I never heard the name before," replied Jorce complacently.
"Strange!" said Denzil reflectively. "Yet Wrent seems to be at the bottom of the whole plot. Well, never mind, just now.
Please continue, my dear Doctor.
What did Mrs. Clear say?"
"Oh, she repeated Ferruci's story, amplified in a feminine fashion.
She was afraid of Michael, who, when excited with morphia or drink, would snatch up a knife to attempt her life.
Twice she had disarmed him, and now she was tired and frightened.
She was willing for him to go into my asylum since Count Ferruci had so kindly consented to bear the expense, but she wished to give him one more chance.
Then, as it was late, she stayed here all night.
So did the Count, and on Christmas Day they went away."
"When did they come back?"
"About a fortnight later, and they brought with them the man they both called Michael Clear."
"What is he like?"
"An old man with a white beard."
"Is he mad?" asked Lucian bluntly.
"He is not mad now, only weak in the head," replied Jorce professionally, "but he was certainly mad when he arrived.
The man's brain is wrecked by morphia."
"Not by drink?"
"No; although it suited Mrs. Clear and Ferruci to say so.
But Clear, as I may call him, was very violent, and quite justified Mrs. Clear's desire to sequester him.
She told me that he often imagined himself to be other people.
Sometimes he would feign to be Napoleon; again the Pope; so when he, a week after he was in the asylum, insisted that he was Mark Vrain, I put it down to his delusion."
"But how could you think he had come by the name, Doctor?"
"My dear sir, at that time the papers were full of the case and its mystery, and as we have a reading-room in this asylum, I fancied that Clear had seen the accounts, and had, as a delusion, called himself Vrain.
Afterwards he fell into a kind of comatose state, and for weeks said very little.
He was most abject and frightened, and responded in a timid sort of way to the name of Clear.
Naturally this confirmed me in my belief that his calling himself Vrain was a delusion.
Then he grew better, and one day told me that his name was Vrain.
Of course, I did not believe him.
Still, he was so persistent about the matter that I thought there might be something in it, and spoke to Ferruci."
"What did he say?"
"He denied that the man's name was anything but Clear.
That the wife and two doctors—for the poor soul had been duly certified as insane—had put him into the asylum; and altogether persisted so strongly in his original story that I thought it was absurd to put a crazy man's delusion against a sane man's tale.
Besides, everything regarding the certificate and sequestrating of Clear had been quite legal.
Two doctors—and very rightly, too—had certified to the insanity of the man; and his wife—as I then believed Mrs. Clear to be—had consented to his detention."
"What made you suspicious that there might be something wrong?" asked Lucian eagerly.
"My visit to meet you, at Ferruci's request, to prove the alibi," responded Jorce. "I thought it was strange, and afterwards, when a detective named Mr. Link, called, I thought it was stranger still."
"But you did not see Link?"
"No.
I was in Italy then, but I heard of his visit.
In Florence I heard from a most accomplished gossip the whole story of Mr. Vrain's marriage and the prior engagement of Mrs. Vrain to Ferruci.
I guessed that there might be some plot, but I could not quite understand how it was carried out, save that Vrain—as I then began to believe Clear to be—had been placed in my asylum under a false name.
On my return I intended to see you, when I was laid up in Florence with the fever.
Now, however, that we have met, tell me so much of the story as you know.
Afterwards we shall see Mr. Vrain."
Lucian was willing enough to show his confidence in Jorce, the more so as he needed his help.
Forthwith he told him all he knew, from the time he had met Michael Clear, alias Mark Berwin, alias Mark Vrain, in Geneva Square, down to the moment he had presented himself for information at the gates of
"The Haven."
Doctor Jorce listened with the greatest attention, his little face puckered up into a grim smile, and shook his head when the barrister ended his recital.
"A bad world, Mr. Denzil, a bad world!" he said, rising. "Come with me, and I'll take you to see my patient."