A Puzzle for fools

by Patrick Quentin

  "Yeah?" broke in Green impatiently. "And put a strait-jacket on themselves and then run a cord from their necks to their ankles? You'd have to be a super-Houdini to do that. No, sir. We're dealing with murder or else I'm about ready for a cure in this sanitarium."

  He turned sharply to me and asked me to run through the events of my discovery in the physio-therapy room. While I spoke, he stared at me suspiciously, as though he expected at any moment to see me gibbering like an ape or climbing up the curtains. When I had finished he said:

  "What did the patients think of Fogarty? Did they like him?"

  I told him that the ex-champion had been popular with us all and that he was rumored to be especially popular with the ladies. He pressed me for further details and I mentioned his desire to get into show business, and also his pride in his physical strength.

  "That's just the point," cried Green exasperatedly. "With a man of his physique, it would have needed at least six or seven ordinary people to get him into that strait-jacket. And yet the medical examiner and Stevens here say there's no sign of violence. The blood's been tested in your own laboratories and there's no trace of anesthetic. I don't see how it was done, unless—"

  He broke off and gazed at Lenz. "This whole business seems crazy to me," he continued. "Isn't it possible that you've got someone in this sanitarium who's more dangerous than you think; some out-and-out maniac? They're supposed to have incredible strength, and maybe they'd get a sort of sadistic pleasure out of seeing a man in pain."

  I watched Lenz with interest. This theory seemed to fit in so well with his remarks about a "subversive influence." To my surprise, his eyes hardened. Sadism, he explained coldly, was a common manifestation in the most normal individuals. But motiveless murder would imply an advanced condition of dementia which was most unlikely to exist in his sanitarium. He was willing to have any State alienist examine the inmates, but he did not feel it necessary.

  "Because," he concluded coldly, "no homicidal maniac could have committed so deliberate a crime. When a maniac kills, it is in a moment of acute emotional disturbance. He would never have the patience to put a man in a strait-jacket and truss him up so elaborately, not even if he had the strength and the opportunity."

  Green seemed unconvinced. "Even so, could any of your patients have gone to the physio-therapy room during the night without being seen?"

  "I suppose so." Lenz moved a hand up and down his beard. "I do not believe in too much restriction here. With the type of patient I treat, it is essential to create the atmosphere of normality. I try to make the sanitarium seem as much like a hotel or a club as possible, they cause any disturbance, the patients are given considerable license."

  "So they could have got hold of one of those strait-jackets," said Green quickly.

  "No." It was Moreno who spoke. "We have only two in the institution. Both Dr. Lenz and myself consider them old-fashioned and dangerous. We do not believe in forcible coercion. The strait-jackets we have are kept for extreme emergencies. They are locked in a closet in the physio-therapy room. Only Fogarty and Warren had keys. I doubt if anyone else in the institution knew of their existence."

  Suddenly there flashed into my mind the recollection of my talk the night before with the gloomy Warren.

  "I suppose there's nothing to this," I suggested. "Fogarty and Warren were talking about taking a tumble with each other. Maybe they used the strait-jacket as a trial of strength and, as Doctor Moreno suggests, there was an accident"

  A quick glance passed between Lenz and Moreno.

  "Yes," said Stevens urgently, "surely some explanation of that sort would be more satisfactory."

  Green grunted noncommittally. He asked me a few more questions and then said:

  "There's another possibility. Mr. Duluth here mentioned that Fogarty was popular with the women. Apparently it was impossible for a man to have tied him up against his will, but a woman might have persuaded him to put the strait-jacket on himself. You say he was proud of his strength. It would be easy to get him to show off. And once he was in the jacket, even a woman could manage the rest."

  Immediately I thought of Fogarty's little act with Miss Brush the day before; the act which had ended so sensationally with the intrusion of young Billy Trent. I could tell that Moreno remembered it, too, for his dark cheeks flushed slightly. Before I could make up my mind whether or not to mention it, he said abruptly:

  "Mr. Duluth is still suffering from the shock of his discovery, and excitement is not good for him. Unless the captain wants to ask him any more questions, I feel he should be excused."

  Green shrugged and Dr. Lenz nodded agreement. As Moreno crossed to my side, I couldn't help wondering at his eagerness to get me out of the room. And that wasn't the only thing that puzzled me. Lenz knew as well as I that strange things had been going on in the sanitarium. He himself had first called my attention to them. And yet he seemed to have made no attempt to tell Green.

  Moreno conducted me to the door and paused on the threshold.

  "Of course," he said curtly, "you will tell none of the other patients about this, Mr. Duluth. And you mustn't think too much about it yourself. You are not a normal man yet, you know."

  10

  AS I stepped out into the corridor, I heard Dr. Stevens* voice from the room behind me.

  "If you gentlemen can do without me, I'll be getting back to surgery. I'll be there if you need me."

  He hurried out of the room and joined me in the passage. As we walked away in silence, I had the distinct impression that he wanted to ask me something. He proved me right by exclaiming with rather forced heartiness:

  "Well, Duluth, that's a bad way to begin the day, but the old schedule must go on. How about coming to the surgery with me? We can get your daily check-up done."

  I agreed and followed him to the surgery, one of those gleaming, hygienic places with white painted closets and glass-topped tables. There's something about a surgery that always intimidates me. The smell of antiseptic, the gleaming knives in the glass cabinets, the rolls of bandages, remind one with unpleasant force of one's inevitable exit. I sat down in a hard shiny chair and watched Stevens pace restlessly up and down, his hands clasped behind his back. With his plump pink cheeks and china blue eyes he looked like a large cherub giving an impudent imitation of an agitated doctor.

  Erratically he ran through his regular questionnaire and made the correct hieroglyphics on my chart. Then, instead of dismissing me, he sat down and stared at me over the instruments and bandages.

  "What do you think about all this?" he asked bluntly.

  By now I had grown used to being treated like a prison trusty. Apparently there's no one who inspires more gratuitous confidences than an alcoholic in a mental home.

  "I don't think anything in particular," I replied wearily.

  "But that Green fellow," persisted the anxious cherub, "he won't even consider the possibility of an accident. Do you think it's murder?"

  "My stage training has taught me that people who are found trussed up in grotesque positions are always the victims of some dastardly crime," I said, trying out of sheer self-preservation to take the whole business flippantly. "There seems no motive, but then you don't need motives in a place like this."

  "That's exactly the point." Stevens rose to his feet, crossed aimlessly to a closet and sat down again. "Listen, Duluth, I want to ask you something in confidence. I'm not a psychiatrist. I'm just a plain medical man whose business is to keep tabs on your bowels and bellyaches. But I'm particularly interested in this beastly affair and I'd like to know whether you, as an inmate, have any suspicions. Of course, I've no right to ask, but even so ..."

  "I'm afraid I haven't a single idea," I put in quickly. "And I'd let you know if I did. From what I see of my fellow sufferers, they're a pretty harmless lot and I, for one, wouldn't expect any of them to murder me."

  Stevens picked up his stethoscope and started to toy with it nervously. "I'm glad to hear you say that, Duluth. And
there's a special reason. You see, I have a relative who's a patient here in the sanitarium. He's my half-brother, in fact. He got into quite a nasty mess, and I persuaded him to come all the way from California because I thought so highly of Lenz. You can understand my problem. I wouldn't want him to stay if I felt there was any real danger. And yet I don't want to send him away unless it's absolutely necessary. They've been decent to me here and as a resident member of the staff I have a financial interest in the sanitarium. If my half-brother left, it would set a bad example and in twenty-four hours all the others would have gone, too."

  "I see your point," I murmured, still marveling at my ability to collect confidences. "But as a moral adviser Tm pretty much of a broken reed right now."

  "Of course, Duluth. Yes." Stevens' pink face broke into a quick smile and settled once more into solemnity. "If Fogarty's death is connected with one of the patients," he said slowly, "I feel there's one perfectly simple way of clearing the matter up."

  "How do you mean?"

  "By psycho-analysis. I suggested it, but Lenz and Moreno don't approve and it'd be as good as my job's worth for me to butt in."

  He paused and glanced at me. For a moment I thought he was going to ask my assistance in some extra-official psychological experimentation. But he didn't. He shook his head and said briskly:

  "It's a pity Lenz wouldn't try that."

  "But how would you work it?" I asked.

  "By an elementary process of thought association. I happen to be very interested in that despised field of psychology." Stevens laid down the stethoscope with a faint clatter. "All one would have to do is to mention some word associated with the crime and watch the reaction on the patient."

  "Such as Fogarty's name, for example?" I asked, feeling suddenly interested.

  "In this case, no. It would be too dangerous. The patients will be wondering about Fogarty anyhow and a lot of damage might be done. One has to be extremely careful."

  "How about strait-jacket?" I inquired.

  "Emphatically, no." A slight smile moved across Stevens' lips. "In a sanitarium of this type, that word would receive a violent reaction from anyone. It would have to be some phrase which normally had no particular significance—something that struck you for example when you discovered the—er—body. But I'm just riding my hobby horse, Duluth." He rose and looked a little embarrassed as though he realized he had overstepped the bounds of discretion.

  "I wish you'd forget all this," he murmured. "I guess I'm a little unstrung. But I'm worried, you know—my half-brother."

  As I left the surgery and started back to Wing Two, I found myself wondering about that half-brother. Which, I reflected, of my fellow patients had this unsuspected connection with the staff? Then I remembered Fenwick's little act in the central hall the night before. I remembered how Stevens had dashed forward, heard his voice crying:

  "David .. . David .. . !"

  The would-be psycho-analyst, I guessed, was the half-brother of the spiritualist.

  I was so absorbed in my reflections that I didn't at first notice the girl with a mop who was swabbing the floor in front of me. Or if I did, I dismissed her from my mind as one of those nondescript females who occasionally cleaned and polished about the building. I had stepped onto a damp, freshly mopped patch before I saw her properly. And then it didn't make sense.

  It was Iris Pattison with a white apron and a cute white cap on her dark hair. She was manipulating the mop with more than professional concentration.

  "Don't walk on the clean part," she said, and her expression, as she glanced up, was irritated rather than sad.

  But I hardly heard what she said. I was busy watching her. Maybe she was only pushing a mop around, but there was something about her—something that got the theatre in me all excited. The movement of her lips, the fragile profile half turned away, the slight droop of her mouth—-all perfect. Instinctively I was back at rehearsals again.

  "Superb!" I exclaimed. "Now turn and come this way. That's right ... no, not so quickly . . . head more to the left so's it gets the footlights . . . that's better . . ."

  She was staring at me now, half in alarm, half in disappointment as though she had hoped that I wasn't as nutty as the rest of them and had discovered her mistake. But I was too worked up to mind. I gripped her arm and said:

  "Miss Pattison, have you ever been on the stage?"

  "You'd—you'd better go away," she said. "You're not allowed here."

  "Not until you've told me whether you've been on the stage."

  "Why, no, never. And I know I couldn't act."

  "Nonsense. You don't have to be able to act. I can teach you that. You've got everything, see?" I waved my arm in an abandoned gesture. "Listen, Miss Pattison, you're going to get out of here and I'm going to do something about you. Given patience and six months I could get you anywhere. And ..." I broke off. Even I could not fail to interpret the expression on her face now. "And I'm not mad," I added testily. "I happen to be a Broadway theatrical producer. I'm in here because I was a soak but I'm getting better now and what I say goes."

  Her mouth moved in a faint smile. "What—what a relief," she said. "For a moment, I thought—"

  "All theatrical producers are crazy," I broke in. "And what the hell are you doing with that mop anyway?"

  "Doctor Lenz told me to clean the corridor." Iris turned and started in again vigorously, as though she were being paid for piece work. "He said I had never done anything useful in my life. But I rather like doing this."

  I thought a hundred a week rather a lot to pay for the privilege of mopping corridors. But Lenz seemed to know his psychiatry. Iris was obviously interested.

  I told her what a good job she was doing and she seemed childishly grateful. An instant of radiance lit up the white flower of her face.

  "I've done all that other corridor, too," she said proudly.

  There were so few opportunities of seeing her alone that I couldn't bear to tear myself away. There were a thousand things I wanted to say, but I seemed suddenly to have become inarticulate. All I could do was to start talking lamely about the night before, saying how sorry I was that Fenwick's spiritualistic warning had upset her.

  I realized at once that I had been stupid to remind her of it. She turned her head away and maneuvered a corner with her mop. "Oh, it wasn't that which upset me," she said softly.

  "It wasn't?"

  "No." Her voice was low. She moved so that she was facing me and I saw the fear in her eyes. "It was something I heard."

  I felt a moment of alarm. Suddenly the recollection of Fogarty's death and all the other grotesque incidents of the past days came flooding back into my mind, making even this charming interlude seem sinister.

  "It was a voice," Iris was murmuring. "I don't know where it came from, but I heard it when everyone was running past. It said very softly: 'Daniel Laribee murdered your father. You must kill him.' "

  She looked up, staring at me with an expression half pleading, half defiant.

  "I know it was partly Mr. Laribee's fault that father died. I understand. I can remember everything plainly. But I don't have to murder him, do I?"

  There was something terribly pathetic about it. I felt almost physically sick to think that now Iris was being drawn into this beastly affair. I knew she was really sane; some instinct surer than reason told me that this was just another facet of the malignant scheme which was working itself out in the sanitarium. She was imploring me to help and yet I was so hopelessly inadequate. I tried to tell her it was all a mistake; that even if she had heard a voice it was only someone trying to frighten her.

  "Yes," she said surprisingly, "I expect it was. I don't believe in spirits or anything. I know I'm in a mental hospital and I know I'm trying to get better. It's just that I want to be left alone. I wouldn't mind, if only I was sure I didn't have to do what they told me."

  I said a lot of foolish things that were meant to be reassuring, but probably my psychiatry was all wrong. She
seemed caught up in some reflection of her own and I felt that she hardly heard what I said. She had started to work on the floor again, deliberately, mechanically.

  At last I tried to be flippant.

  "When you're through with that corridor," I suggested, "you might get Lenz to put you on the windows in Wing Two. They don't need cleaning, but it would be nice to see you again."

  As I spoke, I heard footsteps coming down the corridor behind me. Iris glanced up, the mop motionless in her hand. Her eyes were staring fixedly with an expression of almost mesmerized intensity.

  "You mustn't tell him," she whispered breathlessly. "You mustn't tell him about that voice. He'd keep me shut up in my room. He wouldn't let me work."

  I turned to follow the direction of her still hypnotized gaze. The approaching figure was bearded and godlike. It was Dr. Lenz.

  11

  I SPENT the rest of the morning by myself, trying to piece together all the crazy ramifications that had led up to Fogarty's death. I was so angry at the idea of Iris being dragged into the miserable business that I couldn't concentrate. Something told me I ought to report to Lenz what she had said. But she had asked me not to and I didn't want to let the poor kid down.

  I suppose I was reprehensible. Maybe I could have prevented a lot of tragedy if I had gone to the authorities then and there. But after all, I was only a jittery ex-drunk trying to get on my feet again. And my ethical standards were still a bit twisted.

  No one in Wing Two had been told about Fogarty's death. But despite the discreetly normal behavior of the staff there was a certain restiveness. People on the borderline are particularly sensitive to atmosphere.

  Billy Trent asked Miss Brush three times why Fogarty was not on duty. She gave noncommittal replies. But I could see that he wasn't satisfied. In fact, he was unusually silent and didn't jerk a single soda.

  I had missed my morning workout. But when we got back from the afternoon walk, Warren appeared, tired and rather irritable. He was running both shifts temporarily, he said. And heaven alone knew when he was going to get any sleep.