MALINGERING
Pocket had put the fragments of his poor letter together again, and was
still poring over those few detached and mutilated words, which were
the very ones his tears had blotted, when there came a warning chink of
tea-things on the stairs. He was just able to thrust the pieces back
into his pocket, and to fling himself at full length on the bed, before
Dr. Baumgartner entered with a tray.
“There, my young fellow! This will make a man of you! Then we shall see
you yourself again by supper-time.”
“I’m not coming down again,” said Pocket. “Don’t force me, please”
“Force you?” Baumgartner cocked a keen eye at the open window. “What a
tyrant you would make me out! On the contrary, I think you show your
wisdom in remaining quiet. Perhaps you would be quieter still with the
window shut—so—and fastened to prevent it rattling. I will open it
when I come up again. There shall not be a sound in the house to
disturb you.”
And he took to tiptoes there and then, gliding about with a smiling
stealth that set Pocket shivering on the bed; he shivered the more when
an admirable doctor’s hand, cool and smooth as steel, was laid upon his
forehead.
“A little fever, I’m afraid! I should get right into bed, if I were
you. It’s nothing to be alarmed about, much less astonished; you have
been through so much, my poor young fellow.”
“I have indeed!” cried Pocket, with unguarded bitterness.
And Baumgartner paused between the foot of the bed and the door.
“But there’s one consolation for you,” he said at length, in a sibilant
whisper. “They’ve had that letter of yours at home quite a long time
now—ever since yesterday morning, haven’t they?”
The bed shook under Pocket when the door was shut—he only hoped it was
not before. Up to the last minute, he felt quite sure that Dr.
Baumgartner, suspicious as he was, had suspected nothing of the
discovery downstairs behind his back. If he himself had betrayed
anything it was in the last few seconds, when it had been all that he
could do to keep from screaming out his knowledge of the other’s
trickery. To play such a trick upon a broken-hearted boy! To have the
heart to play it! No wonder he felt feverish to that wicked hand; the
wonder was that he had actually lain there listening to the smooth
impostor gratuitously revelling in his imposition!
Rage and disappointment seized him by turns, and both together; at
first they bit deeper even than the fear of Baumgartner—a fear felt
from the beginning, and naturally redoubled now. Disappointment had the
sharper tooth: his letter had ever gone, not one of his people knew a
thing about him yet, his tears had not drawn theirs, they had not hung
in anxious conclave on his words! Not that he had recognised any such
subtle consolations as factors in his temporary and comparative peace
of mind; now that they were gone, he could not have said what it was he
missed; he only knew that he could least forgive Baumgartner for this
sudden sense of cruel and crushing disappointment.
The phase passed, for the boy had the temperament that sees the other
side eventually, and of course there was something to be said for the
doctor’s stratagem. He could understand it, after all; the motive was
not malevolent; it was to relieve his mind and keep him quiet. The plan
had succeeded perfectly, and nobody was really any the worse off. His
people would have known he was alive and well on the Friday; but that
was all, and they had no reason yet to assume his death. No; even
Pocket came to see that his letter had been more of a relief to write
than it could have been to read; that, indeed, it could only have
aggravated the anxiety and suspense at home. Yet there was in him some
fibre which the deliberate deception had fretted and frayed beyond
reason or forgiveness. He saw all there was to be said about it; he
could imagine Baumgartner himself putting the case with irresistible
logic, with characteristic plausibility, and all the mesmeric wisdom of
a benevolent serpent; but for once, the boy felt, he would not be taken
in. It was not coming to that, however, for he had quite decided not to
betray his knowledge of the fraud—if only he had not already done so!
His fears on that score were largely allayed by Baumgartner’s manner
when at length he returned with another tray; for nothing could have
been more considerate and sympathetic, and even fatherly, than the
doctor’s behaviour then. Pocket had never touched his tea; he was very
gently chidden for that. Obstinately he declared he did not want any
supper either: it was true he did not want to want any, or another bite
of that man’s bread, but he was sorry as soon as the words were out. It
was against his reasoned policy to show temper, and he was beginning
to feel very hungry besides. The doctor said, “You’ll think better of
that, my young fellow,” which turned a mere remark into more than half
an absolute resolution. The second tray was set with a lighted candle
on a chair by the bedside. The boy eyed it wistfully with set teeth,
and Baumgartner eyed the boy.
“Is there anything you could fancy, my young fellow?”
“Nothing to eat.”
“Is there any book?”
“Yes,” said Pocket, without a moment’s premeditation. “There’s the book
I was reading yesterday.”
“What was that?”
“Some Frenchman on hallucinations.”
“So you were reading that book!” remarked the doctor, with detestable
aplomb. “I wondered who had taken it down. It is a poor book. I have
destroyed it.”
“I’m sorry,” said Pocket, and tried to look it rather than revolted.
“I am not,” rejoined Baumgartner. “Even if it were a good book, it is
no book for you at the present time. It is morbid to dwell on what is
done and over.”
“If it is over,” murmured the boy.
“It is over!” said Baumgartner, fiercely.
“Well,” said Pocket, “I’m glad I read what he’d got to say about
somnambulism.”
“Why?”
Pocket did not say it was a satisfaction to have done anything in spite
of such a despot as his questioner. But he did say it was a comfort to
know that others besides himself had committed terrible deeds in their
sleep.
“But,” he added, “they always seem to have dreamt the dreadful thing as
well. Now, the funny thing is that I remember nothing until the shot
woke me and I found myself where you saw me.”
“I’m glad you find it funny!”
The sneer seemed strangely unworthy of a keen intelligence; the
increased asperity of Baumgartner’s manner, and his whole conduct about
a harmless book, altogether inexplicable.
“You know what I mean,” replied the boy, with spirit.
“Yes, I know what you mean! You mean to go out of your mind, and to do
your best to drive me out of mine, for the sake of a technically human
life less precious than the average dog’s!”
And, much as it puzzled him, there was certainly something more human
about this sudden outburst than in anything Dr. Baumgartner had said
since the scene between them in the bedroom below. He even slammed the
door behind him when he went. But Pocket preferred that novel
exhibition, for its very heat and violence, to the sleek and calculated
solicitude of the doctor’s final visit, with pipe and candle, when the
one by the bedside had burnt down almost to the socket.
“My young fellow!” he exclaimed in unctuous distress. “Not a bite eaten
in all these hours! Do you know that it’s nearly midnight?”
“I’m not hungry,” replied Pocket, lying gloriously for once. “I told
you I wasn’t well.”
“You’ll be worse if you don’t force yourself to eat.”
“I can’t help that.”
“Well, well!” said the doctor, instead of the objurgation that seemed
to tremble for an instant on his lips. He replaced between them the
oval hook of clear amber enclosing the thin round one of black
nicotine, and he puffed until the cruel carved face was hotter and more
infuriate than ever, under the swirling smoke of mimic battle. To the
boy it was all but a living face, and a vile one, capable of nameless
atrocities; and the hard-frozen face of Baumgartner was capable of
looking on.
“Well, well! If I am to have you ill on my hands it’s my own fault. I
take the responsibility for everything that has happened since the very
first moment we met. Remember that, my young fellow! I took the law
into my own hands, and you I took into my own house for better or
worse. You were worse then, remember, and yet I took you in! Is it not
strange that your asthma has entirely left you under my roof? Does it
not lead you to believe in me, my young fellow—to trust me perhaps more
than you have done?”
It did not. Pocket was not going to lie about that; he held his tongue
stubbornly instead. He still believed in his own explanation, derived
from one of his many doctors, and moreover already mentioned to this
one, of the sudden cessation of his chronic complaint. He hated
Baumgartner for forgetting that, and pretending for a moment to take
any credit to himself. That again was not worthy of so cool and keen a
brain, much less of the candid character with which Pocket had supposed
himself to be dealing. The very young are pathetically apt to see their
own virtues in those whom they trust at all; but the schoolboy’s faith
in Dr. Baumgartner had been shattered to its base; and now (as sure a
symptom of his youth) he could see no virtue at all.
“You must trust me again,” said Baumgartner, as though he knew what he
had forfeited. “I know what will do you good.”
“What?” asked Pocket, out of mere incredulous curiosity.
“Fresh air; some exercise; a glimpse of the beautiful town we live in,
before another soul is about, before the sun itself is up!”
Pocket hardly knew what made him shudder at the proposition. It might
have been the poignant picture of that other early morning, which came
before him in a scorching flash. But there was something also in the
way the doctor was bending over him in bed, holding his pipe nearer
still, so that the two dreadful faces seemed of equal size. And
Baumgartner’s had become a dreadful face in the boy’s eyes now; there
was none among those cruel waxworks to match it in cold intellectual
cruelty; and its smile—its new and strange smile it must have been that
made him shudder and shake his head.
“But, my young fellow,” urged the doctor, “it will do you so much good.
And not a soul will see us so early, early in the morning!”
Again that insinuating smile inspired a horror of which the boy himself
could have offered no satisfactory explanation, especially as there was
much to commend the proposal to his mind. But his face was white enough
as he moved it from side to side on the pillow.
“I tell you I’m ill,” he whimpered. “How can I go out with you, when
you see I can’t eat a bite?”
Baumgartner gave it up for the night. He was coming back in the early,
early lovely summer’s morning; then they would see, would they not?
Pocket had a last wave from the hideous meerschaum head, and a nod from
the other. He was alone for the night. And he meant to be alone next
morning when the doctor took his early walk; let him prowl by himself.
Pocket was not going with him. He had never been more determined about
anything than that. It was an animal instinct of fear and deep
revulsion, an impulse quite distinct from a further determination to
slip away in his turn as soon as the coast was clear. On this course he
was equally decided, but on other and more palpable grounds.
Baumgartner had broken his side of their treaty, so the treaty was torn
up with the letter which had never gone. And Pocket was going instead
of his letter—going straight to his people to tell them all, and have
that poor innocent man set free before the day was out.
The night’s immunity was meanwhile doubly precious; but it had been
secured, or rather its continuance could only be assured, at a price
which he wondered even now if he could pay. He was a growing, hungry
boy, no longer ailing in wind or limb. Distress of mind was his one
remaining ill; the rest was sham; and distress of mind did not prevent
him from feeling ravenous after fasting ten or eleven hours. Here was
food still within his reach, even at his side; but he felt committed
to his declaration that he could not eat. If the tray were still
untouched in the morning, surely there could be no further question of
his going out with Baumgartner; but there was an “if.” The boy was not
used to being very stern with himself; his strongest point was not
self-denial. Much of his moral stamina had been expended in nightly
tussles for mere breath; he had grit enough there. But his temperament
was self-indulgent, and that he triumphed over positive pangs only
shows the power of that rival instinct not to accompany the doctor a
yard from his door.
Yet it meant more hours with the food beside him than he could endure
lying still. He got up, inch by inch, for he knew who lay underneath;
and he opened the window, which Baumgartner had broken his promise to
open, by even slower and more laborious degrees. He leant out as he had
done that first morning, it might have been a month ago; and this scene
must have challenged comparison with that, had his mind been even as
free from dread and terror as it had been then. But all he saw was the
few remaining lighted windows in the backs of those other houses; he
could not have sworn there was a moon. The moon poured no beam of
comfort on his aching head; but the lighted windows were as the open
eyes of honest men, who would not see him come to harm; and the last
rumble in the streets was a faint but cheering chorus for lonely ears.
Once a motor-horn blew a solo near at hand, and Pocket half recognised
its note; but he did not connect it with quite another set of sounds,
which grew but gradually on his ear out of the bowels of the house.
Somebody was knocking and ringing at the doctor’s door, not furiously,
but with considerable pertinacity. Pocket was thrilled to the marrow
just at first, and flew from the open window to the landing outside his
door. The house was in perfect darkness, and still as death in the
patient intervals between each measured attempt to rouse the inmates
without disturbing the street. It came to Pocket that it must be
Baumgartner himself, gone out for something without his key; and the
boy was about to run down and let him in, when he distinctly heard the
retreat of feet down the front steps, and then a chuckle on the next
landing as the doctor closed his bedroom door.
Who could it have been? Baumgartner’s chuckle suggested the police; but
in that case it was the boy upstairs who was going to have the last
laugh, though a grim one, and very terribly at his own expense. He
could not close an eye for thinking of it, and listening for another
knocking and ringing down below. But nothing happened until the doctor
returned between five and six, still with his meerschaum pipe, still in
his alpaca jacket, but wearing also the goblin hat and cloak of their
first meeting, to renew and intensify the animal fear that glued the
boy to his bed.
“It is a pity,” said Baumgartner, standing at the window which Pocket
had left open. “The air is like champagne at this hour, and not a cloud
in the sky! It would do you more good than lying there. It is you who
are making yourself ill. If I thought you were doing it on purpose
”—and his eyes blazed—“I’d feed you like a fowl!”
“It’s so likely that I should do it on purpose,” muttered Pocket, with
schoolboy sarcasm. His eyes, however, were purposely closed, and they
had missed the old daggers in Baumgartner’s.
“You know best,” said the doctor. “But you are missing the morning of
your life! Not a cloud in the sky, only the golden rain in my little
garden. I suppose you have not learnt what the golden rain is at your
public school? You English call it laburnum; but we Germans have more
imagination, thank God!”
Pocket did not open his eyes again till he had gone; next instant he
had the door open too, as the doctor’s step was creaking down the lower
flight of stairs. Once more Pocket ventured out upon the landing, not
quite to the banisters; he trusted to his ears as before. They told
him the doctor had gone into his dark-room. His heart sank. It was only
for a moment. The dark-room door shut sharply. The steps came creaking
back along the hall, went grating out upon the doorstep. There was
another sharp shutting. Food at last!
It was neither very nice nor half enough for a famishing lad, that
plate of cold mixed meats from the restaurant, with a hard stale roll
to eke them out. But Pocket felt he had a fresh start in life when he
had eaten every crumb and emptied his water-bottle. Nor was he without
plan or purpose any longer; he was only doubtful whether to knock at
Phillida’s door and shout goodbye, or to leave her a note explaining
all. Baumgartner would be out for hours; he always was, on these early
jaunts of his; there would almost be time to wait and say goodbye
properly when the girl came down. She would hardly hinder him a second
time, and he longed to see her and speak to her again, especially if
that was to be the end between them. He did not mean it to be the end,
by any means; but any nonsense that might have been gathering in the
schoolboy’s head was, at this point, more than rudely dispelled by the
discovery that Dr. Baumgartner had removed his clothes!
Pocket swore an oath that would have shocked him in a schoolfellow; it
was a practice he indeed abhorred, but decent words would not meet
such a case. It was to be met by action, however, just as that locked
door had been met, and the policeman’s prohibition in the Park. He knew
where his clothes must be. He slipped his overcoat, which he was using
as a dressing-gown, over his pyjamas, and ran right downstairs as Dr.
Baumgartner had done not many minutes before him. His clothes were in
the dark-room. But the dark-room door had a Yale lock; there was no
forcing it by foot or shoulder, though Pocket in his passion tried
both. So round he went without a moment’s hesitation to the dark-room
window by way of the little conservatory. The blind was drawn. That
mattered nothing. He went back for a plant-pot, and smashed both it and
a sheet of ruby glass with one vicious blow.
Entry was simple after that; he had only to be careful not to cut his
hands or feet. Inside, he removed the broken glass, closed the window,
and let the blind down as he had found it, without looking twice at his
clothes. There they were for him to carry upstairs at his leisure. They
were not his only property in that room either. His revolver was there
somewhere under lock and key. He might want it, waking, if Dr.
Baumgartner came back before his time.
It was easily located; of the lockers, built in with the shelves on
the folding doors, only one was actually locked, and the revolver was
not in the others. Pocket went to his waistcoat for one of those knives
beloved of schoolboys, with the hook for extracting stones from hoofs,
among other superfluous implements. Pocket had never used this one, had
often felt inclined to wrench it off because it was hard to open and in
the way of the other tools. But he used it now with as little
hesitation as he had done the other damage, with almost a lust for
breakage; and there was his revolver, safe and sound as his clothes.
It had been honoured with a place beside a rack of special negatives;
at least, there were other racks, in the other lockers, not locked up
like that; and there was no other treasure that Pocket could see. He
had his hand on his own treasure, was in the act of taking it,
trembling a little, but more elated, as he stood in a ruby flood only
partially diluted by the broken window behind the blind.
At that moment there came such a thunder of knuckles on the door beside
him that the revolver caught in the rack of negatives, and brought the
whole lot crashing about his toes.