Free A Puzzle for fools by Patrick Quentin Page A

the stage?"
    "You'd—you'd better go away," she said. "You're not allowed here."
    "Not until you've told me whether you've been on the stage."
    "Why, no, never. And I know I couldn't act."
    "Nonsense. You don't have to be able to act. I can teach you that. You've got everything, see?" I waved my arm in an abandoned gesture. "Listen, Miss Pattison, you're going to get out of here and I'm going to do something about you. Given patience and six months I could get you anywhere. And ..." I broke off. Even I could not fail to interpret the expression on her face now. "And I'm not mad," I added testily. "I happen to be a Broadway theatrical producer. I'm in here because I was a soak but I'm getting better now and what I say goes."
    Her mouth moved in a faint smile. "What—what a relief," she said. "For a moment, I thought—"
    "All theatrical producers are crazy," I broke in. "And what the hell are you doing with that mop anyway?"
    "Doctor Lenz told me to clean the corridor." Iris turned and started in again vigorously, as though she were being paid for piece work. "He said I had never done anything useful in my life. But I rather like doing this."
    I thought a hundred a week rather a lot to pay for the privilege of mopping corridors. But Lenz seemed to know his psychiatry. Iris was obviously interested.
    I told her what a good job she was doing and she seemed childishly grateful. An instant of radiance lit up the white flower of her face.
    "I've done all that other corridor, too," she said proudly.
    There were so few opportunities of seeing her alone that I couldn't bear to tear myself away. There were a thousand things I wanted to say, but I seemed suddenly to have become inarticulate. All I could do was to start talking lamely about the night before, saying how sorry I was that Fenwick's spiritualistic warning had upset her.
    I realized at once that I had been stupid to remind her of it. She turned her head away and maneuvered a corner with her mop. "Oh, it wasn't that which upset me," she said softly.
    "It wasn't?"
    "No." Her voice was low. She moved so that she was facing me and I saw the fear in her eyes. "It was something I heard."
    I felt a moment of alarm. Suddenly the recollection of Fogarty's death and all the other grotesque incidents of the past days came flooding back into my mind, making even this charming interlude seem sinister.
    "It was a voice," Iris was murmuring. "I don't know where it came from, but I heard it when everyone was running past. It said very softly: 'Daniel Laribee murdered your father. You must kill him.' "
    She looked up, staring at me with an expression half pleading, half defiant.
    "I know it was partly Mr. Laribee's fault that father died. I understand. I can remember everything plainly. But I don't have to murder him, do I?"
    There was something terribly pathetic about it. I felt almost physically sick to think that now Iris was being drawn into this beastly affair. I knew she was really sane; some instinct surer than reason told me that this was just another facet of the malignant scheme which was working itself out in the sanitarium. She was imploring me to help and yet I was so hopelessly inadequate. I tried to tell her it was all a mistake; that even if she had heard a voice it was only someone trying to frighten her.
    "Yes," she said surprisingly, "I expect it was. I don't believe in spirits or anything. I know I'm in a mental hospital and I know I'm trying to get better. It's just that I want to be left alone. I wouldn't mind, if only I was sure I didn't have to do what they told me."
    I said a lot of foolish things that were meant to be reassuring, but probably my psychiatry was all wrong. She seemed caught up in some reflection of her own and I felt that she hardly heard what I said. She had started to work on the floor again, deliberately, mechanically.
    At last I tried to be flippant.
    "When you're through with that corridor," I suggested, "you might get Lenz to put you on the