Smith’s flight after escaping the hospital

Smith’s flight after escaping the hospital is a precarious transition from institutional confinement to improvised refuge. Smith survives by controlling his body and withdrawing his attention, while Jill must make rapid decisions in a city where she expects the authorities to be searching for them. Their escape depends not on a settled plan but on successive judgments: reject Jill’s apartment, try Ben Caxton’s, and, when police reach it, hide Smith in a travel case and get him out through a service exit.

The Flight Begins

The danger of the escape is not apparent to Smith in the same way it is to Jill. At first, when the air cab approaches her apartment building, Jill realizes that it is the first place the authorities are likely to search once they work out how Smith left the hospital and who helped him. She knows she may have left fingerprints in his room; people have seen them leave together, and she has heard that a technician may be able to read the cab’s travel record. Her decision to change course is driven by the possibility that ordinary traces can expose them, even though she does not know the details of police procedure.

Jill clears the cab’s instruction to go to her building, uncertain whether doing so also removes the recorded journey. The cab leaves its traffic lane and hovers while she searches for another destination. She has to account not just for herself but for Smith, an adult man who cannot dress himself and who, in her view, will be difficult to hide. Her first attempt to get help through Ben’s number reaches his majordomo, Osbert Kilgallen, rather than Ben. Kilgallen explains that calls to Ben’s home are relayed to the office when Ben is away for more than a day; his remarks about Ben’s supposed female callers discourage Jill from asking him for help.

Ben Caxton’s Apartment as Refuge

Jill chooses Ben’s apartment because she suspects the authorities will be less likely to look for Smith there, provided they have not connected her with Ben. The flat offers food she can take from the buttery and clothes Smith might wear. After reaching the building, she announces herself at the door with the phrase “Karthago delenda est!” The choice gives them a temporary hiding place, but it does not resolve their central problem: Jill does not know how long it will remain safe, and Smith still needs her to handle the basic requirements of moving and dressing.

That mismatch shapes the scene. Smith can accept Jill’s guidance and remain content without understanding that they are fleeing. Jill, by contrast, thinks constantly about who might be looking for them and what evidence their movements may have left behind. When she tells him they cannot stay because the authorities may be checking vehicles that left the medical center, his question about why she is unhappy reveals the distance between his immediate experience and her fear. She tries to see events from his perspective, but cannot simply make the danger disappear by explaining it.

Police at the Door

Jill’s attempt to use the apartment as a refuge is interrupted when someone orders them to open up. She leaves Smith in the bedroom and goes to the living room, trying to conceal her identity by claiming to be Phyllis O’Toole, waiting for Ben. The police address her as Gillian Boardman and say they have a warrant for her arrest. She denies being Boardman and challenges their presence, but the arrival of officers makes clear that hiding in the flat has failed.

The officers force the door and enter. One identifies Jill, while another, called Johnson, goes toward the bedroom to search for Smith. Jill tries to block his path and demands to see a warrant and credentials. The confrontation turns a speculative danger into an immediate attempt to retake Smith. Jill’s experience in the operating theater helps her remain functional under pressure, but she recognizes that she cannot wake Smith without risking harm. Her efforts to rouse him produce no response, even when she tries stimulating a sensitive nerve.

The Travel Case

With Smith unresponsive and the police searching, Jill turns to a battered flight case she finds in Ben’s bedroom. It is packed for travel with a voicewriter, a toilet kit, men’s clothes, and equipment Ben could use to connect to phone service away from home. She empties the case and uses it not as luggage for its intended contents but as a means of moving Smith past the immediate danger.

Although Smith is heavier than she is, Jill’s experience handling patients enables her to lower him into the case. His body resists force, but she can reposition him through steadily applied, gentle pressure. She pads the corners with Ben’s clothes and closes the case. Unable to make air holes in its glass laminate, she judges that Smith’s unusually slow breathing and lowered metabolism mean he will not suffocate quickly. His physiological withdrawal, which leaves him unable to respond to the raid, also makes this makeshift concealment possible.

The case is too heavy for Jill to carry any distance, so she rolls it on its casters. They mark Ben’s grass rug before she reaches the smooth floor of the entrance. She avoids the roof lobby, where she might have to risk taking another air cab, and leaves through the basement service door instead. A young man checking a kitchen delivery lets her pass with the case. The route is a narrow practical escape rather than a secure one: Jill has moved Smith out of the apartment, but the larger search and the need to find a safer destination remain.

Consequences and Significance

This flight is a turning point in the relationship between the fugitives. Smith’s dependence is concrete: he cannot dress himself, does not grasp the pursuit, and becomes unavailable to Jill when she needs him to move. Jill assumes the role of protector, making decisions with incomplete information and bearing the risks of those decisions. Their bond is not shown as a shared understanding of the crisis; instead, Jill acts while Smith trusts her without comprehending what she is protecting him from.

The episode also exposes the limits of an escape based on concealment. The cab may preserve a record, the apartment becomes a target, and even a plausible refuge is penetrated by police. Jill responds by adapting—changing the destination, disguising herself, and finally turning a travel case into a hiding place—but these measures buy time rather than safety. The flight thus leads toward the need for help beyond Ben’s apartment, including the possibility of reaching Jubal Harshaw, whom Ben had intended to introduce as someone who might assist Smith.