The Collection

by Fredric Brown

  "So that's why you had to make him unidentifiable," I said. "I see. He looked familiar to Bill Drager, but Bill couldn't place him."

  He nodded. "Bill was just a patrolman then. He probably had seen Leedom only a few times, but someone else--Well, Jerry, you go back and tell them about it. Tell them I'll be here."

  "Gee, Mr. Paton, I'm sorry I got to," I said. "Isn't there anything--"

  "No. Go and get them. I won't run away, I promise you. And tell Doc he wouldn't have beat me that chess game tonight if I hadn't let him. With what I had to do, I wanted to get out of there early. Good night, Jerry."

  He eased me out onto the porch again before I quite realized why he had never had a chance to tell Dr. Skibbine himself. Yes, he meant for them to find him here when they came, but not alive.

  I almost turned to the door again, to break my way in and stop him. Then I realized that everything would be easier for him if he did it his way.

  Yes, he was dead by the time they sent men out to bring him in. Even though I had expected it, I guess I had a case of the jitters when they phoned in the news, and I must have showed it, because Bill Drager threw an arm across my shoulders.

  "Jerry," he said, "this has been the devil of a night for you. You need a drink. Come on."

  The drink made me feel better and so did the frank admiration in Drager's eyes. It was so completely different from what I had seen there back in the alley.

  "Jerry," he told me, "you ought to get on the Force. Figuring out that--of all things--he had used an armadillo."

  "But what else was possible? Look! All those ghoul legends trace back to beasts that are eaters of carrion. Like hyenas. A hyena could have done what was done back there in the morgue. But no one could have handled a hyena--pushed it through that ventilator hole with a rope on it to pull it up again.

  "But an armadillo is an eater of corpses, too. It gets frightened when handled and curls up into a ball, like a bowling ball. It doesn't make any noise, and you could carry it in a bag like the one Hank described. It has an armored shell that would break the glass of the display case if Paton lowered it to within a few feet and let it drop the rest of the way. And of course he looked down with a flashlight to see--"

  Bill Drager shuddered a little.

  "Learning is a great thing if you like it," he said. "Studying origins of superstitions, I mean. But me, I want another drink. How about you?"

  HOMICIDE SANITARIUM

  I

  Killer at Large

  I put down the newspaper.

  "It's about time," Kit said.

  I stood up. "Right, honey. It is."

  Her big brown eyes got bigger and browner.

  "What do you mean, Eddie? I just meant you've been reading that blasted newspaper for hours and hours."

  I glanced at the clock. "For eleven minutes."

  I sat down again and motioned, and she came over and sat down on my lap. I almost weakened.

  "It's been a nice honeymoon," I said. "But I am a working man. I thought you knew."

  "You mean you're taking on another case?"

  "Nope," I told her. "One of the same ones. Paul Verne."

  "Who's Paul Verne?"

  "The gentleman I came to Springfield to find."

  She looked really shocked. "You came here to . . . Why, Eddie, we came here for our honeymoon! You don't mean you had an ulterior motive in choosing Springfield."

  "Now, now," I now-nowed.

  "But Eddie--"

  "Shhh," I shhhed.

  She cuddled down in my arms. "All right, Eddie. But tell me what you're going to do. Is it dangerous?"

  "Get 'em young," I said, "treat 'em rough, tell 'em nothing."

  "Eddie, is it dangerous?"

  "The world," I told her, "is a dangerous place. One's lucky to get out of it alive."

  "Oh darn it, I suppose you are going to do something dangerous. I won't let you!"

  I stood up, and she had to get off my lap or fall on the floor. I walked over to the bureau and picked a necktie off the mirror.

  "What are you going to do, Eddie?"

  "Answer an ad I just read in the paper."

  "You mean an ad to go to work?"

  I nodded, and started to put on the necktie.

  In the mirror, I could see Kit studying me.

  "The idea of a pint-size like you being a detective," she said.

  "Napoleon wasn't so big," I said, over my shoulder.

  "Napoleon wasn't a detective."

  "Well how about Peter Lorre? He's no bigger than I am."

  "Peter Lorre was shot in the last two pictures I saw him in," Kit said.

  She picked up the newspaper I'd put down and started scanning the want ads, while I was putting on my coat.

  "Is this the ad?" she said. " "Wanted: Man with some knowledge of psychiatry, for confidential work'?"

  "What makes you think that's it?" I countered.

  "I know that's it, Eddie. All the other ads are routine sensible ones for salesmen or dishwashers or something. But why get dressed up to answer it? It just gives a phone number, and there's a phone right on the table there."

  "That reminds me," I said. "Use that phone to call Information, will you, and get the listing on that phone number. You'll find it's the Stanley Sanitarium, I think. But I might as well make sure."

  She made the call.

  "You're right, Eddie. Stanley Sanitarium." She looked at me with respect. "How did you know?"

  "Hunch. There's an article on Page Three telling about a new sanitarium for mental cases being started here. A doc by the name of Philemon Stanley runs it."

  "But why can't you phone from here about the job?"

  "From a hotel? Nix. I've got to give myself a local background and a local address. I go rent myself a room, and then use the landlady's phone. That way, if he's going to phone me back or write me a letter, I can give him an address that won't sound phony."

  "What's phony about the New World Hotel?"

  I grinned at her. "Ten bucks a day is what's phony. People who stay at a hotel like this don't apply for jobs that probably pay less than their hotel bills would be."

  I kissed her, thoroughly, for it just might be the last time for a while if I had to follow up on the job right away, and left.

  Half an hour later, from a rooming house, I called the number given in the want ad.

  "Ever had any experience working in an institution for the mentally ill?"

  "Yes, sir," I said. "Two years at Wales Sanitarium in Chicago. They didn't handle really bad cases, you know, just mild psychoses, phobiacs, chronic alcoholics, that sort of thing."

  "Yes," said Dr. Stanley, "I'm familiar with the work at Wales Sanitarium. What were your duties there?"

  "Attendant, male ward."

  "I believe you would fit in very nicely. Not--uh--as an attendant, however. I have something in mind of a different and--uh --more confidential nature."

  "So I figured from the ad, Doctor," I said. "But whatever it is, I'll be glad to try it."

  "Fine, Mr. Anderson. I'd like to talk to you personally, of course, but if our interview is satisfactory to both of us, you can start right away. Would you rather have that interview this evening or tomorrow morning? Either will be quite satisfactory." I thought it over, and weakened. After all I had been married only two weeks and I would undoubtedly have to live at the sanitarium while I was on the job. I told him tomorrow morning. I went back to the hotel and Kit and I went down for dinner to the New World dining room. Over a couple of cocktails, I told her about the phone call.

  "But suppose he should phone the Wales Sanitarium to check up on you?"

  "They never do."

  "What kind of confidential work would there be around a booby hatch, Eddie?"

  "I don't know," I told her. "But as long as it puts me in contact with the patients, I don't care. Anyway, it isn't a booby hatch, honey. It's a sanitarium for the idle rich. People who go slightly screwy wondering how to spend their money. That's
why I used Wales as a reference. It's the same type of joint."

  "It didn't say that in the article in the paper."

  "Sure it did. Between the lines."

  "But Eddie, aren't you going to tell me why you're doing this?"

  I thought out how I'd best tell it without worrying Kit too much. She'd have to get used to things like that, but not all at once. Not--right from our honeymoon--to know I was looking for a homicidal maniac who had killed over a dozen people. Maybe more.

  "I'm looking for a man named Paul Verne," I said. "He's crazy, but he's crazy like a fox. He escaped three years ago from an institution in California. It's been in the papers, but you may not have noticed it, because his family had enough money and influence to keep it from being played up too much."

  Kit's eyes widened.

  "You mean they don't want him caught?"

  "They very much want him caught. They offered a reward of twenty-five thousand bucks to have him caught and returned to the institution from which he escaped."

  "But wouldn't publicity help?"

  "It would, and there has been some publicity. If the name doesn't click with you, you just haven't read the right papers at the right time. But they held that down, and they've spent thousands circularizing police offices and detective agencies to be on the lookout for him. That's more effective, and reflects less on the family name. Every copper in the country knows who Paul Verne is, and is trying for that twenty-five grand. And every private detective, too."

  "Twenty-five thousand dollars! Why Eddie, think what we could do with that!"

  "Yeah," I said, "we could use it. But don't get your hopes up, because I'm just playing a long shot. A tip and a hunch."

  Our dinner came and I made her wait until we'd eaten before I told her any more. When I eat, I like to eat.

  "The tip," I told her, after we had finished dessert, "was Springfield. Never mind exactly how, because it's complicated, but I got a tip Paul Verne was in Springfield. That's why I suggested we come here for our honeymoon."

  "Well," she said, "I suppose we had to go somewhere, and after all--"

  "Twenty-five grand isn't hay," I finished for her. "As for the hunch--it's a poor thing, but my own. Where's the last place you'd look for an escaped loony?"

  "I don't . . . You mean in a loony-bin?"

  "Brilliant. What could possibly be a better hide-out? A private sanitarium, of course, where everything is the best and a patient can enter voluntarily and leave when he likes. I've made a study of Paul Verne, and I think it's just the kind of idea that would appeal to him."

  "Would he have money? Could he afford a hide-out like that?"

  "Money is no object. He's got scads."

  "But why this particular sanitarium?"

  I shrugged. "Just a better chance than most. First, I think he's in Springfield, and he isn't at any of the others."

  "How do you know that?"

  "There are only two others here. One is for the criminally insane. He certainly wouldn't commit himself there voluntarily--too hard to get out again, and too much investigation involved. The other's for women only. But Stanley's place is ideal. Brand new, takes wealthy patients with minor warps, comfortable--everything."

  Kit sighed. "Well, I don't suppose it'll take you more than a day to look over the patients and find out."

  "Longer than that," I said. "I haven't too much idea what he looks like."

  She stared at me. "Mean you're working on this and haven't even gone to the trouble to get a photograph?"

  "There aren't any. Paul Verne did a real job of escaping from the sanitarium out West. He robbed the office of all the papers in his own case--fingerprints, photographs, everything. Took along all their money, too."

  I thought it best not to mention to Kit that he'd burned the place down as well.

  "Then he went to his parents' home. They were away on vacation or something, and he destroyed all the photographs of himself, even those of himself as a kid. He also took along all the money and jewelry loose, enough to last him ten years."

  "But you have a description, haven't you?"

  "I have a description as he was three years ago," I said. "A guy can change quite a bit in three years, and if you haven't got a photograph you're not in much luck. But I know he's got brown hair, unless he dyed or bleached it. I know he weighed a hundred sixty then. Of course he might have taken on a paunch since then, or got thin from worry. I know he's got brown eyes--unless he went to the trouble of getting tinted contact lenses to change their apparent color."

  I grinned at her. "But I do know he's within a couple of inches of five feet nine. He might make himself seem a couple inches under by acquiring a stoop, or a couple inches over by wearing these special shoes with built-up inner heels."

  Kit grimaced. "So you'll know that any man you see between five feet seven and five eleven might be him. That's a big help. How will you know?"

  I told her I didn't know.

  "If it were just a matter of spotting him from a photograph or a good description," I said, "he'd have been picked up long ago. I can probably eliminate some of the patients right away. The others I'll have to study, and use my brains on. It might take longer than a few days."

  "Well, then I'm glad you didn't go out this evening."

  "This evening," I told her, "I'm going to study. There's a bookstore on Grand Avenue that's open evenings. I've got to pick up a few books on psychology and psychiatry and bone up a bit to make good my story to Dr. Stanley that I know something about it. I don't want to get bounced the first day because I don't know pyromania from pyorrhoea.

  We got the books, and Kit helped me study them. Fortunately or otherwise, there was a Kraft-Ebbing in the lot and we spent most of the time reading that. But I did manage to read a little in some of the others, enough to pick up a bit of the patter.

  II

  A New Job

  The Stanley Sanitarium was out at the edge of town, as all respectable sanitaria should be. There was a high brick wall around it, and barbed wire on top of the wall.

  That rather surprised me. So did the size and impregnability of the iron-work gate in the wall. I couldn't get in it, and had to ring a bell in one of the gate posts.

  A surly looking guy with thick black eyebrows and rumpled hair came to answer it. He glared at me as though I had leprosy. "Eddie Anderson," I said. "I got an appointment with Dr. Stanley."

  "Just a minute." He called the sanitarium on a telephone that was in a sentry box by the gate, and then said, "Okay," and unlocked the gate.

  He walked with me up to the house, slightly more friendly.

  "I reckon you're the new patient," he said. "My name's Garvey. The other patients'll tell you you can trust me, Mr. Anderson. So if there's any little errands you want done or anything you want brought in, why just see me, that's all."

  "That's fine," I said, "and if I ever go crazy, I'll remember it."

  "Huh?" he said. "You mean you ain't crazy?"

  "If I am," I said, "I haven't found it out yet. But don't worry. That doesn't prove anything."

  I left him looking doubtful and wondering whether he'd talked too much.

  Dr. Philemon Stanley had a white walrus mustache and the kind of glasses that dangle at the end of a black silk ribbon. He twirled them in a tight little circle while he talked. I had to look away from that shiny circle to keep from getting dizzy. I wondered vaguely if he used them on patients for hypnotic effect.

  "Uh--Mr. Anderson," he said, "have you had any experience at all in--uh--confidential investigations? That is, in making confidential reports?"

  "Can't say I have," I told him. Not quite truthfully, of course. I couldn't say that was my real occupation. "But I'd be glad to try my hand at it."

  "Fine, Mr. Anderson. I intend to try out a new theory of mine in the study of mental aberration. A method, not of treatment, but of more accurate diagnosis and study of the patient. It is my belief that a person suffering from a mental ailment is never complete
ly frank or completely at ease in the presence of a doctor, or even of an attendant. There is a tendency, almost invariably, either to exaggerate symptoms or to minimize and conceal them."

  "Sounds quite logical," I admitted.

  "Whereas," said Dr. Stanley, twirling his glass a bit harder in mild excitement, "they undoubtedly act entirely natural before the other patients. You see what I'm driving at?"

  "Not exactly."

  "I would like an attendant--someone experienced, as you are, with pathological cases--to pose as a patient, to mix among the other patients, become friendly with them, play cards with them, win their confidence as fellow-sufferer, and to report confidentially on their progress. The job, I fear, would be a bit confining."

  He broke off, watching me for my reaction.

  It wasn't good, at first. Then I began to see the advantages of it. Certainly I'd be in a better position to find out what I wanted to know, in the status of a fellow patient.

  But it wouldn't do to appear eager. I asked about salary and when he named a figure higher than an attendant's wages would be, I let it convince me.

  "My clothes," I said. "Will it appear suspicious to anyone who saw me come here if I leave, and then return with them?"

  "Not at all. You are, as far as anyone knows, committing yourself to me voluntarily. All my patients, incidentally, are here of their own free will, although they are under restraint to stay within the grounds for the period of their cure. There will be nothing unusual about your having had a preliminary interview."

  "Fine," I said. "I'll get my stuff and be back. Right after lunch, say. Oh, by the way, just how insane am I to act, and in what direction?"

  "I would suggest a mild psychosis. Something you're more than usually familiar with. Nothing that would force me to keep you under restraint or limit your freedom in circulating about with the other patients. Alcoholism. . . . No, you look too healthy for that."

  "How about kleptomania?" I suggested. "I'd have to swipe a few things from time to time, but I'll put them under my bed, and if your fountain pen disappears, you'll know where to look for it."

  "Excellent. Any time this afternoon will be satisfactory, if you have affairs of your own to wind up. Uh--you sign nothing, of course, but if any patient asks, tell him you committed yourself here for say, sixty days. At the end of that time, we'll know how satisfactory our arrangement is."