"This Corbel," I said. "He's a psychiatrist?"
"He's a murderer!" Marjorie leaned forward. "Go ahead, laugh at me — it's true! I can hear. I stay awake all night and listen. I heard him and Leo beating old Mr. Scheinfarber to death two weeks ago in the hydrotherapy room. They never use it for hydrotherapy at all, you know. But when he was done screaming they dumped his body in the water and left him there. The next morning they said he'd been taking a treatment and slipped under — committed suicide. Corbel signed the certificate. I know what's going on! Poor old Mr. Scheinfarber, who only wanted to be left alone. . . . And now that sneaky son and daughter-in-law of his get all the money. Leo almost admitted as much to me."
"Who is Leo?" Barbara asked.
"One of the orderlies. Leo and Hugo. Leo's the worst; he's on night duty. He was after me from the beginning."
"What for?"
"Can't you guess?" Marjorie made that laughing sound again. "He's after most of the women patients there. Once he locked Mrs. Matthews in isolation and stayed with her for two days. She couldn't dare do anything about it; he said he'd see to it she starved to death if she wouldn't let him."
"I see," I said.
Marjorie looked at me. "You don't see. You think I'm lying to you. I can tell. But it's all true. I can prove it. That's why I ran away — to prove it. I want to get to the police. Not the sheriff or anyone around here; I think they're in cahoots with Corbel. Otherwise, how would he be able to fix things with the coroner and everyone so there isn't any fuss? But when I get to town maybe somebody will listen. We could force an investigation. That's all I want, Bob. Really it is. I don't even want to punish Freddie. I'm past that stage. I just want to help those people, those poor, hopeless people stuck away to rot and die. . . ."
Barbara reached over and patted her on the shoulder. "It's all right," she said. "It's all right. We believe you, don't we, Bob?"
"I know what it sounds like," Marjorie said, and she was calmer now. "You tell yourself such things can't happen in this day and age. And you see Doctor Corbel in town and he's such a kind, brilliant man. You go for a drive past the sanatorium and look at the building up on the hill, in among all those trees — you think it's a beautiful place, a wonderful rest home for those who can afford it. You don't notice the bars, and you never get inside the soundproof part where you could hear the screams and the moans, or see the stains on the floor in isolation. The stains that won't wash off, the stains that never wash off—"
"Another drink?" I interrupted. I didn't want to give her another drink, but I had to stop her someway.
"No thanks. I'm all right now, really I am. You'll see. It's just all this running—"
"You need rest," Barbara nodded. "A good nights sleep before we decide anything."
"There's nothing to decide," Marjorie said. "I've made up my mind. I want you to drive me into the city tonight so that I can make a statement right away. I don't care if they believe me or not, just so they come out and investigate. Once they get inside, they'll find proof. I'll show them. All I'm asking you to do is drive me."
"I can't," I said. "The car's in the garage but the battery's out of whack. I'm having the garage man out to fix it in the morning."
"It may be too late then," Marjorie said. "They'll cover things up once they realize I'm liable to go to the authorities."
I took a deep breath. "How did you manage to get away?" I asked her.
Marjorie put her hands down in her lap and looked at them. Her voice was very low.
"For a long while I didn't even think about escaping. Everyone said it was impossible, and besides, even if I did, where could I go? Certainly not to Freddie or the local police. And how could I get to town safely without any money? Then I happened to remember that you folks had this summer place, and you'd be up here. It isn't too far from Elkdale. All I needed was a good start. So I knew the thing to do, then.
"I told you about this Leo, the night orderly—the one who was always after me? I kept fighting him off all the time; I'd never take sleeping pills or even doze off while he was on duty.
"Well, tonight Leo was drinking a little. I heard him coming around in the hall, and I asked him in. I even took a drink from him, just to get him started again. He had quite a few. And then ... I let him."
She didn't say anything for almost a minute. Barbara and I waited.
"After he fell asleep, I got his keys. The rest was easy. At first I couldn't get my bearings, but then I remembered the creek running next to the highway. I kept close to the creek and waded in it at first. That was to throw them off the scent."
"Throw who off the scent?" Barbara asked.
Marjorie's eyes widened. "The bloodhounds."
"What?"
"Didn't you know? Corbel keeps bloodhounds out there. To track down the patients, in case they ever escape." I stood up.
"Where are you going?"
"To fix your bed," I said.
"I won't sleep," Marjorie told me. "I can't. What if Leo woke up? What if he got Corbel and they called out the bloodhounds to look for me?"
"Don't you worry about a thing," I answered. "No bloodhounds can get in here. We won't let anyone harm you, Marjorie. You're overtired. You've got to rest and forget about — "
"The asylum! You're going to call Corbel!"
"Marjorie, please try—"
"I knew it! I knew it when you stood up, from the look on your face! You're going to send me back; you're going to let them kill me!"
She jumped up. Barbara reached for her and I started forward, but not in time. She hit Barbara in the face and ran. I tried to head her off from the hall, but she got there first and tugged the front door open. Then she was running, jumping off the porch and circling through the trees in back. I could see her white nightgown waving behind her. I called, but she didn't answer.
If the car had been working, I would have tried to follow her. But even so, there wouldn't have been much chance of catching up, because she wouldn't stick to the roads.
After a couple of minutes, I went back into the house and closed the door. Barbara took the glasses into the kitchen, but she didn't say anything, not even when we went upstairs. It wasn't until we switched off the light and settled down in bed that she spoke to me.
"Poor Marjorie," Barbara said. "I felt so sorry for her."
"Me, too."
"You know, for a while she almost had me believing her. Sometimes those crazy stories turn out to be true after all."
I grunted. "I know. But all that medieval stuff about killing patients in asylums — that's just delusions of persecution."
"Are you sure, Bob?"
"Of course I'm sure. I admit I had my doubts for a while, too. But you know what tipped the scales?"
"What?"
"When she got to that part about the bloodhounds. That did it for me. Only a nut would dream up an idea like that."
"It bothers me, though. Don't you think we ought to call the sheriff after all? Or this Doctor Corbel, or Freddie?"
"Why get mixed up in it?" I asked. "I mean, look at the mess we'd get into."
"But the poor girl, running around out there all alone . . ."
"Don't worry, they'll get her. And she'll be taken care of."
"I can't help thinking about what she said, though. Do you think the part about this Leo was true?"
"I told you, it's delusions of persecution, Barbara. The whole works; about Freddie and his woman, about the killings — everything. Now just forget it."
She was quiet for a minute and I was quiet for a minute, and then we heard the noise. Faint and far away it was, but I recognized it. "What's that?" Barbara asked.
I sat up in bed, listening to it, listening to it get closer and closer. I was still listening to it when it faded off in the distance again. "What's that?" Barbara asked, again.
"Oh, just some damned dogs on the loose," I told her. "Lots of strays out here, you know." But I was lying.
I'm a Southerner, born and bred, and i
f there's one thing I can recognize, it's the sound of bloodhounds. Bloodhounds, unleashed and on the scent.
All on a Golden Afternoon
1
THE UNIFORMED MAN at the gate was very polite, but he didn't seem at all in a hurry to open up. Neither Dr. Prager's new Cadillac nor his old goatee made much of an impression on him.
It wasn't until Dr. Prager snapped, "But I've an appointment — Mr. Dennis said it was urgent!" that the uniformed man turned and went into the little guard booth to call the big house on the hill.
Dr. Saul Prager tried not to betray his impatience, but his right foot pressed down on the accelerator and a surrogate of exhaust did his fuming for him.
Just how far he might have gone in polluting the air of Bel Air couldn't be determined, for after a moment the man came out of the booth and unlocked the gate. He touched his cap and smiled.
"Sorry to keep you waiting, Doctor," he said. "You're to go right up."
Dr. Prager nodded curtly and the car moved forward.
"I'm new on this job and you got to take precautions, you know," the man called after him, but Dr. Prager wasn't listening. His eyes were fixed on the panorama of the hillside ahead. In spite of himself he was mightily impressed.
There was reason to be — almost half a million dollars' worth of reason. The combined efforts of a dozen architects, topiarists, and landscape gardeners had served to create what was popularly known as "the Garden of Eden." Although the phrase was a complimentary reference to Eve Eden, owner of the estate, there was much to commend it, Dr. Prager decided.
That is, if one can picture a Garden of Eden boasting two swimming pools, an eight-car garage, and a corps of resident angels with power mowers.
This was by no means Dr. Pragers first visit, but he never failed to be moved by the spectacle of the palace on the hill. It was a fitting residence for Eve, the First Woman. The First Woman of the Ten Box-Office Leaders, that is.
The front door was already open when he parked in the driveway, and the butler smiled and bowed. He was, Dr. Prager knew, a genuine English butler, complete with accent and sideburns. Eve Eden had insisted on that, and she'd had one devil of a time obtaining an authentic specimen from the employment agencies. Finally she'd managed to locate one — from Central Casting.
"Good afternoon," the butler greeted him. "Mr. Dennis is in the library, sir. He is expecting you."
Dr. Prager followed the manservant through the foyer and down the hall. Everything was furnished with magnificent taste — as Mickey Dennis often observed, "Why not? Didn't we hire the best interior decorator in Beverly Hills?"
The library itself was a remarkable example of calculated decor. Replete with the traditional overstuffed chairs, custom-made by a firm of reliable overstuffers, it boasted paneled walnut walls, polished mahogany floors, and a good quarter mile of bookshelves rising to the vaulted ceiling. Dr. Prager's glance swept the shelves, which were badly in need of dusting anyway. He noted a yard of Thackeray in green, two yards of brown Thomas Hardy, complemented by a delicate blue Dostoevski. Ten feet of Balzac, five feet of Dickens, a section of Shakespeare, a mass of Moliere. Complete works, of course. The booksellers would naturally want to give Eve Eden the works. There must have been two thousand volumes on the shelves.
In the midst of it all sat Mickey Dennis, the agent, reading a smudged and dog-eared copy of Variety.
As Dr. Prager stood, hesitant, in the doorway, the little man rose and beckoned to him. "Hey, Doc!" he called. "I been waiting for you!"
"Sorry," Dr. Prager murmured. "There were several appointments I couldn't cancel."
"Never mind the appointments. You're on retainer with us, ain'cha? Well, sweetheart, this time you're really gonna earn it."
He shook his head as he approached. "Talk about trouble," he muttered — although Dr. Prager had not even mentioned the subject. "Talk about trouble, we got it. I ain't dared call the studio yet. If I did there'd be wigs floating all over Beverly Hills. Had to see you first. And you got to see her."
Dr. Prager waited. A good fifty percent of his professional duties consisted of waiting. Meanwhile he indulged in a little private speculation. What would it be this time? Another overdose of sleeping pills — a return to narcotics — an attempt to prove the old maxim that absinthe makes the heart grow fonder? He'd handled Eve Eden before in all these situations and topped it off with more routine assignments, such as the time she'd wanted to run off with the Japanese chauffeur. Com me to think of it, that hadn't been exactly routine. Handling Eve was bad; handling the chauffeur was worse, but handling the chauffeur's wife and seven children was a nightmare. Still, he'd smoothed things over. He always smoothed things over, and that's why he was on a fat yearly retainer.
Dr. Prager, as a physician, generally disapproved of obesity, but when it came to yearly retainers he liked them plump. And this was one of the plumpest. Because of it he was ready for any announcement Mickey Dennis wanted to make.
The agent was clutching his arm now. "Doc, you gotta put the freeze on her, fast! This time it's murder!"
Despite himself, Dr. Prager blanched. He reached up and tugged reassuringly at his goatee. It was still there, the symbol of his authority. He had mastered the constriction in his vocal chords before he started to speak. "You mean she's killed someone?"
"No!" Mickey Dennis shook his head in disgust. "That would be bad enough, but we could handle it. I was just using a figger of speech, like. She wants to murder herself, Doc. Murder her career, to throw away a brand-new seven-year noncancelable no-option contract with a percentage of the gross. She wants to quit the industry."
"Leave pictures?"
"Now you got it, Doc. She's gonna walk out on four hundred grand a year."
There was real anguish in the agent's voice — the anguish of a man who is well aware that ten percent of four hundred thousand can buy a lot of convertibles.
"You gotta see her," Dennis moaned. "You gotta talk her out of it, fast."
Dr. Prager nodded. "Why does she want to quit?" he asked.
Mickey Dennis raised his hands. "I don't know," he wailed. "She won't give any reasons. Last night she just up and told me. Said she was through. And when I asked her politely just what the hell's the big idea, she dummied up. Said I wouldn't understand." The little man made a sound like trousers ripping in a tragic spot. "Damned right I wouldn't understand! But I want to find out."
Dr. Prager consulted his beard again with careful fingers. "I haven't seen her for over two months," he said. "How has she been behaving lately? I mean, otherwise?"
"Like a doll," the agent declared. "Just a living doll. To look at her you wouldn't of thought there was anything in her head but sawdust. Wrapped up the last picture clean, brought it in three days ahead of schedule. No blowups, no goofs, no nothing. She hasn't been hitting the sauce or anything else. Stays home mostly and goes to bed early. Alone, yet." Mickey Dennis made the pants-ripping sound again. "I might of figgered it was too good to be true."
"No financial worries?" Dr. Prager probed.
Dennis swept his arm forward to indicate the library and the expanse beyond. "With this? All clear and paid for. Plus a hunk of real estate in Long Beach and two oil wells gushing like Lolly Parsons over a hot scoop. She's got more loot than Fort Knox and almost as much as Crosby."
"Er — how old is Eve, might I ask?"
"You might ask, and you might get some funny answers. But I happen to know. She's thirty-three. I can guess what you're thinking, Doc, and it don't figger. She's good for another seven years, maybe more. Hell,, all you got to do is look at her."
"That's just what I intend to do," Dr. Prager replied. "Where is she?"
"Upstairs, in her room. Been there all day. Won't see me." Mickey Dennis hesitated. "She doesn't know you're here either. I said I was gonna call you and she got kinda upset."
"Didn't want to see me, eh?"
"She said if that long-eared nanny goat got within six miles of this joint she'd — "
The agent paused and shifted uncomfortably. "Like I mentioned, she was upset."
"I think I can handle the situation," Dr. Prager decided.
"Want me to come along and maybe try and soften her up a little?"
"That won't be necessary." Dr. Prager left the room, walking softly.
Mickey Dennis went back to his chair and picked up the magazine once more. He didn't read, because he was waiting for the sound of the explosion.
When it came he shuddered and almost gritted his teeth until he remembered how much it would cost to buy a new upper plate. Surprisingly enough, the sound of oaths and shrieks subsided after a time, and Dennis breathed a deep sigh of relief.
The doc was a good headshrinker. He'd handle her. He was handling her. So there was nothing to do now but relax.
2
"Relax," Dr. Prager said. "You've discharged all your aggression. Now you can stretch out. That's better."
The spectacle of Eve Eden stretched out in relaxation on a chaise longue was indeed better. In the words of many eminent lupine Hollywood authorities, it was the best.
Eve Eden's legs were long and white and her hair was long and blonde; both were now displayed to perfection, together with a whole series of coming attractions screened through her semitransparent lounging pajamas. The face that launched a thousand close-ups was that of a petulant child, well-versed in the more statutory phases of juvenile delinquency.
Dr. Prager could cling to his professional objectivity only by clinging to his goatee. As it was, he dislodged several loose hairs and an equal number of loose impulses before he spoke again.
"Now," he said, "tell me all about it."
"Why should I?" Eve Eden's eyes and voice were equally candid. "I didn't ask you to come here. I'm not in any jam."