Twenty minutes later she went quietly into “The Cedars” and directly to Peter Woods’ room. Silently she opened his door with her pass-key. The room was empty.
She located the infirmarian in charge.
“Dr. Vincintelli prescribed a hydro-therapatical treatment,” the man said, “for the next eight hours.”
“Did the patient submit quietly?”
“I can’t say he did, Dr. Shafer. He was pretty excited. It took three of us.”
Kay knew what he meant. Peter Woods, the banker, was buckled securely in a sort of hammock which in turn was submerged in a warm medical bath. It was a treatment often used to good effect in cases of extreme nervous agitation.
“I see,” she said. She started off as if to leave the building, but went instead by another corridor to the baths. Again her pass-key opened a door to her, and she was in a cork-walled chamber with a single tub—in it reclined the well-trussed figure of Peter Woods.
He was smiling, even laughing, hilariously, irrepressibly, and for an awful moment she wondered whether the laughter was maniacal.
“You seem in a more cheerful frame of mind,” she ventured.
“I can’t help myself. It’s too damn absurd—I was thinking if my office force could see me now. It’s all so utterly fantastic, like the Spanish Inquisition that there’s really nothing to do but laugh.” The smile was fading from his face and an expression of wrath was coming into his eyes. “But if you think I’m not going to make that fellow pay for this—”
“Now please,” she said hastily, “I want you to give me your calm attention for a minute. Will you?”
“Do you expect me to get up and walk away?”
“Did Dr. Vincintelli at any time tell you how the patients were dressed?”
“Why, yes,” he said wonderingly. “He said you all wore white to remind you that your best nurse is yourself.”
“And the doctors and nurses?”
“He said they just dressed like ordinary people so that the patients wouldn’t have the sense of being in a hospital. What of it?”
Every illogical remark he had made was explained—he had taken the nurses and doctors for patients, the patients for the staff. She saw him shiver inside the wet mummy case.
“Isn’t it true?” he demanded. “What is true in this crazy place? Are all the doctors crazy or all the patients sane—or what?”
“I think,” said Kay thoughtfully, “that one of the doctors is mad.”
“How about me? Am I sane?”
Before she could answer she turned at a sound behind her—Dr. Vincintelli stood in the open door.
“Miss Shafer.” His voice was low and intense. His eyes were fixed on hers. “Miss Shafer, come here to me.”
He retreated slowly before her, and she followed. He had a certain power of hypnosis which he used occasionally in treatments, and she saw that he was exerting it on her. Her will seemed to cloud a little and she followed him out step by step until he closed the door upon Peter Woods’ wild roar.
He seized her by the elbows.
“Listen to me, you little fool,” he breathed. “I am not crazy. I know what I am doing. It is you who are mad—you who arc standing in the way of something that will be a monument to your father and a blessing to mankind forever. Listen.” He shook her a little. “A month ago the three insane Woods brothers came to your father voluntarily and said they wanted to will him all their money for research work.”
“But of course he refused,” said Kay indignantly.
“But now all is changed!” he cried triumphantly. “This is the fourth and last and there are no heirs. No one is wronged—we have our Institute, and we will have reared a monument for which humanity will bless our name forever.”
“But this man is sane!” Kay exclaimed. “As sane as I am.”
“You are wrong. I see signs that you do not see. He will break, like the others, in a week, in three days, perhaps before your father returns—”
“You devil!” she cried. “You’re mad—you’re driveling—”
There was a sudden interruption—the buzzing of bells, doors banging and the appearance of excited nurses in the corridors.
“What is it?”
“The three Woods brothers—they’ve disappeared!”
“Impossible!” cried Vincintelli.
“Their windows have been sawed with files from the carpentry shop.”
The veins grew large as worms on Vincintelli’s forehead.
“Get after them!” he shouted furiously. “They must be on the grounds. Sound the alarm in the main building—”
He had forgotten Kay—still crying orders, he rushed down the corridors and into the night.
When the corridor was empty Kay opened the door of the bath-room, and quickly unbuckled the straps that held Peter Woods.
“Get out and get dressed,” she said. “We’re leaving—I’ll run you away in my car.”
“But they’ve locked up all my clothes somewhere.”
“I’ll get you a blanket,” she said, and then hesitated. “That won’t do—the police will be watching the roads tonight and they’ll take us both for lunatics.”
They waited helplessly. But outside there were voices calling here and there through the shrubbery.
“I’ve got it,” she cried. “Wait!”
Straight to the room of Mr. Kirkjohn across the hall she fled, and opened the door. Scented and immaculate he stood before his mirror, brushing his hair.
“Mr. Kirkjohn,” Kay said breathlessly, “take off your clothes!”
“What?” Then, as he comprehended, a quiet glow of satisfaction spread over his face.
“Take off everything, and throw it to me.”
“With pleasure, dear lady,” he said.
Coat, vest, tic, trousers, shoes, socks—she caught them all and gathered them up in a pile.
“Dear lady, this—” his hand was on the top button of his union suit, “is the happiest day of my life.”
With a little shriek Kay shut the door.
Half an hour later, the throttle pressed down to the floor of the car, they were still speeding along the roads of New Hampshire through the summer night. There was a moon and the universe was wide and free about them. Peter Woods drew a deep breath.
“And what made you think that in spite of everything I was sane?” he demanded.
“I don’t know.” She looked demurely at the stars. “I suppose it was when you asked me to marry you. No girl could believe that a man who proposed to her could be entirely crazy.”
“And you won’t mind being a little saner than me.”
“But I’m not—darling.” She hurried over the word she had never used before. “I’m in the grip of the greatest lunacy of all.
“Speaking of being in the grip of anything,” he said, “when you get to those next trees why not stop the car?”
IV
The three elder Woods brothers were never found. However, an unconfirmed story reached me some months ago that the announcer at a certain terminal in New York has a peculiar intonation that makes Wall Street men start and mutter—“Now where have I heard that voice before?” The second brother, Wallace, has conceivably fled to South America, where he can make himself understood. As for the tale itself, it was told me by the first barber in the Elixer Shop, Scranton, Pennsylvania. Check up on it if you like—the barber I mean is a tall, sheep-like man with an air of being somewhat above his station.
Comments
The typescript, being a short story titled «Nightmare,» n.p., c. 1932, 54 pages (11 x 8 5/8 in.; 278 x 212 mm), with manuscript corrections and additions in pencil in the author’s hand; some minor fraying at edges of a few leaves, some light browning, stain from paper clip of first and last leaves — [With:]: a clean typescript of the story, n.p., c. 1932, 35 pages (11 x 8 5/8 in.; 278 x 212 mm); minimal wear and soiling; accompanied by a typed note from Harold Ober, summarizing the plot.
unpublished short story from the early 1930’s, originally titled «Fantasy in Black». The original title has been scored through on the first page of the corrected manuscript and the new title written in ink. Harold Ober judged the story «Original and amusing. But slight. Institution for crazy people. Heroine daughter of doctor who owns institution. She acts as nurse, etc. Three rich brothers have been committed. They will their fortune to institution. Fourth brother has a breakdown and comes. Girl saves him from being kept there so Institution can get all the money. Very improbable of course but well told.» A note below in pencil lists publications which have rejected the story: College Humor, Cosmopolitan, Redbook, and Saturday Evening Post.
