"Well," he said quickly, "here is some further proof," and bending
beside me he opened one of the drawers of the big writing-table, and
took therefrom a number of blank memorandum forms, which he placed
before me. In eagerness I read their printed heading. It was "From
Wilford Heaton, 103A, Winchester House, Old Broad Street, London, E.C."
"Well, what are those used for?" I asked in wonder. "They are used at
the City office," he answered, tossing them back into the drawer.
"And you tell me I am wealthy?" I said, with a cynical laugh.
"Your banker's pass-book should be sufficient proof of that," he
answered; and taking the book from an iron safe let into the opposite
wall, he opened it and placed it before me.
I glanced at the cover. Yes, there was no mistake. It was my own
pass-book.
My eyes fell upon the balance, standing to my credit, and the largeness
of the figures held me open-eyed in astonishment.
It was wealth beyond all my wildest dreams.
"And that is mine--absolutely mine?" I inquired, when at last I found
tongue.
"Certainly," he replied, a moment later adding: "It is really very
strange that I have to instruct you in your own private affairs."
"Why have I an office in the City?" I asked, for that point was
puzzling.
"In order to carry on your business."
"What business?"
"That of financial agent."
I smiled at the absurdity of the idea. I had never been a thrifty man;
in fact, I had never had occasion to trouble my head about finance, and,
truth to tell, had always been, from a lad, a most arrant dunce at
figures.
"I fear I'm a sorry financier," I remarked for want of something better
to say.
"You are acknowledged to be one of the shrewdest and the soundest in the
City of London," Gedge answered.
"Well," I remarked, closing the pass-book, securing the flap, and
handing it back to him, "all I have to say is that this last hour that
has passed has been absolutely replete with mystery. I can make nothing
of all these things you tell me--absolutely nothing. I shall begin to
doubt whether I'm actually myself very soon."
"It would be better to rest a little, if I might advise," he said, in a
more deferential tone than before. "Britten suggested repose. That
blow has upset you a little. To-morrow you'll be quite right again, I
feel sure."
"I don't intend to rest until I've cleared up this mystery," I said
determinedly, rising from the table.
At that moment, however, the door opened, and turning quickly, I was
confronted by an angular, bony-faced, lantern-jawed woman, whose rouged
and powdered face and juvenility of dress struck me as utterly
ludicrous. She was fifty, if a day, and although her face was wrinkled
and brown where the artificial complexion had worn off, she was
nevertheless attired in a manner becoming a girl of twenty.
"Oh, my dear Wilford! Whatever has happened?" she cried in alarm, in a
thin, unmusical voice, when she beheld the bandages around my head.
I looked at her in mingled surprise and amusement; she was so doll-like
and ridiculous in her painted juvenility.
"Mr Heaton accidentally struck his head against the statue in the
drawing-room, madam," explained Gedge. "Doctor Britten has assured me
that the injury is not at all serious. A little rest is all that is
necessary."
"My dear Wilford! Oh, my dear Wilford! Why didn't you call me at
once?"
"Well, madam," I answered, "that was scarcely possible, considering that
I had not the honour of your acquaintance."
"What!" she wailed. "You--you can't really stand there and coolly tell
me that you don't know me?"
"I certainly assert, madam, that I have absolutely no knowledge whatever
of whom you may be," I said with some dignity.
"Is your brain so affected, then, that you actually fail to recognise
me--Mary, your wife!"
"You!" I gasped, glaring at her, dumbfounded. "You, my wife!
Impossible!"