clump of holly on the edge of a bare beech-wood, but it was all that
downland was likely to provide. “So long,” said Bobby and set off at
a smart trot for the inn and the motor bicycle. He arrived flushed,
dishevelled, and out of breath and found the inn suspicious and
reluctant when he announced that he wanted his bill instantly, refused
any breakfast but a cup of tea and a chunk of bread and butter, and
set about packing his little roll. There seemed endless things to
do, taking an interminable time. To cap a score of irritating delays
the inn was short of change and had to send out to the village shop.
Billy’s motor bicycle, always a temperamental creature, gave great
trouble with its kick starter. And meanwhile Sargon was shivering
amidst the mud and dead leaves under the dripping trees or worse, being
recaptured and led back into captivity.
It was nearly eight before Bobby came back along the cart-track into
sight of the little beech-wood, and his heart jumped when he saw two
heavy-looking men advancing towards him. He knew them for asylum men
at once; they had the unmistakable flavour of subaltern authority
that distinguishes prison warders, ex-policemen, time-keepers, and the
keepers of the insane. As he throbbed near them they came into the
middle of the road and made signs for him to stop. “Hell!” said Bobby,
and pulled up.
They came alongside and without evident hostility.
“Excuse me, sir,” said one--and Bobby felt better.
“That large place you see there, sir, is Cummerdown Asylum. Perhaps you
know it, sir?”
“No. _Which_ is the asylum? All of it?” Bobby felt he was being really
clever and his spirits rose.
“Yesir.”
“Damn great place!” said Bobby.
“We’ve got one of our inmates astray this morning. Harmless little man,
he is, and we ventured to stop you and ask you if you’ve seen him.”
Bobby had an inspiration. “I believe I have. Was he in a sort of brown
robe and slippers with nothing on his head?”
“That’s ’im, sir. Where did you see him?”
Bobby turned round and pointed in the direction from which he had
come. “He was making off along the edge of a field,” he said. “I saw
him not--oh, not five minutes ago. Mile, or a bit more, away from
here. Running he was. Along a hedge to the right--left I mean--near a
chestnut plantation.”
“That’s ’im all right, Jim. _Where_ did you say, sir?”
Bobby’s brilliance increased. “If one of you will sit behind me and
the other get into this contraption--bit of a load, but we can manage
it--I’ll run you back to the very place. Right away.” And without more
ado he set about turning round. “That’s a real help, sir,” said Jim.
“Don’t mention it,” said Bobby.
Bobby was now at the top of his form. He loaded them in with helpful
words--even the smaller of the two was a tight fit for the side-car and
the other sat like a sack on the luggage carrier--he took them back
a mile and a half until he found the suitable hedge by the chestnut
tree. He unloaded them carefully, received their hearty but hasty
thanks with a generous gesture and sent them off at a smart trot across
the fields. “He can’t have a mile’s start,” he said. “And he wasn’t
going particularly fast. Sort of limping.”
“That’s ’im,” said Jim.
Bobby kissed his hand to their retreating backs. “That’s _you_,” said
Bobby. “God help you both and cleanse your hearts. And now for Sargon.”
He buzzed back to the place where he had left Sargon, turned his
machine round again and then looked towards the corner of the wood by
the holly clump where the little man ought to have been waiting. But
there was no sign of a peeping head. “Queer!” said Bobby, and ran up to
the place where he had left Sargon crouching in the ditch. Not a sign
was there of him. Bobby looked about him, baffled and frightened. After
all, after everything, could things go wrong now?
“Sargon,” he called, and then louder, “Sargon!”
Not a sound, not a rustle came in reply.
“He’s hidden! Can he have crawled away and fainted? Exhausted perhaps!”
Fear touched Bobby with a chilly finger. Had he mistaken the place
perhaps? Had Sargon strayed away in spite of his promise, or crept
back numbed and wretched to the warmth and shelter of the asylum?
Bobby followed the ditch down to the corner of the wood, and beyond
the corner in the ditch to the right he suddenly beheld a little old
woman, a little old woman sitting bunched in a heap on a litter of
dry straw and fast asleep. She was wearing a battered black straw hat
adorned with a broken black feather, a small black jacket bodice; a
sack was drawn over her feet and a second sack thrown shawlwise over
her shoulders. She was so crumpled up her face was hidden, all except
one bright red ear, and behind her on the bank lay two large stakes
tied in the form of a cross. To Bobby she was the most astonishing of
apparitions. It was disconcerting enough to discover Sargon gone. It
was still more amazing to find him so oddly replaced.
Bobby stood hesitating for the better part of a minute. Should he wake
the old thing up and ask her about Sargon, or should he steal away?
Nothing, he decided, would be lost by asking.
He went close up to her and coughed. “Excuse me, Madam,” he said.
The sleeper did not awake.
Bobby rustled among the leaves, coughed louder, and asked to be excused
again. The sleeper muttered a choking snore, woke with a start, looked
up, and revealed the face of Sargon. He stared at Bobby without
recognition for a moment and then gave way to an enormous yawn. While
he yawned, his blue eyes gathered intelligence and understanding. “I
was so cold,” he said. “I took these things from the scarecrow. And the
straw was nice and dry to sit on. Shall we put it all back?”
“Oh, glorious idea!” cried Bobby, with all his spirits restored. “It
makes an honest woman of you. Can you walk in that sack? No, we haven’t
time to put it back. Shake it down off your legs and bring it with you.
The side-car isn’t two hundred yards away. You’ll be able to put it on
again then. This is magnificent! This is wonderful! Certainly we won’t
put it back. Off we’ll go, and when we’ve a good ten miles between us
and the asylum we’ll stop and get some hot coffee and something to eat.”
“Hot coffee!” said Sargon, brightening visibly. “And bacon and eggs?”
“Hot coffee and bacon and eggs,” said Bobby.
“The coffee there is--_beastly_,” said Sargon.
Bobby helped Sargon into the side-car and raised the hood over him,
erected the wind-screen, and so packed him away. He became a quite
passable aunt, dimly seen. And in another minute Bobby had kicked the
engine into an impatient fuss and was in the saddle.
He felt himself now the cleverest fellow that ever stole a lunatic. Not
that it wasn’t the easiest thing in the world to get a lunatic away.
If you knew how.... They quivered and jolted along the little minor
road and so on to the smooth main highway to Ashford and Folkestone.
The accelerator was urged to do its best. “Good-bye, Cummerdown,” sang
Bobby. “Cummerdown Hill, good-bye!”
The little old motor bike was going beautifully.
§ 7
They got their breakfast at an inn near a Post Office a mile or so
beyond Offham. Bobby left Sargon dozing in the side-car and went
to send a telegram to Dymchurch announcing his coming. There was
some delay in the Post Office, as the post-mistress had mislaid her
spectacles. Bobby returned to find the breakfast nearly ready and to
assist Sargon out of his sack and into the little room of the inn.
The landlord was a short, stout man, with a grave observant face. He
watched this emergence of Sargon and his progress to a chair behind the
little white tablecloth, with silent wonder. Then for a time he hid.
Then he came back into the little room where the table was set. For
some moments he stood regarding Sargon. “Umph!” he said at last and
turned about and went slowly into his kitchen where some sort of wife
seemed to be cooking things. “’E’s a rummun”; Bobby heard him remark,
and so was prepared for discussion.
The ham and eggs and coffee were served and received with eagerness.
The landlord stood over them scrutinizing their reception of his
provisions. “Hain’t ’ad no breakfast, then?” he said.
“Having it now,” said Bobby, helping himself to mustard.
“Come far?” said the landlord after a thoughtful pause.
“Fairly,” said Bobby with judgment.
“Going far?” the landlord tried.
“So-so,” said Bobby.
The landlord rallied his forces for a great effort. “We get some rummy
customers here at times,” he said.
“You must attract them,” said Bobby.
The landlord could make nothing of that. He turned about and said
“Umph”--meaningly.
“Umph,” said Bobby, just saturating it with meaning.
The landlord made a cunning attempt as they were departing. “Hope you
enjoyed your breakfast,” he said. “I don’t know rightly whether it’s a
lady or a gentleman you got with you--still----”
Bobby’s mercurial temperament was far too high just then. “It’s
hermaphrodite,” he said in a confidential whisper and left the landlord
with that.
But when they had gone a few miles further he told Sargon he had
decided to buy him some socks and a jacket and trousers at the next
shop they saw. “As it is,” he said, “you are ambiguous. And then we’ll
put that hat and jacket and the sacking by the wayside for anyone who
wants to use them. And I’ll have to send another telegram. I made a
mistake.”
Bobby’s mental state became more febrile as the day wore on. He
developed a wonderfully circumstantial lie about a cottage and a
fire and how his friend had only escaped with just a few articles of
clothing hastily put on. “Everything else,” said Bobby, “practically
incinerated.” They were going down to take refuge with a variable
relation, a brother, an uncle, a maiden aunt. As the day progressed
the circumstances of the fire became richer and more remarkable and
the particulars of the escape more definitely thrilling. Bobby told
such lies with great sincerity and gravity; they were a form of
freedom--from reality.
Sargon himself said very little. For him this adventure was a severer
endurance test than Bobby realized at the time. For the most part he
was either cramped up and boxed in under the hood and wind-screen and
being jolted and jumped along the hard high-road, or he was hastily
changing some garment by the roadside, or he was sitting still in the
side-car taking refreshment and being lucidly but perplexingly, and
usually quite unnecessarily, explained.
§ 8
Mrs. Plumer, of Maresett Cottage, Dymchurch, was an anxious widow
woman. She had a kind, serviceable heart, but it was troubled about
many things. She saved and eked out almost too much. She let most of
her rooms in the summer and some even in the winter, but she hated to
think of the things careless lodgers might do to her furniture. She
liked everything to be in order and lodgers better looking and better
behaved than Mrs. Pringle’s lodgers or Mrs. Mackinder’s lodgers. She
had taken a fancy to Bobby because he had fitted in nicely when she had
had only one room to spare, and because he had shaved in cold water
instead of calling down as every other man lodger did--there was no
bell in that room--for hot. Also he talked agreeably when he came in
and out and didn’t want more at meals.
She was very pleased when he wrote to take her downstairs living-room
and two bedrooms for himself and a friend for a fortnight. There were
few people in Dymchurch who got “lets” in November. They might come
“any time” after Tuesday.
She told Mrs. Pringle and Mrs. Mackinder that she was expecting two
young gentlemen, and left them to suppose that her guests might stay on
indefinitely.
On Wednesday she was excited and rather perplexed by a series of
telegrams from Bobby. The first said plainly and distinctly: “_Arriving
with aunt about four Roothing._” That disappointed her. She would have
infinitely preferred two gentlemen.
But within an hour came another wire and this said: “_Error in telegram
not aunt uncle sorry Roothing._”
Now what was one to make of _that_?
Presently the child from the Post Office was back again. “_Uncle
catching cold fire hot-water bottles whisky._”
The next sensational telegram announced a delay. “_Tyre trouble not so
soon later Roothing._”
Then came: “_Sixish almost certain good fire please Roothing._”
“It’s very good of him,” said Mrs. Plumer “to keep me informed like
this. But I hope the old gentleman won’t be fussy.”
The fire in the downstairs sitting-room was burning brightly at six,
there was a kettle on the hob, there were not only tea-things, but
whisky, sugar, glasses, and a lemon on the table and a hot-water bottle
in both the beds upstairs when the fugitives arrived. Mrs. Plumer’s
first feelings at the sight of Sargon were feelings of disappointment.
She had allowed her mind to run away with the idea of a warm,
comfortable uncle with at most a whisky-drinking cold, an uncle who
would be, if not absolutely golden, at least gilt-edged. She had, if
anything, exaggerated her memories of Mr. Roothing’s geniality. So soon
as she held open her door at the roar and toot of the motor bicycle,
she saw that her anticipations would have to be modified again. Things
were rather indistinct in the deepening twilight, but she could see
that Bobby wasn’t wearing the full and proper leather costume with
gauntlets and goggles complete, that a real young gentleman would have
worn on such an occasion and which Mrs. Pringle and Mrs. Mackinder
would have respected, and that the shape he was extracting from the
side-car was not the shape of a properly-expanded uncle. It looked much
more like a large hen taken out of a small basket on market day.
As Sargon came into the light of the living-room, Mrs. Plumer’s
disillusionment deepened and decreased. She had rarely seen so strange
and weather-beaten an outcast. His blue eyes stared pitifully out of a
pale face; his hair, beneath an unsuitable black felt hat, was greatly
disordered. He was clad chiefly in an excessive pair of trousers
which he clutched nervously to keep up; very full they were with his
dressing-gown tails; his too ample white socks fell like gaiters
over his old felt slippers and betrayed his distressful ankles. He
looked afraid. He stared at her almost as though he anticipated an
unfriendly reaction. And Bobby, too, standing beside him, looked rough
and travel-worn and eventful, and not at all the self-effacing young
gentleman she had remembered.
When Bobby saw the swift play of Mrs. Plumer’s expression he realized
that their foothold in this pleasant, restful, firelit apartment was
precarious. Happily a reserve lie he had thought of, but not hitherto
used, came aptly to his mind.
“Isn’t it a shame!” he said. “They went off with his clothes. Even his
socks.”
“They seem to have,” said Mrs. Plumer, “whoever they were.”
“Pure hold-up. This side of Ashford. My big bag too.”
“And where did the gentleman get the clothes he’s wearing?” she asked.
Her tone was unpleasantly sceptical.
“They exchanged. I’d gone back along the road to see if I could see
anything of the tyre-pump I’d dropped, never thinking anything of the
sort was possible on an English high-road. (Come and sit by the fire,
uncle.) And when I came back they’d gone and there he was--as you see
him. Imagine my astonishment!”
“And you never sent a telegram about it!” said Mrs. Plumer.
“Too near home. I’d have got here first, anyhow. Well, we’ve had
adventures enough to-day, anyhow. I’ve never known such a journey.
Thank heaven, we’ve had our tea. I think the best place for uncle is
bed--until we can arrange some clothes for him. What do you think, Mrs.
Plumer?”
“After he’s had a good wash,” said Mrs. Plumer. She was still doubtful,
but a sort of kindliness was struggling to the surface. “Weren’t you
afraid when they jumped out on you, sir!” She asked Sargon directly.
His blue eyes sought Bobby’s for instructions.
“It was a great shock to him,” said Bobby, “a great shock. He’s hardly
got over it yet.”
“Hardly got over it yet,” said Sargon in confirmation.
“Took all your clothes off, they did. It’s shameful,” said Mrs. Plumer.
“And you with a cold coming on.”
“We’ll get him to bed. Of course, if you’ve got anything for us to
eat we might have it first here. Perhaps just a bit of toasted cheese
or Welsh Rarebit, or something of that sort, and a good hot grog. Eh,
uncle?”
“Don’t want much to eat,” said Sargon. “No.”
“I haven’t forgotten that Welsh Rarebit you made for me, Mrs. Plumer,
after I got caught in the rain on the way from Hythe.”
“Well, I daresay I could get you a Welsh Rarebit,” said Mrs. Plumer,
softening visibly.
“Famous,” said Bobby. “Make a new man of him. And meanwhile I’ll run
the old bike round to the shed. If I may put it in the shed? You’ll be
all right here, uncle?”
“It’s safe?”
“Every one’s safe with Mrs. Plumer,” said Bobby, and held the door open
for her to precede him out of the room.
“I’ll tell you about him to-morrow morning,” he said to her
confidentially in the passage. “He’s a wonderful man.”
“He’s all right?” asked Mrs. Plumer.
“Right as can be.”
“He looks that distraught!”
“He’s a poet,” said Bobby, “besides playing on the violin,” and so
satisfied her completely.
But he did not feel that he had brought the wonderful day to a
completely successful end until he had got Sargon washed and brushed
and tucked up cosily in Mrs. Plumer’s bright little best bedroom. “Now
we’re anchored,” he said. He went into his own room and sat down for a
time to invent things about his uncle in case Mrs. Plumer was desirous
of more explicit information when he went downstairs. He decided to
say “He’s eccentric,” in an impressive, elucidatory way. “And very
shy.” His uncle, he would explain, was suffering from overwork, due to
writing an heroic poem about the Prince of Wales’ journey round the
world. He wanted a complete rest. And sea air. The more he stayed in
bed and indoors the better. He filled in a few useful details of this
story, sat for a little while twiddling the toes of his boots, and
then got up and went downstairs. He felt sure he could carry it off
all right with Mrs. Plumer. He found her waiting for him. The chief
difficulty he encountered was her conviction that the police ought to
be told of the highway robbery this side of Ashford at once.
“H’m,” said Bobby and for a moment he was at a loss. Then he decided.
“I’ve done that already,” he said.
“But when?”
“I telephoned from an Automobile Association box. To the Ashford
police. It will be in their district you know. Not in Romney Marsh.
Sharp fellows, the Ashford police. I had to describe the lost clothes
and everything. They don’t let much get by them.”
She took it beautifully. After that everything was easy.
§ 9
The next morning found Sargon developing an evil cold in his throat
and chest. His chest was painful and he was feverish, red-cheeked,
bright-eyed, and short of breath. Bobby did not care to consult a
doctor. He believed that all doctors constituted a league for the
re-incarceration of escaped lunatics. He imagined secret notices about
escapes being circulated throughout the profession. He motored to Hythe
and got ammoniated quinine, several sorts of voice jujube, two iodine
preparations for the chest, and suchlike trifles that the chemist
recommended. When he returned about midday the patient looked better
and seemed in less pain. After Bobby had administered quinine and
rubbed his chest and made a generally curative fuss, he was able and
disposed to talk.
“The pillow all right?” said Bobby.
“Perfect.”
“You ought to doze for a bit now.”
“Yes.”
Sargon thought. “I shall not have to go back to that Place again?”
“I hope not.”
The flushed face became very earnest. “Promise me not. Promise me not.
I couldn’t endure it.”
“No need to be anxious,” said Bobby. “Here, you are quite safe.”
“And there will be no need to get into that side-car again?”
“None.”
“Never?”
“No.”
“It bumped--horribly.... Where is Christina Alberta?”
Bobby did not answer for a moment or so.
“Perhaps I ought to explain. I do not know who Christina Alberta is. I
took you out of the asylum because I do not believe you are mad. But I
know nothing of your family. I know nothing about your circumstances at
all. I just couldn’t bear the thought of you in an asylum.”
Sargon lay in silence for a little while with his blue eyes on Bobby’s
face. “You were sorry for me?”
“I liked you from the very first moment I saw you in Midgard Street.”
“_Liked_ me? But you believed I was Sargon, King of Kings?”
“Practically,” said Bobby.
“You didn’t. Neither, I suppose, did I.”
The vague blue eyes left Bobby’s face and stared out of the window at
the sky. “I have been very much confused in my mind,” said Sargon.
“Even now I am not clear. But I realize I am confused. Christina
Alberta is my daughter. The Princess Royal I called her. In Sumeria.
She is a very dear, bold girl. She is all I have. I left her and came
away from her, and I must have distressed her greatly.”
“Then she may not know where you have been?”
“She may be looking for me.”
“Where is she?”
“I have been trying to remember. It was in a studio somewhere--with
peculiar pictures. I never liked those pictures. A studio in a Mew. It
had a name but I cannot remember its name. It is stupid of me. Probably
Christina Alberta is there with her friends--still wondering what has
become of me.”
“At the--at the _Place_, they told me your name was Preemby.”
“Albert Edward Preemby.... I wonder.”
He lay reflecting for a time. “I remember that for a long time I
thought I was Albert Edward Preemby, a small creature, a little man
living a mean life in a laundry. A laundry with large blue vans. The
swastika. You cannot imagine what a small, insignificant life it was
that this Preemby led. And then suddenly I thought I could not possibly
be Preemby and also an immortal soul. Either there was no Preemby, I
thought, or there was no God. There could not possibly be both. It
perplexed and worried me very much. Because there I was--Preemby. I am
not good at thinking--all my thinking goes off into a kind of dreaming.
And then when there came evidence that seemed satisfactory--perhaps
I jumped at what I was told. But Sargon must have been a great king,
a very great king, and I am small and weak and not very intelligent.
When the keepers and attendants bullied me and ill-treated me I did not
behave as a great king should have behaved, and when I saw them doing
evil things to other--other patients, I did not interfere. Yet all the
time I think I am something different from the Albert Edward Preemby
I used to be, something more and something better. But it leaves me
confused to think who I am, and I am very tired. Perhaps, when I have
rested a day or two, I may be better able to think about these things.”
The faded voice died away. The blue eyes remained staring tranquilly at
the sky.
Bobby said nothing for a little while. Then he remarked, “I have seen
men ill-treated.”
And then; “and I am not so slight as you are.”
He said no more. It did not seem as though Sargon had heard him. Bobby
stood up.
“You must rest. You are perfectly safe here. If we can remain unnoted
here for two weeks then it will be impossible ever to send you back to
that place again. Are you comfortable?”
“It is a beautiful bed,” said Sargon.
But beautiful though the bed was it was not sufficient to arrest
the trouble in Sargon’s aching chest. He seemed very exhausted that
evening. In the night he began coughing; he coughed so distressingly
that Bobby went in to him. In the morning he was spiritless and did
not want to eat. Bobby sat in the room downstairs working at the pile
of Aunt Suzannah correspondence that Billy had sent on to him. He was
half-minded to appeal to Tessy to come down and help with the nursing,
but there was no bedroom available for her. Mrs. Plumer pressed for
a doctor and he put her off. Finally, on her own responsibility, she
brought in a young man who was just starting a practice in the place.
Bobby had a terrifying interview, but the young doctor betrayed no
suspicions. On the whole, he was reassuring. There was congestion of
the lungs but nothing worse. Sargon must keep very warm and take this
and that. No urgent need for a nurse. Keep him warm and give him his
medicine.
Late in the evening Bobby went up to say good night and found Sargon
better and more talkative.
“I have been thinking of Christina Alberta and I should like to see
her. I would like to see her and tell her things I have been thinking
about her. I have been thinking out all sorts of curious things.
Perhaps I am not so much to her as she may think. But chiefly I want to
talk to her about a young man I dislike. What was he called? When I was
last at Lonsdale Mews, she danced with him.”
“Lonsdale Mews!”
“Yes, yes, of course. I had forgotten. Eight Lonsdale Mews, Lonsdale
Road, Chelsea. But my mind is very confused and I do not know what I
should say to her even if she came.”
Bobby wrote down the address forthwith.
“And this Christina Alberta is all you have?” he asked.
“All I have.