It was a glorious afternoon, and Huish and the three patients were out
in the garden, where Captain Lawdor was practising throwing biscuit, as
he called it, at a stone balanced on the end of a stick. Mr Rawlinson
had a table out and was writing a series of minutes on railway
mismanagement; and Mr Roberts was following John Huish about as he
walked up and down beneath the old red-brick wall which separated the
garden from the road.
This went on for a time, and then Mr Roberts crept softly up to Huish,
to whom he had not spoken since the night of the dinner, and said:
"I told you not to look at that Egyptian sorcerer. I knew it would send
you mad."
"Mad!" exclaimed Huish, smiling. "I am not mad."
"Oh yes," said Mr Roberts. "You came here and asked the doctor to cure
you. No man could do that if he were not mad."
"Oh, nonsense!" said Huish, looking at him strangely. "I am quite
well."
Mr Roberts shook his head.
"No, you are not; I know how you feel, just like a man I knew used to
feel. He always felt as if he were two; and sometimes he was one,
sometimes the other. The other was the one the lawyer said was dead.
It was so sad, too, for her. What have you done with your wife?"
At last!
John Huish started as if he had been stung. That was the something he
had, in a strange secretive way, tried to think of for days past--his
wife; and now the mention of her sent a shock like that of electricity
through his brain.
He hurried away, and began to walk up and down, growing more and more
excited. His wife! Where was she? Yes, he remembered now; the mist
that had shrouded his brain was dispelled, and he could think. That
something like him had been and taken her away, and he was doing nothing
here.
With all the cunning of an insane person he became very calm all at
once, for the doctor's assistant strolled out in the garden just then,
walked up to and spoke to him, and not seeing any change, went back to
the house, while, glancing sharply round him, John Huish waited for an
opportunity to put a plan that he had instantly matured into operation.
He had sense enough to know that he should be refused if he asked leave
to go outside, so walking up and down for a few minutes, he suddenly
made a run and a bound, caught the top of the wall and scrambled up, and
dropped into the lane.
The captain raised a shout, and the assistant came running out, but by
the time he reached the gate Huish had disappeared, taking as he did a
short cut across the fields, while the assistant searched the road, and
then, after fruitless efforts, hurried off to the nearest station, and
made his way to Finsbury Circus. Here he broke the news to the doctor,
who left him to finish his cases, and, calling Daniel, set off as fast
as they could go to Westbourne Road, as being the most likely point for
Huish to make for now he was free.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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