HOOVER'S
Jones, after the magic draught administered by Simms, entered into a
blissful condition of twilight sleep, half sleep, half drowsiness,
absolute indifference. He walked with assistance to the hall door and
entered a motor car, it did not matter to him what he entered or where
he went, he did not want to be disturbed.
He roused himself during a long journey to take a drink of something
held to his lips by someone, and sank back, tucking sleep around him
like a warm blanket.
In all his life he had never had such a gorgeous sleep as that, his
weary and harassed brain revelled in moments of semi-consciousness, and
then sank back into the last abysms of oblivion.
He awoke a new man, physically and mentally, and with an absolutely
clear memory and understanding. He awoke in a bed-room, a cheerful
bed-room, lit by the morning sun, a bed-room with an open window through
which came the songs of birds and the whisper of foliage.
A young man dressed in a black morning coat was seated in an armchair by
the window, reading a book. He looked like a superior sort of servant.
Jones looked at this young man, who had not yet noticed the awakening of
the sleeper, and Jones, as he looked at him, put facts together.
Simms, Cavendish, the fact that he had been doped, the place where he
was, and the young man. He had been taken here in that conveyance,
whatever it was; they had thought him mad--they had carted him off to a
mad-house, this was a mad-house, that guy in the chair was an attendant.
He recognized these probabilities very clearly, but he felt no anger and
little surprise. His mind, absolutely set up and almost renewed by
profound slumber, saw everything clearly and in a true light.
It was quite logical that, believing him mad, they had put him in a
mad-house, and he had no fear at all of the result simply because he
knew that he was sane. The situation was amusing, it was also one to get
free from--but there was plenty of time, and there was no room for
making mistakes.
Curiously enough, now, the passionate or almost passionate desire to
recover his own personality had vanished, or at least, was no longer
active in his mind; his brain, renewed by that tremendous sleep, was no
longer tainted by that vague dread, no longer troubled by that curious
craving to have others believe in his story and to have others recognize
him as Jones.
No, it did not matter to him just now whether he recovered his
personality in the eyes of others; what did matter to him was the
recovery of his bodily freedom. Meanwhile, caution. Like Brer Rabbit, he
determined to "lie low."
"Say," said Jones.
The young man by the window started slightly, rose, and came to the
bedside.
"What o'clock?" said the patient.
"It has just gone half past eight, sir," replied the other. "I hope you
have slept well."
Jones noticed that this person did not "my Lord" him.
"Not a wink," said he, "tossed and tumbled all night--oh, say--what do
_you_ think--"
The young man looked puzzled.
"And would you like anything now, sir?"
"Yes--my pants. I want to get up."
"Certainly, sir, your bath is quite ready," replied the other.
He went to the fire-place and touched an electric button, then he
bustled about the room getting Jones' garments together.
The bed-room had two doors, one leading to a sitting-room, one to a
bath-room; in a minute the bath-room door opened and a voice queried,
"Hot or cold?"
"Hot," said Jones.
"Hot," said the attendant.
"Hot," said the unseen person in the bath-room, as if registering the
order in his mind. Then came the fizzling of water and in a couple of
minutes the voice:
"Gentleman's bath ready."
Jones bathed, and though the door of the bath-room had been shut upon him
and there was no person present, he felt all the time that someone was
watching him. When he was fully dressed, the attendant opened the other
door, and ushered him into the sitting-room, where breakfast was laid on
a small table by the window. He had the choice between eggs and bacon
and sausages, he chose the former and whilst waiting, attracted by the
pleasant summery sound of croquet balls knocking together, he looked out
of the window.
Two gentlemen in white flannels were playing croquet; stout elderly
gentlemen they were. And on a garden seat a young man in flannel
trousers and a grey tweed coat was seated watching the game and smoking
cigarettes.
He guessed these people to be fellow prisoners. They looked happy
enough, and having noticed this fact he sat down to breakfast.
He noted that the knife accompanying his fork was blunt and of very poor
quality--of the sort warranted not to cut throats, but he did not heed
much. He had other things to think of. The men in flannels had given him
a shock. Instinctively he knew them to be "inmates." He had never
considered the question of lunatics and lunatic asylums before. Vague
recollections of Edgar Allan Poe and the works of Charles Reade had
surrounded the term lunatic asylum with an atmosphere of feather beds
and brutality; the word lunatic conjured up in his mind the idea of a
man obviously insane. The fact that this place was a house quite
ordinary and pleasant in appearance, and these sane looking gentlemen
lunatics, gave him a grue.
The fact that an apparently sane individual can be held as a prisoner
was beginning to steal upon him, that a man might be able to play
croquet and laugh and talk and take an intelligent interest in life and
yet, just because of some illusion, be held as a prisoner.
He did not fully realise this yet, but it was dawning upon him. But he
did fully realise that he had lost his liberty.
Before he had finished his eggs and bacon this recognition became acute.
The fear of losing his own personality had vanished utterly; all that
haunting dread was gone. If he could escape now, so he told himself, he
would go right back to the States. He had eight thousand pounds in the
National Provincial Bank; no one knew that it was there. He could seize
it with a clear conscience and take it to Philadelphia. The shadow of
Rochester--oh, that was a thing gone forever, dissipated by this actual
fact of lost liberty--so he told himself.
A servant brought up the _Times_ and he opened it, and lit a cigarette.
Then as he looked casually over the news and the doings of the day, an
extraordinary feeling came upon him; all this printed matter was
relative to the doings and ideas of free men, men who could walk down
the street, if the fancy pleased them. It was like looking at the world
through bars. He got up and paced the floor, the breakfast things had
been removed, and the attendant had left the room and was in the bed-room
adjoining.
Jones walked softly to the door through which the servant had carried
away the things, and opened it gently and without noise. A corridor lay
outside, and he was just entering it when a voice from behind made him
turn.
"Do you require anything, sir?"
It was the attendant.
"Nothing," said Jones. "I was just looking to see where this place led
to." He came back into the room.
He knew now that every movement of his was watched, and he accepted the
fact without comment. He sat down and took up the _Times_ whilst the
attendant went back to the bed-room.
He had said to himself on awaking, that a sane man, held as insane,
could always win free just by his sanity. He was taking up the line of
reasoning now and casting about him for a method.
He was not long in finding one. The brilliancy of the idea that had all
at once struck him made him cast the paper from his knees to the floor.
Then, having smoked a cigarette and consolidated his plan, he called the
attendant.
"I want to see the gentleman who runs this place."
"Dr. Hoover, sir?"
"Yes."
"Certainly, sir, I will ring and have him sent for."
He rang the bell, a servant answered and went off with the message.
Jones took up the paper again and resumed his cigarette. Five minutes
passed and then the door opened and a gentleman entered.
A pleasant faced, clean-shaven man of fifty, dressed in blue serge and
with a rose in his button-hole, such was Doctor Hoover. But the eye of
the man held him apart from others; a blue grey eye, keen, sharp, hard,
for all the smile upon the pleasant face.
Jones rose up.
"Dr. Hoover, I think," said he.
"Good morning," said the other in a hearty voice. "Fine day, isn't it?
Well, how are we this morning?"
"Oh, I'm all right," said Jones. "I want to have a little talk with
you." He went to the bed-room door, which was slightly ajar, and closed
it.
"For your sake," said Jones, "it's just as well we have no one
listening, the attendant is in there--you are sure he cannot hear what
we say, even with the door shut?"
"Quite," said Hoover, with a benign smile.
He was used to things like this, profoundly confidential communications
concerning claims to crowns and principalities, or grumbles about food.
He did not expect what followed.
"I am not going to grumble at your having me here," said Jones; "it's my
fault for playing practical jokes. I didn't think they'd go the length
of doping me and locking me up under the name I gave them."
"And what name was that?" asked Hoover kindly.
"Jones."
"Oh, and now tell me, if you are not Mr. Jones, who are you?"
"Who am I? Well, I can excuse the question. I'm the Earl of Rochester."
This was a nasty one for Hoover, but that gentleman's face shewed
nothing.
"Indeed," said he, "then why did you call yourself Jones?"
"For a joke. I slung them a yarn and they took it in. Then they gave me
a draught to compose my nerves, they thought really that I was dotty,
and I drank it--you must have seen the condition I was in when I got
here."
"Hum, hum," said Hoover. He was used to the extremely cunning ways of
gentlemen off their balance, and he had a profound belief in Simms and
Cavendish, whose names endorsed the certificate of lunacy he had
received with the newcomer. He was also a man just as cunning as Jones.
"Well," he said, with an air of absolute frankness, "this takes me by
surprise; a practical joke, but why did you play such a practical joke?"
"I know," said Jones, "it was stupid, just a piece of tom-foolery--but
you see how I am landed."
Dr. Hoover ignored this evasion whilst noting it.
Then he began to ask all sorts of little questions seemingly irrelevant
enough. Did Jones think that he was morally justified in carrying out
such a practical joke? Why did he not say at once it was a practical
joke after the affair had reached a certain point? Was his memory as
good as of old? Was he sure in his own mind that he was the Earl of
Rochester? Was he sure that as the Earl of Rochester he could hold that
title against a claim that he was not the Earl? Give details and so
forth?
"Now suppose," said Dr. Hoover, "I were to contest the title with you
and say 'you are Mr. Jones and I am the Earl of Rochester,' how would
you establish your claim. I am simply asking, to find out whether what
you consider to be a practical joke was in fact a slight lapse of memory
on your part, a slight mind disturbance such as is easily caused by
fatigue or even work, and which often leaves effects lasting some weeks
or months.
"Now I must point out to you that, as--practical joke or not--you came
here calling yourself Mr. Jones, I would be justified in asking you for
proof that you are _not_ Mr. Jones. See my point?"
"Quite."
"Well, then, prove your case," said the physician jovially.
"How can I?"
"Well, if you are the Earl of Rochester, let me test your memory. Who is
your banker?"
"Coutts."
Hoover did not know who the Earl of Rochester's banker might be, but the
promptness of the reply satisfied him of its truth, the promptness was
also an index of sanity. He passed at a venture to a subject on which he
was acquainted.
"And how many brothers and sisters have you?"
That was fatal.
Jones' eye fell under the pressure of Hoover's.
"There is no use in going on with these absurd questions," said he, "a
thing everyone knows."
"But I just want to prove to you," said Hoover, gently, "that your mind,
which in a week from now, will have quite recovered, is still a little
bit shaky--now how long is it since you succeeded to the title? It's
just a test memory question."
Jones did not know. He saw that he was lost. He had also gained an
appreciation of Hoover. Beside the fat Simms and the cadaverous
Cavendish, Hoover seemed a man of keen common sense.
Jones recognized that the new position into which he had strayed was a
blind alley. If he were detained until his memory could answer questions
of which his mind knew nothing, he would be detained forever. He came to
the grand determination to try back.
"Look here," said he, "let's be straight with one another. I can't
answer your questions. Now if you are a man of sense, as I take you to
be, and not a man like those others, who think everyone but themselves
is mad, you will recognize _why_ I can't answer your questions. I'm not
Rochester. I thought I'd get out of here by pretending that I'd played a
practical joke on those guys; it was a false move, I acknowledge it, but
when I fixed on the idea, I didn't know the man I had to deal with. If
you will listen to my story, I will tell you in a few words how all this
business came about."
"Go on," said Hoover.
Jones told, and Hoover listened and when the tale was over, at the end
of a quarter of an hour or so, Jones scarcely believed it himself. It
sounded crazy. Much more crazy than when he had told it to the Duke of
Melford and the reason of this difference was Hoover. There was
something in Hoover's eye, something in his make up and personality,
something veiled and critical, that destroyed confidence.
"I have asked them to make enquiries," finished Jones, "if they will
only do that everything will be cleared up."
"And you may rest content we will," said Hoover.
"Now for another thing," said Jones. "Till I leave this place, which
will be soon, I hope, may I ask you to tell that confounded attendant
not to be always watching me. I don't know whether you think me mad or
sane, think me mad if you like, but take it from me, I'm not going to do
anything foolish, but if anything would drive me crazy, it would be
feeling that I am always watched like a child."
Hoover paused a moment. He had a large experience of mental cases. Then
he said:
"You will be perfectly free here. You can come downstairs and do as you
like. We have some very nice men staying here and you are free to amuse
yourself. I'll just ask you this, not to go outside the grounds till
your health is perfectly established. This is not a prison, it's a
sanatorium. Colonel Hawker is here for gout and Major Barstowe for
neuritis, got it in India. You will like them. There are several others
who make up my household--you can come on down with me now--are you a
billiard player?"
"Yes, I can play--but, see here, before we go down, where is this
place?--I don't even know what part of the country it's in."
"Sandbourne-on-sea," replied Hoover, leading the way from the room.
Now in London on the night before, something had happened. Dr. Simms, at
a dinner-party, given by Doctor Took of Bethlem Hospital had, relative
to the imagination of lunatics, given an instance:
"Only to-day," said Simms, "I had a case in point. A man gave me as his
supposed address, one thousand one hundred and ninety one, Walnut
Street, Philadelphia."
"But there is a Walnut Street, Philadelphia," said Took, "and it's ten
miles long, and the numbers run up well towards that."
Half an hour later, Simms got into his carriage.
"Savoy Hotel, Strand," said he to the coachman.