Part 33 (1/2)
Why?”
”Because I'm insane,” he said placidly.
I don't pretend to any unusual share of equanimity, and it was not till we were back in the shelter of my own home, with the comfort of my own tea-tray before me and my own little applewood fire snapping on the hearth, that I brought myself to discuss the matter with Emily's boy.
He had come back with me and we were going to the opera together later.
”I suppose that was what you wanted me to see?” I said abruptly.
He nodded.
”Just that. I wanted your idea. It's one of the most interesting cases--with all its complications--I ever knew. Father's turned it over to me, practically. He knows all about it.”
”But, Will, the man's as sane as I am!”
”How much did you talk with him?”
”Quite as much as with hundreds of other people!”
He smiled thoughtfully.
”Talk much with Mrs. Leeth?”
”Oh, yes--she seems much more ordinary than her eyes, doesn't she?”
”What did she say?”
”Oh, just commonplaces--I don't recall anything special....”
”Well, try, won't you? What _were_ the commonplaces?”
I applied myself to recollection. What, after all, _had_ she said? As a matter of fact, beyond her linen tabulation I could not recall more than a dozen words.
”Anyway,” I remonstrated, ”she makes you feel as if she talked! She doesn't seem silent.”
”No,” he admitted thoughtfully, ”that's true. But she never talks.
She hardly speaks to the servants--they're all under her, you know--but they all seem to know what she wants. I've tested lots of them: the cook, the laundresses, the furnace man, the steward--and when they come to consider, they can't recall a dozen words a day. But they always insist, at first, that she gives them detailed orders and criticises them constantly. It's funny.”
”Oh, well,” I broke in impatiently, ”never mind her! Tell me about Mr.
Vail--how long has he been there?”
”He's been there six months!” Will announced triumphantly, suppressing a delighted smile at my amazement.
”Six months! And n.o.body knows?”
”n.o.body but the family. Oh, he gets out, now and then: I or one of the doctors goes with him and he puts in a day at the office. Everybody thinks he's travelling or taking electric light baths for his liver or Roentgen rays for his lungs or osteopathy for a cold in the head--Lord knows what!”
”A day at the office? But how can he, if he's insane?”