Murder in the Madhouse

by Jonathan Latimer

  Miss Evans slouched into the room. She was like Sadie Thompson, vivid and hot but not quite so defiant. Her skin was very white, and her lips were very red. She said, “What’s the fuss about?”

  “It’s my fault,” said Crane. “I was giving a demonstration in elementary deduction.”

  “Deduction?” asked Miss Evans.

  “You see, from the fact that the windows have cloth filters on the screens and there are ferns instead of roses in the vases, I concluded that Dr. Livermore suffered from pollen fever, more commonly known as hay fever.” Miss Evans watched him without expression. “Then I observed that Dr. Livermore had a pistol which he carried in his pocket and still another in his desk. No man keeps two weapons near him unless he is afraid of attack.”

  Crane spoke with a nasty smugness habitual to schoolmasters.

  “That you had been in the room, Miss Evans, was evidenced by a blond hair on one of the pillows on the window couch. And you were good enough to leave a bit of your face powder on Dr. Livermore’s coat. Hence the vulgar allusion to necking.” Dr. Eastman was having trouble breathing. “As for your presence in the other room, Miss Evans, that was revealed by the anxious glance Dr. Livermore threw at the door when he returned from his struggle in the yard. As for being engaged to Dr. Eastman, it is not hard to distinguish that arrow on his white jacket as a sorority pin. You are the only college girl here so it must be yours.”

  Crane laughed briefly and without humor. “Now, Dr. Livermore, I insist that you release me.”

  “No,” said Dr. Livermore shortly. “These men are going to take you to your room.”

  The driver and another man in a white jacket stepped beside Crane. Both had blood on their faces, and the driver’s ear was bandaged. Crane hit him on his bandaged ear. He tossed a Chinese lamp at Dr. Livermore. Then, as his arms were seized, he kicked Dr. Eastman on the jaw. Then he kicked him in the stomach.

  Dr. Livermore shouted, “Take him away. Put him in detention.” Dr. Eastman writhed on the floor. No one paid any attention to him. At the door William Crane halted his captors by bracing his feet against the wall.

  “You can’t lock me up,” he asserted earnestly. “I am C. Auguste Dupin.”

  Chapter III

  SUNLIGHT ROLLED into the window and slid across the floor like butter on a hot frying pan. On slender limbs outside a lazy breeze stirred absinthe-shaded leaves and carried into the room the perfume of heavy flowers and the brisk sound of bees in the half silence of morning. Against the upper windowpane a fly hopefully attempted to break through the glass. A spider web, shimmering in the air, reflected rays of light in flashes about the room.

  Waking from heavy sleep, William Crane looked at the room with reluctant eyes. It was a plain room. There was a steel table in the corner by the window, a chair of metal against the wall, and a wash rug was flattened whitely on the brown wood floor. On the gray wall hung a colored sampler whose green-and-red thread printed:

  JESUS DIED TO SAVE YOU AND ME

  Crane turned over so that his face was toward the wall. He closed his eyes. There was a rattle at the door, and he rolled over in bed. It was Miss Clayton. She was dressed in a professionally starched nurses’ costume, and her face was starched with professional dignity. She carried a small tray. On it were a thermometer, a bottle of castor oil, a glass of orange juice, and a small bottle of aspirin tablets. She laid the tray on the table and began to tiptoe out of the room.

  “Hello,” said William Crane.

  Miss Clayton let a trace of surprise flutter the calm of her pretty face. “Why good-morning,” she said. “How do you feel?”

  “Lousy,” he said. “What time is it?”

  “Nine o’clock,” said Miss Clayton. “That’s very late for the country.”

  She went out of the room, closing the door lightly behind her. Crane got out of bed and put on the linen bathrobe that was neatly folded on the seat of the chair. He felt better after he had brushed his teeth. He was glad to find they were all there. There was a cut under his right eye, his ears were red, a rib hurt, his hands were raw, but he decided he had come out of last night’s fight pretty well.

  He crossed to the window and looked out. Along the building there was a row of stout young trees, continuing in an orderly line to the left until they reached a small enclosed garden. Around this garden and its steel picket fence was a much larger garden, and in it he could see the fountain where the wolf-man had caught the moth. Directly across from him was a large two-story stucco house with green shutters on the windows. It was anchored at one end to the ground by a screened porch, also painted green.

  Under the beams from the sun, the garden was a Joseph’s coat, bright and vivid and variegated. Aquamarine grass curled around livid beds of earth and sheeted in a backdrop for a confused chorus of flowers. In unsymmetrical isolations about the garden, trees hugged liquid pools of shade, like green umbrellas on a hotel roof. Under one of these, in the small enclosed garden, sat an old lady, in a red-and-green canvas deck chair. There was no wind for a moment and there was a timelessness about the old lady and the garden and the lack of movement, as though she had always been there sitting with her hands folded in her lap in that flowering garden, and as though she would always be there, motionless and grim and implacable. Then she began to knit, her needles twinkling in the light.

  “A couple of million dollars,” said William Crane, “and no place to go.”

  He turned from the window and got back in bed. He wondered if he was going to have to take the castor oil. He lifted the bottle and emptied it in the toilet. He was in bed again when heavy footsteps echoed in the hall. They belonged to Dr. Eastman. Behind him was Miss Clayton. Dr. Eastman’s dark face was impersonal. “How do you feel this morning?” he asked.

  “I’ve already been asked that,” said Crane. “Lousy.”

  “Does your head ache?”

  “Wouldn’t yours if somebody socked you on it?”

  “Take his temperature, Miss Clayton.” Dr. Eastman walked to the window and waited there until Miss Clayton withdrew the thermometer.

  “It’s just a fraction below normal,” she announced.

  “He can have a bath and a light breakfast,” said Dr. Eastman.

  “How about some clothes?” asked Crane.

  “You will find some in your closet,” said Dr. Eastman. “Miss Clayton will bring you your breakfast in fifteen minutes.”

  William Crane felt still better after the bath. He had put on a pair of gray flannel trousers, a white shirt, and was selecting a tie when Miss Clayton returned. She was carrying another tray on which there were a glass of orange juice, a dry cereal, three slices of toast, and a glass of milk.

  “What’s the extra orange juice for?” he asked.

  “You’re supposed to take that with the castor oil.” Miss Clayton’s soft brown eyes widened. “What happened to that oil?”

  “I drank it.”

  “All of it?”

  “Every bit,” said William Crane firmly. “It has practically no effect on me.”

  “I hope you’re right.” Miss Clayton put the tray beside the other on the steel table. “You’d better have something to eat, anyway.”

  Crane paused halfway through the second glass of orange juice. “What was the matter with that man they fought with last night?”

  “That’s Mr. L’Adam. He’s the worst one we have. He suffers from spells like that every time the moon is about full. I don’t know how he got out last night.”

  “There is an old lady in the yard. Who’s she?”

  “That’s old Miss Van Kamp. I told you she was in detention last night.”

  “What’s she doing in the garden?”

  “That’s just a part of the garden. It’s shut off from the rest and is used by those who are in detention. The main part of the garden is where you saw the fountain, over by the guest house.”

  “Is that the place right across the way?”

  “Yes, but I don’t know w
hy I should tell you these things.”

  “Well, at least tell me this,” he said. “Do you think a dark blue or a purple tie would go best with my black eye?”

  Miss Clayton had nice teeth. “Anything will do,” she said. “We are not at all dressy.”

  William Crane put on the dark blue tie. It hurt his neck. He took it off and opened his collar and looked in the mirror. He thought he looked like Ernest Hemingway, only smarter.

  “You are to have the morning free,” said Miss Clayton. “Dr. Livermore is busy.”

  “Free for what?”

  “You can sleep, or you can read in the garden.”

  “I’ll read,” said William Crane. “I like to read.”

  It was very nice in the garden. Coolness hung under the trees and clung to the walls of the house, intensified by the glare of the sun on the flowers. William Crane found a deck chair under a tree almost across from where the old lady sat. She appeared oblivious of him. He sank back in the chair and picked up the book the nurse had given him and began to read. The book was lousy.

  It was pleasant in the garden, however, and Crane got up from his chair and walked to where the iron picket fence met the wall that ran around the entire place. The wall was of dove-colored stone, and there were pieces of glass embedded in the top. He thought it would be a hell of a place to get out of. He walked back to the other end, by the detention building, and stopped in front of the iron gate.

  The old man of the night before stepped in front of Crane. He had a hooked nose and white hair, and he wore a white coat. “Where are you going?” he demanded.

  “I don’t know,” said Crane. “Where’re you going?”

  “That’s out,” said the man, pointing at the gate.

  “Out what?”

  “Outside,” said the old man triumphantly. His hooked nose became more prominent. Blue veins twisted on his temples.

  “What’s outside?” asked William Crane.

  “Meadows and fields and hills,” said the old man. “All basking under the light of His Grace.”

  “Aren’t there any towns near here?”

  “No towns fit for Christians,” said the old man darkly. “I reckon the nearest is Toryville: that den of iniquity; that abomination in the eyes of the Lord.”

  “What’s the matter with Toryville?”

  The old man’s wrinkled hands clenched with indignation and his nose quivered in righteous wrath. “Matter with it?” He drew a gasping breath. “It is a veritable Sodom and Gomorrah, a sink of evil, a foul stench in the nostrils of the Lord. But He will cut down the men wallowing in the filth of their drunkenness and reveling in the darkness of their lies, and He will crush in His hands the harlots and the jades and the adulteresses with their soft white bodies, naked under their flimsy dresses no longer than their knees.”

  “How do you know they haven’t anything under their dresses?” asked Crane.

  “I know,” said the old man. “I bin watchin’ them when they didn’t know me and the Lord was lookin’.”

  “What have you been watching them for?”

  “I got to watch them and everybody.” The old man poked his head through the bars of the gate. “Some are crazy; some are sane. I been appointed by Him to tell them that is from them that ain’t.”

  “Which of us is crazy?” asked William Crane.

  The old man said, “You are. I’m a guard.”

  Crane went back into the garden. Fluid melody came from a bird somewhere in a tree. Outside the gate, behind the guard, he could see the other garden and some people in it. He felt restless in the enclosed plot. The old man went back to the detention house. The guard named Charles took his place beside the gate. He paced in a careful square; three steps one way, one step across, and then three steps back. Crane watched him for a moment and then walked to where Miss Van Kamp sat with the tense immobility of an old lady waiting in a railway sitting room.

  “It’s warm, isn’t it?” said William Crane.

  Black, beady eyes came alive for a second. Miss Van Kamp glanced at him and then returned to her original impassivity, neither seeing nor not seeing.

  Crane looked around the garden. There was nobody in sight.

  “My name is William Crane,” he said. “I’ve been sent here to help you.”

  “A trick,” said Miss Van Kamp. She blinked her eyes like an incredible parrot. “A trick.”

  “No, your brother sent me,” he said. “He received your message.”

  Miss Van Kamp’s button eyes were bright with suspicion. “I sent no message,” she said.

  Crane leaned over confidentially. He said, “I am a detective.”

  Miss Van Kamp betrayed no surprise.

  “Your brother said I was to help you in any way I could. You are afraid of something in here.”

  A shadow, like an oil film, softened the hard brilliance of Miss Van Kamp’s eyes for a moment. Then her face stiffened with decision. She said, “Go away!”

  “They will murder you if I do,” Crane said.

  The eyes looked at him again. There was anger in them, and terror. “How do I know you are from my brother?”

  “He told me to ask you if you remembered Adrian.”

  “He would,” said Miss Van Kamp. She relaxed as though someone had loosened her corset. “Is it safe to talk now?”

  “Sure,” said Crane. “No time like the present.”

  “Someone has got my strong box,” Miss Van Kamp said. “I must have it back.”

  “Who’s got it?”

  “Do you think I’d have sent for you if I knew?”

  “What was in it?”

  “About four hundred thousand dollars’ worth of bonds.”

  Crane blew his breath between his teeth.

  Miss Van Kamp regarded him placidly. “That isn’t all. There was one of the two keys necessary to open my safe-deposit vault in New York.”

  “How much is in New York?”

  “Just cash, jewelry, bonds.”

  “How much?”

  “About eight hundred thousand dollars’ worth.”

  “My God!” said Crane. He decided the old lady had got herself in a damn nice mess. “Where did you lose the box?”

  “Someone stole it from my trunk. It was in the bottom shelf, covered with a nightgown.”

  “Who do you think took it?” asked Crane. He looked around the garden.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Did you tell anybody about the box?”

  “Only Dr. Livermore.”

  “He’s probably the one that took it.”

  “No,” said Miss Van Kamp. “If he did, I’d have been dead long ago. I think he is searching for it, too.”

  “You don’t believe Dr. Livermore would—er—have you disposed of?”

  Miss Van Kamp’s eyes expressed superlative scorn. “Don’t be stupid.”

  “How long before it was stolen did you tell him?”

  “About a week.”

  “How long ago was the box stolen?”

  “About two weeks.”

  The garden was murmurous with the minor sounds of insects and the solo notes of birds. In the warm air the odor of flowers was heavy and tropical. The sun was high overhead.

  “Did he tell anyone else?”

  “I suppose he told the others.” Miss Van Kamp impatiently brushed a wisp of thin hair from her eyes. “He probably would.”

  “Then one of the docs is probably richer by four hundred thousand dollars than he was a couple of weeks ago.”

  “Yes, and he can get the other eight hundred thousand dollars from my vault in New York by killing me and getting hold of the second key.”

  William Crane looked at the old lady speculatively. He wondered if she were completely batty. A million, two hundred thousand dollars was a lot of money. Still, her brother had said she had large holdings in New York real estate. He noticed Miss Van Kamp was frowning at him. “Need a nap?” she asked.

  “Wouldn’t some of the others around h
ere want the box?” he asked.

  “No.” Miss Van Kamp was emphatic. “They’re all insane in here but me.”

  “You and me,” said Crane.

  The old lady’s eyes were expressive. She said, “Maybe.”

  “How did you lose the box?”

  “It was in my trunk when I went to bed. The next morning it was gone.”

  “Did you hear anybody in your room?”

  “No.”

  “Was your door locked?” There was a sound on the gravel. “I really think petunias are hardier than pansies,” William Crane said. “We had an early frost in our garden one fall, and do you know it killed every single pansy. We felt very badly.…”

  A neat, medium-sized man was approaching on the path. He bowed to Miss Van Kamp. His face was long and pale and thin: so thin that it seemed to be all bone and gristle, entirely without that soft layer of fatty flesh which distinguishes man from machine. His skin was taut over high cheek bones. His hair was black.

  “Good-morning,” he said. He bowed again.

  The man’s eyes were large and brown and set in a terrible stare, as though they had been focused at something distant by someone who had forgotten to change them back to normal.

  “Good-morning,” said William Crane. “Nice day.”

  Miss Van Kamp had withdrawn into herself. Her shoulders were hunched apprehensively, and she was trembling.

  “Yes,” said the man. His lips twisted in a smile, but his eyes did not change expression. “If you like the daytime.” His voice was suave.

  Crane felt his hair rise. The man smiled again and passed with leisurely grace into the rear of the garden. He left a rank odor behind him.

  “I think I’ve seen that fellow before,” said Crane.

  Miss Van Kamp did not reply. She whispered, “Take me away.”

  Crane seized her arm, helped her from the chair and started briskly for the gate. Miss Van Kamp’s breath came in short jerks. The old man and Charles appeared from around the corner.