“Ah!” he exclaimed at last. “It all seems quite clear now. You’ve had a bad illness, my dear fellow! Your brain has become unbalanced, and you are now subject to hallucinations. I regret my hard words, Mr. Garfield,” he added in a kindly tone. “I also regret that your mental state is what it is.”
“I desire no sympathy!” I protested, raising my voice angrily. “All I want to know is the truth.”
“I have already told you that, as far as I am personally concerned.”
“No. You have denied everything, and now you try to treat me as one demented!” I declared in a fury. “The existence of the bank notes you gave me are sufficient evidence against you.”
“I think not. First, I doubt if they exist anywhere save in your imagination; secondly, if they do, then someone else may have given them to you.”
“You did. I would recognize you among ten thousand men. On the night in question you wore a dinner jacket, and now you are in grey. That is all the difference.”
“Well, have it your own way,” he replied smiling, though I could see that he had become palpably perturbed by my allegations. Whatever had been administered to me—some dope or other, no doubt—it had been intended that I should be cast adrift on the Continent as a semi-imbecile.
It was that fact which maddened me. The poor girl might not have been his niece, of course, but whoever she had been, this man had had some very strange and distinct motive in getting rid of her.
What it was I had vowed to discover.
It was apparent that De Gex was anxious to get rid of me. Indeed, as we stood together in that fine old room, across the marble floor of which strayed long beams of sunlight, the door opened and a pretty woman came in. She was dressed to go out, and asked: