Puzzle for Fiends (10 page)

I suppose it was my invalid weakness, but I felt as if my fancy pajamas were wet and clammy, clinging to my skin.

Netti had been laughing herself silly when Emma had told her that. I wished I could laugh myself silly. But I couldn’t, for here at last was a pattern—a pattern based on the slenderest evidence of servants’ gossip but one which could explain with sinister logic my presence in the household.

What if the Friends
had
killed the old man? What if that was my function? To wait here, trapped in my casts, until the police came to arrest me as Gordy, the patricide? To kill a man and afterwards groom a helpless and unsuspecting amnesiac to play the role of murderer—wasn’t that the diabolically intricate type of plan the Friends might well evolve?

Trying with a great effort to be casual, I said: “Guess you don’t know where she’s working now, Netti?”

“Emma?” She jutted a hip to one side and balanced a cupped hand against it. “Why, sure. Ran into her only maybe a couple of weeks ago down to the Supermarket on the Boulevard. She’s working for some folks called Curtis up on Temple Drive. Crabby old thing. Why, she’s so old she ought to be dead, Mr. Friend. I only hope I die young.” The gums showed again. “Over sixty? No more fun? Not me.”

It was desperately important now to get Emma here. If only I could invent a plausible enough story to have Netti bring her around and smuggle her up…

I started to speak but Netti got in ahead of me. Her eyes gleaming with a sudden, knowing light, she leaned a little closer. I could smell the sourness of gin on her breath.

“Quite a night you had last night, Mr. Friend.”

“Me?” I was still casual.

She leaned nearer. There was spite in her eyes too now—spite that was not directed at me. Maybe she didn’t like the Friend woman any more than Emma had. “I heard all about it. You being woke like that and all scared. Mrs. Friend made me promise, but you and me being pals…”

She broke off. I could tell she had been able to see how her words affected me. She was on the verge of telling me about the old woman and she wanted me to coax her so that she could extract every ounce of satisfaction from this indiscreet confidence.

“Oh, you mean the visitor I had last night?” I said, playing up to her.

“Visitor,” Netti grimaced. “I don’t call that no visitor. Waking up, seeing her bending over you with them big, shivery eyes. Ugh. It’s a shame. That’s what it is. Saying you wasn’t to be told about her just because you’re sick and all.”

“I’m not meant to know about her?”

“No.” Netti stared anxiously as if she was afraid her thunder had been stolen. “You mean you
do
know?”

This was the moment.

“Matter of fact,” I said. “I don’t.”

“What don’t you know, dear?”

That sentence, mild as a gentle spring breeze, wafted from the door.

I looked over Netti’s head.

Mrs. Friend was moving into the room, large, comfortable, smiling her mellow smile.

Netti
grabbed the empty jigger from my hand and hid it clumsily under the napkin. Embarrassment blotched her cheeks with red. Mrs. Friend progressed to the bed, took my hand and smiled at both of us.

“Netti, you’d better be running along. I’m sure cook will be wanting you.”

With a flustered “Yes, Mrs. Friend’, Netti poked her cap straight, made a dive at the tray and scurried out.

It seemed almost impossible that Mrs. Friend had failed to notice Netti’s awkward juggling with the empty glass. But she made no comment. She was carrying a small brown paper sack. As she sat down on my bed, she took a flat disc of chocolate-covered peppermint from the sack and popped it in her mouth. She produced another piece for me.

“There, darling, I don’t think candy’ll hurt you today.” Suspecting what I now suspected, her affectionate sweetness was almost more than I could bear. I had been on the very brink of success with Netti, too. Now everything was gone and Mrs. Friend was feeding me peppermint candy.

“That Netti,” she mused. “Marny swears she sneaks sailors in after we’ve gone to bed. I wouldn’t get too friendly with her, dear.”

“In this cast?” I said.

She laughed her resonant, infectious laugh. Then her face grew grave. “Gordy dear, I do wish you wouldn’t go on being hostile.”

“Hostile?”

“It’s just the amnesia. I realize that. But if only you’d stop being suspicious.” She ate another piece of candy. “We’re awfully harmless, you know. Think of the unattractive mothers and wives and sisters you might have come back to.” She sighed. “But it’s no use arguing, is it? You feel the way you feel and it’s up to us to help you. By the way, Nate’s arrived. He’s brought the wheel chair. He’s instructing Jan how to work it—with gestures. So that Jan can push you around. He’ll be up in a moment—Nate.”

Sitting there in her square-necked widow dress munching candy, Mrs. Friend was terrifically plausible in her role of understanding mother. I tried to think of her as a husband-murderer and the leader of a giant conspiracy to deliver me to the police. The effort was almost impossible. But only almost.

I was tempted to pull the lavender-scented handkerchief out of my pocket and say:
Look at this. It proves you’re all lying. It proves an old woman exists who knows I’m not Gordy Friend.

I didn’t say it, of course. It would be absurdly dangerous to let them know I had evidence to support my suspicions. It was dangerous enough that they sensed I was suspicious at all.

To reassure myself, however, I did feel in my pajama pocket. My own handkerchief seemed smoother and starchier than I had remembered it. When Mrs. Friend turned from me to toy with the pink roses, I glanced down at the pocket. The handkerchief, neatly thrusting out of it, was brand new. I pulled it out and, with unsteady fingers felt for the lavender-scented handkerchief which should have been beneath it.

It was not there.

By then I was so impressed by the almost superhuman cleverness of the Friends that I thought Mrs. Friend must somehow have guessed its existence and slipped it out of my pocket herself. Then I remembered Jan. Jan had taken off my pajamas to bathe me. Jan, with his passion for the detail of tidiness, had probably changed my handkerchief and pulled out the old woman’s one with it.

I felt a mixture of exasperation at myself and despair. The handkerchief had been my only tangible clue to convince the outside world, if I ever reached it, that the Friends were my enemies. Now it was gone.

Mrs. Friend had lost interest in the roses and, leaning forward, started unnecessarily to plump the pillows behind my head.

“I’m not being a very good nurse, am I, dear? I’m always that way about everything, I’m afraid. I’m thrilled to begin with and then I get bored. Too bad you were unconscious when you first came home. I was such an impressive nurse then. I took your temperature and your pulse and sat with you and gave you all the right medicine at the right times. By the way, aren’t you supposed to be having something now?”

On principle I was on my guard against any of Mrs. Friend’s medicines. “I feel fine,” I said.

“I am glad, darling. But we’ll ask Nate when he comes. See what he says.”

Nate came then. The young doctor strolled into the room. That morning he was in a formal grey suit but the general tweedy effect remained. He was carrying a green book which looked like a telephone book. He tossed it down on a table.

“Hello, Nate,” said Mrs. Friend. “I hope Jan was able to understand how to work the chair.”

“Sure. For someone who’s meant to be simple-minded, he’s a bright lad. If you ask me, he doesn’t learn English just because he can’t be bothered, not because he’s too stupid.” Dr. Croft was at the bedside giving me a long, serious look. “Well, Gordy, how do you feel?”

“He still doesn’t quite trust us, Doctor,” said Mrs. Friend. “He’s being polite, but I can tell.”

The tip of Dr. Croft’s tongue appeared between his white teeth. As a gesture, it was meant to indicate brisk, professional reflection. He succeeded only in looking seductive-the Sultan’s favorite inviting me to slip with him behind a Persian arras.

“I’ve been thinking, Gordy. You’ve got this bug in your brain. I’m not worried. It’s perfectly natural for you to rebel against your identity. But we’ve got to clear it up, and the only way I can think of is to get in another doctor.”

He grabbed a chair and, spinning it around, sat down on it back to front.

“I know plenty of doctors with experience in matters like this, Gordy. I could bring my pick of three or four excellent men and they would all tell you the same thing. But,”—he examined his own dusky-skinned hand—“that wouldn’t do. Just because I’d selected a man, you’d suspect he was in cahoots with me, wouldn’t you? It’s crazy, of course, imagining a reputable doctor would risk his professional career trying to make you believe you’re someone you’re not. But that’s the way you’d react. Don’t feel bad about it, old man. You can’t help it. That’s just the way these things go.”

Dr. Croft’s talent for candor was as disarming as Mrs. Friend’s.

“So.” He smiled suddenly, got up and, crossing the room for the green book, brought it to the bedside. “Here’s what we do.” He handed me the book. “Here’s the telephone book. Look up the physicians in the classified selection. Pick any one at random. And we’ll let you call him yourself.” He patted my arm. “No chance at collusion there. That’s the way to do it, my boy. That’ll clear up this psychological block. Then we’ll have a free hand and your memory’ll be back before you can spell Aesculapius.”

I took the telephone book. I looked at Dr. Croft and then at Mrs. Friend. They were both smiling affectionately. For a moment I was almost forced to believe that I had grotesquely exaggerated the implications of a sour servant’s scandalous gossip, a doddering old woman’s fancies, and my own amnesiac’s whimsies. Surely no conspirators, however daring, could make their victim so frank an offer as this.

I found the Physician column in the Classified section. Dr. Frank Graber, I saw. Dr. Joseph Green, Dr. Decius Griddlecook.

Griddlecook. The name fascinated me. For a moment I toyed with the idea of calling Dr. Griddlecook. Then, it began to dawn on me how ingenious this latest ruse of the Friends’ was.

If I did call Dr. Griddlecook, I would have to telephone as an invalid who was not satisfied with the services of his own personal physician. That, from the start, would make me an eccentric in Dr. Griddlecook’s eyes. Then he would have to come to the house. He would be greeted by Dr. Croft, Mrs. Friend, Selena, and Marny. Sweetly, attractively, they would represent themselves as an anxious family eager to settle the morbid doubts of a beloved son. Long before Dr. Griddlecook reached my bedside, he would be prejudiced. And once I talked to him, what could I say? That an old woman, whose existence was denied, had told me I was not Gordy Friend and had dropped a handkerchief which was subsequently taken from me. And that I had a wild idea Mr. Friend had been murdered and I was being groomed to take the rap.

Dr. Croft and Mrs. Friend were still watching me intently waiting for my answer.

“Well, dear?” asked Mrs. Friend. “Don’t you think Nate’s got a terribly good idea?”

Dr. Griddlecook, as a potential savior, faded in my mind. All I’d achieve by calling him would be to put the Friends more on their guard, and I had no chance of outwitting them until they were convinced that I was one hundred per cent duped. Here was my opportunity to bluff.

I let the telephone book drop. I gave them what I hoped was my blandest smile.

“You’re taking this too seriously,” I said. “I don’t want another doctor’s opinion. Yesterday I did have some crazy feeling about not being Gordy. But it’s gone today.”

“Darling boy,” beamed Mrs. Friend.

Dr. Croft was still watching me. “You really mean that?”

“Sure.”

“Honest? This is important, you know—important for your recovery.”

“Cross my heart and hope to die.” I grinned up at Nate.

“After all, you took care of my father and you’re taking care of me. I’d be a dope not to trust the old family physician.”

I had said that partly to discover just what Nate Croft had had to do with Mr. Friend’s last illness. I got a rise out of Mrs. Friend.

Gazing gravely at the pink roses, she murmured: “Nate wasn’t your father’s doctor, dear. Old Dr. Leland was. A most reputable old duck. But just a little stuffy.” She turned her illuminated smile on me. “You could have him to see you, if you like. But I’m sure you’ll find that Nate’s a lot more fun.”

“Uhuh,” I shook my head. “I’m sticking to Nate.”

So Mr. Friend’s death-bed had been attended by old reputable Dr. Leland. Presumably, too, old reputable Dr. Leland had signed the death certificate. And the fact that the Friends were ready to have me see Dr. Leland proved they weren’t bluffing. I felt a lot easier in my mind. They might have Nate Croft sewed up. But surely they couldn’t have made a conspirator out of old reputable Dr. Leland too.

I glanced at Nate to see how the question had affected him. It didn’t seem to have affected him at all.

“So you’re ready to tag along with me, eh, Gordy? Swell and dandy.” His voice was hearty as a country-club locker-room. “That’s our last obstacle gone. Now we’ll go ahead like a house afire.”

“Lovely.” Mrs. Friend held the paper sack out to Dr. Croft. “Have some candy to celebrate.”

“Thank you.”

Dr. Croft took a piece and nibbled at it daintily.

“Okay, Gordy. Now listen, old man. I’ve brought the wheel chair. This afternoon I want to try you out in it. You’ll get more liberty that way. I think you’ll enjoy getting out of this boring old bedroom and I think you’re up to it. But first”—he glanced at his watch—“I think you ought to have a little sleep now. To freshen you up, marshal your strength.”

“I was wondering whether I should have given him a pill,” murmured Mrs. Friend. She moved towards the tray of medicine.

“Don’t bother. I’ve got one here. It’ll work fast and wear off soon.” Dr. Croft produced a little box from the pocket of his jacket. Mrs. Friend brought a glass of water. Dr. Croft handed me a capsule.