“And once I thought Hudson was crazy!”
The jolting of the trucks over the rail-ends, the clank of chains, and the wail of flanges tortured by a sharp curve, stirred him out of his rhapsody. The sound of his own laughter still echoed in his brain. He rubbed his forehead roughly with the back of his wrist, and swallowed with a dry throat.
“My God!” he groaned. “I wonder if I’m going mad!”
XIV
Young Merrick discovered, within a week, that when a man begins to suspect he is slipping mentally his disorder fattens on itself.
He became morbidly introspective, exaggerated the significance of his little tricks of manner, caught himself doing things automatically and wondered what else he might have been doing of which he had no recollection.
Then, in the course of two hours, one Friday morning, Pyle had said, “You’re not quite par these days. Something bothering you? …” Watson had said, “I’ll look after that Weber case, Merrick. She had a notion you’re too young. Silly nonsense, but we’ll have to humour her …” Nancy Ashford had said, “What is it, Bobby? Tired?”
That settled it. At noon he told Pyle he was going out to the country for a couple of weeks. He spent the afternoon gutting his little laboratory, assisted by an orderly who packed the apparatus into boxes. His first intention was to store the stuff in his suite of rooms near the hospital. On second thought, he shipped the whole of it out to Windymere. Perhaps he might amuse himself if time dragged.
Farmers along the roads near Lake Saginack grew accustomed to the sight of a tall, slender chap, in knickers and white sweater, walking rapidly on the highway; learned who he was; vainly speculated about the cause of his leisure. One tale had it that he was discharged from the hospital for drunkenness, another that he had decided to give up medicine and loaf. Meggs’ curiosity, reaching that state of compression which demanded that he either blow off or blow up, ventured to inquire of Bobby why he had come home, and was informed that his young master was recovering from “a slight touch of leprosy.”
Old Nicholas aged markedly during the first week, but made a gallant effort to disguise his worry, a well-intended deceit which added to his grandson’s anxieties. The old man’s excessive solicitude annoyed him. He reproached himself for making wild remarks for the sole purpose of seeing to what ridiculous lengths he might lead his Grandpère in assenting solemnly to his nonsense.
“Believe I could persuade him a cloud resembled a camel,” thought Bobby, “and then talk him into the notion that it looked like a hawk.”
More than two weeks had passed before he had any inclination to rig his laboratory. Somehow it seemed related to his mental dishevelment, and the thought of it had been repugnant. One morning at breakfast, he announced impulsively that he wanted the use of an attic room for a workshop.
Nicholas was delighted. Carpenters, plumbers, and electricians were in the house before noon, taking orders from a young scientist who obviously knew exactly what he wanted, surprising them with the breadth of his practical information about their trades.
That night at dinner, Bobby was more like himself than he had been at any time since his homecoming.
The farmers who lived near the highway missed him; presumed he had finished his vacation, or he had been reinstated at the hospital, or had gone “gallavanting to furrin parts.”
Old Nicholas worried more about him now than before; feared his close confinement in the attic would do him harm.
Bobby rarely came down to the first floor. Most of his meals were sent up to him, and as often as not the tray was returned almost untouched.
It was on Thursday about nine. The lights in the laboratory had burned all Wednesday night. Bobby was haggard and stubbly with three days’ beard. Meggs had tried the door, found it locked; had knocked and been told to go away.
Taking in his left hand the tiny knife, attached to the end of a long green cord, Bobby reached up and slowly moved the lever along the dial of the rheostat.
The little scalpel came alive!
For a long time he sat there on his laboratory stool with the dynamic thing in his hands, too deeply stirred to make a sound, trembling with ecstatic happiness.
Then he switched off the current, put down the scalpel on the bench, rose, stretched his long arms until every fibre was at top torsion, and laughed boyishly.
Old Nicholas was quite swept off his moorings when Bobby strode into the library, shaggy as a tramp, hollow-eyed, pasty from lack of sleep, and said he wanted to use the telephone.
“Is anything the matter, Robert?” he quavered, rising hurriedly, and taking him by the arm.
Bobby shook his head and smiled. The operator was in the process of giving him his connection.
“I want to talk to Doctor Pyle, Nancy … No! Everything’s quite all right! … Yes … That you, Doctor Pyle? … I wish you would come out here! … Yes—very urgent! … That’s fine! Thanks! Bring your bag along and we’ll put you up!”
“What’s it all about, son? Feel all right?” Nicholas had dropped into a chair and his face was twitching.
“Very much all right!” shouted Bobby, patting him on the shoulder. “I’ll tell you about it after a little! I want to run up and shave first. Then I want my breakfast … Meggs! … I’ll be down again in a half-hour for a thick slice of ham, two eggs turned, a pair of flapjacks, and a pot of strong coffee.”
Doctor Pyle was consumed with curiosity when he arrived. Nicholas could not tell him exactly what was wanted. He was to go up to the attic when he came. Robert wished to see him there.
“You can come along, Grandpère!” called Bobby from the head of
