I
The room was big and airy, and the walls and ceiling were a dead Chinese white. Cold, white plastic curtains were drawn across the windows, and a shaded lamp made a pool of light over the opposite bed.
There was a man sitting up in the bed. He was reading. His small-boned face with its high, wide forehead gave the impression of a young student reading for an examination.
I watched him through half-closed eyes for some minutes, wondering in a vague, detached sort of way who he was and what he was doing in this room with me. There was something odd about the book he was reading. It was a big volume, and the print was close set and small. It was only when he turned a page and I saw a chapter heading that I realized he was holding the book upside down.
I wasn’t surprised to find myself in this room. I had a vague idea I had been in it for some time: perhaps days, perhaps weeks. The feel of the narrow high bed I was lying in was familiar: almost as familiar as the feel of my own bed in my beach cabin which now seemed as remote as last year’s snow.
I knew in an instinctive kind of way—I was quite sure I hadn’t been told—that I was in hospital, and I tried to remember if I had been knocked down by a car, but my mind was working badly. It refused to concentrate, and kept jumping across the room to the man in the opposite bed. Its only interest was to find out why he was holding his book the wrong way up, for it seemed to me the book looked dry and complicated enough without adding to the difficulty of reading it.
The man in the bed was young; not more than twenty-four or so, and his thick fair hair was over long and silky-looking. He had very deep-set eyes, and the lamp cast shadows in them so they seemed to be two dark holes in his face.
I suddenly became aware that he was also watching me, although he pretended to be reading; watching furtively from under his eyelids; watching as he turned a page slowly with a concentrated frown on his face.
“You’ll find it easier if you turn the book the right way up,” I said, and was surprised how far away my voice sounded, as if I were speaking in another room.
He glanced up and smiled. He was a nice-looking youngster : a typical collegian, more at home with a baseball bat than a book.
“I always read books this way up,” he said; his voice was unexpectedly high pitched. “It’s more fun, and it’s just as easy once you get the knack of it, but it does take a lot of practice.”
He laid the book down. “Well, how do you feel, Mr. Seabright? I’m afraid you have had a pretty rotten time. How’s the head?”
It was a funny thing, but now he mentioned it I discovered my head ached and an artery was pounding in my temple.
“It aches,” I said. “Is this a hospital?”
“Well, not exactly a hospital. I think they call it a sanitarium.”
“You mean a sanatorium, don’t you? A sanitarium is a nut foundry.”
He smiled and nodded his blond head.
“That’s it exactly: a nut foundry.”
I closed my eyes. Thinking was difficult, but I made the effort. It took me several minutes to remember the swish of a descending cosh, the man in the scarlet sweatshirt, and Maureen’s wild, terrified scream. A sanitarium. I felt a little prickle of apprehension run up my spine like spider’s legs. A sanitarium!
I sat up abruptly. Something held my left wrist, pinning it to the bed. I turned to see what it was. A bright nickle-plated, rubber-lined handcuff gripped my wrist. The other cuff was fastened to the rail of the bed.
The blond man was watching me with mild interest.
“They think it’s safer for us to be chained up like that,” he said. “Ridiculous, really, but I have no doubt they mean well.”
“Yes,” I said and lay back. More spider’s legs ran up my spine. “Who runs this place?”
“Why, Dr. Salzer, of course. Haven’t you met him? He’s quite charming. You’ll like him. Everyone does.”
Then I remembered the man in the scarlet sweatshirt had said he would hide me away where no one would ever find me. An asylum, of course, was a pretty fool-proof hiding-place. But Salzer didn’t run an asylum. His place was a retreat for the over-fed: Nurse Gurney had said so.
“But I thought Salzer ran a kind of Nature Cure racket,” I said carefully. “Not a nut foundry.”
“So he does, but there’s a wing set aside for the mentally sick,” the blond man explained.
He walked two fingers along the edge of the night table. “It is not usually talked about.” He walked his fingers back again. “It’s so much more pleasant for relatives to say you are having a health cure than that you’re locked up in a padded cell.”
“Is that where we are?” I asked.
“Oh, yes. The walls are padded. They don’t look like it, but try punching them. It’s quite fun.” He leaned out of bed and hit the wall. His fist made no sound. “It’s rubber, I think. By the way, my name’s Duncan Hopper. You may have heard of my father: Dwight Hopper.”
As far as I could remember, Dwight Hopper was something big in the paint and distemper trade. I didn’t know he had a son.
“I’m Malloy,” I said. “Victor Malloy.”
He cocked his head on one side and regarded me fixedly.
“Who?”
“Malloy.”
“Are you sure?” He smiled slyly now. “They tell me your name is Edmund Seabright.”
“No; Malloy,” I said, again feeling spider’s legs run up my spine.
“I see.” He began once more to walk his fingers along the edge of the night table. He seemed to like doing that. “I wonder if you would mind if I called you Seabright? Bland calls you Seabright. Dr. Salzer calls you Seabright. Seabright is the name on your papers. I know, because I persuaded Bland to let me look at them. You are described as a manic depressive. Did you know?”
My mouth suddenly went dry.
“A—what?”
“Manic depressive. I dare say it’s nonsense.”
“Yes, it’s nonsense.” I found it increasingly difficult to speak and think calmly.
“I’m so glad. Depressives can be so tiresome. I didn’t think you were, and I told Bland so. But Bland is very stupid; a very uneducated person. He never listens to what I say. I’m afraid you won’t like him. He says I am a paranoiac, but that’s complete nonsense. We had a terrific argument about it this morning, and he lent me this book. It tells you about paranoia. Really quite interesting. But I haven’t one single symptom. There’s quite an interesting chapter on manic depressives.” He walked his fingers along the table edge before saying, “Do you have hallucinations?”
I said I didn’t have hallucinations.
“I’m so glad.” He seemed genuinely pleased. “But it is odd you think your name is Malloy, isn’t it? Or perhaps you don’t think so?”
I said very distinctly and slowly, “It isn’t odd because Malloy happens to be my name.”
“I see.” He reached for the book and began to flip over the pages. “Then if you are not Edmund Seabright why are you here?”
“It’s a long story,” I said, and it seemed to me to be suddenly tremendously important to make this blond man believe me. If he didn’t, who else would? “I am a sort of private investigator and I am engaged on a case. I have found out Dr. Salzer is responsible for the murder of Eudora Drew. It’s too involved to go into now, but because of what I have found out I have been kidnapped.” I don’t know how I got those last words out. It sounded terrible, but to save my life I couldn’t have put it any better. A little spark of panic began to well up inside me as I saw the look of polite incredulity on Hopper’s face.
“Dr. Salzer?” he said, and gave his charming smile. “A murder? That’s interesting. And you are some sort of detective? Is that right?”
“Now, look,” I said, struggling up in bed. “I know what you are thinking. You think I’m crazy, don’t you?”
“Of course not, Mr. Seabright,” he said gently. “I don’t think anything of the kind. I know you aren’t very well, but not crazy: definitely and certainly not.”
I licked my dry lips.
“You’re sure about that?”
“Of course.”
But I saw by the amused sly expression in the deep-set eyes that he was lying.
II
Hopper told me that around nine o’clock Bland would come in to turn out the light.
“In about five minutes,” he said, consulting his wrist-watch. “Bland lets me have this watch because I give him a hundred cigarettes a week. My father sends them in to me, and, of course, I am not allowed to smoke. They seem to think I would set fire to the bed.” He laughed, showing small, even, white teeth. “Ridiculous, of course, but I suppose they mean well.”
Under cover of the sheet I had been trying to work my hand out of the handcuff. If I could once get free, I told myself, nothing, not even a machine-gun, would stop me getting out of this place. But the cuff was shaped to my wrist, and, short of cutting off my hand or having the key, there was no way out of it.
“What day is it?” I asked suddenly.
Hopper opened a drawer in the night table and consulted a diary.
“It’s the 29th of July. Don’t you keep a diary? I do. Tomorrow is an anniversary. I have been here three years.”
But I wasn’t listening. I had to think long and carefully before I remembered that it had been the 24th of July when Maureen had taken me to her retreat. Five days! Paula and Kerman would be searching for me. Would they think to look here? Even if they thought I was here, how could they get at me? Salzer had Brandon’s protection, and Brandon wouldn’t pay attention to anything Kerman said.
If Sherrill—and I was sure the man in the scarlet sweatshirt had been Sherrill—hadn’t been absolutely sure that no one could get at me here, wouldn’t he have put a slug through my head and chucked me into the sea? Why hadn’t he done that, anyway? Perhaps he stopped at murder. Stevens hadn’t been murdered. His death had been an accident. But Salzer didn’t stop at murder; unless Dwan had exceeded his orders. It might even he better, I thought, to be murdered than left locked up in a padded cell for the rest of my days.
Pull yourself together, Malloy, I said to myself. Snap out of it! All right, you have been bashed on the head and by the woolly feeling behind your eyes and in your mouth you have had a cart-load of drug pushed into you, but that’s no excuse to go off at half-cock now. Paula and Kerman will get you out of this. Hang on, and take it easy until they do.
The door opened suddenly and silently, and a short, dark man came in. He had a pair of shoulders you would expect to find on a gorilla, and his round red face was freckled and creased in a fixed, humourless grin. He was dressed in a white lap-over short coat, white trousers and white, rubber-soled shoes. He carried a tray covered with a towel, and he moved as silently and as lightly as a feather settling on the floor.
“Hello, Hoppie,” he said, putting the tray on a table by the door. “Beddy-byes now. How are you? Did you get any dope out of that book?”
Hopper waved his hand towards my bed.
“Mr. Seabright is with us now,” he said.
Bland—for this must be Bland—came to the foot of my bed and stared at me. The smile was still there: a little wider if anything. The greenish eyes were as hard and as cold and as sharp as ice-chips.
“Hello, baby,” he said. He had a curious whispering voice; hoarse and secretive, as if something was wrong with his larynx. “I’m Bland. I’m going to look after you.”
I found myself starting to clutch hold of the sheet, but I stopped that. Take it easy, I told myself. Relax. Don’t rush things.
“Hello,” I said, and my voice sounded as tight as a piano wire. “You don’t have to look after me. Where’s Salzer? I want to talk to him.”
“Doctor Salzer, baby,” Bland said reprovingly. “Don’t be disrespectful.” He gave Hopper a long, slow wink. “You’ll see him tomorrow.”
“I want to see him now,” I said steadily.
“Tomorrow, baby. The Doc has to have a little time off. If there’s anything you want, you tell me. I’m boss of this floor. What I say goes.”
“I want Salzer,” I said, trying to keep my voice under control.
“Tomorrow, baby. Now, settle down. I gotta little shot for you, and then you’ll sleep.”
“He thinks he’s a detective,” Hopper said, suddenly scowling. “He says Dr. Salzer has murdered someone.”
“Very disrespectful, but what does it matter?” Bland said, taking a hypodermic syringe from its case.
“But it does matter. That’s hallucinations,” Hopper said crossly. “It says so in this book. I don’t see why I should have him in with me. I don’t like it. He may be dangerous.”
Bland gave a short barking laugh.
“That’s funny, coming from you. Button up, baby; I gotta lot to do.” He screwed in the needle and filled the syringe with colourless liquid.
“I shall complain to Dr. Salzer,” Hopper said. “My father wouldn’t like it.”
“Nuts to your father, and double nuts to you,” Bland said impatiently. He came over to me. “All right, let’s have your arm: the right one.”
I sat up abruptly.
“You don’t stick that in me,” I said.
“Don’t be that way, baby. It won’t get you anywhere,” Bland said, his fixed grin widening. “Lie down, and take it easy.”
“Not in me you don’t,” I said.
He caught hold of my wrist in his right hand. His short thick fingers clamped into my flesh like a vice.
“If you want it the hard way,” he said, his red. freckled face close to mine, “it’s okay with me.”
I exerted my muscles in a quick twist, hoping to break his hold, but instead I nearly broke my arm. I heaved forward, trying to hit him in the chest with my shoulder, but that didn’t work either.
He retained his grip, grinning at me, waiting to see what else I would do. I didn’t keep him waiting long, and tried to kick my legs free of the sheet, but that wasn’t possible. The sheet was as tough as canvas, and had been tucked in so tightly there was no shifting it.
“Finished, baby?” he asked, almost cheerfully. “I’m going to stick the needle in now, and if you struggle it’ll break off in you, so watch your step.”
I gritted my teeth and heaved away from him, pulling him off-balance, so he stumbled. He recovered immediately, and his grin vanished.
“So you think you’re strong, do you?” he whispered. “Okay, baby, let’s see how strong you are.”
He began to bend my arm. I resisted, but it was like pushing against a steam-roller. He was much, much too strong: unbelievably strong, and my arm slowly twisted behind me, creaking in every muscle. Cold sweat ran down my back, and my breath whistled out of me as I fought him.
I braced myself and regained a couple of inches. Bland was beginning to breathe heavily himself. Maybe if I could have added my weight to the struggle I might have held him. But sitting up in a bed with one arm pinned and my legs hampered I hadn’t a chance against his strength and weight.
He bent me forward inch by inch, and I fought him inch by inch. Slowly my arm went up behind me, was wedged into my shoulder-blades. I wasn’t aware of any pain. I could have killed him. Then I felt the sharp prick of the needle, and he stepped back, releasing my arm. There was sweat on his face, too, and his breath was laboured. He hadn’t had it all his own way.
“There you are, baby,” he gasped. “You asked for it and you got it. If I wasn’t such a soft chicken I’d have busted your arm.”
I tried to take a swing at him, but my arm didn’t respond. I don’t know what he had pushed into me, but it worked fast. The red, freckled, hateful face began to recede. The walls of the room fell apart. Beyond the face and the walls was a long, black tunnel.
III
I opened my eyes.
Pale sunshine came through the barred windows, carrying the shadows of the bars to the opposite white wall: six sharp-etched lines to remind me I was a prisoner.
Bland was moving silently about the room, a duster in his broad thick hand, a look of concentration on his freckled face. He dusted everywhere; nothing escaped his attention.
Hopper was sitting up in bed, reading his book. There was a peevish scowl on his face, and he paid no attention to Bland, even when he dusted his night table.
Bland came over to me and dusted my night table. Our eyes met, and the fixed grin on his face widened.
“Hello, baby,” he said. “How are you feeling?”
“All right,” I said, and shifted higher in the bed. My right arm and shoulder ached, and I still had the imprint of his thick fingers on my wrist.
“That’s good. I’ll be along with shaving kit in a few minutes. Then you can have a bath.”
That would mean taking off the handcuff, I thought.
Bland seemed to guess what was going through my mind.
“And look, baby, don’t let’s have any trouble,” he said. “Don’t get the idea you can get away. You can’t. There are a couple more guys like me around. The door at the head of the stairs is locked, and there are bars up at the windows. You ask Hoppie. He’ll tell you. When Hoppie first came here there was trouble. He tried to get away, but it didn’t work.”
I stared at him woodenly, and didn’t say anything.
“You ask Hoppie what we do to a baby who makes trouble. He’ll tell you.” He looked at Hopper, grinning. “You’ll tell him, won’t you, Hoppie?”
Hopper looked up and scowled at him.
“Don’t talk to me, you low-born rat. I hate the sight of you.”
Bland chuckled.
“That’s all right, baby. I don’t mind. I’m used to it.”
Hopper called him an obscene name.
“Take it easy, baby,” Bland said, still smiling. “Don’t bear down on it.” He went to the door. “Shave, then a bath and then breakfast. I’ll see if I can get you an extra egg.”
Hopper told him what he could do with the egg.
Bland went away, chuckling.
“Don’t try it, Seabright,” Hopper said. “It’s not worth it. They’ll put you in a strait jacket, and keep you in a bath of cold water for days. He’s not lying about the door. You can’t get out without a key.”
I decided to wait and see.
After a while Bland came back with two electric razors. He plugged them in and gave Hooper one and me the other.
“Make it snappy, babies,” he said. “I gotta lot to do to-day.”
“You’re always grumbling,” Hopper said angrily. “I wish you’d go. I’m sick of seeing your ugly face.”
“It’s mutual, baby,” Bland said cheerfully. “Hurry up and make a job of it. Dr. Salzer likes to see his patients looking smart.”
So I was going to see Salzer. Not that I could hope for anything from him, but maybe I could scare him. If Sherrill had put me in here, maybe Salzer could be persuaded it was a dangerous game to kidnap anyone. I thought it was unlikely, but it might be worth trying.
When I had finished shaving. Bland came in with a white cotton dressing-gown.
“No funny business, baby,” he said in his whispering voice, and came around the bed to unlock the handcuff. “Just take it easy.”
I lay still while he took off the handcuff. Hopper was watching me with concentrated interest. Bland moved back a few feet and also watched me.
“Up you get, baby.”
I wriggled my legs from under the sheet, swung them to the floor and stood up. The moment I put my weight on my legs I knew it would be hopeless to start anything.
My legs were too shaky and too weak. I couldn’t have run away from a charging bull.
I took a staggering step forward and promptly sat on the floor. I didn’t have to sit on the floor, but it occurred to me it wouldn’t be a bad idea to let Bland think I was a lot weaker in the legs than I actually was.
I crawled up on hands and knees and regained my feet. Bland hadn’t moved. He was suspicious, and wasn’t going to be caught in any trap.
“Give me a hand, can’t you?” I snarled at him. “Or let me get back to bed.”
“Look, baby, I’m warning you,” he said softly. “If you start anything it’ll be the last thing you start for a very long time.”
“Cut out the yap. What’s the matter with you? Scared of me?”
That seemed the kind of language he understood, for he grabbed hold of my arm.
“Not of you, baby, or of anyone else.”
He helped me on with the dressing-gown, opened the door and together we stepped out into a long broad corridor. I took a couple more steps, and paused as if I still wasn’t feeling too sure of myself. The pause gave me time to look to right and left. One end of the corridor terminated in a massive-looking door, the other end was sealed off by a high window, covered with a close mess-grill.
“Okay, baby,” Bland said, grinning. “Now you have had a look, let’s get moving. I told you how it was. Well, now you’ve seen for yourself.”
Yes, I had seen for myself.
I went along the corridor with Bland, my mind busy. Somehow I had to get the key of that door and the key of the handcuff. Either that or stay here until they got tired of keeping me or until I rotted.
A sudden commotion brought us to a halt: a startled cry, a heavy thud as if someone or something heavy had fallen.
Bland caught hold of my arm.
A nearby door suddenly jerked open and a girl shot into the corridor. The first and obvious thing about her was her complete nakedness. She seemed to have jumped right out of a bath, for water glistened on her white skin and a fine film of soap made patterns on her slender arms. She was fair, and her hair grew in a curly halo around her head. She wasn’t pretty, nor was she plain. She was interesting; definitely and emphatically interesting, and I had a suspicion she wouldn’t be quite so interesting with her clothes on as she was without them. At a guess she was about twenty-five. She had a beautiful body, long legged, high breasted, and her skin was the colour of whipped cream.
I heard Bland suck in his breath sharply.
“Hot damn!” he said under his breath, jumped forward, his thick fingers reaching out for the girl, his eyes alight with brutish excitement. He grabbed hold of the girl’s arm. Her scream hit the ceiling and bounced along the walls. His hand slid off her soapy arm and she spun round and raced down the corridor. She ran with unexpected grace, and as swiftly as the wind.
Bland took a step forward, and then changed his mind. She couldn’t get away. Already she had reached the massive door and was beating on it with clenched fists.
All this happened in so many seconds, then a nurse appeared from the bathroom: a tall, powerfully-built woman whose hatchet face was white with alarm and fury. She looked down the corridor at the girl’s naked back. She looked at Bland.
“Get your patient away,” she said. “And get out yourself, you—you ape!”
“Take it easy,” Bland said, his eyes still on the girl. “You let her out, you silly old mare.”
“Get your patient away or I’ll report you,” the nurse said furiously.
“And you would, too,” Bland returned, sneering.
He grabbed hold of my arm.
“Come on, baby, the fun’s over. You can’t say this ain’t the place to live in. The best of attention and the Follies Bergčre thrown in for free. What more do you want?”
He hustled me into a bathroom opposite the one the girl had escaped from as the nurse went down the corridor. The girl saw her coming, turned to face her; her screams went through my head and set my nerves jangling. I was glad when the bathroom door closed on the sound, shutting it out.
Bland was excited. His hard little eyes gleamed, and he kept running his tongue along his lips.
“Some bim!” he said, half to himself. “I wouldn’t have missed that for a week’s pay. Here you, get your things off and get into the bath. My luck having to sit around and look at you when that dish out there’s on show.”
“Stop acting like a kid,” I said, stripping off the dressing-gown and pyjamas. “Who is she, anyway?”
“The bim? No one you’d know. She used to be a nurse here; went suddenly crackers when her boy walked out on her. That’s the story, anyway. She was here before I came. Why she should go nuts because she lost her boy, beats me. I would have given her a twirl any time she wanted one.”
I lay still in the bath, my face expressionless. A nurse! Was this the missing nurse Mifflin had told me about? It sounded like her.
“Her name’s Anona Freedlander—right?” I shot out.
Bland showed his surprise.
“How did you know?”
“I’m a detective,” I said solemnly.
Bland grinned. He sat on a stool near the bath and lit a cigarette.
“Get going, baby. Never mind the detection now. I gotta lot to do.” Absent-mindedly he dropped the match into the water.
“What’s wrong with Hopper?” I asked, changing the subject. “Why’s he here?”
“Hoppie’s quite a case,” Bland said, and shook his head. “There’re certain times in the month when even I don’t go near him. You wouldn’t think that to look at him, would you? A very deceptive guy. If it wasn’t for his old man’s money he would be in a criminal asylum. He killed a girl: tore her throat out with his teeth. He’ll be here for the rest of his days. You never know with him. When he’s in the wrong mood he’s a killer. One day he’s okay, the next he’s as dangerous as a tiger on hunger strike.”
I began wondering about Bland, asking myself if he could be bought.
“How about a cigarette?” I asked, lying back in the water. “I could do with one.”
“Sure, baby. So long as you behave yourself, I’ll treat you like my brother.” He produced a package of Lucky Strike, gave me one and lit it for me. “When you first come here all you guys try to be smart and start trouble. Take my tip and don’t. We’ve got an answer for most things. Just remember that.”
I dragged down smoke. It didn’t taste quite as good as I was expecting.
“How long do you think you’re going to keep me here?”
He took an old envelope out of his pocket and tapped ash into it, put it on the side of the bath for my use.
“From the look of your record, baby, you’re in here for good.”
I decided I would try it.
“How would you like to earn a hundred dollars?”
“Doing what?” The small eyes alerted.
“Simple enough. Telephone a friend of mine.”
“And what would I say?”
But it was a little too quick and a little too glib. I studied him. It wasn’t going to work. The mocking smile gave him away. He was playing with me.
“Never mind,” I said, drowned the cigarette and put the soggy butt into the envelope.
“Forget it. Let’s have a towel.”
He handed me a towel.
“Don’t get that way, baby. I might play. I could use a hundred bucks. What’s the telephone number?”
“Forget it,” I said.
He sat watching me, a grin on his face, the butt of his cigarette resting on his lower lip.
“Maybe you’d like to raise the ante,” he suggested. “Now, for five hundred…”
“Just get it out of the thing you call your mind,” I said, and put on my pyjamas. “One of these days we’ll meet on more equal terms. It’s something I’m looking forward to.”
“That’s okay, baby. Have your pipe-dreams. They don’t hurt me,” he said, opened the door and looked out. “Come on. I’ve got to get Hoppie up.”
There was no commotion from the opposite bathroom as I walked down the corridor. The bath had done me good. If there had been a chance to get past that door I would have taken it. But I was already making up my mind I would have to be very patient. I purposely walked slowly, leaning on Bland’s arm. The weaker he thought me, the more I would surprise him when it came to a showdown.
I got into bed and meekly allowed him to lock the handcuff.
Hopper said he didn’t want a bath.
“Now, baby, that’s no way to act,” Bland said reprovingly. “You gotta look smart this morning. There’s an official visit at eleven o’clock. Coroner Lessways is coming to talk to you.” He glanced at me and grinned. “And he’ll talk to you, too. Every month the city councilmen come around to see the nuts. Not that they pay a lot of attention to what the nuts tell them, but they come, and sometimes they even listen. But don’t give them that stuff about murder, baby. They’ve heard it all. To them you’re just another nut along with a lotta nuts, and it won’t do you any good.”
He persuaded Hopper to get out of bed, and they went off together to the bathroom. That left me alone. I lay in the bed, staring at the six sharp-etched lines on the opposite walls and used my head. So Coroner Lessways was coming. Well, that was something. As Bland had said there wasn’t much point in my telling Lessways that Salzer was responsible for Eudora Drew’s killing. It was too far-fetched; too unbelievable, but if I had the chance I might give him something to chew on. For the first time since I had been in this trap I felt a little more hopeful.
I looked up suddenly to see the door slowly open. There was no one in sight. The door swung right open and remained open. I leaned forward to look into the empty corridor, thinking at first the wind had opened the door, but remembered the latch had clicked shut when Bland and Hopper had left the room.
I waited, staring at the open door, and listened. Nothing happened. I heard nothing, and because I knew someone had opened the door I felt suddenly spooked.
After what seemed an age I heard a rustle of paper. In the acute silence it sounded like a thunder clap. Then I saw a movement, and a woman came into sight.
She stood in the doorway, a paper sack in one hand, a vacant, unintelligent expression in her washed-out eyes. She regarded me steadily with no more interest than if I was a piece of furniture, and her hand groped blindly in the sack. Yes, it was her all right: the plum-eating woman, and what was more, she was still eating plums.
We looked at each other for a long moment of time. Her jaw moved slowly and rhythmetically as her teeth chewed up a plum. She looked as bright and happy as a cow chewing the cud.
“Hello,” I said, and it irritated me that my voice had gone husky.
Her fat fingers chased after a plum, found one and hoisted it into sight.
“It’s Mr. Malloy, isn’t it?” she said, as polite as a minister’s wife meeting a new member of the congregation.
“That’s right,” I said. “The last time we met we didn’t have the time to get matey. Who are you?”
She chewed for a moment, turned the stone out into her cupped hand and transferred it to the paper sack.
“Why, I’m Mrs. Salzer,” she said.
I should have guessed that. She really couldn’t have been anyone else.
“I don’t want to seem personal,” I said, “but do you like your husband, Mrs. Salzer?”
The vague look was chased away by surprise which in turn gave way to a look of weak pride.
“Dr. Salzer is a very fine man. There is no one in the world like him,” she said, and pointed her soft, round chin at me.
“That’s a pity. You’ll miss him. Even in our enlightened jails they still separate husbands and wives.”
The vague look came back again.
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Well, you should do. If they don’t sit your husband in the gas chamber, they’ll give him twenty years. Kidnapping and murder earn a sentence like that.”
“What murder?”
“A woman named Eudora Drew was murdered on your husband’s instructions. I have been kidnapped, and there’s a girl across the way who I think has been kidnapped, too: Anona Freedlander. And then there’s Nurse Gurney.”
A sly little smile lit up the woman’s fat face.
“He has nothing to do with any of that. He thinks Miss Freedlander is a friend of mine who has lost her memory.”
“And I suppose he thinks I’m a friend of yours, too?” I said sarcasticallv.
“Not exactly a friend, but a friend of a friend of mine.”
“And how about Eudora Drew?”
Mrs. Salzer shrugged her shoulders.
“That was unfortunate. She wanted money. I sent Benny to reason with her. He got too rough.”
I scratched my jaw with my thumb-nail and stared at her. I sensed more than believed she was telling the truth.
“Where’s Nurse Gurney?” I asked.
“Oh, she met with an accident,” Mrs. Salzer said, and peered into the sack again. She brought out a plum, offered it to me. “Will you have one? They are good for you when you are in bed.”
“No. Never mind the plums. What happened to her?”
The face went vague again.
“Oh, she was going down the fire-escape when she slipped. I put her in the car, but I think she must have broken her neck. I don’t know why, but she seemed very frightened of me.”
I said in a tight voice: “What did you do with her?”
“I left her in some bushes out in the sand.” She bit into the plum, waved vaguely towards the window. “Out there in the desert. There wasn’t anything else I could do with her.”
I ran my fingers through my hair. Maybe she was crazy, I thought, or else I was.
“Was it you who arranged for me to come here?”
“Oh. yes,” she said, leaning against the doorway. “You see, Dr. Salzer has no knowledge of medicine or of mental illness. But I have. I used to have a very big practice, but something happened. I don’t remember what it was. Dr. Salzer bought this place for me. He pretends to run it, but I do all the work really. He is just a figure head.”
“No, he’s not,” I said. “He signed Macdonald Crosby’s death certificate. He had no right to.
He’s not qualified.”
“You are quire wrong,” she said calmly. “I signed it. We happen to have the same initials.”
“But he was treating Janet Crosby for malignant endocarditis,” I said. “Dr. Bewley told me so.”
“Dr. Bewley was mistaken. Dr. Salzer happened to be at the Crosby house on business for me when the girl died. He told Dr. Bewley I had been treating her. Dr. Bewley is an old man and a little deaf. He misunderstood.”
“Why was he called in at all?” I demanded. “Why didn’t you sign the certificate if you were treating her?”
“I was away at the time. My husband did the correct thing to call Dr. Bewley. He always does the correct thing.”
“That’s fine,” I said. “Then he better let me out of here.”
“He thinks you are dangerous,” Mrs. Salzer said, and peered into the sack again. “And you are, Mr. Malloy. You know too much. I’m sorry for you, but you really shouldn’t have interfered.” She looked up to smile in a goofy sort of way. “I’m afraid you will have to stay here, and before very long your mind will begin to deteriorate. You see, people who are continually drugged often become feeble-minded. Have you noticed that?”
“Is that what’s going to happen to me?”
She nodded.
“I’m afraid so, but I didn’t want you to think unkindly of Dr. Salzer. He is such a fine man. That’s why I have told you so much. More than I should, really, but it won’t matter. You won’t get away.”
She began to drift away as quietly as she had come.
“Hey! Don’t go away,” I said, sitting forward. “How much is Maureen Crosby paying you to keep me here?”
Her vague eyes popped a little.
“But she doesn’t know,” she said. “It’s nothing to do with her. I thought you knew,” and she went away rather like a tired ghost after a long and exhausting spell of haunting.
IV
Hopper was better tempered after his bath, and while we were having breakfast I asked him if he had ever tried to escape.
“I haven’t anywhere to go,” he said, shrugging. “Besides, I have a handcuff on my ankle and it’s locked to the bed. If the bed wasn’t fastened to the floor I might have tried it.”
“What’s the bed got to do with it?” I asked, spreading marmalade on thin toast. It wasn’t easy with one hand.
“The spare key of the handcuff is kept in that top drawer,” he explained, pointing to a chest of drawers against the opposite wall. “They keep it there in case of fire. If I could move the bed I could get to it.”
I nearly hit the ceiling.
“What! In that drawer there?”
“That’s right. No one’s supposed to know, but I saw Bland take if out once when he lost his key.”
I judged the distance between the foot of my bed and the chest of drawers. It was closer to me than to Hopper. If I was held by the ankle I imagined I could reach it. It would be a stretch, but I reckoned I could just do it. But handcuffed as I was by the wrist made it impossible.
“How is it you’re fastened by the leg and I by the wrist?” I asked.
“They fastened me by the wrist at first,” Hopper said indifferently, and pushed his tray aside. “But I found it awkward to read so Bland changed it. If you ask him he’ll change yours. You don’t mind not talking any more, do you? I want to get on with this book.”
No, I didn’t mind. I didn’t mind at all. I was excited. If I could persuade Bland to unfasten my wrist, I might reach the key. It was a thought that occupied me for the next hour.
Bland came in a few minutes to eleven o’clock carrying an enormous vase of gladioli sprays. He set it down on top of the chest of drawers and drew back to admire it.
“Pretty nice, ugh?” he said, beaming. “That’s for the councilmen. It’s a funny thing how these guys go for flowers. The last bunch never even looked at the patients. All they did was to stand around and yap about the flowers.”
He collected the breakfast-trays and took them away, and returned almost immediately. He surveyed us critically, straightened Hopper’s sheet, came over and smoothed out my pillow.
“Now keep just as you are,” he said. “For Pete’s sake, don’t get yourselves untidy. Haven’t you a book?” he asked me.
“You haven’t given me one.”
“Must have a book. That’s another of these punks’ fads. They like to see a patient reading.”
He charged out of the room and returned a little breathlessly carrying a heavy volume which he slapped down on my knees.
“Get stuck into that, baby. I’ll find you something with a little more zip in it when they’ve gone.”
“How do I turn the pages with only one hand?” I asked, looking at the book. It was entitled Gynecology for Advanced Students.
“Glad you reminded me, baby.” He took out his key. “We keep the cuffs out of sight. These punks are softhearted.”
I watched him transfer the handcuff to my ankle, scarcely believing my good luck. It was quite a moment in my life.
“Okay, baby, mind you behave,” he went on, as he re-tidied the bed. “If they ask you how you like it here, tell them we’re looking after you. Don’t let’s have any back answers. They won’t believe anything you say, and you’ll have to talk to me after they have gone.”
I opened the book. The first page I came to made me blink.
“I don’t know if I’m old enough to look at this,” I said, and showed him the page.
He stared, sucked in his breath sharply, snatched the book away from me and gaped at the title.
“For crying out loud! Is that what it means?” and he went shooting out of the room with it, returning breathlessly with a copy of the parallel translation of Dante’s Inferno. I wished I had kept my mouth shut.
“That’ll impress them,” he said with satisfaction. “Not that the punks can read, anyway.”
A few minutes past eleven o’clock the sound of voices came down the corridor, and in through the half-open door.
Bland, who had been waiting by the window, straightened his jacket and smoothed down his hair.
Hopper scowled and closed his book.
“Here they come.”
Four men came into the room. The first was obviously Dr. Jonathan Salzer: the most distinguished looking of the four; a tall, thin man with a Paderewski mop of hair, as white as a dove’s back. His tanned face was set in cold, serene lines; his eyes were deep-set and thoughtful. A man, I imagined, on the wrong side of fifty, still powerful, his body as straight and as upright as a cadet’s on passing-out parade. He was dressed in a black morning-coat, striped trousers and was as immaculate as a tailor’s dummy. After you had got over the shock of the mop of hair, the next thing you noticed about him was his hands. They were quite beautiful hands; long and narrow, with tapering fingers: a surgeon’s hands or a murderer’s hands: they could be good at either job.
Coroner Lessways followed him in. I recognized him from the occasional photographs I had seen of him in the press: a short, thickset man with a ball-like head, small eyes and a fussy, mean, little mouth. He looked what he was: a shyster who had spent all his life pulling fast ones.
His companion was another of the same breed, over-fed and tricky.
The fourth man hovered outside the door as if he wasn’t sure whether to come in or not. I didn’t bother to look his way. My attention was riveted on Salzer.
“Good morning, gentlemen,” Salzer said in a deep, rich voice. “I hope I find you well. Coroner Lessways, Councilman Linkheimer and Mr. Strang, the well-known writer, have come to see you. They are here to ask you a few questions.” He glanced at Lessways. “Would you care to have a word with Mr. Hopper?”
While Lessways was gaping owlishly at Hopper and keeping at a safe distance, I turned to look at the fourth man whom Salzer had introduced as Strang.
For a moment I thought I really had gone crazy, for standing in the doorway with a nonchalant look of boredom on his face was Jack Kerman. He was wearing a tropical white suit, horn spectacles, and out of his breast pocket a yellow and red silk handkerchief flopped in the best traditions of the dandy.
I gave a start that nearly upset the bed. Luckily Salzer was busying himself with my medical chart and didn’t notice. Kerman looked woodenly at me, lifted one eyebrow and said to Salzer, “Who is this man, Doctor? He looks well enough.”
“This is Edmund Seabright,” Salzer told him. His cold face lit up with a smile and he reminded me of Santa Claus about to hand out a toy to a good child. “He has only recently come to us.” He handed the medical chart to Kerman. “Perhaps you would be interested to see this. It speaks for itself.”
Kerman adjusted his horn spectacles and squinted at the chart. I had an idea he couldn’t see well in them, and knowing him, guessed he had borrowed them from someone.
“Oh, yes,” he said, pursing his lips. “Interesting. I suppose it’s all right to have a word with him?”
“Why, certainly,” Salzer said, and moved to my bed.
Kerman joined him and they both stared at me. I stared back, concentrating on Salzer, knowing if I looked at Kerman I would probably let the cat out of the bag.
“This is Mr. Strang,” Salzer said to me. “He writes books on nervous diseases.” He smiled at Kerman. “Mr. Seabright imagines he is a famous detective. Don’t you, Mr. Seabright?”
“Sure,” I said. “I am a detective. I’ve discovered Anona Freedlander is right here on this floor, and Nurse Gurney is dead and her hotly has been hidden somewhere in the desert by your wife. How’s that for detection?”
Salzer’s kind, sad smile embraced Kerman.
“He runs true to type as you can see,” he murmured. “Both the women he has mentioned disappeared; one about two years ago, the other recently. The cases were reported in the newspapers. For some odd reason they prey on his mind.”
“Quite so,” Kerman said seriously. He studied me, and behind the thick glasses his eyes seemed to squint.
“And there’s another thing you should know.” I half sat up and whispered, “I have a handcuff on my leg.”
Lessways and Linkheimer had joined Salzer and were staring at me.
Kerman raised his eyebrows languidly.
“Is that true?” he asked Salzer.
Salzer inclined his head. His smile was for the whole of suffering humanity.
“Sometimes he is a little troublesome,” he said regretfully. “You understand?”
“Quite so,” Kerman said, and looked pained. He did it so well I wanted to kick him.
Bland came away from the window and stood at the head of my bed.
“Take it easy, baby,” he said softly.
“I don’t like this place,” I said, addressing Lessways. “I object to being drugged every night. I don’t like the locked door at the end of the corridor, nor the mesh-grill over the window at the other end of the corridor. This is not a sanatorium. It’s a prison.”
“Mv dear chap,” Salzer said smoothly before Lessways could think of anything to say, “you get well and you shall go home. We don’t want to keep you here unless we have to.”
Out of the corner of my eye I saw Bland slowly clench his list as a warning for me to be careful what I said. There were a lot of things I could have said, but now Kerman knew I was here I decided not to take any chances.
“Well, let’s get on,” Lessways said. “All this looks very good.” He beamed at Kerman.
“Have you seen all you want to see, Mr. Strang? Don’t let us hurry you.”
“Oh, yes,” Kerman said languidly. “If Dr. Salzer wouldn’t object, I might like to call again.”
“I’m afraid that would be against the rules,” Salzer said. “Too many visits might excite our friends. I’m sure you will understand?”
Kerman looked at me thoughtfully.
“You’re quite right. I hadn’t thought of that,” he said, and drifted towards the door.
There was a stately exodus, Salzer being the last to leave.
I heard Kerman say, “Is there no one else on this floor?”
“Not at the moment,” Salzer said. “We have had several interesting cures recently. Perhaps you would like to see our files?”
The voices drifted away, and Bland closed the door. He grinned at me.
“Didn’t work, did it, baby? I told you : just a nut along with a lotta other nuts.”
It wasn’t easy to look like a disappointed man, but I somehow managed it.
V
Salzer was talking sense when he had said visitors excited his patients. The effect on Hopper was obvious, although it wasn’t until Bland brought in the lunch-trays that he showed sighs of blowing up.
When Salzer and the visitors had gone. Hopper lay still, staring up at the ceiling, a heavy scowl on his face. He remained like that until lunch-time, and paid no attention to any remark I made, so I left him alone. I had plenty to think about anyway, and I wasn’t pining for his society. But when Bland set the tray on the night table, he suddenly lashed out, sending the tray flying across the room to land with a crash and a mess on the floor.
He sat up, and the look of him brought me out in goose pimples. His face altered so I scarcely recognized him. It grew thinner, older and lined. There was a ferocious, trapped look in his eyes you see in the eves of the fiercer beasts in the zoo. And the way Bland skipped out of his reach was as quick as the hop of a frog.
“Take it easy, baby,” Bland said, more from force of habit than to mean anything.
Hopper crouched down in the bed and stared at him as if willing him to come within reach, but Bland wasn’t to be tempted.
“Just my goddamn luck,” he said savagely. “He has to chuck an ing-bing when I’m going off duty.”
Laboriously he cleared up the broken crockery, piled the bits on the tray. By the time he was through he seemed to have decided to ignore Hopper, who continued to watch him with mad, glittering eyes.
“I’m going anyway, see?” he said to me. “I gotta date, and I’m not going to bust it. You’ll be okay. He can’t reach you, and maybe he’ll snap out of it. He does, sometimes. If he starts trying to walk up the wall, ring the bell. Quell’s on duty, but don’t ring unless you have to. Okay?”
“Well, I don’t know,” I said doubtfully. I didn’t like the look of Hopper. “How long do I get left alone?”
“Quell will be in every so often. You won’t see me ‘til tomorrow.” Bland said impatiently.
“If I don’t beat it now, Salzer will make me stay and watch the punk. I’m the only one who can do anything with him.”
An idea jumped into my mind. I didn’t like being left with Hopper. It gave me the shakes just to look at him, but with Bland out of the way and the handcuff key within reach, there was a chance to start something.
“So long as someone’s within call,” I said, settling back on my pillow. “But I’d just as soon go with you. How about it?”
He grinned.
“My frill is screwy enough without you being around.”
He took Hopper’s wrecked meal away while I tried to eat, but Hopper’s heavy breathing and the way he glared at the opposite wall, his face working, turned my stomach. After a couple of attempts to get the food down, I pushed the tray away. What I wanted was a cigarette. I wanted that more than anything in the world.
Bland came back after a while. He had changed out of his white uniform, and now looked so smart I scarcely recognized him. His hand-painted tie nearly made me colour blind.
“What’s up?” he said, looking at my tray. “Think it’s poisoned?”
“Just not hungry.”
He glanced at Hopper who had again crouched down in the bed as soon as he saw him and was glaring at him murderously.
“Well, he won’t put me off my fun,” he said with a grin. “Just take it easy, baby. Don’t bear down on it.”
“I want a cigarette,” I said, “and if I don’t get one I’ll raise the alarm before you get out of the house.”
“You can’t have a cigarette,” Bland said. “You nuts aren’t safe with matches.”
“I don’t want a match; I want a cigarette. Light it for me and leave me a couple more. I’ll chain smoke. If I don’t have a smoke I’ll flip my lid. You don’t want two of us on your hands, do you?”
He parted with the cigarettes reluctantly, lit one for me and edged to the door.
“Tell Quell to keep away from him.” he said at the door. “Maybe he’ll settle down when I’ve gone. Whatever he does, don’t ring that bell for five minutes. Give me time to get clear.”
Hopper made a sudden grab at him. hut he was too far away to do more than disturb the air around Bland, but the way Bland skipped through the door told me he was scared of Hopper. And so was I.
The afternoon was the longest I have ever lived through. I didn’t dare attempt to get the handcuff key in the chest of drawers. I had no idea when Quell was likely to make an appearance, and then there was the problem of Hopper. I didn’t know if he was likely to start something if I got out of bed. I knew I had only one chance to get at the key, and if I fluffed it, I wouldn’t get another. I decided the attempt would have to be made at night, when Hopper was asleep and Quell in bed. That meant I had to avoid being drugged, and I hadn’t an idea how that was to be done.
As soon as Bland had gone, Hopper quieted down. He ignored me, and lay staring at the opposite wall, muttering to himself, and running his fingers through his thick, fair hair. I tried to catch what he was saying, but the words came to me only as a jumble of discordant sound.
I was careful not to make any sudden movement to attract his attention and lay smoking, and when I could get my mind away from him, I wondered what Kerman was doing.
How he had persuaded Lessways that he was a writer on mental diseases foxed me, and I suspected Paula had something to do with that. At least they knew the set-up now. They knew Anona Freedlander was in the building. They knew about the door at the end of the corridor, and the mesh-grill over the window. One or the other had to be overcome before they could rescue me; and I hadn’t a doubt that they would rescue me. But how they were going to do it was a problem.
Around four-thirty the door pushed open and a young fellow in a white uniform, similar to the one Bland wore, came in, carrying tea-trays. He was slimly built, overgrown and weedy. His long, thin face had the serious, concentrated expression of a horse running a race. He wasn’t unlike a horse. He had a long upper lip and big teeth that gave him a horsey look. It wouldn’t have surprised me if he had neighed at me. He didn’t. He smiled instead.
“I’m Quell,” he said, setting the tray on the night table. “You are Mr. Seabright, aren’t you?”
“No,” I said. “I am Sherlock Holmes. And if you take my tip I wouldn’t go near Watson. He’s in one of his moods.”
He gave me a long, sad, worried stare. From the look of him I guessed he hadn’t been mixed up with lunatics for very long.
“But that’s Mr. Hopper,” he said patiently, as if talking to a child.
Hopper was sitting up now, clenching and unclenching his fists, and snarling at Quell.
Quell may have only been in the racket a short time, but he was smart enough to see Hopper wasn’t in the mood to play pat-a-cake. He eyed Hopper as you might eye a tiger that’s suddenly walked into your sitting-room.
“I don’t think Mr. Hopper wants to be bothered with tea,” I said. “And if you take my tip you’ll keep away until Bland returns.”
“I can’t do that,” he said dubiously. “Dr. Salzer is out, and Bland isn’t likely to be back until after midnight. He really shouldn’t have gone.”
“It’s too late to worry about that,” I said. “Fade away, brother. Shake the dust off your feet. And if you could bring me a little Scotch for dinner I’d welcome it.”
“I’m afraid patients aren’t allowed alcohol,” he said seriously, without taking his eyes off Hopper.
“Then drink some yourself and come and breathe over me,” I said. “Even that would be better than nothing.”
He said he didn’t touch spirits and went away, a perplexed, scared look on his face.
Hopper stared across the room at me, and under the intense scrutiny of those glaring eves I felt a little spooked. I hoped fervently the handcuff on his ankle was strong enough to hold him if he took it into his head to try and break loose.
“I have been thinking, Hoppie,” I said, speaking slowly and distinctly. “What we must do is to cut that punk Bland’s throat and drink his blood. We should have done it before.”
“Yes,” Hopper said, and the glare in his eyes began to fade. “We will do that.”
I wondered if it would be safe to try for the key now, but decided against it. I wasn’t sure of Brother Quell. If he caught me trying I felt it would sadden his young life even more than it was saddened already.
“I will make a plan,” I said to Hopper. “Bland is very cunning. It won’t be easy to trap him.”
Hopper seemed to calm down and his face stopped twitching.
“I will make a plan too,” he said.
The rest of the evening went by while he made his plan and I thought about what I was going to do if I got free of the cuff. It seemed unlikely that I should be able to escape from the house, but if I could locate Anona Freedlander and have a talk with her and warn her she was soon to be rescued I wouldn’t waste my time. Then when Kerman showed up—and I was certain he would show up sooner or later—we wouldn’t have to waste time hunting for her.
Quell looked in occasionally. He didn’t do more than put his head around the door, and Hopper was too preoccupied with his plans to notice him. I made ssh-ing signs every time Quell appeared, pointing at Hopper and shaking my head. Quell nodded back, looking more like a horse than ever, and went silently away.
Around eight o’clock, he brought me in a supper-tray and then went to the foot of Hopper’s bed and smiled at him.
“Would you like something to eat, Mr. Hopper?” he asked coaxingly.
Hopper’s reaction to this gave even me a start. It nearly gave Quell heart failure. Hopper shot forward to the end of the bed, his arms seemed to stretch out as if they were made of elastic, and his hooked fingers brushed Quell’s white jacket. Quell sprang back, stumbled and nearly fell. His face turned the colour of putty.
“I don’t think Mr. Hopper wants anything to eat,” I said, the piece of chicken I was chewing suddenly tasting like sawdust. “And I don’t think I’m that keen either.”
But Quell wasn’t interested in how I felt. He went out of the room with a rush of air, a streak of white and a bang of the door.
Hopper threw off the bed-clothes and started after him. He landed with a crash on the floor, held by his ankle, and he screamed. He jerked madly at the chain, bruising his ankle. Then, when he found he couldn’t get free, he swung himself up on to the bed and threw himself on the chain of the handcuff. He began to pull at it, while I froze, watching him. From where I was the chain looked horribly fragile. The thought that this madman might break loose while I was still chained sent a chill up my spine. My hand went to the bell and hovered over it.
He had the chain now in both hands, and, bracing his feet against the end bar of the bed he strained back, his face turning purple with the exertion. The bar bent but held, and the chain held, too. Finally, he dropped back, gasping, and I knew the danger was over. I found sweat on my face. Without exactly being aware of it those past minutes had been about the worse I had ever experienced.
The purple colour of Hopper’s face had turned to white. He lay still, his eyes closed, and I waited, watching him. After a while, and to my surprise, he began to snore.
Then Quell came into the room, carrying a strait jacket. His face was pale, but determined.
“Take it easy,” I said, and I was startled how shaky my voice sounded. “He’s asleep. You better have a look at that handcuff. I thought he was going to break loose.”
“He couldn’t do that,” Quell said, dropping the strait jacket. “That chain is specially made.”
He moved closer and looked down at Hopper. “I’d better give him a shot.”
“Don’t be a fool,” I said sharply. “Bland said you weren’t to go near him.”
“Oh, but he must have an injection.” Quell said. “If he has another attack it might be very bad for him. I don’t want to do it, but it’s my duty.”
“To hell with your duty,” I said impatiently. “Handling that guy is like handling a bomb. Leave him alone.”
Cautiously Quell approached the bed and stood looking down at Hopper. The heavy, snoring breathing continued, and, reassured, Quell began to put the sheet back in place. I watched him, holding my breath, not knowing if Hopper was faking or not. I didn’t know if Quell was just dumb or very brave. He’d have to be completely dumb or have nerves like steel to get as close to this lunatic as he was.
Quell tucked in the sheet and stood away. I saw little beads of sweat on his forehead. He wasn’t dumb, I decided. That made him brave. If I had one, I would have given him a medal.
“He seems all right,” he said more cheerfully. “I’ll give him a shot. If he has a good sleep he’ll be all right tomorrow.”
This suited me, but, for all that, I was worried. No amount of medals nor money would have persuaded me to get that close to the sleeping Hopper.
“You’re taking a chance,” I said. “The needle will wake him. If he gets his hands on you, you’re a goner.”
He turned to stare at me in a puzzled way.
“I don’t understand you at all,” he said. “You don’t behave like a patient.”
“I’m not a patient,” I said solemnly. “I’m Sherlock Holmes: remember?”
He looked sad again and went out. Minutes ticked by. Hopper didn’t move. He continued to snore, his face slack and exhausted.
Quell returned after what seemed hours and couldn’t have been more than ten minutes. He carried a tray covered with a towel.
“Now look,” I said, sitting up. “Suppose you take off my handcuff? Then if there’s trouble I can help you. You seem to be a sensible sort of guy. If he wakes up and grabs you I can hit him over the head.”
He looked at me seriously like a horse inspecting a doubtful sack of oats.
“I couldn’t do that,” he said. “It would be against the rules.”
Well, I had done all I could. The ball was in his corner now, and it was up to him.
“Okay,” I said, struggling. “At least I’ll pray for you.”
He charged the syringe and approached Hopper. I watched, feeling the hairs on the back of my neck rising and my heart beginning to thump against my ribs.
He was a little shaky, but his serious, horse-like face was calm. Gently he pushed Hopper’s pyjama sleeve back and poised the syringe. It was like watching a man fiddling with the fuse of a delayed-action bomb. There was nothing I could do but watch and sweat for him, and I sweated all right, wanting to tell him to hurry up, and for the love of Mike not to stand there like a dummy, but get the thing over.
He was a little short-sighted in spite of his glasses, and he couldn’t see the right vein. His head kept getting closer and closer to Hopper while he peered at the white, sinewy arm. He seemed to have forgotten how dangerous Hopper was. All he seemed to be thinking about was to make a good job of the operation. His face was only about a foot away from Hopper’s when he nodded his head as if he had found the vein he was after. Very gently he laid the side of the needle down on the vein.
I wasn’t breathing now. My hands were clutching at the sheet. Then, just as he was going to plunge in the needle, he drew back with an impatient exclamation and walked over to the tray he had left on the chest of drawers.
My breath whistled in my dry mouth as I said unevenly, “What the hell’s the matter now?”
“I forgot the ether,” he said. “Stupid of me. One should always clean the skin before making a puncture.”
He was sweating almost as badly as I, but he had been taught to use ether before giving the syringe and that was the way he was going to give it: come hell, come sunshine.
Hopper stirred slightly as Quell dabbed on the ether. I was half out of bed with nervous anticipation, and Quell’s hand was unsteady as he began the ghastly hunt for the vein again.
Down went his head within a foot of Hopper’s, his eyes intent on Hopper’s skin.
Suddenly Hopper opened his eyes. Quell was too busy to notice.
“Look out!” I croaked.
As Quell looked up with a stifled gasp, Hopper, moving with the speed of a snake, had him by the throat.
VI
With one furious, violent movement I dragged the heavy sheet off my legs and threw myself out of bed. I had a crazy idea die force of my throw would wrench the bed free so I could drag it across the floor and get at Hopper. But the bed held, and I only succeeded in knocking the breath out of my body.
Quell’s wild yell hit the ceiling, bounced off and burst over me like shrapnel. He yelled again, and then his next yell trailed off into a blood-chilling gurgle as Hopper’s hands cut off his breath.
I didn’t look at them. I was afraid to. The sound of the struggle was bad enough. Instead, I hoisted myself up on the bed, slid to the end and got my free leg over the bed-rail and on to the floor. I was in such a panic I could scarcely breathe, and I was shaking like an old man with the palsy. I stretched towards the chest of drawers. My fingertips just brushed the handles of the top drawer. Behind me came a savage growling noise: a noise like nothing I have ever heard or ever want to hear again. I strained frantically towards the drawer handle. My fingernails got a purchase. I pulled madly away from the handcuff and the skin around my ankle felt as if it was on fire.
My nails hooked into the handle and the drawer opened an inch. It was enough. It gave me just enough purchase to pull the drawer right out so it fell with a crash to the floor. It was full of towels and surgical bandages, and, hanging over the rail I scrabbled madly among the junk, hunting for the key.
A sudden yammering noise behind me sent my blood pressure up, but I didn’t pause in my frantic hunt. I found the key at last between two towels, and, sobbing for breath, I swung myself back on the bed, searching for the tiny lock opening in the cuff. My ankle was bleeding, but I didn’t care about that. I sank the key into the lock, turned it and the cuff came off.
I was off the bed and across the room in one movement. Then I stopped short, took two steps back, and gulped down a sudden rush of saliva into my mouth.
Hopper peered at me over Quells body. He showed his teeth, and I could see his mouth was coated with blood. There was blood everywhere. On the wall behind him, over the sheet, over him and Quell.
Quell lay across the bed: a dummy in bloodstained clothes. His half-open eyes looked at me in glazed horror. Hopper had bitten into his jugular vein. He was deader than a dead mackerel.
“Give me the key,” Hopper said in a forced whisper. “Others shall die tonight.”
I moved away. I thought I was a tough guy, but not now: Malloy the squeamish with cold sweat on his face and a lump of lead in his belly. I have seen some pretty horrible sights in my life, but this little tableau took the Oscar.
“Give me the key or I will kill you, too,” Hopper said, and threw Quells body off the bed on to the floor. He began to creep down the bed towards me, his face working, the blood on his mouth glistening in the soft lamp-light.
A Grand Guignol nightmare this. A dream to tell your friends about; a dream they wouldn’t believe.
I began a slow, backward, circling movement towards the door.
“Don’t go away, Seabright,” Hopper said, crouching on the bed and glaring at me. “Give me the key!”
I reached the door, and, as my hand closed over the handle he let out an unearthly scream of frustrated rage and threw himself off the bed at me. The bed rocked, but held, and his clawing fingers scrabbled at the carpet six feet or so away from me.
I was shaking. I got the door open and almost fell into the passage. As I grabbed the handle to shut it, the horrible animal sound burst out of his throat again.
For some moments I just stood in the long, silent corridor, my heart jumping and my knees knocking, then slowly I took hold of myself. With one hand against the wall to support me, I set off slowly towards the massive door at the end of the corridor. I passed four other doors before I came to the end one. I ran my hands over the surface, feeling the soft rubber cool against my hot skin. I turned the handle, but nothing happened. The door was locked as fast as Pharaoh’s tomb.
Well, I expected that. But if I could I was going to get out of here. The thought of going back to that charnel-house of a room gave me the shakes. I took hold of the door handle and bent my strength to it. Nothing happened. It was like trying to push over the Great Wall of China.
That wasn’t the way out.
I retraced my steps to the far end of the corridor and examined the mess-grill window. Nothing short of a crowbar would have shifted it, and even with a crowbar it would have taken hall a day to break out.
The next move was to find a weapon. If I could find something I could use as a cosh I had only to hide myself near the main door and wait for someone to show up. Q.E.D. Even a Malloy will get an idea sometimes.
I began to move along the corridor. The first door I tried was unlocked. I peered cautiously into darkness, listened, heard my own breathing and nothing else, groped for the light switch and turned on the light. Probably Quell’s room. It was neat and tidy and clean, and there was no weapon in sight or nothing I could use for a weapon. A white uniform hanging on a stretcher gave me an idea. I slid into the room and tried on the coat. It didn’t fit me any better than a mole-skin would fit a Polar bear, so I dropped the idea.
The next room was also empty of life. Above the dirty-looking bed was a large coloured print of a girl in a G-string and a rope of pearls. She smiled at me invitingly, but I didn’t smile back. That made it Bland’s room.
I slid in and shut the door. A rapid search through the chest of drawers produced among other things a leather-bound cosh with a wrist thong: a nicely-balanced, murderous little weapon, and just what I warned.
I went across the room to a cupboard, found a spare uniform and tried on the jacket. It was a fair fit, a little big, but good enough. I changed, leaving my pyjamas on the floor. I felt a lot better once I was in trousers and shoes again. Pyjamas and bare feet are not the kit for fighting. I shoved the cosh into my hip pocket, and wished I had a gun.
At the bottom of the cupboard I found a pint bottle of Irish whisky. I broke the seal, unscrewed the cap and took a slug. The liquor went down like silk and exploded in my stomach like a touched-off Mills bomb.
Good liquor, I thought, and, to make sure, had another pull at the bottle. Still very good. Then I packed the pint in a side pocket and moved to the door again. I was coming on.
As I opened the door, I heard footsteps. I stood quieter than a mouse that sees a cat, and waited. The hatchet-faced nurse came along the corridor, humming to herself. She passed quite close to me, and would have seen me if she had looked my way, but she didn’t. She kept on, opened a door on the other side of the corridor and went into a dimly-lit room. The door closed.
I waited, breathing gently, feeling a lot better for the whisky. Minutes ticked by. A small piece of fluff, driven by the draught from under the door, scuttled along the corridor apologetically. A sudden squall of rain lashed against the grill-covered window. The wind sighed around the house. I kept on waiting. I didn’t want to cosh the nurse if I could help it. I’m sentimental about hitting women: they hit me instead.
The nurse appeared again, walked the length of the corridor, produced a key, unlocked the main door before I realized what she was doing. I saw the door open. I saw a flight of stairs leading to a lighted something beyond. I jumped forward, but she had passed through the doorway and closed the door behind her.
Anyway, I consoled myself I wasn’t ready to leave yet. The door could wait. I decided I would investigate the room the nurse had just left. Maybe that was where Anona was.
I eased out the cosh, resisted the temptation to take another drink and walked along the corridor. I paused outside the door, pressed my ear to the panel and listened. I heard nothing but the wind and the rain against the mess-grilled window. I looked back over my shoulder. No one was peering at me from around the other doors. The corridor looked as lonely and as empty as a church on a Monday afternoon. I squeezed the door handle and turned slowly. The door opened, and I looked into a room built and furnished along the lines of the room in which I had been kept a prisoner.
There were two beds; one of them empty. In the other, opposite me, was a woman. A blue night lamp made an eerie light over the white sheet and her white face. The halo of fair hair rested on the pillow, the eyes were studying the ceiling with the perplexed look of a lost child.
I pushed the door open a little wider and walked softly into the room, closed the door and leaned against it. I wondered if she would scream. The rubber-lined door reassured me that if she did no one would hear her; but she didn’t. Her eyes continued to stare at the ceiling, but a nerve in her cheek began to jump. I waited. There was no immediate hurry, and I didn’t want to scare her.
Slowly the eyes moved along the ceiling to the wall, down the wall until they rested on me. We looked at each other. I was aware I was breathing gently and the cosh I held in my hand was as unnecessary as a Tommy gun at a choir practice. I slid it back into my pocket.
She studied me, the nerve jumping and her eyes widening.
“Hello, there,” I said, cheerfully and quietly. I even managed a smile.
Malloy and his bedside manner: a talent to be discussed with bated breath by his grandchildren; if he ever had any grandchildren, which was doubtful.
“Who are you?” She didn’t scream nor try to run up the wall, but the nerve kept on jumping.
“I am a sort of detective,” I said, hoping to reassure her. “I’m here to take you home.”
Now I was closer to her I could see the pupils of her blue eyes were like pin-points.
“I haven’t any clothes,” she said. “They’ve taken them away.”
“I’ll find you some more. How do you feel?”
“All right.” The fair head rolled to the right and then to the left. “But I can’t remember who I am. The man with the white hair told me I’ve lost my memory. He’s nice, isn’t he?”
“So I am told,” I said carefully. “But you want to go home, don’t you? “
“I haven’t a home.” She drew one long naked arm from under the sheet and ran slender fingers through the mop of fair hair. Her hand slid down until it rested on the jumping nerve. She pressed a finger against the nerve as if to hide it. “It got lost, but the nurse said they were looking for it. Have you found it?”
“Yes; that’s why I am here.”
She thought about that for some moments, frowning.
“Then you know who I am?” she said at last.
“Your name is Anona Freedlander,” I said. “And you live in San Francisco.”
“Do I? I don’t remember that. Are you sure?”
I was eyeing her arm. It was riddled with tiny scars. They had kept her drugged for a long time. She was more or less drugged now.
“Yes, I’m sure. Can you get out of bed?”
“I don’t think I want to,” she said. “I think I would rather go to sleep.”
“That’s all right,” I told her. “You go to sleep. We’re not ready to leave just yet. In a little while: after you’ve had your sleep, we’ll go.”
“I haven’t any clothes, or did I tell you that? I haven’t anything on now. I threw my nightdress into the bath. The nurse was very angry.”
“You don’t have to bother about anything. I’ll do the bothering. I’ll find you something to wear when we’re ready to go.”
The heavy lids dropped suddenly, opened again with an effort. The finger slid off the nerve.
It wasn’t jumping any more.
“I like you,” she said drowsily. “Who did you say you were?”
“Malloy. Vic Malloy: a sort of detective.”
She nodded.
“Malloy. I’ll try to remember. I have a very bad memory. I never seem to remember anything.” Again the lids began to fall. I stood over her, watching. “I don’t seem to be able to keep awake.” Then after a long pause and when I thought she was asleep, she said in a faraway voice: “She shot him, you know. I was there. She picked up the shot-gun and shot him. It was horrible.”
I rubbed the tip of my nose with my forefinger. Silence settled over the room. She was sleeping now. Whatever the nurse had pushed into her had swept her away into oblivion. Maybe she wouldn’t come to the surface again until the morning. It meant carrying her out if I could get out myself. But there was time to worry about that.
If I had to carry her I could wrap her in the sheet, but if she insisted on walking, then I’d have to find her something to wear.
I looked around the room. The chest of drawers stood opposite the foot of the bed. I opened one drawer after the other. Most of them were empty; the others contained towels and spare bedding. No clothes.
I crossed the room to the cupboard, opened it and peered inside. There was a dressing-gown, slippers and two expanding suit-cases stacked neatly on the top shelf. I hauled one of them down. On the lid were the embossed initials A.F. I unstrapped the case, opened it. The contents solved my clothes problem. It was packed with clothes. I pawed through them. At the bottom of the case was a Nurse’s uniform.
I dipped my fingers into the side pockets of the case. In one of them I found a small, blue-covered diary dated 1948. I thumbed through it quickly. The entries were few and far between. There were several references to ‘Jack’, and I guessed he was Jack Brett, the naval deserter, Mifflin had told me about.
24.1 Movie with Jack. 7.45. 28.1 Dinner L’Etoile. Meet Jack 6.30. 29.1 Home for week-end. 5.2 Jack rejoining his ship.
Nothing more until March 10th.
10.3 Still no letter from Jack. 12.3 Dr. Salzer asked me if I would like outside work. I said yes. 16.3 Start work at Crestways. 18.3 Mr. Crosby died.
The rest of the diary was a blank as her life had been a blank since that date. She had gone to Crestways presumably to nurse someone. She had seen Crosby die. So she had been locked up in this room for two years and had drug shot into her in the hope that sooner or later her mind would deteriorate and she wouldn’t remember what had happened. That much was obvious, but she still remembered. The horror of the scene still lingered in her mind. Maybe she had come suddenly into the room where the two girls had been fighting for the possession of the gun. She may have drawn back when Crosby had taken a hand in the struggle, not wishing to embarrass him, and she had seen the gun swing on Crosby and the shot fired.
I looked at the still, white face. Sometime, but not now, there had been character and determination in that face. She wasn’t the type to hush anything up, nor would she be influenced by money. She was much more likely to insist on the police being called. So they had locked her away.
I scratched the side of my jaw thoughtfully and flapped the little diary against the palm of my hand. The next move was to get out, and get out quickly.
And as if in answer to this thought, there was a sudden and appalling crash that shook the building: it sounded as if part of the house had collapsed.
I nearly jumped out of my skin, reached the door in two strides and jerked it open. The corridor was full of mortar and brick dust, and out of the dust came two figures: guns in fists, running swiftly towards Hopper’s room—Jack Kerman and Mike Finnegan. At the sight of them I gave a croaking cheer. They pulled up sharply, their guns covering me.
Kerman’s tense face broke into a wide, expansive grin.
“Universal Services at your service,” he said, grabbing my arm. “Want a drink, pal?”
“I want transport for a nude blonde,” I said, hugging him, and took a slap on the back from Mike that staggered me. “What did you do—pull the house down?”
“Hooked a couple of chains to the window and yanked it out with a ten-ton truck,” Kerman said, grinning from ear to ear. “A little crude, but effective. Where’s the blonde?”
Where the mess-grill window had been there was now a gaping hole and shattered brickwork.
I hauled Kerman into Anona’s room while Finnegan guarded the corridor. It took us about ten seconds to wrap the unconscious girl in a sheet and carry her out of the room.
“Rear-guard action, Mike,” I said as we swept past him to the hole in the wall. “Shoot if you have to.”
“Sling her over my shoulder,” Kerman said, twittering with excitement. “There’s a ladder against the wall.”
I helped him climb up on the tottering brickwork. A naked arm and leg hung limply near his face.
“Now I know why guys join the Fire Service,” he said, as he began his cautious climb down the ladder.
Below I could see a large truck parked near the house and at the foot of the ladder I spotted Paula. She waved to me.
“Okay, Mike,” I called. “Let’s go.”
As Mike joined me, the door at the end of the corridor burst open and the hatchet-face nurse appeared. She gave one gaping look at us and the ruined wall and started to scream.
We scrambled down the ladder and piled into the truck.
Paula was already at the driving-wheel, and, as we scrambled into the back of the truck, she let in the clutch and drove crazily across the flower beds.
Kerman had laid Anona on the floor and was looking down at her.
“Yum, yum,” he said, and twirled his moustache. “If I’d known she was as good as this, I’d have come sooner.”