“Why at eight-thirty this evening, of course. The show always commences at eight-thirty; that’s when life begins in the theatre. It’s a tradition, you know,” she said with dramatic flair.
“We have to leave now, but we’ll see you tonight,” I said.
Then Miss Hopkins escorted us to the door, and as we stepped out of the room, I looked back to her and said, “Break a leg.”
She looked at me coyly and batted her eyelashes a couple of times and softly replied, “Thank you, Doctor Ramsey.”
As Doctor Lederer and I proceeded to Mister Morgan’s room, he asked me why I told Miss Hopkins to “break a leg.” I explained to him that actors are superstitious and the phrase was a theatrical expression that means you wish the actor or actress good luck and a successful performance before going on.
“This is Mister Morgan’s room,” I said to Doctor Lederer.
As I commenced knocking, the second-floor orderly approached us and said, that Mister Morgan was not in his room, but down in the recreation hall on the ground floor. He was making last-minute checks for the show and Halloween party tonight. I thanked him for the information then introduced him to Doctor Lederer. Then I asked if he was aware of any new patient that had been assigned to any of the four vacant rooms on this floor. He said he wasn’t and that all the rooms were still vacant.
Then I said to Doctor Lederer, “We still have five minutes. We can meet Mister Morgan later. Let’s look in those four rooms now before we go to Doctor Calloway’s office; who knows, we might find him and the invisible patient in one of them.
”I asked the orderly if the rooms were unlocked, as they should be. He said they were because he’d checked them this morning. Nevertheless, I went to the second floor station and asked the nurse for the ring of keys in case any of them were locked. At least all of the second floor keys were in the desk drawer. I was anxious to find out if all the keys matched the locks on the doors of the second floor rooms. So accompanied by the orderly and Doctor Lederer, I went to the first unoccupied room, turned the doorknob and it opened. We looked in and it was empty. I then tried the color-tagged key for that door—it worked. I followed the same procedure for the remaining three rooms and the results were the same. By that time it was one minute before eleven, so I gave the orderly the keys.
Then Doctor Lederer and I hurried to the elevator, got in and descended to the main floor. We quickly made our way to the southwest corner of the Castle, where Doctor Calloway’s office was located.
Mary and Miss Hathaway were already there waiting for us at the closed door.
Mary looked at her watch and said, “Eleven o’clock on the nose. We got here a minute before you. Now we’re all here, I’ll knock on the door.”
She knocked and we all waited for about thirty seconds or so; there was no answer. We couldn’t hear any movement from the other side of the door. Mary knocked again, still there was no answer.
“That’s strange,” Mary said, looking perplexed, “Doctor Calloway said for us to meet him in his office at eleven o’clock sharp; he should be in there.”
Doctor Lederer said, “Perhaps he’s running late from orientating the new patient.”
“I wish he’d have said something about this to me before,” Miss Hathaway indignantly intervened.
“Let’s open the door and see if he’s inside. Maybe he didn’t hear us,” I said, knowing full well he wasn’t in there.
My three companions agreed with me. I put my hand on the doorknob and turned it. It was unlocked. I pushed the door open and we walked into Doctor Calloway’s office. A dank musty smell permeated the room. It was as dark as the dead of night. The black velvet curtains were drawn together, the Venetian blinds closed tightly, and the windows that faced west toward the sea, locked. It was as if no one had been in here for a long time. Mary turned the ceiling light on. Then the ominous feeling of foreboding I’d had last night in the taxi and earlier this morning, started to well up in me again.
“There has to be an explanation,” Mary said, as she looked around the office.
“Well, it’s apparent Doctor Calloway hasn’t been in here yet today, since the curtains and blinds aren’t opened,” Doctor Lederer said.
“Doctor Calloway is always in his office by ten in the morning, if not sooner, on a regular workday. I know because Mrs. Dudley always comes in before nine to open the curtains, blinds, and a window for him,” I said.
“She obviously didn’t do it today,” Mary said.
“There’s one way to find out,” I replied, “I’ll ask her about this…now.”
It was quarter passed eleven. I went over to the in-house phone on Doctor Calloway’s desk, and called the switchboard operator to page Mrs. Dudley, to come to Doctor Calloway’s office at once.
Then, Doctor Lederer said, “Doctor Calloway may be in the locked room on the third floor, Alex. You know, the room where I heard that peculiar noise, after you went to get the keys.”
I had forgotten about that. “If Doctor Calloway doesn’t get here after I talk to Mrs. Dudley, I’m going to go back up to that room and break the door down if I have to.”
“Why don’t I go to Doctor Calloway’s chamber now, Alex; he might be there,” Mary suggested.
“All right, run down to it now. We’ll wait here for you,” I said, since it was on this floor only a few doors down.
Mary returned within two minutes and said, “I couldn’t find him. After no answer from my knocking, I went in there, as the door was unlocked. He wasn’t there.”
At that point Mrs. Dudley entered the room and said, “You called for me, Doctor Ramsey?”
“Yes, Mrs. Dudley. We have a mystery on our hands…actually a couple. It seems Doctor Calloway has disappeared. He told us to meet him here in his office at eleven. It is now almost half past eleven and he’s nowhere to be found. Not only that, but as you can see the curtains and blinds are still closed, and the windows sealed up. Why didn’t you open them this morning as you always do?”
Mrs. Dudley face became ashen as she looked at the closed curtains. Then she turned to me, took a couple of quivering breaths and said, “I don’t understand. I did open the curtains and blinds…and a window too…at quarter to nine, as I always do. You and Miss Holden were in the dining room. In fact, I did it before you breakfasted with Doctor Calloway. I did.”
“Did you see Doctor Calloway go into his office at any time this morning, Mrs. Dudley?” I gently inquired.
Mrs. Dudley composed herself and some color returned to her face, and then she replied, “No, I didn’t. The first time I saw him today was when he came into the dining room…when you, Doctor Lederer and Miss Holden were already there…at about—what was it now. Oh yes, I remember, it was five after nine because I looked at the wall clock, waiting for him to arrive so I could serve breakfast. I can’t understand why he would close the blinds and curtains after I opened them…I really don’t understand. And now this stale smell, like the room has been shut up for some time. But there was no odor in here when I came in a couple of hours ago. I don’t get it. Why this strange smell…now? I just don’t understand,” she kept going on.
I assured Mrs. Dudley that it wasn’t her fault. I said to her that for some reason Doctor Calloway came into his office and closed the window, blinds and curtains himself, and not to worry about it, as we would sort this matter out with Doctor Calloway.
Then I dismissed her, all the while being quite worried myself. Miss Hathaway had a lot of paperwork to do so she returned to her office. Mary suggested I should go on a hunt for Doctor Calloway at once and take Doctor Lederer with me. She said she could cover my afternoon rounds with a couple of nurses. Doctor Lederer and I agreed. So the three of us left Doctor Calloway’s office, went to the elevator and ascended to the second floor. I walked to the nurses’ station where I reached into my box and gave her my record chart. At that point, Doctor Lederer and I became detectives and began a full-fledged search.
We headed upstairs to t
he mysterious green room on the third floor. I stopped off at the supply closet to pick up a stepladder. I put it up against the door of the room. As I was about to climb up to push open the transom, Doctor Lederer suggested that we should knock on the door again. I knocked; there was no response. I knocked again, no answer. Then I called through the keyhole, nothing. I pressed my ear against the door, but I couldn’t hear anything. Doctor Lederer did the same; he didn’t hear anything either…this time. I climbed the stepladder until my head was parallel with the translucent transom. It was closed and I tried to push it open; it was locked from the inside. The amber-colored glass had one of those rough finishes, which made it virtually impossible to see anything inside the room.
I descended the stepladder and gathered my thoughts for a few seconds. Then I looked at Doctor Lederer and said, “Wait, wait, I’ve just realized that Doctor Calloway keeps a set of master keys for all the doors in the Castle. Let’s go back to his office and get them.” As the elevator door opened on to the ground floor, there stood Mister Kyle Morgan, the patient that Doctor Lederer hadn’t met yet. I had forgotten all about him. He had the profile of the movie matinee idol that he was. His perfectly symmetrical body stood six feet tall at about 175 pounds. He had a full head of black wavy hair, perfectly groomed back with an off-center part, and a dark pencil-line mustache that blended exquisitely well with the chiseled features of his face.
“Hello, Mister Morgan,” I said.
“Good day to you, Doctor Ramsey; I’m about to return to my room for lunch. I don’t want to eat in the dining room. I’ve been down here all morning arranging everything for tonight’s show so I want to eat alone and rest for a couple of hours”
“I understand, Mister Morgan; but since we’ve run into each other, would you mind if we go to your room with you? We’ll only stay for a couple of minutes.
“Certainly, let’s go.”
I put off fetching the master keys for a while and introduced Doctor Lederer to Mister Morgan. Then, after the three of us arrived on the second floor, Mister Morgan said, “I’m glad to meet you, Doctor Lederer. I read your book on inversion and I must say your theory and approach to the problem—if you want to call it that, and its treatment rises to one of the more enlightened spheres of the human condition. I shall look forward to consulting with you during your stay at the Castle.
“You flatter me, Mister Morgan.”
“Here is my room, gentlemen. Please come in.”
Mister Morgan was an avid physical culturist. There was a set of barbells in the middle of the floor and an assortment of dumbbells of various weights strategically placed around the room, as well as a stationary rower by his window. A pile of exercise magazines were stacked on his dresser and the bed was nowhere to be seen. Because it was a roll-away type, he could put it in the closet during the day and have more room to take his exercise. He also had a full-length mirror attached to the closet door so he could monitor his form while lifting weights. His quarters truly looked like a gymnasium. We sat down on three black wooden chairs with slated backs. Mister Morgan liked these types of chairs because he said they function well for exercise apparatus.
“We’ll only stay for a moment, Mister Morgan,” I said.
“I’m glad to have you. Why don’t you and Doctor Lederer stay and have lunch with me, here in my room. Have you had your lunch yet?” he asked.
“Actually, we haven’t. You see, there have been a lot of strange happenings going on today, and my regular routine has been completely shattered.” Then I looked at my watch and noted it was already after twelve and I said, “I would very much like to lunch with you,” and turning to Doctor Lederer, I asked, “How about you?”
“That’s a capital idea, Doctor Ramsey. Yes, I too would look forward to lunching with you, Mister Morgan.”
Mister Morgan got up and went to the closet and came back with a round table with folding legs and set it up for our lunch. Then he went to the dresser, pulled out a white table cloth and placed it over the table.
There was a knock at the door and Mister Morgan said, “Come in.” It was the orderly with a rolling cart filled with trays of food, plates, beverages, and eating utensils. “What choices do you have today?” Mister Morgan asked the orderly.
“I have three. What would you like, halibut, turkey, or roast beef?
Pausing for a bit, Mister Morgan said, “I’ll have the halibut, and tea to drink and oh yes, Doctor Ramsey and Doctor Lederer will be staying here for lunch, too.”
“That’s fine. I always have a couple of extra trays on hand. What can I give you, Doctor Ramsey?” the orderly said with a smile.
“I’ll have the turkey and coffee.”
“And you, Doctor Lederer?”
“I would like the roast beef with coffee, thank you.”
Mister Morgan, Doctor Lederer and I had a leisurely lunch and a wonderful conversation that I wished could have lasted all day; for during that time I was able to, temporarily, at least, relieve my distress from the topsy-turvy events that had occurred. We talked about Mister Morgan’s successful career in Hollywood and the pressure his agent and the studio executives were putting on him to marry, in order to quell rumors of a personal nature. He told Doctor Lederer, he’d come here on the advice of his personal manager who’d said, “Go through the ‘motions’ of treatment until the rumors disintegrate.” Since the movie studio was paying for his stay at the Castle, he not only agreed but wanted to use his time here for rest and rejuvenating exercise.
With Doctor Lederer’s broadmindedness on these types of cases, he reiterated what he wrote in his book, “Inversion Therapeutics,” saying that he was not only opposed to drug treatment, electric shock therapy and surgery, but believed that medical science should not meddle by trying to change the nature of one’s essence as long as one is perfectly adjusted otherwise. Whether society likes it or not, about one in ten people have that proclivity. The reasons for it are currently not known. It just is. We three had a harmonious meeting of the minds since I shared Doctor Lederer’s opinion and empathized with Mister Morgan’s plight.
I looked at my watch. It was already two-thirty in the afternoon. We’d been talking almost two and a half hours. How time flies when one is having a good time. The one-hundred and fifty minutes we’d spent with Mister Morgan had passed like one-hundred and fifty seconds. I told him we had to leave now and thanked him for his time; and he thanked us for our moral support.
He told us he was going to rest for about an hour, and then take some exercise.
“Now, to the task at hand, huh, Alex?” Doctor Lederer said to me as we were standing in the hall.
“Oh yes, the task at hand. We were on our way to Doctor Calloway’s office to get the master keys before lunch, weren’t we?” I remembered.
“Yes, but maybe we’ll run into Doctor Calloway on our way down, or, he’ll be in his office when we get there, Alex.”
“You may be right. Let’s go.”
The Search
Doctor Lederer and I went to Doctor Calloway’s office, but we didn’t see him on the way. When I opened the door, the room was still empty with the blinds and curtains closed. The air was more stifling than before, if possible, because now I could barely breathe. How strange. Since we were in here only a few hours ago, it was like a Hermetic tomb. This time I went up to the curtains and pulled them widely apart, raised the blinds high up, then unlocked and pushed open the center window, all the way out. The sunlight burst in like a tidal wave and a soft westerly breeze filled the room with a combination of scents from the surrounding pine trees and the salt air from the sea.
I inhaled Neptune’s nectar deeply, several times. I heard Doctor Lederer’s nasal gulps competing with mine. “Ah, that’s much better,” I said.
I proceeded to open the second drawer of Doctor Calloway’s desk. It was where he’d told me he kept the ring of master keys, but they were not in there. Then I went through all his desk drawers and still couldn’t find them. Docto
r Lederer and I continued to look around the room, in the file cabinet, on the bookshelves, behind the books, in his cloakroom, even, in the vase holding the limp American Beauty roses on top of his desk. They were nowhere to be found.
By that time it was three o’clock. I said to Doctor Lederer, “I’ll call Mary. Maybe she’s seen Doctor Calloway in the last couple of hours.” I picked up the in-house phone that automatically connects to the main floor switchboard operator, to page Mary and have her call me in Doctor Calloway’s office.
Within half of a minute Mary rang. When I told her that I still hadn’t been able to locate Doctor Calloway, she replied with the same news on her end. I told her that the third floor green room door was locked, and about the missing key and missing spare ring of keys for that floor, and that Doctor Lederer and I were back in Doctor Calloway’s office looking for the master set of keys, which were missing as well.
“That’s strange,” she said with a sense of curiosity, “as I was walking past that door, I thought I heard something inside.”
I was taken aback upon hearing this and Doctor Lederer could also see I was troubled with some new situation, by the expression on my face. So after a slight pause, I rebounded by asking Mary, “What kind of noise do you think you heard?”
“I’m not exactly sure; but I knew it wasn’t voices. It was very brief.”
“Just try to relate the sequence of events,” I said.
“Well, as I was walking past the door, I thought I heard some kind of a thump. So I immediately stopped to listen, because I figured Doctor Calloway might be in there with the new patient. But, I didn’t hear any voices—then I heard the thump again, but this time there was another sound after it.”
“Please tell me, what was the other sound?”
“Well, it was sort of like…sort of like…”
“Yes, yes; go on,” I said impatiently.
Castle on the Edge Page 4