The Spectacles of Mr. Cagliostro Read online

  “Come, come,” soothed Stonecipher. “Of course we’ll talk it over. Every bit of it. But, my dear fellow, I have to make a routine psychiatrical examination of you. You know you couldn’t leave here even if you wanted to until every factor, physical and mental, of your case is entered up. Now you’re an intelligent man, as I can tell from your words. So won’t you just be patient for a little while until I book down all the usual data?”

  Middleton sighed. These were decent words, at least; man to man words. He sat down, crossed his legs, and in something of a reserved silence gave himself up to the other’s wishes.

  “Proceed,” he said grimly.

  The examination through which he forthwith went was a bizarre one, to say the least, if not altogether understandable. The doctor first waved a podgy hand toward a large white. enamelled scale which stood in one corner. “Your weight first, please.”

  Middleton climbed aboard. It registered 161 pounds. The doctor then waved him toward a measuring machine which glittered in its nickel-plated sheen. “Height now, please.”

  On board this second device Middleton climbed. The marker came just a quarter of an inch under the six-foot mark.

  The doctor, reading this, motioned him back to his chair. He took from his pocket a silver watch. “Now,” he directed, “tell me, please, at just what point you begin to hear this watch tick.”

  He held the watch about three feet from his patient’s ear. Then he advanced it slowly closer. At length, Middleton heard its tick coming into being. “And now the other,” the doctor ordered. The patient heaved a resigned sigh. If only this fol-de-rol could be aborted. But aborted it manifestly could not be with the phlegmatic Stonecipher. Stonecipher, with a tape measure unrolled from his white vest, had recorded the nearest distance of audibility of the one ear; he then repeated the procedure with the other ear. “Perfect symmetry of hearing,” was his comment, spoken aloud, as he recorded this data.

  He now took an electric torch that threw a bright beam of light, and drawing down the shades of the room, held himself so close to his patient that his breath fell warm on the latter’s cheek. The torch was fitted with a circular black metal guard in which there was a peephole as well as a tiny orifice through which the light could pour, and this illumination he shot straight into one — then the other — of Middleton’s pupils, till it felt as though it were searing a brilliant flame on the retina, Round and round the shaft of light seemed to soar like some comet, and the man in the chair wondered if it were never going to let up. But at length the torch flashed out, and Stonecipher raised the shades. More notes.

  The little examining doctor now took a card and a lighted candle. With the patient’s back to the windows, he covered up with the card each pupil in turn for a moment, then suddenly withdrew the card and flashed the candle light into the eye. Apparently satisfied after two such trials with each eye, he made more notes.

  Stonecipher now brought forth from the desk a series of test-tubes, each containing some oily liquid, and a tiny glass rod. “Stick out your tongue,” he directed.

  Middleton did so disgustedly. Stonecipher dipped a glass rod in one of the test tubes and then laid it on the outstretched tongue. “What flavour — what taste do you taste?”

  “Cinnamon,” was Middleton’s prompt reply.

  Again another rod and another test-tube. “And now?”

  “Peppermint,” came the immediate response.

  A third glass rod. “And what is the flavour of this?”

  Middleton thought just for a moment. The memory of a violent toothache far back in boyhood days stirred within him. “Cloves,” he said.

  Once more. He had to think hard this time. But suddenly it came to him. “Maple?”

  “Correct,” declared Stonecipher. He put the tubes on one side again, and was busy at his desk for a moment scratching away.

  This done, he took from another portion of his collected devices a set of tiny bottles, each holding a glass stopper. He drew a chair up to his patient. He sat down on it. “Now as I pass each stopper beneath your nose, tell me the name of the odour that it appears to have.”

  The first was so manifestly the odour of roses that Middleton’s answer came spontaneously. The second bore a contrast to it, and was far from being as pleasant. “I can only say that it is something very sour,” he said. “Vinegar?” he added as a query. Stonecipher nodded, and passed still another stopper beneath the patient’s nose.

  “And now — the odour again please?”

  Middleton wrinkled up his nose. “Assafœtida,” he said after a brief pause. “At least that is what they call it in Australia.”

  “So you have been in Australia,” said Stonecipher absently, putting away his stoppered bottles and making some more notes.

  “Spent all my life there,” replied the patient promptly.

  “Hm,” commented the alienist. But he pursued the question no further. He now motioned to the collapsible metal table. “Sit up there, if you please, with your legs dangling over. Yes — just loose. That will do.” He had in his hand a tiny nickel-plated hammer with a rubber head. “Now clasp your hands and look at the ceiling so as to take your attention off what I am doing.” Middleton did so. The alienist gave a sharp rap, twice repeated, on each knee-cap, with the rubber-nosed hammer, and even though he was clasping his hands and trying to watch the ceiling, Middleton saw that his leg each time gave a short, sharp, involuntary kick forward.

  Stonecipher, hammer still in hand, now took his patient’s elbow in his arm, and, holding it in a certain crooked position, gave a sharp easy tap. Evidently some muscle gave a response, for after two trials he subsided and laid his hammer on one side. “Reflexes intact so far,” he murmured half to himself.

  “Now draw your chair over here,” Stonecipher directed, “where we won’t have to strain our voices.” Middleton did so. Would this examination with its many ramifications never end?

  “You see this printed sentence here?” asked Stonecipher. He took one of the stop-watches from the table and handed his patient a pencil. “While I time you, I wish you to strike out every ‘e’ from the first word to the last. Try not to miss a single ‘e’ — but on the other hand try not to linger too long.” With which instruction he shoved at Middleton a sheet of paper on which was a single printed sentence which ran:

  “Reason for one is seen to be reason for another, and for every other. There is a middle measure which satisfies all parties, be they never so many, or so resolute for their own.”

  Middleton’s pencil ran swiftly along the nearly unintelligible sentence, and within the fraction of a minute he handed it haughtily back to Stonecipher. With a sharp click Stonecipher stopped his stop-watch, made a notation of the time consumed, and then meticulously counted up the scratched out ‘e’s.’ All this he carefully recorded.

  “Now,” he directed, “please subtract, starting with the figure one hundred, the figure seven downward until you get to the lowest possible figure.

  Middleton stared. Then he began. “One hundred — ninety-three — eighty-six — seventy-nine — seventy-two — ” it was puzzling work, and he had to concentrate hard. He was down to “forty-four” when suddenly Stonecipher opened his hand and a bright gold piece tumbled from it to the floor of the room where it rolled gaily off. Middleton’s eyes followed it like a hawk, but he proceeded as he was going. “ — thirty-seven — thirty — twenty-three “ — Stonecipher picked up his gold piece — ” sixteen — nine — two — minus five — minus twelve — minus — ”

  “Whoa, back up,” said the alienist. “I told you to quit when you got to the bottom.” His pen was scrawling over the paper once more.

  “Now,” he asked suddenly, “will you tell me whether this sentence is grammatically correct or not. Listen carefully, please.” And so by rote he recited: “The sum of the masses and the heaps of paper tells one that it don’t pay to mix business with pleasure.”

  “ ‘Doesn’t’ should be used instead of ‘don’t,�
� I believe,” Middleton commented curiously. Whereat Stonecipher nodded to himself.

  “I now state to you a further sentence,” Stonecipher said quietly, “from whence I will ask you to draw a deduction. The sentence is as follows: ‘I am taller than my brother, and my brother is taller than my father.’ Who is the tallest?”

  “You are,” said Middleton amusedly.

  “Precisely,” murmured Stonecipher, who was again lost in his notes. At length the examining physician looked up once more. “Now will you please complete this statement for me,” he ordered. “ ‘My head is to my hat what my hands are to my — ’ “

  Middleton pondered. “My head is to my hat what my hands are to my — ” He paused. “My gloves,” he finished.

  Stonecipher nodded, whatever impressions he had, his institution-weary face showed no particular emotion in connection with the correctness of the answers he was receiving. He leaned back in his chair, and appeared lost in reminiscence for a moment. Suddenly he spoke, in casual tone.

  “By the way, a man was walking in the woods north of here not long ago and he saw something hanging from a tree that frightened him; he ran over to the hospital here and told the attendants. What did he see?”

  “The body of a woman hanging there — a suicide,” said Middleton promptly. And then he found himself wondering what automatic self in him had made that reply.

  “A woman!” ejaculated Stonecipher sharply, staring at him. “A woman! God bless my soul! Why — why a woman?”

  Middleton shrugged his shoulders. “You asked me what he saw. I told you. Perhaps it was a sack of meal. But I gave you the picture as it formed itself in my mind.”

  Stonecipher appeared to have collided with something that was entirely new in his career as a psychiatrist. “Well, well, well,” he muttered. “Always a man’s body it’s been for the last ten thousand times, and here you come along and tell me a woman’s body. Well, well, well.” His pen scratched away busily.

  “Define for me,” he now commanded tersely, “the difference between pity and sympathy.

  “Pity?” Middleton pondered. “Well, pity is an emotion engendered in a beholder who sees a sight that evokes sym — that is — pity is a desire to help out an unfortunate, while sympathy is the longing to — oh — I say, doctor, come a little easy, won’t you please?”

  “Best you can do?” inquired Stonecipher gruffly, as though his patient should be drawn and quartered.

  “Jolly well best I can do,” admitted his patient, grinning. “You’ll have to call on somebody else to differentiate pity and sympathy for you, doctor. Well, put it down, and let’s carry on.”

  Which same the medical man frowningly proceeded to do. At length he looked up.

  “Will you now kindly point out to me what is wrong in each of the following three statements. The first is as follows: ‘Peter Branson walked briskly down the street, swinging a cane, his hands in his pockets.’ “

  “There is nothing wrong,” said Middleton irritably.

  “Nothing wrong, eh?” Stonecipher stared up at him, “Nothing wrong?”

  Middleton shook his head. “Nothing so far as I can see. I have had a cane with a curved handle swinging on my arm many a time in Australia, and kept my hands in my pockets at the same time because it was a cold day.”

  “Hm,” retorted Stonecipher grumpily, and cleared his throat. “Well, we’ll let that pass. Now, how about this one? There is terrible news in the paper to-day. A man was found cut into twenty pieces, and the police are investigating the cause of his suicide.’ “

  Middleton shook his head despairingly. “I’m sorry — but I can see nothing wrong with it.”

  “Nothing wrong?” bit out Stonecipher, extremely nettled. “Nothing wrong? A young patient like you, who has passed as many of the intelligence tests as you have, deliberately sits there and tells me there is nothing wrong? How — how could a man be found cut into twenty pieces and be a suicide?”

  CHAPTER XIV

  “I’LL PROTO MY CASE”

  AT the little doctor’s outburst, Jerry Middleton only shrugged his own shoulders with impatient tolerance. His retort was a quiet one.

  “A certain man back in Australia,” he said, “wrote out a suicide note, and then flung himself in front of a fast express on the Melbourne-Adelaide railway. He was cut into exactly — well, they found one hundred and nine pieces!”

  Stonecipher frowned disagreeably. It was plain that the standard tests of a dozen years were being upset by this unusual patient, who saw things from a new angle. He heaved a resigned sigh, and proceeded to propound his third statement. “Well, try this: ‘Cardigan shivered in his overcoat that January day. Yet, worried as he was, he stooped over a railing at the side of the boulevard and plucked a wayside rose before he dashed after a north-bound street car.”

  “Again there is nothing radically wrong,” persisted Middleton. “You seem, doctor, to expect me to find things wrong when there is nothing wrong. I’m sorry — but I find nothing out of the way.”

  “But think” commanded Stonecipher tersely. “Think hard, man. Think hard. There is a glaring discrepancy in that statement. Think hard.”

  “I don’t need to think,” said Jerry Middleton irritably. “Suppose I should tell you that one day in January, back in Australia — remember, this corresponds to your July, when people down there are wearing light clothing and straw hats — I was walking in Whaka, the Yellowstone Park of New Zealand. I had a fever of some sort on me. I had an overcoat along with me And I had to huddle in that overcoat to keep warm whenever the chills got me. I plucked a flower of some kind that was blooming in a garden, and — well — while I didn’t dash after a tram or anything like that, I did dash for a bus.” He paused. “So there you have a man shivering in an overcoat in January and plucking a rose from the wayside!”

  “Well, well, well, well, well,” said Stonecipher, not only at a complete loss for words, but evidently upset completely at this rough treatment accorded to three famous questions propounded for many decades to new patients in insane asylums. “You — you have upset my tests by your answers. You have upset my tests.” He glowered down, almost sulkily, at his papers; then he looked up once more. “Well, let it be. Will you now draw me, in about a hundred words, a scene on the planet Venus.”

  Middleton stared in surprise. Then he laughed aloud. But nothing daunted he commenced. “Well, I see a cloudy sky through which the sun hasn’t pierced for ages — and a land which is all steaming marshes and giant, fernlike trees. The heat and humidity are that of a tropical jungle, but there is no twittering of birds nor cheeping of monkeys. Suddenly the quiet surface of a great muddy lake in the interior of the jungle is disturbed, and a gigantic animal thousands of feet long, emerges first as just a series of serrations or combs, then in the form of a long neck with bulbous eyes popping out of a tiny head at the end. Then comes a smashing sound from the jungle, and out into the lake rushes another gigantic creature with a neck also twice as long as his body. This creature is covered with huge scales. He rushes at the first one. The latter rises from the water to meet the onslaught. Trees fall to the sound of their struggle. They — ”

  “Enough,” said Stonecipher, raising a hand. “I would almost say you have been there. Splendid.” He scratched away again and seemed to radiate pleasure. “Splendid,” he echoed cryptically. His pen continued to scratch.

  At length he laid it down. “Now multiply 24 by 22 in your head, if you please.”

  A pause, and Middleton gave the answer. “Five hundred and twenty-eight, I believe.”

  Stonecipher nodded. “And what is the capital of Siam?” he asked with startling abruptness.

  “Bangkok, I believe. I am not sure.”

  The alienist nodded, making a mark with one hand on his paper.

  He now put all his notes carefully to one side, and crossed his legs.

  “Well, in order to talk things over, I suppose it is not necessary first to ask you if you know where you are.
But I would like to have your answer at any rate, so that my examination will be complete. You know where you are, do you not?”

  “I certainly do know,” bit out Middleton. “I’m in the Birkdale Hospital for the Insane, situated in Illinois. In the receiving ward. I — ”

  Stonecipher raised a hand. “All right. Now let me do the talking for just a minute longer. “What is the date?”

  Middleton calculated rapidly. “It would be Friday, the 17th of October, if I haven’t skipped anything.”

  “And how old are you?”

  “Twenty-four,” was the reply.

  “Just how do you know you are that old?” asked the alienist, his eyes boring into the other.

  “How do I know? Because I was twenty-three last year, and prior to that I was twenty-two, and prior to that I was twenty-one — ”

  “And continuing this back until you were too young to know what you were the previous year, what standards have you to go by to know that you are the age you claim to be?”

  Middleton cast an angry look at the calm, collected little doctor. “If we’re going back to things elemental,” he said curtly, “I cannot prove my statement. Back in my early childhood I was informed by certain people with whom I lived in Australia that I was a certain age, and I proceeded to build a year each year on that rather unstable foundation.” Biting sarcasm leapt from his tone.

  It was not lost upon Stonecipher. He wrinkled up his forehead. “I observe sarcasm in your voice. Sarcasm will net you nothing.”

  “Carry on,” ordered Middleton, with a sneer.

  “All right,” agreed the physician heartily. “Now what is the name under which you are entered here in the hospital? Do you know it?”

  “Jonathan Doe, of course.”

  “And what is your correct name?

  “Jerome Herbert Middleton. I was — ”