The Complete Short Stories

Minus One

‘Where, my God, where is he?’

Uttered in a tone of uncontrollable frustration as he paced up and down in front of the high-gabled window behind his desk, this cri de coeur of Dr Mellinger, Director of Green Hill Asylum, expressed the consternation of his entire staff at the mysterious disappearance of one of their patients. In the twelve hours that had elapsed since the escape, Dr Mellinger and his subordinates had progressed from surprise and annoyance to acute exasperation, and eventually to a mood of almost euphoric disbelief. To add insult to injury, not only had the patient, James Hinton, succeeded in becoming the first ever to escape from the asylum, but he had managed to do so without leaving any clues as to his route. Thus Dr Mellinger and his staff were tantalize4 by the possibility that Hinton had never escaped at all and was still safely within the confines of the asylum. At all events, everyone agreed that if Hinton had escaped, he had literally vanished into thin air.

However, one small consolation, Dr Mellinger reminded himself as he drummed his fingers on his desk, was that Hinton’s disappearance had exposed the shortcomings of the asylum’s security systems, and administered a salutary jolt to his heads of departments. As this hapless group, led by the Deputy Director, Dr Normand, filed into his office for the first of the morning’s emergency conferences, Dr Mellinger cast a baleful glare at each in turn, but their sleepless faces remained mutely lowered to the carpeting, as if, despairing of finding Hinton anywhere else, they now sought his hiding place in its deep ruby pile.

At least, Dr Mellinger reflected, only one patient had disappeared, a negative sentiment which assumed greater meaning in view of the outcry that would be raised from the world outside when it was discovered that a patient obviously a homicidal lunatic — had remained at large for over twelve hours before the police were notified.

This decision not to inform the civil authorities, an error of judgement whose culpability seemed to mount as the hours passed, alone prevented Dr Mellinger from finding an immediate scapegoat — a convenient one would have been little Dr Mendelsohn of the Pathology Department, an unimportant branch of the asylum — and sacrificing him on the altar of his own indiscretion. His natural caution, and reluctance to yield an inch of ground unless compelled, had prevented Dr Mellinger from raising the general alarm during the first hours after Hinton’s disappearance, when some doubt still remained whether the latter had actually left the asylum. Although the failure to find Hinton might have been interpreted as a reasonable indication that he had successfully escaped, Dr Mellinger had characteristically refused to accept such faulty logic.

By now, over twelve hours later, his miscalculation had become apparent. As the thin smirk on Dr Normand’s face revealed, and as his other subordinates would soon realize, his directorship of the asylum was now at stake. Unless they found Hinton within a few hours he would be placed in an untenable position before both the civil authorities and the trustees.

However, Dr Mellinger reminded himself, it was not without the exercise of considerable guile and resource that he had become Director of Green Hill in the first place.

‘Where is he?’

Shifting his emphasis from the first of these interrogatories to the second, as if to illustrate that the fruitless search for Hinton’s whereabouts had been superseded by an examination of his total existential role in the unhappy farce of which he was the author and principal star, Dr Mellinger turned upon his three breakfastless subordinates.

‘Well, have you found him? Don’t sit there dozing, gentlemen! You may have had a sleepless night, but I have still to wake from the nightmare.’ With this humourless shaft, Dr Mellinger flashed a mordant eye into the rhododendronlined drive, as if hoping to catch a sudden glimpse of the vanished patient. ‘Dr Redpath, your report, please.’

‘The search is still continuing, Director.’ Dr Redpath, the registrar of the asylum, was nominally in charge of security. ‘We have examined the entire grounds, dormitory blocks, garages and outbuildings — even the patients are taking part — but every trace of Hinton has vanished. Reluctantly, I am afraid there is no alternative but to inform the police.’

‘Nonsense.’ Dr Mellinger took his seat behind the desk, arms outspread and eyes roving the bare top for a minuscule replica of the vanished patient. ‘Don’t be disheartened by your inability to discover him, Doctor. Until the search is complete we would be wasting the police’s time to ask for their help.’

‘Of course, Director,’ Dr Normand rejoined smoothly, ‘but on the other hand, as we have now proved that the missing patient is not within the boundaries of Green Hill, we can conclude, ergo, that he is outside them. In such an event is it perhaps rather a case of us helping the police?’

‘Not at all, my dear Normand,’ Dr Mellinger replied pleasantly. As he mentally elaborated his answer, he realized that he had never trusted or liked his deputy; given the first opportunity he would replace him, most conveniently with Redpath, whose blunders in the ‘Hinton affair’, as it could be designated, would place him for ever squarely below the Director’s thumb. ‘If there were any evidence of the means by which Hinton made his escape — knotted sheets or footprints in the flower-beds — we could assume that he was no longer within these walls. But no such evidence has been found. For all we know — in fact, everything points inescapably to this conclusion — the patient is still within the confines of Green Hill, indeed by rights still within his cell. ‘The bars on the window were not cut, and the only way out was through the door, the keys to which remained in the possession of Dr Booth’ — he indicated the third member of the trio, a slim young man with a worried expression — ‘throughout the period between the last contact with Hinton and the discovery of his disappearance. Dr Booth, as the physician actually responsible for Hinton, you are quite certain you were the last person to visit him?’

Dr Booth nodded reluctantly. His celebrity at having discovered Hinton’s escape had long since turned sour. ‘At seven o’clock, sir, during my evening round. But the last person to see Hinton was the duty nurse half an hour later. However, as no treatment had been prescribed — the patient had been admitted for observation — the door was not unlocked. Shortly after nine o’clock I decided to visit the patient—, ‘Why?’ Dr Mellinger placed the tips of his fingers together and constructed a cathedral spire and nave. ‘This is one of the strangest aspects of the case, Doctor. Why should you have chosen, almost an hour and a half later, to leave your comfortable office on the ground floor and climb three flights of stairs merely to carry out a cursory inspection which could best be left to the duty’ staff? Your motives puzzle me, Doctor.’

‘But, Director—!’ Dr Booth was almost on his feet. ‘Surely you don’t suspect me of colluding in Hinton’s escape? I assure you—’

‘Doctor, please.’ Dr Mellinger raised a smooth white hand. ‘Nothing could be further from my mind. Perhaps I should have said: your unconscious motives.’

Again the unfortunate Booth protested: ‘Director, there were no unconscious motives. I admit I can’t remember precisely what prompted me to see Hinton, but it was some perfectly trivial reason. I hardly knew the patient.’

Dr Mellinger bent forwards across the desk. ‘That is exactly what I meant, Doctor. To be precise, you did not know Hinton at all.’ Dr Mellinger gazed at the distorted reflection of himself in the silver ink-stand. ‘Tell me, Dr Booth, how would you describe Hinton’s appearance?’

Booth hesitated. ‘Well, he was of… medium height, if I remember, with… yes, brown hair and a pale complexion. His eyes were — I should have to refresh my memory from the file, Director.’

Dr Mellinger nodded. He turned to Redpath. ‘Could you describe him, Doctor?’

‘I’m afraid not, sir. I never saw the patient.’ He gestured to the Deputy Director. ‘I believe Dr Normand interviewed him on admission.’

With an effort Dr Normand cast into his memory. ‘It was probably my assistant. If I remember, he was a man of average build with no distinguishing features. Neither short, nor tall. Stocky, one might say.’ He pursed his lips. ‘Yes. Or rather, no. I’m certain it was my assistant.’

‘How interesting.’ Dr Mellinger had visibly revived, the gleams of ironic humour which flashed from his eyes revealed some potent inner transformation. The burden of irritations and frustrations which had plagued him for the past day seemed to have been lifted. ‘Does this mean, Dr Normand, that this entire institution has been mobilized in a search for a man whom no one here could recognize even if they found him? You surprise me, my dear Normand. I was under the impression that you were a man of cool and analytical intelligence, but in your search for Hinton you are obviously employing more arcane powers.’

‘But, Director! I cannot be expected to memorize the face of every patient—’ ‘Enough, enough!’ Dr Mellinger stood up with a flourish, and resumed his circuit of the carpet. ‘This is all very disturbing. Obviously the whole relationship between Green Hill and its patients must be re-examined. Our patients are not faceless ciphers, gentlemen, but the possessors of unique and vital identities. If we regard them as nonentities and fail to invest them with any personal characteristics, is it surprising that they should seem to disappear? I suggest that we put aside the next few days and dedicate them to a careful re-appraisal. Let us scrutinize all those facile assumptions we make so readily.’ Impelled by this vision, Dr Mellinger stepped into the light pouring through the window, as if to expose himself to this new revelation. ‘Yes, this is the task that lies before us now; from its successful conclusion will emerge a new Green Hill, a Green Hill without shadows and conspiracies, where patients and physicians stand before each other in mutual trust and responsibility.’

A pregnant silence fell at the conclusion of this homily. At last Dr Redpath cleared his throat, reluctant to disturb Dr Mellinger’s sublime communion with himself. ‘And Hinton, sir?’

‘Hinton? Ah, yes.’ Dr Mellinger turned to face them, like a bishop about to bless his congregation. ‘Let us see Hinton as an illustration of this process of self-examination, a focus of our re-appraisal.’

‘So the search should continue, sir?’ Redpath pressed.

‘Of course.’ For a moment Dr Mellinger’s attention wandered. ‘Yes, we must find Hinton. He is here somewhere; his essence pervades Green Hill, a vast metaphysical conundrum. Solve it, gentlemen, and you will have solved the mystery of his disappearance.’

For the next hour Dr Mellinger paced the carpet alone, now and then warming his hands at the low fire below the mantelpiece. Its few flames entwined in the chimney like the ideas playing around the periphery of his mind. At last, he felt, a means of breaking through the impasse had offered itself. He had always been certain that Hinton’s miraculous disappearance represented more than a simple problem of breached security, and was a symbol of something grievously at fault with the very foundations of Green Hill.

Pursuing these thoughts, Dr Mellinger left his office and made his way down to the floor below which housed the administrative department. The offices were deserted; the entire staff of the building was taking part in the search. Occasionally the querulous cries of the patients demanding their breakfasts drifted across the warm, insulated air. Fortunately the walls were thick, and the rates charged by the asylum high enough to obviate the need for over-crowding.

Green Hill Asylum (motto, and principal attraction: ‘There is a Green Hill Far, Far Away’) was one of those institutions which are patronized by the wealthier members of the community and in effect serve the role of private prisons. In such places are confined all those miscreant or unfortunate relatives whose presence would otherwise be a burden or embarrassment: the importunate widows of blacksheep sons, senile maiden aunts, elderly bachelor cousins paying the price for their romantic indiscretions — in short, all those abandoned casualties of the army of privilege. As far as the patrons of Green Hill were concerned, maximum security came first, treatment, if given at all, a bad second. Dr Mellinger’s patients had disappeared conveniently from the world, and as long as they remained in this distant limbo those who paid the bills were satisfied. All this made Hinton’s escape particularly dangerous.

Stepping through the open doorway of Normand’s office, Dr Mellinger ran his eye cursorily around the room. On the desk, hastily opened, was a slim file containing a few documents and a photograph.

For a brief moment Dr Mellinger gazed abstractedly at the file. Then, after a discreet glance into the corridor, he slipped it under his arm and retraced his steps up the empty staircase.

Outside, muted by the dark groves of rhododendrons, the sounds of search and pursuit echoed across the grounds. Opening the file on his desk, Dr Mellinger stared at the photograph, which happened to be lying upside down. Without straightening it, he studied the amorphous features. The nose was straight, the forehead and cheeks symmetrical, the ears a little oversize, but in its inverted position the face lacked any cohesive identity.

Suddenly, as he started to read the file, Dr Mellinger was filled with a deep sense of resentment. The entire subject of Hinton and the man’s precarious claims to reality overwhelmed him with a profound nausea. He refused to accept that this mindless cripple with his anonymous features could have been responsible for the confusion and anxiety of the previous day. Was it possible that these few pieces of paper constituted this meagre individual’s full claim to reality?

Flinching slightly from the touch of the file to his fingers, Dr Mellinger carried it across to the fireplace. Averting his face, he listened with a deepening sense of relief as the flames flared briefly and subsided.

‘My dear Booth! Do come in. It’s good of you to spare the time.’ With this greeting Dr Mellinger ushered him to a chair beside the fire and proffered his silver cigarette case. ‘There’s a certain small matter I wanted to discuss, and you are almost the only person who can help me.’

‘Of course, Director,’ Booth assured him. ‘I am greatly honoured.’

Dr Mellinger seated himself behind his desk. ‘It’s a very curious case, one of the most unusual I have ever come across. It concerns a patient under your care, I believe.’

‘May I ask for his name, sir?’

‘Hinton,’ Dr Mellinger said, with a sharp glance at Booth.

‘Hinton, sir?’

‘You show surprise,’ Dr Mellinger continued before Booth could reply. ‘I find that response particularly interesting.’

‘The search is still being carried on,’ Booth said uncertainly as Dr Mellinger paused to digest his remarks. ‘I’m afraid we’ve found absolutely no trace of him. Dr Normand thinks we should inform—, ‘Ah, yes, Dr Normand.’ The Director revived suddenly. ‘I have asked him to report to me with Hinton’s file as soon as he is free. Dr Booth, does it occur to you that we may be chasing the wrong hare?’

‘Sir—?’

‘Is it in fact Hin ton we are after? I wonder, perhaps, whether the search for Hinton is obscuring something larger and more significant, the enigma, as I mentioned yesterday, which lies at the heart of Green Hill and to whose solution we must all now be dedicated.’ Dr Mellinger savoured these reflections before continuing. ‘Dr Booth, let us for a moment consider the role of Hinton, or to be more precise, the complex of overlapping and adjacent events that we identify loosely by the term "Hinton".’

‘Complex, sir? You speak diagnostically?’

‘No, Booth. I am now concerned with the phenomenology of Hinton, with his absolute metaphysical essence. To speak more plainly: has it occurred to you, Booth, how little we know of this elusive patient, how scanty the traces he has left of his own identity?’

‘True, Director,’ Booth agreed. ‘I constantly reproach myself for not taking a closer interest in the patient.’

‘Not at all, Doctor. I realize how busy you are. I intend to carry out a major reorganization of Green Hill, and I assure you that your tireless work here will not be forgotten. A senior administrative post would, I am sure, suit you excellently.’ As Booth sat up, his interest in the conversation increasing several-fold, Dr Mellinger acknowledged his expression of thanks with a discreet nod. ‘As I was saying, Doctor, you have so many patients, all wearing the same uniforms, housed in the same wards, and by and large prescribed the same treatment — is it surprising that they should lose their individual identities? If I may make a small confession,’ he added with a roguish smile. ‘I myself find that all the patients look alike. Why, if Dr Normand or yourself informed me that a new patient by the name of Smith or Brown had arrived, I would automatically furnish him with the standard uniform of identity at Green Hill — those same lustreless eyes and slack mouth, the same amorphous features.’

Unclasping his hands, Dr Mellinger leaned intently across his desk. ‘What I am suggesting, Doctor, is that this automatic mechanism may have operated in the case of the so-called Hinton, and that you may have invested an entirely non-existent individual with the fictions of a personality.’

Dr Booth nodded slowly, ‘I see, sir. You suspect that Hinton — or what we have called Hinton up to now — was perhaps a confused memory of another patient.’ He hesitated doubtfully, and then noticed that Dr Mellinger’s eyes were fixed upon him with hypnotic intensity.

‘Dr Booth. I ask you: what actual proof have we that Hinton ever existed?’

‘Well, sir, there are the…’ Booth searched about helplessly… ‘the records in the administrative department. And the case notes.’

Dr Mellinger shook his head with a scornful flourish. ‘My dear Booth, you are speaking of mere pieces of paper. These are not proof of a man’s identity. A typewriter will invent anything you choose. The only conclusive proof is his physical existence in time and space or, failing that, a distinct memory of his tangible physical presence. Can you honestly say that either of these conditions is fulfilled?’

‘No, sir. I suppose I can’t. Though I did speak to a patient whom I assumed to be Hinton,’

‘But was he?’ The Director’s voice was resonant and urgent. ‘Search your mind, Booth; be honest with yourself. Was it perhaps another patient to whom you spoke? What doctor ever really looks at his patients? In all probability you merely saw Hinton’s name on a list and assumed that he sat before you, an intact physical existence like your own.’

There was a knock upon the door. Dr Normand stepped into the office. ‘Good afternoon, Director.’

‘Ah, Normand. Do come in. Dr Booth and I have been having a most instructive conversation. I really believe we have found a solution to the mystery of Hinton’s disappearance.’

Dr Normand nodded cautiously. ‘I am most relieved, sir. I was beginning to wonder whether we should inform the civil authorities. It is now nearly forty-eight hours since..

‘My dear Normand, I am afraid you are rather out of touch. Our whole attitude to the Hinton case has changed radically. Dr Booth has been so helpful to me. We have been discussing the possibility that an administrative post might be found for him. You have the Hinton file?’

‘Er, I regret not, sir,’ Normand apologized, his eyes moving from Booth to the Director. ‘I gather it’s been temporarily displaced. I’ve instituted a thorough search and it will be brought to you as soon as possible.’

‘Thank you, Normand, if you would.’ Mellinger took Booth by the arm and led him to the door. ‘Now, Doctor, I am most gratified by your perceptiveness. I want you to question your ward staff in the way I have questioned you. Strike through the mists of illusion and false assumption that swirl about their minds. Warn them of those illusions compounded on illusions which can assume the guise of reality. Remind them, too, that clear minds are required at Green Hill. I will be most surprised if any one of them can put her hand on her heart and swear that Hinton really existed.’

After Booth had made his exit, Dr Mellinger returned to his desk. For a moment he failed to notice his deputy.

‘Ah, yes, Normand. I wonder where that file is? You didn’t bring it?’

‘No, sir. As I explained—’ ‘Well, never mind. But we mustn’t become careless, Normand, too much is at stake. Do you realize that without that file we would know literally nothing whatever about Hinton? It would be most awkward.’

‘I assure you, sir, the file—’

‘Enough, Normand. Don’t worry yourself.’ Dr Mellinger turned a vulpine smile upon the restless Normand. ‘I have the greatest respect for the efficiency of the administrative department under your leadership. I think it unlikely that they should have misplaced it. Tell me, Normand, are you sure that this file ever existed?’

‘Certainly, sir,’ Normand replied promptly. ‘Of course, I have not actually seen it myself, but every patient at Green Hill has a complete personal file.’

‘But Normand,’ the Director pointed out gently, ‘the patient in question is not at Green Hill. Whether or not this hypothetical file exists, Hinton does not.’

He stopped and waited as Normand looked up at him, his eyes narrowing.

A week later, Dr Mellinger held a final conference in his office. This was a notably more relaxed gathering; his subordinates lay back in the leather armchairs around the fire, while Dr Mellinger leaned against the desk, supervising the circulation of his best sherry.

‘So, gentlemen,’ he remarked in conclusion, ‘we may look back on the past week as a period of unique self-discovery, a lesson for all of us to remember the true nature of our roles at Green Hill, our dedication to the task of separating reality from illusion. If our patients are haunted by chimeras, let us at least retain absolute clarity of mind, accepting the validity of any proposition only if all our senses corroborate it. Consider the example of the "Hinton affair". Here, by an accumulation of false assumptions, of illusions buttressing illusions, a vast edifice of fantasy was erected around the wholly mythical identity of one patient. This imaginary figure, who by some means we have not discovered — most probably the error of a typist in the records department — was given the name "Hinton", was subsequently furnished with a complete personal identity, a private ward, attendant nurses and doctors. Such was the grip of this substitute world, this concatenation of errors, that when it crumbled and the lack of any substance behind the shadow was discovered, the remaining vacuum was automatically interpreted as the patient’s escape.’

Dr Mellinger gestured eloquently, as Normand, Redpath and Booth nodded their agreement. He walked around his desk and took his seat. ‘Perhaps, gentlemen, it is fortunate that I remain aloof from the day-to-day affairs of Green Hill. I take no credit upon myself, that I alone was sufficiently detached to consider the full implications of Hinton’s disappearance and realize the only possible explanation — that Hinton had never existed!’

‘A brilliant deduction,’ Redpath murmured.

‘Without doubt,’ echoed Booth.

‘A profound insight,’ agreed Normand.

There was a sharp knock on the door. With a frown, Dr Mellinger ignored it and resumed his monologue.

‘Thank you, gentlemen. Without your assistance that hypothesis, that Hinton was no more than an accumulation of administrative errors, could never have been confirmed.’

The knock on the door repeated itself. A staff sister appeared breathlessly. ‘Excuse me, sir. I’m sorry to interrupt you, but—’ Dr Mellinger waved away her apologies. ‘Never mind. What is it?’

‘A visitor, Dr Mellinger.’ She paused as the Director waited impatiently. ‘Mrs Hinton, to see her husband.’

For a moment there was consternation. The three men around the fire sat upright, their drinks forgotten, while Dr Mellinger remained stock-still at his desk. A total silence filled the room, only broken by the light tapping of a woman’s heels in the corridor outside.

But Dr Mellinger recovered quickly. Standing up, with a grim smile at his colleagues, he said: ‘To see Mr Hinton? Impossible, Hinton never existed. The woman must be suffering from terrible delusions; she requires immediate treatment. Show her in.’ He turned to his colleagues. ‘Gentlemen, we must do everything we can to help her.’

Minus two.