The Man Who Couldn't Sleep

oubt. Move by move and turn by turn, for even longer than I had

alk by night, it is the discovery that his steps are being dogged. The thought of be

on fence which encloses Gramercy Park, I shot off at a tangent, continuing fr

econd sleepless night had kept me there, goading me on in my febrile revolutions unti

ng the figure of the man who had been dogging my steps. I saw him turn southward in the square, as though my flight were a matter of indifference to hi

I had accepted as following me was in

se door. The second man must have seen me as I did so. Apparently suspicious of possible espionage, he loitered with assumed carelessness at the park's southern corner. The

uring to a situation that was momentarily growing more ridiculous. For the newcomer was McCooey, the patrolman. He swung around t

with that careless ponderosity which is

ark of yours. He's doing it for about the one hundred and tenth

the question as an indulgent physician might to a patient. McCooey

y curiosity," I s

nterferin' wid yuh?" dem

invaded my pe

uld converge with the path of the nervously pacing stranger. I could see the two round the corner almost together. I could see McCooey draw nearer

d. And I could also see that the meeting of the two was a source of much mystification to

e swung back resentfully, like a retri

, anyway?" I irr

he's afth

hat?" I

ddened by an East River gas-flare. Then

e patrolman. "Unless he gets her, says h

, for that confession had brought the pacing stra

s answer. "Like as not he's been over

his way through the quiet canyons of the streets where a thousand ha

thwest corner of that iron-fenced enclosure and waited for that youth

his way as he tried to

bulist suddenly awakened. "Pardon me, but I think

m

hink you ough

thetic response. "I'm even b

, the impassivity which implied he was so submerged in misery that no further blow could be of consequence to him. And yet, beyond the fixed pallor of

ng used to the oth

could see the twin fires of some dull fever

I answered. For the sec

sleep," he answe

inously remarked. "But there

urious little

troubled that

sts communing amid the quietness of a catacomb. Then I

e," I told him, "a thou

for the last three hour

hat we both need is a quiet smoke and an h

as his gaze followed mine toward the house door. "Bu

of that. But it was equally plain that he

together!" I had the

already moving southward along the squ

ad in some way got a grip, if not on my affection, at least on my interest. And in our infirmity we had a bond of sympathy. We were like two refugees

y digs," I suggested, "for a sm

and coaxing him, as a s

mured. "I neve

seventy-year old sherry that's been sent on a sea-voyage to Australia an

the whole width of a Hudso

edged. "But I'm in a mess that even

hour or two!" I announced. He laughed again, relaxingl

he door into the quietness of that sober-fronted ho

e of biscuits and a glass of Bristol Milk. But he seemed to find more consolation in sitting back and peering at the play of the flames. His face was a very tired one.

eaving a man long tongued-tied. So I turned to refill his glass. I had noticed that his hands were shaky, just as I had noticed the telltale twit

diously down at the scat

" he sudden

s?" I i

permit myself to look at him. Sympathy was not the sort of thing h

" I lazily commented, passing him a second gla

as too short to be called a sigh. Then, laughing and wiping the sweat from hi

ot an e

for a mom

t is

iling me around the s

altogether an exc

taring into the fire for a minute or two. I sat beside him, a

begin?" I fi

losed his eyes. And when he spok

uld explain," was h

ntilate the thing, canalize it. Let's

ehension of the psychology of confession, some knowledge of the advantag

is. There's no way of knocking a wind

nk wall?"

oked past me, wi

ing more to himself than to me. He looked about him, with a helplessness that was p

se at confident and careless intimacy. "So let's clear away in f

use," he

with forced cheerfulness. "Let's

asked. He spoke with the weary listlessness of a

at the first," I

is shaking fingers

e tried to explain. "These things don't seem

assented as I waite

ng I even thought of, was that my memory seemed to h

ked. "Or ov

had. You see, I wanted to make good in that office.

e to a stop. He looked up at me

his frontal bone with the ends of his unsteady

he nerves. "Do you mean the railway-investment man, the ma

Lockwood, I knew only too well, was the father of Mary Lockwood. He, like myself, had

d, after quite

rthern offices in Winnipeg. He said he'd give

you in hi

te secretary. But I don't thin

you overwo

kept him out at the coast a good deal of the time. He had an English min

he office work while

ll so new to me. I hadn't got deep enough into the work to organize it the wa

y n

office look after his English mail. All his letters

el

t telegrams, see that everything went through to the right point. It was quite a heavy mail. Carlton, I guess, was a man

Has this mail anything t

n me for the first time, as though all tha

the blank wal

I dem

letter came to the office for young Carlton. That letter held twelve Bank of

id it co

back to England. The younger Carlton was looking up certain lands his father wanted to invest in. Young Carlton's

s poste restante for the Car

eceiving and forw

nd

ed letter from Montreal. That's

ow

that letter ever goi

pected me to be more electrifie

n, or straye

my eye-teeth to know,"

e do you

without the slighte

d for th

remember t

egan to investigate through the post-offi

ce of mistake

my own s

ven remember get

I've thought over it all night at a stretch,

tuation was at last

responsible for the disap

or it! It's been hanging over me for nearly

possibilities. Have you

a voter's list. I've tested 'em all, one by

personal equation? Have you any feeling, any emotional bias, any on

, and appeared to

felt-that when I signed for that Carlton letter, I carried it into Lockwood's own

es you fe

clearer idea of his address at the time, than I had. In the second place, b

ckwood

I never gave him the letter, o

es seem to back

cks him up," w

ties. How about theft? Are you sure

me!" was his

eing actually lost in

. I've gone over the place with a fine-tooth comb, time and time again. I'v

have a hom

ltale neurasthenic dela

e week the letter was

n't been able to h

tion or not remembering whether I'd eaten or not. She said she thought I was in for typhoid or something like that. She went right down to Lockwood and practically accused him of making me overwork. Lockwood had to tell her what had happened. I

seconds. The case was not

does he feel about

ted smile that wrinkled his face was

does n

giving me

imply he still someh

eve in me," was

he do something? W

"Because he promised his dau

ening of the nerves. And I had to take a

d personally intereste

es

o be something more than just; she would want to be merciful-with other

wood?" I asked, fo

spoke with listless heaviness, as though Mary Lockwood's pity

ly; the idiom had not reached his intelligence. I crossed to

ow, going back to possibilities, mightn't there have been a touch of aphasia? Mig

amounted to anything serious. I carried on all my office work without a hitch, without one mistake. But, as I told you before, I was working

Could the letter have been misdirected, absent-minde

e to this office of Lockwood's addressed to Carlton. It held six thousand dollars in cash. I received it and signed for it. The man to whom it was addressed never received it. N

mightn't that letter have come in a second envelope which you removed after

over all that old ground. I've been over it until I thought I was going crazy. I've raked and dug through it, these past three w

me, isn't there one shred or tatter of memory on which you can try to hang something

I've tried to build it out like a cantilever, but I can't bolt two ideas together. I've tried to picture it; I've tried to vi

that?" I demanded, si

of me, holding a letter in his right hand and tappi

s it? Or w

o imagine it

out. "That's valuable. It's something definite, someth

ary unconcern. "I thought the way you do, at first. I felt sure it would le

I pro

Lockwood herself. I tried to explain how much the whole thing meant to me. I

had

John Lockwood found I'd been up to his house, that way, he-well, he rather lost his temper about it all. He accused me of trying to play on his daughter's sympathy, of trying to hide behind a petticoat. Miss Lockwood herself came and saw me again, th

covering his face with his unstead

f what it would eventually lead to, of what it was already leading to, in that broken wreck of a walking ghost, in that terror-hounded neurasth

e me trional and bromides and things, but I didn't seem able to assimilate them. Then he told me it was all in my own mind, that I only had to let myself relax. He told me to lie w

t way. You ought to have taken a couple of weeks in the Maine woods, or tried

ome subsidiary part of my brain must ha

elieve that gir

en?" he

cks. I'd like to wager that Lockwood has the habit of tapping his t

p at me, a little disturbed b

hat good does it do me, even

up a lost city? Can't you see that we've got to get down to

to emotionalize him out of that dead flat monotone of indifference. I jumped t

life-buoy. It's the thing that's got to keep you

istless response. "But it doesn't lead to anything.

s he leaned wearily ba

t this thing out for me to-night. I want to try to dramatize that situation down in Lockwood's office when you signed for the Carlton letter. I want you to do everything you can to visua

th about so that he faced this table, and then took one of my own letters from

our desk. Remember, you're in your office, hard

ent on my impersonation. But I could hear him

It's for Carlton, remember. I want you to take it. And sign for it, here. Yes, write down your name-actually write it. Now take the let

Then he slowly shook his bead from side to side. I had not suc

I can't remember. It doesn'

ere, only you haven't hit the right combination to throw the door open. You can't do a thing in this life, you've never lived an active moment of this life, without

the table. "If I only knew just what direction to go! Bu

ck to a very old law of association. I'm only trying to do something to bring up sight, touch, sound. We both know those are things that act quickest in reviving memory. Can't you see-out of similar conditions I want to catch at something that will suggest t

twitching in the light from the fire, was studious, but only passively so. The infe

I think, I can't get beyond the blank wall. I'm still in this library of

it seem rather

seem silly," h

like a hailstone out o

out the part. It's because you're not on the right stage. You kno

rition of a child, and with his rep

scarcely hearing the

ice," I declared. "We've got to

ead, without l

ice, every nook and cran

to know is, can

sked, apparently a little fri

ow," I

not," he fin

those office-keys,

are. It would be only too easy for them to misinterpret a midnight visi

move," I maintained. "And then we'll slip dow

his mind. Then he looked up, as though a su

ockwood, don't y

hesitatingl

to call her up on the telephone and

easons for not caring to converse with Mary Lockwood. I also remembered that the situation confronting me was somethi

plained as I rose to my feet, "and announce that

's that v

g out if John Lockwood rea

ced youth s

will that do?

ach out and grope along. It'll mean the same to your imagination as a brick wa

flat and atonic voice. But instead of answering or arguing with him I put

Mr. John Lockwood had invaded his own offices on that particular night, h

locked the door behind us, I began over again what

. But as I seated Criswell at his own office desk and did my utmost to galvanize his tired brain into some semblance of the r?le I had laid out for it, I think he rather lost track of time and place. At the end of ten minutes my

No stage-manager, trying to project his personality into an unresponding actor, could have

enied him. But the matter was not one of mere volition. It was beyond his power. It depended on something external, on something as much outside his conscious control as though it wer

wn office," I told him, with a perempto

," he faltered. And I could see the lines

mprisoning walls. I had already stirred the pool too deeply. I knew that a

more dull-looking consular reports and text-books on matters of finance. The fourth side of the room held two windows. Between these windows, some six feet from the wall, stood Lockwood's rosewood desk. It was a handsome desk, heavily carved, yet lik

. He was, I fancy, even beginning to have suspicions as to my sanity. But in that I saw no objection. It was, I felt, rather an advantage. It would serve to key his nerves up to a still higher pi

ing my eye on him, "and you're Criswell, my

apparently, looking weakly a

repeated, this time in a voic

ally said. "I

t any old letter, but one particular letter. I want you to bring me the Carlton regist

to justify both my course and my intelligence. I had to get m

tried to cow him into obedience by the very an

"I want you to bring that regis

ankly. Then he passed his h

ed. "We tried that, and it wouldn't work. I brought

g go up and down my backbone. My God, I thought, the man's actually s

before," I wheedled.

ch languid detachment that one might have thoug

now, so bring

excitement. Whether or not the contagion of my hysteria went out to him I ca

igar-box I found there. This perfecto I impertinently and promptly lighted, puffing its aroma about, for it had suddenly come home to me how powerfu

hand he carried a letter. He was solemn enough about it, only his eyes, I noticed, were as empty as though he were gi

" he said to me. "Had I better sen

the scene had indeed ever occurred. Lockwood's own mind must have been busy, o

ell's hand, glanced at it, and began absently tapping my left th

ow not even somnambulistic in intelligence. It maddened me

g down for?" I cried.

t, looking a

aid, as though to himself. H

ompted. "Blue cloth? Blue

on. And all his soul seemed writhing and twistin

're covering it up. You're turning over whit

d electric needles as I watched him. He tu

an't you help me get it-get it

and as I said it I realized what madhouse j

head fall forward on his hands. He

lls covered with snow

d overtaxed his strength. He was wandering off aga

nsole him. "There's no use overdoing this.

ined room that was housing so indeterminate a tragedy, the door on my left was thrown open. Throu

It was not so much her sudden appearance as the words she spoke to

iterating intensity of purpose. "Father tap

e book-lined wall. I waited for her to speak. Then out of the mottled colors that confronted my eye, out of the faded yellows an

it came capriciously home to me that blue h

d crossed the room. Then I saw the white streak at the top of the book,

overboard snatching at a life-line. I jerked it from

eport of the Commissioner of the

r my own ends. But those ends, I remembered as I took up the book and shook it, belonged now to a world that seemed very foolish and very far-

nineteenth pages of that section which bore the title "The Report of Inspector Moodie," I came upon a photographic insert, a tint-block photo-engraving. It carried th

it must have sounded like a scream to the

wered in his

bia? Did he happen to have any claims or interests or plans

as the wearily in

I called out a

hink," he

roads to a new mining-camp in

eye peered unsteadily down at the Blue Book as I once more riffled through its pages, from back to front. I saw his wavering glance grow

s body rise, as though some unseen hydraulic

blue! There's the

I cried

it! I see it! I see it, now! That's the book John Loc

tter?" I

letter," he

helf and stooped over the space from which I had so feverishly snatched the Blue Book. I saw her brush the dust from her fingertips, s

! And he's got to remembe

g himself down in the chair, sobbing ou

I could hear Mary Lockwood sa

I asked, as her studiously

saw then, for the first time, that in this hand she w

demanded Criswe

book. And the Lockwoods, I'm afraid," she continued with an odd little quaver in her voice, "will have a very, very great deal to ask your for

ite unbroken silence. Th

tered out, with moist yet happy eyes, as he did his best t

gle, very awkward and ill-at-ease, until

e out of those intrepid and unequivocating eyes of hers, for a full half minute. Then she turned slowly away. She didn't speak. But there