Part 24 (1/2)

”I hadn't the least idea, my dear. I might just as well have been going to Europe. In fact, when I first looked out and saw the water, I thought I was on the ocean.”

”But where did you come from, what were you doing there, where were your people?” cried Ruth.

”That's it, my dear. Where were they? I didn't know. No one knew. All I could grasp was the fact that I was there on the boat.”

”Alone?”

”Yes, all alone.”

”But who bought your ticket--who engaged your stateroom?” questioned Ruth.

”That is the queer part of it. I did it myself. When I first became conscious that I was in a strange place I was so shocked that I wanted to scream--to cry out--to ask all sorts of questions. Then I realized if I did that I might be taken for an insane person and be locked up. So I just shut myself in my stateroom and did some thinking.

”The first thing I wanted to know was how I got on the steamer, but how to find that out without asking questions that the steams.h.i.+p people would think peculiar, was a puzzle to me. Finally, I decided to pretend to want to change my room, and when I went to the purser I asked him if that was the only room to be had.

”'Why no, Miss,' he said, 'but when you came on board and I told you what rooms I had, you insisted on taking that one.' That was enough for me. I realized then that I had come on board alone, and of my own volition, though I had not any recollection of having done so, and I knew no more of where I came from than you do now.”

”How very strange!” murmured Alice. ”And what did you do?”

”Well, I pretended that I had been tired and had not made a wise choice of a room, and asked the purser to give me another.

”'I thought, when you picked it out, you wouldn't like that one,' he said to me, 'but you looked like a young lady who was used to having her own way, so I did not interfere.'

”That was another bit of information. Evidently, I looked prosperous, a fact that was borne out when I examined my purse. I had a considerable sum in it, and the large valise I found in my room was filled with expensive clothes and fittings. Yet where I had obtained it or my money or my clothes I could not tell for the life of me. All I knew was that I was there on board the s.h.i.+p.”

”And did you change your stateroom?” asked Ruth.

”Yes; the purser gave me another one. And then I sat down and tried to puzzle it out. Why was I going to Cleveland? I knew no one there, and yet I had bought a ticket to that port--or some one had bought it for me.”

”Did that occur to you?” asked Alice. ”That some one might have had an object in getting you out of the way.”

”Well, if they had, they took a very public and expensive method of doing it,” Estelle said. ”I was on one of the best boats on Lake Erie, and I had plenty of money.”

”Did you find in what name your room was taken?” asked Ruth. ”That might have given you a clue.”

”The name given was Estelle Brown,” was the answer. ”I gave that name myself, for I recognized my handwriting on the envelope in which I sealed some of my jewelry before handing it to the purser to put in his safe. Estelle Brown was the name I gave.”

”And was it yours?” asked Alice.

”I haven't any reason to believe that it was not. In fact, as I looked back then, and as I look back now, the name Estelle Brown seems to be my very own--it is a.s.sociated closely with me. So I'm sure I'm Estelle Brown--that is the only part I am sure about.”

”But what did you do?” asked Ruth. ”Didn't you make some inquiries?”

”I did; as soon as I reached Cleveland. At first I hoped that my memory would come back to me when I reached that place. I thought I might recognize some of the buildings. In fact, I hoped it would prove to be my home, from which I had, perhaps, wandered in a fit of illness.

”But it was of no help to me. I might just as well have been in San Francisco or New York for all that the place was familiar to me. So I gave that up. Then I began to look over the papers to see if any Estelle Brown was missing. But there was nothing to that effect in the news columns. All the while I was getting more and more worried.

”I went to a good hotel in Cleveland and stayed two or three days. Then I happened to think that perhaps my clothes might offer some clue. I examined them all carefully, and the only thing I found was the name of a Boston firm on a toilet set. At once it flashed on me that I belonged in Boston. I seemed to have a dim recollection of a big monument in the midst of a green park, of narrow, crooked streets and historical buildings.