A Puzzle for fools

by Patrick Quentin

  Lunch was brought to me in bed—a wing of fried chicken and some caramel custard. I was only given time to wash the fried chicken from my ears when I was ordered to dress. Hastily I put on my clothes and was hustled into the procession on its way to the movies.

  I spotted Geddes and contrived to loiter at the back with him as the little queue progressed down the corridor. The Englishman's face was drawn and tired; he didn't seem pleased with the movie idea.

  "Damn stupid of them to make me see this flicker," he said morosely. "If it's dull, I'll go to sleep anyway and if it starts getting exciting, it'll send me off into one of my rigid attacks. Still, I suppose the routine must go on."

  During the idle hours of the morning I had decided that the time had come to let Geddes know all I knew. Lenz’ psychiatric quibblings, Moreno's pompousness, Stevens' inquisitiveness and Miss Brush's brisk officiousness, had taught me once and for all to expect neither sympathy nor co-operation from the staff. And I was horribly in need of both. I wanted someone who could talk sense instead of discussing insanity, someone who would believe what I told him instead of bringing my mental condition up as a major problem at board meetings. Geddes was investigating on his own. The two amateurs should go into partnership and to hell with authoritative red-tape.

  "Listen," I began furtively, "I've got a lot to tell you— things I’ve known all along but have been too much of an idiot to talk about."

  Geddes paused. Ahead of us the others clattered on their way to the films.

  "You mean something about that voice?"

  "Yes. You know what it said about Fogarty? Well, Fogarty didn't leave the sanitarium. He was murdered."

  "Murdered!" A look of utter astonishment spread over the Englishman's face. "What on earth do you mean?"

  "The police think it was an accident, but I..."

  "When did it happen?"

  "A couple of days ago."

  "Right here in the sanitarium?"

  "Yes. In the physio-therapy room some time Saturday night."

  "So that's it!" Geddes' eyes gleamed with an expression of understanding, then they went very grave. "I see it all now, Duluth, see why they've been trying to drive me away, why they threatened to kill me. God—if only I'd known this before…! Listen, I've got to go to Lenz right away."

  "Don't do that," I urged. "Not until you've told me. You mean you saw something or…?"

  "Yes, I saw something all right and …"

  We were both too worked up to have noticed the approach of Miss Brush. Before we realized it, she was standing about two feet away from us, smiling brightly.

  "Come on, you two slow pokes. If you don't hurry, you'll miss the movie."

  She had a talent for appearing at the wrong moment, that woman. I couldn't tell whether or not she had heard anything, but she showed no sign of it. Slipping between us, she took both our arms and led us along like two little rich boys with their expensive nurse-maid.

  Of all its modern conveniences, the Lenz Sanitarium was proudest of its moving picture theatre. The director himself believed strongly in the tranquillizing effect of certain carefully chosen movies and in order to extract the maximum benefit from them he had installed a particularly luxurious projector in a room which originally had been constructed as a legitimate theatre.

  The greatest difficulty to overcome in a mental institution is the sense of restriction. Lenz had done his best to recreate the outside world in this theatre so that we could feel we had just dropped across the street to see a show. The place was small, but its seating arrangements were those of the authentic movie houses, with cushioned chairs set in rows. The lighting was controlled from the projection room and appropriately dimmed and raised from there. And as a final splendid touch, the films were thrown onto the screen from a sound-proof projection room in the rear so that the whirring of the movie should not disturb the more sensitive patients.

  Only one divergence from the normal had been adopted and that, I believe, is a perfectly regular Asiatic custom. The sexes were strictly segregated: women to the left of the aisle, men to the right.

  The women were already assembled when we entered. The left of the aisle was alive with femininity, heads bobbing over sanitarium gossip, excited chattering and laughter. I saw Iris immediately. She had an aisle seat next to Miss Powell. Although I did my best to catch her eye, she didn't seem to notice me.

  The men were milling around, making a fuss about who was to have the best seats. I was eager to get back to Geddes and hear what he had to say, but while I was moving toward him, Miss Brush took me under control again. Before I had time to protest, I was sitting in the last row next to Billy Trent.

  I was too preoccupied to take much interest in what was going on around me, but gradually everyone became satisfied with his place. The talking subsided into an expectant silence. And from somewhere in the sound-proof projection room, Warren, who acted as projection man, dimmed the lights. I had just caught a glimpse of Laribee's burly figure taking an aisle seat immediately opposite Iris when the illumination was extinguished altogether.

  There was a nervous giggle from one of the female patients, a shuffle of feet, then in portentous silence, the animal film began.

  Wide-eyed gazelles, strangely reminiscent of David Fenwick, were tripping about on the African veldt. A sloth munched a banyan or some such fruit. Baby baboons scratched one another's backs. I found it all rather tame. But the others didn't. Almost immediately the atmosphere was charged with interest. Young Billy Trent in the chair next to me was leaning forward with shining eyes. There was an occasional loud comment of approval from someone on the women's side.

  This concentrated, childlike absorption in the excitement of the moment made me realize more than anything else how different were the minds of my fellow inmates from those of the people outside. I realized, too, how easy it must have been for the staff to keep them ignorant of what had been going on around them. They reacted to things violently for a few seconds and then forgot them again immediately.

  Billy Trent's face was a symbol of them all. In one minute his expression would change from alarm to joy, from joy to misery, from misery to hilarious amusement. And all this because two blue-faced monkeys were fighting over a bunch of dates.

  I remembered what Geddes had said about his reaction to excitement. I had given him enough cause for worry and I was eager to assure myself that my hurried confidence had had no bad effect.

  My eyes were fairly used to the semi-darkness now, I scanned the house, I saw Stroubel rhythmically nodding his finely shaped head. I saw Fenwick staring with luminous eyes. At length I caught a glimpse of the Englishman. He was sitting very straight and rigid like a wax figure. With a slight sinking of the heart, I realized that the prophesied attack had come on.

  For a moment I contemplated telling one of the attendants, but I decided that I would only cause an unnecessary disturbance. Geddes would be as comfortable there as anywhere else.

  Once more I tried to interest myself in the movie, to forget the complex mysteries of the sanitarium in the light-hearted gambols of the animal kingdom. I would have given anything to see a nice healthy lion devouring a couple of natives. But, apparently, all carnivores had been carefully censored.

  Around me in the darkened room, the excitement was growing more acute. I could almost sense it as an actual, solid presence in the cinema. I seemed to be the only member of the audience to notice that the door behind us was opening.

  Swiftly I glanced around to see a large, square-shouldered silhouette on the threshold. He was in half profile, and the straight line of his beard was clearly visible. So Dr. Lenz was back from New York.

  Usually there was something reassuring about the sight of that bearded, magnetic man. But I watched him then with a strange alarm. He seemed so real that he intensified the unreality of the animal puppets on the screen and the human puppets around me.

  I had an impulse to run to him and to tell him everything about Iris and the knife. But a
t that moment I was distracted by a figure rising in the front row and slipping down the aisle toward me.

  As he passed, I recognized Moreno. He hurried to Lenz, and they stood there together by the door, whispering. Somehow, I felt they were worried.

  Giraffes were galloping across the screen now—strange, crazy animals—the sort of things you might see in delirium tremens.

  I was thinking of delirium tremens, thinking how close I had been to it myself, when an incredible cry split the silence.

  It was high, hysterical—like the voice of a terrified woman. And it shrieked the one word:

  "Fire!"

  For a second I was frozen into my seat. I thought my imagination must have played me some crazy trick, for I was sitting in the back row, and the voice had come from behind me. There was no woman there, I knew.

  And then it sounded again—once—twice—three times. It seemed to echo around the room and come from all parts at once.

  "Fire! Fire! Fire!"

  In the panic that followed I had no time to think, no time to wonder how genuine the alarm had been. Instantly everyone sprang to his feet. The women screamed and chairs were clattered backward. Around me the men scrambled for the door. Billy Trent almost barged me over. I caught a glimpse of Miss Brush's uniform gleaming white in that chaotic darkness.

  And the movie still went on. The giraffes galloped madly—galloped as though they, too, were trying to escape the menace of fire.

  My first instinct was to get to Iris. As everyone rushed past me, I struggled forward. The giraffes had vanished now and a tapir blundered blindly across the screen. There was something horrible about the serene progress of the movie in all that crazy confusion.

  "Lights!" I yelled, but no one paid any attention. I had forgotten that the only switch was behind the screen and that Warren in the sound-proof projection room would have no means of telling what had happened.

  Lenz' voice was booming resonantly from the door. **Do not be alarmed. There is no fire. Keep your seats, please."

  That seemed to check the disorder slightly, but the headlong rush to safety continued. Some of the more distracted patients ran pointlessly about as though in the darkness they had lost their sense of direction. Everything was in a hopeless muddle. Screams, gasps, shouted injunctions were raised in a grotesque cacophony.

  The film tapir had given way to a flock of flamingoes. They flapped toward the front of the screen—growing larger and larger until at any second I expected to feel gigantic feathery wings enveloping me.

  As I pushed forward, I heard Warren's voice from somewhere, crying agitatedly:

  "What's the matter? What's going on here?"

  "Get back and switch on the lights, you fool." I recognized Moreno's answering voice, sharp and angry. "And stop that damn film."

  Somehow I had managed to stumble through two or three rows now. I was peering around anxiously for Iris when I tripped over something lying on the floor. I bent down and was just able to make out the figure of Geddes, sprawled there among the overturned chairs. I touched him. His arm was as rigid as steel.

  I had to stand over him to keep the stragglers from trampling on him in their blind dash for the door. I thought I recognized Miss Powell, fluttering by me like an agitated moth. And then I felt a hand on my shoulder, and Clarke's voice spoke in my ear.

  "Is that you, Mr. Duluth? You'd better help me get him out."

  "But who shouted fire?" I asked breathlessly.

  "No one knows. Can't think why Warren doesn't switch on those darn lights."

  Together we lifted Geddes and carried him through the jumble of overturned furniture to the door. Instantly another attendant came up and the two of them took Geddes away. I was left there in the passage, blinking at the disheveled array of my fellow patients, whom Lenz, Miss Brush, and a few other officials were doing their best to reassure.

  Immediately I scanned the crowd for Iris. She wasn't there. Feeling an unaccountable apprehension, I hurried back to the door of the theatre and swung it open.

  Warren had switched on the lights now. Bright illumination poured down from a chandelier in the ceiling, paling the suspended screen images of the stationary movie. I could see only too clearly what the darkness had concealed.

  The room was empty except for two figures. They sat close together in aisle seats, strangely isolated in that confusion of overturned chairs. One of them was Iris, and she was perfectly still as though carved out of stone. Her eyes were lowered, fixed intently upon something which lay in her lap.

  In uncontrollable fascination, my gaze turned to the second figure, sitting so near to her across the narrow aisle. I say sitting. Actually, he was crouched in an awkward, unnatural position, half supported by the back of the chair in front of him.

  It was Daniel Laribee.

  As I stared, his body slipped jerkily forward—moving slowly, woodenly until it collapsed to the floor.

  I felt that Iris had not even been aware of him until that moment. But at the sound of that heavy falling body, she started. Then, with a little scream, she picked up the thing which had been in her lap and threw it blindly from her across the room.

  I am vague about what happened next. I know I rushed forward to try to do something for her; to hide, if necessary, the thing she had thrown away. But Miss Brush was too quick for me. While I was still stumbling through the chairs, she had run from the door and was picking it up.

  Her eyes flashed to Laribee and then back to the thing in her hand with an expression of growing horror. Very slowly she moved to Iris.

  I shall never forget that picture; Isabel Brush leaning tensely forward, her blond hair ruffled around her face; and Iris, sitting there perfectly still, stretching her hands in front of her in a gesture of extreme disgust.

  I could not tear my gaze from those hands—so fragile and white beneath the scarlet stains of blood. I could see the blood on her dress, too, soaking into the gray material.

  Footsteps sounded behind us now and the rest of staff came trooping in. Most of them hurried toward Laribee, but Moreno moved to our side and the three of us stood there in silence. Suddenly Iris seemed to become conscious of our presence. She glanced up wildly and screamed.

  "Look, doctor." Miss Brush was holding out the thing which she had picked up from the floor. "I saw her throw this away."

  Moreno stared blankly. I felt the pulses throbbing in my temples. In her hand, the day nurse was gripping a surgical knife. Its blade was crimson with blood.

  "Miss Pattison," said Moreno quietly, "what does mean?"

  Iris turned her face away. "I—don't—know—what— happened," she said very deliberately and softly.

  "But you had that knife, and Mr. Laribee—"

  "Laribee!" Iris swung around, her eyes suddenly desperate and alight with fear. "So it did happen? He is dead! And—I suppose you think I did it."

  I wanted to push forward, to comfort her and tell her not to be frightened, but somehow I couldn't move. It was as though we were all caught in some spell.

  Slowly Iris lifted a hand to her face. Her shoulders quivered and I could hear her sobbing quietly, hopelessly.

  "I don't know what happened," she faltered. "I can't remember. I didn't want to kill him. I've been trying not to do what they said. It's… it's all so terrible…"

  At that moment the motherly figure of Mrs. Dell hurried over. She brushed us aside and before any of us spoke again, she had slipped an arm around Iris' waist and was leading her out of the room.

  Someone closed the door behind them.

  I turned to the little group that was bent absorbedly over the prostrate figure of Daniel Laribee. I saw Dr. Lenz' bearded face pressed close to the millionaire's vest. I saw a little pool of blood darkening the floor in the aisle.

  "Stabbed in the back!" The exclamation came from Dr. Stevens who crouched at Lenz* side.

  I caught Moreno's expression as he crossed to join them and I knew at once that Laribee was either dying or dead.

/>   So it had come at last—this major tragedy to which all the incidents of the past few days had seemed inevitably to be leading. Laribee had been killed, stabbed to death during an innocent animal movie.

  There had been that cry of fire, Warren's failure to switch on the lights, the resulting chaos. Were those things merely accidents? Or were they all part of that deliberate plan, that plan which had so brutally and relentlessly involved Iris and now, it seemed, had actually planted the knife on her.

  "Who was it called fire?" Lenz' voice cut angrily into my thoughts.

  No one answered for a moment. Then Moreno replied quietly: "I thought it came from somewhere at the back of the hall not far from where we were standing."

  Lenz bent over the body again. Swift comments rippled among the others. Had it been a man or a woman who had cried out? There seemed no agreement.

  I stood on the fringe of the group, apparently forgotten in the confusion. At length Miss Brush glanced up and saw me. She still held the knife in her hand and as she moved toward me, she looked like an imperious Lady Macbeth after the murder of Duncan.

  Her deep blue eyes stared penetratingly into mine.

  "There is no need for you to be here, Mr. Duluth," she said. "You'd better go back to your room."

  21

  SO IT HAD COME at last! Despite the horrible thing that had happened to Iris, Laribee's death brought with it a strange feeling of relief. It was like the hysterical ending to an overacted, oversensational play.

  Now that he was dead, the financier seemed somehow small and pitiful. I thought of his delusions of poverty; his strange relationship with Miss Brush; that pathetic midnight will.

  And the will, I reflected suddenly, was still lying under the rubber mat in my room. It might prove important; it might help to convince the police that Iris had no part in the affair. I decided to go and get it immediately.

  As, confused and anxious, I passed through the building on the way to Wing Two, everything was in a state of bedlam. Patients were roaming around haphazard and talking excitedly about the alleged fire. Like a lot of children they all seemed to have found exactly the places where they had no right to be, and the sexes were inextricably mixed. Attempts at supervision were merely nominal, and the fleeting glimpses I caught now and then of the staff showed them to be as disorganized as the patients.