“But why bring him to my office?” Cedric said. “It’s OK, of course, but . . . that is ... I didn’t think you could! Take a patient out of the ward at City Hospital and transport him around town.”
“I thought that would be less of an imposition on you,” the D.A. said: “I’m in a hurry on it.”
“Oh,” Cedric said. “Well, OK, Dave. He’s out in the waiting room. I’ll do my best to snap him back to reality for you.”
He hung up slowly, frowning. “Less of an imposition!” His whispered words floated into his ears as he snapped into the intercom, “Send Gerald Bocek in, please.”
The door from the reception room opened, and once again the procession of patient and police officers entered.
“Well, well, good morning, Gar,” Jerry said. “Did you sleep well? I could hear you talking to yourself most of the night.”
“I am Dr. Cedric Elton,” Cedric said firmly.
“Oh, yes,” Jerry said. “I promised to try to see things your way, didn’t I? I’ll try to co-operate with you, Dr. Elton.” Jerry turned to the four officers. “Let’s see now, these gear lockers are policemen, aren’t they? How do you do, officers.” He bowed to them, then looked around him. “And,” he said, “this is your office, Dr. Elton. A very impressive office. That thing you’re sitting behind is not the chart table but your desk, I gather.” He studied the desk intently. “All metal, with a gray finish, isn’t it?”
“All wood,” Cedric said. “Walnut.”
“Yes, of course,” Jerry murmured. “How stupid of me. I really want to get into your reality, Gar ... I mean Dr. Elton. Or get you into mine. I’m the one who’s at a disadvantage, though. Tied up, I can’t get into the medicine locker and take a yellow pill like you can. Did you take one yet?”
“Not yet,” Cedric said.
“Uh, why don’t you describe your office to me, Dr. Elton?” Jerry said. “Let’s make a game of it. Describe parts of things and then let me see if I can fill in the rest. Start with your desk. It’s genuine walnut? An executive style desk. Go on from there.”
“All right,” Cedric said. “Over here to my right is the intercom, made of gray plastic. And directly in front of me is the telephone.”
“Stop,” Jerry said, “Let me see if I can tell you your telephone number.” He leaned over the desk and looked at the teleph6ne, trying to keep his balance in spite of his arms being encased in the strait jacket. “Hm-m-m,” he said, frowning. “Is the number Mulberry five dash nine oh three seven?”
“No,” Cedric said. “It’s Cedar sev—”
“Stop!” Jerry said. “Let me say it. It’s Cedar seven dash four three nine nine.”
“So you did read it and were just having your fun,” Cedric snorted.
“If you say so,” Jerry said.
“What other explanation can you have for the fact that it is my number, if you’re unable to actually see reality?” Cedric said.
“You’re absolutely right, Dr. Elton,” Jerry said. “I think I understand the tricks my mind is playing on me now. I read the number on your phone, but it didn’t enter my conscious awareness. Instead, it cloaked itself with the pattern of my delusion, so that consciously I pretended to look at a phone that I couldn’t see, and I thought, ‘His phone number will obviously be one he’s familiar with. The most probable is the home phone of Helena Fitzroy in Mars Port, so I gave you that, but it wasn’t it. When you said Cedar I knew right away it was your own apartment phone number.”
Cedric sat perfectly still. Mulberry 5-9037 was actually Helena’s apartment phone number. He hadn’t recognized it until Gerald Bocek told him.
“Now you’re beginning to understand,” Cedric said after a moment. “Once you realize that your mind has walled off your consciousness from reality, and is substituting a rationalized pattern of symbology in its place, it shouldn’t be long until you break through. Once you manage to see one thing as it really is, the rest of the delusion will disappear.”
“I understand now,” Jerry said gravely. “Let’s have some more of it. Maybe I’ll catch on.”
They spent an hour at it. Toward the end Jerry was able to finish the descriptions of things with very little error.
“You are definitely beginning to get through,” Cedric said with enthusiasm.
Jerry hesitated. “I suppose so,” he said. “I must. But on the conscious level I have the idea—a rationalization, of course—that I am beginning to catch on to the pattern of your imagination so that when you give me one or two key elements I can fill in the rest. But I’m going to try, really try—Dr. Elton.”
“Fine,” Cedric said heartily. “I’ll see you tomorrow, same time. We should make the breakthrough then.”
When the four officers had taken Gerald Bocek away, Cedric went into the outer office.
“Cancel the rest of my appointments,” he said.
“But why?” Helena protested.
“Because I’m upset!” Cedric said. “How did a madman whom I never knew until yesterday know your phone number?”
“He could have looked it up in the phone book.”
“Locked in a room in the psychiatric ward at City Hospital?” Cedric said. “How did he know your name yesterday?”
“Why,” Helena said, “all he had to do was read it on my desk here.”
Cedric looked down at the brass name plate.
“Yes,” he grunted. “Of course. I’d forgotten about that, I’m so accustomed to it being there that I never see it.”
He turned abruptly and went back into his office,
He sat down at his desk, then got up and went into the sterile whiteness of his compact laboratory. Ignoring the impressive battery of electronic instruments he went to the medicine cabinet. Inside, on the top shelf, was the glass stoppered bottle he wanted. Inside it were a hundred vivid yellow pills. He shook out one and put the bottle away, then went back into his office. He sat down, placing the yellow pill in the center of the white note pad.
There was a brief knock on the door to the reception room and the door opened. Helena came in.
“I’ve canceled all your other appointments for today,” she said. “Why don’t you go out to the golf course? A change will do you—” She saw the yellow pill in the center of the white note pad and stopped.
“Why do you look so frightened?” Cedric said, “Is it because, if I take this little yellow pill, you’ll cease to exist?”
“Don’t joke,” Helena said.
“I’m not joking,” Cedric said. “Out there, when you mentioned about your brass name plate on your desk, when I looked down it was blurred for just a second, then became sharply distinct and solid. And into my head popped the memory that the first thing I do when I have to get a new receptionist is get a brass name plate for her, and when she quits I make her a present of it.”
“But that’s the truth,” Helena said. “You told me all about it when I started working for you. You also told me that while you still had your reason about you I was to solemnly promise that I would never accept an invitation from you for dinner or anything else, because business could not mix with pleasure. Do you remember that?”
“I remember,” Cedric said. “A nice pat rationalization in any man’s reality to make the rejection be my own before you could have time to reject me yourself. Preserving the ego is the first principle of madness.”