www.freeclassicebooks.com

have found credence."

That's what I thought. It ended in my being sent to a sanatorium at

Bournemouth. I couldn't make up my mind at first whether it was a sham affair

or genuine. A hospital nurse had charge of me. I was a special patient. She

seemed so nice and normal that at last I determined to confide in her. A merciful

providence just saved me in time from falling into the trap. My door happened to

be ajar, and I heard her talking to some one in the passage. SHE WAS ONE OF

THEM! They still fancied it might be a bluff on my part, and she was put in

charge of me to make sure! After that, my nerve went completely. I dared trust

nobody.

"I think I almost hypnotized myself. After a while, I almost forgot that I was really

Jane Finn. I was so bent on playing the part of Janet Vandemeyer that my nerves

began to play me tricks. I became really ill--for months I sank into a sort of

stupor. I felt sure I should die soon, and that nothing really mattered. A sane

person shut up in a lunatic asylum often ends by becoming insane, they say. I

guess I was like that. Playing my part had become second nature to me. I wasn't

even unhappy in the end--just apathetic. Nothing seemed to matter. And the

years went on.

"And then suddenly things seemed to change. Mrs. Vandemeyer came down from

London. She and the doctor asked me questions, experimented with various

treatments. There was some talk of sending me to a specialist in Paris. In the end,

they did not dare risk it. I overheard something that seemed to show that other

people--friends--were looking for me. I learnt later that the nurse who had looked

after me went to Paris, and consulted a specialist, representing herself to be me.

He put her through some searching tests, and exposed her loss of memory to be

fraudulent; but she had taken a note of his methods and reproduced them on me.

I dare say I couldn't have deceived the specialist for a minute--a man who has

made a lifelong study of a thing is unique--but I managed once again to hold my

own with them. The fact that I'd not thought of myself as Jane Finn for so long

made it easier.

"One night I was whisked off to London at a moment's notice. They took me back

to the house in Soho. Once I got away from the sanatorium I felt different--as

though something in me that had been buried for a long time was waking up

again.

"They sent me in to wait on Mr. Beresford. (Of course I didn't know his name

then.) I was suspicious--I thought it was another trap. But he looked so honest, I

could hardly believe it. However, I was careful in all I said, for I knew we could be

235

The Secret Adversary