THE BLIGHTED CITY
Said the person after a request for a match: "Warm night, but there's a
change in the weather coming on, or I'm greatly mistaken. I've lost
nearly everything in the chops and changes of life, but there's one
thing I haven't lost--my barometer--that's to say my rheumatism. It
tells me when rain is coming as sure as an aneroid. London is pretty
full for the time of year, don't you think?"
"Yes," said Jones, "I reckon it is."
They talked, the gentleman with the barometer passing from the weather
to politics, from politics to high finance, from high finance to
himself. He had been a solicitor.
"Disbarred, as you see, for nothing, but what a hundred men are doing at
the present moment. There's no justice in the world, except maybe in the
Law Courts. I'm not one of those who think the Law is an ass, no,
there's a great deal of common sense in the Law of England. I'm not
talking of the Incorporated Law Society that shut me out from a living,
for a slip any man might make. I'm talking of the old Laws of England as
administered by his Majesty's Judges; study them, and you will be
astonished at their straight common-sense and justice. I'm not holding
any brief for lawyers--I'm frank, you see--the business of lawyers is to
wriggle round and circumvent the truth, to muddy evidence, confuse
witnesses and undo justice. I'm just talking of the laws."
"Do you know anything of the laws of lunacy?" asked Jones.
"Something."
"I had a friend who was supposed to be suffering from mind trouble, two
doctors doped him and put him away in an asylum--he was quite harmless."
"What do you mean by doped him?" asked the other.
"Gave him a drug to quiet him, and then took him off in an automobile."
"Was there money involved?"
"You may say there was. He was worth a million."
"Anyone to benefit by his being put away?"
"Well, I expect one might make out a case of that; the family would have
the handling of the million, wouldn't they?"
"It all depends--but there's one thing certain, there'd be a thundering
law case for any clever solicitor to handle if the plaintiff were not
too far gone in his mind to plead. Anyhow, the drugging is out of
order--whole thing sounds fishy."
"Suppose he escaped," said Jones. "Could they take him back by force?"
"That's a difficult question to answer. If he were cutting up shines it
would be easy, but if he were clever enough to pretend to be sane it
might be difficult. You see, he would have to be arrested, no man can go
up and seize another man in the street and say: You're mad, come along
with me, simply because, even if he holds a certificate of lunacy
against the other man the other man might say you've made a mistake, I'm
not the person you want. Then it would be a question of swearing before
a magistrate. The good old Laws of England are very strict about the
freedom of the body, and the rights of the individual man to be heard in
his own defence. If your lunatic were not too insane, and were to take
refuge in a friend's house, and the friend were to back him, that would
make things more difficult still."
"If he were to take refuge in his own house?"
"Oh, that would make the thing still more difficult, very much more so.
If, of course, he were not conducting himself in a manner detrimental to
the public peace, firing guns out of windows and so forth. The laws of
England are very strict about entering a man's house. Of course, were
the pursuers to go before a magistrate and swear that the pursued were a
dangerous lunatic, then a right of search and entry might be obtained,
but on the pursuers would lie the onus of proof. Now pauper lunatics are
very easily dealt with: the Relieving Officer, on the strength of a
certificate of lunacy, can go to the poor man's cottage or tenement, and
take him away, for, you see, the man possessing no property it is
supposed that no man is interested in his internment, but once
introduce the property element and there is the very devil to pay,
especially in cases where the lunatic is only eccentric and does not
come into court with straws in his hair, so to speak."
"I get you," said Jones. He offered cigarettes, and presently the
communicative one departed, having borrowed fourpence on the strength of
his professional advice.
The rest of that night was a very good imitation of a nightmare. Jones
tried several different seats in succession, and managed to do a good
deal of walking. Dawn found him on London Bridge, watching the birth of
another perfect day, but without enthusiasm.
He was cheerful but tired. The thought that at nine o'clock or
thereabouts, he would be able to place his hands on eight thousand
pounds, gave him the material for his cheerfulness. He had often read of
the joy of open air life, and the freedom of the hobo; but open air life
in London, on looking back upon it, did not appeal to him. He had been
twice moved on by policemen, and his next door neighbours, after the
departure of the barometer man, were of a type that inspired neither
liking nor trust.
He heard Big Ben booming six o'clock. He had three hours still before
him, and he determined to take it out in walking. He would go citywards,
and then come back with an appetite for breakfast.
Having made this resolve, he started, passing through the deserted
streets till he reached the Bank, and then onwards till he reached the
Mile End Road.
As he walked he made plans. When he had drawn his money he would
breakfast at a restaurant, he fixed upon Romanos', eggs and bacon and
sausages, coffee and hot rolls would be the _menu_. Then he fell to
wondering whether Romanos' would be open for breakfast, or whether it
was of the type of restaurant that only serves luncheons and dinners. If
it were, then he could breakfast at the Charing Cross Hotel.
These considerations led him a good distance on his way. Then the Mile
End Road beguiled him, lying straight and foreign looking, and empty in
the sunlight. The Barometer man's weather apparatus must have been at
fault, for in all the sky there was not a cloud, nor the symptom of the
coming of a cloud.
Away down near the docks, a clock over a public house pointed to half
past seven, and he judged it time to return.
He came back. The Mile End Road was still deserted, the city round the
bank was destitute of life, Fleet Street empty.
Pompeii lay not more utterly dead than this weird city of vast business
palaces, and the Strand shewed nothing of life or almost nothing, every
shop was shuttered though now it was close upon nine o'clock.
Something had happened to London, some blight had fallen on the
inhabitants, death seemed everywhere, not seen but hinted at. Stray
recollections of weird stories by H. G. Wells passed through the mind
of Jones. He recalled the city of London when the Martians had done with
it, that city of death, and horror, and sunlight and silence.
Then of a sudden, as he neared the Law Courts, the appalling truth
suddenly suggested itself to him.
He walked up to a policeman on point of duty at a corner, a policeman
who seemed under the mesmerism of the general gloom and blight, a
policeman who might have been the blue concrete core of negation.
"Say, officer," said Jones, "what day's to-day?"
"Sunday," said the policeman.