The alienist shook his head, and a puzzled line appeared over his eyes.
“It was very peculiar,” he reflected. “That sickness, with its horrible head pains of which you complained, apparently did what the best psychologists in the nation found it impossible to do. It destroyed the second party of your dual nature, leaving you free to enjoy a normal life again. Well, such is science. Infallible to a certain point, and then it goes just as crazy as the best of us do sometimes.”
Colegrave shook hands with the doctor then and walked to the door.
“Thanks again for everything,” he said.
“Don’t mention it,” the alienist laughed. “You did all the work yourself.”
When Colegrave stepped through the door and walked rapidly down the gravel path that led away from the sanitarium. When he reached the iron gate, the doorman opened for him and he passed through onto a dusty, little-used road. This he followed for a mile or so, perspiring freely under the warm rays of the sun as he strode along.
At length he reached the main highway that led to the metropolitan section of New York. A car was waiting there for him and he got in.
The car moved away and Colegrave settled back against the cushions with a sigh of relief. The colored chauffeur was separated from the rear seat by a glass partition which was rolled up into place. Colegrave, however, was not alone. There was another man in the back of the car, a small, cunning looking man, who glanced sidewise at Colegrave and grinned wickedly as the car gathered speed.
“We did it, didn’t we?” he smirked. “No one has the faintest suspicion as to what happened to you. Or maybe I should say, what happened to me.”
Colegrave smiled, a thin, thoughtful smile.
“Since we are really one person, it is perfectly correct to speak of us in the singular. When I entered their crude sanitarium I was two persons mentally. Now I am two persons physically. Each of my dual natures has a physical manifestation, controlled by one intellect.”
The little man scratched his head. “If we’re the same person,” he said, frowning, “Why is it I can’t understand this situation, while you can.”
“Simple enough,” Colegrave said quietly. “Make an effort now to absorb what I am going to tell you. It may be important sometime. Ever since I was old enough to reason I realized that I possessed two distinct natures, that I was a schizophrenic. One-half of my nature was respectable on the surface, but quite coldly ambitious at the same time. This half of my nature compelled me to seek success by conventional means, which is the logical way for a man of ambition to advance in the world.
“My other nature was much more honest and direct than this respectable side of mine. It prompted me to gain wealth and recognition by any means that came to hand. This second side of mine would stop at nothing to achieve its ends. It demanded that I kill, that I steal, that I lie, that I do anything which would gain wealth and power for me.
“As a result, for the most of my life I have been engaged in a constant inner struggle. My respectable self would not object to ill-gotten gains or murder, but it did object to the possibility of exposure. My second half cared nothing for the hypercritical approval of the world. It was willing to take any and all consequences.”
Colegrave paused and glanced at the small, ruthlessly cunning man who was listening avidly to every word.
“It finally became obvious,” he went on, “that something had to be done. When I entered the state sanitarium it was hot by accident. I planned that deliberately and carefully. I realized that the only way I could achieve what I wanted from this world, would be to make the cleavage in my nature a physical one, so that my two natures could operate independently for the greater good of the single unit. This I accomplished at the sanitarium. It was simply a question of will power.
The stupid doctors imagined my headaches were organic in nature, but they were actually the result of intense, feverish concentration over a period of three months.”
“How could you create a physical manifestation of your secondary nature by will power alone?”
“It was not easy,” Colegrave replied. “Since I am Colegrave, the respected citizen, with the advantages of an excellent education, I am able to understand the process. You are my secondary nature, primitive, ruthless, and do not possess my intelligence.
“For that reason I doubt if you can understand what happened in the innermost depths of my psyche to cause the physical split in my schizophrenic condition.
“Suffice to say, I completely alienated the two halves of my natures, by blotting out all thought or awareness of my second half. This was where the will power was necessary. I concentrated, at white-hot heat for three months, on the one idea that my second nature was non-existent. Thus I eventually forced you from my conscious mind, into my subconscious. Then I administered the drug which I procured from the Viennese brain specialist before entering the sanitarium. It created a physical extension of my subconscious, which had to have another outlet since it was denied existence in my conscious mind by the power of my will.”[4]
“Well,” Colegrave’s subconscious manifestation shrugged eloquently, “if you say so, it’s okay with me. All I want to know is where do we go from here.”
Colegrave smiled again.
“That is really the important question, isn’t it? When you materialized I gave you certain instructions. Have you carried them out?”
“Yep,” the little man nodded. “I’ve got a place rented, and I’ve found the town you wanted me to look up. It’s a big place in the Middle West. The situation there is perfect.”
Colegrave lighted a cigarette and inhaled luxuriously.
“Fine. All my life I regarded schizophrenia as a curse, but now I will show the world a practical use for it. A very practical use.”
He glanced out of the window at the buildings and houses which were increasing in frequency as they neared the metropolitan area. A smile hovered over his lips. A gloating, anticipatory smile...
A week later Colegrave, immaculately attired in a conservative gray suit, approached the receptionist in an office labeled simply: Ruzzoni Enterprises.
“My name is Colegrave,” he said to the receptionist’s inquiring glance. “I should like to see Mr. Ruzzoni.”
“Do you have an appointment?” Colegrave smiled frostily.
“No. But I think he’ll see me. Tell him it’s regarding the indictment the district attorney and mayor of your delightful town are bringing against him.”
The receptionist’ scrambled to her feet and, with one puzzled glance at Colegrave’s imperturbable figure, disappeared through a heavy oak door. She returned several minutes later.
“Mr. Ruzzoni will see you,” she murmured. “Go right in.”
“Thank you,” Colegrave smiled. Then he sauntered through the oak door which had been left ajar, into a sumptuously furnished office. In the center of the room was a magnificent mahogany desk, fully eight feet long, and behind it hunched a fat, dark-skinned man with an unlighted cigar jammed into his face.
“Mr. Ruzzoni, I presume,” Colegrave said sarcastically.
“It ain’t nobody else,” the man behind the desk snapped.
His wicked black eyes glittered balefully and his hands balled into straining fists. Colegrave knew at a glance that the man was laboring under a terrific nervous tension.
“Well, whadda you want?” Ruzzoni rasped. “Are you from the D. A.’s office?”
Colegrave closed the door carefully behind him. Then he seated himself before the imposing desk, crossed his legs and lighted a cigarette.
“I am not from the district attorney’s office,” he said calmly. “I represent no one but myself. And I think I might be able to help you.”
4
Anyone who has read Freud will understand the manner by which Colegrave built up the terrific, though artificial frustration in his mind. Since he was a schizophrenic, with two separate personalities, he created a tremendous repression in his subconscious by willing one out of existence.
A physical example of what Colegrave did would be in the case of a man who, with an extreme effort of will, denied himself even the thought of food or drink. In that case, if this were carried to its conclusion, the man would certainly die. Colegrave “killed” his secondary nature by denying its existence absolutely.
This “death” was in the form of a mighty repression which built up pressure day by day, just as a hot water boiler might. Then when the ultimate repression was reached something had to give. In Colegrave’s case, by the aid of strange drugs, a physical manifestation of his subconscious was created. The drugs might possibly be those of Indian origin which are responsible for schizoid transformation in small animals. It was from a base of this type that the fictional transformation of Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde was supposed to have been effected.