It was half-past seven o’clock on Monday evening. More than thirty
hours had elapsed since young Rivers first began his operations to
restore life to the cataleptic patient, and he was only just succeeding
in an affair which had proved extremely difficult and protracted. Young
Rivers, in fact, had found out during the watches of Sunday night and
the sunny morning of Monday that the disease (if catalepsy may be called
a disease) has a habit of flatly defying the rules of medical text-books
and the experience of even the youngest doctors. But ultimately he had
triumphed, though not by means of the famous snuff, which Carpentaria
had obtained, after exhaustive research, from a bass-fiddle player in
his band.
The patient reclined, alive, conscious, capable of movement and speech,
but otherwise a prodigious enigma, in an arm-chair in Carpentaria’s
bedroom. His existence was a profound secret from all except the doctor
and the musician.
And now these two, who had brought him back to earthly life, wanted
him to talk, to explain himself, to unravel the mysteries of Saturday
afternoon and Saturday night. And Carpentaria, dressed in his uniform,
waited, watch in hand; for in half an hour the daily concert must
commence in the Oriental Gardens. Nothing could interfere with
Carpentaria’s presence in the gorgeous illuminated bandstand. He had
sacrificed his interest in his half-sister, his curiosity about the
doings of the Ilams, his inspection of the affairs of the City, and even
a rehearsal, to the care of the recovering cataleptic, but the concert
itself, with its audience of a hundred thousand or so, could not be
sacrificed.
“So you are Carpentaria?” murmured the patient, sipping at a glass of
hot milk.
His age now appeared to be fifty. He had grey hair and a short grey
beard, rather whiter than the hair, and his eyes bore the expression of
a man who has found that life bears no striking resemblance to a good
joke. His hands moved nervously over the surfaces of the chair.
“Yes,” Carpentaria admitted; “and you?”
It was the first direct question that he had ventured to put to the
enigma, and the enigma ignored it.
“You say I was buried and you unburied me?” he pursued.
“Yes,” said Carpentaria enthusiastically, and he described the journeys,
the disappearances and the reappearances, of the body of the enigma on
the opening night.
“I suppose I should have died really, if I’d been left alone?” the
enigma demanded of Rivers.
“Undoubtedly,” said Rivers. “Undoubtedly,” he repeated.
The enigma turned almost fiercely on Carpentaria.
“Then why, in the name of common sense, couldn’t you have left me
alone?” he cried.
It was as though he owed Carpentaria a grudge which the most cruel
ingenuity could not satisfy.
“I--I thought----” Carpentaria stammered, too surprised to be able to
argue well.
“You thought you were doing a mighty clever thing,” snapped the enigma.
“I merely----”
“Or, rather,” the enigma proceeded, “you didn’t think at all.”
Rivers and Carpentaria exchanged a glance, indicating to each other that
the man was an invalid and must therefore be humoured.
“Really, Mr.-----” Carpentaria began.
“Call me Jetsam,” the invalid interrupted. “It isn’t my name, but it’s
near enough.”
“Well, Mr. Jetsam----”
“Not at all,” said Mr. Jetsam, sitting up in the chair. “There I was,
comfortably dead, blind and deaf for evermore to the stupidities,
the shams, the crimes, and the tedium of this world, and you go and
deliberately recreate me! Is your opinion of the earth, and particularly
of England, so high that you imagine a man is better on it than off it?
Have you reached your present position and your present age, without
coming to the conclusion that a person once comfortably dead would never
want to be alive again? It seems to me, that you took upon yourselves
the responsibility, the terrible responsibility of putting me back into
life without giving the matter a moment’s serious thought. And I do
verily believe that you expected me to be grateful! Grateful!”
“It was a question of duty----” Carpentaria ventured.
“Yes, of course. It only remained for you to drag in that word; I
anticipated it. And why was it your duty? Who told you it was your duty?
What authority have you for saying it was your duty? None--absolutely
none! The sole explanation of your conduct is that, like most human
beings, you are an interfering busybody; you can’t leave a thing alone.”
At length Carpentaria laughed. He was conscious of a certain liking for
Mr. Jetsam.
“I can but offer you my humble apologies,” he said. “They are of no
avail; they will not undo what is done. But none the less I offer them
to you. You see, when I last saw you alive, you were so drunk, so very
drunk----”
“I was not drunk at all,” said Mr. Jetsam. “And your inability to
perceive the fact proves that, though you may be able to wear a very
stylish uniform and to make a great deal of noise with a band, you are
an infant as a detective. No, sir, I had certain plans to execute, and
you, with that meddlesomeness that appears to characterize you, came
along and interfered. In order that I might be left alone I pretended to
be drunk. I have never been drunk in my life, which is conceivably more
than you can say for yourself, or you, sir”--and he pointed to the young
doctor, who had only recently finished being a medical student.
“And those plans--may one inquire?” Carpentaria murmured.
Mr. Jetsam covered his face with his hands.
“Ah!” he sighed, evidently speaking to himself. “I had done with all
that, and now I must begin again. My instincts will inevitably drive me
to begin again. My dear people”--he surveyed his two companions with an
acid and distant stare--“instead of saving life, you have only set in
motion a chain of circumstances that will lead to the loss of it. Murder
and the scaffold will probably be the net result of your officious
zeal.”
There was a rap on the bedroom door.
“Five minutes to eight, sir,” called a voice.
“Right,” said Carpentaria, getting up; and to Mr. Jetsam, “I will see
you after the concert.”
“I doubt it,” said Mr. Jetsam.
“Why not?”
“Because I shall be gone. I am feeling quite strong.”
35
“I should like to talk to you about certain people,” pursued
Carpentaria.
“Who?”
“Well, Josephus Ilam.”
“I know all about Josephus Ilam.”
“And his mother. Perhaps you don’t know all about his mother.”
Mr. Jetsam jumped to his feet with singular agility.
“Mrs. Ilam! She’s been dead for years,” he said gravely.
“She was very much alive this morning,” replied Carpentaria.
“He told me she was dead,” Jetsam muttered.
“He lied. She is in the bungalow opposite.”
“Oh!” Jetsam breathed, and he seemed to breathe the breath out of his
body. He swayed and fell back into the chair.
“By Jove! He’s fainted!” exclaimed Rivers.
“Look after him,” said Carpentaria, and flew downstairs and towards his
bandstand.