He was Arthur Rowe with a difference. He was next door to his own youth; he had started again from there. He said, In a moment it's going to come back, but I'm not Conway -- and I won't be Stone. I've escaped for long enough: my brain will stand it. It wasn't all fear that he felt; he felt also the untired courage and the chivalry of adolescence. He was no longer too old and too habit-ridden to start again. He shut his eyes and thought of Poole, and an odd medley of impressions fought at the gateway of his unconsciousness to be let out: a book called The Little Duke and the word Naples -- see Naples and die -- and Poole again, Poole sitting crouched in a chair in a little dark dingy room eating cake, and Dr Forester, Dr Forester stooping over something dark and bleeding. . . The memories thickened -- a woman's face came up for a moment with immense sadness and then sank again like someone drowned, out of sight; his head was racked with pain as other memories struggled to get out like a child out of its mother's body. He put his hands on the dressing-table and held to it; he said to himself over and over again, "I must stand up. I must stand up," as though there were some healing virtue in simply remaining on his feet while his brain reeled with the horror of returning life.
BOOK THREE
Bits and Pieces
Chapter 1
THE ROMAN DEATH
"A business that could scarcely have been pleasant"
The Little Duke
1
ROWE followed the man in the blue uniform up the stone stairs and along a corridor lined with doors; some of them were open, and he could see that they led into little rooms all the same shape and size like confessionals. A table and three chairs: there was never anything else, and the chairs were hard and upright. The man opened one door -- but there seemed no reason why he should not have opened any of the others -- and said, "Wait here, sir."
It was early in the morning; the steel rim of the window enclosed a grey cold sky. The last stars had only just gone out. He sat with his hands between his knees in a dull tired patience; he wasn't important, he hadn't become an explorer; he was just a criminal. The effect of reaching this place had exhausted him; he couldn't even remember with any clearness what he had done -- only the long walk through the dark countryside to the station, trembling when the cows coughed behind the hedgerows and an owl shrieked, pacing up and down upon the platform till the train came, the smell of grass and steam. The collector had wanted his ticket and he had none nor had he any money to pay with. He knew his name or thought he knew his name, but he had no address to give. The man had been very kind and gentle; perhaps he looked sick. He had asked him if he had no friends to whom he was going, and he replied that he had no friends. . . "I want to see the police," he said, and the collector rebuked him mildly, "You don't have to go all the way to London for that, sir."
There was a moment of dreadful suspense when he thought he would be returned like a truant child. The collector said, "You are one of Dr Forester's patients, aren't you, sir? Now if you get out at the next station, they'll telephone for a car. It won't take more than thirty minutes."
"No."
"You lost your way, sir, I expect, but you don't need to worry with a gentleman like Dr Forester."
He gathered all the energy of which he was capable and said, "I am going to Scotland Yard. I'm wanted there. If you stop me, it's your responsibility."
At the next stop -- which was only a halt, a few feet of platform and a wooden shed among dark level fields -- he saw Johns; they must have gone to his room and found it empty and Johns had driven over. Johns saw him at once and came with strained naturalness to the door of the compartment; the guard hovered in the background.
"Hullo, old man," Johns said uneasily, "just hop out. I've got the car here -- it won't take a moment to get home."
"I'm not coming."
"The doctor's very distressed. He'd had a long day and he lost his temper. He didn't mean half of what he said."
"I'm not coming."
The guard came nearer to show that he was willing to lend a hand if force were necessary. Rowe said furiously, "You haven't certified me yet. You can't drag me out of the train," and the guard edged up. He said softly to Johns, "The gentleman hasn't got a ticket."
"It's all right," Johns said surprisingly, "there's nothing wrong." He leant forward and said in a whisper, "Good luck, old man." The train drew away, laying its steam like a screen across the car, the shed, the figure which didn't dare to wave.
Now all the trouble was over; all that was left was a trial for murder.
Rowe sat on; the steely sky paled and a few taxis hooted. A small fat distrait man in a double-breasted waistcoat opened the door once, took a look at him and said, "Where's Beale?" but didn't wait for an answer. The long wounded cry of a boat came up from the Pool. Somebody went whistling down the corridor outside, once there was the chink-chink of teacups, and a faint smell of kipper blew in from a distance.
The little stout man carne briskly in again; he had a round over-sized face and a small fair moustache. He carried the slip Rowe had filled in down below. "So you are Mr Rowe," he said sternly. "We are glad you've come to see us at last." He rang a bell and a uniformed constable answered it. He said, "Is Beavis on duty? Tell him to come along."
He sat down and crossed his neat plump thighs and looked at his nails. They were very well kept. He looked at them from every angle and seemed worried about the cuticle of his left thumb. He said nothing. It was obvious that he wouldn't talk without a witness. Then a big man in a ready-to-wear suit came with a pad and a pencil and took the third chair. His ears were enormous and stuck out straight from his skull and he had an odd air of muted shame like a bull who has begun to realize that he is out of place in a china shop. When he held the pencil to the pad you expected one or the other to suffer in his awkward grasp, and you felt too that he knew and feared the event.
"Well," the dapper man said, sighed, and tucked his nails away for preservation under his thighs. He said, "You've come here, Mr Rowe, of your own accord to volunteer a statement?"
Rowe said, "I saw a photograph in the paper. . ."
"We've been asking you to come forward for months."
"I knew it for the first time last night."
"You seem to have lived a bit out the world."
"I've been in a nursing home. You see. . ."
Every time he spoke the pencil squeaked on the paper, making a stiff consecutive narrative out of his haphazard sentences.
"What nursing home?"
"It was kept by a Dr Forester." He gave the name of the railway station. He knew no other name. He explained, "Apparently there was a raid." He touched the scar on his forehead. "I lost my memory. I found myself at this place knowing nothing -- except bits of my childhood. They told me my name was Richard Digby. I didn't even recognize the photograph at first. You see, this beard. . ."