"I'm inclined to be very sorry for all this, and fear it may affect you very seriously. You're not just playing at this, I hope?" he asked then very earnestly.
"Playing at what?"
"This loss of memory. I mean that you need not have the faintest hesitation about speaking to me; and it occurred to me that you might have put it all on just to avoid questions at Rotterdam."
"Are you serious?"
"Absolutely. It's a tremendously serious matter. It's this way. We've seen the Burgen's manifest, of course; we know there were only two male cabin passengers on board, both travelling as Americans; one as Jas. R. Lamb, the other as Joseph Lyman. If you are Lassen, that was you. The other man, Lamb, as he called himself, we have good reason to believe was an English spy. It follows, therefore, that if you are not Lassen, you are the Englishman; and I need scarcely tell you that at such a time as this, spies find Berlin a very unhealthy place."
He was a quicker-witted fellow than I had believed, but he made a mistake in not springing this beastly surprise on me more suddenly. His long preamble gave me time to get myself well in hand.
"It'll be a pretty climax for me if I am the Englishman," I answered, laughing, and without turning a hair.
"You're sure you're not?" he rapped.
I tried to appear amused. "I wish I could be sure of anything."
A pause followed, and then he tried another shot. "You may have noticed that I stared pretty hard at you this morning when you came into the doctor's room, and that afterwards I rather rushed you away from Rotterdam. I reached there yesterday morning and spent the day making such inquiries as I could about you. I was instructed to, of course; and I came to the conclusion that you were the Englishman, and I thought so when you came into that room. That was why I hurried you away; I wished to have you on this side of the frontier. It is also the reason why I am sorry you cannot recover your memory."