Puzzle for Fiends (12 page)

I looked around me. The built-in bookshelves of pickled oak took up most of the wall space. The photograph could have been slipped behind any of the rows of books. But first I decided to try the desk where the telephone and typewriter stood. The first drawer contained receipted and uninformative statements, and a box which was filled with bills of various denominations and which presumably was Mrs. Friend’s petty cash Fort Knox. But as I pulled open the second, a photograph stared up at me.

It was a photograph in a frame which exactly matched the four other photographs on the wall. Taut, I picked it up and looked at it. It was a photograph of a young man with a blond crew haircut, an amused mouth, and straight, ironic eyes which reminded me of Marny’s.

The frame and those eyes were almost as good as a signature.

There was no doubt about this, I was sure.

In my hand I was holding a photograph of Gordy Friend.

My
first thought was: This proves it once and for all. This isn’t a picture of me.

Then the propellers, scarcely more than a rustle, stirred in my mind, bringing back some of the old confusion. How did I know whether I looked like that photograph or not? Amnesia had swallowed up all memories of my personal appearance. Since my return to consciousness, I’d had no chance to look at myself. There had been no accessible mirror in the bedroom.

Perhaps I did look like the photograph. Then what? Would that make me Gordy Friend, after all?

A long, bright mirror gleamed on the far wall. I trundled the chair towards it. That was one of the strangest sensations I’d had—moving towards a mirror with absolutely no idea of what reflection I would see in it.

I drew the chair up in front of the mirror. Before I looked at myself, I deliberately studied the photograph until every detail of it was fixed in my mind. Then I looked at myself.

The big moment was disappointingly inconclusive. The reflection, looking back at me, had the same general type of features as the photograph. From what I could see of it through the bandages, my hair was the same middle shade of blond. I was, I judged, a few years older, and my face was more sure of itself, aggressive. I was almost certain that the picture was not of me, and yet there was enough similarity to leave a shadow of doubt in my mind.

For a moment I forgot the photograph in the simple fascination of studying my own face. I liked it. And in a way it was familiar. I didn’t exactly remember it, but it wasn’t a stranger’s face.

“Peter,” I said to myself.

Somehow the reflection strengthened my memory’s weak response to that name. Iris, I tried. Sailor. San Diego. Propellers. Seeing someone off on a plane.

Something white moved into the corner of the mirror. I glanced from my own face and saw Selena’s reflection behind mine. She had stepped across the threshold and was standing, hesitantly, by the door. She was still in her swimming suit with her wet hair clinging around her head. She hadn’t realized I could see her in the mirror. She was staring straight at me. Her face was wary, alert.

I slipped the photograph of the young man under the green robe which covered my legs.

“Gordy, baby,” called Selena.

I turned the chair as if I’d only just discovered she was there. She was smiling her warm, coaxing smile now. All the wariness was camouflaged. She crossed to me and kissed me on the mouth. Her lips were cool and fresh from the water.

“Darling, we were worried. You suddenly disappeared. We thought something frightful had happened. What on earth are you doing?”

“Looking at myself in the mirror. It’s the first time I’ve seen my face.”

She laughed. “Baby, it’s a face to be looked at with pride, isn’t it?”

“It’s okay.” I pointed at the photographs over the mantel. “The old man with the white moustache—is he my father?”

“Of course. “Her hand slid down the back of my neck, caressing it. “Remember him?”

I shook my head. Her hand moved around to my throat and chin and then up, gently touching my mouth. She was expecting me to kiss her hand and be lost for love of her. I was getting on to Selena now. I wasn’t such easy prey, any more.

“Selena,” I said, “why isn’t there a photograph of me with the others?”

Her hand was moving over the bandages on my head now, stroking my hair. “Darling, don’t you remember? You loathed cameras. You’d never have your picture taken.”

I might have known she would have an answer ready for that. She perched herself on the arm of my wheel chair. As she did so, her hip must have hit the corner of the photograph frame, for she glanced down and, slipping her hand under the robe, pulled out the photograph.

For a moment she stared at it, her dark blue eyes narrowing very slightly. Then she laughed and kissed my ear, murmuring:

“Darling, what on earth are you doing with this dreary photo?”

I didn’t have Selena’s technique in deceit. I hesitated just a fraction too long before I said:

“I just found it. I didn’t know what I looked like. I told you. So I carried it over to the mirror to see if it was a picture of me.”

That didn’t explain, of course, why I had so obviously been concealing it under the rug or why I had “just found” something that had been in a drawer. But it was the best I could do.

Casually I said: “Is it of me, by the way? It’s hard to tell with all these bandages.”

She laughed again. “Baby, don’t be absurd. Of course it’s not you. I told you you never had your photograph taken. It’s your Cousin Benjy. Don’t you remember him? Such a dismal boy. Yale loved him though. They gave him all kinds of prizes for meteorology. Now he’s doing something gloomy about the weather in China.”

From the tone of her voice I knew I hadn’t fooled her and I cursed inwardly. She knew now that my new trusting attitude was a fake. She knew that, in spite of my protestations, I had still been suspicious enough to have sneaked into the house and snooped through drawers for the photograph. I’d lost my only advantage.

From now on they’d be doubly on their guard.

Selena tossed the photograph onto a couch and announced that she had come to wheel me back to the pool. I told her the sun was too hot and that I preferred to stay indoors for a while. I didn’t expect her to leave it at that, but she did. She must have been sure that I could do no more damage.

She smiled, kissed me, said: “Come soon, baby. We miss you,” and left me.

I had refused to go with her not because I had any idea of what to do next but simply because I felt too depressed to keep up a pretense in front of the others. The lavender-scented handkerchief, Netti, and now the photograph—one by one, with an efficiency that was appalling, the Friends had trumped all my aces.

I was left with nothing now to counteract that sensation of impending danger.

The phone on the corner table started to ring. Quickly, before the ring could attract Mrs. Friend or anyone else in the house, I rolled the chair over and picked up the receiver. My pulses were racing. I had no plan, only an instinct that any contact with the outside world was desirable. I was more cautious now, though. My latest defeat by Selena had taught me that.

I said into the receiver in a flat, impersonal voice: “Mr. Friend’s residence.”

A man’s voice replied. It sounded elderly and rather fussed. “May I speak to Mrs. Friend? Mrs. Friend Senior?”

“Mrs. Friend is out at the pool,” I lied. “Can I take a message?”

The man coughed. “I—ah—to whom am I speaking?”

Be careful, I thought.

“This is the butler. “For safety I added: “The new butler.”

“Oh,” the man paused. “Yes, perhaps you would give Mrs. Friend a message. This is Mr. Petherbridge, the—ah—late Mr. Friend’s lawyer. Please tell Mrs. Friend that I will be up tomorrow afternoon with Mr. Moffat as arranged unless I hear from her to the contrary.”

“Very well, Mr. Petherbridge.”

“Thank you. And—er—how is her son, by the way? What a distressing accident! I trust he will be well enough for—for tomorrow?”

“Yes, Mr. Friend seems pretty well considering,” I said. In my precarious role as butler, I dared ask no more than: “Tomorrow’s the day then, sir?”

“Yes, tomorrow.” Mr. Petherbridge made a strange gurgling sound that might have been a cough. “Tomorrow’s the ordeal.”

The ordeal.

“Anything else, sir?” I asked.

“No, no. That will be all. If you will be kind enough to have Mrs. Friend call me if the plans are changed. But I do not see how they can be.”

There was a click that cut me off remorselessly from contact with Mr. Petherbridge, the—ah—late Mr. Friend’s lawyer.

For a moment I sat staring at the receiver. I was still an invalid emotionally as well as physically. My control over myself was slight and that conversation, so incomprehensible and yet so filled with hints at a plan coming to a head, toppled me over into extreme anxiety. The ordeal—tomorrow. Time then was a crucial factor. I had only a few hours left before—something happened. The trapped feeling was almost more than I could endure. I felt like a fly on a fly-paper.

As I looked at the telephone, a reckless idea came. Netti was gone, but she had left something behind. She had told me that Emma, the old cook, was working for some people called Curtis on Temple Drive.

I picked up the receiver. I said to the operator:

“I want some people called Curtis on Temple Drive. I haven’t got the number.”

The wait seemed interminable. At last the operator said: “George Curtis, 1177 Temple Drive?”

“That’s it.”

“Lona 3-1410. You want me to call that number now?”

“Please.”

I heard the soft buzz of the call tone at the other end of the wire. How I would persuade Emma to come to the Friends’ house I did not know. I did not know, either, how, once I got her there, I would be able to smuggle her in and use her to expose the conspiracy. But Emma thought Mr. Friend had been murdered. Somehow I had to know what had put that idea in her mind.

As I waited, the silent room behind me seemed crowded with invisible enemies. At last the call buzz was cut. A woman’s voice said: “Yes?”

“Is that the Curtis house?”

“Yes.”

“Can I speak to the cook, please?”

“The cook? Why—er—yes. Wait a moment.”

There was a second, grueling pause. Then another female voice, hoarse and defensive, asked: “Hello. Who is it?”

“Is that Emma?”

“Who?”

“Is that Emma who used to work for the Friends? “

“Emma?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, I guess you mean the cook. Old with grey hair?”

“Yes, yes,” I said.

There was a pause. Then the voice said: “She’s been gone a couple of weeks. I’m working here now.”

My heart sinking, I said: “You know where I could get in touch with her?”

“Emma? She got sick. She’s old, you know. She doesn’t work no more.”

“But do you know where she is?”

“She went off to live with her daughter. Where was it now? Wyoming? Wisconsin? One of them States.”

“Then...”

The wire was cut at the other end. Slowly I let the receiver slip out of my fingers back onto its stand.

“Telephoning, Gordy?”

I looked up. Marny was standing in the doorway. She was leaning against the door frame, a cigarette lolling from her red mouth. Her young eyes, curiously bright, were fixed on my face.

The hopelessness of escape even for a moment from the Friends’ watchfulness swept over me. I tried to smile.

“Just a call came in for mother,” I said. “A Mr. Petherbridge.”

I didn’t know how much of my disastrous call to Emma’s successor she had overheard. She gave no sign either. She moved to my side and put her hands on my shoulders. Suddenly the cynical veneer left her face and she was just a young unaccountably frightened kid. In a strange broken voice, she blurted:

“Is it too awful?”

“Too awful?”

Her lips were trembling.

“You’re such a sweet guy. I can’t bear watching it much longer.”

“Watching what?”

“What they’re doing to you. Selena... Mimsey... Nate, all of them. They’re fiends. That’s what they are—fiends.”

Impulsively she slid onto the arm of the wheel chair. She put her arms around my neck and pressed her cheek against mine. When she spoke again, her voice was choked with sobs.

“I hate them. I’ve always hated them. They’re as bad as Father, worse.” She was kissing my cheeks, my lids, my lips, wildly. “They’ll do anything—anything and never care.”

I was staggered. Was this some new diabolic ruse of the Friend family? Or had I, incredibly, been given an ally when all hope seemed gone? I put my arm around her, drawing her close so that I felt her young breasts pressed against me. She was weeping passionately now. I kissed her hair. She shivered and clung closer.

“Tell me,” I said. “Marny, baby, tell me. What are they doing to me?”

“I can’t... I can’t... I...”

She pulled herself out of my grasp. She looked down at me, her face spattered with tears.

“I can’t... I can’t...”

She put her hand up to her mouth. She gave a little whimper. She turned, abruptly, and ran out of the room.

I hurried
the wheel chair out onto the porch.

“Marny,” I called. “Marny, come back.”

She was running down the grass path away from me. She paid no attention. In a moment she was out of sight through the arch which led to the swimming pool.

Fiends. That ominous word echoed in my ears. Mimsey, Selena, Nate—they’re all fiends.

And it was Marny who had said it, Marny who was in the conspiracy, Marny who knew exactly what they were going to do to me.

“Hello, dear. All alone?”

I looked up. Mrs. Friend had come out of the library and was moving towards me. Her massive beauty was opulent as the blossoming flower-beds. She had a wicker garden basket looped on one arm. In her hand she carried a large pair of garden shears. Who did she remind me of? One of the Fates? The Fate who cuts the thread of life?

“How nice, dear. I thought you’d be down with the others by the pool. We can have a little visit together. Let’s go around the corner into the patio. It’s shady there.”