I can't recall his saying half-a-dozen words to me, the whole way. When we reached his place, we threw ourselves into chairs, with the lamp between us. We must have sat there half an hour before he began to talk."
"And then—?" It was Marvin again, sitting on the edge of the Morris chair, propping himself precariously with his long legs.
"Then he told me everything—everything that he knew, himself. It was not much; but it explained a good deal. I had suspected something of the sort."
Jugrand nodded, without interrupting. Craddock supported his absurdly delicate chin on his hand, still staring into the fire with tired eyes.
"It seems simple. I could tell it in ten words, and I suppose there is no reason why I should not—now. Yet, it's devilish, too. I thought, after he told it to me, sitting there by the lamp, that he was like the man in the New Testament—the one with the evil spirits. He was even worse off, for in his case the spirits had taken his life and ripped it squarely across."
Talk is infectious. Let one man, in a silent company such as that, start it, and soon all the others are eager to follow his example. Craddock paused, communing a little too long with memory; the uneasy atmosphere of expectancy settled lower over them; then, abruptly, the artist began to speak, Jugrand watched him, curiously.
"I remember an odd thing, now we're on the subject. It was one night when I was having a studio party. Sawyer dropped in. He put a queer question to me, that night. I was showing him a picture of mine—that one of Orpheus, with the rocks and trees in the background, He said to me, 'Suppose you forgot the background—what effect would that have on the picture?"
"Are you sure he said, 'forgot'—not, 'omitted,' or 'left out'?" Jugrand cut in.
"I remembered the word because it was unusual for him," the artist returned. "He almost never used slang, you know."
"What did you tell him?"
Marvin shragged his shoulders.
"I don’t recall. He didn’t carry the discussion any further. What puzzled me was the question, itself. Why should he have asked a question like that?"
No one answered. After a time, Jugrand rose, with an air of heavy resolution, ponderously adapted himself to a standing position, and walked over to the double glass doors. He looked through them, intently. The lines of thought gave his face something of power and charm, despite its fatness. The others stared at him, as he stared through the glass.
When he resumed his chair, which still rocked gently, he addressed himself to the surgeon:
"I like to play sometimes with a theory—a fanciful theory—that the brain cells continue to work for a while after what we call death. Why do we call it that? Simply because our crude instruments can no longer detect signs of life. We have no proof but that decay—even embalming, perhaps—may precede absolute death by an appreciable interval."
He stopped, with his eyes on the surgeon. It was as if he were feeling for some unthinkable result, grotesque, like his own fat cheeks. Craddock's narrow face looked pale and tired. He groped for a rocker, and fell into it, chin on hand. He stared steadfastly into the fire.
Jugrand asked him a quiet question:
"Do you suppose he was thinking of this trouble when he talked to Marvin about 'background'?"
"I think he must have been," Craddock answered, slowly. "Yes—'background' expresses it very well."
"Then 'forgot' was not slang."
The artist leaned forward. His sharp face was vivid with eagerness. In his excitement, he fished a gold case from a pocket, and had a cigarette between lips before he recollected and threw it ruefully into the fire. Sawyer had not been a smoker.
The psychologist spoke again, gutturally:
"I am the only one of us who was here before he came. That was thirty years ago. His mother was with him—a tall, slender, silent lady. She died that same year."
"You knew them then?" the surgeon asked. His voice was drowsy.
Jugrand nodded.
"I attended her funeral. He looks very much like her. The clergyman had a hard time getting enough information for his address."
Marvin relaxed in a brief smile. There is grim humor in the professional funeral eulogy. Then, as if fulfilling a difficult duty, Craddock palpably roused himself and launched into the remainder of what he had to say.
"He told me, that night, of an illness he had had. I think he knew nothing himself of the details. In fact, I am not sure he would have been aware of the main event, even, but for his mother. She had told him. He had been desperately ill; and he had come out of the illness with his mind sponged clean, as a child wipes a slate. There was this difference, though: the slate is no more susceptible after the wiping than if nothing had ever been written upon it; his mind became very susceptible.
"I think, from what he told me, he must have performed prodigies of learning. He had to start from the beginning, you understand—he remembered nothing; but his mother seems to have picked just the right instructors for him. She must have been rather wonderful, too—just as I maintain that he was. He traveled through his book learning at express train speed. At thirty, he had finished college, and had served his year in a hospital. He could not have been more than forty when he came to us, and even then, I believe, he had an enviable reputation."
Jugrand nodded.
"He had it from the first. He is not of common clay with the rest of us. He is one of the immortals."
"And this in spite of the fight that never ceased for a moment," Craddock emphasized.
The artist jerked his head, impatiently.
"What fight? I don't understand. Loss of memory is bad enough, of course; but his mother must have told him a good deal; he must have revisited the places he had forgotten."
"She told him this—" Craddock ticked off the points on his long fore-finger—"that he had been desperately ill; that it would be best for him not to try to remember."
Jugrand quietly smiled, with the enjoyment of a connoisseur in oddities. Marvin started, and his eyes rounded.
"Do you mean to say—?"” he began.
Craddock inclined his head.
"He made that perfectly clear to me, as we sat there with the lamp between us. Sh told him those two things. Never anything more. He must have tried desperately to learn more. From what he implied, I think there may have been painful scenes between them. But she died without telling."
"Then he never knew who he was, where he came from—anything!?" The artist fairly shot his questions.
"No."
Jugrand spoke, deliberately choosing his words:
"I am interested in what he learned from himself—from his own mind. A man of his mentality can not have let such a matter rest. He must have employed the various expedients of psycho-analysis."
"He did. That, in fact, was the fight I referred to. He told me. Also, he took the more obvious course of trying
