Murder in the Madhouse

by Jonathan Latimer

  He went down to the living room. There was nobody there, nor in the dusky corridor leading to the room where the movies were being held. The door to this room was still open and he slipped into his seat. In the room the only sounds were the irregular noise of breathing and the faint whir of the color machine. He settled back in his chair, but his nerves were taut, and he was unable to feel the earlier compulsion to relax. The colors, seething in polychromatic vistas across the screen, were garish; the music was false, the succession of odors as cheap as those from the perfume machines in a penny arcade. Behind him, his ear caught the noise of a soft footstep on the heavy rug, and he became aware that someone was coming into the room. The steps progressed to the machine and then merged with its regular purr.

  A second later the colors disappeared from the screen, and the electric lights shone brilliantly. Crane blinked in their glare and turned to look at the machine. The nurse, composed and bland, was seated on the platform. Dr. Livermore was nowhere in sight. Around the room, Crane saw all the others with the exception of Pittsfield. The patients looked like drowsy birds disturbed in sleep. The nurse said, “Good-night, everybody.”

  As if hypnotized, the patients started toward the door. Crane found himself beside Blackwood. “What do we do now?” he asked.

  “We go to bed. Everyone must be in the gentle arms of Morpheus by ten o’clock.”

  “What time is breakfast?”

  “From seven-thirty to noon. It’s come as you please.”

  They were now in the living room. “Do you have to have breakfast?” Crane asked.

  “Yes, decidedly. That’s one of Dr. Livermore’s ideas. He is convinced that breakfast is as beneficial to humanity as alcohol is bad.” Blackwood lowered his voice. “But I finished him tonight, and Pittsfield, too.”

  “Huh?” said William Crane.

  “You heard me at dinner, didn’t you?” Blackwood smirked triumphantly. “I certainly had the best of both arguments.”

  “Oh.”

  “Don’t you think so?” Blackwood persisted.

  “Sure,” said William Crane. He watched the slim silk ankles of Mrs. Heyworth precede him upstairs to the bedroom hallway. She was with Richardson, and she turned to the right toward Crane’s end of the hall. Richardson nodded to her and walked off in the opposite direction. At the top of the stairs, Crane turned after Mrs. Heyworth, and Blackwood followed him to the fourth door from the end.

  “This is my cell,” he said. “Good-night.”

  Crane watched Mrs. Heyworth disappear into the room with the doll.

  “Good-night,” said Blackwood again.

  “See you in the morning,” said Crane. He went on, and as he passed Mrs. Heyworth’s room he saw the door was open a crack and noted the lights had not been turned on inside. He opened his door, closed it loudly, and then opened it a crack. He heard Mrs. Heyworth’s door click, and he closed his again.

  He turned on his lights and undressed in the bathroom. He put on a pair of brown pajamas and opened the windows. In the moonlight, the garden was brilliant and serene. There were tiny pinpoints of flame where the heavy dew reflected the moon, and he could see stars in the pool of water below the fountain. The fountain seemed to be running all right. He went to the bed, looked under it, and then climbed into it. He fell asleep wondering if Miss Van Kamp would look under her bed before she climbed into it.

  Chapter VI

  IT SHORTLY BECAME OBVIOUS that Miss Van Kamp had looked under her bed. The quiet cloth of the night was torn by a thin screaming which persisted grimly and evenly until it was joined by another and shriller voice. William Crane listened to this duet from the harbor of his bed for some time and then threw on a bathrobe and advanced into the hall. He reached Miss Van Kamp’s room immediately after Richardson and Penny. They halted at the door, bulking darkly in the jaundiced light, but he could see over their shoulders. Like a figure in a waxworks, Miss Van Kamp knelt unnaturally on her floor in an attitude of agonized supplication. Under the heavy white nightgown her body was formless. Crane was startled to see that she was nearly bald. She was still screaming, but no sound came from her mouth. Beside her in a lavender nightgown stood Nellie, her small body shaking convulsively as she filled the room with noise. The cover on the bed was thrown back, and underneath Crane could see the face of Pittsfield. He looked no better than he had before.

  As the three stood in the doorway, footsteps clattered on the stairs and Dr. Eastman pushed by him with the proud nurse of the movies. Her low, rubber-soled shoes moved silently as she took the old women out of the room, urging them with relentless arms. Dr. Eastman moved the bed out into the middle of the room and bent over the figure on the floor. “He’s dead,” he announced.

  “Oh, Doctor!” a voice exclaimed from behind Crane. “Not really?” It was Mrs. Brady. Her full figure was revealed in a gold and red kimono, and her pink face was shining with curiosity and cold cream. She had on Japanese sandals over bare feet.

  “It looks as though he had been strangled,” Richardson said.

  Mrs. Brady said without conviction, “Isn’t that terrible.”

  Dr. Eastman nodded. He pulled the quilt from the bed and laid it over the corpse so that the 1812 came directly over the dead man’s chest. At once the room seemed less crowded.

  “What’ll we do?” asked Richardson.

  “You wait until I get Dr. Livermore,” said Dr. Eastman. “Don’t let anyone touch the body.”

  The three men moved into the room. “Who did it?” asked William Crane.

  With a delicate movement of his shoulders Mr. Penny indicated he had no idea. He expressed sympathy and depreciated the idea of violence with a twist of his mouth and a wave of his hand. He made it apparent that he could throw no light on what was to him a shocking crime.

  Richardson said, “I think it was Blackwood. If he didn’t do it, why isn’t he here?”

  Mr. Penny lifted his eyebrows.

  “He’s the sort of a snake who would do something like this,” Richardson said. His voice was filled with conviction. “He’s been at odds with Pittsfield for months. He’s been trying to pick a quarrel by goading him with all sorts of insults. Now he’s killed him.”

  “He picked a funny place to do it,” said Crane.

  “He probably carried him in here to escape suspicion.” Richardson’s tone intimated that nothing was beyond Blackwood.

  “Maybe he wanted to throw suspicion on Miss Van Kamp,” Crane suggested.

  “She couldn’t have done——” Richardson turned and peered at Crane. “You’re quite a joker, aren’t you?” His jaw was thrust out.

  “No,” said Crane. “I’m not.”

  “A punch in the jaw is no joke,” Richardson said.

  “No,” said Crane. “It’s not.”

  “Neither is murder.”

  “I see your point,” Crane said. “What shall we do in a serious wav?”

  “We’d better search the room. The murderer may still be here.” Richardson opened the closet door and poked his head into the orderly orchard of clothes. Mr. Penny drew away, his face alive with fearful anticipation. The closet and the bathroom were equally empty. Richardson appeared to have exhausted his ideas.

  “It seems as though the fellow got away,” he said, looking at the corpse with disapproval. “When do you think it happened?”

  “Dr. Livermore ought to be able to tell us,” said Crane.

  “It must have been while we were at the movies.”

  Crane nodded. He was watching Mr. Penny as he meticulously searched the room.

  Richardson said, “I say! That means someone from the outside did it.”

  “Why?”

  “Nobody could have gotten out of the movies without having been missed.”

  “Maybe.”

  “I’ve got an alibi. I was with Mrs. Heyworth. She’ll back that up.” Richardson’s jaw demanded agreement.

  “What alibi have you got?” Crane demanded of Mr. Penny.

 
Mr. Penny shrugged his shoulders. He closed his eyes for a second and let them understand that he had had the misfortune to sleep through the greater part of the movie.

  “I’m in the same boat,” said Crane.

  Presently Dr. Eastman returned with Dr. Livermore. “What a terrible thing!” Dr. Livermore said. His beard was stiff with horror. “Where is the body?”

  “Here,” said Dr. Eastman. He pulled aside the quilt like a magician at the end of a Woman-Sawed-in-Halves trick, only Mr. Pittsfield did not sit up. “He’s evidently been strangled,” he added. “I wonder what the murderer used?”

  Mr. Penny held out a black woolen cord with a purple tassel at either end. “Where did you get that?” Richardson demanded.

  Mr. Penny made a slight gesture toward the floor beneath the bed. Where else would you find a cord that had just killed a man than beside the corpse? his wink at Crane intimated. Dr. Eastman seized the cord. He said, “If we can find the bathrobe that goes with this, we will probably know who killed Pittsfield.”

  Meanwhile Dr. Livermore had made a quick examination of the corpse, flexing the arms and feeling the chest with the palm of his hand.

  “He hasn’t been dead long,” he said. He rose from his knees. “Less than two hours.”

  “Have any of you seen someone prowling through the dormitory?” Dr. Eastman demanded.

  Richardson said he hadn’t.

  “How about you?” Dr. Eastman scowled at Crane. “If you’re so smart, you ought to know something about this.”

  “I don’t.”

  “Please, please!” Dr. Livermore’s hands trembled. “Let’s not have any accusations in this unfortunate accident.”

  Dr. Eastman said, “Accident? Murder is no accident.”

  “Please!” Dr. Livermore’s voice was oily. “I think it would be well to have these three gentlemen go downstairs while we discuss what is to be done.”

  On the stairs their feet raised dull echoes, which were suddenly flung back in their faces as Charles and the driver rushed upward past them. From the downstairs hall Crane saw the figure of a man lurking on the porch. There was a cigarette in his mouth, and when it glowed Crane saw he was Joe. In the living room were Miss Queen and Mrs. Heyworth. The former comedy star had on a garment of black silk which clung to thin shoulders. Mrs. Heyworth wore a tan polo coat over blue pajamas.

  “Have you seen him?” asked Miss Queen. Her white nostrils quivered. “How did he look?”

  Crane said, “Dead.”

  Mr. Penny plumped down in an armchair like an anemic Buddha, his eyes closed and his face passive. Richardson moved over to Mrs. Heyworth.

  “Was he murdered?” Miss Queen asked eagerly.

  “It looks that way,” Richardson said. “He was strangled.”

  “Who did it?”

  “We don’t know,” Richardson said, putting his hand on Mrs. Heyworth’s arm. She was watching Crane with wide, curious eyes.

  Miss Queen moved closer to the men. “Who will be next?” She spoke in a loud whisper. “Who will it be?”

  “Now, Miss Queen. They’ll find out who killed Pittsfield before morning.” Richardson spoke soothingly.

  Miss Queen’s face was funereal with foreboding. She shook her head sadly and smoothed her strange black outer garment with a hand the color of white lead. “There are things happening here,” she said. “And they will continue.”

  “What do you mean?” Crane asked. “What things?”

  Cold air shook the shade on an open window by the porch so that it made the noise of a person breaking through bushes. There was a noise, too, upstairs. There were a thudding on the floor and the creak of boards.

  Crane repeated his question.

  Miss Queen answered reluctantly. “Someone prowls through this place at night. I do not think it is a human being.”

  Mr. Penny’s eyes gleamed for a brief instant and were veiled again. Dr. Livermore came into the room. Behind him, carrying the body of Pittsfield on a hospital cot, shuffled Charles and the driver. They were followed by Dr. Eastman.

  “I would like to find out all I can about this terrible tragedy,” Dr. Livermore said. “I wish you would help me.”

  “We are perfectly willing,” said Richardson. Dr. Eastman departed. Crane saw that Joe was still standing on the porch, watching them through the open window.

  Dr. Livermore said, “The others will be down in a minute.” Soon the others came. Miss Van Kamp and Nellie were together, looking very fragile and frightened. The large nurse and Mrs. Brady closely and protectively followed them. They arranged themselves in the room so that all the women and Richardson were together and Crane and Mr. Penny were quite separate.

  “Has anyone anything to say about this tragedy?” asked Dr. Livermore.

  Nobody had anything to say.

  “It took place while the movies were being held,” said Dr. Livermore. “Did anybody leave during them?”

  Except for the delicate tap dancing of a moth against a window, there was silence.

  Dr. Livermore said, “Somebody must have left the show.”

  “Somebody did,” Crane said.

  “Who?”

  “Pittsfield.”

  The exposed portions of Dr. Livermore’s face reddened. He glared out of small eyes. The proud nurse regarded William Crane indignantly and snorted angrily.

  “How about you? Did you leave the room?” Dr. Eastman demanded in a choked voice.

  “No,” Crane lied.

  “Can you prove it?”

  “No.”

  Dr. Livermore nodded in satisfaction. “How about you, Penny?”

  Mr. Penny shook his head.

  Other questions revealed that Miss Van Kamp and Nellie vouched for each other. Miss Queen denied she had left the room, but she had no one to give her an alibi. Mrs. Brady was in a similar position. Richardson repeated what he had said upstairs. Mrs. Heyworth did not appear to hear him, but stared at Crane with her sleepwalker’s eyes.

  Crane said, “You might ask the nurse where she was.”

  The nurse threw out her magnificent bust. “Well, I never,” she said.

  “Go ahead,” said Crane. “Ask her.”

  “I don’t see why anyone should be left out of this investigation,” Dr. Livermore stated. “Miss Twilliger, did you leave the room at any time?”

  Miss Twilliger started to answer but thought better of it. She looked contemptuously at Crane. “You heard me, didn’t you?” She spoke bitterly. “And you had to tell, you sneak.”

  “Miss Twilliger!” Dr. Livermore exclaimed.

  “That’s all right. I was out for a while.”

  “Where did you go?”

  “I met the driver out by the garage. I wanted to tell him something … I wanted him to get something … for me when he made his next trip to New York. I suppose we talked about fifteen minutes.”

  “Very well,” said Dr. Livermore. He made a motion to indicate the questioning was over.

  “Wait a minute,” Richardson said. “Where’s Blackwood?”

  Dr. Livermore was surprised. “I’ll go and get him.” He hurried up the stairs.

  Richardson said, “That fellow will throw some light on this.”

  Blackwood had to be led downstairs. His flabby body hid under a green robe, and his eyes rolled in terror. His breath came in gasps, his face was covered with sweat, and his legs shook so under him that he was forced to slump onto a chair. “Is it gone?” he moaned.

  “Is what gone?” asked Crane.

  “The corpse. I can’t bear the sight of a corpse. It would drive me insane. Is it gone?”

  Those in the room felt a sympathetic terror. Miss Queen shuddered perceptibly and clenched her hands and rocked back and forth on her feet. Miss Van Kamp and Nellie huddled together, their eyes kindled with renewed horror.

  “It’s gone,” Dr. Livermore said. “But how did you know there was a corpse?”

  “I heard them talking out in the hall after that terrible screaming
. I lay there in bed trembling, expecting to be killed at any moment. I was so frightened.” Blackwood rubbed his face with his hands, tenderly.

  “Why didn’t you come out?”

  Surprise widened Blackwood’s eyes. “To see a dead person? Oh! Oh!” He began to breathe again, very loudly.

  “What we want to know,” said Dr. Livermore, “is where you were during the movies?”

  Blackwood’s reply was halted by a muffled wail from Mrs. Heyworth. She was staring with hypnotic directness at a window in the back of the room. Framed within the open lower rectangle was a grinning demented face with bared fangs and flecks of saliva on the lips. It was the wolf-man of the previous night. The face slid away, and there was left only the streaming of the women, frantic and urgent.

  Dr. Livermore ran to the porch and bellowed into the silver air. “Help! Charlie! Joe! Help! Help!”

  There was a distant answering shout, and presently there came running Charles and Dr. Buelow. They halted on the porch. Dr. Livermore faced Charles. “I thought you had L’Adam locked up in detention.”

  “I have,” said Charles.

  “No, you haven’t. He’s loose outside. He was here a moment ago.”

  “He can’t be.”

  “We’ll have to get him at once. Get the driver to help us.”

  The three hurried off in the direction of the main hospital building. Mr. Penny walked across the room and shut the open porch door. Miss Twilliger had succeeded in soothing the women so that only Nellie made any noise. She was crying in a minor key. Blackwood had pulled a pillow over his chest for protection, and from behind this he watched the others apprehensively. Crane felt the attention of all upon him. It was as though he possessed a cue without which the play could not go on. He felt uncomfortable and walked to the window which overlooked the garden. Outside there was the excited noise of shouting. This gradually increased in fury and then died to nothingness. There followed the familiar mournful howling, sad and lonely as gypsy music. It made him shudder. “My God!” he said aloud. “What sort of a place is this?”