He eased me out onto the porch again before I quite realized why he had never had a chance to tell Dr. Skibbine himself. Yes, he meant for them to find him here when they came, but not alive.
I almost turned to the door again, to break my way in and stop him. Then I realized that everything would be easier for him if he did it his way.
Yes, he was dead by the time they sent men out to bring him in. Even though I had expected it, I guess I had a case of the jitters when they phoned in the news, and I must have showed it, because Bill Drager threw an arm across my shoulders.
“Jerry,” he said, “this has been the devil of a night for you. You need a drink. Come on.”
The drink made me feel better and so did the frank admiration in Drager’s eyes. It was so completely different from what I had seen there back in the alley.
“Jerry,” he told me, “you ought to get on the Force. Figuring out that—of all things—he had used an armadillo.”
“But what else was possible? Look! All those ghoul legends trace back to beasts that are eaters of carrion. Like hyenas. A hyena could have done what was done back there in the morgue. But no one could have handled a hyena—pushed it through that ventilator hole with a rope on it to pull it up again.
“But an armadillo is an eater of corpses, too. It gets frightened when handled and curls up into a ball, like a bowling ball. It doesn’t make any noise, and you could carry it in a bag like the one Hank described. It has an armored shell that would break the glass of the display case if Paton lowered it to within a few feet and let it drop the rest of the way. And of course he looked down with a flashlight to see—”
Bill Drager shuddered a little.
“Learning is a great thing if you like it,” he said. “Studying origins of superstitions, I mean. But me, I want another drink. How about you?”
Homicide Sanitarium
I
Killer at Large
I PUT down the newspaper.
“It’s about time,” Kit said.
I stood up. “Right, honey. It is.”
Her big brown eyes got bigger and browner.
“What do you mean, Eddie? I just meant you’ve been reading that blasted newspaper for hours and hours.”
I glanced at the clock. “For eleven minutes.”
I sat down again and motioned, and she came over and sat down on my lap. I almost weakened.
“It’s been a nice honeymoon,” I said. “But I am a working man. I thought you knew.”
“You mean you’re taking on another case?”
“Nope,” I told her. “One of the same ones. Paul Verne.”
“Who’s Paul Verne?”
“The gentleman I came to Springfield to find.”
She looked really shocked. “You came here to…Why, Eddie, we came here for our honeymoon! You don’t mean you had an ulterior motive in choosing Springfield.”
“Now, now,” I now-nowed.
“But Eddie—”
“Shhh,” I shhhed.
She cuddled down in my arms. “All right, Eddie. But tell me what you’re going to do. Is it dangerous?”
“Get ‘em young,” I said, “treat ‘em rough, tell ‘em nothing.”
“Eddie, is it dangerous?”
“The world,” I told her, “is a dangerous place. One’s lucky to get out of it alive.”
“Oh darn it, I suppose you are going to do something dangerous. I won’t let you!”
I stood up, and she had to get off my lap or fall on the floor. I walked over to the bureau and picked a necktie off the mirror.
“What are you going to do, Eddie?”
“Answer an ad I just read in the paper.”
“You mean an ad to go to work?”
I nodded, and started to put on the necktie.
In the mirror, I could see Kit studying me.
“The idea of a pint-size like you being a detective,” she said.
“Napoleon wasn’t so big,” I said, over my shoulder.
“Napoleon wasn’t a detective.”
“Well how about Peter Lorre? He’s no bigger than I am.”
“Peter Lorre was shot in the last two pictures I saw him in,” Kit said.
She picked up the newspaper I’d put down and started scanning the want ads, while I was putting on my coat.
“Is this the ad?” she said. ”
“Wanted: Man with some knowledge of psychiatry, for confidential work’?”
“What makes you think that’s it?” I countered.
“I know that’s it, Eddie. All the other ads are routine sensible ones for salesmen or dishwashers or something. But why get dressed up to answer it? It just gives a phone number, and there’s a phone right on the table there.”
“That reminds me,” I said. “Use that phone to call Information, will you, and get the listing on that phone number. You’ll find it’s the Stanley Sanitarium, I think. But I might as well make sure.”
She made the call.
“You’re right, Eddie. Stanley Sanitarium.” She looked at me with respect. “How did you know?”
“Hunch. There’s an article on Page Three telling about a new sanitarium for mental cases being started here. A doc by the name of Philemon Stanley runs it.”
“But why can’t you phone from here about the job?”
“From a hotel? Nix. I’ve got to give myself a local background and a local address. I go rent myself a room, and then use the landlady’s phone. That way, if he’s going to phone me back or write me a letter, I can give him an address that won’t sound phony.”
“What’s phony about the New World Hotel?”
I grinned at her. “Ten bucks a day is what’s phony. People who stay at a hotel like this don’t apply for jobs that probably pay less than their hotel bills would be.”
I kissed her, thoroughly, for it just might be the last time for a while if I had to follow up on the job right away, and left.
Half an hour later, from a rooming house, I called the number given in the want ad.
“Ever had any experience working in an institution for the mentally ill?”
“Yes, sir,” I said. “Two years at Wales Sanitarium in Chicago. They didn’t handle really bad cases, you know, just mild psychoses, phobiacs, chronic alcoholics, that sort of thing.”
“Yes,” said Dr. Stanley, “I’m familiar with the work at Wales Sanitarium. What were your duties there?”
“Attendant, male ward.”
“I believe you would fit in very nicely. Not—uh—as an attendant, however. I have something in mind of a different and—uh —more confidential nature.”
“So I figured from the ad, Doctor,” I said. “But whatever it is, I’ll be glad to try it.”
“Fine, Mr. Anderson. I’d like to talk to you personally, of course, but if our interview is satisfactory to both of us, you can start right away. Would you rather have that interview this evening or tomorrow morning? Either will be quite satisfactory.” I thought it over, and weakened. After all I had been married only two weeks and I would undoubtedly have to live at the sanitarium while I was on the job. I told him tomorrow morning. I went back to the hotel and Kit and I went down for dinner to the New World dining room. Over a couple of cocktails, I told her about the phone call.
“But suppose he should phone the Wales Sanitarium to check up on you?”
“They never do.”
“What kind of confidential work would there be around a booby hatch, Eddie?”
“I don’t know,” I told her. “But as long as it puts me in contact with the patients, I don’t care. Anyway, it isn’t a booby hatch, honey. It’s a sanitarium for the idle rich. People who go slightly screwy wondering how to spend their money. That’s why I used Wales as a reference. It’s the same type of joint.”