wasn’t the girl I really wanted to marry, after all.
“This way, Mr. Madden.”
It was Dr. Somerset’s hoarse voice; and I followed the woman through the door and into the headquarters building. There was a spacious, hotel-type lobby in which several people were sitting, some in sports clothes, some in pajamas and dressing gowns. They looked bored and dull and not particularly insane. My hunch was that they were well-paying patients who’d come here to find temporary refuge from the bottle or the needle under medical supervision. Aside from the invalid-type costumes of some of the guests, the only thing out of the ordinary was a kind of discreet sentry-box just inside the door in which a uniformed, armed guard was lounging. I realized that, the way the fences were arranged, coming right up to the house, this front door was the only visible exit from the place. You’d have to get by the security man and then make a quarter-mile sprint down the long lane to the highway, with no assurance that somebody would stop and pick you up when you got there.
Well, I’d already passed up an opportunity to get away, and a quarter-mile dash was beyond me, anyway. I was aware that the trip had already taken most of my limited strength, and that if a crisis arose involving physical effort it would be just too damned bad. The inmates watched us dully as we crossed the lobby.
“Our dining room and kitchen are over there.” Dr. Somerset leading the way, made a gesture with her hand, obviously speaking for our uninterested audience. “I think you’ll find our food first class, Mr. Madden, although you’ll be eating it in your quarters for the time being… This way, please.”
It was a large office. I was led through it to an examining room with the usual stainless steel table, with cabinets full of medical-looking bottles and jars along the walls. Obeying instructions, I stripped to my shorts and submitted to a thorough physical examination while one of the guards—the other had vanished—stood at the door to see that I behaved myself. He was Dugan, the darker and meaner-looking of the two. I was happy to note that he had to keep dabbing at a cut lip, where my deliberately inexpert swing had connected. It occurred to me that I didn’t seem to be a very charitable person, basically. Well, I suspected that my situation was one in which I wouldn’t find charity very helpful.
Dr. Somerset wrote down my height, weight, pulse rate, blood pressure, and various other vital statistics. She looked down my throat and up my rear in the way of doctors everywhere. After the time I’d just spent being cared for like a baby by the nurses in the Prince Rupert Hospital, being examined by a lady doctor didn’t bother me a bit. Finally, I was allowed to dress. Then I was taken back into the outer office and parked in a chair while Dr. Somerset seated herself behind the gray metal desk and made some final notes on my case—obviously, if anybody came looking they’d find that that poor, unfortunate lunatic, Paul Horace Madden, had received precisely the same processing as any other sanitarium patient. At last the woman looked up deliberately.
“Mr. Madden,” she said, “you were kind enough to make it clear that to you I’m a kidnaper and a criminal. Therefore let me now make it clear that to me you’re a perfectly sane man with a perfectly good memory. From time to time I’ll ask you for information. You’re entitled to refuse to give it. If I find it necessary, I’ll try to persuade you to change your mind by various means, but I won’t hold your refusal against you. I do not, however, like to be taken for a fool. Forget what you told those idiots at the hospital. I don’t want to hear the word amnesia. Answer my questions or don’t answer them, but don’t say you don’t remember. That response will not be accepted, Mr. Madden. Do you understand?”
It was an interesting approach; and obviously we’d finished with the phony
“This way, Mr. Madden.”
It was Dr. Somerset’s hoarse voice; and I followed the woman through the door and into the headquarters building. There was a spacious, hotel-type lobby in which several people were sitting, some in sports clothes, some in pajamas and dressing gowns. They looked bored and dull and not particularly insane. My hunch was that they were well-paying patients who’d come here to find temporary refuge from the bottle or the needle under medical supervision. Aside from the invalid-type costumes of some of the guests, the only thing out of the ordinary was a kind of discreet sentry-box just inside the door in which a uniformed, armed guard was lounging. I realized that, the way the fences were arranged, coming right up to the house, this front door was the only visible exit from the place. You’d have to get by the security man and then make a quarter-mile sprint down the long lane to the highway, with no assurance that somebody would stop and pick you up when you got there.
Well, I’d already passed up an opportunity to get away, and a quarter-mile dash was beyond me, anyway. I was aware that the trip had already taken most of my limited strength, and that if a crisis arose involving physical effort it would be just too damned bad. The inmates watched us dully as we crossed the lobby.
“Our dining room and kitchen are over there.” Dr. Somerset leading the way, made a gesture with her hand, obviously speaking for our uninterested audience. “I think you’ll find our food first class, Mr. Madden, although you’ll be eating it in your quarters for the time being… This way, please.”
It was a large office. I was led through it to an examining room with the usual stainless steel table, with cabinets full of medical-looking bottles and jars along the walls. Obeying instructions, I stripped to my shorts and submitted to a thorough physical examination while one of the guards—the other had vanished—stood at the door to see that I behaved myself. He was Dugan, the darker and meaner-looking of the two. I was happy to note that he had to keep dabbing at a cut lip, where my deliberately inexpert swing had connected. It occurred to me that I didn’t seem to be a very charitable person, basically. Well, I suspected that my situation was one in which I wouldn’t find charity very helpful.
Dr. Somerset wrote down my height, weight, pulse rate, blood pressure, and various other vital statistics. She looked down my throat and up my rear in the way of doctors everywhere. After the time I’d just spent being cared for like a baby by the nurses in the Prince Rupert Hospital, being examined by a lady doctor didn’t bother me a bit. Finally, I was allowed to dress. Then I was taken back into the outer office and parked in a chair while Dr. Somerset seated herself behind the gray metal desk and made some final notes on my case—obviously, if anybody came looking they’d find that that poor, unfortunate lunatic, Paul Horace Madden, had received precisely the same processing as any other sanitarium patient. At last the woman looked up deliberately.
“Mr. Madden,” she said, “you were kind enough to make it clear that to you I’m a kidnaper and a criminal. Therefore let me now make it clear that to me you’re a perfectly sane man with a perfectly good memory. From time to time I’ll ask you for information. You’re entitled to refuse to give it. If I find it necessary, I’ll try to persuade you to change your mind by various means, but I won’t hold your refusal against you. I do not, however, like to be taken for a fool. Forget what you told those idiots at the hospital. I don’t want to hear the word amnesia. Answer my questions or don’t answer them, but don’t say you don’t remember. That response will not be accepted, Mr. Madden. Do you understand?”
It was an interesting approach; and obviously we’d finished with the phony
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