How this astounding gap in my life had been produced was absolutely beyond explanation. I tried to account for it, but the reader will readily understand that the problem was, to me, utterly inexplicable. I, the victim of the treachery of that man Hickman, had fallen unconscious one night, and had awakened to discover that six whole years had elapsed, and that I had developed into an entirely different person. It was unaccountable, nay, incredible.
I think I should have grown confidential towards Gedge were it not that he apparently treated me as one whose mind was wandering. He believed, and perhaps justly so, that my brain had been injured by the accidental blow. To him, of course, it seemed impossible that I, his master, should know nothing of my own affairs. The ludicrousness of the situation was to me entirely apparent, yet what could I do to avert it?
By careful questions I endeavoured to obtain from him some facts regarding my past.
“You told me,” I said, “that I have many friends. Among them are there any persons named Anson?”
“Anson?” he repeated reflectively. “No, I’ve never heard the name.”
“Or Hickman?”
He shook his head.
“I lived once in Essex Street, Strand,” I said. “Have I been to those chambers during the time—the five years you have been in my service?”
Never, to my knowledge.
“Have I ever visited a house in The Boltons, at Kensington?”