So the police were ahead of me! Well, that only made it the more certain that what we sought was not here.
“There was another chap, but he wasn’t Mr. Manning either,” vouchsafed my informant. “Howsomever, the police went to see him. Wanta go?”
“What do you mean?”
“Why, that same afternoon, there was a corpse picked outa the East River, froze stiff. Leastways, we thought he was a corpse, but blamed if the chap didn’t come to life!”
I wasn’t greatly interested, for if the corpse was taken from the river that afternoon, it couldn’t have been Manning. But the morgue-keeper went on: “You might take a look, sir, to see if you know him. For the poor fellow’s lost his mind,—no, not that,—but he’s lost his memory, and he dunno who he is!”
“Amnesia?” I asked.
“That’s what they call it, and the other thing, too. Aspasia,—or whatever it is.”
“Aphasia,” I corrected him, without smiling, for how should he know anything about what was a mystery to most skilled physicians. “Where is he?”
“They carted him over to Bellevue soon’s they seen he was alive. It was a touch job to keep him alive, I heard, and his memory is completely busted. It would be a godsend to him if you could identify him. I ask everybody to take a look on the chance. Somehow, I’m sorry for him.”
I wasn’t especially interested, but being thus appealed to in the interests of humanity, I went over to the hospital, and had no difficulty in gaining a sight of the patient in question. Indeed, the doctors were most anxious for visitors to see him, hoping that someone might identify the man.