Perceval Gibbon - The Second Class Passenger

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"It's remarkable what a control you have over these low natures,
Mary," Dr. Pond said to her. He had come home one afternoon to find
that she had actually sent Smith out for a walk. "I confess it's a
case that's beyond me altogether. There doesn't seem to be any thing
to take hold of in the man. It would be better if he felt a little
pain now and again; it would give one an opening, as it were."

Seated in a low chair in the window, Mary was hemming dusters. She
looked up at him thoughtfully.

"Father," she said, "what do you think was the matter with him in the
first place? What was the disease that Professor Fish cured?"

Dr. Pond shook his white head vaguely.

"Impossible to say," he answered. "It looks like, a mental case,
doesn't it? And yet----You see, Fish has had so many specialities. He
was in practice in Harley Street as a nerve man. Then, next thing,
one hears of him in heart surgery. He's had a go at electricity
lately. And between you and me--he's a great man, of course--but if
it wasn't for his position and all that, we'd be calling him a
quack."

"Then you can't tell what the disease was?" persisted Mary.

"No," said Dr. Pond. "Nor even if there was a disease. For all I
know, Fish may have been vivisecting him. He wouldn't stop at a thing
like that, if I know anything about him."

"He ought to have told us," said Mary.

"Yes," agreed the Doctor. "But Fish always does as he likes. How long
has Smith been out now, Mary?"

"He went out at three," she answered. "And now it's half-past five.
He ought to be in. I think I'll put my hat on, father, and go after
him."

Dr. Pond nodded. "I would," he said.

The road along which Smith had departed ran past the village, and
Mary walked forth by it to seek her patient. It was a splendid still
afternoon; the trees by the wayside stood motionless in the late
heat, their shadows in jet black twined and laced upon the white
road. Far ahead of her she could see the land undulating in easy
green bosoms against the radiant west; the sun was in her face as she
walked. She had no fear that Smith had wandered far; for one thing,
he had no strength to do so, and for another, she knew intuitively
that the man lacked any purpose to carry him away. Therefore she
walked at her ease, keeping cool and comely, and at the first corner
in the road met a slim youth on horseback, who stopped to salute her.
It was Harry Wylde, son of the great man of the neighborhood.

"Afternoon, Miss Pond," he called cheerfully. "Have you lost a little
thing about the size of a pickpocket?"

"A little bigger than that, I think," she answered. "Have you seen
him, Mr. Wylde?"

"Yes," said Harry Wylde. "I've seen him before, too, I'll swear. I
knew the little beast at once. I say, Miss Pond, how the dickens did
you manage to get mixed up with him?"

"He's my patient," said Mary. "Where did you see him, please?"

Harry Wylde pointed down the road. "I passed him just now," he said.
"He was in the churchyard."

"The churchyard?"

"Yes, sitting on the grass, having no end of a time. Looked as happy
as a trout in a sand-bath. I knew him at once."

"How did you know him?" demanded Mary.

Harry Wylde leaned forward over his saddle. "Miss Pond," he said
seriously, "there's hardly a man that goes to races in all England
that doesn't know him. His name's Woolley--that's one of his names,
anyhow. He was a kind of jockey once, and since then he's been the
lowest, meanest little sharper in all the dirty little turf swindles
that was ever kicked off a racecourse. If I wasn't sure I wouldn't
say so; but you ought to know whom you are entertaining."

"But you must be utterly mistaken," cried Mary. "Professor Fish
brought him to us. It's impossible."

"Case of Fish and foul," suggested the youth. "But I'm not mistaken.
The man I mean has lost the tip of his ear, the left one. Somebody
bit it off, I believe. Now, have you noticed your chap's ear?"

He looked at her acutely, and she colored in hot distress.

"I see you have," he said. "I'd ask this Fish person for an
explanation, if I were you; particularly as Woolley is supposed to be
dead. The police want him pretty badly, you know. It looks queer,
doesn't it?"

"I--I can't understand it," said Mary. "I'm sure there's a mistake
somewhere."

Young Wylde nodded. "We'll call it a mistake," he said. "He was
injured on the Underground in London and taken to St. Brigid's
Hospital, where he died. I remember reading about it. Now, of course,
I shan't say anything to anybody; but you ought to have an explanation.
Fish--is that his name--seems to have played it pretty low down on
you." He gathered up his bridle and nodded to her with intent.

"Good afternoon, Miss Pond," he said. "Sorry to make trouble, but I
couldn't leave you in the dark about a thing like this."

Mary walked on to the churchyard in considerable bewilderment. With
the character of a patient who came under her care she had no
particular concern; a nurse must be as little discriminating as
death. But she did not like the story; it troubled and offended her--
its connexion with matters that interested the police, and all its
suggestion that she and her father were being used as a means of
hiding, touched her with a sense of disgust. It did not occur to her
to doubt Harry Wylde; he had been altogether too circumstantial to
be doubted.

She reached the low wall that separated the churchyard from the road.
The old graces, with their tombstones leaning awry, like gapped,
uneven teeth, reminded her of her errand, and soon she saw Smith. He
had found himself a seat where an old tomb with railings and monument
was overrun with ground ivy; he sat among the coarse green of it,
staring before him with his chin propped on one hand. All the glory
of the western sky was beyond him; his profile stood out against it
like a sharp silhouette. Mary stopped to look, and for the time
forgot the wretched story she had just heard. The man was as
motionless as the stone on which he sat-still with such a stillness
as one sees not in the living. But it was not that which held. Mary
gazing; it came suddenly to her that in his attitude there was
something apt; and significant, something with a meaning, requiring
only a key to interpret it. She wondered about it, vaguely, and
without framing words for her thoughts it occurred to her that the
stillness, the attitude, the mute surrender that spoke in every
contour of the silhouetted figure, the very posture of rest, bespoke
contentment, tile welcome of relief which one feels on reaching one's
own place, one's familiar atmosphere, one's due haven.

Minutes passed, and still she stood gazing; then, as though restive
under the impressions that invaded her, she moved forward and entered
the churchyard. It was not till she stood before him that Smith was
aware of her; with a wrinkling of his brow and a sigh, he came back
to his surroundings. Mary saw and noted how the raptness of his face
gave way to its usual feebleness as he roused himself.

"You have been out a long time, nearly three hours," he said. "I
think you ought to come in now."

He sighed again. "All right," he said slowly. But he did not rise,
and Mary did not hurry him. She stood looking down at him, while his
slack lips fidgeted and his pale eyes flitted here and there over the
ancient graves.

"Why did you come here to this place?" she asked him presently. Her
voice was very low.

He hesitated. "It's where I ought to be," he said heavily. "Only I
didn't have no luck." One hand went out uncertainly and he pointed to
the graves. "Them chaps is past bothering," he said. "There's no
gettin' at them."

He shook his head--it was as though he shivered--and relapsed into
silence again.

"You shouldn't think about things like that," Mary said.

He looked up at her almost shrewdly. "Think!" he repeated. "I got no
need to think. I know."

"Know--what?"

"Ah!" he said, and gat brooding. "I'm alive, I am," he said, at last;
"but I been better off once. There's no way of tellin' it, 'cos it
don't' fit into words. Words wasn't meant to show such things. But I
wasn't just a limpin', squintin' little welsher; I was something that
could feel the meaning of things and the reason for them, just like
you can feel 'eat and cold. Could feel and know things such as nobody
can't feel or know till 'e's done with this rotten bustle of livin'
and doin' things. That's what I know, Miss; that's what I found out
when I died in that there 'orspital."

Mary stared at him; a brief vivacity was in his face as he spoke, a
tone of certainty in his voice.

"But," she cried, "you're alive."

"Ay," he said. "I'm alive. That's the doin' of that Fish. He's the
man; proddin' and workin' away there in that big room of his with the
bottles and machines, and bits of dead men on the tables. 'E thinks
I'm a bit touched in the brain, but I know, I do! I remember all
right that mornin', with the grey sky showin' over the wire blinds
and the noise of the carts just beginnin' in the streets. There was
sparkles in my eyes, flashes and colors, you know, and a feelin' as
if I was all wet with warm water. I couldn't see at first, but by an'
by I put up my 'and and cleared my eyes--all pins and needles, my
'and was. Then I got on my elbow, and saw--the room and the bottles
and all, and me naked on a table under a big light. An' against the
wall, at the other side o' the room, there was 'im--Fish--in a white-
rubber gown and a face like chalk, shakin' an' sweatin' an' starin'
at me. His eyes were all big an' flat; an' I lay there an' looked at
him, while he bit his lips an' got a hold on himself. At last 'e come
over to me. ''Ow are you feeling?' 'e says. I'd been thinking. 'You
devil, you've brought me back,' I shouted. He was shakin' still like
a flag in the wind. 'Yes,' he says, 'unless I'm mad, I've brought you
back.' I 'adn't the strength to do no more than lie still; so I just
watched 'im while 'e got brandy and drank it from the bottle. Oh, I
remember; I remember the whole thing. That Fish can fool you an' old
Pond, but there's no foolin' me. I know!"

He leaned forward and spat; the gesture emphasised the hard
deliberation of his speech. The look he gave her now was much more
assured than her own.

"We must be getting back," Mary said uneasily. She remembered what
Professor Fish had mentioned of Smith's delusions. But the
strangeness and assurance of what he had said were not in accord with
what she knew of unstable minds.

He rose and accompanied her docilely enough, but the strength that
had furnished him with force to speak seemed to last only while he
was in the churchyard. As they went along the quiet road he was again
the flimsy, unlovely shell of a man she had first known. They went
slowly, for Mary accommodated her gait to his; he walked weakly,
looking down always. Where the road passed the end of the village a
few people turned to look after them with slow curiosity. The village
policeman, chin in hand, stared with bovine intensity; his big,
simple face was clenched in careful observation. Mary recalled Harry
Wylde's story, and his warning that the authorities had been seeking
for Smith; she quickened her pace a little to get out of that mild
publicity.

"What were you before you--before you met Professor Fish?" she asked
him suddenly.

"A bettin' tout," he answered, "and a thief." He spoke absently and
with complete composure.

"Well," said Mary, "will you do something for me if I ask you?"

He looked aside at her. "Don't ask," he said. "Don't ask me to do
anything. 'Cos I can't."

"It's only this," said Mary. "What you told me in the churchyard was
very wonderful and dreadful; but even if it was true, it would be a
bad thing for you to think much about. It couldn't help you to live;
it could only come between you and being well. So I want you, as far
as you can, not to think about it. Try to forget it. Will you?"

He made some inarticulate sound with his lips. "Did Fish warn you?"
he asked. "Did he tell you I was crazy and had notions? Ah!" he
exclaimed, "I can see he did. He's as cunning as a fox, he is. He's
got me tied hand and foot!"

"Hush! Don't talk like that!" bade Mary. "Do as I ask you. You know
I'm your friend. Don't you?"

He shrugged uncertainly. "You would be if you knew how," he said
slowly. "But, Lord! you don't know nothing that matters. It's only us
that knows what's what--only us."

"Who's us?" asked Mary involuntarily.

He looked full at her. "The dead," he answered, and after that they
went on in silence.

It was not easy for Mary to marshal her thoughts that evening, when
Smith, after a silent meal, had gone to bed, and left her alone with
her father. He had spoken with such an effect of intensity that the
impression of it persisted in her memory like the pain that remains
from a blow; the figure of him, sitting on the grave, telling his
strange story in words of impressive simplicity, haunted her
obstinately. She could see easily the picture he had conjured for her
of a big electric-lighted room, silent save for remote noises from
without, and its equipment of dissecting-tables, bottles, and the
machinery of an anatomist. Wylde's story had sunk into the background
of her concerns; yet it was of that she had to speak to her father,
and she was glad rather than surprised when he made an opening for
her himself.

"Smith seems to be rather a mystery at the village," he remarked.
"That manner of his is causing talk." He laughed gently. "White--you
know Ephraim White, the policeman--he asked me what I knew about
him."

"Yes?" said Mary. "Well, young Mr. Wylde asked me the same thing. He
was sure he had recognized him."

"Ah! And who was he supposed to be?"

Mary told him what Harry Wylde had said to her in the afternoon, not
omitting the mention of the mutilated ear. Dr. Pond heard it without
disturbance, nodding thoughtfully as she spoke.

"Ye-es," he said. "It's curious. It would explain the delusions, you
know. Smith, bearing a marked resemblance to somebody who is dead--a
resemblance that even extends to a certain wound--identifies himself
with that person. A rather dramatic position, isn't it? Still, I hope
we are not going to have a police inquiry. I shall certainly let Fish
know that people are becoming suspicious. What did young Wylde say
the other man's name was?"

"Woolley," answered Mary. "Then you will write to Professor Fish,
father?"

"Yes," said the Doctor; "He ought to know. I'll write to-night."

"I think I would," agreed Mary thoughtfully, and rose to get him
writing materials. But some inward function of her was uneasy; she
felt as though she had failed the little man whose reliance was in
her. "You know I'm your friend," she had said to him, and this
reference to the Professor had not the flavor of full friendship. The
same compunction remained with her next morning, and made her
specially gentle with Smith. He had fallen back to his usual
condition of vacuity and inertia; she had to rouse him to eat and
drink when he sat at table with a face as void of life as a death-
mask, and eyes empty and unseeing. Dr. Pond had given up his attempts
to make conversation with him, and saw him with a slight exasperation
which he was sedulous to conceal, so that he was altogether dependent
on Mary's unfailing patience.

Professor Fish was not slow to reply to the letter. A telegram from
him arrived at lunch time, stating that he would come down next day,
and asking that his train might be met.

"That means you'll have to go again, Mary," said Dr. Pond. "I've an
appointment at that very hour."

Mary nodded, not displeased at having an opportunity of sounding the
Professor before anybody else. She saw that Smith had looked up at
the mention of Fish's name with some quickening of interest. She
smiled to him and helped him to salad.

The morning of the next day came in squally and wild, with starts of
rain, a sharp interruption to the summer's tranquillity. Mary was
rather troubled to dispose of Smith during her absence, but ensconced
him at last in the room which was known as "the study," an upper
chamber where Dr. Pond kept his books and those other possessions
which were not in frequent use. Here was a window giving a view over
the rain-blurred hedgerows, clear to the swell of the downs, and an
arm-chair in which Smith could sit in peace and wear undisturbed his
semblance of a man in a trance. With some notion of leaving nothing
undone, Mary routed out for him a bundle of old illustrated
magazines, and left them on the unused writing-table at his side; he
did not glance at them.

"Now," she said, when all was done, "I must go. I shall be back soon.
Shake hands with me and say thank you."

She smiled down into his face, as he looked slowly up at her, huddled
like a lay figure between the arms of the big chair.

"Yes?" she said encouragingly, for his lips had moved.

"I feel," he said in a whisper----

"Yes," urged Mary. "What?"

"Hope!" he said, aloud, and gave her his hand.

The cab of the village bore her to the station over roads tearful
with rain, and arrived there just as the London train came to a stop.
The tall figure of Professor Fish, jumping from his compartment and
turning to slam the door vehemently, struck her as oddly familiar;
the man's personality stood in high relief from his surroundings. Yet
there was a certain disturbance in his manner as he greeted her--a
touch of the confidential, which added to her curiosity. He sat
opposite to her in the cab, so that when he leaned forward to speak,
with his hat pushed impatiently back, his big insistent face was
thrust forward close to hers, and his great shoulders humped as
though in effort.

"This is a very annoying thing, Miss Pond," he began, as the cab
started back along the tree-bordered road. "A most annoying thing;
privacy was absolutely essential. Here is something done, a big
thing, too; and when only privacy, reticence, quiet are essential, we
have this infernal fuss on our hands."

He spoke with all his habitual force and volume; but something in him
suggested to Mary that he did so consciously and of purpose.

"Well," she said; "there's nobody about here that is likely to guess
at your experiment. That isn't the trouble, you know. The trouble is
that people say they recognize Mr. Smith as a man who is wanted by
the police, who is supposed, too, to be dead. So, you see, the only
thing wanted is an explanation."

"Explanation!" He put the word from him with a gesture of his big,
smooth hands.

Mary nodded, scanning him coolly. "Yes," she said; "I can understand
that an explanation might be difficult."

Professor Fish laughed shortly, a mere bark of sour mirth, and turned
to look through the rain-splashed window of the cab.

"Difficult!" he repeated, and turned his face to her again. "Not at
all difficult, my dear Miss Pond, but awkward. Lord! it wouldn't do
at all!" His eyes behind his glasses became keen and lively. He
looked at her carefully.

"He's talked to you, eh? You've heard his story?"

"Yes," answered Mary. "Once; it was very wonderful."

He nodded, still scrutinising her. "I wish I could make him talk," he
said thoughtfully. "However----" he shrugged his big shoulders and was
silent.

There was a pause then, while the wheels squelched through the mud
below, and the rain beat rhythmically on the windows and roof of the
cab. Its noise seemed to ally itself to the interior smell of the
vehicle, an odor of damp leather and stale straw and ancient stables.
The Professor stared intently through the wet glass, and Mary
remembered, with a touch of amusement, her first meeting with him,
when she had sat beside him and occupied her thoughts with the flabby
phantom of Smith.

"You know," she said, at length, "there'll have to be some sort of
explanation."

"Well?" demanded the Professor.

"If I knew what you had done to Mr. Smith," she went on, "I could
help you to keep things as quiet as possible."

He heard her with a frown and shook his head. "If you knew, you'd do
anything but keep it quiet," he answered shortly.

"Then it was something horrible?" asked Mary quickly.

He smiled. "I expect to have many patients for the same treatment,"
he replied. "Very many; I expect half the world. Where is Smith now?"
he asked abruptly.

"At home by himself," replied Mary. "We'll be there in two minutes.
You'd like to see him first?"

"Yes, please," he said. "I must have a word or two with him."

Dr Pond had not returned when they drew up at the house, and, as soon
as the Professor had rid himself of his ulster and hat, she led him
upstairs to the "study."

"You'll find him in here," she said, when they came to the door. "I
shall be downstairs when you want me."

The Professor nodded absently and turned the handle. Mary was at the
top of the stairs when he entered. She turned even before he cried
out, conscious of something happening.

"Stop!" cried the Professor sharply. "Put that down!"

Mary ran to the open door and uttered a cry. Near the window stood
Smith, erect and buoyant. The contents of desk-drawers were littered
on the floor--papers, old pipes, a corkscrew, various rubbish--and in
his hand he held something that Mary recognized with a catch of the
breath.

"Father's old pistol!" she said, and shuddered. The Professor had
advanced as far as the middle of the room; the desk was between him
and Smith, who was looking at him with a smile. Even in the weakness
of fear that came over her, Mary wondered at the change in him. His
very stature seemed to be greater; there was a grave power in that
face she knew as a mask of witlessness and futility. He held the
revolver in his right hand with the barrel resting in his left, and
looked at the tall Professor with a smile that had no mirth in it,
but something like compassion.

"Drop it!" said the Professor again. "Drop it, you fool!" But his
voice of authority cracked, and he cried out: "For God's sake don't
make a mess of it now."

Smith continued to look at him with that ghost of a smile on his
lips, and answered with slow words. He patted the pistol.

"This'll put me out of your reach," he said. "This is what'll do it.
You won't be able to patch up the hole this'll make."

He raised the pistol, Mary, powerless to move clenched her hands and
whole being for the shock of imminent tragedy.

"Wait!" cried the Professor, and cast a furtive deprecating glance
back at Mary. "Wait! I tell you it's no use; you can hurt yourself
and disfigure yourself and weaken and impair your body, but not the
life! Not the life! I tell you--it's no good!" He flung out a long
arm and his great forefinger pointed at Smith imperatively. "I'll
have you back," he said. "I'll have you back. You're mine, my man;
and I'll hold you. Put that pistol down; put it down, I tell you! Or
else----" his arm dropped, and the command failed from his voice. He
spoke in the tones of tired indifference. "Do it," he said. "Shoot
yourself, if you want to. I'll deal with you afterwards."

There was a pause, measured in heart-beats. Smith showed yet his face
of serene gravity. When he spoke, it was strange to hear the voice of
the back-streets, the gutter's phrase, expressing that quiet
assurance.

"If it wasn't you," he said, "it wouldn't be nobody else. It's only
you as can do it." He paused, with lips pursed in deliberation. "If
you knowed what I know," he went on, "you'd see it wasn't right. I
reckon you'll have to come too."

"Eh?" The Professor looked up quickly, and threw up an arm as though
to guard a blow. Mary screamed, and the noise of the shot startled
her from her posture and she fell on her knees. The Professor took
one pace forward, turned sharply, and fell full length on his face.
She heard Smith say something, but the words passed her
undistinguished; then the second shot sounded, and the fire-irons
clattered as he tumbled among them.

Those that ran up to the room upon the sound of the shooting found
her kneeling in the door with her hand over her face.

"Bury them! bury them!" she was crying. "Bury them and let them go!"

XIV

THE CAPTAIN'S ARM

Seafaring men knew it for a chief characteristic of Captain Price--
his quiet, unresting watchfulness. Forty years of sun and brine had
bunched the puckers at the corners of his eyes and hardened the lines
of his big brown face; but the outstanding thing about him was still
that silent wariness, as of a man who had warning of something
impending. It went a little strangely with his figure of a massive,
steel-and-hickory shipmaster, soaked to the soul with the routine of
his calling. It seemed to give token of some faculty held in reserve,
to hint at an inner life, as it were; and not a few of the frank and
simple men who went to sea with him found it disconcerting. Captains
who could handle a big steamship as a cyclist manages a bicycle they
had seen before; they recognized in him the supreme skill, the salt-
pickled nerve, the iron endurance of a proven sailor; but there their
experience ended and the depths began.

Sooner or later, most of them went to the Burdock's chief mate for an
explanation of the unknown quality. "What makes your father act so?"
was a common form of the question. Arthur Price would smile and shake
his handsome head.

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