The Search Party/Chapter 14
CHAPTER XIV
MR. RED treated Dr. O'Grady and Patsy Devlin very well. They could not have fared better if they had been political prisoners awaiting a trial for inciting people to boycott each other. They had abundance of excellent food, three meals a day, brought up to them by one of the foreign anarchists. They had a sufficiency of whisky and tobacco. A second bed was supplied when the doctor objected to sleeping with Patsy Devlin. Twice every day Dr. O'Grady was taken downstairs and allowed to attend the injured man, who was recovering rapidly. Every evening Mr. Red, adhering honourably to his bargain, handed over five sovereigns to the doctor. A large number of books was supplied to the prisoners. They were chiefly treatises on the theory and practice of anarchism, accounts of the revolution in Russia, and kindred matters. Dr. O'Grady was perfectly content with them. The subject was new to him, and he read with excited curiosity. It was a favourite boast of his that no book of any kind bored him, provided he understood the language in which it was written. Unfortunately, Patsy Devlin did not like reading. He worked slowly through the accounts of the murders of a few Grand Dukes, and displayed some slight interest in the tortures inflicted on a female anarchist. Then he became bored and refused to read any more. He used to walk about the room whistling loudly. There were only two tunes which he cared to whistle—"The wearing of the Green" and "God save Ireland." The constant repetition of them began to irritate Dr. O'Grady at the end of the second day of Patsy's captivity. He expostulated, and Patsy agreed to stop whistling. He was a man of kindly heart and had a real affection for the doctor.
"I wouldn't," he said, "be doing what might annoy you; and if so be that the tunes is disagreeable, there won't be another note of them heard from this out."
He meant what he said, but he promised more than he was able to perform. It soon appeared that he Could not help whistling. He did not, in fact, know when he was whistling. The tunes came bubbling from his pursed lips against his will.
Dr. O'Grady recognized that Patsy could not accomplish the impossible. He gave up reading about anarchists, and asked Mr. Red for a pack of cards. The request, a reasonable one, was refused, and Dr. O'Grady snubbed for making it. Mr. Red disapproved of card-playing on principle. He said that games of chance were demoralizing to the human race. As a consistent anarchist he could not and would not allow them to be played in his house. Then Dr. O'Grady invented a game which could be played with coins on a table. A penny was placed at a short distance from the edge of the table and driven along by the impact of another penny flipped at it from the edge. The object was to hit the first penny as frequently as possible before it was driven over the opposite edge of the table. Patsy displayed a great aptitude for the game. After an hour's play he was fairly expert. Before the end of the afternoon he had won ninepence from Dr. O'Grady. He practised assiduously next morning while the doctor read anarchist books. During the afternoon and evening he won, to his great delight, sums which amounted altogether to one-and-sevenpence. He did not whistle while he practised or played. In order to concentrate his whole energy on the game he was obliged to keep his mouth wide open.
A game was in full swing on the third afternoon of Patsy's captivity when the key turned in the lock and the door of the room was flung open.
"Now what," said Dr. O'Grady, "can the Emperor possibly want with us at this hour of the day? It's not tea-time."
Mr. Dick, clad only in his grey flannel shirt, walked in.
"Hallo!" said Dr. O'Grady, "are you an anti-military anarchist getting into training for the simple life? Or are you a new recruit undergoing the ceremony of initiation into the brotherhood? Or is it nothing but the heat of the day?"
Mr. Red and the bearded anarchist dragged Mr. Sanders into the room and deposited him, still bound, on the floor.
"Oh," said the doctor, "another captive! Good. But don't overdo the thing, Emperor. You can't you know, go on storing up men in this way without attracting public attention. Patsy Devlin and I are all right, of course. We're not important people. Nobody misses us in the least. But that man on the floor looks to me like a commercial traveller, and if he happens to belong to any English firm, a search will sooner or later be made for him."
"We are Members of Parliament," said Mr. Dick.
"You don't look as if you were," said the doctor. "Does he, Patsy?"
"Be damn, but he does not! I've seen some queer fellows made members of Parliament in my day. There was one time I was very near going in for it myself; but I never heard tell of e'er a one yet but owned a pair of breeches—to start with, anyway."
"You hear what Patsy Devlin says," said the doctor. "He quite agrees with me that you don't look like a Member of Parliament."
Mr. Red, with his assistant anarchist, left the room and locked the door behind him. Dr. O'Grady shouted after him.
"Hullo! Emperor! I say, are you there? Wait a minute before you go away. Are you listening to me?"
"I hear."
Mr. Red's voice, coming through the shut door, sounded more solemn than usual.
"I'm glad you do," said Dr. O'Grady. "Don't go away now till I've finished speaking. I want you to understand that we can't possibly have these two fellows billeted here on us. It's all very fine for you to go about picking up all sorts of people off the public roads and dumping them down here; but Patsy Devlin and I don't like it. It's not fair. I told you before that we don't in the least object to being imprisoned; but we bar having an escaped lunatic with nothing on but a shirt, and a wretched commercial traveller shoved in here into a room which we have come to regard as our private apartment."
"We are Members of Parliament," said Mr. Dick. "We demand to be taken at once before the British Consul."
He appeared to think, not at all unnaturally, that he had strayed beyond the bounds of His Majesty's dominions.
"Do shut up," said Dr. O'Grady, in a whisper. "We don't believe you're Members of Parliament. Nor does the Emperor. As a matter of fact, you're not up to the level of the average county councillor in the way of respectability. Saying absurd things like that will simply enrage the Emperor. He's frightfully touchy, and the moment he loses his temper he shoots off his pistol. I say," he went on in a loud tone, "are you there still? Hang it, I believe he's gone. That's your fault." He addressed Mr. Dick. "Why didn't you keep your mouth shut and let me talk to him? Now the Emperor won't be back till tea-time, and we'll have to put up with you till then. Perhaps, as you are here, you'll kindly explain what you mean by bursting in on us unannounced in this way. You might at least have knocked at the door."
"I was bathing" began Mr. Dick.
"Where?"
"I don't know. Just outside the house. He came and took away my clothes."
"Serves you jolly well right," said the doctor. "What made you come here, of all places in the world, to bathe? Surely to goodness the Atlantic Ocean is big enough to bathe in without your picking out the exact spot in which the Anti-Military Anarchists are maturing their plans. Why did you do it?"
"Anarchists?" said Mr. Dick.
"Yes, Anti-Military—Anarchists—the very worst sort there is."
"I thought he was a landlord."
"Well, he isn't. He's as nearly as possible the exact reverse."
"Are you an anarchist too?"
"No, I'm not," said Dr. O'Grady, "nor is Patsy Devlin. So far we haven't been asked to join the organization. We're simply prisoners. We've been captured by the brotherhood. But we had sense enough to wear our ordinary clothes. You may think it's the proper thing to go about in nothing but your shirt because you happen to be in the house of an anarchist, but I can tell you"
Mr. Sanders, who still lay on the floor, groaned dismally.
"Loose that fellow, Patsy," said the doctor. "He appears to be in pain of some sort."
"Anarchists! " said Mr. Dick. "Good heavens! How frightful! My wife! My poor wife!"
"She'll be all right," said the doctor. "The Emperor won't do her any harm. He's a thorough gentleman in every way, a chivalrous gentleman, and I'm perfectly certain he wouldn't ill-treat a woman. You may rely on it that she'll be made quite comfortable. She was with you, I suppose. If so, I don't in the least wonder that you were run in. The Emperor has frightfully strict, old-fashioned ideas about lots of things. He objects to cards, for instance, as demoralizing. I'm sure that mixed bathing would simply horrify him. There's no greater mistake than to think that just because a man's an anarchist, you can do what you like without shocking him. You can't. The Emperor has his prejudices just like the rest of us."
Patsy Devlin set Mr. Sanders on his feet and rubbed him down carefully. The poor man seemed dazed and bewildered.
"Do you belong to the bathing party too?" asked Dr. O'Grady. "Or are you a separate and distinct capture, unconnected with the gentleman in the flannel shirt?"
"I don't bathe," said Mr. Sanders, "because I have a weak heart and it doesn't agree with me."
"Then what were you doing? You must have been doing something which annoyed the Emperor. He may be a bit touched in the head. Most of us are, more or less; but he's not so mad as to saddle himself with the expense of boarding and lodging a fellow like you unless you have been doing something he dislikes. What were you at?"
"I was mending a bicycle, Mrs. Dick's bicycle; at least"
"Who is Mrs. Dick?" asked Dr. O'Grady. "The lady who was bathing?"
"She wasn't bathing," said Mr. Dick.
"All right. Don't get angry. I thought your name might be Dick and that the lady might be your wife."
"My name is Dick, and she is my wife."
"I don't understand you in the least," said Dr. O'Grady. "Have you got two wives? Has that anything to do with the way you're going about with nothing on you but your shirt?"
"No, it hasn't; and I've not got two wives."
"You must have two wives," said Dr. O'Grady. "You told me this instant that your wife was bathing with you on the shore. And now you say Mrs. Dick wasn't bathing. Those two statements can't possibly both be true about the same woman. But I won't go into that yet. Later on you shall have an opportunity of clearing yourself if you can. First of all, I want to get to the bottom of this bicycle business, which seems to be less complicated."
He turned to Mr. Sanders. "You say that you were engaged in mending, Mrs. Dick's bicycle when the Emperor came on you."
"Yes," said Mr. Sanders. "At least I wanted to mend it."
"That's not exactly the same thing. I wish you'd try to be accurate. There's no use my attempting to unravel this tangle and get at the truth for you if you won't be careful what you say. Go on."
"I knocked for some time at the door, but nobody came to me. Then I"
"I expect," said the doctor, "that the Emperor was in the Chamber of Research at the time, concocting some new kind of dynamite. That's his favourite occupation."
"Good God!" said Mr. Sanders.
"It's all right. Don't be afraid. The mixtures he makes hardly ever go off. And in any case he won't want to blow you up unless you are a soldier. You're not in the army, are you? You don't look as if you were."
"No."
"Or in the militia? The Emperor has a perfect horror of militiamen. Hasn't he, Patsy?"
"He damn nearly shot me," said Patsy, "when I told him I'd been in the militia."
"Let's get back to the bicycle," said Dr. O'Grady. "Mrs. Dick's bicycle, as I understand, which you wanted to mend. When you found that nobody took any notice of your knocking, what did you do?"
"I pushed the door open—it wasn't locked or bolted—and stepped in."
"That strikes me," said Dr. O'Grady, "as pretty fair cheek on your part, considering that you're not an Anti-Military Anarchist. You might have guessed that it would irritate the Emperor, especially as he was making dynamite at the time. What happened next?"
"I looked round and saw no one. I rang the dinner gong, which was standing in a corner of the hall. When that didn't attract anybody's attention I tried the door on the right, and found it locked."
"It's a pity you didn't try the one on the left. If you had, you'd have seen the yellow crocodiles, and they'd have frightened you out of the house."
"Then, just as I was turning to go away, two men sprang on me and bound me. After that I knew no more until"
"I wish," said Mr. Dick, interrupting his friend's story, "that somebody would lend me a pair of trousers."
"I haven't got any spare trousers," said Dr. O'Grady, "and if I had, I'm not at all sure that I'd lend them to you. You say you're a Member of Parliament; but I've no proof of that. And even if you are it doesn't seem to me to follow that you'd return the trousers."
"What am I to do?" said Mr. Dick. "I can't go about in this state all day."
"You won't go about much in any case," said the doctor. "But for the immediate present I think you'd better get into Patsy Devlin's bed. It's no pleasure to us to see you standing about in your shirt. When you're in bed I shall ask you a few questions, and if it turns out that the Emperor really has got your clothes, I'll do my best to persuade him to give them back to you when he comes up here at tea-time. I suppose you don't mind his getting into your bed, Patsy, just for the present?"
"I do not," said Patsy, "so long as he's out of it before I'm wanting it myself."
Mr. Dick crept in between the blankets.
"Now," said the doctor, "we'll take up your story. You have, as I understand, two wives, one of whom bathes, and the other owns a bicycle."
Mr. Dick sat up and protested strongly. He appealed to Mr. Sanders to clear him of the charge of bigamy.
"All right," said Dr. O'Grady; "I'll accept the statement that you've only one. Was she, or was she not, bathing with you when the Emperor came on you? Be careful how you answer."
"Certainly not. She's—I trust she's miles away, and safe."
"Then why did you express anxiety about the way the Emperor was likely to treat her?"
"I didn't."
"You did. You kept saying, 'My poor wife.' What did you mean by that, if you didn't mean that the Emperor had captured her?"
"I meant that she'd be anxious about me."
"She can't be as fond of you as all that," said the doctor. "Nobody could."
"She's very fond of me. We're only quite lately married."
"Have you a wife too?" said the doctor to Mr. Sanders.
"Yes. I have a wife and an aunt. They're both with me in Ireland."
"Do you suppose that your wife is as fond of you as Mrs. Dick is of her husband?"
"I don't know. How could I know that?"
"The reason I ask the question," said Dr. O'Grady, "is this. There's a girl I'm engaged to be married to, a Miss Adeline Maud Blow, who is probably scouring the country in pursuit of me this minute. Patsy Devlin has a wife who may be out looking for him."
"The minute she'd find out I was gone," said Patsy, "she'd be up at the barrack telling the police, the way she'd have me brought back to her."
"And now," said the doctor, "it turns out that Mr. Dick has a wife, or perhaps two, of an unusually affectionate kind. And you have a wife and an aunt who have some regard for you. That makes five women altogether, all of them more or less energetic, and all of them bent on finding us. The question is, how long will it be before they think of coming to Rosivera?"
"Not long," said Mr. Sanders, "not long, I hope."
"For the sake of my poor wife," said Mr. Dick, who had covered himself with the bed-clothes again, "I trust it will not be long."
"Be damn," said Patsy Devlin, "but to listen to the way you're talking, a man would think nobody in the world but yourself ever had a wife. I have one myself, as the doctor was saying this minute, and I wouldn't wonder but she might be a better one than yours. But you don't hear me lamenting over her every time I open my mouth."
"Tell me this," said the doctor: "did you ever escape from your wife before?"
"Escape from her!"
"I mean, did you ever temporarily desert her, either through being taken prisoner or otherwise?"
"Never," said Mr. Dick. "We've only been a year married, and we've never been parted, even for a single day."
"That's all right," said the doctor. "Then she won't have had any practice in looking for you. Patsy Devlin's wife, as you heard, is likely to go straight to the police barrack when she misses him. But then she's more or less accustomed to his not turning up regularly."
"I wouldn't say," said Patsy, "that the police would be paying too much attention to what she might tell them."
"What about your wife, and your aunt?" said the doctor to Mr. Sanders. "Are they accustomed to having to hunt you up?"
"Do I gather from what you say," said Mr. Sanders, "that you don't want to be rescued?"
"We certainly do not," said the doctor. "Patsy and I are perfectly comfortable where we are. We know when we are well off."
"Good God!" said Mr. Sanders. "In the hands of a bloodthirsty anarchist!"
"Don't abuse the Emperor," said the doctor, "for I won't stand it. He may be an anarchist, but he's a thoroughly good sort."
"I'm thankful to say," said Mr. Sanders, "that my aunt is a woman of great vigour and determination. She will do everything that can be done to discover where we are and to rescue us. I place implicit confidence in her. Nothing will daunt her."
"If, as I gather from your description of her, she is any kind of Suffragette," said the doctor, "I hope, for her own sake, that she'll keep clear of the Emperor. He has the strongest possible prejudice against advanced women. I happened one day to mention the name of Jael to him in the course of conversation. You know the woman I mean, the one who hammered the nail into the man's head. I naturally thought he'd admire her immensely, but he didn't in the least. He flew into the most frightful rage. Didn't he, Patsy?"
"I heard you saying so," said Patsy, "and of course I believed you. But I wasn't here myself at the time. You know that, doctor."
Mr. Sanders brightened up suddenly.
"Are you a doctor?" he said.
"I am, or I was, the dispensary doctor of Clonmore Poor Law Union. By the way, Patsy, was there any talk of their electing a new man when they found out that I'd gone?"
"I wouldn't be telling you a lie. There was."
"If you're a doctor," said Mr. Sanders eagerly, "you'll be able to certify that I have a weak heart, and that confinement will seriously injure my health. Then he'll be bound to let me go."
"I haven't a stethoscope with me," said the doctor, "so I can't. But even if I wrote you out quite a long certificate I don't suppose that it would influence the Emperor in the least. He doesn't care about your health. Why should he?"
"But I've always understood Why, the Home Secretary only the other day"
"And I may as well tell you straight," said the doctor, "that if I had a stethoscope, and if the Emperor would let you out on my certificate, I wouldn't give it. In fact, if I certified at all, I'd certify that you are a particularly strong and enduring kind of man, and that a little imprisonment would do you good."
"But why? Why should?"
"Because the first thing you'd do when you got out would be to bring the police down on us here, and that's exactly what we don't want."