On this floor men of many descriptions stood around, all fully dressed, some in raiment of the most up-to-date fashion — evidently those who had relatives or friends on the outside — while others wore the stiff, uncouth, prison-made garments and unironed shirts that Middleton himself wore. Some paced up and down and some stood with backs to the walls, hands clasped behind them, watching the entrance of the newcomers. At the centre of the long lane which comprised the bigger area of the ward was a great room which bellied out and broke the continuity of the door-studded thoroughfare. Here were two great tables containing newspapers and a few tattered magazines: a great superfluity of heavy rocking chairs and benches, all of which were occupied by lolling figures, and two smaller circular tables around both of which a group of four men, absorbed each in a game of some sort, slapped playing cards rapidly down in quick succession. Altogether, although the ivy-covered bars gave a prison-like aspect to the place, the interior, could one get away from the intense quiet and the twittering of birds, seemed like a fantastic clubroom of some kind.
With Middleton’s introduction to the chief attendant, who was introduced formally to him by Howard Hyde as Joe Blake, a broad-shouldered fellow whose eyes took in every detail of his person, Hyde touched him on the shoulder.
“And now you must meet some of the boys,” he said simply.
The sound of a fiddle emanating from the dormitory at their side caused Middleton’s conductor to turn his head that way; then he motioned his guest in that direction with polite courtliness. Curiously Jerry Middleton stepped within. Inside the big room with its twenty iron beds stood a man playing sad, weird strains that soughed and sighed their way to the very bottom of one’s heart. Very strangely, hanging by the string from the end of his fiddle, was an empty bottle; and it seemed at times as though he played to the bottle — then again as though he ignored the bottle. He looked up as the two stepped in.
“Sam,” said Hyde, “meet Mr. Doe. Jonathan, this is Mr. Glasstein.”
Middleton shook hands gingerly. The Jew appeared to be highly interested.
“I am glat to meed you,” he said. “Alvays glat to see a new face.” His own face grew suddenly sad as though with the sadness of his race. “Id gets monotonous here on dees vard — de same faces, de same beobles.” He thumbed his fiddle. “You like mooseec, eh, Meester Doe?”
“Yes, indeed,” averred Middleton. Sam Glasstein appeared to be a friendly sort of a chap. He pointed to the bottle. “Just what is the bottle for, if I may ask? Does it improve the tone?”
And then he saw come into the other’s eyes a peculiar glassy stare which he was to find more than frequently in the days to follow. “Nein, nein. De bottle mage de tone vorser, if bossible. But I must haf him dere. Dem fools back dere in de vard dey chust laf and laf — but they don’t know vat dey iss laffing aboud. De evil tones — dey turns into spirits and dey makes de mischief. I bottle em up each night. But you chust bet I don’t liberates dem. I — I drowns dem.”
“Most interesting,” was the only comment Middleton found himself able to make.
Well, Sam,” Hyde said hurriedly, “we’ll see you again. I want to take Jonathan around before lunch.”
“Glad to have meed you,” said Sam Glasstein. And he turned to his fiddle once more as Middleton withdrew, following on Hyde’s heels. On the outside of the dormitory, the latter spoke quietly. “I should perhaps have first told you, Jonathan, sub rosa about Sam’s peculiar ideas, as we call them up here. Sam was a tile layer, but he got that curious conception about the evil tones and was sent here. Considering that one of the world’s famous military generals once said that a battle would be surely lost if the men were sent into it to the strain of music played in a minor key, perhaps Sam isn’t a thousand miles away from some peculiar psychological truth or other.” He paused. “But there you are, anyway, Jonathan. It’s all right in his case just to ask him about his bottle and so forth — best old fellow in the world — but some of the other boys are a little touchy upon their particular ‘bug,’ as we term it up here. Now, old man, I don’t know what you’re here for, but if I accidentally tread on something, just overlook it, won’t you?” He waited till he got Jerry Middleton’s nod, then led the way down the hall, still speaking. “We endeavour to maintain, you know, in this ward, a sort of esprit de famille, to coin a French phrase to fit my meaning, and — ” He stopped. A huge, stupid-looking Slav was hunched against the wall, gazing feverishly across the ward, then hopefully up and down it. He was perhaps fifty years of age. He made a step or two out from the wall, and then shrank back. Then, suddenly, he began to sidle along the wall to the left. “Help you across, Dmitri?” said Hyde cheerfully.
“T’anks, Hyde. I like to get across to de washroom, but I not like to walk clear around.”
Hyde took him firmly by the arm. The Slav crouched as does a man preparing to make a long spring. Urged by his own muscles, and guided by the younger man’s steadying arm, he vaulted in two giant steps lightly across the entire width of the ward and with a sigh of relief gained the opposite wall which he hugged tightly. Hyde laughed, and with a farewell flip of his hand to the Slav, walked on. A second later he had joined Middleton who had looked back on this performance in amazement.
“That’s Dmitri Brusiloff,” he explained simply. “A Polish track labourer in his time. He is to-day an agoraphobiac — or one who is deadly afraid of any open space. When he first came he would vault across by himself; to-day we have to help him; five years more and I daresay he won’t even venture across with help.” He shook his head. “I want you to meet Pop Claggett,” he said, dismissing the subject. “One of the best old fellows in the ward here. Prosperous farmer once, but quit farming to write a book. He’s created a work called Universal Philosophy, explaining gravity, religion, the sun not being the centre of the solar system, the stars, and tearing up in general all the known laws of physics and astronomy. They say he’s been argued with and his philosophies literally ripped to shreds, but he can’t see but that he’s absolutely right. His people had to send him here finally because he wouldn’t even work any more. His farm went to rack and ruin and weeds.”
He pushed open the door of one of the tiny rooms. At a window from which the sunshine fell, broken into sinister black shadows of the shape of the bars upon it, sat a well-built, elderly man who turned watery eyes on his visitors. A small table at which he sat was covered with charts and a globe, and a blackboard on one wall, together with a piece of chalk, an eraser, a handful of sharpened pencils and many sheets of paper, showed plainly that Pop Claggett was not one who wasted his time in card playing.
“Pop, meet Mr. Doe, a new member of our fraternity up here. Jonathan, Mr. Claggett.”
Pop rose. His voice was a rumbling one. “Glad to meet you, young feller. Wisht I could ast yer to sit down — but they ain’t no more cheers in this ‘ere room. They done give me this little table, but it took me a hull year astin’ for it. Cain’t do no studyin’ outside, you see, with all them there ignoramymusses wanderin’ around and jest a-wastin’ of they time a-playin’ kyards.”
“No, I would think not,” averred Middleton politely. “You are — er — engaged — in some scientific work?”
“Young man,” said Pop Claggett sternly, “be you a college man?”
Middleton nodded.
“Then, young man, I’m a-goin’ to talk to you one of these here days and when I get done you’ll just natcherly wish you hain’t never wasted yo’ time in none of them there colleges. They done taught ye the world was round, didn’t they?”
Middleton nodded.
“Well, they didn’t know nothin’ about it.” Pop Claggett paused indignantly. “And they taught ye that gravity pulled things downward, didn’t they?”
Middleton nodded again.
Ha!” Pop Claggett broke into a sardonic laugh. “Didn’t come out and tell ye things fell upward like they really does, eh? Durn ‘em — sometimes I think they be tryin’ to keep th’ truth back from peo
ple.” He shook his head. “But, no, I reckon not; they be just lost in their own ignorance. Just lost — wandering around in the darkness.” He looked Middleton over very shrewdly. “Young man — I want to have a talk with ye one of these days. I want to tell ye some truths. Maybe you can’t make nothin’ out of ‘em — but bein’ a college man maybe you can. Someday mebbe you’ll be gettin’ out o’ here — and I want you to scatter the philosophy” — he spread his arms wide like a great vulture of some sort — ” to scatter th’ truths of Universal Philosophy — Alexander Samuel Claggett’s Great Truth-Work about this here universe.”
But Hyde hastily cleared his throat. “Well, Pop, I’m afraid we’re disturbing the progress of the book. We’ll drop in on you again.”
“Do so, young fellers,” said Pop. “Always glad to talk to intelligent folks like ye be.” And he settled his old frame back into his chair again.
“He has a startling series of truths here and there,” said Hyde, back on the outside, “but hopelessly jumbled up. Reads every Chicago newspaper published — his relatives subscribe to them for him — and he knows everything that goes on in the outside world of science. Always raises a row at the end of the month when the attendants insist on clearing out his precious stack of papers from under his bed.” He paused. “I try to follow his theories — but I always seem to get lost. Perhaps you’ll have better luck.” He turned to Middleton.
“It is the land of fantasy, my boy,” he said quietly, “the land of fantasy. But always remember that every man in this place is a human being like you and me — each and every inmate is one who at some time or other has suffered and hated and loved. It is a land of lost souls, and not one but feels that he is in a prison — with a life sentence. No matter what a man’s delusion is, Jonathan, he is human after all. And I always treat each and every one with the utmost consideration — I remember these things. And so will you, I know.”
“You are an exceptional person, Howard Hyde,” returned Middleton impulsively. And with that same rash impulsiveness he added: “And I think that your being here is due to something other than the reason the rest of us have for being here.”
“Perhaps,” said Hyde sadly. “Perhaps. The insane asylum is used sometimes to help out those who are perhaps not entitled to its protection.” And a great depression dropped over him like an invisible mantle. And Jerry Middleton, half nodding his head, made to himself one significant comment: “Convicted of some crime, innocent or guilty, and got in here by American politics. I’ll wager a British half-sov. But what a chap — what an all-round, splendid chap he is.”
He spoke aloud. “Who is Stribling Keane?”
“Stribling Keane?” said Hyde, brightening up. “Yes, Stribling Keane. Well, Keane is — or was — an actor. He was cast, it seems, in a production to play Napoleon, and being of the wrong stature endeavoured to make up for his deficiencies by the part itself. In fact, he so studied upon the life and habits and character and personality of the Little Corporal that something within him snapped — and he became Napoleon himself. His case is a rare one to be found in the ward of an asylum, because nowadays his current type of disorder presents generally only the figures of current prominence. He is a fine fellow, though — actor type of course — and an excellent card player.”
“He is — what you call a paranoiac?” asked Middleton tensely. Here was a genuine case of that which he himself was supposed to present.
Hyde nodded. “Yes, a paranoiac. But a fine fellow, Jonathan, a fine fellow. Don’t mistake me. Get him to tell you sometime about his campaigns. Lord, man, but it’s thrilling. To all intents and purposes he’s been right over the ground at Moscow. But he doesn’t want to talk unless you draw him out.” He paused. “Now another corking good fellow is William Phelps. Phelps is — or was — a young broker. Phelps, it seems, was in a bad run of luck on the Board of Trade some years back, and being pushed to the wall without a chance to get sleep; of course he probably had a bad nervous foundation with which to endure all this. At any rate, his pet cat wandered away one night. And then something snapped. He got it into his head — God knows how or why — that the cat had gone into his stomach. Every morning and every night he began taking a certain amount of milk to feed the feline. Then he began to consult doctors to see if he could be operated on and the cat coaxed out. That, of course, meant the end of his liberty. He was put in here. Well, the doctors downstairs tried a radical experiment in the attempt to cure him. They gave him an emetic and while he was deathly sick and almost blind from the drug, they pretended he had vomited up a cat. As soon as he was able to sit up and take notice, they produced the cat.”
Middleton, with eyes open wide, drank in this strange story. “And why — why didn’t it work?”
“They didn’t take the pains to secure a cat exactly like the one he had which wandered away. That experiment, roughly conducted as it was, might have worked on an ignorant man like — say — Brusiloff, that poor track labourer. But not on an intelligent man like Phelps.” By this time, walking along side by side, they had traversed a considerable length of the ward, and now they stood in that wide portion where it bellied out into a huge windowed room. Four men sat rapt about a table at their right. One of them was saying: “Play your ace, Keane. Play your ace! You’ve got him. You’ve got him in a trap like they got you in at Waterloo.”
“Then he’s done for,” said the man across from the speaker, with a cheerful laugh. “For they laid me low enough at Waterloo, God knows.” And he slapped down a big ace. “The trick is ours, Phelps.” A third man commenced gathering up the cards.
“Gentlemen,” said Hyde, taking Middleton by the hand, “I want you to meet a newcomer among us. This is Mr. Doe — Mr. Jonathan Doe. Mr. Doe I personally vouch for as a man who has not only seen our little world as far as the Antipodes, but who has also seen the inside of a university. I think we may as well accept him at once into our little circle.”
Instantly four chairs were shoved back and four men stood up with smiling faces of greeting. “Mr. Keane to your left, Jonathan,” said Hyde. “Mr. Stribling Keane.”
CHAPTER XVIII
POEMS
WITH considerable interest Jerry Middleton surveyed the ex-actor as he shook hands with him. And well he might, considering that he stood face to face with an indisputable case of paranoia. He was dressed in a splendid suit with a white vest, stiffly ironed, and he was the finished man of the world as he bowed in acknowledgment of the introduction. But Middleton noted that he placed his hand partially beneath the buttoned edge of his coat as he did so, either consciously or unconsciously taking the attitude of the Little Corporal, big in stature as he really was.
“I am very pleased to meet you, Mr. Doe,” he said in a booming, melodious voice, the kind that carries far out over the footlights, with every syllable correctly enunciated to the last bit of scientific inhalation and exhalation. “Meet Mr. Phelps, Mr. Doe. Mr. Doe, Mr. Phelps.”
So this was the man who fatuously believed that a cat was in him and must be fed? Jerry Middleton turned a curious gaze upon this individual. Yet he might have been looking at any business man.
“Awfully glad to make your acquaintance, Doe,” Phelps was saying. “Play whist, do you? No? How about six hundred? Well, you’ll have to learn, my boy. We’ll skin you alive.”
“Indeed yes,” put in Stribling Keane kindly. “You must learn a game, Mr. Doe. I take it you’ve seen South Africa or Australia, from something which Howard here just let drop? Well, perhaps you can introduce something to us in the card playing line. We’re always open for a change. But if not, I’ll teach you myself.”
“If you don’t learn a round game of some sort in this place.” interpolated Phelps, “why” — he waved a hand back of him — ” why there’s your fate, eh what, gentlemen?”
Middleton gazed in the direction which Phelps’s hand had taken. And as he gazed he saw that every window-sill of this many windowed room was occupied by a man, chair drawn up in front of
it, and on it a game of solitaire going full blast. Short men and tall men, men who looked occasionally around in the middle of their game, and men who never moved their peculiarly-shaped skulls, so rapt were they, played and moved, shifted and lifted cards in the endless wheel of solitaire. Truly, this was a grim way to end one’s life. But Phelps was speaking again. “You haven’t met these other boys though, have you, Mr. Doe? Charlie Wall at my left; Mr. Sydney Spencer at Charlie’s left.”
“Glad to meet you, Doe,” said both the younger and the older man in turn, informally omitting the “Mr.” They stood a moment, and then Phelps, noting the cards as they lay, glanced at a big clock ticking away on the wall. “Well — just about time to play this hand out before the dinner bell rings. Let’s go, boys. Come get in the game to-day, Doe. Glad to teach you.” And with a nod of invitation all round they all four settled back in their chairs and were once more at their game.
Forth from this much populated region of the ward to where it again narrowed into merely a door-studded broad hall-way Middleton followed Hyde in silence. When completely out of hearing distance of those whom he had just met he spoke, “I daresay I shouldn’t ask so many questions,” he said, “but — this young fellow Wall — and the old man with the big round eye-glasses. What — ”
“Well,” was Hyde’s response, anticipating the rest of the question. “Charlie Wall was a Chicago bank clerk with a penchant for writing poems. His poems began to get a little peculiar — editors in New York began to talk — letters of inquiry began to come to editors in Chicago — Chicago editors began to look him up — and finally he wound up here. He’s erratic — hot-tempered, too — somewhat irrational — but a sound card player and they like him very much in a foursome.”
The Spectacles of Mr. Cagliostro Page 18