A Puzzle for fools (27 page)

Authors: Patrick Quentin

Tags: #Crime

BOOK: A Puzzle for fools

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Miss Brush took his arm and led him affectionately forth. Of course, she couldn't resist one dazzling glance at me over her shoulder. Married or single, Miss Brush would always be Miss Brush, the patients' delight. And probably she would always take her professional duties just a shade too seriously.

I was about to follow them when Lenz called me back. His benignly bearded face was smiling. With a slightly foreign gesture he indicated a chair.

"Well, Mr. Duluth," he said quietly, "I am very happy that some good has come out of these two tragedies. Your own recovery is one of the things that makes me happiest. By your brilliant logic tonight you showed that your mental processes have emerged unscathed from their temporary cloud. And—if you will forgive me—you showed me that you have a splendid mind, the kind of intelligence that the world needs."

"The kind of intelligence which goes just so far," I said despondently, "and then draws the wrong conclusion. Exactly what you'd expect from a drunk."

"Not at all, Mr. Duluth. It was worthy of the most—er— teetotal of persons." He emitted the nearest approach to a chuckle which his Jovian dignity would permit. "You must not underestimate your deductions since they were the same as my own."

"But you got the right man," I said.

"Ye-es." The director's voice was rather hesitant. '1 came upon the correct solution eventually. But, to tell you the truth, until this evening I was suspecting someone quite different."

"You were?" I asked, suddenly alert.

"I knew from the start that we were dealing with a very sane, very talented and very intelligent person. I'm afraid I underestimated the mental and physical acrobatics of Mr. Geddes." He leaned forward as if to whisper an Olympian secret. "I feel you should know that I do not make a practice of taking patients into my confidence on sanitarium matters. I only did so in your case through a scientific miscalculation far more unpardonable than your own."

"But who did you think ... ?"

"I did not see how it could be anyone but yourself, Mr. Duluth."

I sat there staring into those twinkling gray eyes as dazedly as on that first night when I had been sitting in the same chair, wrapped in Miss Brush's blanket.

Then the humor of it all struck me flat between the eyes and I started to laugh like a fool.

"So you set a subversive influence to catch itself!" I exclaimed weakly.

"I apologize for my mistake, Mr. Duluth, but at least, it proved to be good therapy. I think the activity helped you." The director passed a hand reflectively across his beard. "Strangely enough, I believe all these disturbances have helped the other patients, too. They seem more alert, more interested. That is something new in my experience as a psychiatrist."

"The Murder Cure," I said, smiling. "That's a swell new appeal for the sanitarium prospectus."

Lenz did not speak for a moment. He was tapping his silver pencil on the desk. "My only regret, Mr. Duluth," he said at length, "is that you will be leaving us so soon. The regret is personal, of course. Professionally, I am bound to be delighted."

A week or two ago I'd have given anything to hear him say that. But now his words depressed me.

"Yes," he was murmuring, "you could of course leave us tomorrow. But I am going to ask you to stay on for a while as my guest. Yon were kind enough to help me in the past, now there is another little matter ..."

"Another subversive influence?"

"No. This problem is a patient. A patient who needs only an interest in life to insure complete recovery. I was hoping that perhaps you could supply that interest."

Slowly, serenely, he rose to his feet and moved toward the door. As he paused a moment on the threshold, he looked once again like the very Adam of conjurors about to produce from nowhere the primeval white rabbit.

"I would like you to talk to the patient in question."

With a slight, valedictory nod, he was gone.

I knew, of course, what he had meant. And somehow the knowledge brought back to me the tingling nervousness of a Broadway first night. I was all keyed up and excited, but I wasn't jittery any more. At last the door opened and I sprang to my feet

"Iris ... !"

"Peter ... !"

She didn't move. Neither did I. We just stood there, looking at each other. I don't know why or how, but I guess it was the same way people in love have looked at each other ever since the world started spinning on its cock-eyed axis.

Or—in our particular case—like a couple of nuts.

FIN

PATRICK QUENTIN

Patrick Quentin is one of the pseudonyms used by two writers of English origin who have lived the bulk of their lives in the U.S.A. Under the names of Patrick Quentin, Q. Patrick, and Jonathan Stagge, they have written some thirty mystery novels and over a hundred short stories. Since their discharge from the army both of them have spent the summer and autumn months in New England where they write concentratedly together, doing a little amateur farming as a relaxation. During the winter and spring, they separate and travel, gathering material for future stories. Although they have investigated the Far East, Africa, and South America, their most frequent haunts have been France, Italy, Bermuda, and Mexico. Each, temporarily forswearing the collaboration, has recently written a straight novel on his own.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

As Patrick Quentin