by Dan Ross
"In what way?" she asked.
"During his periods of depression, he took it upon himself to go to the police and confess to any current murder. They came to expect him. No sooner was a murder committed by an unknown when Tom Crater would arrive to take the blame for it. In the end, they exerted pressure on his parents to have him sent here for treatment."
"Is he making satisfactory progress?"
"Only fair. He still has times when he believes he has killed a number of people. An unusual case."
They went through a passageway to another cottage where the patients were females of various ages. Jean saw Victoria Wales seated by a window, quiet and aloof on this sunny winter morning. Next they moved to a workshop where Jean was introduced to a youth of about nineteen named Steve Abrams. He was stocky, and his cheek had a nervous twitch as he sat by a window painting the scene outside. An older, gray-haired man was manipulating a clay wheel, making a vase. He seemed well skilled. His name was Herman Maxwell, and he bowed politely to her, then resumed his work.
When they left the two, Dr. Werner informed her, "Steve Abrams is one of the tragic new cases we're getting in this drug-addicted age. Some time ago, he took too strong a dose of LSD. While he recovered from what he terms was a bad trip, he suffered a sizable amount of permanent brain damage."
"How horrible," she gasped, remembering that the stocky youth had seemed very young to her.
"His conversation is always disjointed," Dr. Werner went on. "And at times he has recurrences of his trip and has to be temporarily restrained in one of our two padded cells."
"Can he ever be helped?"
"That's hard to say," Dr. Werner sighed. They were now in a corridor of the main building, their tour finished. "We haven't had enough experience yet with these LSD victims. I don't consider the outlook too hopeful."
"The other man is quite old," Jean said. "The one who was at the wheel."
"He was a lawyer," Dr. Werner said. "Herman Maxwell was a brilliant estate lawyer until he suffered a nervous breakdown. Now he suffers from melancholia and a tendency to be suicidal. A hobby he had of making pottery has become his best therapy. I hope he may soon be well enough to be returned to his family."
"At least with so few patients, you can maintain a personal contact with all of them," she said.
The squat, ugly hospital director smiled in his urbane fashion. "That is an advantage. Well, since we have taken up so much of the morning for our tour, we may as well end it by lunching together."
So Jean found herself seated with the head doctor at a table for two, receiving wondering glances from the other nurses who came in for lunch at that time, among them Bertha Fraser.
Dr. Werner seemed quite unaware of the attention they were creating. He talked to Jean of their field and the roles of various types of hospitals. She began to think that she had been wrong in judging him a slick practitioner. He learnedly discussed the Halfway Houses, which were of great value to patients no longer in need of the full care of a mental hospital, but who were not yet ready to cope with the outside world. One of the typical houses he mentioned was Gould Farm in Barrington, Massachusetts, where patients did farm chores and odd jobs.
Jean listened with interest. "The day and night hospitals also have a prominent role in patient adjustment," she said.
He nodded over his coffee. "Quite so," he said. "There is a night hospital in St. Peter, Minnesota, where the patients sleep in and work on the nearby farms. And in day hospitals, the patients sleep at home and go to the hospital during the day for treatment."
She said, "I think the treatments for mental illness are improving and catching up to the other branches of medicine."
"Without question," Dr. Werner said. "I don't say that my own hospital is one of the best in the field, but I do want us to be recognized as modern and concerned."
Her introduction to the hospital and her luncheon with the head doctor ended on this happy note. She went back to her desk that afternoon in a much more satisfied frame of mind. Only gradually did a nagging voice inside her begin to spoil her mood. It kept telling her that it was by no accident that the suave Dr. Werner had chosen to give her so much time and to talk with her so informedly. He had deliberately been trying to offer her an impression of himself similar to the awed one that the head nurse had. She had been subjected to a brainwashing before she had had any real chance to learn how the hospital operated.
In the late afternoon, she went to the hospital for some charts, and found Dr. Firth Breton busy on the phone. She waited for what seemed to be an inordinately long time. As she stood outside his closed office door, Nurse Muriel Evans came by.
Jean asked the friendly nurse, "Is he usually this long on the phone?"
"Sometimes longer," Muriel informed her.
Jean frowned. "Does he talk to patients' relatives, or what?"
Muriel looked disgusted. "He talks to bookies!"
"Bookies?"
"Sure," the other girl said knowingly. "People who take bets on races and so forth. Just now it would be on hockey games. There's a big one to be played in Boston Gardens tonight."
Jean was astounded. "He wastes hospital time in arranging his bets on hockey games?"
"And charges the calls to Tranquility Place, you can bet," Nurse Muriel Evans confided.
"But doesn't Dr. Werner know?"
"I don't think he could help it."
"But doesn't he complain or stop him from doing it?"
"No."
"I don't understand it," Jean said, stunned. "I can't imagine him having a doctor like that around."
"He isn't even a good doctor," Muriel Evans told her. "At least I don't think so. No wonder. His mind is never on his work."
Jean glanced through the glass pane of the office door. The stocky doctor had put down the receiver and was sitting at his desk with a glum expression.
"I'll try him now," she told Muriel.
"And I'll be on my way," the other nurse said, moving off down the corridor.
Jean knocked on the door and entered on the doctor's gruff invitation.
"I've come for the charts on your present patients," she told him.
Dr. Breton glared at her. "We don't send them in every day."
"According to the procedure schedule, you do," she said.
He turned a deep shade of crimson. "I don't run this department by the procedure schedule," he informed her sharply.
She fought back an impulse to tell him that he should. Instead, she said, "Of course, I'm new here. I assumed that you did."
"They'll get to you in good time," he said, rummaging among some papers on his desk. "I have other things to do besides keeping track of charts and sending copies to the main office."
"Then there aren't any available now?"
He scowled. "Didn't I make that clear?"
"I'm not certain," she said hesitantly.
Dr. Breton sat very erect in his chair and eyed her angrily. "It strikes me that you aren't certain about anything."
"I'll come for the charts in the morning," she suggested, wanting to get away from him.
"No!" he snapped. "I'll have one of my nurses take them to you when I'm ready."
"If that's the way you usually do it," she said, unable to hide the astonishment she felt.
"I'm not about to let you change everything to suit your convenience! I have too much to do here to be bothered about such trivialities."
"Records of patients are not usually considered trivial," she said tersely.
His manner changed abruptly: now he was smiling at her. But it wasn't a pleasant smile. He said mildly, "I can see that you must have had thorough training, Miss Shannon. You must have worked in very well operated hospitals."
"I have," she said.
"Kindly let us run this one as we think best. We are aware of your outstanding talents and qualifications without having to be continually reminded of them. That will be all, Miss Shannon."
She managed a nod and left his of
fice. As she marched down the corridor toward the passageway to the main building, tears were brimming in her eyes. The irate doctor had been needlessly ill-tempered with her. She had only been trying to do her work properly. Her encounter with him bore out Muriel Evans' explanation of his long sessions on the phone. It seemed that all he cared about was his gambling.
Returning to her office, she told Catherine Moore what had happened, ending with, "I'm afraid I can't complete the day's reports without those charts."
"Do everything but them." The head nurse sighed. "It's an old story. He never catches up with his paper work."
"Why does Dr. Werner let him get away with it?"
The gray-haired woman looked uneasy. "I've spoken to him about it before, but he always reminds me how hard it is to find competent medical men for a small private hospital like this one. Most doctors of ability don't want such work."
"Does Dr. Breton have that much ability?"
"Dr. Werner think so."
"And that settles it," Jean said grimly. And she thought that the cracks in the foundation were beginning to show.
Head Nurse Moore gave her a troubled glance. "Just don't make any trouble about it. Dr. Breton has days when he is very touchy."
"I suppose when his gambling losses have been high," Jean said airily.
The head nurse looked startled that Jean should know about the man's gambling, but she made no comment.
Jean continued to work until it was four o'clock and the end of her day. Then she tidied her desk, and, anxious to spend a few moments with some of the patients, decided to invest an hour of her time before changing for dinner. She was still feeling hurt and indignant about the scene with Dr. Breton.
She had seen Dr. Ken Hastings only at a distance during the entire day. She judged him to be the most competent member of the staff, and was sure that Dr. Werner had been clever in hiring him. There was the added bonus that many people would be deceived into thinking that Ken was his famous father. Both names would look identical on an office letterhead.
Making her way through the cottage where the female patients lived, Jean took the passageway leading to the cottage containing the workshop. While she liked the idea of the individual cottages with their linking passageways, she was beginning to learn that it meant a lot of walking. She reached the room where earlier in the day she and Dr. Werner had come upon Herman Maxwell and the youthful Steve Abrams.
Now as she entered the room, it seemed to be empty. No doubt the therapy period was over and the patients had gone on to some other building. She walked about the big room, making a note of the various pieces of equipment. It was well fitted out for almost any kind of handicraft from leather-making to woodworking. Her tour of the room completed, she turned to leave.
She was on her way to the door leading to the passageway when a figure appeared to block her exit. It was Steve Abrams, and he was staring at her in a strange, dazed fashion. His thick lips parted in a smile that was nothing less than maniacal, and he made an odd grunting sound.
She called on her experience to keep calm, and smiled at him. "Hello, Steve," she said easily.
He moved a step closer, his large, muscular hands clutching and unclutching at his sides, and he made that frightening grunting sound again. Jean was positive that he had slipped into one of his relapses.
"Steve!" she said in a pleading voice, hoping to reach his troubled mind.
But Steve made no reply. His eyes were wild, and he came on toward her.
CHAPTER FOUR
Jean had spent several years working in mental hospitals. She had been trained in the most modern of psychiatric methods. But faced with a patient in this state, she knew her plight was desperate. There was no turning to her training for some method of assistance. Her experience counted for nothing. She was confronted by the threat that all psychiatric nurses recognized as being faced with daily, the threat of a violent strength mustered against her own. And she knew that she was no match for this rugged youth.
"Steve!" she cried again as she backed away.
His reply was a snarl, and he grasped her roughly by the throat. She saw the wild glee on his distorted face, and knew that he was in the grip of some awful nightmare. When the nightmare passed and he knew what he had done, he would be contrite. But then it would be too late. He was slowly pressing the life from her. She couldn't breathe; her eyes closed…
Someone was calling her name: "Jean! Jean!"
She opened her eyes and stared up into a concerned, freckled face. A face she vaguely remembered. The singer, Frank Burns, of course. And then she recalled what had happened before she became unconscious, and fear raced across her face.
"Where?" she asked.
"Over there," Frank said grimly. "I hit him with a big wooden mallet that was handy. He's still out."
"He tried to kill me," she whispered.
"I know," he said. "You're all right?"
"Yes."
"If you're well enough to get up, I'd like to get you out of here," he said nervously. "He's liable to come to at any moment."
"I understand," she murmured, and raised herself up, her throat aching and her head still reeling.
Frank gave her his arm and eyed her apprehensively. "You look pretty awful. Sure you're not badly hurt?"
"Just scared, and my throat aches," she said.
"I'll call an orderly," he said. "If Steve comes to in that state, he'll need restraint. And then I'll have to get this all straight with the doctors." He was helping her along the passageway as he told her this.
She gave him a startled glance. "You saved my life."
"I saved you from a bad choking at any rate," he agreed.
"They won't condemn you for that, surely?"
He seemed reluctant to reply. Then he said, "They don't like violence of any kind."
"You had to use violence to save me!" she protested.
"Dr. Werner always needs convincing," Frank said. "Especially where I'm concerned. He's pretty anxious to build up evidence as to my unstable nature."
This twist to an alarming situation left Jean more shocked than ever. She could hardly credit what the young millionaire was saying, and yet that inner warning voice made her believe he was telling her the truth. Dr. Werner might be crafty enough to make it seem that Frank had committed needless violence, if it suited his purposes.
They were in the other cottage now, and she turned to him and said, "I won't allow that to happen. I won't let them blame you. It's just as I've said. You saved my life."
His pale blue eyes, those sad eyes, met hers. "I'm glad I came along in time," he said sincerely.
"If you hadn't, I wouldn't be alive now. I'll tell everyone that!"
"Let me go find a guard and one of the doctors," he said, and rushed off toward the main building.
She followed at a slower pace. Minutes later, a burly guard and an irate Dr. Breton came speeding by her. The stocky doctor gave her an angry glare as he paused to demand, "What fresh trouble have you started now?"
She gasped. "The only trouble is that Steve Abrams had a spell and tried to choke me!"
"What were you doing in the therapy room alone?" the doctor asked.
"I thought I might talk to one of the patients," she faltered.
"Were you authorized to go there?"
"No."
"You went on your own?"
"Yes."
The guard had gone on, but the florid-faced Dr. Breton remained with Jean, smiling at her sarcastically. "And you deny that you caused trouble? You had no right or permission to be in that room." And having told her this, he rushed after the guard.
Jean watched him go, and considered what he had said with some disbelief. Was it possible that he would use this against her? She had gone to the therapy room in an attempt to be of some help, not thinking that she would find herself without the protection of an orderly. Yet she had placed herself in an awkward position. And Dr. Breton had taken a strong dislike to her.
She c
ontinued on to the main building where she found Frank and Ken Hastings in the corridor by her office door. Ken turned to greet her. "How are you?"
"Fine," she said. "My throat was bruised a little. He'd have killed me if Frank hadn't come along."
Ken looked troubled. "That's what Frank says."
"It's true!"
"We'll have to have a full account of this for Dr. Werner," Ken told her. "He is very touchy about anything of this sort happening. Thinks it is bad for the reputation of the place. And he sometimes places the blame on all parties concerned."
She stared at the young doctor. "Are you serious?"
He nodded.
"But Frank did only what was right," she insisted. "He saved me from an attack by a dangerous patient."
Ken Hastings wore a somber expression. "I'm fully aware of that. I just contend that it would have been better for everyone if it hadn't happened."
She touched a hand to her aching throat. "This is very confusing for me."
Frank smiled at her wryly. "Dr. Werner's logic is of a special variety. Most of us find it difficult to follow."
She said, "I met Dr. Breton in the corridor just now, and he gave me a lecture for going to the therapy room without permission."
Ken nodded gravely. "You did break the hospital's rules by doing that."
"I've never heard of such rules!" she said with indignation. "I'm a member of the staff. I should have access to anywhere in the hospital."
"Not according to Dr. Werner's regulations," Ken told her. Then, to Frank, "It might be a good idea for you to go to your room and remain there until you hear from Dr. Werner or me."
"Sure," Frank said. He turned to Jean with a concerned look. "I hope you weren't seriously hurt, Jean."
"No. I'm almost myself again now," she said. "And thank you so much."
"It was nothing," the young man said, and he walked off down the corridor.
When she was alone with Ken Hastings, she faced him with a frown. "All this is beyond me. You dismissed him as if he'd done something wrong!"