The House of Doctor Edwards

Prologue HOTEL IMPERIAL, ANNECY, June 22nd, 1926. DEAREST HELEN , How delightful to get your letter, which we found waiting for us at Thonon. I am sorry about Bingo, poor old boy. I’m afraid you’ll miss him dreadfully. But he was getting old, wasn’t he, and after the vet’s opinion I don’t see what else you could have done. John is an angel, but I shouldn’t care to take a honeymoon with anybody; so don’t be rash, and if ever you feel in the consenting mood, which so often, happens, pull yourself together and think it over. Fortunately, John and I agree about all the most important things. What I mean is that we both like to sleep with the window open. We are being shamelessly vulgar. I hate trains and we can’t afford a car. So we are doing the Alps in a charabanc. It was John’s idea, and those P.L.M. autocars are wonderful, so comfortable, and it is the other people who get all the dust. We ran from Paris to Dijon. Such a sweet place, famous for eating, and John and I made pigs of ourselves at the Hotel des Cloches. We were only trying not to be beaten by the natives, but it was no use. John’s handicap (in courses) must be about minus two. Last night we slept, or rather lay I believe the expression ought to be, at Thonon-les-Bains, near Evian, on the Lake of Geneva. It is a funny, quiet little place with an old eighteenth-century square and a strange, tumble-down church which no one has troubled to finish. We stopped three hours at Evian, which is very fashionable. We met the Bryces there. She is looking much better and was most charmingly dressed. [Half a page of details is here omitted.] John lost fifty francs at boule, which he says is a rotten game, but we did not try baccarat. Then we went for a short trip on the Lake, and saw the Dents du Midi and the Rochers de Naye. I’ve never seen so many mountains; and I’m afraid John is going to be difficult. He was hinting the other day at what they call a petite ascension. You wear horrid clothes, and the most dreadful boots, and hang things on your back till you look like a traveling ironmonger. I prefer the charabanc myself. But this is not what I was going to write about. For we have had an ADVENTURE. It happened on the way from Thonon to Annecy, via the Col des Gêts. We started late in the morning, as it is not a very long run, and we went up the most lovely valley with woods on each side. Sometimes the road went through tunnels. It was most exciting. I suppose it must have been about midday when it happened. We were turning a corner and I saw a big notice stuck out on the cliff with ‘Gorge du Diable’ written on it. The Devil, by the way, is pretty frequent in these parts. He has gorges and rocks and chimneys in every direction. This one was particularly fiendish. On the left there was a precipice which went down for many hundreds of feet to the river which flowed at the bottom. The precipice was covered with enormous trees, and John was saying (you know how witty he is) that the Devil had an obvious liking for shady surroundings, when we took another corner rather sharply, and the next moment I felt a sudden jerk and John’s hand gripping my knee. The autocar had stopped, and everybody in front began to talk at once. John got out with some of the others to see what was happening, and I followed him. I rather wish I hadn’t, for it was really rather horrible. There was a car on the side of the road drawn close into the precipice, and one of the back wheels was off. I think they must have had a puncture or something. There were two men by the car— one with a white face, holding a spanner in his hand, dressed in one of those light raincoats and a soft hat, and another lying apparently insensible on the ground. The man with the spanner was breathing hard as I came up, just behind John, and was talking rapidly to our driver. It’s lucky I understand French, because I had to tell John what he was saying. ‘He was mad, quite mad,’ the man kept on repeating, and I realized he was talking about the other man on the ground, who was, I now saw, bleeding from a dreadful cut on the forehead. ‘He suddenly became violent and attacked our driver', continued the man with the spanner. ‘We were, taken completely by surprise, and it all happened before I could lift a finger. He killed the driver, and then I had to defend myself.’ He held up the spanner, and I saw that it was dull red at the end, and there was that other man lying on the ground. It made me feel quite sick. The man spoke with a funny accent, and I soon realized that he was English, though his French was very good. After he had examined the man on the ground and put him in an easier position, he began to explain to us in detail what had happened. Of course, he didn’t make a great long speech, as I shall give it here. It was all broken up in little bits of dialogue, which was as good as a play. That, however, is beyond me. But first you must imagine what a fearful place it was. A great cliff towering up on our right, bare, except for oak scrub, going up for many feet to the sky. And then a narrow road (much too narrow John said), and then the cliff going down hundreds of feet to a river below. Only below the road it was all covered with trees and very lovely. And opposite was another high mountain on the other side of the valley, and last of all you must see this man with the English accent and the spanner and the silent figure at his feet. ‘It’s like this,’ he was saying; ‘I am a doctor, a specialist in mental cases, and I have just been engaged by Doctor Edwardes, whose private asylum is just up there,’ and he pointed to a little track which ran very steeply up the hill to our right till it was lost in the bushes. ‘Dr. Edwardes,’ he continued, ‘has taken me for his assistant, and I am on my way to join him now. Just as I was leaving England, however, he asked me to bring over a patient, a new patient, you understand, also an Englishman, who was coming out from London. That is the man who is lying there. Normally he is quiet and not at all dangerous — mad only on one subject, and we did not expect to have any difficulty, especially as Dr. Edwardes had sent Jules over to help me. ‘Jules is the head keeper of the asylum, an ex-sergeant of the French marine. He came to London and we traveled together by train all the way to Thonon with our patient. Everything went well until this morning, when we reached Thonon, where we were to pick up the car which was to take us to the asylum. Then our troubles began, for the chauffeur was not to be found. Jules picked up the car at the usual garage, but nothing had been seen of the man in charge of it since the night before. So we started out alone — the three of us, Jules, myself and the patient. Jules drove the car, while I sat with my patient at the back. All went well till we got here, but just at this corner the back tire burst and, if Jules had been less handy with the steering, we should have been over the edge. But he pulled up just in time, and then we all got out and I started to help him change the wheel. Our patient also left the car and began to look about him. ‘We had been at work I suppose for five minutes when it happened. My patient, who had been looking over the edge, to where you can just see a thin trickle of the river after it has leapt in a waterfall from that rock which is nearly hidden, sprang up, and his face changed. I shall never forget how his face changed. ‘The gorge of the devil! The gorge of the devil!’ he screamed. ‘Master! Master! The sacrifice!’ And in an instant, before I could stop him, he rushed at Jules who was just unscrewing the spare wheel, and with a single bound leapt at his shoulders and hurled him over the edge.’ The man paused in his story, and there was a gasp from the passengers of the autocar. I know I clutched John’s arm hard. Then, almost mechanically, we all moved forward and looked over the edge. At first I could see nothing. It was all beautifully green, undergrowth and trees and short grass interspersed with patches of bare rock, but it was frightfully steep, almost perpendicular. Then suddenly a fat Frenchman with a thick beard pointed with his finger. ‘Mon Dieu, look!’ he said. And then I saw an arm and a head, all twisted unnaturally, sticking out of a bush. I must have turned white, for John caught me and pulled me back, telling me rather harshly to get into the car. I am not quite certain what happened next, but I heard the young English doctor explaining that in self-defence he had been obliged to knock the lunatic out with a spanner or he would have attacked him too. It had all happened only a few minutes before we arrived. After that John spoke to the man with a spanner, explaining that he was a doctor too; and they had a short consultation together while the driver got us back into the car. Presently John came up and told me that he would have to go to the asylum with the young Englishman and his patient, who was quite insensible, but, as far as he could see, not badly hurt. ‘I don’t like leaving you,’ he said, ‘but I feel I must help this poor fellow. He is very much shaken by this horrible affair. He is very good, and has offered to send me on to Annecy in the car when I have helped him with his patient.’ Of course, I said that I did not mind, and so it was arranged. I went on in the charabanc, leaving John and the young doctor to take the unconscious lunatic up to the asylum. We reached Annecy about five that evening, and John joined me at seven. Everything had gone quite all right, he said, and the asylum was a very well-ordered place, though it was miles away from anywhere. It was a big old château belonging originally to one of the Counts of Savoy, but, of course, converted. They got the lunatic, who was still insensible, into bed all right in the old wing, in a room which John says had once been a dungeon, though they had knocked a great hole in one of the walls to make a proper window. The young English doctor was, of course, terribly shaken, and it seems that his principal. Doctor Edwardes, was away, so he had to take charge of everything the moment he arrived. John said the place was terribly desolate, but there was a large staff of servants. They were all very much upset by the death of Jules, though John said they did not seem to be particularly surprised, as some of the lunatics there are very violent, and accidents have happened before. It seems rather awful looking after a lot of dangerous lunatics in an old castle in the middle of the mountains, and the young English doctor was so nice — much too nice for such a horrible occupation. I can’t think why he should have chosen it, but men are very peculiar. Well, that’s the adventure, and I am glad it’s over. Annecy looks lovely. We are to stay here a whole day before going on through Aix-les-Bains to Grenoble. I will write to you again from there, and give you our news. All the love I can spare (but John is very greedy). Your affectionate SUSAN.