Ralph Norton

For the Unviersal Monster contest.

“He went for a walk! You should have seen his face!” Ralph Norton laughed again. His handlers, two burly men in orderly uniforms, ignored him as they led him into the huge brick building. His eyes went wild with fear as he was dragged closer, even insane the building’s reputation was inescapable.

 

“He went for a walk! He went for a walk!” he said. He shouted into the faces of the impassive men who held him. He flailed his feet, trying to get them to stop. The building’s hulking frown was opening now, to reveal two white teeth coming to bite him. He struggled with his captors.

 

The whole strangeness of it hit him again and he was doubled over with laughter. A mummy walking. It was absurd. Surely he was insane. To see a mummy walking was the mark of insanity. He laughed and his laughter echoed strangely off the building’s menacing face.

 

“That’s all right, gentlemen, he’s not going to do any harm, are you Mr. Norton?” one of the teeth, a man in a white coat and small, black beard asked. He reached to touch Norton on the shoulder but Norton flinched away.

 

“You should have seen his face, you should have seen it,” he said, his voice low and conspiratorial. He needed to make the man understand. The mummy’s face, that was somehow key to him even through the hysteria, it was important and he had to make him see it.

 

The doctor turned to the other men behind Ralph with the air of concerned, but detached, dignity men of science use with one another.

 

“Dr. Muller, Dr. Whemple, I’m so sorry to meet you both under such unfortunate circumstances,” he said, and gave them each a hand. “I’m Dr. Crippen and I’ll be Mr. Norton’s personal psychiatrist, this is my assistant, Dr. DeLay.”

 

The men all shook hands in the freezing cold. Dr. Whemple, more used to the warm, dry heat of Egypt shivered in his lambskin jacket and leather gloves. Dr. Crippin noticed.

 

“Forgive me, let’s take this matter inside where there’s brandy,” he said. He made a motion and the orderlies took Ralph, poor hysterical Ralph, by the armpits.

 

“That’s a fine idea, Doctor,” Dr. Muller said.

 

Together all seven men entered the darkness of Bethlehem Royal Hospital.

 

***

 

The sounds of the Unfortunates was dimmed in the doctor’s lounge on the third floor. Behind the thick mahogany wood doors, the lounge was a sanctuary within the madhouse, peacefully and tastefully decorated. The large picture window overlooked the grounds, which in Spring would be planted with green things but now bore the scars of construction and the skeletons of stunted trees. In here, the window panes were beveled glass that kept the cold wind screeching banshee-like from chilling the bones.

 

The doctors all sat in dark leather wingback chairs near a fire that was brightly lit, brandy in crystal glasses in their hands. The masculinity of the room betrayed that psychiatry was still a male sport. Cigar smoke perfumed the room.

 

“I’ve heard some of what happened,” said Dr. Crippen, “from the newspapers. Of course, congratulations to both of you. Dr. Whemple, I hear you’re up for a knighthood.” His long legs were stretched comfortably to the fire. He was getting older, he was in his sixties now, and the walk outside was enough to put an ache in his joints. He was glad that young Dr. DeLay, the impressionable young man perched at the edge of his seat to his left, would be taking the lead on this case, though rather jealous since the Norton case would be the largest of his career.

 

Whemple’s head jerked at the sound of his name and he answered only with a grunt. His eyes turned back, almost instantly, to the fire and the brandy in his glass was refreshed.

 

“Our colleague, Mr. Norton, what do you suppose is the matter with him?” asked Dr. Muller.

 

Crippen turned the smaller fellow. He didn’t seem as disturbed by Norton’s unfortunate incident, but there was something about the man that Crippen didn’t like, a cant to his head, a twist of the lip, very subtle but it seemed that Muller was always on the verge of laughing.

 

“I must make an assessment first, of course. My suspicion is simple exhaustion. The heat, the excitement of the find, and then it’s disappearance right as you were all about to leave, might be enough to send this young man’s mind reeling. I believe he might be stuck in that moment when he discovered the mummy missing.”

 

Muller’s lip twisted more, only for a fraction.

 

“What treatment are you proposing?”

 

Crippen took a sip of his brandy and took in the German scientist. He didn’t trust the man and it was clear that the man didn’t trust him.

 

“It’s difficult to say as I’ve barely seen him. However, electroshock has been known to work. In a worst case scenario, there’s lobotomy.”

 

“Excuse me,” said Dr. DeLay. He leaned forward towards Dr. Muller no longer able to contain his excitement. “I followed the expedition closely in the newspapers and I wonder, how did the mummy disappear? From the accounts I’ve heard you both went outside only for a matter of seconds before you returned to see Mr. Norton in his state, the mummy gone, and the handprint on the table.”

 

Muller opened his mouth, then shook his head.

 

“I really can not say.”

 

Crippen shook his head and laughed gently at the young man.

 

“I’m afraid the new grounds of the hospital are not nearly as close to civilization as we once were. To that effect, we do get caught up in the tabloids here. Especially in winter,” he said. DeLay blushed. “Unfortunately, thieves would have been very keen to get their hands on your find. Are you expecting to make a return trip to Egypt?”

 

Whemple shook his head. When he turned his head to look at DeLay, the younger man was struck by the haunted look in his eyes.

 

“Not for as long as I live.”

 

***

 

Crippen cinched his jacket, a very fine wool, around his arms as he led the two doctors through the wards. He hadn’t wanted to but Muller insisted on seeing the room in which their colleague would be housed until he was sane. He was getting on in years and often had his assistants, like DeLay, make the rounds. The Unfortunates were also in a state of uproar ever since the move from the older building. Renfield, for example, had taken to trapping birds which flew into the windows.

 

The wards were colder than the rest of the hospital. The construction crew had been hurried and forgot to put the glass in the windows so the gaping holes allowed the cold and the elements inside.

 

“His room is down at the end, gentlemen,” Crippen said over the din of the Unfortunates. Some were wailing, some crying, others talking to the demons in their heads.

 

The room had a small window in the door through which the doctor could peep at the patient, and a slat where food could be fit. Muller looked through the window and saw Norton huddled in a fetal position on the small bed. He was already in his patient blues, loose-fitting clothing with nothing he could use as a weapon or suicide device, socks on his feet rather than shoes.

 

“Poor Ralph,” he said.

 

Crippen opened the door and led the men inside. Norton lifted his head and jumped at Dr. Muller as soon as he entered the room, his hands turned into claws as they grasped the man’s jacket.

 

“He walked! He walked,” he said. His eyes were wide with fear, terror. This was important and they weren’t understanding him. He couldn’t get them to understand him. Muller disentangled the man’s hands from his jacket and turned to Crippen.

 

“He has no jacket and there’s no glass in the windows. Are you expecting to freeze him into sanity?”

 

“I wouldn’t concern yourself with that, Dr. Muller,” Crippen said. “As a psychiatrist I’ve seen many poor souls trapped in a time and place that holds some trauma for them. They are reliving that instant over and over. To your friend, he’s still in Egypt and warm enough. I once had a patient who was reliving the moment that she found her child dead. She thought she was picking flowers in the middle of an English summer when we brought her in from the snow, completely oblivious,” he said.

 

By this time, Norton had moved to Whemple, who stood staring at the window. Whemple hadn’t said three words the entire time he’d been there and Crippen, always concerned with the state of others’ mental health, suspected the man of harboring some emotional upset.

Then again, the two scientists had just seen their prize walk away in the hands of thieves, and their friend go insane.

 

Norton looked at Whemple, getting his face close to his old colleague, and staring into his eyes. Whemple looked back at him. There was a dark moment that flashed between them that Muller caught and understood but Crippen could only speculate.

 

“You should have seen his face,” Norton said, slowly and deliberately. No trace of laughter bubbled up this time. Only dead calm seriousness. Whemple paused, then nodded.

 

“Yes.”

 

Norton continued to stare at Whemple for a moment then turned and went to his bed. He curled back into the fetal position and tucked his feet under him. From under his arms he watched Whemple and Whemple watched him.

 

Crippen took note but was frankly baffled by the behavior. This was not unusual, though. DeLay would handle it, he decided. The young man had some interesting ideas on treatment and they would be put to good use on Norton.

 

***

 

Whemple and Muller were shown out of Bethlehem Hospital by the two orderlies that had brought Norton off the boat. Whemple clutched his jacket close to him as they walked down the cobblestones back to the waiting car. In two days, he’d be dressing up in a tuxedo and kneeling before the Queen, being knighted for something he couldn’t explain. He understood the absurdity of this and wanted to laugh as Ralph Norton laughed, his head thrown back and wild. He didn’t.

 

Muller got into the car but Whemple stared back at the eyeless building which held Norton. The grounds were silent now but they still rang with the tortured wailing of the Unfortunates trapped behind its brick walls. A hand on his arm brought him, once more, back to reality and he turned to Muller.

 

“We agreed, we can’t talk about this, it’s for the best,” he said.

 

Whemple nodded. He knew that. They’d discussed the situation even before they’d called the Egyptian authorities with the story. Still, Whemple was consumed with the secret they were all three keeping.

 

“Come on,” Muller said, and Whemple got into the car. They drove away leaving the soul of Ralph Norton to the fate of Bedlam.

Author's Note

This is a story from the movie THE MUMMY with Boris Karloff that may explain why we never hear from Ralph Norton again, or why the other two scientists don't ever mention the missing mummy. I hope you enjoyed it.