It was with a message of a useful sort that Hewitt one day dropped into Vine Street police station and asked for a particular inspector, who was not in. Hewitt sat and wrote a note, and by way of making conversation said to the inspector on duty, “Anything very startling this way to-day?”
“Nothing very startling, perhaps, as yet,” the inspector replied. “But one of our chaps picked up rather an odd customer a little while ago. Lunatic of some sort, I should think — in fact, I’ve sent for the doctor to see him. He’s a foreigner — a Frenchman, I believe. He seemed horribly weak and faint; but the oddest thing occurred when one of the men, thinking he might be hungry, brought in some bread. He went into fits of terror at the sight of it, and wouldn’t be pacified till they took it away again.”
“That was strange.”
“Odd, wasn’t it? And he was hungry too. They brought him some more a little while after, and he didn’t funk it a bit, — pitched into it, in fact, like anything, and ate it all with some cold beef. It’s the way with some lunatics — never the same five minutes together. He keeps crying like a baby, and saying things we can’t understand. As it happens, there’s nobody in just now who speaks French.”
“I speak French,” Hewitt replied. “Shall I try him?”
“Certainly, if you will. He’s in the men’s room below. They’ve been making him as comfortable as possible by the fire until the doctor comes. He’s a long time. I expect he’s got a case on.”
Hewitt found his way to the large mess-room, where three or four policemen in their shirt-sleeves were curiously regarding a young man of very disordered appearance who sat on a chair by the fire. He was pale, and exhibited marks of bruises on his face, while over one eye was a scarcely healed cut. His figure was small and slight, his coat was torn, and he sat with a certain indefinite air of shivering suffering. He started and looked round apprehensively as Hewitt entered. Hewitt bowed smilingly, wished him good-day, speaking in French, and asked him if he spoke the language.
The man looked up with a dull expression, and after an effort or two, as of one who stutters, burst out with, “Je le nie!”
“That’s strange,” Hewitt observed to the men. “I ask him if he speaks French, and he says he denies it — speaking in French.”
“He’s been saying that very often, sir,” one of the men answered, “as well as other things we can’t make anything of.”
Hewitt placed his hand kindly on the man’s shoulder and asked his name. The reply was for a little while an inarticulate gurgle, presently merging into a meaningless medley of words and syllables — “Qu’est ce qu’ — il n’a — Leystar Squarr — sacré nom — not spik it — quel chemin — sank you ver’ mosh — je le nie! je le nie! ” He paused, stared, and then, as though realizing his helplessness, he burst into tears.
“He’s been a-cryin’ two or three times,” said the man who had spoken before. “He was a-cryin’ when we found him.”
Several more attempts Hewitt made to communicate with the man, but though he seemed to comprehend what was meant, he replied with nothing but meaningless gibber, and finally gave up the attempt, and, leaning against the side of the fireplace, buried his head in the bend of his arm.
Then the doctor arrived and made his examination. While it was in progress Hewitt took aside the policeman who had been speaking before and questioned him further. He had himself found the Frenchman in a dull back street by Golden Square, where the man was standing helpless and trembling, apparently quite bewildered and very weak. He had brought him in, without having been able to learn anything about him. One or two shopkeepers in the street where he was found were asked, but knew nothing of him — indeed, had never seen him before.
“But the curiousest thing,” the policeman proceeded, “was in this ’ere room, when I brought him a loaf to give him a bit of a snack, seein’ he looked so weak an’ ‘ungry. You’d ‘a thought we was a-goin’ to poison ’im. He fair screamed at the very sight o’ the bread, an’ he scrouged hisself up in that corner an’ put his hands in front of his face. I couldn’t make out what was up at first — didn’t tumble to it’s bein’ the bread he was frightened of, seein’ as he looked like a man as ‘ud be frightened at anything else afore that. But the nearer I came with it the more he yelled, so I took it away an’ left it outside, an’ then he calmed down. An’ s’elp me, when I cut some bits off that there very loaf an’ brought ’em in, with a bit o’ beef, he just went for ’em like one o’clock. He wasn’t frightened o’ no bread then, you bet. Rum thing, how the fancies takes ’em when they’re a bit touched, ain’t it? All one way one minute, all the other the next.”
“Yes, it is. By the way, have you another uncut loaf in the place?”
“Yes, sir. Half a dozen if you like.”
“One will be enough. I am going over to speak to the doctor. Wait awhile until he seems very quiet and fairly comfortable; then bring a loaf in quietly and put it on the table, not far from his elbow. Don’t attract his attention to what you are doing.”
The doctor stood looking thoughtfully down on the Frenchman, who, for his part, stared gloomily, but tranquilly, at the fire-place. Hewitt stepped quietly over to the doctor and, without disturbing the man by the fire, said interrogatively, “Aphasia?”
The doctor tightened his lips, frowned, and nodded significantly. “Motor,” he murmured, just loudly enough for Hewitt to hear; “and there’s a general nervous break-down as well, I should say. By the way, perhaps there’s no agraphia. Have you tried him with pen and paper?”
Pen and paper were brought and set before the man. He was told, slowly and distinctly, that he was among friends, whose only object was to restore him to his proper health. Would he write his name and address, and any other information he might care to give about himself, on the paper before him?
The Frenchman took the pen and stared at the paper; then slowly, and with much hesitation, he traced these marks:—
The man paused after the last of these futile characters, and his pen stabbed into the paper with a blot, as he dazedly regarded his work. Then with a groan he dropped it, and his face sank again into the bend of his arm.
The doctor took the paper and handed it to Hewitt. “Complete agraphia, you see,” he said. “He can’t write a word. He begins to write ‘ Monsieur ‘ from sheer habit in beginning letters thus; but the word tails off into a scrawl. Then his attempts become mere scribble, with just a trace of some familiar word here and there — but quite meaningless all.”
Although he had never before chanced to come across a case of aphasia (happily a rare disease), Hewitt was acquainted with its general nature. He knew that it might arise either from some physical injury to the brain, or from a break-down consequent on some terrible nervous strain. He knew that in the case of motor aphasia the sufferer, though fully conscious of all that goes on about him, and though quite understanding what is said to him is entirely powerless to put his own thoughts into spoken words — has lost, in fact, the connection between words and their spoken symbols. Also that in most bad cases agraphia — the loss of ability to write words with any reference to their meaning — is commonly an accompaniment.
“You will have him taken to the infirmary, I suppose?” Hewitt asked.
“Yes,” the doctor replied. “I shall go and see about it at once.”
The man looked up again as they spoke. The policeman had, in accordance with Hewitt’s request, placed a loaf of bread on the table near him, and now as he looked up he caught sight of it. He started visibly and paled, but gave no such signs of abject terror as the policeman had previously observed. He appeared