A Puzzle for fools (9 page)

We were standing very close. I was startled by the look in his eyes.

"And what's my sister's domestic trouble got to do with you?" he exclaimed.

"Nothing," I said. "Nothing at all. I was just asking."

I might have given him a homily on service, courtesy and the tactful handling of his bread and butter, but I didn't. I merely hurried out of the gymnasium in a rather undignified manner.

While I put on my clothes, I found my thoughts returning automatically to the "subversive influence" and its widespread effect upon the inmates of the sanitarium. Already it seemed to have caused everything from surliness in the staff to an epidemic of fear, aggravated neuroses and possibly even murder. And I myself was becoming monotonously involved in each new manifestation.

I was buttoning up my pants when I recollected my talk with Dr. Stevens and in that instant my theatrical idea was born. Stevens had dilated upon the efficacy of psychoanalysis and had explained how he could not dabble in it himself. But I was under obligation to no one. Both Iris and I had been haunted by that elusive voice; both of us were potentially menaced. I seemed more than justified in trying an experiment.

And the experiment, according to the cherubic Stevens, was an elementary one. I had to think up some significant phrase, repeat it to my fellow patients and watch their reactions. It seemed innocent enough. The problem was to find the phase.

With an effort I forced my mind to run over those dreadful moments in the physio-therapy room. I saw once again that distorted dead thing on the gray marble slab. The phrase, of course!
The thing on the slab
… That could have no alarming significance to the uninitiated. But for a guilty person it should come as a distinct jolt.

I finished dressing and moved out into the corridor, feeling a little nervous at my projected role of amateur psycho-analyst.

The passage itself was deserted and I found most of the others in the smoking room under the bright control of Miss Brush. But the day nurse was not as bright as usual. She had lost a great deal of her customary candlepower. She moved about restlessly and couldn't keep the harassed look out of her eyes. She even forgot to smile when Billy Trent brought a cigarette for her to light. Things seemed to be getting on top of her.

I spotted Fenwick alone in a corner. It seemed rather mean to use Stevens' experiment upon his presumed half-brother, but I'd made up my mind and there were to be no exceptions. I sat down at the young spiritualist's side and said softly and guiltily:

"The thing on the slab."

The effect was sensational if not informative. Fenwick turned slowly toward me, his huge eyes glowing with a light that never was on land or sea.

"The thing on the slab?" he repeated. "You mean a manifestation. It is often like that at first—an indeterminate shape floating and something gray. So you saw that! They're in touch with you, too!"

For a moment I thought this might lead to something, but it didn't. He went on talking rapidly, excitedly about ectoplasm and other abstrusely technical phenomena. His loquacity grew with his enthusiasm and he welcomed me as a brother, a convert. I could trace nothing more sinister behind his effusions than excitement at finding a kindred spiritualist. Feeling rather ashamed of myself, I rose and hurried away.

My next chance came when Billy Trent strolled out into the corridor. I followed and engaged him in conversation. Somehow I disliked the idea of applying my hocus-pocus to a kid like Billy. He was so young, guileless and charming. But finally I quashed my scruples and, in the middle of a sentence, lowered my eyes and mumbled the phrase:

'The thing on the slab."

His reaction was instantaneous.

"Oh, that!" he exclaimed. His eyes looked down and I could tell at once that he was scrutinizing the imaginary marble slab of a soda fountain. "You mean those coffee cakes? They're a new line. We're trying them out—two for eight cents."

I gazed at his fresh, eager face and shrugged resignedly.

"What the hell!" I said. "Give me a couple."

After that I thought I'd let the psychology lie a while. I bummed a cigarette from Miss Brush and crossed to Geddes who was lounging in a chair by one of the bridge tables. He had picked up a novel, but he put it down when he saw me.

"Where've you been all day?" he asked with a smile.

I felt a violent urge to talk the whole crazy matter over with him and get his sane British reaction, but I didn't feel courageous enough to break Moreno's specific injunctions.

"Oh, I was just sparring with Lenz," I said vaguely. "He gave me a thorough check-up and reports a remote chance of ultimate recovery."

Geddes became Anglo-India for a while and talked about polo in Calcutta. I found it soothing although I did not know the first thing about polo, or Calcutta, for that matter. While he talked, he idly fingered the novel which he was still holding in his hand.

"What you reading?" I asked in a pause.

"Oh, I'm not reading it. Just something I found on that table."

Casually he flicked the book open and simultaneously, we both gave a little grunt of surprise.

Slipped between the pages was a small scrap of paper. It was lying face upward, and printed there in large, shaky capitals, were the words:

BEWARE OF ISABEL BRUSH

THERE WILL BE MURDER

Neither of us spoke for a moment. There was something about that familiar phrase when written down— something even more sinister than the disembodied voice. My mind was crowded with unpleasant speculations.

"D'you suppose Fenwick's up to his tricks again?" asked the Englishman at length.

"Heaven and the astral plane alone know," I replied grimly.

Geddes suggested showing it to Miss Brush, but I dissuaded him. I thought it would be wiser to keep her out of it. After all, if anyone was to know, it ought to be Lenz.

I put the piece of paper in my pocket and said I would look after it. Geddes seemed only too glad to have the problem taken off his shoulders.

I was extremely eager to know for whom the note was intended but I did not have to wonder long. We were still talking about it when old Laribee came in. He looked around the room and then made straight for us. Grunting something about having forgotten his book, he picked up the novel from the table.

Geddes and I glanced at each other. Then, obeying a momentary inspiration, I remarked:

"The thing on the slab."

Once again my audience reaction was startling. Geddes stared at me as though he were unable to believe his ears; Laribee stood stock still. For a moment his lower lip trembled and he looked like a little boy on the verge of tears. Then with an effort he controlled his features and made one of those imperious gestures which once might have set Wall Street trembling.

"There is to be nothing on the slab," he said firmly. "Nothing but my name and the date of my death. And the funeral, that must be very simple, too. I have to economize, economize. . . ."

He shook his head sadly, as though pondering upon the transience of human existence, and wandered away. Once again I had drawn a blank, and a rather foolish blank at that.

As soon as we were alone again, Geddes turned to me, his eyes still wide with astonishment.

"What on earth did you say that for?" he asked.

I grinned. "It's all right. I'm not cuckoo. Just a fool joke."

"Oh." His expression of concern turned to one of relief. "For a moment I thought our solitary specimen of sanity had gone off the deep end." He smiled diffidently. "That would have been the last straw, Duluth. Having you around is about the only thing that keeps me going."

"Two orphans in the storm," I said. "We'd better stick together."

I was grateful to him for expecting something of me. But the fact that he was worried on my account somewhat heightened my sense of guilt. So far I had succeeded merely in bewildering or upsetting four of my fellow inmates. It was ironical to think that I was rapidly becoming a subversive influence myself.

For a while we sat together in silence. It was Geddes who finally expressed the thought uppermost in both our minds.

"So that note was meant for Laribee," he murmured reflectively.

"Yes," I said, "it was meant for him all right And I'd give quite a lot to know why."

Geddes stroked his mustache and said quietly: "I don't like it, Duluth. I've got a feeling that something pretty queer's going on."

I shrugged.

"You're darn tootin'," I agreed wearily.

SUNDAY, like weekdays, became co-educational in the evening. Of the regular gaieties only dancing was omitted as a gesture to the Sabbath. After dinner on that particular Sunday, a listless Miss Brush conducted us to the central lounge as though nothing had happened to affect the normal curriculum. I was rather surprised, but I suppose it was a sound idea. When people are on edge, it is better for them to be kept occupied. I was hoping to be kept occupied by Iris.

But I was disappointed. She wasn't there. I taxed Mrs. Dell, the women's Miss Brush, with her absence and was told brightly that Miss Pattison felt a little tired. For a while I agonized about it, imagining countless disasters. Then I remembered the mop and reflected that anyone had a right to feel tired after all that manual labor.

Sunday's mood seemed to have impregnated the patients that evening. Although most of the male and female inmates were present, the sexes didn't mix much. We kept in little celibate groups despite sporadic attempts on the part of the staff to start sociabilities.

Geddes, Billy Trent and I played rummy for a while but we gave it up when Geddes fell asleep. Miss Brush tried to inveigle me into a bridge game with three of the women, but I declined politely. I felt depressed and rather jittery.

The Bostonian Miss Powell was by herself in a corner near the grand piano, playing solitaire. I strolled across and sat down in a leather chair at her side. She greeted me with an impeccable courtesy but didn't seem particularly talkative. The whole force of her "good mind" was concentrated upon the game.

As I watched I began to wonder whether she stole cards from a concealed pack and finally decided that she must be doing something crooked. Her demon came out three times running.

Memories of the stop watch incident rose in my mind and with them the recollection of my psycho-analytical experiment which had temporarily slipped from my thoughts. Somehow Miss Powell seemed involved in the intricate undercurrent of mystery and confusion. I decided to try my luck with her.

"There's something very Bostonian about a Sunday evening, don't you think, Miss Powell?" I began tentatively. "It always reminds me of the thing on the slab."

Miss Powell turned to me haughtily, the half shuffled cards suspended over the table. Her forehead rippled in a slight frown, then she said:

"If you refer to the fish-markets, Mr. Duluth, I cannot agree with you. Besides, they are closed on Sundays and very properly, too."

She averted her eyes as though suddenly she associated me with all the uncooked fish in Boston. Her face was puckered with distaste. There seemed nothing for it but to get up and go on my way none the wiser.

My aimless wanderings led me finally to Herr Stroubel. The celebrated conductor stood by a table, idly turning the pages of some musical magazine. As I joined him, he bowed with Viennese courtesy and started talking about the stage.

I listened with interest to his startling but sound ideas on the theatre. Apart from the uncertain restlessness of his eyes he seemed perfectly normal. He asked whether I had done any operatic direction and suggested that he would like to work with me. As he expounded his theories on Wagnerian production his enthusiasm increased. He gesticulated and his words poured out mellifluously.

"It is rhythm that they all lack, Mr. Duluth. Take
Tristan
, for example. All of them, they play it with reverence, treat it as though it were something dead—some museum piece which must be approached with infinite respect. But
Tristan
must live, if it is to be anything. It must have rhythm—rhythm in the playing, the singing, the acting, the direction. Rhythm . . . vitality . . . something arresting!"

"Like the thing on the slab," I put in sheepishly.

"The thing on the slab!" His eyes shone with sudden excitement. "That is a grotesque phrase, and an arresting one." A quick smile lit up his face. "I see rhythm in that, Mr. Duluth; rhythm pulsing through the phrase."

He hurried to the piano, opened up the key board and started to play. I resumed the leather chair which was equidistant from the piano and Miss Powell and sat there, listening.

It was remarkable. As though inspired by the macabre quality of my fool phrase, Stroubel was improvising the weirdest, most alarming piece of music I had ever heard. Chords crashed somberly after one another, seemingly disconnected and yet somehow bound together with a subtle, disturbing rhythm.

Everyone in the room was staring at him now. I noticed Miss Brush's face set with sudden apprehension. I was beginning to get rather panicky myself when he broke off abruptly and slipped into a peaceful Bach chorale. The cool soothing notes gradually slackened the tension.

Although I had often heard him conduct, I had never before heard Stroubel play. There was something rather wonderful about it. He had superb technique and a lot more. Maybe it was his own sadness which lent the notes that strange, nostalgic melancholy. I forgot about Fogarty, about the complexities of the sanitarium, about my own self-inflicted problems. I listened.

The others listened, too. One by one they left what they had been doing and moved toward the piano, until Miss Powell and I were the only two who remained seated. I suppose that people who are a bit off the mental balance react more immediately to music. Billy Trent stood quite close to me, caught up in a kind of trance of attention.

Fenwick was there, too, with a strange, almost opalescent gleam in his eyes. I could see all the others, Geddes, Laribee, Dr. Stevens, the women. Even Miss Brush and Moreno had come up. Their shoulders almost touched. They were very still and silent.