Читать книгу The Tower of Oblivion - Oliver Onions - Страница 17

Lost: A man with a brass name-plate in his pocket, probably bent in wrenching. Personal appearance difficult to describe, because something has happened to him that does not happen to the generality of people. When last seen appeared to be about thirty-five, but may look younger. Was wearing dark blue suit and shirt with torn neckband.

Missing: Derwent Rose, novelist, late of 120 bis, Cambridge Circus, W.C. Age forty-five, tall and very strongly built, eyes grey-blue, hair chestnut-brown, strikingly handsome features. In possession of money, as his banking account was closed the morning after his disappearance. Served with Second Battalion Royal Firthshire Fusiliers. Is thought not to have left the country.

For Disposal: Quantity of black oak furniture, comprising Jacobean oval table with beaded edge (copy), six upright chairs, tallboy, chest; also large brass bedstead, drawers, two pairs heavy damask curtains, crockery, plate, etc., etc. Also several thousand volumes, including small collection medical works, and others Curious and Miscellaneous. The whole may be viewed at 120 bis, Cambridge Circus, W.C. Apply Caretaker.

So the announcements might have run had there been any; but there were none. I saw to that. The police are excellent people, but I considered this a little out of their line and did not call them in. As for the furniture and effects, they remained for the present where they were, I paying his rent and putting his key into my pocket. As for Derwent Rose, novelist, aged forty-five, it might be months before anybody missed him, and it would be supposed that he had gone into retirement to write a book. As for the man with the torn neckband and the brass name-plate in his pocket, a prudent person would be a little careful how he tried to identify him. You see what I mean. Julia Oliphant and myself were in a class apart; we should know him on sight, since we knew what had happened to him and what we might expect. But nobody else knew, nobody in the whole wide world. Therefore they would be wise to look at him twice before accosting him. Nobody wants to be certified and locked up, and that was what might conceivably happen if anybody insisted too much on resemblance or identity in the case of a man who was obviously fifteen or twenty years younger than he could be proved to be. Much safer to call the fancied resemblance a coincidence and let it go at that.

Therefore—exit Derwent Rose, novelist, aged forty-five.

And enter in his stead—who?

Exactly. That was the whole point. He had not entered. He was somewhere on Life's stage, but behind, or in the wings, or up in the flies, or down underneath the traps. He was his own understudy, but whatever lines he spoke, whatever gestures he made, happened "off." The call-boy ran hither and thither calling his name, but in vain. Oblivion had taken him. It had taken him so completely that he needed to dress no part, to alter himself with no make-up. He was as free to walk about in the limelight as you or I. Freer—far freer——

For where was the birth certificate of this man who had lost ten years in a few months and for all anybody knew might now have lost another ten—twelve—twenty? Of what use was his dossier in the Military Records Office? Of what value was his name on the register, his will if he had made one, his signed contracts, his insurance policy? Of what validity was the photograph on his passport, or who could call him into Court as a witness? What clergyman or Justice of the Peace could certify that he had known him for a number of years? What musty and mendacious file in Somerset House dare produce a record to show that a man who was obviously so many years younger had been born in the year 1875? Free, this Apollo for beauty and Ajax for strength? As far as documents were concerned he was more than free. He had side-stepped them all, and was the only completely free man alive.

But he was not free from Julia Oliphant and myself, for we knew all about it. His own brother he might fool, had he had one; he might delude the nurse who had rocked him as a child were she still alive; but us he could not deceive. With us his unimaginable alibi would not serve nor his unique anonymity go down. If he wished to know us, he could come up to us (but to us only) with a proffered hand and an ordinary "How do you do." But if he did not wish to know us he had us to fear. We knew his secret.

But nobody else—nobody in the whole round world else.