"By all means."
He glanced furtively over his shoulder at the closed door. "When I came here, I thought I was ruined financially. Everything seemed to be crashing. But I knew there was a little left, and that it would go too if I went on playing the market. And I couldn't stop myself. That's why I made a trust fund and appointed Dr. Lenz one of the trustees."
Laribee seemed to consider me only as an audience, so I remained silent.
"The arrangement," he continued, "was that he was to have control of a quarter of my estate if I died or really went mad." A new crafty note had come into his voice. "I thought that would make him look after my money better, and take better care of me, too. You see, I didn't think I was rich enough to make it dangerous. That's why I did it."
He seemed to think this had been a particularly cunning move on his part, but to me it merely sounded crazy.
"Yes," he went on, "I thought I was ruined then. But now I'm rich. I've got over two million. And Lenz knows that, too. If I go mad, he gets half a million for the sanitarium. Half a million!" He lowered his voice again. ! "Now you understand, don't you? That's a lot of money, Duluth, and I've found out something else, too. All the staff here have a financial interest in the institution. Now you see why they're trying to drive me insane.'* He laughed. "As if they could succeed! Why, I'm as sane as any man on Wall Street."
I thought he was probably right on that point. But I could follow his reasoning, too. Lenz himself had told me he would benefit considerably if Laribee were committed to a State institution.
For a moment we sat there together in silence. His burly silhouette was outlined against the white wall. I could even see his sparse hair sticking up like a little boy's.
It was difficult to judge just how crazy he was; difficult, too, to decide whether or not to be sorry for him. I did not like him. In fact, I disliked him intensely when I remembered that tragic expression in Iris' eyes. But, after all, he was old and defenseless. And I myself had seen enough to realize that someone was giving him a pretty raw deal.
"They aren't going to fool me," he said suddenly. "I'm still sane, and in my right mind, and I've just made a new will. My daughter was going to get the bulk of my estate. She was co-trustee with Lenz. She'd have come in for over a million if they'd driven me crazy, and she knew it, too. She wouldn't have stopped them putting me away, Duluth, not her."
He paused, peering at me excitedly as though expecting me to make some comment. I could produce nothing more constructive than a grunt.
"Spent a hundred thousand dollars on that girl's education," he growled at length. "And then what does she do? Goes to Hollywood and tries to become a movie star. Calls herself Sylvia Dawn, indeed! The old name was good enough for me. And she never thought of coming East when I was sick, Duluth. Oh, no, it was her career all the time that counted, not her father—no, not me."
But now Laribee was thoroughly absorbed with his domestic grievances. He was talking to himself, rather than to me.
"But she didn't consider her career much when she married that cheap-skate last summer. Told me at first he was a medical man. And then it turns out he's just a common vaudeville actor!" His hands were beating an indignant tattoo on my quilt. "Dan Laribee's daughter marrying a cheap one-night stander, indeed! I guess he was after my money, too. Well, I'll fool them both. They won't get another penny out of me."
He gave a malevolent little chuckle and then added slyly:
"Now Miss Brush—she's not the type of girl that marries for money, is she, Duluth?"
I said that, having none to speak of myself, I had never given the matter much thought.
"Well, they're all after her, Moreno, Trent, all of them. They're jealous. But it's me she likes. She's really in love with me, Duluth." He crouched forward, almost speaking in my ear. "And 111 tell you a secret. We're going to get married. Just as soon as I leave this place, we're going to get married."
It seemed a curious spot and a curious moment for wedding congratulations, but I did my best.
"I knew you'd sympathize, Duluth. And I know you'll understand when I tell you what I've done."
Once more his head turned furtively toward the closed door. "I've changed my will. I'm going to leave everything to Isabel. That's why I came here. I've got the will with me. And Isabel lent me her fountain pen. I want you to be a witness. But we have to be careful." His laugh was high, excited. "They'd do anything to stop me if they knew. They'd do anything. They'd even murder me, I think."
I could not get my own reaction straight in my head. Laribee seemed wilder, crazier than I had ever before seen him, but there was a kind of logic in what he said.
"You might ask why I don't leave this place," he was whispering. "Well, I can't leave Isabel here unprotected. There would be danger for her, too, if they knew. You see, they all want her and they all want my money."
He was fumbling in his pajama pocket now. His fingers came out, gripping a piece of paper that gleamed in the darkness.
"Here you are. Here's the will. All you have to do is to witness my signature."
I hesitated a moment. But I did not see that it was my part to object. Although the whole thing seemed completely nutty to me, it obviously meant a great deal to Laribee. And after all, we were all in the same boat at the Lenz Sanitarium. I felt I ought to stick by my fellow patients.
My knowledge of legal procedure was hazy in the extreme but it did not really seem to matter whether or not the will would be valid.
"I'll sign," I said. "But I'd like to be able to see the darn thing."
"Yes, yes." Eagerly Laribee's fingers slipped once more into his pajama pocket and came out clutching a small object. "I've got matches—a whole box of them."
I was amazed. All of us were considered potential pyromaniacs. Matches were as difficult to get in the sanitarium as a bottle of absinthe or vodka.
"I got them from Isabel," Laribee was explaining. "And the pen, too."
He struck a match, holding the small flame near the paper. In that flickering light I could see the bluish veins in his red face. I heard his quick, stertorous breathing as I leaned forward to read through the shaky sentences of the will.
The last part alone held my attention.
"My entire estate, both real and personal to my wife, Isabel Laribee, nee Brush; or in the event that my decease should prevent our marriage, to Isabel Brush …"
There was something rather pathetic about those stilted, legal phrases. Something slightly ominous, too. The match burned low and another was struck. Laribee handed me Miss Brush's pen, saying almost triumphantly:
"Sign there, Duluth."
I scribbled my name and the match went out. As the darkness closed in around us again, I remembered an elementary rule of will-making. "You'll need another witness," I said. "All wills have two witnesses, don't they?"
In his excitement, Laribee seemed to have forgotten it, too. He had been folding the paper contentedly, but now it remained poised in mid-air. His voice faltered as he asked:
"But what shall we do, Duluth? What shall we do?"
He sounded so sad—so disappointed—that I felt sorry for him.
"It'll be okay," I said comfortingly. "I'll get you another witness tomorrow. Geddes is a good sport. He'd do it, I know."
"Tomorrow? Oh, I can't leave it till tomorrow. We've got to be quick. Don't you see? Quick and secret."
Laribee fumbled through the darkness for my arm and gripped it pleadingly.
"Get Geddes now, Duluth. Please, get him to do it now."
I didn't exactly like the idea of waking up fellow patients in the middle of the night, but, as I seemed to have become so deeply involved, I thought I might as well see the whole thing through. With Laribee fussing agitatedly around me, I jumped out of bed and moved to the door.
One look down the corridor showed me Warren. The light was on in the alcove and the night attendant was slouched sideways in the stiff chair where his sister had sat. His elbow, propped on the table
by the telephone, supported his head.
It was a simple matter to slip next door into Geddes' room, unobserved. But it was not so simple to wake him. I had to shake his shoulder violently before I got any response. When I did manage to rouse him, he gave a little alarmed cry and stiffened against the pillow, just as I had done earlier when I heard Laribee's footsteps.
I knew how Geddes' narcolepsy plagued him with nightmares and vague fears of the darkness. I felt rather a brute.
"It's all right," I whispered. "It's just Duluth."
I explained the situation, but he didn't seem to grasp it very well. And I could not blame him. As I outlined it, the whole thing seemed absolutely cockeyed to me, too.
"But Laribee's all worked up," I concluded lamely. "I thought it was the only decent thing to do to help him out."
There was a moment's pause. Then Geddes murmured with that polite English acceptance of the extraordinary.
"Only too glad, I'm sure."
He got out of bed, and together we tiptoed to my room. Laribee was waiting eagerly. As soon as we entered, he hurried toward us, waving the paper.
"You just have to sign here, Geddes. Sign my last will and testament."
With trembling fingers, he lighted a match and handed Geddes the pen. The Englishman yawned; pressed the will against the wall and scrawled his name.
"And now you again, Duluth," exclaimed the old man urgently. "I've just remembered—the two witnesses—they must sign in each other's presence."
Again I went through the formality with Geddes as a very sleepy, confused witness. Laribee snatched the paper and we stood a moment in silence. Then the Englishman muttered:
"If you don't mind, Duluth, I think I'll turn in again. I'm not feeling awfully bright."
He had moved to the door and was groping for the handle when very slowly it started to open inward. Instinctively he stepped back. We all did. We stared stupidly as the crack of light broadened and a thin, rigid figure stepped across the threshold.
I must have been pretty much on edge for I felt a moment of wild alarm. The man with the bare feet and the blue silk pajamas seemed somehow uncanny. He drifted rather than walked, as though he were moving in a trance. I did not realize for some seconds that it was David Fenwick.
He closed the door behind him, stood there absolutely still, and said softly:
"I heard voices—voices."
I was amazed that he had been able to hear us, for his room was some way down the corridor. But I suppose that people whose ears are tuned to the spirits must be unusually sensitive.
There did not seem to be anything to say, so we all stood there in silence. Slowly Fenwick turned to Laribee who was still clutching the will in his hand. The young man's large eyes gleamed even in the obscurity. I had the fleeting impression that he could see in the dark.
"What do you have in your hand, Laribee?" he asked suddenly.
The millionaire seemed in a daze. His arm fell to his side and he mumbled mechanically: "It's… it's my will."
"Your will! So you are preparing for death."
"Death?" Laribee's voice rose and then faded into the deep silence but I still seemed to hear the word echoing in my ears.
Fenwick had turned stiffly to the door. He walked like an automaton, and his voice, too, had a flat, robot quality.
"You know the warning. I passed it on to you all. There is no need for you to die if you would obey the spirits and beware of Miss Brush." He slipped into the corridor and his voice trailed back to us. "Beware of Miss Brush* There will be murder."
The three of us were still standing there in bewildered immobility when there were swift footsteps outside and an angry voice exclaimed:
"Hey, there, you!"
The door was swung open again and the light switched on. In the blinding illumination I saw Warren standing on the threshold, his steel hand clamped onto Fenwick's deli-
cate arm. The sour, suspicious gaze flashed around the room.
"What's all this about?" he snapped.
We reacted like school kids caught out in a midnight prank. Laribee had stuffed the paper and fountain pen into his pajama pocket. I could not tell whether or not the night attendant had noticed them.
"Well, what's all this about?" he was growling again.
Neither Geddes nor Laribee spoke. Someone had to say something, so I shrugged and murmured as casually as I could:
"Just the boys getting together, Warren. Come on and join the fun."
15
AFTER THE DEPARTURE of my uninvited guests, I had sufficient presence of mind to grope about in the half darkness and retrieve the damning evidence of the match sticks. Having disposed of them down the wash basin, I returned to bed and, oddly enough, slept quite soundly.
Next morning I was wakened by the new attendant. In my sleep-bleary state, I thought for a moment that he was Fogarty. It gave me quite a shock. I had another mild shock when I saw the man's face. It was a perfectly ordinary face, youngish and pleasant. But it was exasperatingly familiar.
I tried to place him as we went down to the gymnasium for my pre-breakfast workout. He said his name was John Clarke, but that didn't mean anything. At last I got so mad at myself that I asked:
"Haven't I seen you somewhere before?"
He smiled and said: "No, Mr. Duluth."
And the conversation ended there.
After breakfast I paid my daily visit to the surgery. Dr. Stevens seemed to have regretted his impulsive frankness of the day before. He was short with me and rather embarrassed. He would have been even more embarrassed if he had learned the disastrous results of his suggested psycho-analytical experiment.
The sight of the surgical knives glinting in their glass cabinet almost moved me to warn him of Miss Powell's peculiar monologue in the central hall. But in the light of what had followed, that incident seemed almost too trivial to mention. Besides, ever since I had found out his connection with Fenwick, I had lost my whole-hearted confidence in him. I ended up by telling him nothing except that physically I was bearing up remarkably well under the shock of the past twenty-four hours.
Unlike his colleague, Dr. Moreno was as impeccably impersonal as ever when I underwent my official pep-talk in his office. For a while he discussed my condition as though there were no more pressing business in the world than the mental and neural state of an ex-drunk. His masterly self-control intimidated me, and I was taken completely off my guard when suddenly he said:
"With regard to the other matter, Mr. Duluth, I have questioned all the patients as carefully as I could. Of course, I made no direct inquiries. But none of them seem to have seen or heard anything to worry them. From what I can gather no one knows anything concerning Fogarty's death."
"Even if they don't know anything," I said, "I only hope someone's doing something about it."
Moreno looked annoyed. "If it is any comfort to you, Mr. Duluth, all the members of the staff have spent most of their spare time either being questioned by the police or trying to help them. You can rest assured that there has been no negligence."
I accepted this as a sarcastic dismissal and was about to take my leave when he added curtly:
"What were Laribee, Geddes and Fenwick doing in your room last night?"
It was now my turn to be annoyed. After all, Moreno was probably younger than myself, and I felt he had no right to adopt this dictatorial attitude. Certainly there seemed no reason for me to confide in him.
"I guess they couldn't sleep," I said, "and were bored. They came in for a chat."
I almost reminded him that we paid a hundred a week and ought to be able to do what we liked with our nights. But his studied dignity made such a remark seem merely juvenile. He looked at his antiseptic hands and asked slowly:
"And what was there so fascinating to talk about that all of you should have been breaking the regulations, Mr. Duluth?"
"There was something that fascinated Laribee," I retorted promptly.
"And it was?"
His eyes narrowed suddenly and I saw in them that dangerous gleam which I had noticed several times before. Despite his cold suavity, he was pretty bad at concealing his anger. I expected him to snap out at me, but when he spoke, his voice was very quiet.
"You are my personal patient, Mr. Duluth. As the authorities have seen fit to give you some of their confidence against my advice, I feel there are several things about this institution which you should know."
I nodded, admiring the man's control. He obviously thought I was a low-down son of a gun for meddling around in other people's business, but there was no sign of it in his manner.
"One of the things you should realize, Mr. Duluth, concerns Miss Brush. She is an extremely efficient young woman and she has by far the most difficult work in the sanitarium. You are an intelligent man, and, as such, you will understand that it is practically impossible for an attractive nurse to look after men who are mentally off balance without certain complications arising."
"I'm over thirty," I said, smiling. "You needn't begin with the birds and the flowers."
Moreno's tone became a trifle more stiff and pompous. "For purely psychiatric reasons it may be necessary for Miss Brush to take certain attitudes with certain patients. But whatever attitude she adopts, it is always one which has been suggested and approved by the authorities at our staff conferences."
I might have asked him whether the authorities had approved of her lending Laribee a fountain pen to make a will in her favor. I might also have asked him why, as a doctor, he approved of certain aspects of Isabel Brush's behavior, when he so obviously disapproved of them as a man. But I did not want to suggest things to him. I wanted him to suggest them to me.
"So Miss Brush is just part of Laribee's treatment," I inquired naively.
Moreno drew in a swift breath. "I suppose that is one way of putting it, Mr. Duluth. But rather a theatrical one. And I must ask you once more to leave the worrying in this matter to those who are directly concerned."
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