The Spectacles of Mr. Cagliostro Read online

  “Well, Jerry, at midnight I learned that the young woman, while unconscious, is expected to live, for they have taken X-rays of her brain, and the bullet, while it fractured her skull, lodged only in the surface of the brain, where it can easily be extracted. If my alibi is broken, however — the janitor I since find is now not at all convinced that I was the man he saw run from the building — it means that I will be locked up without bail and held until she recovers sufficiently to testify that she shot herself. It is an ugly mess, Jerry, and particularly inopportune at this time when a dozen big deals in your father’s business demand my actual presence. Now what I have resolved to do is to ask you if you will simply hold back for a few days — that is, until she comes to consciousness — and refuse to answer any questions over there in the Psycopathic Detention Station or to make any statement that you are Jerry Middleton, for once the truth comes out that you are, this alibi of mine to the effect that I was with you in your rooms on Astor Street at 9 o’clock last night is smashed completely, and the fat’s in the fire for me.

  “Now, Jerry, I know you’re in a beastly sort of a mess and a beastly sort of a hole as well, and that all you have to do to get out is to call me in to identify you. But don’t do it, for God’s sake, Jerry! Stick by me for a few days. Play silent. And in that way save me from being locked up.

  “Now that’s what you can do for me. But what can I do for you? Well, for one thing, I’m not going to ask you to do all this for nothing. The Middleton Remedies, it may interest you to know, is placing two hundred and fifty thousand dollars per year in advertising in newspapers and magazines alone, exclusive of the signboard publicity. I have rooted up an advertising agency, who, to get this fat contract and the resultant 17 per cent. commission, are willing to technically employ you as advertising manager at a salary of $20,000 per year. I am violating the terms of my own employment with your father’s estate in doing this, but so long as you and I remain quiet, the emoluments are yours — and the world is not one whit the wiser. This is what I offer to you.

  “If your answer is yes, it will be an easy thing for me to arrange with a political friend to have the county court hold your case over for further observation next Monday when the cases come up for hearing, and in that way we can play around till we’re ready to spring the true facts.

  “Give the bearer, a trusted man of mine, this letter and your verbal answer to it. “FORTESCUE.”

  Middleton made no attempt to read the letter through twice. His single perusal of it was sufficient. He had digested its surprising contents from beginning to end. As to what answer he could give the unfortunate Fortescue, there was but one possible under the circumstances. Mentally, Middleton hastily totalled up the money he would make the first year by this sudden rainfall of riches that had tumbled upon him. Ten thousand dollars — five thousand dollars — twenty thousand dollars. Thirty-five thousand dollars in all. Thirty-five thousand dollars — almost as much as — Fortescue himself would earn.

  He handed back the letter to the Sicilian, who sat, still interpolating his Italian with an occasional phrase to the effect that: “You’ mamma would like to have you home, Angelo,” or “Say you remember you’ oncle.”

  He lowered his own voice. “Tell Fortescue the bargain’s made. I’ll keep mum. The answer is yes.”

  The Sicilian rose. He winked one eye as a sign that he understood, and then turned and went straight to the door of the room. He opened it out. “Good-bye, Angelo,” he said, looking back. “I am sorree you do not know you’ oncle, Gregorio.” Middleton followed him out. The Sicilian stopped at the door of the tiny office where Little Kelly held forth. “He do’ not remember me,” he said.

  Little Kelly laughed dryly and came out with his bunch of keys. “Well, it’s a lot of ‘em forgets a good deal — and sometimes it’s f’r their own good. Mebbe he ain’t y’r nephew, after all, if you ain’t seen him for five years. Good day.” And he let his visitor out.

  Little Kelly now clapped his hands. He gained an appreciable amount of attention in this way. “All right,” he called loudly. “We’ll all go out now and get a little air.” He led the way to the barred door at the right of the corridor which connected with the dining-room, and unlocking it revealed a short flight of steps with rounded edges that dropped into a tiny courtyard — an exceedingly tiny one — surrounded by a brick wall so high and so studded on the top with sharp pickets at that, that a troupe of trained Arabs could scarcely have scaled it. Only the blue sky was visible above it. With the exception of the Chinaman, who remained within, the men filed eagerly out into the fresh air and several began pacing up and down along the wall, where the dirt was worn to a smooth hard surface like a tennis-court.

  Middleton, too, filed out and, sitting down on a bench composed of a stout plank bolted to two wooden posts protruding from the ground, he gazed up at that sky which to-day seemed so attractive, and lost himself in reflection. The task he would have to do now to aid Fortescue would be an unpleasant one. He craved from the bottom of his being to show the asinine police, as well as that asinine doctor of a Wexney who had put him here, the egregious mistake they had made; and now Fortescue had made it necessary for him to postpone his triumph. But Fortescue had made it well worth his while, he had to admit.

  Only an hour were the prisoner-patients allowed out in the fresh air, and then like animals they were herded back into their prison. Middleton’s mind was quite made up as to his procedure when the doctor should come. And exactly one hour after the noon meal that individual did arrive. The door opened with considerable clanking of keys, and a little pompous man, with eyeglasses suspended on a silk cord and upper lip adorned with an embryonic moustache, accompanied by a big Amazonian nurse, came into the ward, closing the door tightly behind him. He took a cursory glance at the long row of patients, and then consulting a sheaf of papers in his hand, called out:

  “I say Kelly, where’s that new case?”

  CHAPTER XI

  “NOTHING TO SAY”

  KELLY stepped with alacrity from his office. He pointed at Middleton. “That’s him sittin’ there, Dr. Updegraff. Him with the bushes on his face.”

  “Hm.” The little doctor adjusted his eyeglasses and surveyed Middleton with a frank, cold, professional stare. He ruffled over his papers. Then, accompanied by the nurse, he crossed the space between them and spoke.

  “What is your name, fellow?”

  “I have nothing to say until I am properly represented,” responded Middleton, feeling the necessity of making some sort of an explanation for his dumbness.

  “Ah — nothing to say till he is represented!” The doctor made another notation. He looked Middleton over from head to foot, and made a few more notes. “Let me feel your pulse.” He took it with professional air. Then he turned back to Kelly, “Did he sleep last night, Kelly?”

  “Like a log,” said Kelly, “according to my brother’s record.”

  “Hm. Like a log.” Another note. “Bad sign for him, I’d say. No emotion whatever at being put in here.” He glowered at Middleton. “Anybody trying to poison you, my man?”

  Middleton laughed. “Not so I could notice it, doctor. The food isn’t the best.”

  Updegraff looked back. “Does he eat, Kelly?”

  “No,” pronounced Kelly. “Doesn’t touch his food.”

  “Hm. Doesn’t touch his food.” He made some more notes. “He’s suspicious of it, all right. I’ll put that down.” He glanced at Middleton once more. “Now once again, my man. You’re — eh — ” He squinted at the paper in his hand. “You’re Jerome H. Middleton, are you not?”

  “I haven’t said so,” retorted Middleton. “And I haven’t said not.”

  “Aha,” said Updegraff. “Everything all right, Kelly? Anybody sick?”

  “Everything all right,” replied Kelly. “McCarthy raised a rumpus this morning again. Got him strapped up now.”

  “Well, let him loose after he quiets down,” ordered the doctor coolly, with li
ttle regard, it seemed, for Kelly’s orbs and muscles. He turned to the nurse and pinched her cheek. “All right, sweet one, we’ll proceed upstairs now to the ladies’ ward,” and turning on his heel, without even so much as a backward glance, he departed from the ward; and the ordeal, if such it was, was over for Middleton.

  It seemed as though this afternoon was to have its monotony broken a number of times. For at three o’clock the door again opened, and closed behind two men. One was an official, evidently, of this place, for he wore no hat; but the other, hat in hand, was no other than Fortescue himself. Middleton was just about to jump from his seat and wring the other’s hand, but he remained where he was by a powerful effort, stifling the exclamation that rose to his lips, as he remembered Fortescue’s fragile story that would be broken instantly should his own identity be established just now.

  “That’s him sittin’ there,” declared Little Kelly. He pointed out the spot where Fortescue’s eyes were expected to rest.

  Fortescue stood with gloved hands half in pockets, surveying Middleton. To an outsider in the secret his face might have been considered impassive, but there was the faintest of faint smiles, the barest flicker of recognition in his eyes, that told only too plainly the message he was trying to flash; it read: “Help me out, Jerry. They’ve made me come over here to look at you. Help me out, old man.” And Middleton, too, remained impassive.

  “I think that will be about all,” said Fortescue. He nodded to the official who had accompanied him. Little Kelly let them both out. And Middleton felt suddenly alone and friendless again.

  He was still in this unhappy mood when the third interruption came. It was the same official once more, but this time he had in tow a young fellow with blonde hair and open frank face who stared with the greatest of embarrassment down at the cool and collected Jerry Middleton. The latter, after the first racking of his own brains, recognised the newcomer completely. It was the sleepy cigar clerk whom he had ordered to summon the police the night just gone. Evidently that case had not ended with his being placed in custody in this detention station. Like Fortescue, the cigar clerk regarded Middleton from head to foot, then turned to the man at his side. “Yes, it’s him,” he said. He seemed anxious to get out, and as the two men departed Middleton found himself grinning as he noted the alacrity with which people wished to leave the roomful of cracked brains — his own included!

  There were no more callers after that.

  There were no more sessions with the pompous little doctor. Indeed, the time that ensued from Friday to Sunday was the longest time that Middleton had ever experienced in his life. Each day he grew a little thinner, for his system missed the sun and wind and air that had been his from morning to night at Lake Winneback, and he could eat but little; yet each day the Chinaman became a little less thin; for he saw to it that that unfortunate individual received not only his own proper portions — but part of Middleton’s as well. Every afternoon at five o’clock Big Kelly came on duty, and every morning at five Little Kelly took his place. Eventually Stines began to get friendly once more with Middleton, and Sunday afternoon he dropped down on the bench as the latter called to him.

  “Stines, just when to-morrow do they ship these poor devils out of here?” He waved his hand along the long bench.

  “Most of ‘em goes out to-morrow afternoon,” said Stines authoritatively. “The hearin’s is held in the morning’. The court’s held in part o’ this same buildin’. You goes to it along a corridor leadin’ from this room, outside that there door.” He pointed to the oaken door through which outsiders always entered.

  “Well, I hope you get better than you get here,” declared Middleton. “I have to stay over. I’m being held for — for observation — for a while.” He smiled ironically.

  Stines looked at him. “Th’ hell you are. They cleans ‘em out every Monday.”

  Middleton turned to him. “You’ve been in these court hearings before. What is one like?”

  Stines shook his head. “Doe, I been sent to the insane asylum as a dope-head nine times, but never once have I heard a hearin’.”

  “Never heard a hearing!” ejaculated Middleton. “Why the law, man — all law, the world over, says that the accused has a hearing.”

  Stines shook his head gravely. “But we ain’t criminals, you know. We ain’t criminals. Criminals is entitled to a trial by jury. But we ain’t that. We’re nuts. An’ a nut is judged o’ny by what they calls his’ history’ — what he done outside that caused ‘im to be sent here. They discusses his case in a closed courtroom and weighs the facts. He’s brought in once merely to let the jury o’ croakers have a look at him, and that’s all. A nut never sees his own trial. Why, say — imagine what that bruiser of a Mac back there would do if they was tryin’ him? He’d bust up the court-room.”

  “Well, it’s strange law,” commented Middleton. “Doesn’t seem quite fair to me; but then, after all, I didn’t make the procedure. At any rate, I’m going to be held over and I suppose you’ll be leaving. How long do you expect to stay in the — er — insane asylum?”

  Stines shook his head. “They’ll leave me out as cured in about a year. Then I’ll fall back in again.”

  When Monday morning at last presented itself, it was with considerable interest that Middleton watched as each patient, shackled at the wrist by a stout leather wristlet to that of an iron-jawed bailiff who appeared for the first time in the scheme of things, was led out of the door and away in in response to a ‘phone call on Kelly’s busy wire. After four such incidents, he was considerably surprised when Kelly hung up after the fifth call and beckoned to him. “Doe, want you to step across the building with this gen’leman for just a minute. Then he’ll bring you right back. Hurry now. Make it snappy.”

  Evidently even to have his case held over it was necessary for him to be brought in in person. He stood patiently as Kelly locked his wrist to that of the two-hundred-pounder whom he was to accompany, and now, for the first moment in all these interminable æons of time, he found himself on the outside of that hateful door that had closed upon him the night of Pamela Martindale’s wedding. Accompanying the guiding tug at his wrist he proceeded across a foyer, past a broad stairway that led upstairs, and along a long wide corridor into which rooms opened at various intervals. At length he found himself being piloted into a room fitted up with high-backed, pew-like seats — a court-room, manifestly — at a raised desk in the middle of which sat a very judicial-looking, bald-headed man in a dark-coloured robe, a couple of clerks, a dozing policeman, and a jury box composed of about six men presenting a varied conglomeration of eye-glasses, spectacles, bat-wing collars and moustaches and beards of all descriptions; each a man of undoubted professional bearing. That they were doctors was likewise evident. The bailiff motioned Middleton to a seat down in front of the judge’s stand and sat down on a chair close by him. They remained shackled together.

  A tense silence prevailed in the room. The doctors stared curiously at him, and one — a man with a short, sharp beard — held his chin thoughtfully in his hand. This man spoke to the others.

  “With that terrific growth of beard removed from his face, I think you will see a more marked resemblance to Mr. Jerome Herbert Middleton than is now evident. And that, precisely, was my supposition.”

  A little man with shrewd blue eyes framed in gold-rimmed spectacles stroked a bifurcated blonde beard. “And you insist, Dr. Walraven,” he said with a slight German accent, “that the Von Zero psychosis enters into his case?”

  “No, I do not insist, Dr. Daubmeier,” said the man addressed, “but I hold to it as a possibility. I certainly would hesitate to accept Dr. Morster’s suggestion of acute alcoholism in the face of such similarity of brow and nose to that of J. H. Middleton. Indeed, his history shows that this similarity absolutely must have existed. Hence why the clipped newspaper pictures? And their positions?”

  This was hopelessly unintelligible to Middleton, and he pricked up his ears so as not to los
e a word of this interesting discussion. The blue-eyed, blonde-whiskered physician leaned out of the jury box and spoke.

  “What is your name, my friend?”

  Middleton looked up calmly. “I have nothing to say.”

  The first man looked to the others and nodded his head wearily. “It is as Dr. Updegraff reports.”

  An elderly patriarch with full beard broke in at this point. “Well, gentlemen, let us then compromise on the situation. I have not read Von Zero’s monograph, but Dr. Walraven has. So let us compromise. Is that sufficient?”

  Compromise! That significant word could only mean one thing: that he was to be held over for observation until an agreement could be reached. Truly, someone — perhaps one of these men on the jury itself — was juggling the wires a bit in a way to aid Fortescue. But Middleton still retained his stolid silence. One of the doctors handed a paper to the clerk, and the judge motioned to the bailiff. The latter arose, tugging at Middleton’s sleeve. The preliminary hearing was over. Guided by the ever-present pull at his wrist, Middleton was forced to step to the clerk’s desk with the bailiff, where the latter took the paper, which appeared to be now stamped with the seal of the court or county. That it was the hold-over order was evident. A moment later the swinging doors of the courtroom had closed behind them, and they were going back along the broad corridor that led to the detention ward. For the first time Middleton essayed a query.

  “What is the verdict of that group of wise medicos back there?” he asked, with a facetious inflection in his voice. “I am to be held over for a week, am I not?”

  “Held over?” grunted the bailiff, turning his grey-green eyes on his prisoner. “Held over? Hell, no, man. You’re committed to the Birkdale Hospital for the Insane.”

  “Committed!” Middleton almost gasped the word. “Committed,” he repeated dumbfoundedly, not believing his ears. “To — to an insane hospital?” He turned incredulous eyes on his guard. “The devil you say! Committed? Why — why — there wasn’t any hearing. I — I — committed? — what was the charge — verdict — whatever you call it?”