A New Job
The Stanley Sanitarium was out at the edge of town, as all respectable sanitaria should be. There was a high brick wall around it, and barbed wire on top of the wall.
That rather surprised me. So did the size and impregnability of the iron-work gate in the wall. I couldn't get in it, and had to ring a bell in one of the gate posts.
A surly looking guy with thick black eyebrows and rumpled hair came to answer it. He glared at me as though I had leprosy. "Eddie Anderson," I said. "I got an appointment with Dr. Stanley."
"Just a minute." He called the sanitarium on a telephone that was in a sentry box by the gate, and then said, "Okay," and unlocked the gate.
He walked with me up to the house, slightly more friendly.
"I reckon you're the new patient," he said. "My name's Garvey. The other patients'll tell you you can trust me, Mr. Anderson. So if there's any little errands you want done or anything you want brought in, why just see me, that's all."
"That's fine," I said, "and if I ever go crazy, I'll remember it."
"Huh?" he said. "You mean you ain't crazy?"
"If I am," I said, "I haven't found it out yet. But don't worry. That doesn't prove anything."
I left him looking doubtful and wondering whether he'd talked too much.
Dr. Philemon Stanley had a white walrus mustache and the kind of glasses that dangle at the end of a black silk ribbon. He twirled them in a tight little circle while he talked. I had to look away from that shiny circle to keep from getting dizzy. I wondered vaguely if he used them on patients for hypnotic effect.
"Uh--Mr. Anderson," he said, "have you had any experience at all in--uh--confidential investigations? That is, in making confidential reports?"
"Can't say I have," I told him. Not quite truthfully, of course. I couldn't say that was my real occupation. "But I'd be glad to try my hand at it."
"Fine, Mr. Anderson. I intend to try out a new theory of mine in the study of mental aberration. A method, not of treatment, but of more accurate diagnosis and study of the patient. It is my belief that a person suffering from a mental ailment is never completely frank or completely at ease in the presence of a doctor, or even of an attendant. There is a tendency, almost invariably, either to exaggerate symptoms or to minimize and conceal them."
"Sounds quite logical," I admitted.
"Whereas," said Dr. Stanley, twirling his glass a bit harder in mild excitement, "they undoubtedly act entirely natural before the other patients. You see what I'm driving at?"
"Not exactly."
"I would like an attendant--someone experienced, as you are, with pathological cases--to pose as a patient, to mix among the other patients, become friendly with them, play cards with them, win their confidence as fellow-sufferer, and to report confidentially on their progress. The job, I fear, would be a bit confining."
He broke off, watching me for my reaction.
It wasn't good, at first. Then I began to see the advantages of it. Certainly I'd be in a better position to find out what I wanted to know, in the status of a fellow patient.
But it wouldn't do to appear eager. I asked about salary and when he named a figure higher than an attendant's wages would be, I let it convince me.
"My clothes," I said. "Will it appear suspicious to anyone who saw me come here if I leave, and then return with them?"
"Not at all. You are, as far as anyone knows, committing your-self to me voluntarily. All my patients, incidentally, are here of their own free will, although they are under restraint to stay within the grounds for the period of their cure. There will be nothing unusual about your having had a preliminary interview."
"Fine," I said. "I'll get my stuff and be back. Right after lunch, say. Oh, by the way, just how insane am I to act, and in what direction?"
"I would suggest a mild psychosis. Something you're more than usually familiar with. Nothing that would force me to keep you under restraint or limit your freedom in circulating about with the other patients. Alcoholism. . . . No, you look too healthy for that."
"How about kleptomania?" I suggested. "I'd have to swipe a few things from time to time, but I'll put them under my bed, and if your fountain pen disappears, you'll know where to look for it."
"Excellent. Any time this afternoon will be satisfactory, if you have affairs of your own to wind up. Uh--you sign nothing, of course, but if any patient asks, tell him you committed yourself here for say, sixty days. At the end of that time, we'll know how satisfactory our arrangement is."
We shook hands and he sat down again at his desk while I went to the door and opened it. I took one step to go into the outer hallway, and then I stopped short as though I'd run into a brick wall.
I stood staring, and then I wrenched my eyes away and looked back at my employer.
I had to clear my throat before I could say:
"Dr. Stanley?"
"Yes, Anderson."
"You have any homicidal patients here?"
"Homicidal? Of course not. That is. . . . Of course not."
"There is a corpse in the middle of the hallway, with the hilt of a dagger sticking out of his chest," I said. "Right over the heart."
"Eh? Oh, I should have warned you. That would be Harvey Toler."
It didn't faze him in the least. He didn't even get up from his desk or reach for the telephone. Was he crazy, or I?
"I don't care if it's J. Edgar Hoover," I said. "The fact remains that there's a knife in his chest."
I heard a sound in the hall and looked through the door. The corpse had got up and was walking away. He was a slender, dark young man with thick shell-rimmed glasses. He put something in his pocket that looked like the hilt of a dagger without any blade.
I looked back at Dr. Stanley.
"Harvey Toler," he repeated. "Uncontrollable exhibitionism. He must have heard I had a caller in my office. A strange case--arrested development in one respect only. A brilliant mind, but he cannot control impulses to shock people. I want particularly careful reports on his conduct among the other patients. I think you'll like him when you get to know him."
"I'm sure I will," I said. "Is that a favorite stunt of his, with the dagger?"
"He's used it before, but he seldom repeats himself. He may . . . Well, I'd rather not tell you too much about him. I'd rather have your impressions without prejudice."
Without prejudice, my grandmother, I thought as I walked to the bus line. If Harvey Toler pulled another one like that one, I'd take advantage of being a fellow-patient to pop him on the nose, exhibitionism or not. And maybe that would be the best cure, at that.
I went to my rooming house, told my landlady I'd landed a job and she could keep the rest of the week's rent I'd paid her.
Then I went to the hotel and woke up Kit. She'd had early breakfast with me and then gone back to sleep.
"Got the job," I told her. "And I'll have to live there. Hope it won't take me more than a few days to decide one way or the other about whether I'm on the right track or not."
"What is the job, Eddie?"
"I'm in charge of the hypochondriac ward, honey. It's confidential. I'd better not tell you about my duties."
"Eddie! Be serious. What is the job?"
I told her and she wouldn't believe me. But by dint of repeating it four or five times, I finally convinced her.
I packed a few things in a suitcase, rather regretfully leaving my automatic out of it. Hardly the sort of thing I'd be carrying, if I was what I pretended to be. But if I really found Paul Verne, it might not be any picnic to handle him. I took a chance on including brass knuckles, rolling them up carefully inside a pair of thick woolen socks.