HELD IN BONDAGE
Two French officers, wearing the red velvet bands of the medical service upon their caps, followed an old woman down the staircase of a pleasant villa-residence on the outskirts of Mainz.
“The bedrooms will suit perfectly,” said the elder of the two officers, a major, in German. “And now a sitting-room?”
The old woman led them along a passage and, without a word, threw open the door of a room lined with books. The two officers entered, looked about them.
They were startled by a man’s voice behind them.
“Good day, messieurs!”
They turned to see a tall civilian, pince-nez gleaming over exceptionally blue eyes, fair moustache, fair hair cut short and brushed up straight from a square forehead, smiling at them from the doorway.
“I am Doctor Breidenbach—at your service,” he said courteously in accentless French.
The major stepped forward.
“I am Major Chassaigne, monsieur. I—and my assistant, Lieutenant Vincent here—have been allotted quarters in your house. Here is the billet de logement.” He held out a piece of paper. “It is issued with the authority of the Army of Occupation and countersigned by your municipality. I regret to put you to inconvenience——”
“Not at all! not at all!” interposed the German, affably, taking the billeting order. As his face went serious in a scrutiny of the document, the two officers had an impression of extreme intelligence and ruthless will-power. He looked up again with a nod of assent, his smile masking everything behind its gleam of blue eyes and white teeth. “Perfectly correct, monsieur! Please consider my house at your disposition. I am charmed to be of assistance to any of my confrères.” He smiled recognition of their red cap-bands. “Although you wear another uniform than that which I myself have but recently quitted, we serve in a common cause—the cause of humanity, n’est-ce pas? which knows no national animosities.”
“We desired a sitting-room,” said Major Chassaigne, ignoring this somewhat unctuous profession of altruism.
The German waved his hand about the room.
“If this will suit you——?”
“Your library, monsieur?” queried the lieutenant.
“My work-room,” replied the doctor. “Before this deplorable war interrupted my studies, I had some little reputation in my special branch of mental therapeutics. If you are interested in psychology, normal and abnormal, you will find here a very complete collection of works upon the subject. Use them freely, by all means. Well, if you are satisfied, gentlemen, I will leave you, for I am a busy man. I was just about to visit some patients when you arrived. Auf wiedersehen!” He smiled and left them.
Vincent turned to his senior, with a puzzled expression.
“What is it about that man I do not like?”
The older man shrugged his shoulders.
“Too friendly by far. They are all the same, these boches—they would do anything to make us forget,” he said, divesting himself of his belt. “I am going to have a rest and a cigarette before we walk back into the town.”
The young man wandered around the room, scanning the titles of the books on the shelves, picking up the various bibelots scattered about. Suddenly he uttered a startled cry.
“Mon Dieu! Look at this!”
The major turned to him. In his hand he held a small snapshot photograph. He stared at it, trembling violently.
“What is the matter?”
“Look!—It is she!” The young man’s face was a study in horrified astonishment.
Chassaigne looked over his comrade’s shoulder at the photograph. It represented their host arm in arm with a good-looking young woman.
“She?” he queried, with a tolerant smile. “Be a little more explicit, my dear Vincent.”
The young man turned on him.
“You remember the deportations from Lille? The women and girls the boche snatched from their homes?—My fiancée was among them.” His voice checked at the painful memory. “Other women have been traced, returned to their relatives. She has never been heard of again.”
“My poor friend!” murmured the major, sympathetically.
Vincent stared once more, as if fascinated, at the photograph in his hand.
“It is she—in every detail! Yet——” his tone was puzzled. “No! I cannot believe it! It is some chance resemblance. This woman is obviously happy—content, at least.” He looked up, passed over the photograph. “Chassaigne, you are an analyst of the human mind. What relationship do you diagnose between those two people?”
The major took the print, scrutinized it critically.
“Friends, certainly—lovers, possibly,” was his sententious verdict.
“Then it cannot be!” cried the young man. “My fiancée was—is, I am sure of it—incapable of a faithless acquiescence in the wrong done to her.”
“Can one ever be sure about a woman?” said the major, with a gentle cynicism. “However, I agree with you that it is improbable that the person in the photograph is your lost friend. It is, as you say, a chance resemblance.”
“If I could only be certain of it!” The young man was obviously stirred to the depths. “I must make sure, Chassaigne.—I must get to know this woman—find out who she is!”
Both men turned at the sound of the door opening behind them. A young woman, tall, dark, strikingly handsome, stood timidly upon the threshold. It was the woman of the photograph.
“Doctor—Doctor Breidenbach?” she faltered, as though disconcerted by an unexpected meeting with strangers.
Vincent stared at her, held in a suspense of the faculties where he seemed not to breathe. At last he found his voice.
“Hélène!” he cried. “Hélène! It is you!” He sprang to her, clutched her arm. “What are you doing here?”
With a frightened gesture of repulsion, the young woman disengaged herself from his grasp. She drew herself up, looked at him without the faintest recognition in her eyes.
“Ich spreche nicht französisch, mein Herr!” she said in a tone of cold rebuff.
“Hélène!”
She shrank back in obviously offended dignity, and, without another word, haughtily left the room.
Vincent reeled away from the closed door, his hands to his head.
“My God!” he groaned. “Am I going mad?”
Then, ceding to a sudden impulse, he eluded his friend’s restraining grasp, dashed to the door.
“Hélène!”
He found himself confronted by the smiling figure of Doctor Breidenbach.
“Pardon the unintended intrusion, messieurs!” he said, good-humouredly apologetic and taking no notice of Vincent’s excited appearance. “My ward, Fräulein Rosenhagen, was unaware that I had guests.—I merely wished to reassure myself that you require nothing before I go into the town. Is there anything you desire of me?”
“Nothing, thank you,” interposed Chassaigne, quickly, before Vincent could speak.
“A tantôt, then!” He nodded amicably and went out.
“We ought to have questioned him!” cried Vincent, resentful of the missed opportunity.
“We ought to do nothing of the kind, my dear Vincent,” replied Chassaigne. “Calm yourself. Be sensible. What question could we possibly ask that would not be ridiculous? You may be utterly wrong.”
“It is she! I swear it!” asserted the young man, vehemently. “Do you think I cannot recognize a woman I have known all my life?”
He commenced to pace up and down the room in wild agitation. His friend contemplated him with a gaze of genuine solicitude.
“You may be mistaken for all that,” he said, gently. “Doubles, although rare, exist——”
Vincent stared at him in exasperation.
“My fiancée had three little moles just above her right wrist—I looked for those three moles when I held that woman’s arm just now—and I found them! Are doubles so exactly reproduced as that?” he asked, furiously.
“It sounds incredible, certainly,” agreed Chassaigne. “But her attitude——”
“I know,” said Vincent, recommencing his pacing up and down the room. “She looked at me like a complete stranger. But,” he ground his teeth in jealous rage, “if she has consented to live with that man—she might have pretended—to hide her shame——”
“My friend,” said Chassaigne, seriously, “in that young woman was neither shame nor pretence. I observed her closely. She genuinely did not recognize any acquaintance in you. She genuinely did not even know French. She was genuinely resentful of your familiarity. That was no play-acting performance. She was taken by surprise. She had no time to prepare herself for it.”
The young man beat his brow.
“Oh, I am going mad!” he cried. “It was she, I swear it!—and yet—she did not know me! It baffles me.” He stopped for a moment, then looked up with a new idea. “Chassaigne! You are an authority on these things. It is possible—by hypnotism or anything of the sort—to change a personality completely—so that they forget everything—start afresh?”
Chassaigne met his glance, hesitated.
“It is—perhaps—possible,” he said, slowly. He went up to his friend, put his hand on his shoulder, drew him to a chair. “Sit down, my dear fellow. Let us be calm and think this out. If you are right—if this young woman is indeed your—your friend—your suggestion might perhaps be the key to the enigma. But we shall achieve nothing by getting excited.”
Vincent allowed himself to be gently forced into the chair. He looked white and ill, thoroughly shaken. His friend, contemplating him, was impressed by his appearance. Could such a shock be produced by a merely imagined resemblance? He felt that it could not—and then those three moles! His mind reverted to the young woman, to her indubitably genuine non-recognition, and he felt more than ever puzzled. With a quiet deliberation he drew up a chair and seated himself close to his comrade.
“Now let us analyze this problem,” he said. He spoke in a calm, consulting-room voice which eliminated in advance all emotion from the discussion.
Vincent looked up, his eyes miserable.
“Have you ever known of such a case?”
“Of a personality permanently changed? No.”
“Is it hypothetically possible?”
“Hypothetically—yes.”
“By hypnotism?”
“By hypnotism and suggestion.”
“But a woman cannot be hypnotized against her will, can she?”
“No—technically not—but her will may be stunned, so to speak, into abeyance by a sudden shock or by terror and then, virtually, she might be hypnotized against her will. It is possible.”
The young man took a deep breath.
“That acquits her moral responsibility. But you say it is hypothetically possible to change a personality permanently? It sounds fantastic to me. Would you please explain?”
Chassaigne leaned back in his chair and lightly joined the finger-tips of his two hands. He spoke in the impersonal tone of a professor elucidating a thesis.
“Well, my dear fellow, to begin at the beginning we should have to analyze personality—and human personality is a mystery I confess myself unable to explore. You are aware, however, that there are people who have double personalities—even triple and multiple personalities—which differ utterly. For some reason which eludes us, one of these submerged personalities in an individual may suddenly come to the top. He, or she, entirely forgets the personality which was theirs up to that moment, forgets name, relations, every circumstance of life—and is completely someone else, quite new. There is a recent case, exhaustively studied, of a young woman with four such personalities—over which she has not the slightest control, and which differ profoundly, mentally and morally. I mention this merely to show you how unstable personality may be.”
“These are pathological cases,” interposed Vincent. “My fiancée was a thoroughly well-balanced woman.”
Chassaigne nodded.
“Before the war when you last saw her. She must have gone through great stress since. But let us continue. Under hypnotism a person is extraordinarily susceptible to the suggestions of the operator. He will carry out perfectly any rôle indicated to him. The reason is that in the hypnotic condition the conscious personality is put to sleep and the subjective mind—the dream-creating consciousness which is independent of the will—is paramount. That subjective mind possesses little if any power of origination, but it has a startling faculty of dramatizing any suggestion made to it. Tell a hypnotic that he is President Wilson at the Peace Conference and he will get up and make a speech perfectly in character, amazingly apposite, expressing ideas that are normally perhaps quite alien to his temperament. Tell him that he is Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo and he will act the part with a reality that is impressive. He believes himself actually to be Napoleon. Under hypnotism, then, the personality which is mirrored in the Ego—which you believe to be the essential, unchanging you—may be utterly changed——”
“Yes,” objected Vincent. “But that is only during the hypnotic trance. It is not permanent.”
“Wait a moment,” said Chassaigne. “Suggestions made during the hypnotic trance may and do persist after the subject has awakened from it. I may, for example, suggest to the hypnotized person that when he wakes he will have forgotten his native language—and he will forget it. If he knows no other, he will remain dumb until I remove the suggestion. I may suggest to him that a person actually in the room is not there—and he will not perceive him. I may suggest that in a week, a month, a year, at such and such an hour, he will perform some absurd action—and punctually to the moment, without understanding the source of his impulse, he will perform it. Post-hypnotic persistence of suggestion is a scientific fact.”
“Then—in this case?”
“In this case we have to do with a clever and possibly unscrupulous man who is a specialist in manipulating the human mind. Of course, he practises hypnotic suggestion as a part of his profession—it is the chief agent in modern mental therapeutics. It is possible that by some means he got this young woman into his power after she was dragged from her home. It is possible that he was violently attracted to her, and finding that she did not reciprocate his sentiments, proceeded to subject her individuality to his. How would he do this? He would drug or stun her volition by terror—as, for example, a bird is helplessly fascinated in fear of the snake. Then, using some common mechanical means such as the revolving mirror—staring into her eyes—anything that would fatigue the sensory centres of sight—he would induce a hypnotic trance. In that trance he would suggest to her that her name was no longer Hélène whatever it was—but Fräulein Rosenhagen, that she was a German woman ignorant of French, that she was perfectly happy and contented in his society. In the supernormally receptive state of the hypnotized mind he could give her lessons in German, which would be learned with a speed and accuracy far surpassing that of ordinary education. He would suggest to her that all his lessons persisted after waking. Finally, he would constantly reiterate these suggestions in a succession of hypnotic trances—once the first has been induced, it is easy to bring about the second—until he had reconstructed her personality, or rather imposed a new one upon her consciousness.
“There, my dear Vincent, presuming that you are correct in your recognition of this young lady, is a theoretical explanation of the phenomenon which confronts us. For that the young woman genuinely did not recognize you, I am certain.”
“She is held in the most diabolical slavery ever conceived, then!” cried Vincent, in despair. “A slavery of the soul! But can nothing be done?”
Chassaigne shrugged his shoulders.
“Something can be attempted, my dear fellow. I promise nothing.” He rose from his chair. “Now, I want you to promise to keep quiet—not to interfere. Fortunately, I speak German, and can talk to her in the language she believes to be her own. Wait a minute.” He roved round the room, opening the cupboards under the bookcases, the drawers in the writing-table by the window. “Ah, here we are!” he ejaculated. He held up a small silver mirror which revolved quickly upon its single support under the motion of his fingers. “I expected that our friend the doctor would possess this little instrument.” He smiled. “Very considerate of him to go out and leave us to ourselves! Now we will try and profit by the circumstance. I am going to find that young lady and bring her to you. You will maintain the attitude of a complete stranger who regrets an impulsive familiarity for which a mistake in identity is responsible. Master yourself!” He put the little mirror on the table and went out of the room.
A few moments later he returned, held the door wide open for the young woman to enter. He spoke in fluent German.
“My young friend, Fräulein, will not be consoled until he has had the opportunity of a personal apology!”
The young woman inclined her head gravely, and somewhat shyly advanced to the centre of the room. Vincent rose to his feet, his face deadly white, trembling in every limb, and bowed. Ignorant of German, he could not utter a word. Chassaigne turned to him, spoke to him in French.
“Look closely at Fräulein Rosenhagen, mon ami—and satisfy yourself.”
The muscles of his face tense under the effort to repress his emotion, to appear normal, the young man looked at her for a long moment. She returned his gaze without a quiver of the eyelids, smiled with the kindliness which sets a stranger at his ease.
“It is she—it is she,” he muttered, hoarsely. “I swear it!”
Chassaigne turned to the young woman.
“My young friend is much affected by your extraordinary resemblance to a lady he knew, Fräulein,” he said, smilingly, in German. “But he perceives now that he was mistaken. You will, I am sure, pardon an emotion that a person of your charm will readily understand. My friend was greatly attached to the lady he thought he recognised in you.”
The young woman smiled upon Vincent in feminine sympathy for a lover.
“Is she a German?” she asked in a rich deep voice that made him start.
Chassaigne replied for him.
“No, Fräulein—she is a Frenchwoman brought to Germany against her will.”
He observed her narrowly as he spoke. Her face remained calm. His words, evidently, awakened no latent memory in her.
“How dreadful!” she said. Her rich voice vibrated on a note of unfeigned sympathy which was, nevertheless, impersonal. “Poor man! And he does not know where she is!”
“He has no idea, Fräulein,” replied Chassaigne. “But let us leave this painful subject. Will you not keep us company for a few minutes? We are strangers in a strange land.” With a gallant courtesy, which, however, omitted to wait for her assent, he took her right hand and led her to a chair. His quick eyes noted the three moles upon her wrist. She seated herself almost automatically. He registered, in support of his theory, her easy susceptibility to a quietly insistent suggestion. “Will you not tell us what is most worth seeing in Mainz?” he asked, smilingly.
She looked up at him.
“Alas, mein Herr, I cannot!” she said. “I have never been in the city.”
“Indeed?” He expressed mild but courteous surprise. “Perhaps you have only recently come to live here yourself?”
“Yes—er—no!” She smiled at her own confusion. “I mean we have been here some time—but we travelled so much before we came here—that I—I have really lost count——”
Chassaigne made a reassuring little gesture which relegated the matter to a limbo of indifference.
“You travelled with Doctor Breidenbach, I presume?” he asked, casually.
“Yes. We went to a great many places. He was in the army then.”
“When you first met him?”
“Yes.” Her first tone of confident assertion changed almost as she uttered it to one of puzzled doubt. “Yes—I—I think so—I really forget.” She smiled in self-apology. “I have a very bad memory, you see, mein Herr,” she said, as if in explanation. “Doctor Breidenbach is treating me for it.”
“Ah?—Doubtless he is doing you a great deal of good?” Chassaigne seated himself upon the edge of the table and smiled down upon her in paternal benevolence.
“Oh, yes,” she began, impulsively. “You see, we are going to be married. But Doctor Breidenbach thinks it would not be right to be married until my memory is perfectly restored. So”—she hesitated, then smiled up with an innocent naïveté—“so you see I am doing all I can to concentrate and—and get it right.”
“Mon Dieu!” groaned Vincent in a low tone of anguish, turning away and staring out of the window.
Chassaigne frowned admonition at him in a quick glance unperceived by the young woman. Unobtrusively, he put one hand behind him, picked up the revolving-mirror from the table, held it behind his back. He nodded assent to her little self-revelation.
“Of course. No doubt you are making very rapid progress. Doctor Breidenbach is a very clever man, is he not?”
“Oh, yes—very clever. And so kind!”
Chassaigne nodded again, his smile holding her confidence. As if absent-mindedly, he brought the little mirror in front of him, played with it. He noticed that her eyes fixed themselves instinctively upon it.
“Pretty toy!” he remarked, casually. “It belongs to Doctor Breidenbach I suppose?”
She stared at it in a strange fascination, shuddered suddenly.
“Yes,” she said, with a little gesture before her eyes as though trying to throw off a spell, “yes—I—I think so——”
“A scientific instrument, I presume?” continued Chassaigne, imperturbably, as if merely interested in a curiosity, twirling the support between his fingers so that the mirror rapidly revolved. Imperceptibly he leaned forward, brought it nearer to her eyes. “It suggests sleep, I think,” he continued in a quiet level voice that had suddenly acquired a peculiar intensity. “Sleep. Sleep, Fräulein!”
She stared at it, open-eyed, stiffening curiously. A phrase of protest seemed frozen on her lips.
He held it very close to her face, revolving the mirror in a long-continued series of rapid flashes before her eyes.
“Sleep!” he commanded in his intense level voice.
Her breast heaved in a long, sleepy sigh. She shuddered again, stiffened suddenly, sat rigid, entranced. Vincent, watching, crept forward, tense with anxiety.
“What are you going to do?” he whispered.
Chassaigne motioned him to silence with a gesture of his forefinger. He turned to the young woman.
“You are asleep, are you not?”
She did not reply.
“You hear me?”
“Yes.”
Her lips moved, but beyond that she did not stir.
“In that sleep you remember things which you had otherwise forgotten.” He turned to Vincent, whispered: “What is her name?”
“Hélène Courvoisier.”
Chassaigne bent over her, picked up her wrist with the three moles.
“Do you remember Hélène Courvoisier?”
“No.”
“Not even the name?”
“Not even the name.”
There was a short silence, and then Chassaigne spoke again in insistent level tones.
“I suggest to you that you are yourself Hélène Courvoisier!”
Vincent, guessing the purport of the words, held his breath in suspense. To his despair the young woman responded with a far-away but genuinely mirthful laugh.
“No! How absurd!” she said, laughing like a person under a drug. “I am Ottilie Rosenhagen! I was always Ottilie Rosenhagen!” She laughed again, hysterically, but more and more freely, more and more loudly, more and more the laugh of a person normally awake. Still laughing, she shuddered, passed her hand across her brow, relaxed suddenly from her stiff attitude—and ceased to laugh with a glance around of bewilderment. She fixed her eyes upon Chassaigne.
“I—I think I feel unwell,” she said, rising brusquely from her chair. “Excuse me!—I—I cannot stay!”
Without a glance behind her, she went swiftly from the room.
Vincent watched her go, anguish and despair in his eyes. He turned to Chassaigne.
“Well?” he asked, hoarsely.
Chassaigne made a gesture of annoyance. He shrugged his shoulders.
“I might have guessed as much!” he said. “He has rendered her immune to the suggestion. You see, the trance was induced easily enough. As I thought, she was accustomed to being hypnotized by that mirror and the mere sight of it was almost sufficient. Without that, I should certainly have failed to hypnotize her at all, for Breidenbach would assuredly have impressed upon her the suggestion that she could be hypnotized by no one but himself. He has furthermore guarded himself by impressing upon her that the suggestion of being anybody but Ottilie Rosenhagen will suffice to break the trance. He cannot be sure that such an impressionable subject may not be hypnotized, possibly by a chance accident—such things occur—in his absence. But he can be sure that any counter-suggestion on the vital matter will defeat itself—as we have just seen.”
“But can no one remove the suggestion?” cried Vincent. He glared around the room, clenching his fist. “The infernal scoundrel! By God, I’ll kill him!” He fingered the revolver, in the holster strapped to his belt.
Chassaigne laid a restraining hand upon him.
“If you do—you will in all probability kill the only man in the world who can replace the factitious personality of Ottilie Rosenhagen by the real personality of Hélène Courvoisier!”
Vincent stared at him.
“Do you mean that?”
“He certainly can remove the suggestions he has himself made. It is doubtful whether any other can.”
“He must be forced to do it! We must inform the authorities!”
“Agreed, my dear fellow!” Chassaigne’s voice was soothing. “But we must first get evidence—real evidence—that this young woman is not Ottilie Rosenhagen but Hélène Courvoisier. What evidence have we got now that we could put up before a tribunal? None. Merely your alleged recognition, as against her own emphatic denial that she is the person you maintain. And at the present time not even the most cunning cross-examination could elucidate the fact that she had ever known the French language. Ottilie Rosenhagen does not know French—and, at this moment, to all intents and purposes, she is Ottilie Rosenhagen!”
“Then we must get hold of him ourselves!”
“He will simply laugh at us as madmen—apply to have us removed from his house. No, my dear fellow, we cannot force the pace. Wait. Be patient. Arouse no suspicion in his mind. Our opportunity will come, be sure of that. The real personality of Hélène Courvoisier is there all the time, latent. I am confident that we shall—somehow—succeed in bringing it to the surface again.”
The young man shuddered.
“I wish I could see how!” he said, hopelessly.
“You will see it. I guarantee it,” said Chassaigne, forcing his cheerfulness. “Now, come away out of this house. We will go into Mainz, dine, spend the evening at a café, and forget it—or talk it over, as you will. We can do nothing more now.” He smiled at him. “Come! As your superior officer, I command you!”
The hour was late when the two officers returned. Before going out, Chassaigne had provided himself with a key, and they let themselves into the house. It was quiet, its occupants apparently in bed. Throughout the evening there had been but one topic of conversation and, as it was yet unexhausted, they went into Doctor Breidenbach’s library, switched on the lights, and sat down for a final smoke before retiring.
“What we require,” said Chassaigne, for the twentieth time, as he lit his cigarette, “is demonstrable evidence, something that makes it certain that you are not under an illusion. Even in my own mind, I cannot help confessing, there is a doubt. Look at it from my point of view. You assure me that you recognize the young woman. Good—but your recognition may be an error, although sincere. You strengthen your case by pointing to the three moles. But, if I were questioned, I should be bound to admit that you did not mention those moles until you had seen them on this woman. You may be suffering from a not uncommon delusion of memory which refers to the past a thing now for the first time perceived. The strongest piece of evidence we possess is that, under the physical analysis to which we subjected the young woman, I found that she was a hypnotic subject, that she was impressible, and that her personality as Ottilie Rosenhagen is practically without any memories of the past. But we could not discover any trace of any other personality. She rejects as ridiculous the suggestion that she is not Ottilie Rosenhagen. That proves nothing, in the special circumstances we are considering. She might or might not still be Hélène Courvoisier. But the theory on which we have been working presupposes a crime so unique, that, quite frankly, to be entirely convinced I want to come upon some trace of a submerged personality which tallies with your assertion. If she is Hélène Courvoisier that personality is certainly there. But how are we going to get at it?”
Vincent shook his head.
“I cannot imagine,” he said, wearily.
He looked up to see Chassaigne staring in astonishment at the door behind his chair. Startled, he twisted himself round to see what was happening—and gasped.
Framed in the doorway, a dressing-gown over her night-attire, her dark hair loose over her shoulders, was the young woman. In her hand was a bedroom candle, alight. Her face was expressionless and placid. Her eyes were open, looked fixedly in front of her. She moved into the room with a gliding step.
“She is asleep!” whispered Chassaigne. “Speak to her, Vincent!—who knows?—Perhaps another stratum of personality!”
The young woman glided straight toward the lieutenant, who gripped at the arm of the chair in his emotion. She was close upon him ere he could force himself to speech.
“Hélène!” he said in a tense, low voice, looking up into her eyes as if trying to bring her dream down to him. “Do you know me?”
She bent over him, kissed him softly upon the brow.
“Maxime!” she murmured, her tone vibrant with tender affection. “Maxime! You have been away so long!”
She spoke in French!
Chassaigne jumped in his chair, but before he could utter a word, a new voice spoke sharply.
“Ottilie!”
The two officers turned to the doorway to see Doctor Breidenbach standing there, his face clouded with menace, his eyes angry.
The young woman started, looked wildly about her in the bewilderment of one suddenly aroused from sleep. Then after one horrified glance at her attire, an amazed stare at the two officers, she sank down on to a chair and covered her face with her hands. Trembling violently in every nerve of her body, she crouched there in a misery of shame, too overwhelmed to utter a sound.
The German advanced into the room, stood over her.
“Ottilie! Come away at once!”
Vincent, now on his feet, flushed with rage at the brutal tone of the command, comprehensible enough to him despite his ignorance of the language.
Chassaigne went quietly behind the German, locked the door, and slipped the key in his pocket.
Breidenbach, his eyes fixed on the girl, reiterated his command.
“Monsieur!” broke from Vincent in an angry expostulation which ignored his comrade’s gesture to silence.
The German looked round upon him, forcing his face to a smile in which the vivid blue eyes behind the pince-nez failed to participate.
“You are certainly entitled to some explanation of this unseemly occurrence, gentlemen,” he said in French. His voice, perfectly controlled and reinforcing his smile, suggested an appreciation of piquancy in this equivocal situation, invited the sense of humour of the Gallic temperament. “I need not tell you that Fräulein Rosenhagen is entirely innocent of any intent to disturb you. She is, I may say, under my medical care. She suffers from somnambulism, and you will understand that it is comprehensible she should wander to this room where she is accustomed to receive treatment.”
Vincent, with difficulty, controlled himself to silence in obedience to his friend’s warning glance. Chassaigne stepped forward.
“Quite, monsieur,” he said, easily, smiling as though he fully appreciated the position from all points of view. “A case of abnormal subconscious activity. I am myself greatly interested, professionally, in this common neuro-pathological symptom. May I suggest that, since your patient has come here in response to an obscure instinctive desire for the accustomed treatment of which she is doubtless in need, you now satisfy her? I should esteem it a privilege to assist at a demonstration of your methods.”
The German’s eyes flashed a suspicion that was instantly veiled.
“The hour is late, monsieur,” he said, coldly.
Chassaigne shrugged his shoulders good-humouredly.
“In our profession, monsieur—the service of humanity,” he said with sly malice, “one is on duty at all hours.”
The German’s eyes expressed frank hostility.
“I do not consider it advisable,” he said. His tone was curt.
Chassaigne glanced at the young woman still crouched upon the chair.
“As a professional man of some experience, monsieur,” he said, imperturbably, “I do not agree with you. I feel sure your patient would benefit by it. Let me beg of you!”
The German trembled with sudden anger.
“This is an unwarrantable interference, monsieur! The patient is in my charge. I decline absolutely!” He turned to the girl. “Come, Ottilie!” he added in German.
She ventured a shrinking glance up at him, stirred as if to rise.
Chassaigne raised his hand in a gesture which checked her. His eyes met the German’s in a direct challenge.
“Unreasonable as it sounds, monsieur, I have set my heart upon witnessing your methods. It is a whim of the conqueror—the force of which you, who have served in Belgium, will appreciate.” His right hand slid into the pocket of his tunic. “I must insist!”
“I refuse, then!” The German was livid with rage. He turned and plucked the girl violently from her seat. “Out of my way, monsieur!”
Dragging the girl after him, he took two steps toward the door—and stopped suddenly. Two more steps would have brought him into contact with the muzzle of the revolver which Chassaigne levelled at him.
“Foreseeing your possible ill-humour, monsieur,” said the Frenchman, with a mocking suavity, “I took the precaution of locking the door. This young woman has inspired me with so violent an interest that I cannot bear to see her suffer unrelieved. And I might remind you that should you unfortunately lose your life by the accidental explosion of this revolver—I should find it comparatively easy to restore her to complete mental health myself.”
The German glared at him.
“I do not understand you!”
“You do—perfectly!” Chassaigne turned to his friend. “Vincent, conduct that young lady to a chair!”
The girl, who had been released by the German in the first shock of his surprise, stood paralyzed with terror, staring speechlessly at the revolver in Chassaigne’s hand. Unresistingly, she allowed herself to be led to a chair by the young man who was as speechless as she.
Chassaigne nodded satisfaction.
“Good! Now, Vincent, draw your revolver and cover this gentleman yourself. Be careful to hit him in a vital spot should you be compelled to fire.”
Vincent obeyed with alacrity, dangling the heavy weapon with fingers that evidently itched to pull the trigger.
“Monsieur,” said Chassaigne with grim courtesy to the German who had remained motionless under the menace of the revolver, “I invite you to take a seat. You may keep your hands on your knees, but do not move them until I give permission.”
The German sat down heavily, his eyes gleaming evilly at the Frenchman.
“Now, monsieur,” said Chassaigne, in succinct tones, “since you say you do not understand, I will be more explicit. I desire that you should induce in this young woman the hypnotic trance which is your habitual treatment for her indisposition——”
A gleam of cunning flitted in the German’s eyes.
“Very well,” he said, with sulky submission. “If you insist!”
“But with this difference,” continued Chassaigne, “that your habitual suggestion shall be reversed!”
The German started—controlled himself quickly.
“I do not understand,” he said, maintaining his pose of sulkiness.
“I mean that instead of suggesting to her that she is and always has been Ottilie Rosenhagen—you suggest to her that she is really Hélène Courvoisier, a French girl deported from Lille!”
The muscles stood out suddenly upon the German’s lean jaws, even as, with a strength of will Chassaigne could not but admire, he smiled mockingly into his adversary’s face.
“You rave, monsieur!” he said, and his tone emphasized the insult.
“Rave or not,” replied Chassaigne, calmly, “I want you to try the experiment. It is a whim of mine.” He handled the revolver suggestively.
“And if I refuse?”
“I shall shoot you!”
The German laughed outright.
“Ottilie!” he cried, in German, “these Frenchmen have gone mad. They pretend that you are not Ottilie Rosenhagen but a French girl—and they want to take you from me!”
The girl sprang from her seat with a cry of horror, rushed to him, and flung her arms about him.
“Oh, no, no!” she cried. “I am German—I am German—I was never anything but German! Oh, don’t take me away from him! I love him! I love him! He is all I have in the world!”
Vincent watched the action with jealous rage.
“My God!” he muttered. “I shall kill him in another moment if this goes on!”
The German smiled at them triumphantly.
“You see, gentlemen! Your suggestion is fantastic! This girl is my fiancée, and she is German to the core!”
Chassaigne’s face was stern.
“Vincent! Remove the lady!”
The young man had to tear her by force from the German, who remained immobile in his chair in a mocking respect for the revolver.
“Fantastic or not,” said Chassaigne, “I demand that you try the experiment. If you refuse—it is because you dare not do it!”
The German shrugged his shoulders.
“Very good, monsieur. I refuse. Think what you will!”
Chassaigne drew his watch from his pocket.
“I give you three minutes to decide,” he said. “Vincent! Put the lady in that armchair and be ready to shoot when I give the word. Two bullets are more sure than one!”
The girl, dazed with fright, looking as though she were in some awful dream, collapsed nervelessly into the chair. Vincent posted himself by the German’s side, his levelled revolver held just out of reach of a sudden snatch.
The German tried one more expostulation.
“This is madness!” he cried. “You surely do not propose to commit a cold-blooded murder!”
“One!” said Chassaigne, grimly. “Two more minutes, monsieur!”
The German laughed diabolically.
“Very well, then! Commit your murder! Much will it profit you! I am the only man in the world who can influence that young woman. Whatever you may think, you cannot transform her personality. Ottilie Rosenhagen she is and Ottilie Rosenhagen she will remain!”
“Two!” said Chassaigne.
“You may as well shoot now! Don’t wait for the third!” jeered the German. “I deny that she is other than Ottilie Rosenhagen. I utterly refuse to experiment upon her at your dictation. Shoot! I defy you!” The man certainly did not lack courage. He smiled mockingly as Chassaigne’s revolver rose slowly and deliberately to a level with his eyes. “Shoot! Outrage for outrage, your murder of a German civilian may well balance the deportations you prate about!” It was significant that in this fateful crisis it should be that particular crime which occurred to him for parity.
The taunt seemed to strike the spark of an idea in Chassaigne’s brain. Still menacing the German with his revolver, he held out the key to the door in his left hand.
“Vincent! In Doctor Briedenbach’s hall there is a telephone. A hundred yards away there is a post of infantry. Ring up the commandant, tell him that I have arrested Doctor Breidenbach on the charge of abducting a French subject, ask him to send along an armed escort at once—not less than half a dozen!” He glanced at the girl, who was apparently in a swoon upon her chair. “It is important that the force should be imposing! Hurry!”
Vincent snatched at the key, and dashed from the room.
The German smiled in grim contempt. Chassaigne, still covering him with the revolver, smiled back, not less grimly. They waited in a complete silence, through minute after minute. The girl upon the chair did not stir.
Suddenly they heard the rhythmic tramp of a body of armed men on the gravel outside, a sharp voice of command, and then, after a brief pause, the heavy multiple tramp again, resounding through the house, louder and louder in its approach. At the sound, the girl sat up brusquely, stared wild-eyed at the door.
It was flung open. Vincent entered, pointed out the girl to the French officer who accompanied him, evidently in confirmation of a statement made outside. The officer barked an order. A file of helmeted infantrymen, bayoneted rifles at the slope, marched heavily into the room. The girl shrieked.
“Oh, no! no! Don’t take me!” she cried—and her cry was French! “Don’t take me! I will not go! I will not go!” She sprang up from her chair, looked frenziedly around the room in a terror-stricken search for an avenue of escape. Her eyes fell upon Vincent remained curiously fixed upon him. Suddenly, with a cry of recognition, she rushed into his arms. “Maxime! Maxime! Protect me! Oh, don’t let them take me! Don’t let them take me!”
Chassaigne smiled. He had won. As he expected, the shock of this armed entry so vividly recalled the night of terror in Lille when the girl-victims were snatched from their violated homes, had sufficed to reawaken the personality which had then agonized in its last moments of freedom.
Vincent enfolded her, murmuring reassuring words as he caressed the head that hid itself upon his breast. Her body shook with violent sobs.
The German stood up, placed himself, with a shrug of the shoulders, between the double file of infantrymen. The officer produced a notebook, asked a few questions of Chassaigne, jotted down the replies. He turned to the girl.
“Your name, mademoiselle?”
She looked up.
“Hélène Courvoisier,” she replied, unhesitatingly.