The Man Who Lost Himself Part 31

He shut the door and turned to the couch.

Jones caught a glimpse of himself in a big mirror, happily un-smashed, caught a glimpse of himself all tumbled and towsled with Simms beside him and Cavendish standing by, re-fixing his gla.s.ses.

He recognised a terrible fact; though he had smashed hundreds of pounds'

worth of property, though he had fought these men like a mad bull, now that the fight was over, they showed not the least sign of resentment.

Simms was patting his shoulder.

He had become possessed of the mournful privilege of the insane, to fight without raising ire in one's antagonists, to smash with impunity--to murder without being brought to justice.

Also he recognised that he had been a fool. He had acted like a mad-man--that is to say, like a man furious with anger. Anger and madness have awful similarities.

He moved slightly away from Simms.

"I reckon I've been a fool," said he, "three to one is not fair play.

Come, let my hands free, I won't fight any more."

"Certainly," said Simms. "But let me point out that we were not fighting you in the least, only preventing you from taking a course detrimental to your health. Cavendish, will you kindly untie that absurd handkerchief?"

Cavendish obeyed, and Jones, his hands freed, rubbed his wrists.

"What are you going to do now?" asked he.

"Nothing," said Simms, "you are perfectly free, but we don't want you to go out till your health is perfectly restored. I know, you will say that you feel all right. No matter, take a physician's advice and just remain here quiet for a little while. Shall we go to the library where you can amuse yourself with the newspaper or a book whilst I make up a little prescription for you?"

"Look here," said Jones. "Let's talk quietly for a moment--you think I'm mad."

"Not in the least!" said Simms. "You are only suffering from a nerve upset."

"Well, if I'm not mad you have no right to keep me here."

This was cunning, but, unfortunately, cunning like anger, is an attribute of madness as well as of sanity.

"Now," said Simms, with an air of great frankness, "do you think that it is for our pleasure that we ask you to stay here for a while? We are not keeping you, just asking you to stay. We will go down to the library and I will just have a prescription made up. Then, when you have considered matters a bit you can use your own discretion about going."

Jones recognized at once that there was no use in trying to fight this man with any other weapon than subtlety. He was fairly trapped. His tale was such that no man would believe it, and, persisting in that tale, he would be held as a lunatic. On top of the tale was Rochester's bad reputation for sanity. They called him mad Rochester.

Then as he rose up and followed to the library, a last inspiration seized him.

He stopped at the drawing-room door.

"Look here," said he, "one moment. I can prove what I say. You send out a man to Philadelphia and make enquiries, fetch some of the people over that knew me. You'll find I'm--myself and that I've told you no lie."

"We will do anything you like," said Simms, "but first let us go down to the library."

They went. It was a large, pleasant room lined with books.

Simms sat down at the writing-table, whilst the others took chairs. He wrote a prescription, and the Duke, ringing the bell, ordered a servant to take the prescription to the chemists.

Then during the twenty minutes before the servant returned they talked.

Jones, giving again his address, that fantastic address which was yet real, and the names and descriptions of people he knew and who would know him.

"You see, gentlemen," said he, "it's just this, I have only one crave in life just now, to be myself again. Not exactly that, but to be recognized as myself. You can't imagine what that feeling is. You needn't tell me. I know exactly what you think, you think I'm Rochester gone crazy. I know the yarn I've slung you sounds crazy, but it's the truth. The fact is I've felt at times that if I didn't get someone to recognize me as myself I'd _go_ crazy. Just one person to believe in me, that's all I want and then I'd feel free of this cursed Rochester. Put yourself in my place. Imagine that you have lost touch with everything you ever were, that you were playing another man's part and that everyone in the world kept on insisting you were the other guy. Think of that for a position. Why, gentlemen, you might open that door wide. I wouldn't want to go out, not till I had convinced one of you at all events that my story was true. I wouldn't want to go back to the States, not till I had convinced you that I am who I am. It seems foolish but it's a bed-rock fact. I have to make good on this position, convince someone who knows the facts, and so get myself back. It wouldn't be any use my going to Philadelphia. I'd say to people I know there, 'I'm Jones.' They'd say, 'Of course you are,' and believe me. But then, do you see, they wouldn't know of this adventure and their belief in me wouldn't be a bit of good. Of course I _know_ I'm Jones, all the same I've been playing the part of Rochester so hard that times I've almost believed I'm him, times I've lost myself, and I have a feeling at the back of my mind that if I don't get someone to believe me to be who I am, I may go dotty in earnest. It's a feeling without reason, I know.

It's more like having a grit in the eye than anything else. I want to get rid of that grit, and I can't take it out myself, someone else must do it. One person would be enough, just one person to believe in what I say and I would be myself again. That's why I want you to send to Philadelphia. The mind is a curious thing, gentlemen, the freedom of the body is nothing if the mind is not free, and my mind can never be free till another person who knows my whole story believes in what I say. I could not have imagined anyone being trapped like this--I've heard of an actor guy once playing a part so often he went loony and fancied himself the character. I'm not like that, I'm as sane as you, it's just this uneasy, uncomfortable feeling--this want to get absolutely clean out of this business, that's the trouble."

"Never mind!" said Simms cheerfully, "we will get you out only you must _not_ worry yourself. I admit that your story is strange, but we will send to Philadelphia and make all enquiries--come in."

The servant had knocked at the door. He entered with the medicine. Simms sent him for a wine gla.s.s and when it arrived he poured out a dose.

"Now take a dose of your medicine like a man," said the kindly physician, jocularly, "and another in four hours' time, it will re-make your nerves."

Jones tossed the stuff off impatiently.

"Say," said he, "there's another point I've forgot. You might go to the Savoy and get the clerk there, he'd recognize me, the bar tender in the American bar, he'd maybe be able to recognise me too, he saw us together--I say I feel a bit drowsy, you haven't doped me, have you?"

Simms and Cavendish, leaving the house together five minutes later, had a moment's conversation on the steps.

"What do you think of him?" said Simms.

"Bad," said Cavendish. "He reasons on his own case, that's always bad, and did you notice how cleverly he worked that in about wanting someone to believe in him."

They walked down the street together.

"That smash has been coming for a long time," said Simms--"it's an heirloom. It's a good thing it has come, he was getting to be a bye-word--I wonder what it is that introduces the humorous element into insanity; that address, for instance, one thousand one hundred and ninety one Walnut Street, could never have strayed into a sane person's head."

"Nor a luncheon on bills of exchange," said Cavendish. "Well, he will be all right at Hoover's. What was the dose you gave him?"

"Heroin, mostly," replied the other. "Well, so long."

CHAPTER XXI

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 a.s.sistance 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 hara.s.sed 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.