PART I

[Pg 9]

THE MAN WHO FOUND HIMSELF

CHAPTER I SIMON

King Charles Street lies in Westminster; you turn a corner and find yourself in Charles Street as one might turn a corner and find oneself in History. The cheap, the nasty, and the new vanish, and fine old comfortable houses of red brick, darkened by weather and fog, take you into their keeping, tell you that Queen Anne is not dead, amuse you with pictures of Sedan chairs and running footmen and discharge you at the other end into the twentieth century from whence you came.

Simon Pettigrew lived at No. 12, where his father, his grandfather, and his great-grandfather had lived before him—lawyers all of them. So respected, so rooted in the soil of the Courts as to be less a family of lawyers than a minor English Institution. Divorce your mind[Pg 10] entirely from all petty matters of litigation in connection with the Pettigrews, Simon or any of his forebears would have appeared just as readily in their shirt-sleeves in Fleet Street as in County or Police Court for or against the defendant; they were old family lawyers and they had a fair proportion of the old English families in their keeping—deed-boxes stuffed with papers, secrets to make one's hair curl.

To the general public this great and potent firm was almost unknown, yet Pettigrew and Pettigrew had cut off enough heirs to furnish material for a dozen Braddon novels, had smothered numerous screaming tragedies in high life and buried them at dead of night, and all without a wrinkle on the brow of the placid old firm that drove its curricle through the reigns of the Georges, took snuff in the days of Palmerston, and in the days of Edward Rex still refused to employ the typewriter.

Simon, the last of the firm, unmarried and without near relation, was at the time of this story turned sixty—a clean-shaven, bright-eyed, old-fashioned type of man, sedate, famed for his cellar, and a member of the Athenæum. A man you never, never would have imagined to possess such a thing as a Past. Never would[Pg 11] have imagined to have been filled with that semi-diabolical, semi-angelical joy of life which leads to the follies of youth.

All the same, Simon, between the ages of twenty-one and twenty-two, had raked the town vigorously more than viciously, haunted Evans' supper-rooms, fallen madly in love with an actress, enjoyed life as only the young can enjoy life in the gorgeous, dazzling, deceitful country of Youth.

Driving in hansom cabs was then a pleasure! New clothes and outrageous shirts and ties a delight, actresses goddesses. Then, one day his actress turned out an actress, and the following night he came out of the Cocoa Tree owing a gambling debt of a thousand pounds that he could not pay. His father paid on his promising to turn over a new leaf, which he did. But his youth was checked, his brightness eclipsed, and arm-in-arm with common sense he set out on the long journey that led him at last to the high position of a joyless, loveless, desolate, wealthy solicitor of sixty—respected, very much respected. In fact, less a man than a firm. Yet there still remained to him as a legacy of his youth, a very pretty wit of his own, an irresponsible turn of talk when he gave himself away—as at dinner-parties.

[Pg 12]

CHAPTER II MUDD

Mudd was Simon's factotum, butler, and minister of inferior affairs. Mudd was sixty-five and a bit; he had been in the services of the Pettigrew family forty-five years, and had grown up, so to say, side by side with Simon. For the last twenty years every morning Mudd had brought up his master's tea, drawn up his blinds and set out his clothes—seven thousand times or thereabouts, allowing for holidays and illnesses. He was a clean-shaven old man, with rounded shoulders and a way that had become blunt with long use; he only "sirred" Simon in the presence of guests and servants, and had an open way of speaking on matters of everyday affairs verging on the conjugal in its occasional frankness.

This morning, the third of June, Mudd, having drawn up his master's blinds and set out his boots and shaving things, vanished and returned with his clothes, brushed and folded, and a jug[Pg 13] of shaving water which he placed on the wash-handstand.

"The arms will be out of this old coat if you go on wearing it much longer," grumbled Mudd, as he placed the things on a chair. "It's been in wear nearly a year and a half; you're heavy on the left elbow—it's the desk does it."

"I'll see," said Simon.

He knew quite well the suggestion that lay in the tone and the words of Mudd, but a visit to his tailors was almost on a par with a visit to his dentists, and new clothes were an abhorrence. It took him a fortnight to get used to a new coat, and as to being shabby, why, a decent shabbiness was part of his personality and, vaguely perhaps, of his pride in life. He could afford to be shabby.

Mudd having vanished, Simon rose and began his toilet, tubbing in a tin bath—a flat Victorian tin bath—and shaving with a razor taken from a case of seven, each marked with a day of the week.

This razor was marked "Tuesday."

Having carefully dried "Tuesday" and put it back between "Monday" and "Wednesday," Simon closed the case with the care and precision that marked all his actions, finished[Pg 14] dressing, and looked out of the window to see what sort of day it was.

A peep of glorious blue sky caught across the roofs of the opposite houses informed him, leaving him unenthusiastic, and then, having wound up his watch, he came downstairs to the Jacobean dining-room, where tea, toast, frizzled bacon, and a well-aired Times were awaiting him.

At a quarter to ten precisely Mudd opened the hall door, verified the fact that the brougham was in waiting and informed his master, helped him into his overcoat—a light summer overcoat—and closed the carriage door on him.

A little after ten Simon reached Old Serjeants' Inn and entered his office.

Brownlow, the chief clerk, had just arrived, and Simon, nodding to him, passed into his private room, where his letters were laid out, hung up his hat and coat, and set to business.

It was a sight to watch his face as he read letter after letter, laying each in order under a marble paper-weight. One might have fancied oneself watching Law at work, in seclusion and unadorned with robes. He did not need glasses—his eyes were still the eyes of a young man.

Having finished his letters, he rang for his stenographer and began dictating replies, [Pg 15]sending out now and again for Brownlow to consult upon details; then, this business finished and alone again, he sat resting for a moment, leaning back in his chair and trimming his nails with the little penknife that lay on the table. It was his custom at twelve o'clock precisely to have a glass of old brown sherry. It was a custom of the firm; Andrew Pettigrew had done the same in his day and had handed on the habit to his son. If a favoured client were present the client would be asked to have a glass, and the bottle and two glasses were kept in the John Tann safe in the corner of the room. Ye gods! Fancy in your modern solicitor's office a wine-bottle in the principal safe and the solicitor asking a client to "have a drink"! Yet the green-seal sherry, famous amidst the cognoscenti, and the safe and the atmosphere of the room and the other-day figure of Simon, all were in keeping, part of a unique and Georgian whole, like the component parts of a Toby jug.

The old silver-faced clock on the mantel, having placed its finger on midday, set up its silvery lisp, and Simon, rousing himself from his reverie, rose, drew a bunch of keys from his pocket and opened the safe.

Then he stood looking at what was to be seen inside.

[Pg 16]

The safe contained two deed-boxes, one on top of the other, on the iron fire-and-burglar-proof floor, and by the deed-boxes stood the sherry bottle and the cut-glass satellite wine-glasses, whilst upon the topmost deed-box reposed a black leather wallet.

Simon's eyes were fixed on the wallet, the thing seemed to hold him spellbound; one might have fancied him gazing into the devilish-diamond eyes of a coiled snake. The wallet had not been there when he closed the safe last; there had been nothing in the safe but the boxes, the bottle and the glasses, and of the safe there were but two keys, one at the bank, one in his pocket. The manager of Cumber's Bank, a bald-headed magnate with side-whiskers, even if he had means of access to the safe, could not have been the author of this little trick, simply because the key at the bank was out of his reach, being safely locked away in the Pettigrew private deed-chest, and the key of the Pettigrew private deed-chest was on the same bunch as that now hanging from the safe door.

The lock was unpickable.

Yet the look on Simon's face was less that of surprise at the thing found than terror of the thing seen. Brownlow's head on a charger could not have affected him much more.

[Pg 17]

Then, stretching out his hand, he took the wallet, brought it to the table and opened it.

It contained bank-notes, beautiful, new, crisp Bank of England notes; but the joy of the ordinary man in discovering a great unexpected wad of bank-notes was not apparent in the face of Simon, unless beads of perspiration are indications of joy. He turned to the sherry-bottle, filled two glasses with a shaky hand and drained them; then he turned again to the notes.

He sat down and, pushing the wallet aside, began to count them. Began to count them feverishly, as though the result of the tally were a matter of vast importance. There were four notes of a thousand, the rest were hundreds and a few tens. Ten thousand pounds, that was the total.

He put the notes back in the case, buckled it, jumped up like a released spring, flung the wallet on top of the deed-box and closed the safe with a snap.

Then he stood, hands in pockets, examining the pattern of the Turkey carpet.

At this moment a knock came to the door and a junior clerk appeared.

"What the devil do you want?" asked Simon.

[Pg 18]

The clerk stated his case. A Mr. Smith had called, craving an interview.

"Ask Mr. Brownlow to see him," replied Simon; "but ask Mr. Brownlow to step in here first."

In a moment Brownlow appeared.

"Brownlow," said Simon, "look up Dr. Oppenshaw's telephone number and ask him can he give me ten minutes' interview before luncheon. Say it is most urgently important. 110A, Harley Street, is his address—and, see here, have a taxicab called—that's all."

Whilst Brownlow was away on his mission Simon put on his overcoat, put on his hat, blew his nose lustily in the red bandanna handkerchief that was part of his personality, opened the safe and took another peep at the wallet, as if to make sure that the fairy hand that had placed it there had not spirited it away again, and was in the act of locking the safe when the senior clerk entered to say that Dr. Oppenshaw would be visible at a quarter to one, and that Morgan, the office-boy, had procured the cab.

Brownlow, though he managed to conceal his feelings, was disturbed by the manner of his chief and by the telephone message to the doctor; by the whole affair, in fact, for Simon never left the office till the stroke of one, when[Pg 19] the brougham called to take him to Simpson's in the Strand for luncheon.

Was Simon ill? He ventured to put the question and nearly had his head snapped off.

Ill! No, of course he wasn't ill, never better in his life; what on earth put that idea into Brownlow's head?

Then the testy one departed in search of the taxi, and Brownlow returned to his room and his duties.

[Pg 20]

CHAPTER III DR. OPPENSHAW

Just as rabbit-burrows on the Arizona plain give shelter to a mixed tenantry, a rabbit, an owl, and a snake often occupying the same hole, so the Harley Street houses are, as a rule, divided up between dentists, oculists, surgeons, and physicians, so that under the same roof you can, if you are so minded, have your teeth extracted, your lungs percussed, your eyes put right, and your surgical ailment seen to, each on a different floor. Number 110A, Harley Street, however, contained only one occupant—Dr. Otto Oppenshaw. Dr. Oppenshaw had no need of a sharer in his rent burdens; a neurologist in the most nerve-ridden city of Europe, he was making an income of some twenty-five thousand a year.

People were turned away from his door as from a theatre where a wildly successful play is running. The main craving of fashionable neurotics, a craving beyond, though often inspired by the craving for, the opium alkaloids[Pg 21] and cocaine, was to see Oppenshaw. Yet he was not much to see: a little bald man like a turnip, with the manners of a butcher, and gold-rimmed spectacles.

Dukes inspired with the desire to see Oppenshaw had to wait their turn often behind tradesmen, yet he was at Simon Pettigrew's command. Simon was his sometime lawyer. It was half-past twelve, or maybe a bit more, when the taxi drew up at 110A and the lawyer, after a sharp legal discussion over tuppence with the driver, mounted the steps and pressed the bell.

The door was at once opened by a pale-faced man in black, who conducted the visitor to the waiting-room, where a single patient was seated reading a last year's volume of Punch and not seeming to realise the jokes.

This person was called out presently, and then came Simon's turn.

Oppenshaw got up from his desk and came forward to meet him.

"I'm sorry to bother you," said Simon, when they had exchanged greetings. "It's a difficult matter I have come to consult you about, and an important one, else I would not have cut into your time like this."

"State your case," said the other jovially, retaking his seat and pointing out a chair.

[Pg 22]

"That's the devil of it," replied Simon; "it's a case that lies out of the jurisdiction of common sense and common knowledge. Look at me. Do I look as though I were a dreamer or creature of fancies?"

"You certainly don't," said Oppenshaw frankly.

"Yet what I have to tell you disgusts me—will disgust you."

"I'm used to that, I'm used to that," said the other. "Nothing you can say will alarm, disgust, or leave me incredulous."

"Well, here it is," said the patient, plunging into the matter as a man into cold water. "A year ago—a year and four weeks, for it was on the third of May—I went down to my office one morning and transacted my business as usual. At twelve o'clock I—er—had occasion to open my safe, a safe of which I alone possess the key. On the top of a deed-box in that safe I found a brown-paper parcel tied with red tape. I was astonished, for I had put no parcel in."

"You might have forgotten," said Oppenshaw.

"I never forget," replied Simon.

"Go on," said Oppenshaw.

"I opened the parcel. It contained [Pg 23]bank-notes to the amount of ten thousand pounds."

"H'm—h'm."

"Ten thousand pounds. I could not believe my eyes. I sent for my chief clerk, Brownlow. He could not believe his eyes, and I fear he even doubted the statement of the whole case. Now listen. I determined to go to my bank, Cumber's, and make enquiries as to my balance, ridden by the seemingly absurd idea that I myself had drawn this amount and forgotten the fact. I may say at once this was the truth, I had drawn it, unknown to myself. Well, that was the third of May, and when and where do you think I found myself next?"

"Go on," said Oppenshaw.

"In Paris on the third of June."

"Ah—ah."

"Everything between those dates was a blank."

"Your case is not absolutely common," said Oppenshaw. "Rare, but not without precedent—read the papers. Why, only yesterday a woman was found on a seat at Brighton. She had left London a week ago; the interval was to her a complete blank, yet she had travelled about and lived like an ordinary mortal in possession of her ordinary senses."

[Pg 24]

"Wait a bit," said Simon. "I was not found on a seat in Paris. I found myself in a gorgeously-furnished sitting-room of the Bristol Hotel, and I was dressed in clothes that might have suited a young man—a fool of twenty, and I very soon found that I had been acting—acting like a fool. Of the ten thousand only five thousand remained."

"Five thousand in a month," said Oppenshaw. "Well, you paid the price of your temporary youth. Tell me," said he, "and be quite frank. What were you like when you were young? I mean in mind and conduct?"

Simon moved wearily.

"I was a fool for a while," said he. "Then I suddenly checked myself and became sensible."

Oppenshaw rapped twice with his fingers on his desk as if in triumph over his own perception.

"That clears matters," said he. "You were undoubtedly suffering from Lethmann's disease."

"Good Lord!" said Simon. "What's that?"

"It's a form of aberration—most interesting. You have heard of double personalities, of which a great deal of nonsense has been written? Well, Lethmann's disease is just this: a man, say, of twenty, suddenly checked in the course[Pg 25] of his youth, becomes practically another person. You, for instance, became, or fancied you became, another person; you suddenly 'checked yourself and became sensible,' as you put it, but you did not destroy that old foolish self. Nothing is destructible in mind as long as the brain-tissue is normal; you put it in prison, and after the lapse of many years, owing, perhaps, to some slight declension in brain power, it broke out, dominated you, and lived again. Youth must be served.

"It would have been perhaps better for you to have let your youth run its course and expend itself normally. You have paid the price of your own will-power. I am very much interested in this. Tell me as faithfully as you can what you did in Paris, or at least what you gathered that you did. When you came to, did you remember your actions during the month of aberration?"

"When I came to," said Simon, speaking almost with his teeth set, "I was like a person stunned. Then I remembered, bit by bit, what I had been doing, but it was like vaguely remembering what another man had been doing."

"Right," said Oppenshaw, "that tallies with your case. Go on."

"I had been doing foolish things. I had been[Pg 26] living, so to say, on the surface of life, without a thought of anything but pleasure, without the slightest recollection of myself as I am. I had been doing things that I might have done at twenty—extravagant follies; yet I believe not any really vicious acts. I had been drinking too much champagne, for one thing, and there were several ladies.... Good Lord! Oppenshaw, I'd blush to confess it to anyone else, but I'd been going on like a boy, picking flowers at Fontainebleau—writing verses to one of these hussies. I could remember that. Me!—verses about blue skies and streams and things! Me! It's horrible!"

"Used you to write verses when you were young?"

"Yes," said Simon, "I believe I used to make that sort of fool of myself."

"You were full of the joy of living?"

"I suppose so."

"You see, everything tallies. Yes, without any manner of doubt it's a case of Lethmann's disease rounded and complete. Now, tell me, when you came to, you could remember all your actions in Paris; how far back did that memory go?"

"I could remember dimly right back to when I was leaving the office in Old Serjeants' Inn[Pg 27] with the bundle of bank-notes to go to the bank. Then all of a sudden it would seem I forgot all about my past and became, as you insist, myself at twenty. I went to the Charing Cross Hotel, where I had already, it would seem, hired rooms for myself, and where I had directed new clothes to be sent, and then I went to Paris."

"This is most important," said Oppenshaw. "You had already hired rooms for yourself and ordered clothes. Those acts must have been committed before the great change came on you, and of course without your knowledge."

"They must. Also the act of drawing the ten thousand from the bank."

"The concealed other self must have been working like a mole in the dark for some days at least," said Oppenshaw, "utterly without your knowledge."

"Utterly."