a hidden door. It is com- 
 paratively modern, dating only from the days of 
 the Empire, and the secret chamber had been built 
 solely for my own amusement by my indulgent 
 mother in my younger days, when visits to the 
 
 312
 
 THE SECRET CHAMBER 
 
 neighboring chateaux of Blois and Loches had set 
 my brain afire with romantic enthusiasm. The 
 construction of it had been conducted, under my 
 own boyish superintendence, with the greatest se- 
 crecy. My cousin Arthur himself had never heard 
 of its existence. I remember the days when we 
 were building it as days of the most undiluted and 
 most delirious happiness I had ever enjoyed. 
 
 It was a strange freak of chance that my moth- 
 er's indulgence of this childish whim of mine 
 should have been so directly instrumental not only 
 in saving my life but in working the miracle with- 
 out which my life would hardly have been worth 
 saving. 
 
 The moment I slid the panel to behind me, with 
 the echo of Duggleby's shots still ringing in my 
 ears, I groped my way across the little room, which 
 was built in the thickness of the walls, and found 
 without difficulty the entrance to the tiny tunnel 
 which provided the room with its other outlet. 
 This tunnel led around behind the chimney, turned 
 to the right and opened out into another paneled 
 door, which had been the bedroom of my suite. 
 Of course I knew perfectly well where I was go- 
 ing, but for all that I had to go slowly. I was a 
 normal man again and my memory worked like a 
 normal man's; there was no more of that preter- 
 natural swiftness and accuracy about it which had 
 
 313
 
 THE MAN WITHOUT A SHADOW 
 
 characterized it so sharply when it was a mere sub- 
 conscious instinct. 
 
 I turned into the corridor just in time to meet 
 the doctor rushing rather wildly out of my 
 sitting room in search of me. Following him 
 came Arthur and the chauffeur carrying Duggleby 
 in their arms to the nearest bedroom. 
 
 The doctor's expression when he caught sight of 
 me was complex. There was joy in it and the most 
 intense relief; and, yet, I could see there, too, a 
 perfectly justifiable anger. 
 
 I took him by both shoulders. " I had to try 
 this last experiment alone," said I. " If it had 
 failed I should have welcomed the penalty of fail- 
 ure, for life was unendurable to me two hours ago. 
 But it has succeeded. I am my own man again." 
 
 The sudden relaxation of his body under my 
 hands told me to what a terrible strain that last 
 experiment had subjected him. But all the anger 
 had died out of his face. 
 
 " Thank God," he said. " Now go quickly and 
 tell Virginia." 
 
 " I will go," said I, " as fast as your automobile 
 can carry me." 
 
 " There's no need of that," he answered. 
 41 She's here."
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII 
 
 A NIGHT IN JUNE 
 
 IT was with a mingled feeling of joy and most 
 poignant remorse that I caught my first 
 glimpse of her there in the morning room. I had 
 entered the room softly and saw her face before she 
 caught sight of mine her dear, brave, pale, beau- 
 tiful face, with grief-haunted eyes and tight- 
 pressed lips. 
 
 She heard when I closed the door behind me, 
 and turned and looked, and was transfigured. A 
 sudden sense of my own unworthiness to have 
 caused a grief like that, or such a joy, blinded my 
 own eyes with sudden tears. 
 
 Dr. Linol was standing beside her. I walked 
 swiftly across the room and shook his hand gravely, 
 without a word. He tried to stammer out some- 
 thing, but failed to command his voice, and turned 
 abruptly and left the room. 
 
 I slipped my arm around Virginia's waist, 
 opened one of the great French windows, and led 
 her out upon the moonlit terrace to a great stone 
 
 315
 
 THE MAN WITHOUT A SHADOW 
 
 bench that stood near by. She was trembling un- 
 controllably. 
 
 " Virginia, dearest, I have come back." 
 
 Since the moment when the doctor had told 
 me that she was in the chateau, I had been think- 
 ing how I should tell her of my miracle. But these 
 words were the product of no such thought. They 
 came spontaneously, and it seemed they were 
 enough. 
 
 " You have come back to Christopher Morton, 
 I know," she said unsteadily. " I saw that when 
 you shook hands with Dr. Linol. But have you 
 also come back to to " 
 
 " Morton Smith? Yes, to him, Virginia, and 
 to you." 
 
 Her eyes clouded a little, and I saw she was 
 struggling with a question she found it hard to ask. 
 
 " Were you Christopher Morton all the while 
 that you pretended to be the other man the man 
 I learned to know and love the man I mar- 
 ried? " 
 
 " Yes," said I. " And that, Virginia, is the one 
 great thing you have to forgive." 
 
 She buried her face in her hands, and for a mo- 
 ment her body was shaken with sobs. But pres- 
 ently she recovered herself and looked up at me. 
 She held out her hands both hands: " Of course 
 I forgive you," she said; " indeed, between you and 
 
 316
 
 A NIGHT IN JUNE 
 
 me there could hardly be a question of forgiveness. 
 But, oh, if if only you had trusted me ! " 
 
 " It wasn't that," I said quickly. " When you 
 hear the story you will know it wasn't that. Will 
 you listen to it now, Virginia ? " 
 
 Up to now I had been standing before her. 
 Now she moved her skirts a little to make 
 room for me beside her on the bench. " Sit 
 down," she said; "sit here beside me, close, and 
 tell me." 
 
 14 Three years ago," I began, " three years ago 
 this very month I was, so far as I knew, just ex- 
 actly the man that Dr. Linol and all my friends 
 believed me to be spoiled, idle, fastidious, lik- 
 able, and affectionate to all my friends, and su- 
 premely indifferent to everybody else. I had no 
 other ambition than to enjoy the inheritance, which 
 I knew would one day come to me, to the full to 
 live my life out as I had begun it. According to 
 the standards of my class, I was a right-minded 
 enough young man. Compared to my cousin 
 Arthur, I was quite a model of deportment and 
 rectitude. But no sort of idea ever entered 
 my head that my father's work, his fortune, 
 and his great career imposed any obligation on 
 me. 
 
 " As Dr. Linol has told you, I was planning an 
 extended trip into the interior of Africa, nominally 
 
 317
 
 THE MAN WITHOUT A SHADOW] 
 
 in search of big game. Really what I hoped for 
 was something that would provide me with a new 
 sensation. I was getting bored tired of luxury 
 and silly society, and my mother's death had de- 
 prived me of the only companionship I had ever 
 really enjoyed. So some such alternative as that 
 expedition was the only thing that occurred to 
 me. 
 
 " I was on the very eve of starting. I had taken 
 leave of my friends in the neighborhood at a din- 
 ner at Tours. I was driving back to la Mesle, in 
 a rather complacent frame of mind, enjoying the 
 fine June night a night like this enjoying my 
 cigarette and the comfort of my carriage, which 
 was rolling smoothly along across the great Tours 
 bridge. 
 
 " Halfway across the bridge I saw a man lean- 
 ing against the parapet. As my carriage came op- 
 posite him, he cast a quick look around, and as 
 quickly looked away again. He was a man I knew 
 a peasant who had been one my father's stable- 
 men at the chateau. He had been frugal and pros- 
 perous in a small way and had left my father's 
 employ to go into business in Tours. The man 
 had known me, as a man in his class can know 
 one in mine, ever since my boyhood. To-night, 
 however, he did not appear to recognize me. I 
 had seen his face as distinctly as he must have seen
 
 A NIGHT IN JUNE 
 
 mine, and the look in it troubled me. It was half 
 mad with despair. 
 
 " When I had driven perhaps a hundred yards 
 beyond where he was standing, I told the coachman 
 to stop, and dismounted and went back toward 
 him. On seeing me approach, he suddenly stripped 
 his coat back from his shoulders, not far enough to 
 slip it off, but just enough to bind his arms, and 
 began scrambling up on the parapet of the bridge. 
 I realized at once what he was trying to do, made 
 a rush toward him and succeeded in catching him 
 before he went over. If I had not been stronger 
 than he, I think he would have taken me with him, 
 for he was absolutely determined to make an end 
 of himself. 
 
 " I finally quieted him, however, and got him to 
 talk to me. His story was the old one of ill luck 
 petty speculation the investment of the little sum 
 he had left in lottery tickets, which, of course, had 
 drawn blank, and he was threatened now with ab- 
 solute ruin. He had a wife and children. To 
 my remonstrances he paid very little attention, 
 but he said one thing that struck me most for- 
 cibly : 
 
 " * What are you, you rich, that you should in- 
 terfere with us ? You don't play our game.' 
 
 " At my request he told me what he meant. He 
 meant that a man like me didn't take a fair sport- 
 
 319
 
 THE MAN WITHOUT A SHADOW 
 
 ing chance with life; that he played, as it were, 
 with stacked cards, and he told me bluntly that if 
 I stood where he did, stripped of the aids which 
 my money and position gave me, I couldn't last 
 two years. 
 
 " What really developed the irony of the situa- 
 tion between us came out when I asked him how 
 much it would require to pay his debts and put him 
 on his feet again. The sum he named was two 
 thousand francs, and I had more than that at that 
 moment in my pocket. I had won more than that 
 that very evening in a rather stupid game of bridge. 
 When I thought that for the lack of a sum that 
 to my extravagant notion in those days was hardly 
 more than a decent amount of loose change for a 
 gentleman to carry in his pockets for the lack of 
 a sum like that a man had seriously contemplated 
 destroying himself, I somehow seemed to feel all 
 the foundations of my own world all my belief 
 in the validity of its standards slip away from 
 under me. 
 
 " The upshot of the interview was that I and 
 my friend struck a bargain. He was to take two 
 thousand francs and go back to the life he had de- 
 termined to quit; and I, on my part, was to start 
 out, penniless, and without the support which my 
 name and position gave me, and live for two years 
 by my own exertions. The thing wasn't prac- 
 
 320
 
 A NIGHT IN JUNE 
 
 ticable in France, and I decided to emigrate to 
 America, the place where it suddenly occurred to 
 me I really belonged. 
 
 " As soon as I could earn money enough and 
 you shall hear some day how I did it to purchase 
 a steerage passage, I put that resolve into execu- 
 tion. Virginia, the man you found there was not 
 a masquerader. If I went to Cleveport for no bet- 
 ter reason than that I regarded my bargain with 
 the man on the bridge as a good sporting proposi- 
 tion, that was not why I stayed. The ideals, hopes, 
 ambitions that I confided to you were genuine. 
 The man you knew Morton Smith was a real 
 man a man far more real than the idle young 
 aristocrat, Christopher Morton, had ever been. 
 
 " I had the power, of course, to make my dreams 
 come true, but I meant to carry out the terms of 
 my bargain first. They are fulfilled now to the 
 letter. And now, please God, together we can be- 
 gin making the dreams come true." 
 
 Virginia's eyes were shining with excitement. 
 " It seems like the ending of a fairy tale. But, oh 
 if I had only known," she concluded. 
 
 " I am coming to that," said I. " Remember 
 tKat until I came to Cleveport I had been an idle 
 young man of good position, destined to be very 
 rich, and I had been horribly spoiled, as such young 
 men are. I had made friends who liked me just 
 
 321
 
 THE MAN WITHOUT A SHADOW 
 
 for myself, no doubt; but every little while some* 
 thing would happen to make me doubt whether 
 any of the friendship and affection I seemed to 
 command was for me, or for my clothes, my cir- 
 cumstances. And, Virginia, dear, you can hardly 
 imagine what it meant to me, in my shabby little 
 corner down there at Cleveport, to find that I I, 
 myself was able to command your interest and 
 your liking, and then your love. It was not a test 
 of you, dear; it was a test of myself. You didn't 
 patronize me, you didn't pity me, and I wonder 
 if you can realize how much this means I hon- 
 estly believe, Virginia, that I should have asked 
 you to marry me just the same if I had been plain 
 Morton Smith and nothing else, with no possibility 
 of turning into anything else. 
 
 " I was a coward not to tell you before we were 
 married. We could have gone on you and I 
 carrying out my bargain just the same, but we were 
 so supremely happy, always, when we were to- 
 gether that I could never muster courage to tell 
 you something that I feared might make a differ- 
 ence. I was going to tell you that day our wed- 
 ding day and again my cowardice prevailed, and 
 I put it off a little longer. It was too perfect 
 too absolutely perfect as it was to change. 
 
 "As to your father, you will remember that he 
 had told me nothing of his secret, not even what it 
 
 322
 
 A NIGHT IN JUNE 
 
 was that he was doing. I knew what he was a 
 great man and a successful man. I knew that he 
 had a close connection, though I didn't know ex- 
 actly what, with the Morton-Duggleby Company. 
 When I heard that night for the first time of the 
 vile wrong they were trying to do him, my first 
 thought was that I must set that wrong right be- 
 fore I did anything else. I left you very soon after 
 he came in, you remember. I went straight back 
 to New York, went to the Holland House where 
 I had rooms, and took on again the person of 
 Christopher Morton. 
 
 ' Then I went to the Dugglebys' house. I 
 found the father and son there together. They 
 knew me, of course, and my coming and my an- 
 nouncement that I meant to take up the authority 
 which was mine, under my father's will, was a 
 great blow to them. It was a heavier blow when 
 I told them where I had been spending the last 
 two years how I knew the mills, the furnaces, 
 the hovels, the gaunt poverty, the sacrifices of life, 
 the maiming of souls that were piling up our vast 
 fortune theirs and mine. 
 
 " And in the end, I accused them flatly of the 
 crime they were contemplating against your father, 
 the crime they had already attempted. I remem- 
 ber young Duggleby making a savage spring at my 
 throat, and that is the last thing I remember until 
 
 323
 
 THE MAN WITHOUT A SHADOW 
 
 I came to myself sitting on a bench in the sun at 
 Dr. Berry's asylum. 
 
 " There is the end of my story, Virginia. Am I, 
 indeed, forgiven? " 
 
 She did not speak, but I had my answer for all 
 that.
 
 CHAPTER XXIX 
 
 THE LAST CARD 
 
 IT may have been an hour later, and that was 
 very late indeed, lacking only a little of dawn, 
 and the chill of the outdoor air had driven us to 
 retreat into the morning room, when we heard a 
 discreet tap at the door. 
 
 "Trust the doctor for tact," said I. "Any 
 other man would have walked right in." 
 
 Virginia laughed, laid a caressing finger on my 
 lips, and rose to admit him. 
 
 The doctor's face was very pale and his eyes 
 were grave. I knew the reason well enough. They 
 had been peering, those thoughtful eyes of his, 
 down into the shadows of the valley of death, the 
 valley which, however often he might approach it 
 in company with the pilgrims whose way lay 
 thither, must always remain a mystery to him until 
 he should turn pilgrim himself. 
 
 But he looked earnestly into Virginia's face, and 
 then down into mine; and presently he smiled. 
 Evidently our faces told our story plainly enough. 
 
 325
 
 THE MAN WITHOUT A SHADOW 
 
 " My dear," said he, holding out his hand to 
 Virginia, " I think you are going to be very happy. 
 I shall require you to ask my forgiveness, but it is 
 granted already before it is asked." 
 
 "Your forgiveness, monsieur?" she asked, a 
 little puzzled. 
 
 " For destroying, so that he is as if he had never 
 been, my latest godchild the young man the 
 enigmatical young man with whose mystery I 
 had hoped to comfort my declining years. I refer 
 to the late Monsieur Simon Barras." 
 
 " Are you really so very sorry? " she asked. 
 
 " Oh, so far as Christopher Morton is con- 
 cerned," said he, " I am entirely and rather ridicu- 
 lously happy. I am glad to turn him over to you 
 a perfectly normal, everyday young man. Mad, 
 indeed, but with the only sort of madness that has 
 no interest for the alienist. The sort of madness 
 called 'love,' mademoiselle." Then he sighed: 
 " But my one ewe lamb," he concluded, " the only 
 enigma which I could hope would permanently 
 baffle me, him I shall always regret." 
 
 " Well," said I, " we will do what we can to 
 make up to you for his loss." 
 
 Both of us could see that he had something to 
 tell me, something he hesitated to speak of in Vir- 
 ginia's presence, and presently she made a pretext 
 for leaving us. 
 
 326
 
 THE LAST CARD 
 
 " How are your nerves? " he asked. " Are you 
 equal to a rather trying interview? " 
 
 " I am equal to anything," said I. " What 
 is it?" 
 
 11 It is our friend Duggleby," he said gravely. 
 
 "Duggleby!" I exclaimed. "I thought I 
 thought he was dead." 
 
 " It comes to that," said the doctor. " He shot 
 himself through the body. He will live perhaps 
 three or four hours. He is a very wonderful 
 young man. He has already written, with his own 
 hand, a letter to his father. Now he wants very 
 much to talk with you. The end may come with 
 him at any moment. If you are ready, let us go at 
 once." 
 
 Much as I dreaded the interview that lay before 
 us, common humanity forbade any hesitation. I 
 accompanied the doctor to the room where he lay. 
 It was hard to believe that the young man I saw 
 lying there, still fully dressed, upon the couch, was 
 within a few hours, at the most, of death. There 
 was no trace of pain in his face, nor in his easy, 
 and, I almost said, lounging attitude. To make 
 the illusion complete, he was smoking a cigarette. 
 
 He smiled at me when he saw me come in with 
 the doctor. He smiled again, with a whimsical, 
 almost impish, humor as he nodded me to a 
 chair. 
 
 22 327
 
 THE MAN WITHOUT A SHADOW 
 
 " Turn about; that's fair play, isn't it? " he said. 
 
 In contrast with his coolness, I was so moved 
 that I found it difficult to command my voice. " I 
 am sorry," I said at last. 
 
 Then, noting the politely skeptical lift to his 
 eyebrows with which he answered, I gathered my- 
 self together. " Oh, not that the wheel turned 
 about," said I, "I don't pretend to that; but I 
 am sorry that * up ' with me had to mean ' down * 
 with you. I believe that with a little better luck, 
 we might have been friends instead of enemies." 
 
 " Yes," he said, " I am inclined to think we 
 might. I am sorry for that, too. But please don't 
 think," he went on and I saw the same mocking 
 lift to his brows that I had remarked before 
 " please don't think that I have brought you here 
 to harry you with a death-bed repentance. I am 
 not repentant a bit. If I had the hand to play 
 over again, I should play it in the same way." 
 
 " It must have been a rather grim-looking set 
 of cards that made up that hand," I answered, 
 falling in with his humor as well as I could. 
 
 " Yes," he said, " it was; there can be no doubt 
 of that." After a little silence, he went on : "I 
 have a feeling that I want to tell you what those 
 cards were. I saw you were puzzled to-night. I 
 think when I tell you, you will understand." 
 
 The doctor had withdrawn to the other end of 
 328
 
 THE LAST CARD 
 
 the room. I pulled my chair up close to the couch 
 where he was lying. 
 
 " Oh, I can be rather brief about it," he said. 
 " To begin at the beginning, I had always hated 
 the thought of you. I imagined you to be a vacu- 
 ous little French expatriate, with eau de cologne in 
 your veins instead of real blood. I never had any 
 occasion to change that estimate until you came to 
 see my father and me that night in the library. 
 
 " I had always considered myself, on the con- 
 trary, a pretty good sort of person. I was not an 
 altruist; I had not any dreams of making every- 
 body happy; I didn't, and don't at this moment 
 believe that it can be done. The only happiness in 
 this world consists in seeing that we are better off 
 than somebody else. There isn't any such thing 
 as pleasure, except in contrast to pain; nor good- 
 ness, except as it has a background of badness to 
 set it off. Perhaps I should not have made a world 
 like that if I were Almighty God. As it stands, I 
 have never seen how I could change it. A few 
 people who can struggle up out of the mire of 
 misery are happy just because the mire is there." 
 
 He interrupted himself with a short laugh: " I 
 didn't think I should take to the pulpit at the last 
 moment," he said. " It is vilely unfair of me to 
 preach you a sermon. Light one of those cigar- 
 ettes on the table, won't you, and let it pass. 
 
 329
 
 " I said I had always considered myself a de- 
 cent sort of chap, but I knew I had one rather dan- 
 gerous fault, and a curiously crude, elemental one 
 at that. Ever since I can remember, I have been 
 liable to sudden bursts of rage. Every now and 
 then, a comparatively small thing a ridiculously 
 inadequate thing sometimes would put me quite 
 beside myself. I have knocked a man down for 
 merely laying his hand on my arm all in a flash, 
 and before I fairly knew what had happened. It 
 had got me into trouble a good many times, and 
 I had always taken my medicine and made what 
 reparation I could. Outside of that, I was a de- 
 cent, well-meaning, hard-working sort of chap, 
 whom my friends found agreeable." 
 
 He sighed a little, and there was a moment's 
 silence before he went on : " Oh, it is not especially 
 easy to tell the rest of it. The night you came to 
 our house and made your speech about conditions 
 as you found them at our plant I had to regard 
 it as ours, not yours, you will understand that, I 
 think I was angry, rebellious. I felt that Fate 
 had played us a scurvy trick in giving you the 
 power to assume authority over our heads mine 
 and father's. But the thing you had done, the 
 way you got your knowledge, compelled a genuine, 
 though grudging, admiration. I give you my word 
 that up to the moment when you accused us of 
 
 330
 
 THE LAST CARD 
 
 attempting a crime against old Mr. Heatherfield, 
 I had no thought but of accepting the situation 
 with the best grace possible. When you made that 
 accusation, I believed it utterly and preposterously 
 untrue, and in that belief one of my sudden rages 
 swept over me. 
 
 " I sprang upon you, not knowing what I was 
 doing. You were totally unprepared, and under 
 my rush you toppled over backward, striking your 
 head against the corner of a table as you fell. 
 When I saw you lying there, apparently dead, I 
 came to myself. I straightened up and turned to 
 my father, expecting his reproaches, ready to take 
 the consequences for the violent thing I had done. 
 But the look I saw in his face and that, if it does 
 not sound theatrical to say, was the tragic moment 
 in my life the look I saw there was one of fright, 
 and yet it was furtive. 
 
 " I will spare myself, if you don't mind, the 
 details of the conversation that passed between us. 
 The upshot of it was that my father confessed that 
 your accusation was true; that he had instigated 
 the robbery of Mr. Heatherfield's laboratory; 
 that he had got the old man's preliminary proc- 
 esses, and had meant to get his immensely valu- 
 able discovery for nothing. For nothing dearer 
 than the knowledge that he himself was a 
 thief. 
 
 331
 
 THE MAN WITHOUT A SHADOW 
 
 " All that while you lay there on the floor, ap- 
 parently dead. In that moment I took my deci- 
 sion. It may not have been the one you would 
 have taken in similar circumstances, but at least 
 you will understand how I came to take it. I said 
 to my father : ' Here we stand a pair of criminals. 
 You're a thief and I'm a murderer, but at least we 
 can act like men and not like a pair of whipped 
 curs. We are criminals. Well, let's play it out. 
 Let's take our medicine. And, by God, let's give 
 them a run for their money ! ' 
 
 " And that is what we have tried to do. We 
 found you were not dead, and we resolved that for 
 all practical purposes you should be. I happened 
 to know Dr. Berry as arrant a knave as ever 
 lived in the world, plying his nefarious trade 
 and we packed you off to him, with infinite precau- 
 tion and infinite secrecy. He thought it probable 
 that you would never recover even your wits, but 
 he understood our wishes thoroughly. 
 
 " When he found that with your recovered con- 
 sciousness you had not recovered your memory, 
 the thing seemed comparatively easy, though if 
 you had recovered your memory when you were 
 in our power, our course would have been the 
 same. We should have had to use more drastic 
 measures that would have been the only dif- 
 ference. 
 
 33 2
 
 THE LAST CARD 
 
 " And then that scapegrace cousin of yours 
 turned up, very seedy indeed, since his allowance 
 had stopped with your father's death, and he was 
 just the man for our purposes. He looked enough 
 like you to pass with a casual stranger. He knew 
 enough about you to answer questions. So, to fill 
 up a vacuum which your disappearance would have 
 otherwise caused, we sent him abroad to imper- 
 sonate you." 
 
 He paused there, and tossed away his cigarette. 
 " The rest of it," he said, " you know as well as 
 I do." 
 
 " Well," said I, " I am glad you told me. I 
 think I shall regret all my life that we couldn't 
 have been friends; that the fortune of the game 
 compelled you to be my enemy." 
 
 " Just this much more," he said presently. 
 *' You may not find it easy to believe, but the first 
 happy moment I had after that night in the library, 
 was when I got word that you had escaped. Life 
 had got pretty nearly intolerable for me then. The 
 thing was too easy. Our success was too complete. 
 I wanted to fight, not to sit around and grow rich 
 and respectable. When I heard you had got away 
 from Dr. Berry, I was within a day or two of 
 shooting myself. That news changed the whole 
 face of things for me. I had something to do! 
 Something almost impossible to do! Something 
 
 333
 
 THE MAN WITHOUT A SHADOW 
 
 that was, if you will allow it, a good sporting prop- 
 osition, and I honestly enjoyed it. Enjoyed the 
 risks, the crimes, the growing certainty of disaster 
 ahead of me. I enjoyed it until to-night, until I 
 had you penned in that corner, and sent my man 
 away so that I could kill you. And at that well,. 
 I saw by your face you understood ! 
 
 " I would have told you this story then if I had 
 had time, but that would not have been playing the 
 game, and I meant to play the game out to the 
 last card. Thank God, Morton, it's played! It's 
 over." 
 
 He drew a long breath, and lighted another 
 cigarette. " Thank you for coming down to lis- 
 ten," he said quietly. " I won't detain you any 
 longer. I can't detain myself much Longer, I fancy. 
 Good-by." 
 
 I could not speak, but I went over to him and 
 held out my hand. The same cynical little flash 
 that I had seen there before came into his face. 
 " Well," he said, " that's rather an odd thing to 
 do, but, by the Lord, man, I think you mean it ! " 
 With those words his hand met mine. 
 
 I think as long as I live the story of his tragedy 
 will haunt me. It is a curious paradox that this 
 man, who would have murdered me in cold blood, 
 whose sole deliberate purpose to the end of his life 
 was to crush me, thwart me, deprive me not only 
 
 334
 
 THE LAST CARD 
 
 of my inheritance but of my very self the figure 
 of this man, who took up the cards Fate dealt him 
 to play, and played them out to the last with so 
 grim a courage that figure remains in my mem- 
 ory as a friend and not an enemy.
 
 CHAPTER XXX 
 
 " MY ALL-THE-WORLD " 
 
 IT was at the suggestion of Dr. de Villiers no, 
 suggestion will hardly stretch to cover the case 
 at his earnest, insistent request that I set about 
 the task of completing the record of the search for 
 myself, the record which I began in momentary 
 intervals of leisure while I was playing the piano 
 in Mike Lynch's saloon at Coney Island. I had 
 begun it in the fear that an obliterating hand might 
 again be laid upon my memory; that the small, 
 pitiful progress which I made on the road to my 
 discovery during those first days might be undone. 
 No such fear as that prompted the doctor's sug- 
 gestion that I conclude the work. " You are to 
 understand," he explained, " that you are a per- 
 fectly normal man again, and unless some other 
 enemy taps you on the head, you are likely to re- 
 main so. But, being normal, you will begin for- 
 getting just about the same percentage of the past 
 that the normal man forgets. A year from now, 
 the events of this past month will be little more 
 
 336
 
 "MY ALL THE WORLD " 
 
 than a dream to you, forgotten all the faster be- 
 cause of the unusual nature of them. You will be 
 incapable of accounting for such acts as you do 
 remember, and the task of tracing out those ex- 
 tremely interesting and curious mental processes 
 and confusions of yours will be utterly beyond your 
 powers. Yet it is a record which, if clearly and 
 copiously made, would be of inestimable value. So 
 waste no time setting about it, my friend." 
 
 I should have been loath to take up the task had 
 not the doctor let me see how highly he would 
 prize the result of it; how eagerly he wanted the 
 story, told from my point of view, of the events 
 which he already knew so well from his own. His 
 interest in it, of course, was purely scientific, but 
 I am afraid that for his purposes he will find it 
 treated in too highly romantic a manner. Well, 
 that is distinctly not my fault. 
 
 We are here at la Mesle, Virginia and I, alone 
 together, living out our honeymoon which Fate 
 deprived us of before. Mr. Heatherfield and the 
 doctor are jogging about Europe, doing our trav- 
 eling for us, leaving to us the sweet solitude and 
 peace of this dear old home of mine. 
 
 Our future is bound to be crowded with activi- 
 ties. Cleveport is there horrible, gaunt, squalid 
 as ever for us to remake into a place for human 
 habitation, a place where men and women and 
 
 337
 
 THE MAN WITHOUT A SHADOW 
 
 children may live real lives. That is a task which 
 both of us are eager to assume. 
 
 But before that happens we are stealing these 
 flelicious days of pure golden, unalloyed delight. 
 The doctor says we have earned them, and I think 
 that is true. 
 
 This record is done. It has been my only occu- 
 pation during the past weeks, and now, for the re- 
 maining days, I mean to have no occupation at all, 
 except well, except making love to Virginia. 
 
 Strangely enough, that miraculous change of 
 mine, which came when the tiny spring under my 
 finger yielded and opened the sliding door for me, 
 that change has miraculously left another change 
 unwrought. This is something about my feeling 
 toward Virginia. There is still, whenever I see her, 
 the same poignant, exquisite, and only half-believed 
 realization that she is really mine. The returning 
 flood of all the memory of my past brought with 
 it no commonplace acceptance of her of this girl 
 who had married me more than a year ago as a 
 possession to be taken for granted. 
 
 She is still the half-unknown wonder of delight 
 to me that she was to Simon Barras. Whether this 
 is due, in part, to the temporary suspension of my 
 self-conscious identity, or whether the miracle of 
 it resides wholly in her, I do not know. And cer- 
 tainly it does not very greatly matter. All I know 
 
 338
 
 "MY ALL THE WORLD " 
 
 is that her white hands have to-day, for me, the 
 same quickening thrill that they had when they 
 locked so softly into mine that night in the inn at 
 Mettray; and that the look I sometimes see in her 
 eyes can suddenly blur my vision with unshed tears. 
 
 I saw her just this moment through the win- 
 dows of the morning room which open on the ter- 
 race. She was crossing it toward the lawn where 
 the white peafowl are, and the sight of her made 
 my heart leap, just as it had leaped when I found 
 her there in the dawn after my interview with 
 Duggleby. 
 
 She had greeted me then without a word, with 
 just an outstretched hand, and we had set out to- 
 gether down the path under the beeches. 
 
 The dew lay thick upon the grass, and the air, 
 though cool, was intoxicating in its sweet perfume. 
 The limpid sky was aflush with the morning. 
 
 Presently we stopped and looked back at the 
 chateau. Its gray walls were tinted faintly, with 
 the rose color of the dawn. 
 
 " It's home, Virginia your home and mine." 
 
 Her cheeks flushed then, as if all the glory of 
 the morning were reflected there. She withdrew 
 her hand then, and clasped the two together, as if 
 they were trembling. 
 
 "You are glad?" I asked. 
 
 " Yes glad," she answered, not very steadily, 
 
 339
 
 THE MAN WITHOUT A SHADOW 
 
 " but but a little afraid. Are you sure you 
 with another name than the one I called you by 
 are you sure, now all the past has come back, that 
 you love me as well as " then she smiled " as 
 Simon Barras loved me yesterday? " 
 
 " Just as well," I told her, " and in just the same 
 way. I am still your lover, Virginia just your 
 lover, and and I, too, am a little afraid." 
 
 " As if," she questioned, " as if it couldn't quite 
 be true? As if it might be nothing but a fairy 
 tale?" 
 
 I nodded, for I could not speak. 
 
 And then she stretched out her arms again, and 
 clasped her hands behind my head. 
 
 " Yes, it's true," she said. " You are my hus- 
 band, and here here, wherever you are, is my 
 home. Come, shall we go in ? " 
 
 Here, M. de Villiers, is the task completed that 
 you set for me. Virginia has been waiting all the 
 morning for me to finish. I think she is still there 
 on the lawn where the white peafowl are. I am 
 going to see. 
 
 THE END (4)
 
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