Chapter the Second — How Bobby Stole a Lunatic
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A man may be a mental expert and yet fail to take the most obvious hints in a detective investigation. The medical superintendent at Cummerdown Hill had doubted for a moment whether Widgery was the name of Sargon’s visitor. He had thought it was more like Goodchild. But since there was no known Goodchild in the world of Christina Alberta, neither she nor Devizes had troubled to scrutinize this momentary uncertainty. Nor had she and Devizes asked themselves why Widgery should have made a second visit to his cousin. Indeed, he had not done so. It was a much younger man who had visited Sargon that Tuesday; he had falsely represented himself as Sargon’s nephew and given the name of “Robin Goodchild.” His real name was Robert Roothing, and he had come for the sole purpose of getting Sargon out of the asylum as soon as possible, because he could not endure the thought of his staying there.
Circumstances had conspired with a natural predisposition to give Bobby a great horror of all restraint. His mother, a gentle dark creature, the wife of a large blond negligent landowner, had died when Bobby was twelve; and he had been entrusted to the care of a harsh, old-fashioned aunt—to whom the cupboard seemed a proper place for discipline. When she discovered that he was really distressed by it, she sought to break his “cowardice” by giving him quite liberal doses of it—even when he had committed no offence. He went to a school where discipline was maintained by “keeping-in.” The war eliminated his father, who died suddenly of over-excitement while in command of an anti-aircraft gun during an air-raid, and it led Bobby through some tiresome campaigning in Mesopotamia and the beleaguerment of Kut to an extremely unsympathetic Turkish prison. In any case he would probably have been a free-going easy creature, but now he had so passionate a hatred of cages that he wanted to release even canaries. He disliked the iron fences round the public parks and squares with a propagandist passion, he wrote articles about them in Wilkins’ Weekly and elsewhere clamouring for their “liberation,” and he never went by train if he could help it because of the claustrophobia that assailed him in the compartment. He would ride a push-bike except for long distances, and then he would borrow Billy’s motor bicycle. He did his best to prevent his craving for the large and open from becoming too conspicuous or a nuisance to other people, but Tessy and Billy understood about it and did their best to make things easy for him.
It was not only claustrophobia that Bobby had to fight against. He carried on a secret internal conflict with a disinclination to act upon most occasions, that he believed had developed in him as a result of war experiences. Sometimes it seemed to him to be just indolence, sometimes fastidiousness, sometimes sheer funk and cowardice. He could not tell. He had a rankling memory of a case of cruelty he had witnessed in the prisoners’ camp when he had stood by and done nothing. He would wake up sometimes at three o’clock in the morning and say to himself aloud, “I stood by and I did nothing. Oh God! Oh God! Oh God!” And at times he would walk up and down his study repeating: “Act! You vegetable! you hiding cur! Out and act!” Meanwhile he obeyed routines and did whatever came to his hand. As “Aunt Suzannah” he was excellent, indefatigably considerate, lucid, really helpful. Wilkins’ Weekly was proud of him. He was the backbone of the paper.
And now this affair of Sargon’s had twisted him up very badly between his desire to free the little man, who had taken an extraordinary hold upon his imagination and sympathy, and his sense of the immense forces against which he would have to pit himself if he tried to give him any help. It was only after a considerable struggle with himself that he had called at the police station and the Gifford Street Workhouse. He was afraid of awkward questions, afraid above all of being “detained.” The workhouse was a detestable place with high walls and a paved court and a general effect of sinister seclusion from the grubby street outside. For the best part of a day after his Gifford Street visit he hesitated whether he should do anything more.
“Bobby’s got a grouch,” Susan told Tessy. “He’s stoopid. Just sits and says ’E ’as to fink sumpfink over. What’s he fink fings over for? Said I was to come downstairs again, there was a good girl.... Meant it.... Said so.... Puss’d me ’way.... I do-o-n’t fink I lo-o-o-ove Bobby ’nymore.”
Great distress. A storm of tears. Tessy was deeply sympathetic.
But after tea Bobby was brighter and drew Susan her “Good night picture” and came down and sat on her bed and talked her to sleep the same as usual, and Tessy perceived that the worst of Bobby’s trouble was over.
At supper Bobby unfolded his plans.
“I mean to go to Cummerdown Hill to-morrow,” he said compactly.
“To see Sargon?” said Tessy understandingly.
“If I can. But it won’t be visiting day. That’s Tuesday. I want to look round.”
Billy raised his eyebrows and helped himself to butter.
“But—” said Tessy, and stopped short.
“Yes?” said Bobby.
“You won’t be able to see him. You don’t know the name he’s under.”
“They’ll call him Mr. Sargon,” said Billy.
“His name’s Preemby. He’s a laundryman. They told me at the workhouse. His people want him to be there!”
“I can’t stand the thought of it,” said Bobby after a brief silence.
“Don’t follow,” said Billy.
“That nice little thing being made into a lunatic. Like a little blue-eyed bird he was. High walls. Great louting warders. Sargon, King of Kings.... I’ve got to do something about it or I shall burst.”
He looked at once weak and desperate. Tessy reflected. “You’d better go,” she said.
“But what good will that do?” said Billy, and was quelled by a glance from Tessy.
“If you can lend me the old motor bike and the side-car. You’re not using it this week-end.”
“You can take off the side-car,” said Billy.
“I may want it,” said Bobby.
“You don’t mean—!” said Billy.
Bobby came as near to an explosion as he ever did.
“Oh never mind what I mean. I tell you I’m going down to Cummerdown to have a look at the place. No doubt I’m a futile ass, Billy, but I just can’t help myself going. The poor little beggar’s got no friends. His own family’s helped to put him away. Families do. It’s an infernal world. I’ve got to do something. If it’s only to shake ’em up. If I stay here another day I shall start smacking Susan.”
“Somebody ought to,” said Billy.
“If he can only keep away for fourteen days clear——”
“He’s free?” said Tessy.
“He has to be certified all over again—anyhow,” said Bobby.