A pregnant silence fell at the conclusion of this homily. At last Dr Redpath cleared his throat, reluctant to disturb Dr Mellinger’s sublime communion with himself. ‘And Hinton, sir?’
‘Hinton? Ah, yes.’ Dr Mellinger turned to face them, like a bishop about to bless his congregation. ‘Let us see Hinton as an illustration of this process of self-examination, a focus of our re-appraisal.’
‘So the search should continue, sir?’ Redpath pressed.
‘Of course.’ For a moment Dr Mellinger’s attention wandered. ‘Yes, we must find Hinton. He is here somewhere; his essence pervades Green Hill, a vast metaphysical conundrum. Solve it, gentlemen, and you will have solved the mystery of his disappearance.’
For the next hour Dr Mellinger paced the carpet alone, now and then warming his hands at the low fire below the mantelpiece. Its few flames entwined in the chimney like the ideas playing around the periphery of his mind. At last, he felt, a means of breaking through the impasse had offered itself. He had always been certain that Hinton’s miraculous disappearance represented more than a simple problem of breached security, and was a symbol of something grievously at fault with the very foundations of Green Hill.
Pursuing these thoughts, Dr Mellinger left his office and made his way down to the floor below which housed the administrative department. The offices were deserted; the entire staff of the building was taking part in the search. Occasionally the querulous cries of the patients demanding their breakfasts drifted across the warm, insulated air. Fortunately the walls were thick, and the rates charged by the asylum high enough to obviate the need for over-crowding.
Green Hill Asylum (motto, and principal attraction: ‘There is a Green Hill Far, Far Away’) was one of those institutions which are patronized by the wealthier members of the community and in effect serve the role of private prisons. In such places are confined all those miscreant or unfortunate relatives whose presence would otherwise be a burden or embarrassment: the importunate widows of blacksheep sons, senile maiden aunts, elderly bachelor cousins paying the price for their romantic indiscretions — in short, all those abandoned casualties of the army of privilege. As far as the patrons of Green Hill were concerned, maximum security came first, treatment, if given at all, a bad second. Dr Mellinger’s patients had disappeared conveniently from the world, and as long as they remained in this distant limbo those who paid the bills were satisfied. All this made Hinton’s escape particularly dangerous.
Stepping through the open doorway of Normand’s office, Dr Mellinger ran his eye cursorily around the room. On the desk, hastily opened, was a slim file containing a few documents and a photograph.
For a brief moment Dr Mellinger gazed abstractedly at the file. Then, after a discreet glance into the corridor, he slipped it under his arm and retraced his steps up the empty staircase.
Outside, muted by the dark groves of rhododendrons, the sounds of search and pursuit echoed across the grounds. Opening the file on his desk, Dr Mellinger stared at the photograph, which happened to be lying upside down. Without straightening it, he studied the amorphous features. The nose was straight, the forehead and cheeks symmetrical, the ears a little oversize, but in its inverted position the face lacked any cohesive identity.
Suddenly, as he started to read the file, Dr Mellinger was filled with a deep sense of resentment. The entire subject of Hinton and the man’s precarious claims to reality overwhelmed him with a profound nausea. He refused to accept that this mindless cripple with his anonymous features could have been responsible for the confusion and anxiety of the previous day. Was it possible that these few pieces of paper constituted this meagre individual’s full claim to reality?
Flinching slightly from the touch of the file to his fingers, Dr Mellinger carried it across to the fireplace. Averting his face, he listened with a deepening sense of relief as the flames flared briefly and subsided.
‘My dear Booth! Do come in. It’s good of you to spare the time.’ With this greeting Dr Mellinger ushered him to a chair beside the fire and proffered his silver cigarette case. ‘There’s a certain small matter I wanted to discuss, and you are almost the only person who can help me.’
‘Of course, Director,’ Booth assured him. ‘I am greatly honoured.’
Dr Mellinger seated himself behind his desk. ‘It’s a very curious case, one of the most unusual I have ever come across. It concerns a patient under your care, I believe.’
‘May I ask for his name, sir?’
‘Hinton,’ Dr Mellinger said, with a sharp glance at Booth.
‘Hinton, sir?’
‘You show surprise,’ Dr Mellinger continued before Booth could reply. ‘I find that response particularly interesting.’
‘The search is still being carried on,’ Booth said uncertainly as Dr Mellinger paused to digest his remarks. ‘I’m afraid we’ve found absolutely no trace of him. Dr Normand thinks we should inform—, ‘Ah, yes, Dr Normand.’ The Director revived suddenly. ‘I have asked him to report to me with Hinton’s file as soon as he is free. Dr Booth, does it occur to you that we may be chasing the wrong hare?’
‘Sir—?’
‘Is it in fact Hin ton we are after? I wonder, perhaps, whether the search for Hinton is obscuring something larger and more significant, the enigma, as I mentioned yesterday, which lies at the heart of Green Hill and to whose solution we must all now be dedicated.’ Dr Mellinger savoured these reflections before continuing. ‘Dr Booth, let us for a moment consider the role of Hinton, or to be more precise, the complex of overlapping and adjacent events that we identify loosely by the term "Hinton".’
‘Complex, sir? You speak diagnostically?’
‘No, Booth. I am now concerned with the phenomenology of Hinton, with his absolute metaphysical essence. To speak more plainly: has it occurred to you, Booth, how little we know of this elusive patient, how scanty the traces he has left of his own identity?’
‘True, Director,’ Booth agreed. ‘I constantly reproach myself for not taking a closer interest in the patient.’
‘Not at all, Doctor. I realize how busy you are. I intend to carry out a major reorganization of Green Hill, and I assure you that your tireless work here will not be forgotten. A senior administrative post would, I am sure, suit you excellently.’ As Booth sat up, his interest in the conversation increasing several-fold, Dr Mellinger acknowledged his expression of thanks with a discreet nod. ‘As I was saying, Doctor, you have so many patients, all wearing the same uniforms, housed in the same wards, and by and large prescribed the same treatment — is it surprising that they should lose their individual identities? If I may make a small confession,’ he added with a roguish smile. ‘I myself find that all the patients look alike. Why, if Dr Normand or yourself informed me that a new patient by the name of Smith or Brown had arrived, I would automatically furnish him with the standard uniform of identity at Green Hill — those same lustreless eyes and slack mouth, the same amorphous features.’
Unclasping his hands, Dr Mellinger leaned intently across his desk. ‘What I am suggesting, Doctor, is that this automatic mechanism may have operated in the case of the so-called Hinton, and that you may have invested an entirely non-existent individual with the fictions of a personality.’
Dr Booth nodded slowly, ‘I see, sir. You suspect that Hinton — or what we have called Hinton up to now — was perhaps a confused memory of another patient.’ He hesitated doubtfully, and then noticed that Dr Mellinger’s eyes were fixed upon him with hypnotic intensity.
‘Dr Booth. I ask you: what actual proof have we that Hinton ever existed?’