It was half-past seven o’clock on Monday evening. More than thirty hours had elapsed since young Rivers first began his operations to restore life to the cataleptic patient, and he was only just succeeding in an affair which had proved extremely difficult and protracted. Young Rivers, in fact, had found out during the watches of Sunday night and the sunny morning of Monday that the disease (if catalepsy may be called a disease) has a habit of flatly defying the rules of medical text-books and the experience of even the youngest doctors. But ultimately he had triumphed, though not by means of the famous snuff, which Carpentaria had obtained, after exhaustive research, from a bass-fiddle player in his band.

The patient reclined, alive, conscious, capable of movement and speech, but otherwise a prodigious enigma, in an arm-chair in Carpentaria’s bedroom. His existence was a profound secret from all except the doctor and the musician.

And now these two, who had brought him back to earthly life, wanted him to talk, to explain himself, to unravel the mysteries of Saturday afternoon and Saturday night. And Carpentaria, dressed in his uniform, waited, watch in hand; for in half an hour the daily concert must commence in the Oriental Gardens. Nothing could interfere with Carpentaria’s presence in the gorgeous illuminated bandstand. He had sacrificed his interest in his half-sister, his curiosity about the doings of the Ilams, his inspection of the affairs of the City, and even a rehearsal, to the care of the recovering cataleptic, but the concert itself, with its audience of a hundred thousand or so, could not be sacrificed.

“So you are Carpentaria?” murmured the patient, sipping at a glass of hot milk.

His age now appeared to be fifty. He had grey hair and a short grey beard, rather whiter than the hair, and his eyes bore the expression of a man who has found that life bears no striking resemblance to a good joke. His hands moved nervously over the surfaces of the chair.

“Yes,” Carpentaria admitted; “and you?”

It was the first direct question that he had ventured to put to the enigma, and the enigma ignored it.

“You say I was buried and you unburied me?” he pursued.

“Yes,” said Carpentaria enthusiastically, and he described the journeys, the disappearances and the reappearances, of the body of the enigma on the opening night.

“I suppose I should have died really, if I’d been left alone?” the enigma demanded of Rivers.

“Undoubtedly,” said Rivers. “Undoubtedly,” he repeated.

The enigma turned almost fiercely on Carpentaria.

“Then why, in the name of common sense, couldn’t you have left me alone?” he cried.

It was as though he owed Carpentaria a grudge which the most cruel ingenuity could not satisfy.

“I—I thought——” Carpentaria stammered, too surprised to be able to argue well.

“You thought you were doing a mighty clever thing,” snapped the enigma.

“I merely——”

“Or, rather,” the enigma proceeded, “you didn’t think at all.”

Rivers and Carpentaria exchanged a glance, indicating to each other that the man was an invalid and must therefore be humoured.

“Really, Mr.——-” Carpentaria began.

“Call me Jetsam,” the invalid interrupted. “It isn’t my name, but it’s near enough.”

“Well, Mr. Jetsam——”

“Not at all,” said Mr. Jetsam, sitting up in the chair. “There I was, comfortably dead, blind and deaf for evermore to the stupidities, the shams, the crimes, and the tedium of this world, and you go and deliberately recreate me! Is your opinion of the earth, and particularly of England, so high that you imagine a man is better on it than off it? Have you reached your present position and your present age, without coming to the conclusion that a person once comfortably dead would never want to be alive again? It seems to me, that you took upon yourselves the responsibility, the terrible responsibility of putting me back into life without giving the matter a moment’s serious thought. And I do verily believe that you expected me to be grateful! Grateful!”

“It was a question of duty——” Carpentaria ventured.

“Yes, of course. It only remained for you to drag in that word; I anticipated it. And why was it your duty? Who told you it was your duty? What authority have you for saying it was your duty? None—absolutely none! The sole explanation of your conduct is that, like most human beings, you are an interfering busybody; you can’t leave a thing alone.”

At length Carpentaria laughed. He was conscious of a certain liking for Mr. Jetsam.

“I can but offer you my humble apologies,” he said. “They are of no avail; they will not undo what is done. But none the less I offer them to you. You see, when I last saw you alive, you were so drunk, so very drunk——”

“I was not drunk at all,” said Mr. Jetsam. “And your inability to perceive the fact proves that, though you may be able to wear a very stylish uniform and to make a great deal of noise with a band, you are an infant as a detective. No, sir, I had certain plans to execute, and you, with that meddlesomeness that appears to characterize you, came along and interfered. In order that I might be left alone I pretended to be drunk. I have never been drunk in my life, which is conceivably more than you can say for yourself, or you, sir”—and he pointed to the young doctor, who had only recently finished being a medical student.

“And those plans—may one inquire?” Carpentaria murmured.

Mr. Jetsam covered his face with his hands.

“Ah!” he sighed, evidently speaking to himself. “I had done with all that, and now I must begin again. My instincts will inevitably drive me to begin again. My dear people”—he surveyed his two companions with an acid and distant stare—“instead of saving life, you have only set in motion a chain of circumstances that will lead to the loss of it. Murder and the scaffold will probably be the net result of your officious zeal.”

There was a rap on the bedroom door.

“Five minutes to eight, sir,” called a voice.

“Right,” said Carpentaria, getting up; and to Mr. Jetsam, “I will see you after the concert.”

“I doubt it,” said Mr. Jetsam.

“Why not?”

“Because I shall be gone. I am feeling quite strong.”

35

“I should like to talk to you about certain people,” pursued Carpentaria.

“Who?”

“Well, Josephus Ilam.”

“I know all about Josephus Ilam.”

“And his mother. Perhaps you don’t know all about his mother.”

Mr. Jetsam jumped to his feet with singular agility.

“Mrs. Ilam! She’s been dead for years,” he said gravely.

“She was very much alive this morning,” replied Carpentaria.

“He told me she was dead,” Jetsam muttered.

“He lied. She is in the bungalow opposite.”

“Oh!” Jetsam breathed, and he seemed to breathe the breath out of his body. He swayed and fell back into the chair.

“By Jove! He’s fainted!” exclaimed Rivers.

“Look after him,” said Carpentaria, and flew downstairs and towards his bandstand.