第210章

By this piece of female petulance she gave the enemy a point in the game;for, if she had insisted on staying, Mr. Bartlett was far too weak to have dismissed her. As it was, he felt shocked at Alfred's rudeness: and so small a thing as justice did not in his idea counterbalance so great a thing as discourtesy; so he listened to Alfred's tale with the deadly apathy of an unwilling hearer. "Pour on: I will endure," as poor Lear says.

As for Dr. Terry, he was pictorial, but null; effete; emptied of brains by all-scooping-Time. If he had been detained that day at Drayton House, and Frank Beverley sent back in his place to Whitehall, it would have mattered little to him, less to the nation, and nothing to mankind.

At last Mr. Bartlett gave Alfred some hopes he was taking in the truth;for he tore a leaf out of his memorandum-book, wrote on it, and passed it to Dr. Terry. The ancient took it with a smile, and seemed to make an effort to master it, but failed; it dropped simultaneously from his finger and his mind.

Not a question was put to Alfred; so he was fain to come to an end; he withdrew suddenly, and caught Mrs. Archbold at the keyhole. "Noble adversary!" said he, and stalked away, and hid himself hard by: and no sooner did the inspectors come out, and leave the coast clear, than he darted in and looked for the paper Mr. Bartlett had passed to Dr. Terry.

He found it on the floor: and took it eagerly up; and full of hope, and expectation, read these words:

WHAT IS THE NAME OF THE STUFF THE MATRON'S GOWN IS MADE OF? I SHOULD LIKETO BUY MRS. BARTLETT ONE LIKE IT.

Alfred stood and read this again, and again he searched for some hidden symbolical meaning in the words. High-minded, and deeply impressed with his own wrongs, he could not conceive a respectable man, paid fifteen hundred a year to spy out wrongs, being so heartless hard as to write this single comment during the earnest recital of a wrong so gigantic as his. Poor Alfred learned this to his cost, that to put small men into great places is to create monsters. When he had realised the bitter truth, he put the stony-hearted paper in his pocket, crept into the yard, and sat down, and, for all he could do, scalding tears ran down his cheeks.

"Homunculi quanti sunt!" he sobbed; "homunculi quanti sunt!"Presently he saw Dr. Terry come wandering towards him alone. The Archbold had not deigned to make him safe; senectitude had done that. Alfred, all heart--sick as he was, went to the old gentleman out of veneration for the outside of his head--which was Shakespearian--and pity for his bodily infirmity; and offered him an arm. The doctor thanked him sweetly, and said, "Pray, young man, have you anything to communicate?"Then Alfred saw that the ancient man had already forgotten his face, and so looking at him with that rare instrument of official inspection, the naked eye, had seen he was sane; and consequently taken him for a keeper.

How swiftly the mind can roam, and from what a distance gather the materials of a thought! Flashed like lightning through Alfred's mind this line from one of his pets, the Greek philosophers:

[Greek text]

"And this is the greatest stroke of art, to turn an evil into a good."Now the feebleness of this aged Inspector was an evil: the thing then was to turn it into a good. Shade of Plato, behold how thy disciple worked thee! "Sir," said he, sinking his voice mysteriously, "I have: but I am a poor man: you won't say I told you: it's as much as my place is worth.""Confidence, strict confidence," replied Nestor, going over beaten tracks; for he had kept many a queer secret with the loyalty which does his profession so much honour.

"Then, sir, there's a young gentleman confined here, who is no more mad than you and I; and never was mad.""You don't say so.""That I do, sir: and they know they are doing wrong, sir, for they stop all his letters to the Commissioners; and that is unlawful, you know.

Would you like to take a note of it all, sir?"The old fogie said he thought he should, and groped vaguely for his note-book: he extracted it at last like a loose tooth, fumbled with it, and dropped it: Alfred picked it up fuming inwardly.

The ancient went to write, but his fingers were weak and hesitating, and by this time he had half forgotten what he was going to say. Alfred's voice quavered with impatience; but he fought it down, and offered as coolly as he could to write it for him: the offer was accepted, and he wrote down in a feigned hand, very clear--"DRAYTON HOUSE, _Oct. 5._--A sane patient, Alfred Hardie, confined here from interested motives. Has written four letters to the Commissioners, all believed to be intercepted. Communicated to me in confidence by an attendant in the house. Refer to the party himself, and his correspondence with the Commissioners from Dr. Wycherley's: also to Thomas Wales, another attendant; and to Dr. Wycherley: also to Dr. Eskell and Mr. Abbott, Commissioners of Lunacy."After this stroke of address Alfred took the first opportunity of leaving him, and sent Frank Beverley to him.

Thus Alfred, alarmed by the hatred of Mrs. Archbold, and racked with jealousy, exerted all his intelligence and played many cards for liberty.

One he kept in reserve; and a trump card too. Having now no ink nor colouring matter, he did not hesitate, but out penknife, up sleeve, and drew blood from his arm, and with it wrote once more to the Commissioners, but kept this letter hidden for an ingenious purpose. What that purpose was my reader shall divine.