The White Room

by L. P. Davies

  “In a manner of speaking, the functions are much the same, a kind of halfway house between reality and unreality. Only in our White Room reality of one kind became changed into reality of another kind. Adrian Wolfax would enter. I would put him under hypnosis and give him the exit key for the particular episode. Axel Champlee would walk into the kitchen of Barkley House. He would remain Axel Champlee until the exit key was used. Then he would walk back through the kitchen, through the concealed door into the White Room, where I would turn him back into Adrian Wolfax. A simple, straightforward procedure.”

  “Until last Saturday evening,” Louise said bitterly.

  “Until last Saturday evening, Miss Salter.” Sibault replaced his glasses. “As luck would have it, the episode had called for only four players—Carla, Gregson, Hazel and Axel. The exit key was Carla speaking the line: ‘What are you going to do?’ The cameras cut, and she made her exit off-set through the concealed kitchen door, expecting, as we all did, that Axel would follow.

  “But he didn’t. It was the first time that he had rejected the exit phrase. I assumed that it was because he hadn’t heard the words clearly enough. So I sent Carla back on-set to ad-lib her way until she could repeat the phrase. Again he ignored it.

  “I couldn’t take the risk of having him taken to the White Room by force. Such a course of action might easily prove disastrous to Adrian’s mind. I was faced with a problem I had never encountered before. Axel had to be persuaded to return to the White Room of his own accord. I decided the only thing we could do would be to leave him for a while in the hope that the tenseness of the latter part of the episode would ease. Then we would try again.

  “We sent the studio staff home. The only people who remained, and so who knew what happened later, were the few of us in this room now. We were under the impression that Nolan had left with the others. We didn’t know he had decided to stay late, working on one of the Mews cameras that had been giving trouble.

  ‘The set was in darkness. To introduce our light would have broken into Axel’s reality. The door to the hall was blocked, because it hadn’t been used during that particular episode, not because we had any fears that Axel would try to get away. That thought never entered our heads. We assumed that the big outer gates had been closed by the staff before leaving. In the confusion, that nightly duty had been overlooked.

  “It was only by chance that Nolan saw Axel slip out of the house. He chased after him, not knowing whether it was Axel or Adrian. He saw him board a bus and then came back to tell us. We rang the bus terminal in Norwich. They called us back later to tell us that the conductor remembered Adrian Wolfax dismounting at Littledene Corner.

  “We sent Nolan after him because he was the only one we could use. He had only been with Mosaic for a few days, which meant that his face wouldn’t be known to Adrian. It so happened that he knew the village fairly well—”

  “A friend of mine used to live there,” Nolan said. “I guessed Mr. Wolfax would probably end up at the local pub, the Swan. I drove out there, hung about a while and finally spotted him through one of the windows. I tried to get a room there, but with no luck. I didn’t know what to do for the best—Dr. Sibault had told me not to let him out of my sight. I tried to get a bed in one of the cottages but with no luck. Except that one of the women happened to mention there was a Miss Salter staying at the Swan.

  “I spent the night in my car, tucked away in a road that led to a farm. I woke up late, just in time to see you go past, miss. I recognized your car from having seen it outside the Swan. I couldn’t see if Mr. Wolfax was with you, so I followed, just to be on the safe side.”

  “Also an excuse to get back to civilization,” Sibault said drily. “At least he was able to put us in the picture. Axel was staying at a pub where the only other guest was a certain Miss Salter—a name that rang a bell with me.

  “Our main problem now was not so much to get Axel back into the studio without any fuss or bother, as to keep him away from people in general. One wrong word and his fictional life might collapse. There was no way of knowing how his unreality would stand up against the intrusion of reality. We were working in the dark. And we were hampered by having to keep the knowledge of what had happened to ourselves. We could turn to no one for help.

  “Until I remembered Nolan telling me that according to his village informant, you, Miss Salter, were a stranger to our shores, had only been in the country a few days and that you had come from a place called St. Anatole. It was then I realised who you must be. I had corresponded with your uncle in the past. I remembered his once telling me that one day he intended visiting Norwich to spend some time with the pharmaceutical from whom he had been obtaining his drugs. I managed to contact the firm in question—”

  “And checked up on me,” Louise inserted.

  “Was I that obvious?” Sibault shook his head. “At least I learned quite a lot about you—that you were a sensible young woman, that you could be trusted not to lose your head in an emergency and that sooner or later you would be moving on to a house called Green Ladies.

  “My idea then was to have Nolan contact you unobtrusively, put you in the picture and ask you to try to persuade Axel to return to the studios. But Coxby had doubts about your ability to act the part you would have to play. He was right—we couldn’t afford to have you make one false move, one small slip of the tongue.

  “So we dithered along, watching and waiting. We anticipated the possibility that you might move to Green Ladies as originally planned, and that you might take Axel with you. So Nolan was told to find a way into the house and remove anything that might tend to clash with Axel’s reality.

  “We knew, because it was inevitable, that your world and his must have clashed. But we felt certain he would be capable of resisting purely word-of-mouth intrusion. Our idea was to remove anything that might prove you were right. You could say that we tried to make you part of his world. We realised, of course, that we could never hope to succeed. All we were doing was playing for time.”

  “Mr. Nolan overlooked one thing,” Louise said. “An AA Handbook with this year’s date on the cover.”

  “How did he react to that?” Sibault asked with great interest.

  “Does it make any difference now?”

  “No.” He shook his head. “The same situation is never likely to arise again. All the same—”

  “Professional interest,” the girl said bitterly. “Or should it be clinical interest? I can’t help you very much. I could never tell where I stood, one minute to the next, with Axel. He swung back and to from my world to his. He was ready to accept that he had been brain-washed, and yet at the same time he refused to abandon what I knew had to be a false personality. He knew, because we had been to Bridford, that Barkley House didn’t exist—”

  “We should have left the gates open, Julius,” Coxby said.

  “They’re always closed on Sunday,” Sibault retorted. “Any change in routine might have attracted attention. Go on, Miss Salter.”

  “He saw for himself that the house wasn’t there, yet he talked about it as if it were. Each time, just as it seemed I was on the point of breaking through to him, something would happen to cut the ground from under my feet. When I tried to phone Barkley House, feeling so certain that the operator would tell me there was no such place listed, the exchange put me through—”

  “They would,” Moses Coxby said. “To our Santa Claus answering service. Another of Adrian’s names. When children write to Santa Claus, the post office always replies. We use a recorded reply to deal with the vast number of calls we get from viewers who like to boast to their friends that they’ve actually spoken to someone in Barkley House.”

  “Coxby and I had a long discussion on the Monday morning,” Sibault said. “You were the main subject under discussion, Miss Salter. Should we or not take the risk of taking you into our confidence? My main concern was for my patient’s direct well-being. Coxby’s concern was for the programme—the next epis
ode of ‘Midas’—due to go out on the Wednesday evening.”

  “I was only concerned because of what ‘Midas’ going out without Axel Champlee, or not at all, might mean,” Coxby put in with some resentment. “I was just as concerned about Adrian as you, but for a different reason.”

  Sibault gave him a warning look. “Nolan’s visit to Axel was his own idea,” he went on quickly. “He saw you leave the house, Miss Salter, so went to try to persuade Axel to return to the studios. He rang us later to tell us he hoped to pick him up and deliver him to the studios some time after ten, when it would be dark and there wouldn’t be any of the usual sightseers knocking about.

  “We opened the gates ready. At eleven Nolan rang to say Axel hadn’t shown up. So—”

  “So you decided to come to Green Ladies in force,” Louise said.

  “We took ‘Midas’ to him in the shape of Carla, Gregson and Nolan.”

  “And if I had burst in on the little scene?”

  “We took precautions against that, Miss Salter,” Sibault told her. “If we had disturbed you, I was waiting ready to explain what was happening.”

  “And then?”

  “We waited to see if the joint attempts at persuasion had had any effect. When it became obvious the visit had been in vain, we were left with only one thing we could do. It was too late now to enlist your co-operation. Axel had accepted ‘Midas’ in Green Ladies once, he would accept it again. Only this time we would have the means of putting him to sleep so that we could bring him back here.

  “As it turned out, there was no need for the hypodermic Carla had ready, nor the sequence of events, carefully rehearsed, leading up to the point where she was to lean over him while she used it without his knowledge. We waited for darkness. The french window stood open. Axel lay unconscious in the hall. We brought him back here, changed his clothes and laid him on his bed on the set. When he woke we set in motion an episode which had been prepared to do two things: firstly, make him think that the events of the past few days had been only a dream; secondly, lead gently, without tension, to the point where Carla could use the exit phrase.”

  “Did it work?” Louise asked eagerly.

  “It worked,” Sibault said heavily. “But not in the way we envisaged. Adrian Wolfax is himself again, sleeping now, alive and well. But Axel Champlee, instead of walking off the set after hearing the exit phrase, went into the study and shot himself.”

  “I don’t understand,” she said.

  “Neither do we, Miss Salter. The gun, of course, was loaded with stage blanks that contain only a very small charge of powder. It was intended to be used in the next episode, where Axel shoots Kendall. Why he should have used it against himself, we have no idea.”

  “And that’s all?” she said slowly.

  “As I said, he is sleeping now. When he wakes you will be able to make the acquaintance of Adrian Wolfax. You will find it a strange experience. He won’t recognise you—you must prepare yourself to meet a stranger. The man you knew is dead. Adrian will be able to portray the role again, but he will never be able to assume it under hypnosis, never be able to bring it to life in that sense of the word. The explanation is simple. Axel Champlee knows that Axel Champlee is dead.”

  “I see,” Louise looked round the circle of faces. “So it’s all over.”

  “I’m afraid I have spoken at great length,” Sibault said ponderously. “I have tried to give you the complete story in every detail, touching upon all those points where it has directly affected you. If I hadn’t”—he spread his hands— “you would have had the trouble of asking questions. Yes, Miss Salter, it is all over now.”

  “And you are still all here. He is asleep in there, you can’t do anything more, but you are still here.”

  There was a brief uncomfortable silence. Then:

  “Reaction,” Sibault said blandly. “Relief, Miss Salter. When something long troublesome is over and done with, one’s first and immediate reaction is to sit down with a sigh of relief and let the world drift by for a time.”

  “No,” the girl said. “That’s not it. There’s something else. Some of you are actors—you can hide your feelings. But I don’t need to look at the faces of those that aren’t to know you haven’t told me everything.”

  “My dear young lady—” Sibault started, and was interrupted at the onset of what was obviously going to be a speech of reassurance by the silver-haired Greta Carson.

  “She may have got to know him better than we do, Julius,” she said slowly. “Something could have seeped through-some small thing that might help. He may even have fallen in love with her. I think she is in love with him.” She looked up unsmilingly at Louise. “Are you, Miss Salter?”

  “I don’t know,” Louise said. “I hadn’t thought about it. Maybe I am. I don’t know. But that doesn’t matter now. You—” She turned back to Sibault. “You say you’ve told me everything. But you haven’t—there’s a great deal you’ve missed out.”

  The psychiatrist’s puzzlement seemed genuine.

  “I do assure you, Miss Salter, that I have told you of everything that happened. Mr. Coxby will bear me out. So will the others.” He took off his glasses again. “But you say that there is a great deal I have missed out—”

  “A great deal,” she told him. “But that can wait. Let’s talk about one of the things you have told me. Only the few people here now knew what was happening. Why?”

  He frowned. “I fail to understand the question.”

  “Why all the secrecy? Why tackle it on your own, without asking for help? If you had brought the police in, they could have saved you all the worry and trouble. They could have put a cordon round Green Ladies, to make sure there were no leakages from the outside. The public as a whole would have been only too willing to help. The whole country could have become an episode from ‘Midas.’ But instead, you risked his sanity by hiding in shadows and crawling about in darkness.”

  “The publicity—” Coxby said with little conviction.

  “Publicity!” She swung on him furiously. “After what you’ve told me about the setup here? People like you thrive on publicity! And asking the country to help Axel Champlee would have been the best publicity you could ever have got!”

  “You are put in your place, Moses.” Greta Carson came to her feet. “I think she ought to be told, Julius. After all she must have gone through, she has the right to know. She can be trusted—I feel sure of that. She may even be able to help.”

  Sibault looked doubtfully, unhappily at Coxby. “Moses?”

  “I think so.” The squat-featured producer nodded slowly. “Greta could be right: he may have let out something that could give us a lead. There must have been those times when his real self wasn’t far from breaking through. You will know better than I about that. Even if it’s only a remote chance—” His small shrug was expressive.

  “Very well.” Sibault took his time over replacing his spectacles, making sure they sat evenly on his broad, almost bulbous nose.

  “It is very simple, Miss Salter. There has to be a reason why Axel twice rejected the key phrase. As a psychiatrist I can think of only two reasons for that rejection. One we can discount immediately. And the other…

  “Axel rejected the key because there was no door left for it to open. The two personalities had become blended into the one. And that could only have happened because the events of his fictional existence had come to match exactly the events of his real one. His mind was unable to differentiate one from the other. No boundary, so no door. And in his fictional life as Axel Champlee he had just come to realise it was inevitable he was to become a murderer. So the same realisation must have been in his real life.

  “Adrian Wolfax, Miss Salter, has made plans to kill someone.”

  14

  “Would you like to sit down?” the silver-haired, blue-gowned Greta Carson asked gently, sympathetically.

  Louise shook her head. “I’m all right.” Her voice was steady enough.

&nb
sp; “Now you know why we couldn’t ask for help,” Sibault said. “With police and public assistance, yes—we would have been able to get Adrian back quickly and safely. But publicity would have been unavoidable. There would have been questions asked. Why did Axel Champlee reject the key phrase? And sooner or later someone, not necessarily a psychiatrist, would have come up with the answer.”

  “I can see that now,” Louise said.

  “We have pried, unintentionally, into a man’s mind, Miss Salter. I am truly sorry that I have had to be the one to tell you what we found there. It is obvious that Greta is right —you had come to have a feeling of affection for Axel Champlee. Or did you penetrate through the false character to the real one underneath? Axel is a selfish, arrogant man, Miss Salter. Don’t blame Adrian for that—blame the writer who created the character. It is strange, when one comes to think-”

  “I’ve spent most of my life working with a doctor,” Louise said. “I’ve learned some of the tricks of the trade, Dr. Sibault. There is no need for you to talk just in order to give me time to pull myself together. Thanks for the thought just the same.”

  “A psychologist.” He smiled briefly, teeth tombstone large, saffron yellow. “Oddly, that wasn’t what I had in mind. You are taking it much better than I envisaged.”

  “I think,” she said slowly, “because I had already guessed there was something like this in the wind.”

  “Already guessed?” He lifted startled grey brows. Then his expression changed. “Because of something he told you? I think we had better hear what that something was, Miss Salter.”

  “Not anything Axel said.” She qualified that. “At least, not in the way you mean. I have the feeling”—she looked round the room—“that something has been going on that you don’t know about.”

  Sibault stared at her through narrowed eyes.