Five minutes later he went out, and was standing on the edge of the pavement when someone spoke to him. It was the woman in the red hat, and she spoke in English, though it was not very good English.
“You remember me. You here—in Marseilles—in the war. You—what they call ‘red hat.’ ”
It was true. He felt vaguely interested and vaguely uncomfortable.
“I give hot coffee to Tommies. Remember? Tommies from India and Egypt and Palestine. Ah, it was great—the war.”
He found himself walking beside her down towards the port. He was under no illusion as to the sort of woman she was, but he saw no harm in talking to her for five minutes, and he had not talked connectedly to a soul for three whole days. He felt a sudden desire to talk. Sudden memories of the war surged up in him.
“You live here?”
She smiled at him.
“Quartier St. Lambert, near the Fort St. Nicolas. You make holiday, hein?”
Yes; he was what she called making holiday, and he told her that he would have to turn back in a minute and hunt out an hotel.
“What—you have no hotel? You arrive to-day?”
“Yes.”
“You funny man. Plenty hotel in Marseilles. I tell you good hotel.”
She laughed. She seemed quite ready to allow him to assume that they were no more than a couple of casual people thrown casually together for five minutes, and exchanging casual words.
“You good boy—these days—ne c’est pas!”
She laughed and nodded her head at him. They were strolling along the Quai de Rive Neuve under the shadows of the high old warehouses, with the port lying on the right and the black bulk of small sailing ships and old tramp steamers. Piles of merchandise lay about, with lanes going down between the piles to the sleek black water. It was dark on the quay. Very few people seemed to be moving.
She slackened her pace.
“Ver—beautiful—Marseilles—at night.”
He agreed.
“The lights. Like eyes—hein!”
She diverged towards the water and paused to look.
“Yes, ver beautiful. Come—see——”
She strolled down casually between two dark piles of merchandise, and Barron followed her. Cases were stacked on either side; a black tarpaulin covered something. She was standing on the edge of the quay, looking across the water.
“Ver—beautiful. You think so?”
“I do.”
He was feeling in his pocket for his cigarette case, and was looking at the thousand and one lights. He had his back to the narrow passage between the dumps of merchandise. It was very dark. And suddenly he had a feeling that he wanted to get away, back to those lights, and the safely-crowded streets.
“Well, what about my hotel? Name one——”
She glanced casually over her shoulder.
“The Hôtel Beau Soleil is ver good——”
And that was all that Barron heard, for an arm swinging a lead weight stuffed into a stocking or a length of canvas, dealt him a blow on the crown of his soft hat. The blow was almost silent, and so was his fall. He just crumpled up, and slid down into the darkness against a packing case.
* * *
Kitty Barron was more than worried. She was afraid. Ten days had elapsed, and she had not had a line from her husband; not so much as a picture-postcard. The boat-train had carried him off, and he had disappeared into complete silence. And it frightened her.
Almost her last words to him had been:
“Send me a few lines soon, Jack.”
And he had promised. Always on those few occasions when they had been parted he had written to her regularly, and this new silence seemed part of his strangeness.
Where was he? Was he at sea, and unable to send her news? But then, at least, he could have scribbled a few words on a postcard before sailing. Still more days passed, and no word came from him. She felt helpless; there was no one to whom she could appeal; her husband had gone away on a holiday and had failed to write to her; that was all that she could say.
She called on their doctor.
“My husband has been away for a fortnight and I have not heard from him. It is very strange. He promised to write at once.”
“Some men are very slack about letters, especially on holidays.”
“But he isn’t. You don’t think he can have had a lapse of memory?”
“I found nothing to suggest it.”
“But I cannot help feeling that something has happened?”
“But, dear lady, what could have happened? Besides, if anything had happened you would have heard. People don’t vanish off the earth.”
“Jack was not himself. Very depressed and strange. I know that you did not take a serious view——”
“My opinion was that your husband needed a break. He had got into a groove. I told him to laze about and forget everything for two months. You are sure to hear from him in a day or two.”
But she did not hear; she became more frightened. She waited for every post, and no letter came.
At the beginning of the third week she went up to town and called on their family lawyer, an old friend. He heard what she had to say, and was carefully sympathetic, and tactfully curious. No quarrels, no misunderstandings? No. He did not ask whether there happened to be a woman anywhere.
“Sometimes a letter is posted and it does not arrive. Or it is put in a pocket and forgotten.”
“I have thought of everything.”
“And you are not satisfied?”
“I am frightened. I have a feeling that something has happened.”
“You want me to do something? But you say that you don’t know where he was going?”
“He had a ticket to Paris. After that—nothing. What can you do.”
“I can get into touch with the police, and get them to communicate with the Continental police. It is all very vague. Would you like to wait a few more days?”
“No; please do something. I’m frightened.”
* * *
In a ward of the general hospital at Marseilles lay a man who had been picked up on the quay by the police. The man—an Englishman by his looks—was still unconscious. No one knew anything about him. Passport, tickets, money, papers, all had gone. His linen was marked J. B. The hotels, Cook’s, the Steamboat Offices had no information to give. From none of the hotels was any visitor missing.
The man was a problem both to the doctors and the police. His skull had been smashed, but there was no depression of the bone. He lay on his back, eyes closed, inert, tranquilly breathing.
The doctor in charge of the ward and a visiting surgeon consulted beside his bed.
“Something pressing there, a clot.”
Obviously it was a case for the trephine. The surgeon decided to operate.
The operation was wholly successful, and John Barron was put back to bed with a neat little hole in his skull. A blood-clot had been found and removed. An ice-bag was applied to his dressed and shaven head; he was given morphia; they left him to sleep, and he slept for sixteen hours.
Quite early the following morning the nurse on duty heard what sounded like an altercation in the ward where the supposed Englishman lay. She went in to appease or to suppress, and found the Englishman sitting up in bed, feeling his head, and with his two neighbours also sitting up in bed. One was a sailor, the other an elderly clerk from a Marseilles store.
“What’s this—what’s this?”
Both the Frenchmen began to speak at once.
“Our friend here seems to have come to his senses——”
“He has been shouting at us——”
“Cursing. It had the sound of cursing.”
“I tried to calm him, but he understands nothing of our language.”
The nurse gave her attention to the Englishman. He was holding his head, and looking about him as though searching for someone to explain the situation in which he found himself. He looked appealingly at the nurse.
&n
bsp; “Where am I? Where the devil am I?”
She spoke soothingly, laying a hand on his shoulder, not understanding a word of what he said.
“Lie down; calm yourself.”
He seemed to catch her meaning, and it increased his exasperation.
“Does anyone here speak English?”
“English. He wants to speak English,” chirped the little old clerk. “Calm yourself, my dear fellow. Fetch Adolphe from over there. He is a waiter; he has been in London.”
Adolphe, in négligé, was summoned, and stood at the foot of Barron’s bed.
“What you want, sir?”
“Where am I?”
“In a hospital.”
“Yes, yes; but where——? You are French.”
“Naturally so, sir. This is Marseilles.”
“Marseilles!”
“Certainly.”
“But how did I get here?”
“In hospital, sir?”
“No—to Marseilles?”
The waiter shrugged.
“The police brought you here.”
“The police! But I was in England.”
“This is Marseilles——”
“Then I want to see the English consul.”
To calm him the nurse promised that both the doctor in charge of the ward and the English consul should be sent for immediately. Moreover, the nurse slipped a sleeping-draught into Barron’s early cup of weak coffee. Head cases should not be allowed to suffer excitement, and since neither the coffee nor the sleeping-draught made Barron sick he fell asleep again, and was still sleeping when the English consul came to question him.
They woke him.
“Here is the English consul, monsieur.”
Barron’s eyes expressed immense relief.
“My name’s Barron. The last thing I remember is being in England. I wake up and find myself in a French hospital. Perhaps you can tell me how I came here.”
“You were found lying unconscious on one of the quays.”
“How long have I been here?”
“They tell me—about ten days. Obviously you had been knocked on the head and robbed. Your pockets were empty.”
Barron looked bewildered.
“I don’t remember. What was I doing here? The last thing I remember was cleaning my golf clubs—after a round—at home. Sitting by the library fire. My wife was there. Look here—can you wire for somebody to come out?”
“Of course, my dear chap.”
“Wire to Fellows—my lawyer—Austin Friars, London. By the way, my wife must not know; she would be worried to death. Wire Fellows in confidence. My name is John Barron; I am a shipping-merchant; home address: ‘River Lodge,’ Walton-on-Thames.”
The consul was making notes. He glanced with shrewd kindness at Barron.
“That’s all right; don’t worry. Just lie down and keep quiet. We’ll settle all this. I’ll send off a wire at once.”
Three days later when Mr. Fellows reached Marseilles Barron was out of danger. They moved him to an hotel.
“But, my dear Fellows, what was I doing out here? That knock on the head seems to have wiped out every memory.”
“You had gone away on a holiday.”
“What for? All by myself.”
“Doctor’s orders.”
“Doctor’s orders? Why, I am perfectly fit; never felt more cheerful in my life. And I say—what about poor Kitty?”
“Rather worried; never had a word from you. She felt that something had happened. No one had the faintest idea where you were. We have found your luggage at the station.”
“I’ll write to her at once. Look here, when can I get home?”
“But you are on a holiday.”
“Holiday be damned! I want to get back to work, and to Kitty and the youngsters. I want to go home.”
“The doctor won’t let you go just yet.”
“Oh, very well, give me some paper. I want to write home. Wait a bit though, I had better send a wire. I’ll pretend everything is all right. Thanks. How does this sound?
“ ‘Did you get my letters? Fit and well. Coming home soon. Love.—Jack.’ ”
Mr. Fellows stood smiling beside his bed.
“Yes, send it. You can explain—later. Funny places—these seaports. You must have been sand-bagged and robbed the very day you arrived here. You had not even booked a room at an hotel.”
Barron laughed.
“Well, of all the rum adventures! And I had come away for my health—had I? What was supposed to be the matter?”
“Oh, you were a bit run down, depressed.”
“Depressed! Why—I feel like a schoolboy itching to get home.”
In three weeks Barron was back in England. He had a surprise for Kitty. He was in England before she knew that he had recrossed the Channel. He sent her a wire from Dover.
“Home for dinner—if you can make it 8.30.—Jack.”
Three hours of suspense followed that moment of rich surprise. His letters from Marseilles had sounded very cheerful, but why was he spending all his time at Marseilles, and how was it that his previous letters had gone astray? And what would she see in him, the old, happy comrade, or the moody, morose stranger of that dolorous winter?
She did not go to the station. She waited at home; she had sent the children to a friend’s. She listened; she heard the taxi coming up the drive; she went to the door.
“Hallo! Kitty.”
She was seized, held, kissed, while the taxi-driver dealt tactfully with the luggage.
“By Jove! it’s good to be home.”
She clung to him.
“Oh—Jack—oh, my dear man, it is good to have you home.”
She held the man she knew, her mate, and not the heart-breaking stranger.
“You are better, Jack, your old self.”
“Why, was I ever anything else?”
Later she had to hear his story. He could tell her no more than the police or the doctors knew. He must have gone for a stroll in the dusk, and been hit on the head and robbed while he was looking at the old port. He had been unconscious for days, and had been unable to remember anything of all that had happened for the last six months. It was extraordinary but it was true.
“Fellows came out to me. I told him not to let you know, Kitty. I did not want you worried.”
She held him close.
“Oh—my dear—if you had been killed. I should never have known—perhaps——”
“But they keep on telling me that I had gone away for my health. Depression. It sounds nonsensical. I never felt more fit or cheerful, dear old thing.”
And that was the blessed fact that emerged from the adventure. That blackguard blow had opened a hole in Barron’s head and let out the strange oppression that had weighed upon him. He had paid a biggish fee for that piece of scoundrel surgery, but someone realized that it had been worth it.
IN THE SNOW
Norah Burnside wandered out into the snow.
If life had been very smirked for her, this mountain world was virginal, all white and pure under the blue of the sky. The sunlight on the high peaks had the essential and beautiful cleanness of an unselfish thought. The stillness was supreme. In the white and muffled silence all sound seemed to have ceased, and so silent was this mountain world that she could fancy herself listening to the beating of her heart and the sound of her own breathing.
She took the path through the pinewoods where every tree had a crusting of snow. Her breath made a silver steaming, her skin tingled, and in her eyes there was a brightness. Higher, the pinewoods gave place to a sheet of virgin snow, in early spring a little upland meadow full of white and purple crocus, and on the crest of a slope someone had placed a seat. Moreover, someone had cleared the snow from the seat since last fall. She smiled as she thought of that someone.
“Poor man!”
She sat down. It was a day of suspense for her, and yet her suspense was not a mood of mist and of gloom, but it had the quality of this S
wiss atmosphere, a sparkle, a tingling tenseness. She expected news, a letter, perhaps a telegram. She had waited months for this day, and the sun was shining, and she felt that the tragedy of her life lay cast off like so much evil vapour.
“Sun,” she thought; “blessed sun. How old I was a year ago, and now——!”
Her face expressed a brooding gentleness. She looked up at the peaks shining against an infinite blueness, at the black woods with their snow mantles, at the sheet of pearly vapour that was a great canopy of cloud sealing up the lake that lay at the foot of the mountains.
She remembered that there was other life down there, and it seemed strange to her that it should be so. But why strange? He might come to her from that other world, carried through the clouds in a little blue train that climbed up and up like some crawling insect.
The brown roof of the hotel was visible beyond the pines. It was no more than a glorified châlet into which some twenty people crowded, people who were not too well off, people who had been ill, people who were weary of the English gloom and who had climbed nearer to the sun. The life of the place was very simple, and as wholesome as the food. There was ski-ing, luging, skating on the flooded tennis court. The snow-field came right up to the deep verandah of the châlet, and you could sit on the verandah steps, put on your skis, and go gliding forth into the brilliant sunlight.
The skiers were out already. Norah could see five little brightly coloured figures climbing slantwise up the snow-covered hillside to the west of the hotel. They were moving streaks of red and orange and blue. Lower down someone in sober brown was trailing a luge.
But nearer across the snow a figure moved amid the crowded trunks of the pines. It came out into the sunlight, and paused there, gloved hands resting on the sticks, the figure of a very tall man in a yellow pull-over and brown breeches and stockings, and as long and as thin as the skis sunk in the snow.
Norah Burnside’s dark lashes gave a little flicker. That he had followed her footsteps in the snow was obvious, as obvious as the ski track that led up to this seat. It was his seat and hers; he had brushed the snow from it with one of his big gauntlets.
The Short Stories of Warwick Deeping Page 75
