They kept him two days in the padded room on Dickie’s recommendation,
who made Bob out as highly dangerous. “Powerful and vicious,” he
described him to the suave individual in charge of the “sanatorium.”
That particular apartment was somewhat remote from the other rooms, so
that any noises made by the inmate of the former wouldn’t disturb the
others. Becoming more reconciled to the inevitable, Bob found the quiet
of the padded room rather soothing to his shaken nerves. He didn’t have
to talk to hardly a soul. Only an attendant came around once in a while
to shove cautiously something edible at him, but the attendant didn’t
ask any questions and Bob didn’t have to tell him any truths. It was a
joyful relief not to have to tell truths.
Bob’s eye was swollen and he had a few bruises, but they didn’t count.
He had observed with satisfaction that Dickie’s lip had an abrasion and
that one of his front teeth seemed missing. Dickie would have to wait
until nature and art had repaired his appearance before he could once
more a-wooing go. Bob didn’t want the temperamental young thing himself,
but he couldn’t conscientiously wish Dickie success in that quarter,
after the unnecessarily rough and unsportsmanlike manner in which Dickie
had comported himself against him (Bob).
At first, it had occurred to Bob to take the attendant—and through him,
the manager of the institution—into his confidence, but for two reasons
he changed his mind about doing so. The attendant would probably receive
Bob’s confidence as so many illusions; he would smile and say
“Yes—quite so!” or “There! there!”—meaning Bob would get over said
illusions some day, and that was why he was there. He was being treated
for them. Again, if he unbosomed himself fully, as to the fundamental
cause of all this trouble and turmoil, he would lose to the commodore,
et al., and have to pay that note which he didn’t very well see how he
could pay.
Bob gritted his teeth. Would it not be better to win now to spite them
and in spite of everything? About the worst that could happen, had
happened. Why not accept, then, this enforced sojourn philosophically
and when the time came, he would walk up to the captain’s (or
commodore’s) office and demand a little pay-envelope as his hard-earned
wage? There would be a slight balm in that pay-envelope. With the
contents thereof, he could relieve some of dad’s necessities which soon
would be pressing. Why not, with a little stretch of the imagination,
tell himself he (Bob) was only taking a rest cure? People paid big
prices for a fashionable rest cure. They probably charged pretty stiff
prices here, but it wouldn’t cost him a cent. His dear friends who put
him here would have to pay. He wasn’t a voluntary boarder. They would
have to vouch for him and his bills. So Bob made up his mind to have as
good a time as he could; in other words, to grin and bear it, as best he
might.
It was a novel experience. Maybe he might write an article about it for
one of the Sunday newspapers some day—“How It Feels for a Sane Person
to be Forcibly Detained in an Insane Asylum, by One who Has Been There.”
The editor could put all manner of gay and giddy head-lines over such an
experience. Bob tried to chronicle his feelings in the padded cell, but
he couldn’t conjure up anything awful or harrowing. There weren’t
spiders, or rats, or any crawly things to lend picturesqueness to the
situation. It was only deadly quiet—the kind of quiet he needed.
He slept most of those first two days, making up for hours of lost
sleep. His swollen eye became less painful and his appetite grew large
and normal. He had to eat with his fingers because they were afraid to
trust him with a knife and fork, but he told himself cheerfully that
high-class Arabs still ate that way, and that all he had to do was to
sit cross-legged, to be strictly _comme il faut_—that is, from the
Arab’s standpoint. Since he had adopted truth as his mentor, Bob had
learned, however, that “what should be” or “what shouldn’t,” or
“mustn’t,” depends a great deal upon the standpoint, and he was
beginning to be very suspicious, or critical, about the standpoint.
The third day the doctor in charge thought he could trust him in a room
without pads. Bob had a good color, his eye was clear and his appearance
generally reassuring, so they gave him now the cutest little cubby-hole,
with a cunning little bed and a dear little window, with flowers outside
and iron bars between the inmate and the flowers. The managing-medico
proudly called Bob’s attention to the flowers and the view. One gazing
out could see miles and miles of beautiful country. The managing-med.
talked so much about that view that Bob chimed in and said it was
lovely, too, only, it reminded him of the bone set just beyond reach of
a dog chained to _his_ cute little cubby-hole; or the jug of water and
choice viands the Bedouins of the desert set before their victim after
they have buried him to the neck in the sand. Bob was going on, trying
to think of other felicitous comparisons, when he caught a look in the
managing-med’s. eye that stopped him.
“I wonder if you are well enough, after all, to appreciate this cozy and
home-like little apartment?” said the med. musingly.
Bob hastily apologized for the figures of speech. The padded place was
very restful, no doubt, but he was quite rested now. Any more
padded-room kind of rest would be too much. He looked at the view and
expatiated upon it, even calling attention to certain charming details
of the landscape. The flowers made a charming touch of color and they
were just the kind of flowers he liked—good, old-fashioned geraniums!
He could say all this and still tell the truth. The medico studied him
attentively; then he concluded he would risk it and permit Bob to stay
in the room.
But he didn’t stay there long. Several nights later a pebble clicked
against his window; at first, he did not notice. The sound was repeated.
Then Bob got up, went to his window, raised it noiselessly and looked
out. In the shadow, beneath the window, stood a figure.
“Catch,” whispered a voice and instinctively Bob put out his hand. But
he didn’t catch; he missed. Again and again some one below tossed
something until finally he did catch. He looked at the object—a spool
of thread. Now what on earth did he want with a spool of thread? Did the
person below think some of his garments needed mending? It was strong,
serviceable enough thread.
For some moments Bob cogitated, then going to the bureau, he picked up a
tooth-brush, tied it to the thread, and let it down. After an interval
he pulled up the thread; the tooth-brush had disappeared and a file was
there in its stead. Then Bob tied to the thread something else and
instead of it, he got back the end of an excellent manila rope. After
that he went to work. It took Bob about an hour to get those bars out;
it took him, then, about a minute to get out himself. Fortunately some
one in a near-by room was having a tantrum and the little rasping sound
of the filing couldn’t be heard. The louder the person yelled, the
harder Bob filed.
When he reached the earth some one extended a hand and led him silently
out of the garden and into the road beyond. Bob went along meekly and
obediently. Not far down the road was a taxicab. Bob got in and his fair
rescuer followed. So far he hadn’t said a word to her; language seemed
superfluous. But as they dashed away, she murmured:
“Isn’t it lovely?”’
“Is it?” he asked. Somehow he wasn’t feeling particularly jubilant over
his escape. In fact, he found himself wondering almost as soon as he had
reached the earth, if it wouldn’t have been wiser, after all, to have
spent the rest of those three weeks in pleasant seclusion. The presence
of the temperamental young thing suggested new and more perplexing
problems perhaps. He had regarded her as somewhat of a joke, but she
wasn’t a joke just now; she was a reality. What was he going to do with
her, and with himself, for that matter? Why were they dashing madly
across the country like that together?
It was as if he were carrying her off, and he certainly didn’t want to
do that. He wasn’t in love with her, and she wasn’t with him. At least,
he didn’t think she was. It was only her temperamental disposition that
caused her to imagine she was in love, because she thought him something
that he wasn’t. And when she found out he wasn’t, but was only a plain,
ordinary young man, not of much account anyhow, what a shock would be
the awakening! Perhaps he’d better stop the machine, go back into the
garden, climb up to his room in the crazy-house and tumble into bed? His
being here, embarked on a preposterous journey, seemed a case of leaping
before looking, or thinking.
“Why so quiet, darling?” giggled the temperamental young thing,
snuggling closer.
“Don’t call me that. I—I won’t stand it.”
“All right, dearie.” With another giggle.
“And drop that ‘dearie’ dope, too,” he commanded.
“Just as you say. Only what _shall_ I call you?”
“I guess plain ‘darn fool’ will do.”
“Oh, you’re too clever to be called that,” she expostulated.
“Me, clever?” Scornfully.
“Yes; think how long you have fooled the police.”
“I wish you wouldn’t talk such nonsense.” Irritably.
“I won’t. On condition!”
“What?”
“If you’ll put your arm around me.”
“I won’t.”
“Oh, yes, you will.” She adjusted it for him.
“All right! If you want some one to hug you when he doesn’t want to!” he
said in aggrieved tones.
“That makes it all the nicer,” she returned. “There are ever so many men
that want to. This—this is so different!” With a sigh.
“There you go, with some more nonsense talk!” grumbled Bob.
“Well,” she giggled, “there’s always a way to make a poor, weak,
helpless little thing stop talking.”
“Of all the assurance!” he gasped.
“I love to have some one I can command to make love to me.”
“I’m going back.” Disgustedly.
“Oh, no, you’re not. You can’t.”
“Why?”
“You’d be arrested, if you did. They are coming for you. That’s why I
came—to circumvent them!”
“They?”
“All has been discovered.”
“I fail to understand.”
“What did you do with it?” she countered.
“It?”
“The swag.”
Bob started to withdraw his arm but she clapped a small warm hand on his
big warm hand and held his strong right arm about her slim, adaptable
waist. Her head trailed on his shoulder, while she started floating off
in dreamland.
“I just love eloping,” she murmured.
“What was that last word?” he observed combatively.
“Elope! elope! elope!” she whispered dreamily, her slim, young feminine
figure close to his big masculine bulk.
“So you think you’re eloping with me?” said Bob ominously.
“I know I am.” In that musical die-away tone. “We’re headed straight for
old New York and we’re going to get married in the little church around
the corner. Then”—with a happy laugh—“we may have to disguise
ourselves and flee.”
“May I kindly inquire—that is, if I have any voice in our future
operations—_why_ we may have to disguise ourselves?”
“In case they should want to capture you. The police, I mean.”
“Police?” he said.
“Didn’t I just tell you they were coming for you?”
“Indeed?” He looked down in her eyes to see if she was in earnest. He
believed she was. “For what?”
“Oh, you know.” She raised her lips. “Say, that was a real stingy one,
under the oak.”
“You say all has been discovered?” went on Bob, disregarding her last
remark.
“I say that was a real stingy—”
“Hang it!” But he had to. He knew he had to get that idea out of her
head, before he could get any more real information from her.
“And think how you deceived poor little me, about it!” she purred
contentedly. After all, thought Bob, it didn’t take “much of a one” to
satisfy her. She had only wanted “it,” perhaps, because “it” fitted in;
“it” went with eloping. Perhaps “it” would have to happen about once so
often. Bob hoped not. She was a dainty little tyrant who let him see
plainly she had sharp claws. She could scratch as well as purr. Somehow,
he felt that he was doubly in her power—that he was doubly her slave
now—that something had happened which made him so. He could not imagine
what it was.
“They’re keeping it very quiet, though,” she went on. “The robbery, I
mean!”
“There has been a robbery at Mrs. Ralston’s?”
“Of course. And you didn’t know a thing about it?” she mocked him.
“I certainly did not.”
“You say that just as if it were so,” she observed admiringly. “I don’t
suppose you are aware that some one did really substitute a counterfeit
brooch for Mrs. Vanderpool’s wonderful pink pearl and bronze diamond
brooch, after all? Oh, no, you don’t know that. You’re only a poor
little ignorant dear. Bless its innocent little heart! It didn’t know a
thing. Not it!” She was talking baby-talk now, the while her fingers
were playing with Bob’s ear. He was so interested in what she was
saying, however, that he failed to note the baby-talk and overlooked the
liberties she was taking with his hearing apparatus.
“By jove!” he exclaimed. “That accounts for what I thought I saw in the
hall that night when I left your room. Imagined I saw some one! Believe
now it was some one, after all. And that door I heard click? Whose door
is that on the other side of the hall from your room and about
twenty-five feet nearer the landing?” Excitedly.
“Gwendoline Gerald’s,” was the unexpected answer.
Bob caught his breath. He was becoming bewildered. “But nothing was
missing from Miss Gerald’s room, was there?” he asked.
“Don’t _you_ know?” said she.
“I do not.”
“My! aren’t you the beautiful fibber! I’m wondering if you ever tell the
truth?”
“I don’t tell anything else.” Indignantly. “And that’s the trouble.”
“And how well you stick to it!” Admiringly. “If you tell such ones
_before_, how will it be _after_?”
“After what?” he demanded.
“The church ceremony,” she giggled.
“Don’t you worry about that. There isn’t going to be any.”
“It’s perfectly lovely of you to say there isn’t. It will be such fun to
see you change your mind.” She spoke in that regular on-to-Washington
tone. “I can just see you walking up the aisle. Won’t you look handsome?
And poor, demure little me! I shan’t look like hardly anything.”
Bob pretended not to hear.
“You say they are keeping it very quiet about the robbery at the Ralston
house. How, then, did you come to know?”
“Eavesdropping.” Shamelessly. “Thought it was necessary you should know
the ‘lay of the land.’ But never mind the ‘how.’ It is sufficient that I
managed to overhear Lord Stanfield say he was going to send for you.
Gwendoline Gerald knows about the robbery and so does her aunt and Lord
Stanfield, but it’s being kept from all the other guests for the
present. Even Mrs. Vanderpool doesn’t know. She still thinks the brooch
she is wearing is the real one, poor dear! Lord Stanfield discovered it
wasn’t. He asked her one day to let him see it. Then, he just said: ‘Aw!
How interesting!’—that is, to her. But to Mrs. Ralston he said it was
an imitation and that some guest had substituted the false brooch for
the real. Mrs. Vanderpool is not to know because Lord Stanfield says the
thief must not dream he is suspected. He wants to give him full swing
yet a while—‘enough rope to hang himself with,’ were the words he used.
It seems Lord Stanfield anticipated things would be missing. He said he
knew when a certain person—he didn’t say whom”—gazing up at Bob
adoringly—“appeared on the scene, things just went. That’s why Lord
Stanfield got asked to the Ralston house. Then when he said he was
coming after you, I thought it would be such a joke if you weren’t there
to receive him. And that’s why I came to elope with you. And isn’t it
all too romantic for anything? I am sure none of those plays comes up to
it. Maybe you’ll dramatize our little romance some day—that is—”
Miss Dolly suddenly stopped. “Isn’t that a car coming up behind?”
Bob looked around, too, and in the far distance saw a light. “Believe it
is,” he answered.
She leaned forward and spoke to the driver. They were traveling with
only one lamp lighted; the driver now put that out. Then he went on
until he came to a private roadway, leading into some one’s estate, when
quickly turning, he ran along a short distance and finally stopped the
car in a dark shaded spot. Bob gazed back and in a short time saw a big
car whir by. Idly he wondered whether it contained the police, or the
managing medico and some of his staff. Between them, he was promised a
right lively time—altogether too lively. He wondered which ones would
get him first? It was a kind of a competition and he would be first
prize to the winners. Well, it was well to have the enemy—or half of
the enemy—in front of him. Of course, the other half might come up any
moment behind. He would have to take that chance, he thought, as they
now returned to the highway. Meanwhile Miss Dolly’s eyes were bright
with excitement. She was enjoying herself very much.