Edgar Stark’s escape from the hospital and flight to London turns supervised access to the grounds into a route out of confinement. The escape depends not only on his disguise and a gap in security, but also on help concealed within the deputy superintendent’s household: Stella Raphael hides a note in Max Raphael’s jacket and has supplied Edgar with money. The alarm reveals how badly the hospital has misjudged the risk posed by a patient who appeared to function well while remaining fixed in a dangerous delusion.

Background and Opportunity

In the summer of 1959, Edgar had been at the hospital for five years. He was intelligent and had otherwise recovered his sanity, but he still insisted that his murder of Ruth Stark was justified. Asked to support his claim that Ruth had been unfaithful, he interpreted ordinary details—a flushing toilet, a stain on the floor, a box of washing powder on a windowsill—as proof. He regretted drinking, and agreed that the killing should not have happened, yet continued to blame Ruth’s supposed taunts and insults. Because he showed no insight into why he had killed her, Peter Cleave and the hospital’s staff did not consider him ready for release; Cleave expected he might remain for another five years.

Edgar nevertheless had access to the estate through supervised work parties. Each morning, parole patients went out under an attendant’s supervision to maintain the grounds. Edgar was assigned to the garden of the deputy superintendent’s house, where Stella often encountered him while picking vegetables or flowers. Their conversations began when the senior attendant, John Archer, was not present. Stella was attracted to Edgar and found reasons to see him, telling herself that befriending a patient could do no harm. She had also given him cash on more than one occasion—enough, in the hospital’s later estimation, to help him get to London.

The Disguise and Escape

The immediate opportunity involved Max’s clothes. Stella found Max troubled by the disappearance of a shirt, trousers, and a linen jacket containing the estate keys. She went through the vegetable garden to the Conservatory, where Edgar’s white jacket hung by the door. On an empty seed packet, using a stub of pencil, she wrote him a note and put it in the jacket pocket, leaving it protruding so he would notice it. The working party appeared at the end of the drive as she returned to the house; she could do no more than hope Edgar would see the message and find a chance to dispose of the clothes.

The hospital’s later reconstruction was that Edgar told John Archer he was wanted in the chaplain’s garden, then went there alone. He retrieved Max’s clothes from where he had hidden them in the woods at the end of the Raphaels’ garden and put them on. Keeping away from the road until he was clear of the estate, he made his way onward by whatever means he could find—hitchhiking, bus, or train—and reached London. The clothes provided his disguise; Stella’s money supplied the other resource the staff believed an escaping patient needed.

Discovery and Search

Max’s clothes had gone missing before the hospital established that Edgar himself was absent. Almost three hours passed between the discovery of the missing clothes and the discovery of the escape. Max returned to the hospital, checked with staff in Block 3, went to his office, and waited another half-hour before calling Jack Straffen. By then the working parties were due back, and John Archer had already found that his patient was missing. Max’s delay meant the search began later than it might have; had Edgar’s absence been checked promptly, the hospital believed it could have raised the alarm sooner and caught him more quickly. Max also had to tell Jack that the escaped patient was wearing his own clothes, a fact Cleave understood as a source of humiliation for him.

When Max finally announced that Edgar had absconded, the siren sounded. Cleave’s account also describes an initial effort by Jack and Cleave to search the estate before alerting the countryside: attendants swept the farm and marsh and went some way into the forest. They believed Edgar might have had a lead of no more than three hours, but recognized that this could be enough for a resourceful man with clothes and money. After two hours without finding him, they informed the local police. The searchers did not know whether Edgar had money; Stella’s assistance was hidden from them.

Consequences and Significance

The escape exposed the vulnerability built into the hospital’s parole arrangements. Patients were supervised outside the walls, but the work parties’ security was lax enough for Edgar to leave his group and use clothes concealed near the deputy superintendent’s garden. The disguise also made the breach personal: he escaped in Max’s clothes, carrying away a resource furnished from within Max’s household.

Stella’s response further concealed her part in the escape. When Brenda and Stella heard the news, Brenda’s first concern was Charlie, who had not yet come home. Stella performed extreme anxiety about the boy, directing attention toward his welfare rather than her own alarm at Edgar’s escape. The episode thus turns a secret attachment into practical aid: a note, clothing, and money help convert the hospital grounds into a passage to London. Yet Edgar’s escape did not resolve the danger that had kept him confined. His apparent capacity to take advantage of an opening coexisted with the unshaken delusion that had led him to kill Ruth Stark.