Nothing But the Truth

CHAPTER XIII – AN ENFORCED REST CURE

They kept him two days in the padded room on Dickie’s recommendation, who made Bob out as highly dangerous. “Powerful and vicious,” he described him to the suave individual in charge of the “sanatorium.” That particular apartment was somewhat remote from the other rooms, so that any noises made by the inmate of the former wouldn’t disturb the others. Becoming more reconciled to the inevitable, Bob found the quiet of the padded room rather soothing to his shaken nerves. He didn’t have to talk to hardly a soul. Only an attendant came around once in a while to shove cautiously something edible at him, but the attendant didn’t ask any questions and Bob didn’t have to tell him any truths. It was a joyful relief not to have to tell truths.

Bob’s eye was swollen and he had a few bruises, but they didn’t count. He had observed with satisfaction that Dickie’s lip had an abrasion and that one of his front teeth seemed missing. Dickie would have to wait until nature and art had repaired his appearance before he could once more a-wooing go. Bob didn’t want the temperamental young thing himself, but he couldn’t conscientiously wish Dickie success in that quarter, after the unnecessarily rough and unsportsmanlike manner in which Dickie had comported himself against him (Bob).

At first, it had occurred to Bob to take the attendant – and through him, the manager of the institution – into his confidence, but for two reasons he changed his mind about doing so. The attendant would probably receive Bob’s confidence as so many illusions; he would smile and say “Yes – quite so!” or “There! there!” – meaning Bob would get over said illusions some day, and that was why he was there. He was being treated for them. Again, if he unbosomed himself fully, as to the fundamental cause of all this trouble and turmoil, he would lose to the commodore, et al., and have to pay that note which he didn’t very well see how he could pay.

Bob gritted his teeth. Would it not be better to win now to spite them and in spite of everything? About the worst that could happen, had happened. Why not accept, then, this enforced sojourn philosophically and when the time came, he would walk up to the captain’s (or commodore’s) office and demand a little pay-envelope as his hard-earned wage? There would be a slight balm in that pay-envelope. With the contents thereof, he could relieve some of dad’s necessities which soon would be pressing. Why not, with a little stretch of the imagination, tell himself he (Bob) was only taking a rest cure? People paid big prices for a fashionable rest cure. They probably charged pretty stiff prices here, but it wouldn’t cost him a cent. His dear friends who put him here would have to pay. He wasn’t a voluntary boarder. They would have to vouch for him and his bills. So Bob made up his mind to have as good a time as he could; in other words, to grin and bear it, as best he might.

It was a novel experience. Maybe he might write an article about it for one of the Sunday newspapers some day – “How It Feels for a Sane Person to be Forcibly Detained in an Insane Asylum, by One who Has Been There.” The editor could put all manner of gay and giddy head-lines over such an experience. Bob tried to chronicle his feelings in the padded cell, but he couldn’t conjure up anything awful or harrowing. There weren’t spiders, or rats, or any crawly things to lend picturesqueness to the situation. It was only deadly quiet – the kind of quiet he needed.

He slept most of those first two days, making up for hours of lost sleep. His swollen eye became less painful and his appetite grew large and normal. He had to eat with his fingers because they were afraid to trust him with a knife and fork, but he told himself cheerfully that high-class Arabs still ate that way, and that all he had to do was to sit cross-legged, to be strictly comme il faut– that is, from the Arab’s standpoint. Since he had adopted truth as his mentor, Bob had learned, however, that “what should be” or “what shouldn’t,” or “mustn’t,” depends a great deal upon the standpoint, and he was beginning to be very suspicious, or critical, about the standpoint.

The third day the doctor in charge thought he could trust him in a room without pads. Bob had a good color, his eye was clear and his appearance generally reassuring, so they gave him now the cutest little cubby-hole, with a cunning little bed and a dear little window, with flowers outside and iron bars between the inmate and the flowers. The managing-medico proudly called Bob’s attention to the flowers and the view. One gazing out could see miles and miles of beautiful country. The managing-med. talked so much about that view that Bob chimed in and said it was lovely, too, only, it reminded him of the bone set just beyond reach of a dog chained to his cute little cubby-hole; or the jug of water and choice viands the Bedouins of the desert set before their victim after they have buried him to the neck in the sand. Bob was going on, trying to think of other felicitous comparisons, when he caught a look in the managing-med’s. eye that stopped him.

“I wonder if you are well enough, after all, to appreciate this cozy and home-like little apartment?” said the med. musingly.

Bob hastily apologized for the figures of speech. The padded place was very restful, no doubt, but he was quite rested now. Any more padded-room kind of rest would be too much. He looked at the view and expatiated upon it, even calling attention to certain charming details of the landscape. The flowers made a charming touch of color and they were just the kind of flowers he liked – good, old-fashioned geraniums! He could say all this and still tell the truth. The medico studied him attentively; then he concluded he would risk it and permit Bob to stay in the room.

But he didn’t stay there long. Several nights later a pebble clicked against his window; at first, he did not notice. The sound was repeated. Then Bob got up, went to his window, raised it noiselessly and looked out. In the shadow, beneath the window, stood a figure.

“Catch,” whispered a voice and instinctively Bob put out his hand. But he didn’t catch; he missed. Again and again some one below tossed something until finally he did catch. He looked at the object – a spool of thread. Now what on earth did he want with a spool of thread? Did the person below think some of his garments needed mending? It was strong, serviceable enough thread.

For some moments Bob cogitated, then going to the bureau, he picked up a tooth-brush, tied it to the thread, and let it down. After an interval he pulled up the thread; the tooth-brush had disappeared and a file was there in its stead. Then Bob tied to the thread something else and instead of it, he got back the end of an excellent manila rope. After that he went to work. It took Bob about an hour to get those bars out; it took him, then, about a minute to get out himself. Fortunately some one in a near-by room was having a tantrum and the little rasping sound of the filing couldn’t be heard. The louder the person yelled, the harder Bob filed.

When he reached the earth some one extended a hand and led him silently out of the garden and into the road beyond. Bob went along meekly and obediently. Not far down the road was a taxicab. Bob got in and his fair rescuer followed. So far he hadn’t said a word to her; language seemed superfluous. But as they dashed away, she murmured:

“Isn’t it lovely?”’

“Is it?” he asked. Somehow he wasn’t feeling particularly jubilant over his escape. In fact, he found himself wondering almost as soon as he had reached the earth, if it wouldn’t have been wiser, after all, to have spent the rest of those three weeks in pleasant seclusion. The presence of the temperamental young thing suggested new and more perplexing problems perhaps. He had regarded her as somewhat of a joke, but she wasn’t a joke just now; she was a reality. What was he going to do with her, and with himself, for that matter? Why were they dashing madly across the country like that together?

It was as if he were carrying her off, and he certainly didn’t want to do that. He wasn’t in love with her, and she wasn’t with him. At least, he didn’t think she was. It was only her temperamental disposition that caused her to imagine she was in love, because she thought him something that he wasn’t. And when she found out he wasn’t, but was only a plain, ordinary young man, not of much account anyhow, what a shock would be the awakening! Perhaps he’d better stop the machine, go back into the garden, climb up to his room in the crazy-house and tumble into bed? His being here, embarked on a preposterous journey, seemed a case of leaping before looking, or thinking.

“Why so quiet, darling?” giggled the temperamental young thing, snuggling closer.

“Don’t call me that. I – I won’t stand it.”

“All right, dearie.” With another giggle.

“And drop that ‘dearie’ dope, too,” he commanded.

“Just as you say. Only what shall I call you?”

“I guess plain ‘darn fool’ will do.”

“Oh, you’re too clever to be called that,” she expostulated.

“Me, clever?” Scornfully.

“Yes; think how long you have fooled the police.”

“I wish you wouldn’t talk such nonsense.” Irritably.

“I won’t. On condition!”

“What?”

“If you’ll put your arm around me.”

“I won’t.”

“Oh, yes, you will.” She adjusted it for him.

“All right! If you want some one to hug you when he doesn’t want to!” he said in aggrieved tones.

“That makes it all the nicer,” she returned. “There are ever so many men that want to. This – this is so different!” With a sigh.

“There you go, with some more nonsense talk!” grumbled Bob.

“Well,” she giggled, “there’s always a way to make a poor, weak, helpless little thing stop talking.”

“Of all the assurance!” he gasped.

“I love to have some one I can command to make love to me.”

“I’m going back.” Disgustedly.

“Oh, no, you’re not. You can’t.”

“Why?”

“You’d be arrested, if you did. They are coming for you. That’s why I came – to circumvent them!”

“They?”

“All has been discovered.”

“I fail to understand.”

“What did you do with it?” she countered.

“It?”

“The swag.”

Bob started to withdraw his arm but she clapped a small warm hand on his big warm hand and held his strong right arm about her slim, adaptable waist. Her head trailed on his shoulder, while she started floating off in dreamland.

“I just love eloping,” she murmured.

“What was that last word?” he observed combatively.

“Elope! elope! elope!” she whispered dreamily, her slim, young feminine figure close to his big masculine bulk.

“So you think you’re eloping with me?” said Bob ominously.

“I know I am.” In that musical die-away tone. “We’re headed straight for old New York and we’re going to get married in the little church around the corner. Then” – with a happy laugh – “we may have to disguise ourselves and flee.”

“May I kindly inquire – that is, if I have any voice in our future operations —why we may have to disguise ourselves?”

“In case they should want to capture you. The police, I mean.”

“Police?” he said.

“Didn’t I just tell you they were coming for you?”

“Indeed?” He looked down in her eyes to see if she was in earnest. He believed she was. “For what?”

“Oh, you know.” She raised her lips. “Say, that was a real stingy one, under the oak.”

“You say all has been discovered?” went on Bob, disregarding her last remark.

“I say that was a real stingy – ”

“Hang it!” But he had to. He knew he had to get that idea out of her head, before he could get any more real information from her.

“And think how you deceived poor little me, about it!” she purred contentedly. After all, thought Bob, it didn’t take “much of a one” to satisfy her. She had only wanted “it,” perhaps, because “it” fitted in; “it” went with eloping. Perhaps “it” would have to happen about once so often. Bob hoped not. She was a dainty little tyrant who let him see plainly she had sharp claws. She could scratch as well as purr. Somehow, he felt that he was doubly in her power – that he was doubly her slave now – that something had happened which made him so. He could not imagine what it was.

“They’re keeping it very quiet, though,” she went on. “The robbery, I mean!”

“There has been a robbery at Mrs. Ralston’s?”

“Of course. And you didn’t know a thing about it?” she mocked him.

“I certainly did not.”

“You say that just as if it were so,” she observed admiringly. “I don’t suppose you are aware that some one did really substitute a counterfeit brooch for Mrs. Vanderpool’s wonderful pink pearl and bronze diamond brooch, after all? Oh, no, you don’t know that. You’re only a poor little ignorant dear. Bless its innocent little heart! It didn’t know a thing. Not it!” She was talking baby-talk now, the while her fingers were playing with Bob’s ear. He was so interested in what she was saying, however, that he failed to note the baby-talk and overlooked the liberties she was taking with his hearing apparatus.

“By jove!” he exclaimed. “That accounts for what I thought I saw in the hall that night when I left your room. Imagined I saw some one! Believe now it was some one, after all. And that door I heard click? Whose door is that on the other side of the hall from your room and about twenty-five feet nearer the landing?” Excitedly.

“Gwendoline Gerald’s,” was the unexpected answer.

Bob caught his breath. He was becoming bewildered. “But nothing was missing from Miss Gerald’s room, was there?” he asked.

“Don’t you know?” said she.

“I do not.”

“My! aren’t you the beautiful fibber! I’m wondering if you ever tell the truth?”

“I don’t tell anything else.” Indignantly. “And that’s the trouble.”

“And how well you stick to it!” Admiringly. “If you tell such ones before, how will it be after?”

“After what?” he demanded.

“The church ceremony,” she giggled.

“Don’t you worry about that. There isn’t going to be any.”

“It’s perfectly lovely of you to say there isn’t. It will be such fun to see you change your mind.” She spoke in that regular on-to-Washington tone. “I can just see you walking up the aisle. Won’t you look handsome? And poor, demure little me! I shan’t look like hardly anything.”

Bob pretended not to hear.

“You say they are keeping it very quiet about the robbery at the Ralston house. How, then, did you come to know?”

“Eavesdropping.” Shamelessly. “Thought it was necessary you should know the ‘lay of the land.’ But never mind the ‘how.’ It is sufficient that I managed to overhear Lord Stanfield say he was going to send for you. Gwendoline Gerald knows about the robbery and so does her aunt and Lord Stanfield, but it’s being kept from all the other guests for the present. Even Mrs. Vanderpool doesn’t know. She still thinks the brooch she is wearing is the real one, poor dear! Lord Stanfield discovered it wasn’t. He asked her one day to let him see it. Then, he just said: ‘Aw! How interesting!’ – that is, to her. But to Mrs. Ralston he said it was an imitation and that some guest had substituted the false brooch for the real. Mrs. Vanderpool is not to know because Lord Stanfield says the thief must not dream he is suspected. He wants to give him full swing yet a while – ‘enough rope to hang himself with,’ were the words he used. It seems Lord Stanfield anticipated things would be missing. He said he knew when a certain person – he didn’t say whom” – gazing up at Bob adoringly – “appeared on the scene, things just went. That’s why Lord Stanfield got asked to the Ralston house. Then when he said he was coming after you, I thought it would be such a joke if you weren’t there to receive him. And that’s why I came to elope with you. And isn’t it all too romantic for anything? I am sure none of those plays comes up to it. Maybe you’ll dramatize our little romance some day – that is – ”

Miss Dolly suddenly stopped. “Isn’t that a car coming up behind?”

Bob looked around, too, and in the far distance saw a light. “Believe it is,” he answered.

She leaned forward and spoke to the driver. They were traveling with only one lamp lighted; the driver now put that out. Then he went on until he came to a private roadway, leading into some one’s estate, when quickly turning, he ran along a short distance and finally stopped the car in a dark shaded spot. Bob gazed back and in a short time saw a big car whir by. Idly he wondered whether it contained the police, or the managing medico and some of his staff. Between them, he was promised a right lively time – altogether too lively. He wondered which ones would get him first? It was a kind of a competition and he would be first prize to the winners. Well, it was well to have the enemy – or half of the enemy – in front of him. Of course, the other half might come up any moment behind. He would have to take that chance, he thought, as they now returned to the highway. Meanwhile Miss Dolly’s eyes were bright with excitement. She was enjoying herself very much.

CHAPTER XIV – MUTINY

They resumed the conversation where they had left off.

“It seems to me,” said Bob, “from all you say, that monocle-man has been a mighty busy person.”

“Of course you knew right along what he is. You didn’t need any information from poor little me about him. He couldn’t fool great big You!” she affirmed admiringly.

“I can imagine what he is – now,” observed Bob meditatively. He was turning over in his mind what she had said about that substituted brooch. The some one Bob had imagined he had seen in the hall, after leaving Miss Dolly’s room, might not have been the real thief, after all; it might have been the monocle-man on the lookout for the thief. And perhaps the monocle-man had seen Bob. That was the reason he was “coming for him.” Bob could imagine dear old dad’s feelings, if he (Bob) got sent to Sing Sing. What if, instead of rustling and rising to the occasion, in that fine, old honorable Japanese way, Bob should bring irretrievable disgrace on an eminently respectable family name?

He could see himself in stripes now, with his head shaved, and doing the lock-step. Perhaps, even at that moment, descriptions of him were being sent broadcast. And if so, it would look as if he were running away from the officers of the law, which would be tantamount to a confession of guilt. Bob shivered. The temperamental young thing did not share his apprehensions.

“Of course, Lord Stanfield only thinks he has evidence enough to convict you,” she said confidently. “But you’ll meet him at every point and turn the laugh on him.”

“Oh, will I?” said Bob ironically.

“And you’ll make him feel so cheap! Of course, you’ve got something up your sleeve – ”

“Wish I had,” he muttered.

“Something deep and mysterious,” she went on in that confident tone. “That’s why you acted so queer toward some people. You had a purpose. It was a ruse. Wasn’t it now?” she concluded triumphantly.

“It was not.” Gruffly.

“Fibber! every time you fib, you’ve got to – ” She put up her lips.

“This is getting monotonous,” grumbled Bob.

“On the contrary!” breathed the temperamental young thing. “I find it lovely. Maybe you’ll learn how sometime.”

“Don’t want to,” he snapped.

“Oh, yes, you do. But as I was saying, you got yourself put in that sanatorium to mislead everybody. It, too, was a ruse – a part of the game. It’s all very clear – at least, to me!”

He stared at her. And she called that clear? “When did you leave Mrs. Ralston’s?” he demanded.

“About three hours ago. Said I’d a headache and believed I’d go to my room. But I didn’t. I just slipped down to the village and hired a taxi. Maybe we’d better keep our marriage a secret, at first.” Irrelevantly.

“Maybe we had,” answered Bob. And then he called out to the man in front. “Stop a moment.”

Before Miss Dolly had time to expostulate, the driver obeyed. Bob sprang out.

“You aren’t going to leave me, are you?” said the temperamental little thing. “If so – ” She made as if to get out, too.

“No; I’m not going to leave you just yet,” answered Bob. Then to the driver: “See here! Your blamed machine is turned in the wrong direction. You know where you’re going to take us?”

“New York.”

“No; back to Mrs. Ralston’s. You take the first cross-road you come to and steer right for there.”

“You’re not to do any such thing,” called out Miss Dolly. “You’re to go where I tell you.”

“You’re to do nothing of the sort,” said Bob. “You’re to go where I tell you.”

The driver scratched his head.

“Which is it to be?” asked Bob. “This is the place to have an understanding.”

“The lady hired me,” he answered.

“Yes, and I won’t pay you at all, if you don’t mind,” said Miss Dolly in firm musical accents.

“Guess that settles it,” observed the driver.

“You mean – ?” began Bob, eying him.

“It means I obey orders. She’s my ‘fare,’ not you. We just picked you up.”

“And that’s your last word?” Ominously.

“Say, lady” – the driver turned wearily – “have I got to suppress this crazy man you got out of the bughouse?”

“Maybe that would be a good plan,” answered Miss Dolly, militancy now in her tone. “That is, if he doesn’t get in, just sweet and quiet-like.”

“It’ll be twenty dollars extra,” said the man, rising. He was a big fellow, too.

“Make it thirty,” returned Miss Dolly spiritedly. It was an issue and had to be met. There was an accent of “On-to-Parliament!” in her voice. One can’t show too much mercy to a “slave” when he revolts. One has to suppress him. One has to teach him who is mistress. A stern lesson, and the slave learns and knows his place.

“Now mind the lady and get back where you belong,” said the driver roughly to Bob. “Your tiles are loose, and the lady knows what is good for a dingbat like you.” Possibly he thought the display of a little authority would be quite sufficient to intimidate a recent “patient.” They usually became quite mild, he had heard, when the keepers talked right up to them, like that. The effect of his language and attitude upon Bob was not, however, quieting; something seemed to explode in his brain and he made one spring and got a football hold; then he heaved and the big man shot over his shoulder as if propelled from a catapult. He came down in a ditch, where the breath seemed to be knocked out of him. Bob got on in front. As he started the machine, the man sat up and looked after him. He didn’t try to get up though; he just looked. No doubt he had had the surprise of his life.

“I’ll leave the car in the village when I’m through with it,” Bob called back. “A little walk won’t hurt you.”

The man didn’t answer. “Gee! but that’s a powerful lunatic for a poor young lady to have on her hands!” he said to himself.

An hour or so later Bob drew up in front of Mrs. Ralston’s house. He opened the door politely for Miss Dolly and the temperamental young thing sprang out. The guests were still up, indulging in one of those late dances that begin at the stroke of twelve, and the big house showed lights everywhere. There were numerous other taxis and cars in front and Bob’s arrival attracted no particular attention. Miss Dolly gave him a look, militant, but still adoring. She let him see she had claws.