§ 7
The three friends sat round a fire in the white room with the purple curtains, and Bobby poured out his regret that he had denied Sargon. “They’ve taken him off, Tessy,” he said for the third time, “and I do not know what they will do with him.”
“Discharge him with a caution,” said Billy with a drawing-board on his knee. “He hadn’t committed very much of an offence that I can see.”
“And then?” said Bobby, and meditated on the fire.
“I shall go round to the police-court and try to pick him up again afterwards if they let him go,” he said presently.
“Better leave it all alone,” said Billy.
But Tessy sat in her arm-chair between Billy and the fire and looked at Bobby’s preoccupied profile rather sweetly out of the warm shadow. And nobody in the world saw her.
“They’ll warn him and he’ll come back here of his own accord, Bobby,” said Tessy comfortingly.
“Of course he’ll come back,” said Billy.
“Very likely, Tessy,” said Bobby. “But suppose they don’t.”
He got up and stood by the fire. “I suppose I ought to go upstairs and do some work.”
“I suppose you had,” said Billy.
“How is the novel getting on?” asked Tessy.
“Not much done yet,” said Bobby. “The Prophet has disorganized the actual writing. But I’ve learnt a lot of things that will tell some day. And of course I have to do all my Aunt Suzannah stuff. Aunt Suzannah gets more and more popular. You can’t imagine the things they ask me. It’s all material in the long run. Still—it takes time.... I suppose they’ve locked him in a beastly little cell somewhere. And he’s wondering why they don’t see that he’s truly the great Sargon, come again to this world.... Billy, the world’s a dangerous place, a dangerous, unkind place. Why couldn’t they let him rip a bit? And his poor little map of the Whole World upstairs—he always called it the Whole World—and his little paper star-machine, and his poor little empty room and his poor little empty bed.”
“I protest,” said Billy, putting his drawing-board aside. “Bobby, you are a case of morbid overgrowth of the sympathies. You are a new disease. You are the type case of Bobbyism. It’s bad enough that you should sympathize openly with that little devil Susan when I have spanked her, and so undo all my teaching. It’s bad enough that you should do about a third of Mrs. Richman’s work because she needs light and air. I can even understand something of your emotional relationships with various stray cats and pigeons. But when it comes to your being sorry for a poor little empty lodging-house bed, I draw the line. Absolutely, Bobby; I draw the line. Poor little empty bed! It’s—it’s morbid, Bobby.”
“But of course he was thinking of Sargon,” said Tessy. “You’ll go to the police-court to-morrow, Bobby?”
“I’ll go—in spite of Billy. I don’t care if it is a disease. I’m worried about that little man. I’m afraid. He’s too round-eyed for this cruel world.”
And next morning Bobby went. He went to Lemon Square Court and sat through a frowsty morning and waited for Sargon who never appeared. He heard all the morning “drunks” and suchlike come up for judgment, a case about stolen soda-water syphons, two matrimonial differences, and all about the wilful smashing of a plate-glass window with intent to rob, but nothing about Sargon. The magistrate vanished and the court began to disperse. He asked questions of a policeman who had never heard of Sargon and the little trouble at the Rubicon Restaurant. Had he come to the right court? the policeman asked. Bobby hurried headlong to Minton Street. Minton Street, too, it seemed, had never heard of Sargon. It did not occur to Bobby to ask in either police station. He retired baffled. He tried to find something about Sargon in the evening newspapers; there was not a line about the Rubicon or him. Perhaps he had not been charged! He hurried back and rushed upstairs full of a vain surmise; the room was desolate, the window open, the map of the world on the floor. Had Sargon been spirited out of existence?
Next day brought neither Sargon nor news of Sargon. Bobby lay awake of nights.
After three full days Billy, who had been watching his friend furtively, remarked in a casual manner: “Why don’t you go and see the Head Panjandrum at the Lemon Square Police Station about it? He’d be sure to know if anyone does.”
Shown in to Inspector Mullins, Bobby found himself confronted by the same good-looking officer he had seen in the entrance hall of the Rubicon Restaurant. “You’re the young man who didn’t happen to know anything about him, three nights ago,” said Inspector Mullins, not answering Bobby’s questions.
Bobby explained the situation candidly.
“Doesn’t help much now,” said the Inspector. “Still it’s all in order. We took him, in the exercise of our discretion, to the Workhouse Infirmary—for observation as to his mental state. Three clear days they keep them there. Then they’re either certified or let go. Or charged.”
“Certified?” asked Bobby.
“As a lunatic,” said Inspector Mullins.
“And what happened to him?”
“Usual thing, I suppose. He was a pretty clear case. By this time he’s a certified lunatic, I suppose, and either at Cummerdown Hill or on his way there. Or if that’s full—somewhere else.”
“Phew!” said Bobby. “Pretty quick.”
He sat disconcerted. “Can I go and see him at Cummerdown Hill?” he asked.
“Probably not,” said Inspector Mullins. “Seeing you’re not a relation.”
“I’m interested in him.”
“It isn’t your business.”
“Exactly. But I like him. And I don’t think he’s exactly mad.... Seems odd of his people—Do you know anything about his people? I might go and talk to them about him.”
“That’s possible,” said the Inspector. “I don’t know who they are. You might find out at the Workhouse Infirmary or they might tell you from Cummerdown. I don’t know. Very likely they don’t know who his relations are. There’s all sorts of such stragglers in the world. Possibly he hasn’t any relations—the sort of relations, I mean, who would want to bother about him. My impression is that once a man or woman is certified and put away it’s rather hard for an outsider to get through. But, as you say, you can but try. Sorry I can’t tell you any more. I never saw him myself at all—except as he went past me. Not my affair.... Yes, our usual procedure in such a case.... Oh! no trouble. Good morning.”
Left sitting squarely, an embodiment of implacable and indifferent law and rule.