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own room number.
Kit's sleepy voice answered.
"Take a pencil, honey," I said, "and copy down these names and addresses.
Ready?"
When she was, I gave her the names and addresses of Garvey, Frank
Betterman, Harvey Toler, Bill Kendall and Perry Evans. The latter was a
paranoiac whom I'd seen in the recreation room and at dinner, but with whom I
had not yet talked.
"Got 'em, Kit? Attagirl. Now here's one more name, only you get it for a
different reason. Joe Unger. He has an office on the third floor of the
Sprague
Building here in town. Joe's a private detective and we've worked together. I
mean, when he has any work in Chicago he throws it my way and when anything
I'm working on, when I'm home, has a Springfield angle, Joe handles it for me.
"Now bright and early tomorrow morning--I think he gets to his office at
eight--you look up Joe Unger and give him those names. Don't tell him where I
am or what I'm working on, but have him get all the dope he can on each of
those names."
Kit sounded wide awake now.
"How about the out-of-town ones?" she asked. "One's in Chicago and one in
Indianapolis?"
"Joe can handle them by phone, somehow. Main thing I want to know is
whether they're on the up and up. One address might turn out to be a phony,
and then I can concentrate my attention on that name. And any general
information Unger can pick up will help. Tell him to get all he can in one
full day's work."
"How shall I tell him to report to you, Eddie?"
"You can get the dope from him tomorrow evening. I'll phone you tomorrow night
about this time. Oh, yes, one other thing I want him to check. What kind of a
reputation Dr. Stanley has. Whether he rates as being ethical and honest."
"All right, Eddie. But why?"
"The bare possibility that Paul Verne might be here-- if he's here at
all--with
Stanley's knowledge. Verne would have plenty of money, and he might bribe his
way in and make it worth anyone's while."
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"All right, I'll have him check on that. What's happened since you got there?"
"Here? Not a thing. Life is dull and dreary."
"Eddie, are you lying to me?"
"I wouldn't think of it, honey. 'By now. I'll call you tomorrow night."
I got back up to my room without being seen.
After I fixed the lock back the way it had been, I wedged the blade of my
penknife between the door and the jamb, near the top. I sleep lightly, and if
the door opened again during the night the fall of the knife onto the floor
would wake me.
But the knife was still in place when I awakened in the morning.
Just after lunch I was summoned to Dr. Stanley's office.
"Close the door, Anderson," he said, "and then sit down."
I took the chair across the desk from him.
I spoke quietly. "You want a report on what I've seen?"
"You needn't lower your voice. This room is quite sound-proof--naturally, as
I interview my patients here. No, I didn't have a report in mind. You haven't
been here long enough. It will take you several days to get to know the
patients well enough to--uh--recognize changes in their mental attitudes.
"What I had in mind was to ask you to concentrate for the moment on Billy
Kendall. Try to win his confidence and get him to talk to you freely. I am
quite disturbed about him."
"That's the fellow with recurrent amnesia, isn't it?" I said.
Dr. Stanley nodded. "At least up to now, that is all that's been wrong with
him. But--" He hesitated, twirling the gold-rimmed glasses faster on their
silk ribbon, and then apparently made up his mind to tell me the rest of it.
"But this morning the maid who cleaned his room found something strange under
the bed.
An--uh--extremely lethal weapon. A submachine-gun, to be frank."
I looked suitably surprised. "Loaded?" I asked.
"Fortunately, no. But the mystery is no less deep for that. Two mysteries, in
fact. First, why he would want one. He has shown, thus far, no symptoms
of--uh--that nature. Second, where and how he could have obtained it. The
second question is the more puzzling, but the first is, in a way, more
important. I mean, it involves the question of whether or not he is still a
fit inmate for this particular institution. In short, whether it may be
necessary to suggest his transfer to a place where they are prepared to cope
with that sort of insanity. You see what I mean?"
"Perfectly, Doctor," I said. "I'll look him up at once." I stood up. "What
room is Kendall in?"
It wasn't until I was out in the hall that I realized he had said Room Six. I
had put that tommy gun in Room Twelve. Had the occupant of Room Twelve found
it and passed the buck? Or what?
Billy Kendall could wait. I went to Room Twelve and knocked on the door.
Frank Betterman opened it and I pretended I had known it was his room and
suggested a game of ping-pong.
So we played ping-pong and I couldn't think of any way of asking him if he had
found a tommy gun under his bed without admitting I had put it there. Which
hardly seemed diplomatic.
I managed to sit at the same table with Billy Kendall at supper. But he
wouldn't talk at all, except to answer my questions with monosyllables.
I swiped another pocketful of silverware.
A bridge game constituted the excitement of the evening and I began to think I
had been telling Kit the truth in saying events were dull and dismal.
After turning in, I waited until well after midnight before my second foray
into the office to phone Kit. She didn't sound sleepy this time. She had been
waiting for the call.
"Get anything exciting?"
"Yes, Eddie. That Indianapolis address was a phony. There isn't any such
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street there."
The Indianapolis address had been that of Harvey Toler. I whistled softly.
Was Harvey Toler the man I wanted?
"Thanks a million, angel," I said. "Now I can go ahead."
"Wait, Eddie. There was something funny about one or two of the others.
Frank Betterman--his address was okay, a cheap rooming house, but he'd lived
there. Used to be a reporter on the Springfield
Argus.
He got fired for drinking too much." [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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