Murder in the Madhouse

by Jonathan Latimer

  Over by the door there was a faint creak and the soft grind of hinges. Through the woolly darkness woven over that part of the room he could see nothing. He knew, of course, that it was the murderer. He felt a kind of horrible paralysis grip him. It was a strange feeling of weakness such as he had sometimes encountered in a dream when he was sliding toward a cliff or speeding down a hill in a runaway automobile, but he knew he was not dreaming. The noise softly and slowly approached, direct and relentless. He held his breath, and in a subconscious flash his brain told him it must be Dr. Livermore. He wondered whether the doctor would use a knife or try to strangle him; but he did not dare move or shout for fear that the doctor had a pistol.

  Now the noise was close to the bed, and in front of the regular patch of moonlight was another glimmer of light. Suddenly this became a figure bending over him, and Crane sat up in bed and siezed it and pulled it over upon him, his fingers feeling for a throat hold. At the same time he rolled over on top, one leg hooked around the intruder’s body.

  It was a woman he had hold of, and she was naked. She seized his face between her hands and kissed him. It was Mrs. Heyworth, and her eyes were insane in the moonlight. Crane pulled himself free of her, and for a moment his mind stopped working. He heard himself scream twice, and then he climbed through the open window and jumped. Bushes broke his fall and scratched his face and shoulders, but he was immediately able to run. He raced through the garden and over to the high wall that stood between him and the auto trailer on the hill to the north. Glass and barbed wire along the top of the wall tore his fingers, and he finally dropped back into the garden.

  He panted for a minute and found that his bare feet were very cold. With this discovery came a return of his senses and a feeling of shame of his cowardice. He wondered if anyone else had had a madwoman climb in bed with him, and if so, what he had done. He reassured himself by deciding that he had probably got the hell out of there, just as he himself had.

  Then he wondered how he was going to get back to his room. In the garden even the soil was cold, and while there was no wind, the air was raw. Everything smelt of frost. In the distance he could see the guest house, ablaze with lights and alive with excited voices. Evidently his screams had been heard and search parties were being organized. He thought he could hear the voice of the sheriff giving hoarse orders. To get back to the house undetected, if possible, he moved to the other side of the garden, away from the wall. He walked tenderly, but small stones cut his feet, and once he whacked his toe against a heavy metal object. He reached down in the grass and lifted it. Beams from the moon showed him it was a shovel, and to his left, slightly out of his path, was another circular hole such as he’d seen the old guard dig. Crane was looking at this when his eye caught a movement in the shrubbery between him and the guest house. It was a man, and he was kneeling behind a bush watching the flashlights assembled by the guest house. Sliding his bare feet over the damp grass, Crane edged nearer the man and saw, to his surprise, that it was Dr. Livermore.

  Now, fanwise, the searching party had spread out and was slowly beating through the shrubbery in the garden. In the distance the lights were faint, lost in the torrent of clear moonlight which poured upon the trees and bushes and flowers. With a grunt of fear, Dr. Livermore stood up, and Crane ducked behind a bed of geraniums. He wished he had on socks, at least. Dr. Livermore hurried to where he had dropped the shovel, frantically felt for it in the grass, and shambled off toward a wing of the search party. He flung the shovel behind a clump of bushes as he passed them.

  It seemed impossible to dodge the searchers, so Crane pulled himself out of the geranium bed, rubbed his hands on the seat of his pajamas, and sat down on a near-by bench. He lolled back comfortably and gazed up at a sky white with moonlight.

  He was still admiring the sky when Deputy Powers and the driver came upon him. They halted at a safe distance. Deputy Powers, the reluctant authority of the law upon him, advanced a pace beyond his companion. “Hi!” he said. “Hi, there!” When Crane did not answer, he turned to the driver. “Maybe he’s dead, too,” he suggested hopefully.

  Crane stood up. “No such luck,” he said. “I’m just cold.” He stepped gingerly across the gravel path to them. “Let’s go back. I believe I have the next quadrille with you, Mr. Powers?”

  “You got what?”

  The driver seized Crane’s arm firmly and spoke behind his back to Deputy Powers. “Don’t pay no attention.”

  While they were walking back to the guest house, Deputy Powers left them to warn the sheriff. In the moonlight the garden was a photographic negative, all blacks and grays and whites, without depth and without relation to each other, as if they had been pieces of dark paper pasted on a blackboard. A savage slash of chalk was the path, while the shadows of shrubs and flowers were substantial blocks of black, and the vegetation itself was gray and unreal. Overhead there was the cry of night birds, sometimes angry and sometimes alarmed.

  Crane and the driver were on the front steps when the sheriff and the rest of the party caught up with them. The sheriff was utterly outraged.

  “What in hell were you trying to do?” He shook his arms like a preacher calling upon God. “Run clear to the Hudson in them pajamas?”

  “No.” William Crane spoke softly. “I just wanted to get out of my room.”

  The sheriff shook himself convulsively. “You just wanted to get out of your room” He repeated this to the entire world. “He just wanted to get out of his room. He couldn’t wait until morning.” A gnarled fist shook under Crane’s nose. “For God’s sake, why did you want to get out of your room?”

  The arm was dangerously close, and Crane stepped back. “I thought somebody was in the room with me.”

  “That’s no reason for screaming and scaring everybody half to death.”

  “Maybe not,” said Crane.

  “That’s no excuse for jumping out of a second-story window.”

  “Maybe not,” said Crane.

  Against the gray silk sky, the sheriff’s shoulders shrugged blackly. “Do you feel safe to go to bed by yourself now?” he asked with heavy sarcasm. “Or will we send somebody to keep you company?”

  “Miss Evans would do,” Crane said. He opened the screen door and let it shut gently behind him.

  Sheriff Walters shook his head. “Crazy as a loon,” he stated to the little gathering. “Crazy as a loon.”

  “I don’t know,” said Deputy Graham. “I wouldn’t mind sittin’ up with Miss Evans myself.”

  “You close your mouth,” said the sheriff.

  For the third time the silence of the night was broken by a gentle persistent knocking at the door. William Crane regretted leaving his bed. Tufts of wool in his trousers tickled his legs, but he fastened the belt securely. He was taking no chances. He flicked on the lamp at the head of the bed, and a subdued radiance made the room visible and ugly.

  The subtle knocking continued.

  He pulled open the door and retreated two steps. Mr. Penny was in the hall. He had on a Japanese robe and leather sandals, and his finger was against his mouth. He looked like an Oriental toy. Crane let him in the room. With a gesture of his wrist Mr. Penny indicated that the door should be closed. Magically, he produced a small pad of white paper from a hidden pocket. He held out his right fist, opened it slowly. William Crane watched suspiciously. There was a stub of a pencil in the open hand. On the pad Mr. Penny wrote: “I might be able to help you.”

  Crane sat on the bed, smoothing beside him a place tor Mr. Penny. “I need some help.” He spoke conversationally. “I’d like to be able to stop all this.”

  Mr. Penny blinked his licorice-drop eyes. His pencil scrawled on the pad: “I might be able to give you some background.”

  “Fine,” said William Crane. “But first I’d like to know what’s the matter with Mrs. Heyworth. Why is she here?”

  The pencil wrote: “Husband and child killed in auto accident. She won’t believe they’re dead. She thinks you loo
k like her husband.”

  “She thinks more than that,” said Crane. He grinned. “Now about that background?”

  The pencil wrote: “This might help. Dr. E. and Dr. L. have had dreadful quarrels.”

  William Crane moved his chin vertically.

  “Dr. E. threatened to cane Dr. L., so Dr. L. got a bodyguard. That’s Joe.” Mr. Penny turned the piece of paper.

  Crane sucked in his under lip. “What were they fighting about?”

  On the white paper the pencil spelled: “E-V-A-N-S.”

  “Why?”

  As a gourmet would on smelling terrapin cooking in white wine, Mr. Penny closed his eyes. Then he opened them, glared fiercely at William Crane, and doubled a chubby fist. Who wouldn’t, he implied, fight over a beautiful woman?

  His eyes twinkling with the sly humor of a perfect mime, Mr. Penny then wrote:

  “They are mad about the box, too.”

  “How about this box?” Crane asked eagerly. “Is it really filled with scraps of paper, or is it full of bonds?”

  Mr. Penny wrote: “Bonds.”

  “How do you know?”

  The pencil trembled indignantly: “I saw them.”

  “Why didn’t you tell the sheriff?”

  Mr. Penny had used up the reverse side of the page. He crumpled it crisply and tossed it into the waste basket. On the new sheet he wrote: “Who’d believe me?”

  William Crane felt a little doubtful himself, but he directed what he hoped was a look of confidence at the little man.

  Mr. Penny smiled understandingly. He wrote: “One of them has the box.”

  Crane nodded and said, “How do you know that?” He propped his pillow against the head of the bed and leaned against it.

  The pencil scratched hurriedly and triumphantly on the paper: “I saw Miss Evans with the box.”

  Behind Crane the pillow plumped to the floor. “When did you see her with it?” he asked.

  “The day you arrived.”

  “The hell you say! What was she doing with it?”

  As he wrote, Mr. Penny shook his head. “I don’t know. I met her in the corridor outside of Dr. L.’s office. She turned back when she saw me.”

  Crane forced air between his teeth. He thought this might be important if true. “Are you sure it was Miss Van Kamp’s box?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “What do you think she was doing with it?”

  The pencil moved more slowly: “Taking it from one Dr. to the other”—the lead hesitated, then appended—“?” Mr. Penny’s face was wistful.

  William Crane’s reverie was broken by the movement of the pencil. On the pad was written: “Whoever has the box must be doing the murders.”

  “Why?”

  “Don’t you know about the two keys to the vault?”

  Crane nodded.

  The pencil hurried on: “Nobody would want the second key unless he had the first one. That’s why Pittsfield was murdered. He caught someone looking for that key in Miss Fan Kamp’s room.”

  “I guess you’re right,” said Crane. He slid off the bed, stretched his arms, and yawned.

  Another sheet crumpled under Mr. Penny’s fingers. He wrote something on a new sheet, tore it off the pad, folded it neatly, and handed it to Crane. The gay silk in his dressing gown shone red and blue in the light as he glided to the door. He paused there for an instant, beamed, and was gone. In the hall his sandals slid raspingly and unevenly.

  The folded page was in William Crane’s hand, and he opened it. It read: “Why did the fountain stop the first night you were here?”

  The paper floated to the waste basket in quick zigzags, and Crane returned to bed.

  Chapter XVI

  NEXT MORNING the tattoo of the curtain against the wall awakened Crane. Both the windows framed freshly scrubbed blue sky and fat clouds, and gay tree tops dancing to the tune of a northwesterly half gale. In the room the air smelled like that under a Mercury-Arc sunlight lamp. He drew in two deep breaths and climbed out of his bed. When he walked over to the windows he found his feet still hurt from the gravel. There were some people in the garden, around the hole he had found during the night, and he recognized Sheriff Walters, Deputy Powers, Dr. Eastman, and an exceedingly thin man in black whom he judged to be the coroner. Halfway between them and the detention building the fountain arched a silver back in the morning sunlight.

  He put on a lemon-yellow and green striped tie, a brown Harris tweed golf coat, flannel trousers; tucked the suit he had been wearing the night Miss Evans had kicked him over his arm, and went downstairs.

  “I’m hungry,” he told Maria. “I want plenty of victuals.”

  “Yes sir,” said Maria with approval. “You always does.”

  While he was eating some oatmeal with plenty of butter and sugar on it, Miss Evans came into the dining room from the kitchen. She was in a neatly starched white and blue uniform, and there was about her an air of having somewhere to go. She walked past him.

  “Wait a minute,” he said. “Won’t you have a bloater or some curry?”

  Miss Evans paused by the door. “I’m very busy.”

  Crane said, “I just wanted to ask you something. Is there any way of having clothes cleaned around here? These are so dirty I can’t wear them.”

  “I think Charles sometimes does cleaning. You might ask him.” With a crackle of linen, she was gone.

  “Thanks,” said William Crane. He returned to his oatmeal with relish. He had finished most of it when Maria came out of the kitchen with a platter full of fried ham and eggs.

  “Who’s that man out there?” he asked, helping himself to four slices of ham and three eggs.

  “He’s the one who looks at the bodies.” Maria rolled her eyes. “He’s important. He’s the coroner of this county.”

  “Whew!” Crane took a piece of toast from the tray. “I hope he doesn’t have to look at me.”

  “You said somethin’.” Maria became slate colored. “I don’t want no white man messin’ with this corpse.” The kitchen door quivered behind her.

  When he had finished breakfast, he picked up the suit and stepped out into a golden day. Under the warm sun, roses hopefully spread petals chilled by the frost of the night before. Bees, like tri-motored transport planes, kept regular schedules under the bright, envious eyes of sparrows. The air was shadowed with perfume.

  Crane found Charles near the garage. He was collecting apples which had fallen in the coarse grass under the orchard of six trees that pressed against the far wall of the estate. He had no coat on, and his skin, under the open collar of his shirt, was tan and finely textured.

  Crane held out the trousers and said, “Do you suppose you could touch these up a little for me? I fell in them.” As Charles looked dubious, he hurriedly added, “I don’t care about anything except the spots on the knees and elbows. If you could …?” He produced a five-dollar bill.

  Charles smiled and reached for the clothes. “I won’t charge you anything,” he said, looking at the bill.

  William Crane said, “If you can get me another bottle of that poison, I’ll give you two of these.” Charles nodded and accepted the bill. “I’ll bring the stuff with the suit.”

  “When?”

  “In about an hour.”

  Crane toed an apple, stooped and picked it up. It was red, with a tiny cluster of yellow specks on one side. It was firm between his teeth, and spicy sweet.

  Charles said, “The frost did ’em a lot of good.”

  Crane smacked his lips. “You bet.” He took another bite. “What do you think about all this trouble here?” Sweet juice ran down his throat from the pressure of his teeth.

  “I couldn’t tell you,” said Charles. He shifted the clothes to his left arm and gestured with his right. “I wish I was out of here. That sheriff couldn’t catch the smallpox. Before he knows it, everybody’ll be dead.” He moved toward the servants’ house. “The smart thing to do is to stay inside at night.”

  Cra
ne said, “I guess you’re right.”

  Charles paused. “Every time that L’Adam gets loose, it gives me the willies.” He leaned slightly toward William Crane. “You know I think he has some way of getting out of there whenever he wants.”

  “Why don’t you tell the sheriff?”

  Charles was on his way again. “An’ get canned?” he asked over his shoulder. He walked rapidly to the house, disappeared inside.

  Crane’s nose got juice on it when he took his next bite from the apple, and he rubbed it with his arm. He picked up two more apples and put them in his coat pockets. Over by the front gate there seemed to be something happening. By the heavy iron grille a group had gathered, and through the firm aromatic air there came the sounds of conversation. He strolled over to the gate, making a circuit so that he passed the fountain and the pool. The stream of water, which rose about eight feet before it scattered into spray, came from a pipe jutting out of a cairn of rocks in the center of the circular basin. Fish moved skittishly as his shadow darkened the water.

  Just outside the partially opened gate stood a man whom he recognized as a manifestation of Mr. Williams, the electrician. His face was clean, this time, and bloodless with rage. His jaw was thrust out, his arms waved; he had just finished a short speech. He had on golf knickers, and a large black camera hung from a strap around his neck.

  Facing him like an angry bull was Dr. Eastman. “Get out,” he said. “I don’t give a damn who you are. Get out and stay out.”

  A small man standing behind Mr. Williams spoke eagerly. “But, Doctor, don’t you see how it will appear to the public?” He had a black mustache. He was Tom Burns, and he was the one Mr. Williams had mentioned as camping with him on the hill.

  Dr. Eastman roared, “No! Get out!” He tried to close the gate, but Mr. Williams put a brown shoe against it.

  “What’s all this?” Sheriff Walters pushed past William Crane. With him was the angular coroner. “What’s the matter?” the sheriff demanded. The coroner had a soft black hat and a hooked nose and gold teeth and a large Adam’s apple.