Puzzle for Fiends

by Patrick Quentin

  “Gordy, you’re insinuating that I fired Netti because...”

  “I’m not insinuating any more. I’m bored with insinuating. I’m telling you that all four of you—Selena, Marny, Dr. Croft and you—have been feeding me a pack of lies from the very beginning. I’m perfectly conscious of the fact and I’m not going to be lied to any more.”

  “Darling, thank heavens!” Mrs. Friend caught up my hand and squeezed it. “At last you’re being frank with me. You can’t know how grateful I am. What exactly do you think we’re lying about?”

  “I don’t think. I know.” I wasn’t going to mention my suspicions about old Mr. Friend’s death, of course. That was far too dangerous. “You’re lying about that old woman.”

  A sweetly patient smile played around her lips. “If I knew what you meant about the old woman, dear, perhaps I could explain.”

  “The old woman who came into my room last night.” I was smart enough not to add that the old woman had said I wasn’t Gordy Friend. “The old woman Selena said was just a figment of my imagination.”

  I glared at her, thinking: She'll have to break now. But Mrs. Friend had never looked less like breaking.

  “Selena said there wasn’t an old woman living in the house?” she repeated. “My dear, how strange. Of course there’s an old woman living here.”

  I had expected almost anything but that. I said: “Then why did Selena lie about her?”

  “My dear, I can’t imagine.” Mrs. Friend’s voice was soothing. “Of course I don’t know the circumstances. You are still an invalid. Perhaps whatever happened flustered you and Selena thought you’d sleep better if she pretended it was all a dream. But then, you can’t expect me to explain Selena’s mental processes. Sometimes I wonder whether she has any.”

  Once again Mrs. Friend had managed to make me feel like a fool. Weakly, I said: “Who is she then, this old woman?”

  “Your grandmother, dear. The poor darling, she’s my mother. She’s been living with us ever since we came to California. She’s quite ancient and rather frail, but she’s certainly not a dream.”

  “I can see her then?”

  “See her?” Mrs. Friend’s face lit up with a smile of incredulous gratitude. “My dear, could you really be bothered to? She’s always been so devoted to you. And, I’m afraid, you’ve rather neglected her. Dear, if only you would have a little visit with her, it would make me so happy.”

  That was typical of Mrs. Friend. You shot an arrow at her and she caught it and then started to croon over it as if it were a beautiful flower you’d presented to her.

  But this time, surely, she’d over-reached herself. She thought she was being smart by pretending she wanted me to meet the old woman. But neither she nor anyone else knew that last night the old woman had admitted I wasn’t Gordy Friend. With any luck I could turn her latest scheme into a boomerang.

  I said: “How about going to see her right now?”

  “That would be lovely.” Mrs. Friend stuffed her knitting back into the garden basket and, rising, kissed me sweetly on the cheek. “Dear, you are being a darling boy.”

  She started to wheel my chair into the house.

  “It’s only this, dear, that you’re suspicious about?”

  “Yes,” I said, lying.

  We went down a sunny corridor into a wing I had not explored. We stopped before a closed door. The little contented smile curling her lips, Mrs. Friend tapped and called: “Mother? Mother, dear?”

  My fingers, gripping the arms of the wheel chair, were quivering.

  “Mother, sweet?” called Mrs. Friend again.

  “Martha, is that you?” An old, querulous voice sounded scratchily through the door.

  “Yes, dear. Can I come in?”

  “Come in. Come in.”

  Mrs. Friend opened the door and pushed my chair into a beautiful lavender and grey bedroom. In a chair by the window, an ancient woman, with a shawl arranged untidily over her shoulders, was sitting looking out at the garden. As Mrs. Friend wheeled me nearer, the old woman did not turn. But I could see her profile clearly. I studied the lined, parchment skin, the large eye, sunken in its socket. There was no doubt about it at all.

  My “grandmother”, sitting there in the wheel chair by the window, was definitely the old woman who had stood over my bed the night before.

  “Mother, dear,” said Mrs. Friend. “Look. I’ve brought you a surprise.”

  “What? A surprise, eh?”

  The old woman shifted laboriously in her chair so that she could look at us.

  This was the moment.

  The old woman peered at the wheel chair and then at me. Slowly the wrinkles around her mouth stretched into a smile of quavering delight.

  “Gordy,” she said.

  She held out both her thin hands to me. The knotted fingers made greedy clutching motions in the air as if she could not wait to embrace me.

  “Gordy,” she cried. “It’s my Gordy. My darling Gordy’s come to see his old grandmother.”

  Mrs. Friend brought the two chairs together. The old fingers were running up my arms. The old lips, dry and parched, nuzzled affectionately against my cheek.

  Marny’s voice, broken and wild with weeping, seemed to be right there in the room.

  I can't bear watching what they're doing to you. They’re fiends—all of them... fiends...

  Chapter 13

  Mrs. Friend controlled that “little visit” with the firm hand of a stage director. She introduced small, safe topics of conversation, sprinkled the old lady and me with smiles and, after five minutes or so, submitted me to another old kiss from “grandmother” and wheeled me out of the room.

  In the sunny corridor, she beamed at me. “There, darling boy, she’s not particularly frightening, is she?”

  I could have said: She isn’t, but you are. I didn’t. I didn’t say anything. Through her extraordinary talent for intrigue, Mrs. Friend had somehow managed to woo the old lady over to her side. She had me trapped now. Saying things couldn’t help.

  She wheeled me out onto the terrace. Sunshine was good for me, she said. She suggested taking me down to the pool, but at that moment Selena, Nate, and Marny trooped up the grass path through the flower-beds. They crowded around us in their swimming suits, young, handsome, friendly. I looked at Marny mostly. I had no one now except possibly Marny. But there was no sign in her face of her strange breakdown. She was as masked and specious as the others.

  “Selena, dear, we’ve just been to see grandmother.” Mrs. Friend’s voice was gently chiding. “Really, what on earth was in your mind when you told Gordy she didn’t exist?”

  Selena was quick all right. Without the slightest sign of improvisation, she gave a light laugh. “Wasn’t it stupid?”

  “Then why did you do it, dear?”

  “Oh, it was just that I’d been asleep, Mimsey. I was confused. Gordy was scared. I thought it was easier to reassure him that way. And then, after I’d done it, I knew he was suspicious of us. I thought if he discovered I’d lied a stupid lie it would make it worse. So I asked Marny to back me up.” She caressed Marny’s unresponsive arm. “Didn’t I, Marny?”

  Marny shrugged.

  Selena turned her bright gaze on Nate. “I explained to Nate too and he said, as a doctor, that I’d been right, didn’t you, Nate?”

  “Yes,” said Nate.

  Mrs. Friend sighed. “Selena, dearest, I’m afraid you won’t go ringing down the centuries for your intellect. Now, be a good girl. Tell Gordy you’re sorry.”

  “I’m sorry, baby. “Selena kissed me on the forehead. “Next time an old lady climbs into bed with you, I’ll give you her whole life history.”

  They seemed to be stuck in the groove of deceit—like Japanese envoys talking good neighborliness with the drone of their own bombers already audible overhead.

  Did they really think they were still deceiving me?

  “There. “Mrs. Friend smiled dazzlingly. “Everything’s cleared up now, Gordy.”<
br />
  She started organizing us. Selena, Nate, and Marny were ordered off to change their wet swimming suits. I was turned over to Jan who wheeled me back to my room and, quite unnecessarily, bathed me all over again.

  While his hands moved over my skin, I struggled with an idea that was slowly forming in my mind. I had not believed Mrs. Friend’s threadbare explanation that Mr. Petherbridge was coming tomorrow simply as a member of the Aurora Clean Living League. Whatever their over-all policy, I knew they expected something definite from me tomorrow and that definite thing was connected with Mr. Friend’s poem.

  Maybe I could use the poem as a weapon for a counterattack.

  Jan lifted me out of the tub and started to dry me. I said suddenly: “Why did Mr. Friend fire you?”

  His hand, gripping the green Turkish towel, came to rest on my stomach. He stared from blue, wary eyes.

  “You.” I pointed at him. “Mr. Friend say to you—Jan scram?”

  For the first time he seemed to grasp my meaning. His eyes cleared. He nodded vigorously, the blond lock slipping over his forehead.

  “Why?” I said. “Why he say Jan—scram? Why?”

  He laughed then, a deep, hilarious laugh. It seemed to indicate that he’d been fired for some reason which to him was infinitely entertaining. He was still laughing when he’d dressed me and carried me back to the wheel chair.

  Cocktails were being served in the huge living-room when Jan took me there. The family and Dr. Croft were lounging in chairs before the vast plate-glass window, chatting, laughing, like any family having a good time.

  Mrs. Friend permitted me a single cocktail with Nate Croft’s sanction as a ‘special treat’. Tomorrow was to be a day of gloom, she said. We should all celebrate today.

  The celebration was carried over into dinner with champagne which was served in a glass-walled dining-room by a maid I had never seen before. Netti’s successor? We were all supposed to be terribly, terribly at our ease. No one was. I frankly sulked. Marny was silent and keyed-up. Selena and Nate—and even Mrs. Friend—were much too gay for conviction. They cracked jokes about the Clean Living League; they made preposterous suggestions for shocking Mr. Moffat.

  They were nervous. That meant things were coming to a head.

  The poem was never mentioned at dinner but I was sure it was in all their minds. This mood of forced frivolity was a deliberate prologue to the moment when—oh, so casually and lightly—someone would suggest that it would be frightfully amusing to rehearse me in the Ode to Aurora.

  When we sat over coffee in the living-room, looking out at the staggering panorama of sky and mountain, Selena left her seat and perched herself on the arm of my wheel chair. It was an uncomfortable position. Only an excess of affection or the simulation of it could have made her take it.

  I suspected the latter and I was right. Almost immediately, she squeezed my shoulder, smiled and chanted:

  “In taverns where young people mingle to sway their lascivious hips. Really, that’s divine. I’ve been saying it over and over to myself all day. Gordy, it’ll be sheer bliss having you recite it tomorrow to all those whey-faced virgins. Come on, let’s teach you the rest.”

  “Yes,” put in Nate, obviously following a cue. “I’m crazy to hear the poem. Never did, you know.”

  Without looking up from her knitting, Mrs. Friend said: “Marny dear, run get the book from Gordy’s room.”

  Marny tossed back her glossy black hair, glanced at me for a strained, ambiguous moment and then hurried out of the room. Soon she was back. Selena took the book from her and searched through the pages.

  Mrs. Friend said: “It’s a shame to make a mock of your poor father.” She looked up at me smiling. “You’ll promise to keep a straight face when you recite, won’t you, Gordy? It’ll mean so much to Mr. Moffat.”

  Selena found the page. “Just two more verses, Gordy, dear.”

  Nate had left his chair and was standing behind Selena, his hand resting with pretended absence of mind on her bare shoulder. Mrs. Friend put her knitting down in her lap. Marny lit a match for a cigarette with a sharp, spurting sound. They were all so conscious of me that I could feel their concentration like fingers on my body.

  They were losing their subtlety.

  Dreamily Selena started to recite:

  “ ‘Oh, mothers moan sad for their stripling.

  Oh, wives yearn at home for their spouse.

  Both are down in the dark tavern tippling,

  Debauched in their careless carouse.

  Besotted they slump to the floor. Ah,

  Ere they drown in the beer’s fatal foam,

  Restore them, reprieve them, Aurora,

  Our Lady of Home.’ ”

  Mrs. Friend crinkled her nose. “Really, it’s enough to drive Mahomet to drink, isn’t it? I’m afraid your father wasn’t a very good Swinburne, Gordy.” She smiled at me. “Now be a good boy, dear. The first line, Oh, mothers moan sad for their...”

  Selena was watching me under half-closed lashes. Nate was watching me. So was Marny.

  “Come on, dear.” Mrs. Friend started to beat a ponderous rhythm in the air with her fingers. “Oh, mothers moan sad...”

  “No,” I said.

  Selena’s arm, thrown over my shoulder, stiffened. Nate’s mouth went tight. Mrs. Friend said:

  “No—what, Gordy dear?”

  “I’m not going to learn the goddam poem.”

  Marny’s eyes were bright. Mrs. Friend rose and moved towards me.

  “Now, dear, don’t be pettish. I know it’s preposterous. I know it’ll be embarrassing for you. But, please...”

  I shook my head.

  “Why not, dear? Why in heaven’s name not?”

  She was rattled. For the first time the tranquil smile was so phony you could see right through it. I felt wonderful.

  “I won’t learn the poem,” I said, “because this is a free country and I don’t want to learn a poem which should have been strangled at birth.”

  “But, darling, I told you. For Mr. Moffat’s sake...”

  “I should care for Mr. Moffat.” I paused, gauging the tension. “Why make a fuss? It doesn’t matter whether I read it or not. You said so yourself. A charming gesture you called it. Okay, so there won’t be a charming gesture.”

  Dr. Croft, trying to be the gruff, boys-together doctor, said: “Gordy, old man, let’s not be ornery about it. Your mother wants you to recite it. After all, it’s not much to ask.”

  I looked at him. It was better, somehow, dealing with a man after all those smothering females. I said: “I might be persuaded to recite it.”

  “Persuaded?” He looked hopeful. “How, Gordy?”

  “If they stopped lying and told me why they really want me to do it.”

  “Lying.” Nate echoed the word sharply. “Gordy, I thought we were through with all these suspicions. I thought…”

  Mrs. Friend, still flustered, opened her mouth, but surprisingly Selena spoke in first.

  “All right. That’s putting it up to us. “She laughed, her husky, amused laugh. “Why not tell him the truth?”

  “Selena!’ snapped Mrs. Friend.

  “Don’t you see how stupid we’re being? You bawled me out for lying about Grandma. This is much sillier. He doesn’t believe us. That’s obvious. What’s the point of trying to fool him when he won’t be fooled? ’ She leaned down, letting her shining hair brush my cheek. “Poor Gordy, you must think we’re fiends incarnate. And I don’t blame you. But it’s all so silly, because the truth’s so—innocuous. There’s no reason in the world why you shouldn’t hear it.”

  I looked up at her blandly smiling mouth so close to mine. I wished she wasn’t so beautiful.

  “The truth,” I said, “is innocuous?”

  “Of course. “Selena was watching Mrs. Friend. “I’ll tell him?”

  I was watching Mrs. Friend, too. From the slight puckering around her eyes, I was almost sure that Selena was improvising and that her mother-in
-law was uneasy about its outcome.

  Tartly she said: “Do what you think best, Selena.”

  Selena nuzzled closer to me. “Gordy, darling—the poem.” Her voice was caressing, suspect. “Of course it’s important. And you were awfully smart to realize it. We didn’t tell you because—well, it was really Mimsey’s idea. You see, it’s all tied up with your drinking too much. Mimsey’s always been worried about it. Then this amnesia came, and she thought maybe, since you’d forgotten everything else, you’d forget your craving for alcohol. She was scared that by telling you the truth about tomorrow—about the poem, it would make you think of yourself as a drunk and spoil your chance of being cured.” She turned to Mrs. Friend. “That’s true, isn’t it, Mimsey?”

  This was being okay with Mimsey. She had quite regained her composure. She had even picked up her knitting and was working the needles.

  “Yes, Selena,” she said. “Gordy, dear, I do so hope you’re going to be good about drinking now.”

  Nate, also more relaxed, chose the opportunity to put in one of his fancy medical pontifications. “There’s a good chance of it, Gordy, old man. The obliteration of a personality, however temporary, may well also obliterate the craving for alcohol which the maladjustment of that personality induced.” I glanced at Marny. Marny was the key. There was no expression on her face. She was sitting, flat-eyed, watching Selena.

  “Okay,” I said. “So far so good. You’ve been lying because you were trying to save me from the beer’s fatal foam — you and the Aurora Clean Living League.”

  “My dear Gordy, it’s not like the League.” Mrs. Friend purled or plained or something. “Of course, none of us mind a little drunkenness now and then. There’s no moral attitude, dear. It’s just that we don’t want you to impair your health.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “Now—give about the poem.”

  “It’s awfully stupid, baby.” Selena’s hand was stroking the short hairs at the back of my neck. “It’s all something dismal from your father’s will.”