A Puzzle for fools (15 page)

"Now, Mr. Duluth, you mustn't be unsociable. It's going to be very good for you."

For the first time I regretted that I had reached a stage of convalescence where it was no longer permissible to swear at the staff. She had taken my arm and was leading me toward the bridge table. I had the distinct impression that she was deliberately keeping me from Iris. But short of going berserk and knocking her down, there was nothing I could do about it.

I loathed bridge anyway, and that game was a nightmare. Miss Brush chatted gaily and played almost as crazily as the two women patients. Most of the time my gaze and my attention were fixed on that corner by the piano.

Iris seemed a bit restless, I thought, but more lively and mysterious than ever in a dark green dress with trailing sleeves. Once her eyes met mine and I thought I saw in them a look of pleading. My bidding became even more hysterical. Somehow I had to finish that rubber.

But my partner was a timid little school teacher; the type that never bids unless she has all the aces and all the kings in her hand. I never even got a break as dummy.

I noticed that Geddes was being more sociable than usual. I wondered whether it was part of his new determination to track down the mystery behind the voice. When I saw him draw Laribee aside, I was sure of it. I was horribly curious to know what they were saying.

"Four spades," said Miss Brush.

"No spades," said my partner unconventionally.

"Six spades," said Miss Brush's partner.

My attention was divided now between Geddes and Iris. As I offered an absent-minded but heroic seven no-trump, I saw Iris rise and move across the room toward Miss Powell. The Bostonian spinster paused in her solitaire to say something. Geddes had left Laribee now and was talking to Stroubel. Nothing is more exasperating than to know things are going on and to have no means of joining in.

I went ten down on my no-trump bid. To my infinite surprise and delight, Miss Brush was annoyed.

"Really, Mr. Duluth, I don't think you're concentrating."

"Very well," I said quickly. "Let me get you another partner."

I rose with alacrity, roped in Billy Trent who was always delighted for a chance of being with Miss Brush, and hurried over to Iris.

She was back in her chair by the piano now. As I sat down at her side, I could tell at once that something was wrong. Her fingers were playing nervously with the clasp of her pocket-book and there was an expression on her face which gave me a sudden sensation of alarm.

Although we were in the middle of that crowded hall, I gripped her hands and said swiftly:

"What is it, Iris?"

She drew her hands away. I do not think it was because she objected to my holding them. But Moreno had just come in and was hovering near us, looking very waspish and professional.

As she waited for him to move away, her head was bent forward as though she were listening for something which she could not quite hear. Then she whispered:

"It's happened again just now."

I knew she meant that damn voice. We were both slightly trembling.

"What did it say?" I asked hoarsely.

"Almost exactly the same thing."

"About Laribee?"

"Yes. But it said something else, too."

She turned toward me so swiftly that I could feel her breath warm on my cheek. Her eyes, usually dark and slumbering, were awake with a strange flame.

"If I tell you, you'll only think I'm mad, the way all the others do."

I took her hands again. For a moment neither of us said anything. It was a comfort to touch her. I think she felt that comfort, too.

When at length she spoke again, her voice was almost calm.

"It said that I must revenge my father's death, that Mr. Laribee was responsible and that only by killing him would I ever get well. And then—"

"Yes!"

"It said there was a knife in my pocket-book."

"A knife?" I repeated dully.

"Yes. But I haven't dared to look. I hoped perhaps you would come."

I suppose it was just my over-wrought imagination. But at that moment everyone else in the room seemed to have stopped talking. I felt they were all listening, watching.

I pulled myself together with an effort. "Give me the bag," I said.

She handed it to me without speaking. My fingers were shaking as I fumbled at the catch. At last it sprang open.

Blankly I stared at Iris' tiny handkerchief, her compact, a few little things they had allowed her to keep. There was something pathetic about them. They were so everyday, so normal.

It was the contrast which made that other thing so horrible. Lying among them, strangely out of place in that delicate, silk-lined hand bag, was a thin surgical knife.

Swiftly I picked it up and slipped it into my pocket. Iris and I looked at each other.

"But it's absolutely impossible," she whispered.

I knew it was impossible, too. But I wasn't thinking about that. I was just thinking how someone had done this beastly thing to her.

Then, as we sat there together, I saw that glazed, half-hypnotized expression come back into her eyes.

"They want me to kill Laribee," she said slowly, "They're trying to make me do it against my will."

Her hands dropped to her sides and she added with sudden pleading: "But you won't let anything happen, will you?"

"Of course I won't. I've got the knife. It's safe. You can trust me."

Around us in the lounge the sociabilities continued. Vaguely I heard Miss Brush laughing, and then the boom of Laribee's voice. At a table not far off, Miss Powell was shuffling her cards for the solitaire which always came out.

Iris had started trembling again. Regardless of everyone and everything, I put my hand on her shoulder and said quietly:

"You mustn't let them frighten you, Iris. Remember I'm always here."

"But—"

"There aren't any buts," I said, and my mouth was very close to her ear. "I'm going to stand by you whatever happens, because—you see—I love you."

Her eyes met mine and she smiled. I found myself not giving a damn about the knife, the voice, or anything.

As my lips brushed her hair, I wondered whether this wasn't the craziest of all the crazy things that had happened in Dr. Lenz' sanitarium.

IRIS SMILED AGAIN, and that cleared my head, made me suddenly feel very male and purposeful. The knife would completely justify my conviction that something was vitally, dangerously wrong with the sanitarium. I would have to see Lenz again right away.

I told Iris so, and immediately a look of alarm spread across her face.

"No, you mustn't tell him—you mustn't. He'll think I'm worse, keep me shut up in my room. He'll—"

"But he won't think you're worse, Iris. Don't you see? We have the knife. It's proof."

She would not be comforted. Her lips were trembling as though she were near to tears. She couldn't stand it, she said, being shut up there in her room.

"He'll have to see the knife, Iris," I urged. "But if you like I won't tell him I got it from you."

That seemed to dispel her fears. She inclined her head slightly and whispered:

"Of course you must do what you think best. But it's all so dreadful. It makes me feel I shall never get well, never get out of this place."

I knew exactly how she felt. I was almost that way myself. But I did my best to sound optimistic.

"Nonsense," I said, "we'll both be out in a couple of weeks. And what I said yesterday still goes. I'm going to take you with me and put you through the hardest job of training you've ever had in your life. I'm going to make you a big actress or I bust."

As I said it, I knew that I meant it. In some crazy way my life was bound up with hers now. Whatever else did or did not happen, I was going to get Iris out of the sanitarium; going to get her well again.

"You stay here and don't be frightened," I said with an encouraging smile. "I'm going to see Lenz."

As I moved away from her, I happened to glance at Miss Powell. Until that moment I had been too confused and angry to be able to think coherently as to how the knife could possibly have been put into Iris' bag. But when I saw the Boston spinster sitting there with a card poised thoughtfully over her solitaire game, those strange words of the night before came back into my mind:

"There are lovely knives in the surgery."

One thing was patently obvious. Whoever had started this cruel campaign against Iris, was now working either with or through Miss Powell.

I was still musing upon this when the Boston spinster turned to me and nodded an elaborate greeting.

"Good evening, Mr. Duluth. Such typically March weather we're having, aren't we? In like a lion, you know!"

She gave a short, nervous laugh and turned back to her card-cheating.

Moreno was the only person who could give us official permission to see the director at unseasonable hours. Neither he nor Stevens was in the lounge, and my first instinct was to hurry out of the room to find them. Then I remembered my promise to Iris to keep her out of it. Everyone had seen me talking to her. If I were to leave at once, I might arouse suspicions which would inevitably involve her.

Curbing my impatience, I spent the remaining minutes of the social hour in being as sociable as it was in me to be, hoping to draw attention from Iris. I took a short but convincing interest in Miss Powell's solitaire and her very positive views on social reform. I looked over Miss Brush's shoulder and confirmed my previous opinion that she was even worse as a bridge player than myself. I kidded Billy Trent. And then in turn talked to Laribee, Fenwick and Stroubel.

I noticed that Miss Brush was observing this sudden accession of brightness on my part. Doubtless she considered it an indication of advancing convalescence.

It was not until we were in the corridor on our way to bed that I had an opportunity for a word alone with Geddes. I was eager to know what, if anything, he had learned from Laribee, but I only had time to whisper: "I'm going to see Lenz. Something else has happened. Tell you later."

Then Miss Brush caught up with us.

"Attractive girl—Miss Pattison," she murmured.

"Yes," I said guardedly.

"You get on very well with her, don't you, Mr. Duluth?"

"Does that have to be recorded on my chart, too?" I asked rather irritably.

She smiled and I thought I could detect a trace of malice in her eyes. "Oh, come, Mr. Duluth, don't take it that way. I was just complimenting you on your taste in brunettes."

Miss Brush may have been a hard-boiled, efficient nurse, but apparently she was human enough to resent it when one of her little group of worshippers started noticing other women.

Not daring to postpone it any longer, I told her I had to see Lenz. Instantly the smile left her lips and she replied rather sulkily that I would have to ask Moreno. Warren appeared at that moment and she told him to take me down to the young psychiatrist's office.

The night attendant looked rested and less gloomy than usual as we went down the corridor together. He was quite friendly, too. I suspected that he had already heard of the police's belief that his brother-in-law's death had been accidental. With the menace of official cross-examination no longer over him, he had apparently decided to forgive me.

Dr. Moreno was closing the door of a small closet when I entered. I had just time to see a familiar bottle and a tumbler, half full. It was Johnny Walker Black Label and I envied him. But it was a relief to realize that I did not envy him unduly. A few weeks before I would have jumped on him and wrenched the bottle from him like a hungry mountain lion.

I suppose he saw from my expression that I had caught him out, for he smiled and said almost humanly:

"I wish I could ask you to join me, Mr. Duluth." He indicated a chair near his, but I did not sit down.

"I'd like to, doctor," I said, "but I'm afraid I can't stay. I've got to see Dr. Lenz at once."

Moreno stiffened and the good humor left his face. Like most of us, I suppose, he hated it when people wanted to go over his head to the man higher up.

"Dr. Lenz is speaking at a medical meeting in New York," he said coldly. "He will not be back until tomorrow."

"But I've got to see him," I insisted.

"In Dr. Lenz's absence I am in charge of the sanitarium. If there is anything important, you can take it up with me, Mr. Duluth."

The change of expression on my face must have been unflatteringly obvious, for he continued hotly:

"I think it is time I told you, Mr. Duluth, that your attitude toward me and the staff in general has been most uncooperative. I feel you have been holding things back which might have been important. You've been creating a melodrama ..."

"Melodrama!" I cut in. "I only wish it was melodrama. But it's all real—horribly real. It's you and this sanitarium that do your best to dehumanize everything. You were on the stage, weren't you? I suppose you played the tight-lipped, science-must-march-on physician. Well, you've been playing it ever since. And you're such a long way away from reality now that you can't understand it when people start behaving like people instead of neurotic puppets whose function in life is to react correctly to treatment and show the correct development on their progress charts."

Moreno went rather red. "You are exciting yourself, Mr. Duluth," he said quietly. "And, from what I can gather, you have been exciting the other patients, too. If you are not careful, you are going to prove more of a hindrance than a help, not only to us, but also to your own recovery."

As I glared at him, standing there, stiff, almost priggishly neat in his white physician's coat, he seemed to become a symbol of all the red tape, the humoring, and the hypocrisy of that expensive sanitarium. I told him that it was a good job that someone was being a hindrance to the things that were going on. I called him a stuffed shirt and a number of other incoherent but opprobrious names.

He took it very calmly, considering his own annoyance at me. As I raved on I had the uncomfortable feeling that he was going to enter all the epithets on my progress chart as soon as I had left