"You beast!" she exclaimed, turning on me, "it _was_ locked, all the time. Oh, Winnie--" A thousand years later she said once more, "Oh, Winnie!" Then she laughed. "Just the same," she said, "I'm glad about Ponto. I still think I don't like the way he's been acting." She yawned. "And now, sir," she added, "will you please let me go to my room. I'm _still_ rather dirty from my trip and I ought to get a few things unpacked. And besides," she laughed again, "I'm ravenously hungry." "So am I," I remarked truthfully, "but--" "I _know_ we're both crazy," she told me some time later, "and perhaps they'd better give us a double-room at the asylum. But I know that unless I eat something right away I'll be dead in the morning." "Let's see if there's anything in the ice-box," I said. "Mary's probably given up dinner long ago." "Her name is Myrtle," Germaine corrected me. CHAPTER 23 Dr. Rutherford's office was tastefully furnished, in the suburban medical manner, to suggest a Tudor tap-room. There was, of course, a spotless chrome and porcelain laboratory connecting, as well as an equally sanitary lavatory. "Good of you to squeeze me in, Jerry," I remarked to Rutherford. "Fact is I need your professional opinion." Rutherford stroked his little dab of a moustache. "I've sent in my application to the Army Medical Corps," he told me. "I hoped you'd come to straighten out the money end." "That will be taken care of any time you need it," I assured him. "Miss Briggs at my office will have full details. I'll phone her and my lawyer to fix it up as soon as I get back to the house." "Well, what seems to be wrong with you, old man?" he inquired. "War getting too much for you? Got a hang-over? Need vitamins? Bowels regular? I must say you're got a better color and have lost weight since the last time I saw you." "It's nothing wrong with my body, and I _have_ lost weight," I explained. "It's my mind. I've had a complete loss of memory as to what happened before April second. In Washington, I was lucky to avoid the booby-hatch. They couldn't handle me at Hopkins, so they told me to consult my family physician. I guess that means that you are elected." "Family physician is good," Rutherford remarked with a rather unprofessional grin. "But hell! I'm no psychiatrist. Of course, in practice around here I bump into a few psychopathic cases but I must say you've never struck me as the type." I assured him that I was in dead earnest about this matter, that I must somehow get myself certified as sane or I might be in trouble with the government. "Rot, my dear fellow!" Rutherford assured me. "You've had some kind of psychic trauma or shock that's resulted in temporary amnesia. That could happen to anybody. You're as sane as I am." I asked him whether he'd be willing to sign a medical certificate to that effect.