“Are you unwell?” I asked him. “Would you like me to call a taxi?”
He turned to look at me. His eyes were bewildered, but it was an intelligent face, slightly ascetic, and made to look the thinner by bushy white eyebrows. He seemed to bring me into focus only slowly; his response came more slowly still, and with an effort.
“No,” he said, uncertainly, “no, thank you. II am not unwell.”
It did not appear to be the full truth, but neither was it a definite dismissal, and, having made the approach, I did not care to leave him like that.
“You have had a shock,” I told him.
His eyes were on the traffic in the street. He nodded, but said nothing.
“There is a hospital just a couple of streets away” I began. But he shook his head.
“No,” he said again. “I shall be all right in a minute or two.”
He still did not tell me to go away, and I had a feeling that he did not want me to. His eyes turned this way and that, and then down at himself. At that, he became quite still and tense, staring down at his clothes with an astonishment that could not be anything but real. He let go of the railings, lifted his arm to look at his sleeve, then he noticed his hand a shapely, well-kept hand, but thin with age, knuckles withered, blue veins prominent. It wore a gold signet ring on the little finger…
Well, we have all read of eyes bulging, but that is the only time I have seen it happen. They looked ready to pop out, and the extended hand began to shake distressingly. He tried to speak, but nothing came. I began to fear that he might be in for a heart attack.
“The hospital” I began again, but once more he shook his head.
I did not know quite what to do, but I thought he ought to sit down; and brandy often helps, too. He said neither yes nor no to my suggestion, but came with me acquiescently across the street and into the Wilburn Hotel. I steered him to a table in the bar there, and sent for double brandies for both of us. When I turned back from the waiter, the old man was staring across the room with an expression of horror. I looked over there quickly. It was himself he was staring at, in a mirror.
He watched himself intently as he took off his hat and put it down on a chair beside him; then he put up his hand, still trembling, to touch first his beard, and then his handsome silver hair. After that, he sat quite still, staring.
I was relieved when the drinks came. So, evidently, was he. He took just a little soda with his, and then drank the lot. Presently his hand grew steadier, a little colour came into his cheeks, but he continued to stare ahead. Then with a sudden air of resolution he got up.
“Excuse me a moment,” he said, politely.
He crossed the room. For fully two minutes he stood studying himself at short range in the glass. Then he turned and came back. Though not assured, he had an air of more decision, and he signed to the waiter, pointing to our glasses. Looking at me curiously, he said as he sat down again: “I owe you an apology. You have been extremely kind.”
“Not at all,” I assured him. “I’m glad to be of any help. Obviously you must have had a nasty shock of some sort.”
“Er... several shocks,” he admitted, and added: “It is curious how real the figments of a dream can seem when one is taken unaware by them.”
There did not seem to be any useful response to that, so I attempted none.
“Quite unnerving at first,” he added, with a kind of forced brightness.
“What happened?” I asked, feeling still at sea.
“My own fault, entirely my own fault, but I was in a hurry,” he explained. “I started to cross the road behind a tram, then I saw the one coming in the opposite direction, almost on top of me. I can only think it must have hit me.”
“Oh,” I said, “er... oh, indeed. Er... where did this happen?”
“Just outside here, in Thanet Street,” he told me.
“You... you don’t seem to be hurt,” I remarked.
“Not exactly,” he agreed, doubtfully. “No, I don’t seem to be hurt.”
He did not, nor even ruffled. His clothing was, as I have said, immaculate besides, they tore up the tram rails in Thanet Street about twenty-five years ago. I wondered if I should tell him that, and decided to postpone it. The waiter brought our glasses. The old man felt in his waistcoat pocket, and then looked down in consternation.
“My sovereign case! My watch…!” he exclaimed.
I dealt with the waiter by handing him a one-pound note. The old man watched intently. When the waiter had given me my change and left: If you will excuse me,” I said, “I think this shock must have caused you a lapse of memory. You do... er... you do remember who you are?”
With his finger still in his waistcoat pocket, and a trace of suspicion in his eyes, he looked at me hard.
“Who I am? Of course I do. I am Andrew Vincell. I live quite close here, in Hart Street.”
I hesitated, then I said: “There was a Hart Street near here. But they changed the name in the “thirties. I think; before the war, anyway.”
The superficial confidence which he had summoned up deserted him, and he sat quite still for some moments. Then he felt in the inside pocket of his jacket, and pulled out a wallet. It was made of fine leather, had gold corners, and was stamped with the initials A. V. He eyed it curiously as he laid it on the table. Then he opened it. From the left side he pulled a one-pound note, and frowned at it in a puzzled way; then a five-pound note, which seemed to puzzle him still more.
Without comment he felt in the pocket again, and brought out a slender book clearly intended to pair with the wallet. It, too, bore the initials A.V. in the lower righthand corner, and in the upper it was stamped simply: “Diary 1958.” He held it in his hand, looking at it for quite some time before he lifted his eyes to mine.
“Nineteen fifty eight?” he said, unsteadily.
“Yes,” I told him.
“I don’t understand,” he said, almost like a child. “My life! What has happened to my life?”
His face had a pathetic, crumpled look. I pushed the glass towards him, and he drank a little of the brandy. Opening the diary, he looked at the calendar inside.
“Oh, God! he said. “This is too real. What... what has happened to me?”
I said, sympathetically: “A partial loss of memory isn’t unusual after a shock, you know in a little time it comes back quite all right as a rule. I suggest you look in there”—I pointed to the wallet—“very likely there will be something to remind you.”
He hesitated, but then felt in the righthand side of it. The first thing he pulled out was a colourprint of a snapshot; obviously a family group. The central figure was himself, five or six years younger, in a tweed suit; another man, about forty-five, bore a family resemblance, and there were two slightly younger women, and two girls and two boys in their early teens. In the background part of an eighteenth century house was visible across a well kept lawn.
“I don’t think you need to worry about your life,” I said. It would appear to have been very satisfactory.”
There followed three engraved cards, separated by tissues, which announced simply: “Sir Andrew Vincell,” but gave no address. There was also an envelope addressed to Sir Andrew Vincell, O. B. E., British Vinvinyl Plastics, Ltd., somewhere in London E. C. l.
He shook his head, took another sip of the brandy, looked at the envelope again, and gave an unamused laugh. Then with a visible effort he took a grip on himself, and said, decisively: “This is some silly kind of dream. How does one wake up?” He closed his eyes, and declared in a firm tone: “I am Andrew Vincell. I am aged twenty-three. I live at Number Forty-Eight Hart Street. I am articled to Penberthy and Trull, chartered accountants, of one hundred and two, Bloomsbury Square. This is July the twelfth, nineteen hundred and six. This morning I was struck by a tram in Thanet Street. I must have been knocked silly, and have been suffering from hallucinations. Now!”