Anna stepped back bewildered, but the man held out his arms to her.
"I tell you it was a lie!" he shouted wildly. "Can't you believe me? I
am Meysey Hill. I am the richest man in England. I am the richest man
in the world. You love money. You know you do, Annabel. Never mind,
I've got plenty. We'll go to the shops. Diamonds! You shall have all
that you can carry away, sacks full if you like. Pearls too! I mean
it. I tell you I'm Meysey Hill, the railway man. Don't leave me. Don't
leave me in this beastly thing. Annabel! Annabel!"
His voice became a shriek. In response to an almost imperative gesture
from the nurse, Anna laid her hand upon his. He fell back upon the
pillows with a little moan, clutching the slim white fingers fiercely.
In a moment his grasp grew weaker. The perspiration stood out upon his
forehead. His eyes closed.
Anna stepped back at once with a little gasp of relief. The hand which
the man had been holding hung limp and nerveless at her side. She held
it away from her with an instinctive repulsion, born of her
unconquerable antipathy to the touch of strangers. She began rubbing
it with her pocket-handkerchief. The man himself was not a pleasant
object. Part of his head was swathed in linen bandages. Such of his
features as were visible were of coarse mould. His eyes were set too
close together. Anna turned deliberately away from the bedside. She
followed the official back into his room.
"Well?" he asked her tersely.
"I can only repeat what I said before," she declared. "To the best of
my belief, I have never seen the man in my life."
"But he recognized you," the official objected.
"He fancied that he did," she corrected him coolly. "I suppose
delusions are not uncommon to patients in his condition."
The official frowned.
"Your name and address in his pocket was no delusion," he said
sharply. "I do not wish to make impertinent inquiries into your
private life. Nothing is of any concern of ours except the discovery
of the man's identity. He was picked up from amongst the wreckage of a
broken motor on the road to Versailles last night, and we have
information that a lady was with him only a few minutes before the
accident occurred."
"You are very unbelieving," Anna said coldly. "I hope you will not
compel me to say again that I do not know the man's name, nor, to the
best of my belief, have I ever seen him before in my life."
The official shrugged his shoulders.
"You decline to help us in any way, then," he said. "Remember that the
man will probably die. He had little money about him, and unless
friends come to his aid he must be treated as a pauper."