A Puzzle for fools (8 page)

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.

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.

The physio-therapy room was closed, and, from the muffled sounds which I heard as we passed it, I guessed that some of Green's men were still in there. Warren took me to the little-used gymnasium. There wasn't much equipment down there so he suggested wrestling as the most effective type of exercise.

We wrestled. At least, he did. I suppose it was good for me, but I did not think so at the time. Although he claimed to be tired, he put up a pretty good imitation of an animated steel vise.

We were alone there, quite some way from the main part of the wing. At one instant he twisted me into a particularly complicated hold which he described with grim inappropriateness as a very pretty cradle. As he rocked me to and forth, stretching my legs in a manner worthy of the Spanish Inquisition, I was suddenly assailed by a feeling of blind, almost overwhelming panic. I suppose it was stupid of me, but I could not stop myself thinking of the night before—of Fogarty and the strait-jacket.

This curative torture went on for a good ten minutes. Warren threw me about far more than was necessary. And when it was over, I saw the reason why. As I reproached him mildly for contorting me into a human pretzel, he replied sourly:

"Well, you got me into a pretty tough spot telling the cops what I said last night about me and Fogarty."

I was surprised at his frankness; surprised, too, at the truculence of his attitude. After all, I was an expensive and fragile patient.

"I'm sorry," I said. "They asked me to give all the dope I had."

"Yeah. They kept me answering questions for a couple of hours, tried to make out me and Fogarty had quarreled. Lucky my sister could check up on me. Otherwise I might be in jail by now. Those dumb cops always want to arrest someone."

"That's too bad," I murmured. "You shouldn't go around shooting your mouth off if you don't want people to repeat what you say/' We were moving to the door when I remembered something. "By the way, why was Mrs. Fogarty crying last night?"

He wheeled toward me, and there was a different expression on his cadaverous face.

"What you driving at?" he said.

"I thought there might have been some domestic trouble," I replied lightly.