A Puzzle for fools

by Patrick Quentin

  He looked at his hands as though he hated them for shaking. "I came here because I heard Stevens and Moreno were having real results with some new drug. For a while I had hopes, but it doesn't seem to do me any good."

  "It must be tough," I murmured.

  Geddes bit the lip under his mustache and said surprisingly: "Moreno's one of those supercilious blighters. Jolly difficult to tell him anything, if you get me."

  I said I got him and showed what I hoped was the correct amount of impersonal interest.

  "Listen, Duluth," he said suddenly, "something happened last night and I’ve got to tell someone about it or I'll go off my bean. Of course, you'll say it was one of those damnable nightmares of mine. But it wasn't. I swear I was awake."

  I nodded.

  "I got off to sleep quite early, and then I woke up. I don't know how late it was, but things were pretty quiet. I was in one of those half dozes when I heard it."

  "Heard what?" I asked quietly.

  He passed a hand across his forehead with that curious English languidness which is cultivated to conceal any emotion.

  "I think I may be going mad," he said in a very slow and deliberate tone. "You see, I heard my own voice speaking quite plainly."

  "Good God!" I broke in, suddenly alert.

  "Yes, my own voice. And I was saying: 'You've got to get out of here, Martin Geddes. You've got to get out now. There will be murder.'"

  He had clenched his fists in his lap and now he turned toward me with a look of sudden terror. His mouth was half open, as though he were about to say something more. But he did not speak. As I watched, I saw the muscles of his face freeze. The mouth locked half open.

  The eyes stared. There was a sort of wooden hardness about his cheeks. I had seen him fall asleep several times before, but I had never seen one of these cataplectic trances. It wasn't pretty.

  I touched him and his arm was stiff and unhuman, like a sack of cement. I felt suddenly helpless. My fingers started to shake, and went on shaking. It made me realize what a wreck I still was.

  Somehow, Miss Brush got onto the situation. She nodded to Fogarty, who was constantly on guard. The attendant hurried forward and picked Geddes up.

  Not a muscle of the Englishman's body moved. It was amazing to see a man like that, still in a sitting position when he was being carried across the room. With his dark complexion and wide-open eyes he looked like a solemn Indian fakir giving a demonstration in levitation.

  I had returned to the magazine to steady my nerves when the ethereal David Fenwick came up. I saw at once that he had that far-away, ghost look in his huge, deer-like eyes.

  "Mr. Duluth," he said, almost in a whisper, "I'm worried. The astral plane is not propitious." He glanced over his shoulder as though eager to make certain there were no phantom eavesdroppers. 'The spirits were about last night. They almost got through to me to warn me. I couldn't see them. But I could hear their voices faintly. Soon I shall be able to take their message."

  Before I had time to ask more, he had floated away, gazing in front of him with that dazed, other-world stare.

  So Laribee, Geddes, and I were not the only ones who had been disturbed last night. In a sense, it was comforting to have this further proof that my imagination hadn't been playing tricks on me. But even so, I didn't like it. Imaginary voices do not prophesy murder for nothing, not even in a mental hospital.

  I picked up Harper's again, trying to revive the old theatrical enthusiasm which used to effervesce in my blood, but which now had gone as flat as yesterday's champagne.

  The article told me the stage was this and the stage was that. It even threw a bouquet at a play I had done a few years before. Well, what of it? It was a relief to see Billy Trent coming over to me, his young face smiling.

  "Hello, Pete," he said, standing in front of me as though there were a soda fountain between us. "What's it to be today?"

  I grinned at him. Crazy as he was at the moment, there was something intensely healthy about young Trent with his clear blue eyes and athletic build. You knew it was all the fault of a crack-up on the football field, and you could take it in the spirit of good clean fun.

  "What's it to be, Pete?"

  "Oh, I don't know, Billy. Give me a couple of nut sundaes. And for the love of God, get yourself a hard-liquor license. The stuff you serve is ruining my stomach."

  5

  THE USUAL ROUTINE of the day went on. Discipline at Dr. Lenz' sanitarium was strict, but never obvious. However planned one's schedule might be, it was allowed to progress with a seeming spontaneity. It was faintly reminiscent of the organized fun to which cruise passengers are subjected on board ship.

  Ten o'clock was the hour for my visit to the surgery where Dr. Stevens, pink and smiling like a substantial cherub, thumped and prodded me, looked at my tongue and eyes while he kept up a running commentary on the weather, the decline of the American stage, or other non-controversial subjects. He told me that day that we were due for more snow and that there was no longer any albumen in my urine. He asked my opinion of Katharine Cornell and went on to more intimate and personal questions to which I was able to give satisfactory answers. Finally he said that if I was satisfying the psychiatrists as well as I was him, there should be nothing to prevent my leaving them and producing plays on Broadway again within a very few weeks.

  After that, Moreno gave me my daily mental onceover. He had been with Lenz only a short time, having been imported with Stevens from the most up-to-date medical school in California. Miss Brush had assured me that he was a first-class psychiatrist and I could believe her. Although I didn't like the bright young doctor type, I rather admired the man. He had a hard matter-of-factness which does a lot to give jittery people confidence. But that particular morning he was different. I couldn't put my finger on what was wrong, but I felt he was on edge, jumpy.

  When he was through with me, Miss Brush rounded us all up for our morning walk. It was a cold March there was deep snow on the ground, so we were wrapped up with maternal care. I noticed that Miss Brush herself tied old Laribee's scarf and put on his rubbers. She gave him one of those quick, intimate smiles of hers, and I saw a jealous look come into young Bill Trent's eyes. He worshipped Miss Brush. But then we all did. I guess she was part of our cure.

  At length we started out, ten or eleven grown men, walking two by two, in a rather uncertain imitation of school children. Miss Brush was ostensibly taking care of us, but my wrestler friend, Jo Fogarty, lounged along behind as though he just happened to be going in the same direction.

  I was surprised and glad to see that Geddes was with us. He made no reference to his attack. I suppose he didn't even know he'd had one. We strolled along together, getting quite "pally".

  We all behaved pretty well until we had left the sanitarium behind and were walking cross country over some of the hundred or so acres which belonged to the institution.

  Old Laribee had been very quiet, striding along with a blue scarf fluffed around his puffy red face. Suddenly he stopped in the snow, and that look I had seen the night before came into his eyes.

  The others stopped, too, gazing at him with idle curiosity. He had gripped Miss Brush's arm and was saying hoarsely:

  "We've got to go back."

  We gathered around him, all except Billy Trent, who was throwing snowballs vigorously. Jo Fogarty came up and was hovering at Miss Brush's elbow.

  "We've got to go back, Miss Brush." Laribee's lower lip was trembling distractedly. "I've just had a warning. Steel's going to drop ten points to-day. If I don't get to a telephone and put in some selling orders, I shall be ruined —ruined."

  Miss Brush tried to calm him, but it was no use. He was sure he had heard his broker, he said, heard his voice in his ear. He pleaded, argued with a kind of desperate doggedness, as though to assure himself rather than her of his sanity.

  Miss Brush showed a certain amount of brisk sympathy, but she said she couldn't have the walk broken up, not even if the whole of Wall
Street were collapsing. I thought she was being rather tough with him. But he seemed to like it. The strained, wild expression left his face, giving way to a sort of cunning hopefulness.

  "Miss Brush—Isabel, you've got to understand." His hand gripped her arm again. "It's not only for me, it's for us. I want you to have everything money can buy; everything my daughter has had and more ..."

  His voice rambled on, low and quick so that I wasn’t able to hear. Billy Trent had stopped throwing snowballs and his eyes were smoldering. None of the others seemed particularly interested.

  Miss Brush was smiling again, a smile which seemed a fraction too unprofessional.

  "Of course it'll be all right, Dan. Hurry up and get well. We can take care of the stocks later on."

  Laribee was all excited. He even hummed a little tune as we resumed the walk. He seemed to have forgotten about the warning and his broker's voice in his ear.

  But I hadn't

  Of course, I had no idea then of the fantastic and horrible things which were so soon to happen in Doctor Lenz' sanitarium. I had no means of telling just how significant these minor and seemingly pointless disturbances were. But I did have a distinct impression that something was vitally wrong. Even then I felt that behind all this madness there was method. But whose method it was, and just how sinister its motive, was, at that time, a problem far too intricate for my post-alcoholic brain.

  I started to talk to Miss Brush to cheer myself up. That girl had a way with her. A few words and a couple of her famous smiles made me feel a helluva fellow. I strode along as though the whole sanitarium, with its large acreage of parkland, belonged to me.

  This accession of virility put me ahead of the others. I turned a corner around a small wood and almost collided with some of the female patients, who were also taking their daily exercise.

  As a general rule, we saw nothing of the other sex except during the polite social hour after dinner, when the better behaved of us were allowed to mix in the central hall for bridge, conversation, and the formal Saturday dance. To date I had never been a good enough boy to rate an invitation, so this was the first time I had seen the women. I had to thank the snow which restricted us to the footpaths.

  Most of them wore very smart clothes, but there was something a little wrong about the way they wore them. Their coats and hats had been put on carelessly, rakishly. They looked like fashionable patrons leaving a night-club in the early hours of the morning.

  The other men had come up now, and Miss Brush prompted our chivalric instinct by stepping off the beaten track to let the ladies pass.

  They filed by uneventfully enough until the last one of them suddenly stopped dead. She was young, dressed in a fine mink coat, and wore one of those little Russian caps on her black hair.

  Maybe it was because I had been away from women for a long time, but I thought her the most beautiful girl I had ever seen. Her face was pale and exotic, like those amazing white flowers they rear in hothouses. Her eyes were large and incredibly sad. I had never seen such tragic, hopeless sadness before.

  Her gaze was fixed intently on one of the men in our group. No one moved. It was as if we were all caught up in the fascination which held her there, spellbound.

  I was standing only a few inches from her. Slowly she put out a small gloved hand and touched my sleeve. She didn't look at me. I don't think she was even aware of my existence. But she said in a low, toneless voice:

  "You see that man there? He murdered my father."

  Instantly the women's equivalent of Miss Brush drew her away. There was a certain amount of confused chattering among the females and the males. But it didn't amount to much.

  I took one final glance at that girl with the exotic flower face and the tormentingly sad eyes. Then I turned to see who it was she had been looking at. I could tell at once. There was no possibility of doubt.

  The man who had "killed her father" was standing very close to Miss Brush. He was Daniel Laribee.

  6

  WHEN WE WERE back in Wing Two and Miss Brush had seen to it that our socks were changed, I took Geddes on for a game of billiards. We had just finished when Jo Fogarty came in to take me away for my pre-lunch workout.

  As we started operations in the physio-therapy room, he began to talk about Geddes and what a nice fellow he was. He said he liked the English, and that Geddes was a typical Englishman. He'd been in London in '29, when he beat up the British wrestling champ, and all the guys seemed to look like Geddes. He rambled on about the other male patients. For some reason of his own he didn't approve of them. Fenwick was limp and soft as a girl; Billy Trent was musclebound and hard to handle.

  Muscles always brought him back to his favorite topic, himself. With excusable pride he started in about his own strength and how he was a better wrestler than any of the framed phonies who were now disgracing the mat. There was a lot more concerning his bouts with the London women, but I wasn't listening very hard. Usually I found him amusing, but just then I couldn't think of much else but the girl with the sad eyes and the Russian cap.

  As soon as it was decently possible, I brought the conversation around to her. Fogarty's pleasant, bull-dog face grinned knowingly.

  "Yeah," he said, "she's a good looker all right."

  "But what's her name?"

  "Pattison. Iris Pattison. One of those Park Avenue dames, Her father lost his dough and threw himself off his penthouse roof garden. The girl saw him jump. That did something to her. And then when she found she didn't have more than a few grand to her name, and her boyfriend had given her the air, she went cuckoo. They brought her here, and she's been here ever since."

  There was a pause while he pounded my back. Then I said: "What's wrong with her?"

  "I never get onto the fancy names they use. It's something like melancholy."

  "Melancholia?"

  "Sure. She sits most of the time and don't do nothing. Mrs. Dell over in the women's wing tells me it gives you the creeps. Sometimes that girl don't say a word for a week on end."

  Poor Iris. I felt frightfully sorry for her. And I realized with a sort of shock that it was the first time I had felt really sorry for anyone, but myself, since Magdalene died. Maybe I was picking up.

  "But you heard her today, Fogarty," I insisted. "What did she mean about Laribee murdering her father?"

  Fogarty had muffled me in a warm towel now and was rubbing me up and down vigorously.

  "She may be nutty, but that makes sense all right." he said. "Laribee and her father were in a sort of stock pool together. Laribee got out while the getting was good and left the others holding the bag. It was on account of that old Pattison committed suicide."

  I was putting on my bathrobe when Fogarty said cheerfully:

  "D'you know, Mr. Duluth, you've got a pretty swell physique for a guy who's been soaking for years."

  I thanked him for the doubtful compliment and he went on:

  "How about me teaching you a couple of wrassling holds? Maybe when you're out, you can do me a good turn, too, and get me in show business. That's where I belong."

  It seemed a rather one-sided bargain, but I agreed, and then Fogarty began to initiate me into the mysteries of the half nelson. He had twisted me up somehow with my hands behind my neck when there were footsteps in the passage outside.

  The door was open and we were standing near it. I felt pretty foolish when Miss Brush appeared. It pricked my male vanity for her to see me helpless in the grip of a great baboon like Fogarty.

  But she didn't seem to feel that way. She paused and watched in interest. Then she smiled that bright, fixed smile of hers.

  "So you're learning to wrestle, Mr. Duluth. Next time you misbehave you'll be harder to deal with."

  I couldn't have felt less hard to deal with, but she added suddenly:

  "How about teaching me that hold, Jo? My jujutsu's a bit rusty and I want to meet Mr. Duluth on common ground next time we come to grips."

  Fogarty let go of me like a hot c
ake and smiled broadly. I suppose he liked the idea of fooling around with Miss Brush, just as any of us would.

  Calmly she walked over to him and let herself be manhandled. She was an amazing person. She took it all as casually as though she were being taught to knit. I sometimes wondered whether she knew how we men reacted to her. If she didn't, she was dumber than I thought.

  She and Fogarty were in a kind of crazy embrace when there was a violent commotion in the passage.

  "Lay off that ... !"

  I glanced at the door just in time to see a male figure in a blue bathrobe hurtle across the threshold. He sprang on Fogarty and started to strike out with his fists. For a few seconds I could distinguish nothing in the confusion. Then gradually that human thunderbolt with the naked chest and legs and the flying blue bathrobe made itself clear to me as young Billy Trent.

  The boy was in a white-hot fury and his strength seemed almost superhuman. As Miss Brush staggered sideways, the writhing mass collapsed to the floor with Billy Trent on top. With his tousled blond hair, his naked torso and his blazing eyes he looked like a movie magnate's bowdlerized conception of a jungle man.

  "You're going to leave her alone, see?" His voice came quick, jerky. "You're not going to hurt Miss Brush—no one's going to hurt Miss Brush* You leave her alone or…”

  Fogarty started to put up a weak professional defense against those flailing young arms and legs, but he had been taken off his guard and his much-vaunted muscles seemed surprisingly ineffectual now that Billy had got his fingers around his throat.

  For the first time since I'd known her, Miss Brush had lost her magnificent composure. She was hovering distractedly, exclaiming:

  "It's all right, Billy. He wasn't hurting me. I asked him to do it…"