Part 22

And now this affair of Sargon’s had twisted him up very badly between his desire to free the little man, who had taken an extraordinary hold upon his imagination and sympathy, and his sense of the immense forces against which he would have to pit himself if he tried to give him any help. It was only after a considerable struggle with himself that he had called at the police station and the Gifford Street Workhouse. He was afraid of awkward questions, afraid above all of being “detained.” The workhouse was a detestable place with high walls and a paved court and a general effect of sinister seclusion from the grubby street outside. For the best part of a day after his Gifford Street visit he hesitated whether he should do anything more.

“Bobby’s got a grouch,” Susan told Tessy. “He’s stoopid. Just sits and says ’E ’as to fink sumpfink over. What’s he fink fings over for? Said I was to come downstairs again, there was a good girl.... Meant it.... Said so.... Puss’d me ’way.... I do-o-n’t fink I lo-o-o-ove Bobby ’nymore.”

Great distress. A storm of tears. Tessy was deeply sympathetic.

But after tea Bobby was brighter and drew Susan her “Good night picture” and came down and sat on her bed and talked her to sleep the same as usual, and Tessy perceived that the worst of Bobby’s trouble was over.

At supper Bobby unfolded his plans.

“I mean to go to Cummerdown Hill to-morrow,” he said compactly.

“To see Sargon?” said Tessy understandingly.

“If I can. But it won’t be visiting day. That’s Tuesday. I want to look round.”

Billy raised his eyebrows and helped himself to butter.

“But--” said Tessy, and stopped short.

“Yes?” said Bobby.

“You won’t be able to see him. You don’t know the name he’s under.”

“They’ll call him Mr. Sargon,” said Billy.

“His name’s Preemby. He’s a laundryman. They told me at the workhouse. His people _want him to be there_!”

“I can’t stand the thought of it,” said Bobby after a brief silence.

“Don’t follow,” said Billy.

“That nice little thing being made into a lunatic. Like a little blue-eyed bird he was. High walls. Great louting warders. Sargon, King of Kings.... I’ve got to do something about it or I shall burst.”

He looked at once weak and desperate. Tessy reflected. “You’d better go,” she said.

“But what good will that do?” said Billy, and was quelled by a glance from Tessy.

“If you can lend me the old motor bike and the side-car. You’re not using it this week-end.”

“You can take off the side-car,” said Billy.

“I may want it,” said Bobby.

“You don’t mean--!” said Billy.

Bobby came as near to an explosion as he ever did.

“Oh never mind _what_ I mean. I tell you I’m going down to Cummerdown to have a look at the place. No doubt I’m a futile ass, Billy, but I just can’t help myself going. The poor little beggar’s got no friends. His own family’s helped to put him away. Families do. It’s an infernal world. I’ve got to do something. If it’s only to shake ’em up. If I stay here another day I shall start smacking Susan.”

“Somebody ought to,” said Billy.

“If he can only keep away for fourteen days clear----”

“He’s free?” said Tessy.

“He has to be certified all over again--anyhow,” said Bobby.

§ 2

Bobby discovered that the village of Cummerdown lies nearly two miles away from the asylum, and does its best very successfully to have as little to do with it as possible. It nestles among trees just off the high-road to Ashford and Hastings, and has one cramped little inn that gave him a bleak bedroom and accommodated his machine and side-car in an open outhouse crowded with two carts and a Ford and populous with hens. The day was still young, and after he had deposited the elderly rucksac in which he had brought his “things” upstairs, he set out with a walking-stick and an air of detached interest to reconnoitre the asylum and develop his plans for the rescue of Sargon. That golden autumn was still holding out; the pleasant lane he followed to the high-road was patterned with green and yellow chestnut leaves and the trees overhead were full of sunshine. It was a reassuring day. It encouraged him. It took him with a kindly seriousness and made him feel that rescuing people from lunatic asylums was the sort of work the sun could shine upon and nature welcome.

It had needed a great effort to get down from London. He had felt then like a midget setting out to attack an embattled universe. Amidst the Croydon traffic he had been half-minded to go back, but he had felt that he could not face Tessy until he had been at least definitely defeated. It was delightful to note an increased assurance within himself as he drew nearer to his enterprise. He felt much more on the scale of the powers he attacked. After all, what were laws and regulations but just things patched up by men like himself? What were prison walls but the slow work of shirking bricklayers and evasive contractors? The attendants and custodians, the superintendents and so forth he was setting out to circumvent, were all as fallible as himself. And the thing was urgent and outrageous, this seizure of a harmless little fantastic, this frightful imprisonment. It had to be fought. The world would be intolerable unless such things were fought.

Queer world it was! Such beauty on these tree-stems, such a glow, and the delightfulness of rustling one’s feet through these leaves! But all that was by the way; the real business of life was to fight evil things.

He came out from between the trees and saw the wide downs opening out before him and the blocked masses of the asylum with its broad bare grounds and walls, an eyesore. This was his objective. In that place somewhere was Sargon, and he had to be released.

He seated himself on a convenient stile and inspected that heavy architecture and tried to frame a plan. That white building in the centre looked like a gaunt Georgian private house. That was probably the nucleus of the whole place. Two men were visible in front of it mowing the grass--patients perhaps. The wall and railings along the road looked implacable. Two stern-looking lodges there were, no doubt with a testy janitor lurking within, and there were iron gates--one open. A van was coming out, a furniture dealer’s van. For a time Bobby’s mind ran on the possibility of becoming a tradesman with parcels or a crate to deliver.... Many difficulties that way....

“But why a frontal attack?” said Bobby with an effect of discovery. The place fell away behind, down-hill. He would inspect the rear. If he worked round by the open down to the right, he would probably get on to slopes commanding a view of the asylum grounds.

An hour later Bobby was sitting on a heap of flints by the side of a minor road which ran over the rising ground behind the asylum. He found the rear of the place much more hopeful and much more interesting than the front. There were fields with a number of men working in them, and at one place near the buildings a row of men seemed to be digging a trench under the supervision of an attendant. There was quite a lot of movement closer to the buildings, under a sort of open shed half a dozen men seemed to be taking exercise by walking up and down. It vexed Bobby to think that any one of these figures might be his Sargon. If only he had the elementary common sense to bring a field-glass, he reproached himself, he might have been able to make out his little friend’s features. “No clearness of thought,” he whispered. “No decision.” A lot of these people seemed to be going about very freely, carrying gardening implements and so forth. One he noted, walking about and gesticulating as if he talked to himself; he was manifestly a patient and quite unattended.

The wall bounding the asylum on this side had none of the austerity of the front wall. It seemed to be an old estate wall; in several places it was covered with ivy and here and there it was overhung with trees. The ground dropped away to his right, there was a little stream which ran out of the asylum grounds at the lowest corner; the corner was shaded by trees and seemed to be left to the trees and undergrowth; the stream ran under a low arch in the wall and went on down a widening valley towards London. The seclusion and shade of this corner appealed to Bobby very strongly. It seemed to him exactly the point at which Sargon ought to be got out of the place. He decided that presently he would stroll down and examine its possibilities as precisely as possible. If one could get Sargon to come down there----

He found the details difficult. He meant to have a plan worked out in every detail and to communicate it to Sargon on the next visiting day, but it was very hard to fit this plan together. He did not know when it would be most convenient for Sargon to attempt to slip away, whether this was to be a daylight or a night affair. He saw before him a great vista of inquiries to be made and suspicious people to be faced. “Damn!” said Bobby, and for a time he was again for abandoning the attempt.

Why couldn’t one go in at these gates, boldly and overwhelmingly, and say, “There is a sane man here and I have come to set him free?” A superman might do that, or an archangel. How splendid it would be to be a sort of Archangel-Knight-Errant, a great flaming presence of light and winged power, righting wrongs, reproving oppressors, liberating every kind of captive creature. Then one might do things. Bobby lapsed into a childish day-dream.

Presently he roused himself, stood up and went down towards the exit of the stream. The wall struck him as quite climbable--even by a little old gentleman. The stream came out meandering among pebbles through a short tunnel. One could have got into the asylum grounds or out of them quite easily over the wall by the ivy or through the culvert. He resolved to come again at twilight and--just to satisfy himself about his own pluck among other things--get into the asylum premises and walk about a little.

Yes. He would do that.

He tried to imagine himself assisting Sargon over the wall. One could get on the top of the wall and reach down to his hands. A cripple could do it. The motor bicycle would have to be waiting up there in the lane. And then? _Where would he take him?_

This was a new consideration. For a time Bobby’s mind was appalled and paralyzed by the complexities of his enterprise. He had not thought of taking him anywhere in particular.

The days that intervened before visiting day seemed at once interminable and frightfully swift. He had been to Dymchurch in the summer with the Malmesburys, and liked the landlady of his lodgings very much; he wired to her “Can I come with a relation not ill but overworked for week or so you will remember me last summer Roothing the Feathers Cummerdown” and had got a reply, “Glad to see you any time.” So that was all right. But the rest of the plan failed very largely to materialize. He made his nocturnal visit to the asylum grounds without misadventure.

The morning of visiting day found him with half a dozen plans, and they all had gaps and none seemed much better or worse than the others. And he had walked round the asylum grounds at various discreet distances, by night and day just twenty-three times, not counting loops, returns and visits to particular points of interest. Fortunately asylums are much preoccupied with their internal affairs, and do not keep look-out men upon the battlements. They do not reckon with rescuers from outside.

Bobby made his final decision among these conflicting projects over his breakfast bacon. With a resolute sang-froid and his nerves all a-tingle, he set out for the asylum to see Sargon and begin the work of rescue as he had thought it out. First he had to find out what freedom of movement was permitted Sargon, when it might be possible for him to get away to the corner by the culvert, and he had to arrange a time for that meeting. Then he would have to provide also for alternative times if Sargon failed to keep his first appointment. Bobby would be waiting under the wall and the motor bicycle and side-car would be hidden among the bushes up by the road. In a trice Sargon would be over the wall. After that they could laugh at pursuit. Off they would go to Dymchurch, and there, safe and untrackable, Sargon would keep indoors until the fifteen days needed to make him legally a sane man again had passed. And then Bobby could find out those relations of his and talk the matter over with them, and get things on a proper footing. So Bobby planned it out.

Just at the lodge gates he decided upon an assumed name. He wasn’t quite clear why he didn’t give his own name, but an assumed name seemed to him to be more in the spirit of the adventure.

§ 3

When Sargon was informed that he was to be visited by Mr. Robin Goodchild he was in a depressed mood. He betrayed no surprise at the name. It seemed to him to be as good as any other name. It might be the name of some intelligent inquirer or possibly even some precursor of the release he still hoped for. His spirits rose. He submitted cheerfully to a searching examination of his personal tidiness, and he nodded acquiescently to a warning not to talk about “_every_ blessed thing” he’d seen.

His spirits rose still more when he saw the dark kindliness of Bobby’s face. It was the one disciple who had ever seemed to believe. He held out both his hands in a little storm of emotion. Whatever sort of muddler Bobby might be to himself, to Sargon in that moment at least he was strength and hope.

The meeting occurred in the reception-room downstairs, for no one from the outside world may ever penetrate to the wards and the bleak realities of everyday asylum life. The reception-room had a baize-covered table in the middle, a black horsehair sofa and numerous chairs; it was totally devoid of small movables; there was an A B C time-table and one or two illustrated weeklies on the table, and the walls bore brown-spotted steel engravings of Prince Albert and Queen Victoria in the Highlands and of Windsor Castle from the Thames. There were three or four groups, each of two or three people, with their heads together conversing in tactful undertones; there were several women and one little girl; a tearful lady in profound mourning sat apart by the empty fire-place and no doubt awaited a patient; two attendants tried hard not to look as though they were listening as intently as possible to the conversations going on about them. The patients present were all in the sanest phase, “fit to be visited.” There was no madness visible; at most only a little nervous oddity. Bobby had been watching these other groups while he waited, and he had been impressed by a certain quality of furtiveness in their behaviour. The furtiveness he connected with the alertness of the attendants. One affected to look out of the window, the other half sat at a table holding an old _Graphic_, and ever and again there would be a quick glance at this patient or that. It had not occurred to Bobby that his talk to Sargon would be semi-public; it was a disconcerting interference that would greatly hamper him in giving his instructions.

Bobby saw at once that Sargon was very much thinner than when he had taken his room in Midgard Street. He looked ill and worn, an effect that was emphasized by the fact that he was badly shaven and wearing ill-fitting clothes. His eyes seemed larger and sunken under his brows and his forehead more definitely lined. Yet if he looked unhappier he also looked more intelligent. He seemed more aware of the things about him--less a man in a dream.

“I have come to see if I can be of service to you,” said Bobby, holding out his hands. “Your friends and disciples are anxious for your welfare.”

“You have come to see me,” he said, and glanced sideways at the listening attendant and dropped his voice; “me--_Sargon_?”

Bobby understood that note of doubt and it grieved him. “You, Sargon, the King out of the Past.”

“They would have me deny it,” whispered Sargon.

Bobby raised his eyebrows and nodded his head as who should say, “They’d do _anything_.”

The little man’s manner changed. “How is one to know?” he said. “How is one to know?”

He sighed. “Nothing seems certain any more.”

“Can we sit down and talk together?” said Bobby. “There is much to be said between us.”

Sargon glanced round. There were two chairs in a corner, and in that corner they might be a little beyond the eavesdropper’s range. “I cannot understand this madness,” said Sargon as they sat down. “I cannot understand this Riddle that has been set me. Why does the Power, why does God, permit men to be mad? When they are mad they are beyond good and evil. What are they? Men still? What becomes of justice, what becomes of righteousness--when men go mad?” His voice sank. His eyes became furtive. “Dreadful things happen here,” he whispered. “Dreadful things. Quite dreadful things.”

He ceased. For a little while neither he nor Bobby said a word.

“I want to get you out of this,” said Bobby.

“Are my friends doing anything?” asked Sargon. “What is Christina Alberta doing? Is she well?”

“She is splendid,” he said haphazard. No doubt she was one of this beastly family of Sargon’s that was content to leave him here. “I want you to listen to me,” he said.

But Sargon had things to tell. “Everyone in this place is always thinking about what their friends outside are doing for them. The poor souls come and talk to me. They know I am different from what they are. They write letters, petitions. I tell them that when God releases me I will bear them all in mind. Some mock at me. They have delusions. They think they are kings or emperors or rich men or great discoverers, and that the world has plotted against them.... Some are suspicious and cruel.... Darkened souls.... Some have dreadful habits. You cannot help but see.... Some are badly sunken--degraded--indescribably.... It is very painful, very painful.”

The blue eyes stared blankly at unpleasant memories.

“There can be no doubt that I am Sargon,” he said abruptly, and looked sharply at Bobby.

“I call you by no other name,” said Bobby.

The momentary acuteness faded again. “That man Preemby was unawakened. He was asleep--scarcely dreaming of life. _But I have seen!_ I have looked at the world from high places. And from dark places too.... Sargon. Sargon is a different person.... But it is difficult.”

He became silent.

Bobby felt that they were getting nowhere. In his anticipations of this conversation he had talked and Sargon had listened. And there had been no one to overhear. But this was all unexpected. Anyhow, the plan had to be told; Sargon had to be instructed in his part. He glanced warily at the people nearest to them. “There are those among us,” he said quietly and quickly, “who would set you free. I want to tell you--” On the spur of the moment he attempted a code. “When I speak of a city in Central Asia it will mean this place, the Asylum. Do you understand?”

“This place--Central Asia. If I am Sargon.... Everything is possibly something else. But we are still in England nevertheless.”

“In reality. But I want to explain to you.”

“Yes, yes. Explain.”

“I shall speak of great discoveries in Central Asia. That will mean this.”

_Did_ he understand?

“_Rescue!_” whispered Bobby in Sargon’s ear, and glanced at the attendant and met his eye and was discomposed.

“Tell me about the discoveries,” said Sargon after a little pause as though he had not heard that whispered word.

“It is a symbol for this place,” said Bobby.

Sargon looked puzzled. The attendant was watching their faces now. Perhaps he suspected already. Bobby flushed hotly and plunged abruptly into an account of the discoveries of an amazing Russian he called Bobinsky. Bobinsky had found a walled city with no way out. “Yes,” said Sargon, interested. The attendant was now looking away. “Like this place,” said Bobby, and more explicitly; “I _mean_ this place.” There was a river ran through the city, the city of confinement, and went out by the lower part. There it was the helper waited. The rescuers. That was the place for them to wait. Did he understand? At that point where the trees grew and the river went out through the wall. They they waited. There they would wait until the captive king came to them.

“It is a curious story,” said Sargon. “What captive king do you mean?”

“It is meant for you.”

“The river you speak of may be the Euphrates,” said Sargon. “I dream of the Euphrates.”

He had missed it all! He was out upon some woolgathering of his own. Euphrates! What had the Euphrates to do with Central Asia? Or the Asylum?

“Bother!” said Bobby. “I say-- It is a smaller river I mean, a streamlet--in the grounds here. Don’t you understand?”

A tall sharp-faced woman in a hat of hard black straw came near them and sat down. Bobby, as he talked, observed her out of the corner of his eye. Was she the friend of a patient or what was she doing here? “I speak in symbols,” said Bobby, still watching and thinking about this woman. “This city is your prison.” He caught the woman exchanging a glance of intelligence with the male attendant who had moved a couple of yards up the room. They knew each other. Then she must be another observer. “I want no other prison than this,” said Sargon, evidently quite at cross-purposes. “One prison is enough.”

“I don’t mean that,” said Bobby. “Can you walk about here pretty freely?”

“Not freely,” said Sargon. “No.”

“If you could come out into the grounds. To-morrow.”

The woman turned her long sharp foxy nose towards him, and stared at him with rather stupid green-blue eyes.

Bobby’s nerve was going to pieces altogether. He was always more afraid of women than men. This prim sharp-nosed figure so manifestly listening, and listening with a faint hostility to all he said, completed his discomfiture. He tried to improvise a story of lost and recovered cities that would be crystal clear to Sargon and yet incomprehensible to the listener. But his invention faltered at the difficult task. Where the river ran out of the city, he repeated; he harped upon that idea; where there were trees and ivy, there the faithful waited. When was the propitious hour for the Master to steal away to them? Everything was prepared. When could it be? When might it be? Fragmentally and mixed with many irrelevancies Bobby tried to get the import of these suggestions over to his hearer. Now he would be explicit; now as the fear of the listener returned, vague and misleading. He did convey a sense of mystery and intention to Sargon, that was plain; but he felt he conveyed nothing more. The time was slipping by. Bobby could have throttled that infernal woman. More and more did she become audience to his floundering efforts. He maundered back to his starting point about Bobinsky. “There is no such person as Bobinsky,” he threw in.

“Then how could he explore cities?” asked Sargon, manifestly more and more perplexed at Bobby’s rigmarole.

“He is dead,” said Bobby. “He was just a mask.”

“Some men are.”

“Don’t mind about Bobinsky. Could you slip away to that corner? No, no. She’s looking. Don’t answer.

“Now _answer_.”

“I don’t understand,” said Sargon.

Bobby felt that he was only puzzling Sargon. But what else was to be done? He could have kicked himself for not having brought a brief statement of his plan written plainly on a little piece of paper that he could have slipped into Sargon’s hand--or pocket. It would have been so simple. He could have made a map and a drawing. Too late to do that now.

Despair came upon Bobby. Everything had gone wrong. He got up to go and then sat down again to make another attempt. He felt murderous towards that woman, towards himself, even towards slow-witted little Sargon.

“It was very good of you to come and see me,” said Sargon.

“_Why_ did you come?...

“Do you think anything will be done about me?...