Very slowly Barry Cumberland opened his eyes--took one look straight before him--and then shut them again quickly.
Something was wrong. He could swear he had been sitting but a moment before with his back against the giant pillar of an Ancient Egyptian building, staring at a window high up in a temple wall. In the moonlight he had seen a beautiful priestess standing at this window; and he had been waiting patiently--patiently--for a black cloud to pass, a cloud that had suddenly obscured the moon and hidden the slender figure.
Yes, those were the facts, he felt fairly confident. He opened his eyes again. He saw a small, very clean white room; and he was lying in a very clean white bed. He seemed to be propped up in some way, and he experienced great difficulty in moving his head, together with great disinclination to do so because of a dull pain above his eyes.
There were some medicine bottles and cups upon a glass-topped table, and there was a tall white screen of some very glossy material. The only spot of colour in the room was a bowl filled with red roses, which also stood upon the table. He wondered idly what was behind the screen, and then closed his eyes once more.
There was some mistake. No doubt the explanation was simple enough, but his brain seemed to be tired, physically tired. He found himself incapable of grappling with the problem. In one respect, of course, he must have been wrong: In regard to the Egyptian temple. He had never been in Egypt. In his idea that he lay in this unfamiliar white room, no doubt he was wrong, also; although the red roses were suspiciously like the handiwork of his Aunt Micky.
Without Barry becoming aware of any movement, a cool hand was presently laid upon his forehead.
For the third time he raised weary lids--and found himself looking into a pair of kindly eyes, their kindliness magnified by the glasses which their owner wore. A white-capped nurse was bending over him! She was entirely dressed in white, too. Everything in the place seemed to be white, except the roses, which were red, and the nurse’s eyes, which were blue.
“Ah!” she said, speaking in a low, soothing voice which yet had a note of gaiety in it, “so you have decided to wake up.”
Barry Cumberland tried to say Yes, but only achieved a whisper. Great heavens! He had never felt so cheap in his life! What was it all about?
“Don’t bother to talk,” the soothing voice went on. “When you have had another little sleep you will feel ever so much better. I have brought you a drink.”
She held a glass to his lips. He drank, looking into the kindly, smiling eyes; and fell asleep again.
The next time he awoke, the nurse was sitting in a chair beside him, reading. Presumably it was night, for a silk-shaded lamp was lighted upon the table at her elbow.
Barry stirred slightly and turned in her direction. She looked up at once.
“Good-evening,” she said; “is there anything you want?”
“No, thank you.” His voice was very low, but at least he could make himself understand. “Except--where am I?”
“In the first place, you are quite all right,” she replied in her gentle way. “You were thrown out of your car, you know, and really had--a most lucky escape. In the second place, you are in the Elizabeth Foundation Hospital.”
“Thrown out of my car?” Barry muttered. “Elizabeth? How did I get to Elizabeth?”
The nurse looked at him doubtfully, stood up, and:
“I am not at all sure that you should be allowed to talk yet,” she said in a tone of authority. “At any rate, it is time for your medicine.”
She measured out a dose from a graduated bottle on the table, and held it to his lips. He drank, watching her, and vainly trying to grab at any one of a thousand ideas that were dancing wildly through his brain. Yes, of course!--there had been a crash! He remembered, now. He had been driving the Rolls--when was it? Some time earlier in the evening, no doubt. And there was something about Egypt. Had someone been talking to him about Egypt? He could not capture this idea at all.
As the empty glass was set down:
“Please tell me,” he asked, and found that he had already more control of his voice, “did I crash near here?”
“Some little distance away,” the nurse answered, resuming her seat and smoothing a white apron with sensitive fingers.
Barry considered this reply for a long time. His brain was working with unfamiliar and amazing slowness. Then:
“Was I alone?” he inquired.
“You were alone in the car--yes.”
“You are sure there was no lady with me?”
“Quite sure.”
“Then how do I come to be here?”
“You were brought here by someone who found you.”
“Do you mean a friend?” Barry asked.
And as he spoke an explanation came to him of that extraordinary pressure about his skull for which he had hitherto been unable to account. His head was tightly bandaged!
“I am afraid you are talking too much,” the nurse said with gentle sternness. “It is contrary to Dr. Barton’s orders for me to allow you to talk. But I will answer your question. The man who brought you was a stranger, and his finding you a pure accident. And now please close your eyes and stop thinking about it.”
Barry smiled, and, in regard to closing his eyes, obeyed. But he did not stop thinking about it. He lay there endeavouring to capture those maddeningly elusive ideas which scampered about his mind like so many rabbits. Yes--he had crashed in the Rolls. He had been bound for New York. He remembered so much, clearly. He could not remember why he was bound for New York, nor from where; but New York had been his objective. He opened his eyes.
“How was I dressed when I was brought in?” he inquired.
“You were wearing your dinner clothes,” the nurse replied distinctly, raising her eyes from the book which she had resumed reading. “Please ask no more questions, because I shall be unable to answer them. In ten minutes I am going to turn the light out and leave you. So try to get to sleep.”
“Thank you,” said Barry, and continued his reflections.
He had been wearing his dinner clothes. Where on earth could he have been coming from? He opened his eyes, another point having occurred to him which might help to throw light upon the problem. But, slowly turning his head aside and noting the firm little chin of the girl as she bent over her book, he hesitated and did not ask the question. Nevertheless, he determined to remain awake until he had the facts in order. With which idea firmly in mind, he immediately fell asleep again.
When next he awakened, morning sunlight flooded the room, and he saw, standing beside the white-capped nurse, a cheery-looking, gray-haired man, having a very ruddy complexion.
“Good-morning, Mr. Cumberland,” said the cheery man in a cheery voice.
“Good-morning,” Barry replied--and, in the act of speaking, knew that he was himself again and that he had not been himself during those earlier conversations with the nurse.
He raised his hand to his bandaged skull. It was singing and throbbing, but that curious dull pain had gone.
“My name is Dr. Barton,” the other went on. “Feel better?”
“Rather!” said Barry. “What the deuce happened to me? Did I try to take a high jump or something?”
“Not exactly,” Dr. Barton replied, sitting on a rail at the end of the bed and addressing Barry over his shoulder. “You seem to have tried to climb a tree.”
Barry grinned feebly.
“How’s the Rolls looking?” he inquired.
“That I can’t tell you,” was the reply. “I understand it has been towed to a garage some miles from here.”
But, even as he listened to Dr. Barton’s answer, Barry’s mind had been actively at work. A phantom that had been haunting him took human shape. He recalled every circumstance that had led up to the accident. His smashed car ceased to interest him. His own condition became a very trivial matter. One thing, and one thing only, he wanted to know, and:
“I remember it all clearly,” he said. “I had lost my way. One point I must clear up.”
“Well, get busy with it,” the genial doctor directed, “because we are going to have you out of bed, presently, and see how you feel on your feet.”
“Splendid,” Barry replied. “What I want you to tell me is this: the exact spot at which the crash took place.”
Dr. Barton shook his head.
“I haven’t the faintest idea!”
“What!” Barry exclaimed. “But whoever brought me here must have known where he found me!”
“No doubt,” Dr. Barton admitted, “but he didn’t think it necessary to mention the fact.”
“Perhaps you don’t understand,” Barry went on patiently, “that it’s rather important. Could you possibly ring up this Good Samaritan and arrange for me to see him?”
“We could--if we knew his number.”
“Didn’t he leave it?”
“He left nothing!” was the astonishing answer. “He drove you here in a Studebaker--it was a Studebaker, wasn’t it, Nurse?” The nurse confirmed his statement with a nod; and: “In a Studebaker,” Dr. Barton continued, “at somewhere around ten o’clock. Dr. Perry was in charge and admitted you. You looked like a serious case, you understand. You’re not, but you looked like it. Who you were we found out from your cards, license, and what not. Then this dark horse in the Studebaker faded out.”
“Faded out?” Barry echoed.
“Precisely!” Dr. Barton inclined his head in solemn fashion. “Faded out. He didn’t leave so much as his best wishes.”
“Do you mean you have no means of tracing him?”
“None whatever,” the nurse assured him. “Dr. Perry told me he was a rough-looking man. I was on duty that night. And no one was more surprised than Dr. Perry when we learned that he had driven off.”
“You see, it looked suspicious,” Dr. Barton explained; “and we have been manhandled by the police about it. I mean, there was nothing to show that you had not been assaulted and robbed.”
Barry stared at the speaker unseeingly. He was thinking again.
“Whoever towed my car to the garage,” he mused aloud, “will tell me where I was found--or where the car was found.”
“I am sorry,” Barton declared, “but he won’t! The garage telephoned here the same night to say they had the car. We had a police officer on the premises at the time.”
“Well?” said Barry eagerly.
“A man driving a Studebaker towed the car in,” Barton went on; “said it was the property of Mr. Barry Cumberland and that Mr. Cumberland would settle with them for repairing it. Then he faded out.”
“Leaving no name?”
“Leaving no name.”
“Was this last night?”
Dr. Barton glanced at the nurse, smiled, and then:
“It was on Wednesday night,” he returned. “You were semiconscious for forty-eight hours! And now, stop talking. I’ve got my work to do. Stand by, Nurse.”
“One moment!” Barry pleaded. “My father?”
“Your father has been in constant touch. We advised him at once. He is downstairs now, waiting to see you.”
