Murder in the Madhouse

by Jonathan Latimer

  “Much better, thank you.” Miss Van Kamp’s parchment hands continued their lively concentric movements. “She’ll be all right by morning.”

  Dr. Buelow’s large face was kindly sincere. “That’s fine. She’s naturally upset.” He sat down in a straight chair. It creaked under his weight. Miss Clayton stepped in front of him.

  She said, “I’ll come back in a few minutes and take Miss Paxton up some food.”

  “That’s fine,” said Dr. Buelow. “Some food will do her good.”

  From his seat, Crane glanced around the room Mrs. Heyworth was still regarding him with her warm eyes. Mr. Penny’s small humorous eyes were friendly. Miss Queen was peering at him with a sort of shuddering horror. For a time he fastened his eyes on Mrs. Brady, who had on a black evening gown and a lot of powder, and then he peeped at Miss Queen. She became rigid. She turned her head away from him. She trembled. She stood up. She sat down. William Crane felt nervous sweat on his brow, and he reached in his pocket for a handkerchief. He had no handkerchief. He self-consciously walked to the stairs and up them to his own room.

  He was aware of a chill in the hall and wondered if a window were open anywhere. It was warm in his room, and he got a handkerchief from the dresser. He had a drink of moonshine. He wished he were in New York.

  Once at the dinner table, the patients became vivacious. Mrs. Brady plunged into a description of the time her husband and she were insulted by a manager in the finest hotel in Louisville.

  “Do you know to whom you are speaking?” she quoted herself as having told the manager.

  The manager had admitted he did not know.

  “I told him very simply: ‘You’re talking to R. J. Brady, you fool,’” Mrs. Brady said. She illustrated this point with her butter knife.

  She continued: “You should have seen that manager. He said: ‘Not R. J. Brady, the great horse fancier?’”

  “I said: ‘None other.’ After that nothing was too good for us in that hotel. He sent up a quart bottle of thirty-year-old bourbon and said we could throw that out the window, too, if we wanted. Of course, I just pushed that first bottle out as a joke.” Mrs. Brady giggled reminiscently. “How was I to know it would hit the chief of police?”

  While Mrs. Brady vigorously pursued her anecdotes, butter knife in hand, William Crane ate reflectively. Directly across from him sat Miss Queen, and he peeped secretly and curiously at her during the corn soup and the broiled chicken. It was not until the tomato and cucumber salad that he noticed her chest was moving spasmodically, as though she were riding a bicycle. He raised his eyes suddenly to her face, met her eyes. She was pale, and she rose from her place, letting her napkin slide off onto the floor. She cried, “I can stand it no longer!”

  She pointed a long finger at Crane and swayed against the table. Her dark hair hung limply over mad eyes. “I know your evil intentions,” she croaked. “But you can’t seduce me.” She backed away from the table, upset her chair, and reeled out of the room. She could be heard going slowly up the stairs. Crane felt a blush creeping over his face, and he had difficulty swallowing a piece of cucumber. He pretended to be absorbed in his salad, but he knew the others were watching him.

  “Never mind about her, Mr. Crane,” Dr. Buelow said unexpectedly. “She has had similar delusions before.” Crane looked up from his plate, and Mr. Penny caught his attention. By introducing an abnormally large piece of chicken into his mouth, the little man conveyed a humorous recognition of the unbalanced state of all women and at the same time dismissed the incident as being of no importance. Crane smiled in spite of his embarrassment, and, delighted, Mr. Penny smiled back at him.

  Maria was removing the salad dishes when Miss Clayton came in from the kitchen.

  “Would it be all right for Miss Paxton to have some soup and toast and tea?” she asked Dr. Buelow.

  “Anything she cares to eat,” Dr. Buelow said. “Give her stomach something to do, and her mind won’t be so busy.”

  Miss Clayton said, “I’ll take up Mr. Blackwood’s dinner later.”

  Dr. Buelow indicated that would be all right, and presently Miss Clayton passed through the room with Nellie’s tray.

  “I’d like to have my breakfast served in bed,” Mrs. Brady announced coyly.

  “That’s the quickest way to ruin a woman,” Miss Van Kamp snapped. “Any woman who can’t get up for breakfast, and make it, too, is a slut.” Her teeth clicked on the final “t.”

  Mrs. Brady should have known better than to disagree with Miss Van Kamp. She said defiantly, “I always used to have my breakfasts in bed.”

  Miss Van Kamp’s logic was exact. “Then you are a slut,” she said.

  Miss Clayton ran into the room. Her face was flour white. There was blood on her hands.

  “Did you cut yourself, Miss Clayton?” Dr. Buelow asked.

  “No. Oh no!” Miss Clayton looked at her hands with horror. “It’s Miss Paxton. She’s been murdered.”

  Crane followed Dr. Buelow’s broad back out of the room and up the stairs. He was right behind him when they entered the congealed interior of Nellie’s room.

  It was a remarkably neat room. The dresser was covered with an amber toilet set, each piece placed in exact mathematical relation to the others. Two colored tchings of Paris scenes, one showing golden pumpkins for sale in a market place, and the other a lavender branch of the Seine flowing under a stone bridge, balanced themselves on either side of the opposite wall. An easy chair, with a brown-and-white doily fastened on the back, was precisely in the middle of the wall with the two large windows. The plain blue rug was flat and spotless. Miss Paxton lay on the bed. Her curiously neutral hair poured from the pillow in two careful braids. Her face was calm and composed. The bed was perfectly smooth. Miss Paxton might have been asleep except for the dagger which protruded wickedly from her thin neck. It was a large dagger such as hunters use, with a brown bone handle. Crane thought the murderer had displayed nice taste to murder the old woman with a dagger which so nearly matched her toilet set.

  Dr. Buelow bent over her, his ear to her mouth, his hands to her breast. “She’s dead,” he said after a few seconds. He straightened his back. He gazed stupidly at the blood on his hands. “Warm,” he said. “Warm!”

  “My God!” said Richardson from behind Crane. “I’d better keep the women out.” He blocked the doorway.

  Dr. Buelow looked at Crane apologetically. “There is nothing we can do.” There were sudden wrinkles at the bottom corners of his eyes.

  William Crane pressed against the bed. He felt Miss Paxton’s arm. It was small and smooth and warm. He touched the dagger with the back of his hand. The bone handle was cold and hard. The steel of the blade was icy. “I guess not,” he said. “But how about Blackwood?”

  Dr. Buelow was off again like an anxious Percheron, galloping down the hall and almost through Blackwood’s door. By the time Crane got there he was coming out.

  “Thank God,” he said. “He’s alive and doesn’t know what’s happened.” He rubbed his forehead with his blue serge coat sleeve. They went back to Miss Paxton’s room. Outside were Mrs. Brady, Miss Queen, and Mrs. Heyworth; all questioning Richardson. Miss Van Kamp and Mr. Penny, who looked like a small owl, were inside. Miss Van Kamp was hopelessly smoothing the covers over her dead friend as she peered into the tranquil face.

  “Don’t you think you’d better go to your room?” asked Dr. Buelow.

  “No! No!” said Miss Van Kamp fiercely. “She was all I had left.” She resumed caressing the sleek covers. “I should have stayed with her.”

  While Mr. Penny watched, Dr. Buelow and Crane looked around the room. Nothing seemed to be unusual, and Crane opened the closet door. Within there hung orderly rows of dresses, coats, and other garments, all either black or gray. There was a gray bathrobe on the hanger, and he saw that the loops for the belt were of the same woven black wool as the cord which had been used to strangle Mr. Pittsfield. He brought the robe into the room for a better look. It
seemed to be in good condition, and the wool was firm and unfrayed. There was a yellow label in it: The Brockmann Woolen Mill, St. Paul, Minn. “Whew!” said Crane. “It certainly smells of naphtha.” The pockets were empty, and he put the robe back in the closet. He looked at the shoes. Only one pair, black and new, had very high heels. He closed the closet door just as Miss Clayton arrived with Dr. Eastman.

  “Murdered?” Dr. Eastman asked. His dark face was outraged.

  Dr. Buelow pointed to the dagger.

  “What are all these people doing in here?” Dr. Eastman was savage. “They can all get out.” He pressed his fists against his chest, then jerked them outward. “Get out, do you hear?”

  Even Miss Van Kamp, her crow’s-footed face at once grim and tragic, had to leave. Crane went to his room and waited until he had heard them carry the body down the stairs and out on the front porch. There were still people talking in the living room when he tiptoed to the head of the stairs. By standing on the banister, he was able to reach the light fixture on the ceiling. He took a penny out of his pocket, unscrewed the hot bulb, and balanced the penny on the metal contact point. Then, very carefully, he screwed back the bulb so that the penny was carried up into the socket. At the last turn there was a flash, and all the lights in the building were extinguished. There was excited talking downstairs. He went to his room and undressed and climbed into bed, and fell asleep listening to futile attempts being made downstairs to fix the lights.

  Chapter IX

  WHEN WILLIAM CRANE awoke creamy sunlight washed the sills of his two windows, and sparrows chirped irregularly and shrilly in the vines on the wall of the guest house. There were also bees and flies and other insects enjoying the change around his windows. He was unable to sleep, so he took a shower. After this, he dressed slowly, examining the bruises on his face. They were darker, and he was surprised to notice that some of them were green. He had heard of people turning black and blue, but never black and green. He wondered if he had Irish blood in him. He hoped not.

  Downstairs he discovered from the clock on the mantel that it was a minute before eight. He felt a surge of admiration for himself. No hour was too early for him to get up and begin his deductions. Maria was in the dining room, dusting the cupboard.

  “Good-mornin’,” she said loudly. “What d’you want for breakfast?”

  “What have you got?”

  “We got melon an’ orange juice an’ cereal an’ eggs an’ bacon an’ buckwheat cakes an’ codfish balls an’ potatoes an’ toast an’ coffee. Of course, if those don’t jest touch your fancy, we could get you sumpin’ special.”

  “Those’ll do,” said William Crane.

  “What do you mean, those, Mistah Crane?”

  “I mean those things you mentioned.”

  “All o’ them?”

  “All of them.”

  Maria’s eyes were two china saucers on a mahogany table. “Lawd!” she declared, “you sure must be hongry.”

  “Maria,” said William Crane, “I have to prepare myself for some important deductions today. You know what a drain deductions are on the system?”

  “Yes sir!” said Maria. “Lawdy me!”

  Crane had just placed a fried egg and two pieces of bacon on a pile of buckwheat cakes and was pouring maple syrup over them when Dr. Eastman and a man in blue overalls came into the living room.

  “I don’t see how you got here so soon,” said Dr. Eastman. “It usually takes three or four hours for an electrician to get here.”

  The electrician was a well built man of medium size. He had salt-and-pepper hair, and his green eyes were hard with experience. His face was covered with dirt. He said, “I was working at a place near here, and when I called the shop to order some parts for a Delco, they told me to come over here.” He plopped his bag of tools on the floor. “This where it is?”

  “I don’t know what’s the matter,” said Dr. Eastman. “We were talking down here last night when the lights suddenly went out. I thought it was a fuse, but each time we put in a new one it would blow out. I think there must be a short circuit somewhere.”

  “We’ll see,” said the electrician. He knelt by his kit and began pulling out wire and tools.

  Dr. Eastman called, “Maria.”

  “Yes sir.” Maria popped out through the swinging kitchen door and stopped in back of Crane.

  “This is the electrician,” said Dr. Eastman. “Show him where the fuse box is in the kitchen.”

  “Yes sir.”

  Dr. Eastman said, “If you want me, I’ll be in the building right across the way.”

  “O. K.,” said the electrician. He followed Maria through the dining room into the kitchen. Crane was trying the codfish balls when he emerged.

  The electrician said, “Feed you pretty good, don’t they?” He snapped the light switch two or three times. Nothing happened.

  “You can have anything I leave,” said William Crane. He forked the last codfish ball, poured cream sauce on it, and pushed it into his mouth. The electrician watched, entranced. William Crane drained his coffee cup. He stood up, folded his napkin. “You know, I think that light trouble started in my room. The cord on the reading lamp is broken.”

  The electrician followed him upstairs and into the room.

  Crane closed the door.

  “What in hell they been doing to you?” asked the electrician.

  Crane said, “They got some guys around here who can’t keep their hands in their pockets. They gotta always be sticking them in somebody’s eye.”

  “Sluggers, eh?” said the electrician.

  “That isn’t all,” said Crane. He pulled the nearly empty bottle of moonshine from behind the dresser. The electrician’s predatory eye glistened as the heavy liquid gurgled in the glasses. “They bumped off two since I got here,” Crane added.

  “Jesus!” The electrician tentatively fingered one of the glasses, picked it up, and held it to the light. “Why don’t somebody call the police?” He drank and smacked his lips. “Nothing like moon that’s been properly aged.”

  “Not unless it’s turpentine,” said Crane. “The only phone is in Dr. Livermore’s office, and he doesn’t seem anxious to have the constabulary drop in.”

  The electrician emptied his glass and rolled his eyes until only the whites showed. “Can anyone hear us?” Crane shook his head. “Tell us about it, then. Was there anything to the dope old Van Kamp had from his sister?”

  “Was there? Say, this Van Kamp dame had a little tin box in her room, and in it was four hundred grand in negotiable securities. Somebody stole the box.”

  The electrician was kneeling on the rug, busy with the reading lamp. “Go on,” he said. He pulled off the red shade with a flourish.

  “The securities weren’t as important as the key to Miss Van Kamp’s safety-deposit vault in New York. It was also in the box. This key and another, which Van Kamp has still got, are necessary to open the vault and in the vault is eight hundred thousand dollars in cash, jewels, and bonds. The old dame was foolish enough to tell one of the docs about the box and the keys.”

  “What a setup! What a setup!” The electrician waved his pliers. “All the guy that stole the box has to do is to get the second key off Miss Van Kamp, and then he has a million, two hundred thousand bucks to carry him to South America.” He lingered over the numbers with a loving tongue.

  “You probably got to bump off Miss Van Kamp before you can get that other key,” said Crane.

  “All right then,” said the electrician. “Bump her off too.”

  “You aren’t so dumb for an electrician. A lot of people around here seem to have the same idea. There also seems to be a feeling that it isn’t so healthy for anybody around here. The head doctor, Livermore, has got a guy up from Brooklyn to guard him, a gun by the name of Joe Kassuccio. He came up when I did.”

  The electrician had the lamp in pieces. “Who do you think has the box?”

  “My guess right now is that Livermore took it and th
en somebody got it from him.”

  There was a knock at the door. Crane seized the bottle and the glasses and put them back of the dresser. “Come in,” he said.

  Miss Twilliger came in. She had a roll of tape and some gauze. She halted abruptly when she saw the electrician on the floor. She raised her nose several inches. “Oh, I didn’t know you had company.”

  Crane said, “Not exactly company. This is the electrician. He thinks this lamp has caused the trouble with the lights. Miss Twilliger: Mr.…?”

  “Williams,” said the electrician savagely.

  Miss Twilliger did not acknowledge the introduction. “Dr. Livermore sent me up to see if your cuts were healing. I have some fresh bandages.”

  “You needn’t bother,” said Crane. “I am quite all right.”

  Miss Twilliger hesitated and then backed to the door. “I believe I smell liquor. You know how Dr. Livermore feels about liquor.”

  No,” Crane said. “No, I don’t. How does Dr. Livermore feel about liquor?”

  “He has forbidden all his patients to drink. I am afraid he will have to take measures to keep you away from it.”

  Miss Twilliger vanished.

  “Some dame,” said the electrician with enthusiasm.

  “You should see some of the other babes,” said Crane. “You’d think Earl Carroll ran this place.”

  “Hot dog, have you got it soft! Why does the boss always fix you up like this?”

  “Yeah, I got it soft.” William Crane was bitter. “I only get beat up once a day.”

  “Don’t let it get you down, Bill. Even the best people get beat up now and then.” The electrician pulled out his glass and the bottle. He filled his glass. “But about this box: you think one of the doctors got it?”

  “You asked me that one before.”

  “Well, I figure it out this way. That Livermore has probably had the box and then lost it. He wants to get it back: that’s why he hired the gun. In the meantime the other guy, having heard about the dough in the vault, is making a play for the other key on Van Kamp.”

  Crane said, “Either that, or Livermore is trying to get the key from the old lady, either because he has the first key, or to force whoever’s got it to dicker with him. Then he’ll have that cheap gunman knock him off.”