The Big Book of Reel Murders

by Stories That Inspired Great Crime Films (epub)

  “The attendants should have called me. Upon first awakening from…ah…delirium, your answers to certain questions might have been quite revealing. I understand from this dossier that you have never suffered before from mental disorder. How has your general physical condition been?”

  “In the pink,” I told him. “But I guess I pushed myself too far, recently, on working hours.”

  “I understand you are doing research for the government. In explosives. Do you ever feel fear, uneasiness, in the handling of such dangerous substances?”

  “Hm-m-m,” I said, “a little, occasionally. It wouldn’t be normal, not to. But it hasn’t worried me.”

  “You work directly under Major Lorne’s orders?”

  “Yes, and no, doctor. I do what he tells me to do, and report to him. But I’m not on the government payroll at all. The laboratory is my own and—”

  “You have independent means?”

  “Yes. After college, an inheritance let me set up a small laboratory of my own, purely as a gamble. I had the luck to make an important discovery in plastics and sold the process for a sizable sum plus royalties for fifteen years. So I’m financially independent. I’d worked with explosives a bit, and when the war started, I thought my services in that line would be most valuable. The War Department put me in touch with Major Lorne, and I’ve been working at whatever he’s suggested ever since.”

  “Paying for your own materials and equipment?”

  “Of course. I can afford it, and Major Lorne agreed that since I didn’t need a government salary, it would cut a lot of red tape if I remained technically independent. He takes care of priorities on everything I need, and, of course, anything I discover is automatically the property of the government.”

  “An excellent arrangement.” He smiled. “We’ll do our best to send you back to your laboratory as soon as possible, Mr. Remmers. For the moment, the most important prophylaxis for you is complete rest and freedom from worry. Don’t think about the war, about your laboratory, about…ah…your experience of night before last. And about those nightmares—”

  “Yes, doctor?”

  “Possibly they will not recur. If they do, we’ll try to get at the cause of them. You’ll have the freedom of the grounds, of course, and I suggest some brisk walking this afternoon to induce normal fatigue. And I’ll have a mild sedative sent to you just before you retire.”

  He nodded toward the man at the door, as though the interview were over.

  I stood up, but I said, “Just a minute, doctor. There are one or two questions I want to ask.”

  “Yes?” There was an edge of impatience in his voice.

  “About newspapers. I’m sure knowing what’s going on outside won’t, in my case, cause any—”

  “Sorry, Remmers, no. You’ll have to let me be judge of what will be best in your case. And no visitors, either, for a while. Visiting day is Sunday, but this first Sunday—no, not in your case. Insulation from outside contacts is the best—”

  I interrupted, “But that’s preposterous. I’m here voluntarily, for a rest cure. I—”

  His voice was crisp and final. “Mr. Remmers, if you are interested in an ultimate cure, you won’t question my rulings. And as for your being here voluntarily, temporary commitment papers have been signed, by Drs. Rurick and Ulhausen of St. Vincent’s, with the concurrence of your lawyer and Major Lorne. This institution has your best interests at heart, however, and you’ll do well to cooperate with us. That is all.”

  All the resistance went out of me, suddenly. Meekly, I allowed myself to be led back to my room. Lunch was brought to me there.

  I roused myself enough to ask a few questions of the attendant. Yes, patients could send and receive mail, provided the subject matter was approved by the staff. Letters were distributed every morning after breakfast. Patients had freedom of the grounds from one o’clock in the afternoon until five. Yes, there was a general dining hall, but patients were served meals in their rooms for the first few days, until they became adjusted to sanitarium routine.

  At one o’clock the attendant returned and opened my door.

  * * *

  —

  The grounds were extensive, and probably quite beautiful, if I’d been in a mood to appreciate them.

  But walking was welcome relief after confinement in that tiny room. It hadn’t seemed so small when I’d first entered it, but every hour there had diminished its size. A room into which you’re locked can shrink to the size of a coffin.

  Most of the other patients had remained on the stretch of lawn in front of the building. There were chairs and tables on the lawn, and card games starting at some of the tables. There was a shuffleboard court marked out on the cement driveway, and a row of stakes for pitching rubber horseshoes.

  But I didn’t want companionship. Not that kind of companionship, anyway.

  I walked, alone.

  There were a few others who, like myself, went farther afield. Occasionally, I passed one of them, but they, too, wanted solitude, for none of them spoke to me.

  Not directly, at any rate. There was the man who stood on the stump, speaking to no one in a voice that rolled like thunder. A mighty voice, deep and impressive. “—and the birds of Armageddon shall fly the shrieking skies and their droppings upon the quaking face of earth shall be fire and destruction and holocaust—”

  He was a tall, dignified looking man with silver hair. He looked familiar; I thought I’d seen his picture somewhere, at some time. I walked faster until I was beyond range of that vibrant voice.

  At two or three points I went close to the wall. It was twelve feet high, and there was a wire along the top of it. Not a barbed wire. Undoubtedly, it contained electric current, possibly not in lethal quantity, but enough to stun. Or possibly, it merely set off an alarm if shorted by the touch of an escaping patient. There were no trees within a dozen feet of the wall.

  And then it was evening, and my cell again. I finished “Ivanhoe” and bribed Wilbur with a five-dollar bill to find me another assortment of books to take the place of the ones I had. The ones he brought weren’t bad; they included “Huckleberry Finn,” “Pickwick Papers,” and others I’d read long ago, but which were worth rereading.

  I was halfway through “Pickwick” when the lights went out.

  I undressed slowly, uneasily, wondering if I were in for another bad night. I wished there were some way I could break or put out that blue night light. Blue is supposed to be a quieting, soothing color.

  Supposed to be!

  It isn’t; not in a room like that, under circumstances like those. Not at night in a madhouse. A weird, blue radiance.

  Physically, I was so tired that I must have gone to sleep the moment I lay down.

  Then I was sitting up in bed, yelling my head off, and my pajamas were soaked with cold perspiration.

  Yes, I’d lived through that wreck again. Or, maybe died in it. That horrible wreck that never had happened. Or had it?

  Wilbur was there, and Dr. Wheeler, and I kept my eyes closed while Wheeler asked me a million questions so that, while I answered, I wouldn’t have to look into those eyes of his. I don’t remember what the questions were, but he didn’t seem to be satisfied with the answers. Some of the same questions were repeated over and over. It was almost like going through another nightmare.

  And there was warm water again and I must have gone to sleep in the sunken tub and not awakened while they took me back to my room. At any rate, I woke up in bed and my last recollection was the water.

  I lay there quietly for a while, getting enough courage to get up and dress. Then the attendant came with breakfast, and a letter from Armin Andrews.

  There were two sheets of paper in it, but the sheets weren’t the same size. Scissor marks showed that the bottom of the first page and the top of the second had been sheared off. The pape
r seemed to have been ordinary size, and, therefore, almost half the message was gone. It read:

  Dear Hank:

  Dropped out to see you this evening, but find I can’t so I’m dashing this off in Wheeler’s office. Talked my boss into giving me a few days off work and started my vacation last night by riding to Wilmington.

  That was all there was up to the scissor cut across the first sheet. Below the cut on the second:

  Keep the old chin up, and don’t worry. If there’s anything I can send you in way of reading matter or smokes or whatnot, let me know. Be seeing ya.

  Armin.

  For a minute after I got the significance of those scissor cuts, I was so mad I couldn’t see straight. Wheeler had scissored out of that letter the very thing I wanted to know. Had to know.

  Those missing words would have told me whether I’d really been on the Flyer. Whether I was mad or sane.

  Just then, I was mad all right, in one sense of the word. I forgot the bell and hammered on the door until an attendant opened it.

  Before he could ask what I wanted, I started a tirade that would have blistered the hide of an alligator. But it petered out as I saw he was merely bored and resigned. As though he’d heard worse, from crazier people.

  He said, “You mean you got a complaint because the office cut something out of a letter? Look, mister, they did it for your own good, if they did. And it won’t do no good to squawk.”

  “Maybe,” I said grimly. “But just the same I demand to see Dr. Wheeler at once and—”

  “Dr. Wheeler ain’t here. Left on a vacation early this morning. Dr. Gottleib’s in charge. You can complain to him if you want, but it won’t do no good, mister.”

  “Take me to him, anyway.”

  “Not now. Evenings between six and seven. That’s the only time you can—”

  I slammed the door, and stood there, trembling with anger. If I’d left the door open a minute longer, I’d have struck the attendant. And it wasn’t his fault. Besides, it would be another proof to them of how crazy I was.

  Maybe I was crazy. Maybe that’s what had been in the missing part of that note from Andrews—the fact that there hadn’t been any such conductor on the train I remember taking. That there hadn’t been a coach third or fourth from last, and that all the cars were crowded. In other words, that the whole thing was haywire. That I was haywire.

  Or had he told me that the conductor had verified my story; that all details, except the wreck, checked.

  Was I crazy? Damn it, I was going to go crazy wondering.

  Then something struck me so damn funny that I laughed out loud, bitterly. This was to be a place of quiet and rest to overcome a breakdown. This place, where I was locked in a tiny room under a blue light all night, where I had nightmares that would drive me crazy, if I weren’t already.

  And they kept from me the one thing, the only thing, that could help my mind to adjust itself—the truth. If I only knew beyond all doubt what had happened night before last, if I only knew that my mind had slipped a cog, then maybe I could adjust myself, and work toward recovery.

  But uncertainty was intolerable. I had to know.

  Not knowing, this place was hell.

  I had to get out of here—to escape. Right away.

  And once I realized that, I became calmer. I had something constructive to think about now—how to get out of here.

  It would have to be during the afternoon, of course, when I had the freedom of the grounds. But how to surmount a twelve-foot wall with a wire running along the top of it which I mustn’t touch. Not knowing this country, I’d need a good long start before they missed me.

  Then I remembered something the patient in the next room had said, during our whispered conference. If only it weren’t of a piece with the rest of what he’d said—

  I put my mouth down to the register and whispered, “Mr. Zehnder.”

  The answering “Yes?” came almost immediately.

  I whispered, “Night before last you said you knew a way I could escape. Why haven’t you used it?”

  “I can’t. They’re waiting outside to get me if I do. I’m safe only as long as I stay here and pretend I’m mad. But maybe they don’t know you, and you could get through them. If you do, you’ll tell everybody what I told you about—”

  “Of course. How can I get over the fence? And what’s the wire on top of it?”

  “An alarm. I heard it set off once. Listen, you walk due west from the west side of the building, until you come to the wall. Then turn north and follow it about a hundred yards and you’ll see a birch tree—”

  He went on with it, and it made sense. If the tree were there as he described it, and the other tree at the outside of the wall, the idea would work.

  I reached the tree within ten minutes of the time I was let out of the building, at one o’clock. Even from the ground, I could see that it would work. It took me a while to find a sapling small enough so that I could break it, yet strong enough for its purpose.

  The hardest part was shinning up the bole of the birch, carrying with me the six-foot staff I’d made out of the sapling. The ticklish part was going hand-over-hand along that staff from one tree to the other, after I’d set it as a bridge across the five-foot gap between the fork in a heavy branch of the birch and the fork in the bole of the maple beyond the fence.

  It was ticklish, and there was a twenty-foot drop if anything went wrong. But nothing did. Climbing down the maple was easy, and I cut across a fallow field to a dirt road beyond.

  Two miles of walking brought me to a highway.

  Luck was with me. An interurban bus came along, and stopped to pick me up when I hailed it. It was headed for Marcus Hook, and Marcus Hook is only a matter of minutes from Philadelphia by fast train.

  I was free. Until they caught up with me, I was free.

  In Marcus Hook, I learned that the next train for Philadelphia was due in twenty-five minutes. I sat down on a bench to wait, and realized for the first time how utterly weary I was.

  My head ached, too. I closed my eyes and tried to relax, not to think about anything until I’d talked to Andrews. Time enough to think things through after I knew what he’d learned.

  I must have fallen asleep as soon as my eyes closed.

  I opened them to look at the clock to see how long I still had to wait, and the clock said half past six. I’d slept for three hours, sitting there.

  The lights were on in the station, and it was twilight through the windows.

  And an hour and a half ago, back at the sanitarium, I’d have been missed. By now the alarm was out for me, and the search would be on. They’d be watching my home, probably, and the laboratory. Maybe even Andrews’s flat.

  But—Well, there was nothing to do now but to go on, and to avoid capture as long as I could—at least until I’d talked to Andrews.

  A train for Philadelphia pulled into the station and I boarded it, cursing my stupidity in losing the brief time that would have been mine to utilize as a free man and not as a fugitive.

  * * *

  —

  There was no cause for hurry now, and plenty of reason for caution. In Philadelphia, I made myself as inconspicuous as possible in leaving the station, and I phoned Andrews’s flat from a nearby drugstore. There was no answer.

  I tried his paper next, on the off-chance that he’d be working late. I was told that Andrews was taking a vacation of a few days and wouldn’t be back until Monday.

  I ate something and then took a room in an inexpensive and inconspicuous hotel in Bremen Street. I used an assumed name, of course.

  It felt great to be free, but I couldn’t see that it was getting me anywhere as yet. There were two people I wanted to see—Armin and Peter Carr. I thought I could trust both of them, but there was an excellent chance that Peter’s house and the l
aboratory would be watched. And I knew no way of getting Armin—except by calling occasionally, on the chance that he would return early.

  Yes, the authorities would be watching for me closely. Looking at it from their point of view, I was a lunatic at large—and an expert on explosives. An explosive maker with a mental quirk that concerned train wrecks. Looking at it that way, they’d think it a matter of considerable urgency to catch me again.

  Then I remembered Gene Larkin, and started toward his cab stand. I’d gone to high school with Gene. I had a hunch that I could trust him, and, anyway, it was unlikely that he’d have heard this soon that I was a fugitive.

  His cab was there, all right, and Gene in it.

  He said, “Hi, there, Hank,” when I walked up and from the casualness of his tone I knew he hadn’t heard anything. I got in.

  “Gene,” I said, “you free all evening?”

  He grinned, “I wouldn’t call it free with the meter ticking. But I got the night ahead of me.” Then, as he looked at me closer, he stopped smiling, “Something wrong, Hank? You in a jam?”

  I said, “A hell of a jam. Drive around a while—with the meter going, of course—and I’ll tell you.”

  I told him the whole works, and he didn’t say anything for a full minute after I finished. Then he pulled up to the curb. He said, “Better get out here.”

  I didn’t believe it. I said, “Damn it, Gene, you mean that even you think that I—”

  He turned and looked at me and I knew I’d been wrong. He said, “Hell, no. But we’re near your house. I’m just going by to see if it’s being watched and you’d better not be along. Wait in the shadow of those trees and I’ll be back in fifteen minutes.”

  He was back in ten. “It’s bad. There are two carloads of cops, maybe more in back. I made the mistake of slowing down to see if they were coppers, and they stopped me and looked in back. Good thing I left you here. Listen, I’ll drive by the laboratory next. If Peter Carr’s working late, there’ll be a light on. You keep on waiting here.”