Now why should he, or any one else, be “taking me back to England?” I puzzled over it in silence before I put the question.
“Never you mind about that now,” he said with brusque kindliness. “All you’ve got to think about is getting strong again.”
But already I began to remember, and past events came jumping before my mind like cinematograph pictures.
“You fetched me out of prison,—you and Inspector Freeman,” I said slowly.
“Look here, don’t you worry,” he began.
“Yes, I must—I want to get things clear; wait a bit. He said something. I know; he came to arrest me for murder,—the murder of Cassavetti.”
“Just so; and a jolly good thing for you he did! But, as you’ve remembered that much, I must warn you that I’m a detective in charge of you, and anything you say will be used against you.”
More cinematograph pictures,—Cassavetti as I saw him, lying behind the door, his eyes open, staring; myself on the steps below Westminster Bridge, calling to Anne, as she sat in the boat. Anne! No more pictures, but a jiggery of red and black splashes, and then a darkness, through which I passed somehow into a pleasant place,—a garden where roses bloomed and a fountain plashed, and Anne was beside me; I held her hand in mine.
Now she was gone, she had vanished mysteriously. What was that man saying? “The Fraulein has not been here at all!” Why, she was here a moment ago; what a fool that waiter was! A waiter? No, he was a droshky driver; I knew it, though I could not see him. There were other voices speaking now,—men’s voices,—subdued but distinct; and as I listened I came back from the land of dreams—or delirium—to that of reality.
“Yes, he’s been pretty bad, sir. He came to himself quite nicely, and began to talk. No, I didn’t tell him anything, as you said I wasn’t to, but he remembered by himself, and then I had to warn him, and he went right off again.”