The Legion of the Lost, стр. 11
They walked right across the drive; no more than twenty yards along it grew less dark, the trees no longer guarded them on either side. There were white posts sticking out of the ground and painted to catch the lights of any ambulances and cars which arrived with patients. As they stepped across a smooth-topped carriage-way, the building of the sanatorium showed against the grey sky; it was larger than Palfrey had expected. The glow from Conroy’s cigarette was reflected in the windows on the ground floor; Palfrey remembered the long, glass-enclosed verandah which had surrounded the place when he had seen it earlier that day.
They were prepared for the man who came towards them from the side of the house. His footsteps rang on the hard surface, proving that he was not concerned with concealing his presence. He called out in a sharp voice:
‘Halt, there!’ They stopped, and the man came up and shone a torch into their faces. ‘Who are you?’
Palfrey switched on his own torch, revealing a German in drab grey uniform.
Stefan said: ‘Why were you not by the front door?’
‘You papers, please,’ said the man, stolidly. ‘Afterwards I may answer questions, Excellency.’
‘At least you have some knowledge of your duties,’ grumbled Stefan. ‘There should be two of you. Where is the other man?’
‘He will return from his rounds, Excellency.’ This fellow was in no way worried by Stefan’s hectoring manner.
Stefan grunted but held out his papers; the others followed suit but all the man looked at was the official stamp. He saluted when he had finished, then said quickly: ‘Two of the night guards have not come on duty, Excellency. There remain only two of us. We do our best.’
‘Where are the others?’ barked Stefan.
‘I do not know, Excellency. They have not returned from an expedition this afternoon. Nor are they the first not to return,’ he added. ‘I have applied for reliefs, Excellency, but have no assurance that they will come tonight.’
‘Ach!’ growled Stefan. ‘It is deplorable!’
As his words faded on the wind the door of the sanatorium opened and all of them stared towards the white-clad figure of a man standing there. He carried a torch which he shone towards the ground and illuminated the skirt of his white overall.
‘It is more than deplorable,’ he said in a soft voice, ‘that such a disturbance should be permitted. What is it you want?’
The guard said abruptly: ‘They come to inspect, Herr Doktor.’
‘To inspect what?’ demanded the white-clad man, sharply.
‘The way this place is conducted,’ growled Stefan. ‘Step aside.’ He went forward, pushing past the doctor unceremoniously, and soon all of them were standing inside a large, square hall. When the door closed the doctor switched on a dim light. He was revealed as a tall, thin-faced man with fair hair and a rather doleful expression. His ‘overall’ was a coat; obviously he had put it on hastily, for he wore pyjamas beneath it – royal blue legs showed above a pair of cracked leather slippers. His hair was awry, as if he had been roused from sleep.
‘This is nonsense!’ he grumbled. ‘What a time to inspect the home! Why could you not come by day?’
‘The things we wish to find do not happen by day,’ growled Stefan.
‘This home is well conducted,’ said the doctor resentfully, but as he grew wider awake it was clear that he also grew more wary. ‘I am the resident doctor in charge. Your papers, please!’ They went through the formality again, but the papers were handed back quickly. ‘What is it you wish to see?’
‘The wards and laboratories,’ said Palfrey. His ‘pass’ described him as Dr. Pretzel, and he felt, as he looked at the other’s eyes, that he was at last justifying his presence here. ‘I understand, Doktor—’ he paused, waiting for the name.
‘Oster,’ said the other, promptly enough.
‘Doktor Oster,’ went on Palfrey, ‘that you have some interesting cases, and while my companions are performing their duty, perhaps we could discuss them. I am interested in paranoia,’ he added, smiling as one medical man to another. ‘You have some interesting patients here, I am told.’
Oster thawed at once.
‘Yes indeed,’ he said eagerly. ‘I will send for the secretary, Herr Doktor. He will guide your companions and you and I can perhaps exchange notes.’ He stepped to the wall and pressed a bell; soon a short, thick-set man, sleepy-eyed behind thick-lensed glasses but fully dressed, came hurrying along the passage. Oster gave him instructions – he was something more than the resident doctor, thought Palfrey – said that he had examined the passes, gave the man directions to show the visitors wherever they liked.
When they had disappeared into the shadows of the stairs Palfrey looked at Oster with a one-sided smile.
‘It is regrettable, Herr Doktor, that the only way in which I can make such visits is to come with such a party.’ He shrugged his shoulders, then launched into a mass of details and theory on paranoia subjects which seemed to startle Oster but quickened the man to deep interest. They walked to the end of the staircase, along a passage, and Oster said as he opened a door: ‘You will be interested in some of the experiments we have carried out in the laboratory. We have the advantage of having patients whom we can use without fearing whether they live or die.’ He laughed a little.
Palfrey said: ‘Just what do you mean?’
‘Come, come!’ said Oster, ‘we have Norwegian patients whom we can regard dispassionately. We can experiment with them where with others we must do our best to cure them by the known methods. Perhaps they are unwilling specimens’ – Oster laughed again, a cruel, unpleasant sound – ‘but that matters little. It has long been obvious to me, Herr Doktor, as doubtless it has to you, that madness can only be studied in a madman.